My vacation to Denver last week was so fun! Mandy and Bailey planned a million fun things to do like Meow Wolf, a comedy show, and multiple hikes including the Manitou Incline. And I got to see my dear friends Matt and Maren and their lovely kiddos for a fun farmer’s market adventure plus a visit to their beautiful new house! As an added bonus Bailey’s sister Erin came out for a super fun sister weekend! It was a great time and I’m so sad it’s over. Mandy also got me into Chappell Roan this weekend (a feat she’s been working on for a couple months now, and she finally succeeded). Who doesn’t love a sassy, lesbian pop queen who dresses in drag?
In other news I am on my last week of sabbatical and it’s pretty heartbreaking. Hearing all the horrible Intel news and learning about some of my favorite colleagues leaving has been disheartening. That and now I have to go back to work… So I’m trying to finish up the prep work for Julius and Patricia’s birthday parties and work on Halloween costumes for the kids so I might be able to enjoy the fall. Last weekend was the first weekend that truly felt like fall! It was chilly enough to wear sweatshirts outside and the leaves are beginning to turn. Oh it also rained!
We took advantage of the weather and had a typical New England Fall weekend. Saturday during the rain we made pancakes, then the kids put on a puppet show with the puppet theater I made for Earth Day. The show was rather ad hoc. To be honest I’m not sure there was even a script… I overheard this conversation during the show…
Julius: “Now you introduce your characters”
Patricia: “Ok… What does ‘introduce’ mean?”
Will and I tried really hard not to laugh. After the fabulous puppet show we made licenses for the kids. They have been wanting to make licenses since they saw custom ones at Storyland in August. For our version they decided to make their own backgrounds. Julius wanted bananas and Patricia wanted a rainbow so I sketched them and they colored them in (on the computer). The next day the kids drove around in their car with their licenses in their pockets while Will pretended he was a police officer and gave them various citations. I’m pretty sure at some point they were on the lam and I heard Julius was sentenced with 500 hours community service.
Later on Sunday we went on a bike ride to George Hill Orchards for caramel apples, cider, cider donuts and apple picking. The caramel apples were unplanned but Julius wiped out on his bike into the orchard driveway and scraped his chin and knee. He was very sad and caramel apples were the only thing that seemed to help. Later Julius lost his wiggly front bottom tooth in the apple and got his first visit from the tooth fairy. I have no idea how the tooth fairy was able to get the tooth out from under Julius’ pillow without waking them up, especially when Julius was holding the bag with the tooth! She must be magic!
DIY Kids’ “Licenses”
What you’ll need:
- paint.net template here
- printer
- laminator & laminating pages
- Scissors or paper cutter
1. Open template with paint.net. Change “Address and Birthday” Layer to have address and birthday in the locations indicated using the font indicated.
2. Have your child sign on the “Signature” Layer then shrink and move it to the location indicated.
3. Take a photo of your child (we wanted it to be authentic so we took it ‘in the moment’ from the laptop as if they were going to the DMV). Crop it and move it to the location indicated on the “Photo” layer.
4. Select the background layer desired (either banana or rainbow) or create your own. Tip: Use F4 to bring up the opacity window. Ours was set to a middle opacity value.
5. Save as a PNG. Copy the finished image into Microsoft Word or similar program that will keep the sizing.
6. Print. I used regular printer paper but it might be better with cardstock.
7. Run printed page through the laminator. (I always run it through twice.)
8. Using scissors or a paper cutter, cut out license. If you have an edge trimmer you can also use that to round the edges.
