Back to School, Back to Nature

Well, it's been back to school in our household...I am enjoying my "Quilting Arts" class through the ABC Adult School in Cerritos.  My teacher, Rosa, is so fun to be around & is so patient with us.  She helped me make a few patterns...something new I've never done before.  You know, those patterns can be so intimidating & I've set them aside so many times after hours of staring blankly at them!  Now I can make my own & decipher theirs (with the help of my super teacher).  Yaaay for school.  =)

Kyra has adjusted GREAT at her pre-school and has been improving her phonics & writing skills everyday.  They recently had their "100th day of school" and celebrated with a party...complete with 100 m&m's for each student to line up & count.  I try to incorporate teaching in everyday activities...we count everything and anything, I ask them questions about what they see & try to get them thinking about the world around them.  They are always very curious!  =)

Kyra's teacher is awesome too!  She writes great little notes on her homework, with plenty of encouragement & what I call "happy hearts."  How sweet is that!

I have tried to instill a love of reading in my girls.  Thankfully, they LOVE books and often get together to "read."  Kyra likes to make up her own stories (which are so fun to listen to) and pretends to be reading these big books!  I love my little bookworms.  =)

 

We (as in Southern Californian's) have actually had some crazy rain the past month!  I know, we are winter WIMPS and have no real concept of how cold the rest of the world really gets, but when it hits 60 degrees around here...we just don't know WHAT to do!  lol.  Here is a shot of these newly planted flowers in the courtyard...funny, but these PURPLE flower plants had a couple PINK flowers growing from them!!  cool.

More pics I took...loving all the nature shots.

and the texture of this leaf was so cool!  I wish it wasn't so blurry...next time I'll get it good.

inside a flower...

peeking in at another bug...

and MORE bugs...I'm lovin' my macro lens people!!!  If you don't have one, it's definitely worth getting if you like to take pictures...it's amazing all the things you see up CLOSE!!

and this bird on a wire...he was just chillin' so I had to get a shot of him.

Some fun new things I've done with my packaging...I made these cool Victoriously UPcycled hang tags...hand crafted with LOVE!!

 One of my latest creations...