Sunny Sunday :)

Hello again!

So last I wrote, I mentioned how Ella was having a sleepover with her buddy Beatrix.

As expected, it went fabulously!
Honestly, barely felt like anything was that different from usual, everything was just so absolutely seamless. :)
I really ought to have taken more photos, because they did everything from dancing ballet, to playing the yard, coming to Church this morning, and everything in between. William was even included in most of their play, making for a harmonious little trio of kiddos.

The gloriously sunny weather really helped facilitate that, as it just generally gave a light 'n' happy air to the place :)

While on one our our jaunts outside, the kids made these little daisy caterpillars:

I was considering videotaping them giving a tutorial on how to make them :D

Church, in particular, was very sweet because it was Family Service day, and Ella was really into it. She even requested a Hymnal to follow along with the singing. NICE!
And William signed his little name in the Friendship Booklet they have in every pew to see who's joining them that particular Sunday.
He did such a bang-up job, I asked him to recreate it when we got home:

"WILLIAM" or more literally "AIIWLLM"

Not bad, if I do say so myself! :D
Reminds me of when Ella was starting to copy little word, and her letters didn't obey the left-to-right orientation that the English language follows. Ha!

Speaking of the kids putting pen to paper, I thought I'd take a little snapshot of a doodle Ella did today:

"The Jewel Pokemon"

That's right, Pokemon is back, in a big way for the kiddos! Particularly because Dash's birthday gift for Ella came in yesterday: The Pokemon Deluxe Essential Handbook!!!
The kids spent many an hour drooling over the in-depth analyses of every Pokemon, and I can foresee Ella incorporating it into her drawings now.


It really was just an overall lovely weekend, and a great way to start off the coming week.
I hope you all enjoyed your Sunday/weekend too and I will catch you next time!
Til then, take care and Happy Sunny Sunday!!

Birthday Week

Yahooooo~!


So this week we have not one but two birthdays in our household!
On Monday, Dash turned 44 (!) and yesterday Ella turned 7 (!!).

We conveniently misunderstood the first day back to school to be Tuesday, so the whole family got to stay home for the day on Monday, to celebrate Dash's birthday right there with him.

Dane came over first thing in the morning and shared some coffee with us, so that was a grand way to start the day.
Then I got to surprise Dash with the gift I got him:

Sleek~!

That's right!
Now our beloved grinder is motorized, saving us a ton of time and energy to grind our own flour.
Don't get me wrong, I love working up a sweat and keeping up my upper body strength, but it was a drag knowing that in order to make bread I first had to dedicate a good 30 minutes laboring just to get the flour ready.
Sooooo, this dandy little set-up has already made it possible for us to whip up two cakes, a big ol' loaf of bread, and a batch of tortillas. That's a lot more baking in one week than we typically see :)

Dash promptly spent most of his birthday baking a lovely cake with the kids -- such a DIYer!

So beautiful!

Keeping with Dashiell tradition, we ate dinner at El Sol de Mexico, and when we got back home, we were greeted with this lovely gift from the heavens:

Raaaainbooooow~!

We then got to enjoy his mega cake creation back, along with the Birthday song, blowing out of candles, etc etc.

No, we did not put 44 candles on the cake ;)

 Happy Birthday, Dash! We love you!!!

Oh! I also wanted to show off that nifty set of Legend of Zelda playing cards I bought from an artist back at Sakura-con:

So cute!

The kids love playing regular trump card games as well as using the cards as characters in their games of imagination. A win-win!

Anyway, four days after Dash's 44th birthday, we celebrated Ella's 7th!

Unlike years past, the general vibe in the home was not to have an elaborate "birthday party" with a bunch of friends or anything.
Partly because her in-class celebration at school was already going to involve most of the friends she wanted to celebrate with, and because I didn't feel like trying to coordinate with seven different families for a day that works (7 years old = 7 friends over, as the tradition goes).

So instead we made it a very special family-oriented day from the very beginning of the day, to the very end.

First, pancakes!

A mini fruit-n-whipped-cream island she created.

With so much fruit and homemade whipped cream!
While Ella was at school, Dash, William and I worked diligently on a cake of Ella's specification: red velvet with whipped cream, marshmallows, Oreos, and strawberries as a topping (!)

At school, we brought yet more fruit and whipped (coconut) cream, and got to share stories about Ella's coming into the world and notable stories from her early childhood. Then her classmates got to share what they appreciate about Ella and what they wish for her in her life. It was very personal and sweet. :)

Back at home, it was an afternoon of letting Ella revel in her gifts from the family, while I whipped my bike into shape. It really is Version 2.0 now, with a brand new jimmy-rigged basket and cleaned out bike panniers. Sweet!

Once again, we hit up El Sol de Mexico for a delightful dinner, and at home busted out the cake we'd created:

Look at that decadent beast!

The kids honestly weren't crazy about it. I blame it on how many sweets they'd already enjoyed throughout the day and the fact that their bellies were full to bursting from their Mexican dinner too.
Oh, well! More for Dash and me ;)

Aaaaand after that, we watched another episode of The Great British Baking Show (season 6, episode 2) and the kids went to bed without much fuss.

The weather had been so warm during the day, that it was still pleasant come sundown so I took a stroll to deliver curtains to the Stalters and take a nice chat-walk with Kathy-neechan. The second story we're writing is very close to having Chapter 2 done! Yay!!

Today, Ella is enjoying a looooong playdate with her good friend Beatrix who will actually be spending the night here too!
It'll be Beatrix's first ever sleepover, so I feel pretty honored that it will be at our house :)
I'm sure it will go smashingly well.

Right now, they are enjoying the glorious spring weather we've had all week, romping around outside.
Must get them good and tired~~~


And with that, that concludes this busy week of birthday celebrations.
Until next time, take care, enjoy the sunshine, and Happy Birthday Week!!

It's Curtains For You!

'Allo 'allo!

So this post is a wee bit overdue.
It's about all those curtains I kept talking about!

The lovely lady who was the recipient of those curtains I'd been working on (on and off) since the fall took some shots of them hanging in her home in all their glory.

So below I present you a smorgasbord of all those hours of labor and cotton. Heh!

Enjoy~!

Mmm... Patchwork~!

A lovely stretchy floral print

I had the most fun making these. :D Wee bit of creativity went into manufacturing them.

Curtains derived from old (100% organic cotton!) bed sheets = I LOVE IT

It certainly does look homey and cozy in this shot :)

 And then I was feeling good on such a curtain kick that I did a little redesigning of the curtains in our master bedroom that I'd been meaning to do for a while.

Some years back, I crafted these cute-n-childish curtains for when the upstairs room was the playroom.
It went great with the aesthetic.
But for the past year+ the upstairs room has been our master bedroom where the "marital bed" is, so the print of little children running around didn't really work anymore.
So I turned this...

Sorry it's not hanging. But this is the general look

Close-up of the cuuuuute print on it.

 ...to this!

Crappy shot...nice curtains!

They keep out the sunlight pretty well, and are a more somber and warm brown-red paisley print.

It feels so good to have that done!
Now to give the kiddie curtains to the other Rachael who's been waiting on me for curtains (oops!) and maybe whip up a set or two for the RV.
Wish me luck~!
And in the meanwhile...Happy It's Curtains For You!!

Sakura-Con 2016!

Hello hello!

Wow, it's been over a week since I last wrote.
I guess you could attribute that to a few things:

1) Spring Break!
That's right, it was a loooong Spring Break this year for the kids, with the last day of school being March 16th, and them not coming back to school until today, March 29th. Yowza!!
There wasn't the usual schedule of biking and playdates and all that good stuff.
So I didn't feel there was much to report.
Mostly because of point #2:

2) SICKNESS
I already wrote how Ella had not been feeling good in my last post.
Well, it literally lasted until the following Thursday. So yeah, pretty much a week straight.
That, along with the crappy weather, reduced our Spring Break to all indoor time, as everyone convened in the one big king bed upstairs. It reverted back to a Family Bed, like it used to be when the kids were super little. :)
Many a video game were played, and myself I holed myself up in the other room to work on our PPT panels for the convention.
I also played a LOT of piano, and finally nailed down that "Where is My Mind" piece. So that feels nice. :)
Next on my piano hit-list: Gary Jules' "Mad World"

Two songs from movies I enjoyed as a teenager -- go figure!
Speaking of reverting in age...

The big event finally happened!!!
SAKURA-CON 2016!!!!!!!
It was everything I'd hoped for and more.
I managed to get Ella's Eevee costume done in time (literally the night before), and even had to whip up William's boots while driving on up.
So yeah, I am going to share our time at the Con thru a series of photos:

Eevee Evolution Get-together! :D

We got the Friday mid-day and immediately the otaku-immersion began.
This was the first time I had both kids come with me to a con, and I must say it was such a delight!
They really made me have to slow down and not be too panel-/activity-focused, mostly moseying around, and just enjoying being there.
Not to mention the con-goers were just eating them up!!! :D
We were always hearing lovely compliments from people, saying how adorable the wee little Link (William) was or how cute an Eevee (Ella) we had.

Child Link and Adult Link

I'd forgotten how extra nice people at anime conventions are.
I attribute it to how isolating this fandom can be (anime and the like is consumed in a very isolated manner, just watching the shows in the comfort of your own home, etc), and how people really open up when they are surrounded by like-minded people for once!
This Adult Link, for example, really made William feel special and also told us about the big Nintendo character cosplay meet-up happening later that Saturday.

A small sampling of the LoZ cosplayers there were.

Being a pokemon, Ella-the-Eevee also took part in the Nintendo cosplay meet-up and met a fellow Eevee-sempai :D

Yes, that was Ella's default pose for photos. My prime 'n' proper li'l Eevee ;)

I want to take a moment to talk about the kids' cosplay outfits if I can.
I already share with you the creation process for William's Link outfit.
Well, Ella's was equally as homemade and although I don't have as many photos to show it, I can explain it here:

- the shirt and pants came from her wardrobe, only needed to have white batting added at the top to make the fluff of the Eevee's...chest fur? Not quite sure what you'd call it.
- the armwarmers were crafted the same way William's were, with more batting at the wrists
- the ears were made of yet more of that same brown fleece, with wire running through them and looped around the headband on her head (from my collection)
- the tail was (yes, you guessed it) also made of the brown fleece sweater + white batting from that CHS Garage Sale. It's a pity I literally have ZERO photos that show off the tail, but trust me it was adorable.

Oh! And I need to show you a close-up of William's little Link boots that I made while in the front seat of the camper on the ride up:

So proud of how they came out!!

I just covered his usual red rain boots with the last scraps of that brown fleece sweatshirt. So there was literally only the zippers and pockets left of it by the time I was done. BUYA!!

When I was working on Ella's Eevee outfit, I finally started listening to the audiobook of "Everything Is Illuminated" so that was good~

Okay, so back to the con:
PANELS

As you know, we were there with free complimentary badges thanks to the fact that we were holding three hours of panel content.
The three one-hour panels we held were:
1) Breaking Into the Manga Industry
2) Lost in Translation
3) A Day in the Life of a Manga Artisan

I had to take some photos of the turnouts to our panels, because they were such great crowds and really made the panels what they were:

So, about two dozen attendees in the audience. Not bad~!

The first panel room was really large, but the turnout wasn't so big. Regardless, I felt we did a really good job on it, and having dear Miss Jessica Henry and Jack-san there turned out to be a total lifesaver as William decided he had to go potty in the middle of our panel! Ha!!

The line outside the panel room for our second panel :D

And inside! I'd say there were about 50+ people?? :D

The second panel "Lost in Translation" dealt with the philosophies behind what makes a good translation, and the kinds of calls we have to make in dealing with manga to be localized.
Evidently it was a subject that a lot of people were interested in because there was a huge enthusiastic turn-out. Had some really opinionated folks with lots of contribute and many laughs had too :)
I felt the best about this panel, and the kids were really well taken care of too.
This lovely lady sat down next to them and kept them entertained the entire time. She was such a God-send, I swear. I hope she knows how much we appreciated her and can feel all our positive thoughts about her!!!

The last panel was on Sunday morning which is part of the reason I'm sure the attendance was so low.
Plus the room was this little tucked away place.
So only about 15 people showed up.
Oh, well. It was our most "freeform" panel out of the bunch, so I guess we got out of it what we'd put into it :D

Snoooooze~

So, yeah.
All in all, the con reminded me of the more fun side of the industry, and I felt inspired to try to be an even better translator going forth!<3 p=""><3 p="">
<3 p="">I was also very happy that we didn't have to drop a lot of money to be there.
As I'd mentioned, the badges were free for us, and Ella was only $35 total.
Then, I spent under $50 at the merchandise hall, so that was good. Phew!
Got Dash some birthday gifts there -- One Piece shitajiki and fanmade LoZ-themed playing cards.
Oh, and I scored a gift for Kathy-neechan. ;) But I won't share anything about that here...

I think that's just about everything I wanted to mention about our time at Sakura-Con 2016.
I swear there must be 100 photos of Ella and William floating out there on the world wide web because of how many people just had to take snapshots of them. If I track any down, I'll definitely show them here :D

Oh, wait!
Speaking of which, I went on a total Rick-and-Morty hunt, and took snapshots of every/any cosplayer from that series that I could.
This is the result:

Yaaaaay!

I feel stronger than ever that I'd really like to make it to Kumoricon 2016 with the whole family.
And a wicked side of me wants to dress up Ella and William as Rick and Morty respectively. Highly doubt they'd ever let me, but a girl can dream! :D

A'ight, well that is all for now.
It really was the best way to cap off the Spring Break, and we all came back very inspired and jazzed in our own ways :)
My next post will talk about Dash's birthday so until then, look forward to it and Happy Sakura-Con 2016!!

Sew Much Done This Weekend

Howdy howdy!!

So as an update to everyone's health, pretty much Ella is the only one down for the count, napping several times a day and have not much of an appetite.
That worked fine for my weekend plans that went something like this:

1) Made William's Link costume!!

Remember how I bought all those cheap articles of clothing from that High School Garage Sale?

Well, I turned this:

Into this:

Out on the town!

Ta-da!!
William's is now ready to be a little Link at next weekend's anime convention :D
It took me about 3 hours to whip up, and reminded me how much I love sewing little kids pants, be they swants or otherwise. So easy and forgiving~!
My favorite part had to be the gauntlets with tiny felt triforce on them.

William and I had a fun time traipsing down to the library in his get-up, where we picked up Pikmin and will be subsequently dedicated an hour a day to progressing through the game together. :)


Now to continue what I accomplished this weekend...

2) Finished all those curtains for R.S.!!!

Last six...DONE!

Okay, so not the most flattering shot, and definitely not the way that curtains are supposed to be enjoyed, but I literally just finished them up and am snuggled up in bed and didn't want to lay them out or hang them up or anything. Truthfully, I am awaiting a great big flood of photos from Rachael when they are all hanging in her home on perhaps a sunny day so that they can shine in all their glory :D

Anyway, you may recall that I had this batch waiting to be done since October and though I got a lot of the curtains done during February Break, these last six were lingering for god knows why. I have a tendency to do everything...except for the last thing or two.
Like, in the case of doing dishes, I'll do aaaaaall the dishes...except the big pot the soup was cooked in. Sorta like saving the worst for last, only I don't even do it. Ha!


Now that those two projects are completed, this is what I plan on focusing on for the rest of the week:

- translate book due
- make Ella's Eevee costume
- plan our panels for the convention(!!)

That last one is really the one I'm most excited/nervous about tackling because it's going to take a lot of (gasp!) brainpower thinking up specific examples to share with the audience, assembling images to share on the PowerPoint, and mapping out the course of our discussions, etc etc.

Must. Do. Iiiiit!!!!

A'ight, well I will talk to you again soon.
Until then, take care and Happy Sew Much Done This Weekend!!

Sickness Abounds!

Hey, everybody!

Wow, what a strange week it's been.
Dash has been down with his flu-like symptoms since Sunday night, and only now (Friday) is he finally up and back to his old self. We actually held a conversation after dinner for the first time in what felt like forever.
Yay for recovery!

But actually, he wasn't the only one having trouble.
Wednesday afternoon, upon returning home from school, William was very much not acting like himself: opting out of playing video games; having no appetite; and finally putting himself (!) down for a nap. He awoke with a fever and a wee bit of vomiting!! ;_;
Needless to say, he was SICK!

I figured I'd be safe, but when I woke up Thursday morning, I was overwhelmed with such vertigo that I couldn't function. Could barely get down the stairs, only with Dash's help, and was trembling all over and pale as ghost. I ended up sleeping in bed all day.
It was great!!

William snuggled himself right in!

Ella spent the morning at a friend's house so that Dash could attend the Parent-Teacher Conferences at the kids' school, and I am so proud of William winging it on his own with an out-of-commission mama. He crawled into bed with me to sleep of his own accord, and Dash came home to find us like the photo above.
Needless to say, the feedback from the teachers was all roses. Yaaaay~!

So that was Thursday.
Today has been much better, I must say!
William is still on the mend and needs lots of sleep, and even Ella put herself down for a nap which tells me her body might feel something come on too. @_@ Oh, well! As far as I'm concerned Spring Break has arrived, and we have zippo plans so give us your worst, sickness!!!

Oh!
Something good today was that Ella go this in the mail:

Ella's first very official piece of mail :D

That's right! Nintendo of America wrote back to her!
As you may recall, a couple of weeks back at the Letter Writing Social, Ella Rose wrote to some of her favorite establishments.
Well, Nintendo replied!
The letter was a basic "thank you and keep supporting us because we are committed to raising the standard of video games etc etc" kind of message, but it had a couple of perks!

She was so thrilled!

A Princess Peach bookmark and Pikachu Pokemon card!!!
What sweeties they have in the correspondence department, or whoever it was responsible for this.
Really made this little girl's day!

It inspired me to really go ahead and write to Justin Roiland which I've been meaning to do ever since I feel in love with R&M back in October.
I'll let you know how it goes!! :D

All right, well, until next time, I hope you all are staying well and take care.
And Happy Sickness Abounds!!

William Drawings

Yo yo~!

So it is yet another cold, rainy day here in Corvallis and with Dash under the weather and bedbound, there has really not been a lot going on here.

Today and yesterday pretty much looked like this:
- Dragged the kids with me to my tutoring session on Monday in the library with interesting results.
- Monday night I made a really delicious chicken-n-rice soup and stayed up way too late listening to more podfic, and stumbling upon a huge list of fics inspired by Miike Snow's "Ghengis Khan" music video (yay!)
- I'm practicing piano more regularly now and working on learning Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" as well as Maxcene Cyrin's cover of "Where is my Mind".
- Put the kids to bed at 6:30pm today to see if that helps with rousing their sleepy selves in the morning.

So with really not a whole lot to mention, I figured I'd showcase something I've been meaning to share with ya'll for a while: William's rare but adorable drawings.

Here are some from over the past six months:

The oldest one I have on record and readily available.

It's supposed to be Link from the Legend of Zelda Universe, if I recall correctly ;)

"A bird"

 He did this one back when we were coming back from SoCal back in October. :)

"Bowser"

 From the Mario Bros. universe~

So yeah, as you can probably tell, William is not a prolific as Ella when it comes to drawing.
Oh, well. To each their own. And Ella does take time to give William little drawing pointers here and there.
Speaking of Ella, I never shared this little gem that is a personal favorite of mine:

From back when the R&M craze first hit me in November '15 :D

Mama's favorite sci-fi cartoon characters, on a grid-like pattern since her original intention had been to cut it up into a puzzle for me. Needless to say, I'm very glad she didn't!!

Aaaaanyhoozers, I hope you enjoyed that little gallery of William drawings.
Until next time, take care and Happy William Drawings!!