I remember mountains of wrapping paper strewn about the house Christmas morning, but hopefully my kids won't. Christmas generates enough packaging anyway that we don't need to put one more disposable layer on it. Bridgit's family has used fabric bags for some time, but for the past few years we have been using straight-up fabric. It is fun and we have developed a good stockpile of fabric and ribbon to use.
It started a while back when I discovered the art of Furoshiki which is kinda like origami, but for wrapping things. The Japanese Government has a handy PDF to show you how to wrap what shapes.
While we sometimes use those techniques, I usually do the standard paper techniques, but with fabric.
There are some tricks to making it look good:
Don't use a blanket to wrap a book. The fabric pieces should be close to the size you need, anything more then twice the size you need can be difficult.
Fold the fabric to the size you need it before you start wrapping. It doesn't need to be complete in-half folds; folding over a few inches to get the right size works well.
Feel free to use pins or tape to keep the fabric taught.
Disposable ribbon works well with cloth, too.
Scrounge fabric from people who sew: my mother has an entire closet filled with fabric. Or check out the "remnants" at your local cloth 'n craft joint.
It's safe to say Amelia is moving. Tom put her in the middle of the quilt, and here she is... photolink
(Awesome quilt made by Erich Harbowy's mother. Thanks!!!) There's also phtos of Eli in soccer socks that he put on himself, and a few photos after going to the park on a cold day: Eli has some pretty sweet clothes on.
She's also gigglin', especially when Eli does anything goofy, which is most of the time, so we have a pretty spirited home theses days.
We were getting ready to start the bedtime routine tonight and Eli ran into the other room. We were doing other stuff, so we let him go. A few moments later we hear a whump... "hehehe -ow- hehehe." It was pretty funny.
I was thinking today about our new President and all the usual jazz about the historic-ocity of the moment. This morning I told Amelia (who is 4 months old today) that she would get to grow up under an Obama presidency and she smiled and giggled at me. This evening I was thinking back to the first time I heard of this guy with a funny name. It was at the 2004 Democratic Convention. I still remember the feeling I got from listening to him; it was awe inspiring. The first thing that came to mind was JFK. I'm not sure if it was the youth and energy, or the inspiring language. In his speech he introduced the US and the world to Barack Obama. I recall talking with friends about how amazing this person is and that he should be President. Now he is.
Things worked out pretty well last night. There were a few things I had hoped would go differently, but overall: amen. That and thank God that the two years of election are over, until the next round starts up.
On Friday night we ditched the kids with grandma and grandpa and went to see Margret Garner at the opera house in Detroit. Once I adjusted from a movie mentality to a music mentality I enjoyed it much more.
The story is kinda really depressing, but that usually makes for good opera.
I had posted a while back about what our new car should be. C&D has a new article that shares some of my frustration about the lack of wagons and specifically the lack of hot wagons. Some of the wagons I like more then others, but all would be acceptable.
Today we were reading bedtime stories and I had Amelia and Eli on my lap. We were reading Caps for Sale, one of his favorites. Eli practically has the whole book memorized. As he/I read the book Amelia giggled the entire time. She thought the monkeys saying "tsk, tsk, tsk" was hilarious.
Also Eli has decided that Marching Bands are the best thing ever. He is going to be a marching band member for Halloween. We took a couple videos of him because it is so amusing.
I have watched or listened to both of them and I have one question: Where is the debating? All I saw was alternating stump speeches.
Yes I debated in High School and I wouldn't expect regular people to even be able to follow one of those debates. The participants speak at breakneck speeds attempting to get the most information out in the alloted time. In these debates you are actually supposed to use evidence to back up what you say. I know it's crazy, but you actually had to use FACTS to prove that you were right, and then the other side had to use more facts to prove that your plan isn't a good idea.
We carried huge tubs of information regarding the topic at hand. It can't be that hard to have a slip of paper that says how many troops were in Iraq at various times. That way when Palin claims that we are back at pre-surge levels Biden could say, "no we still have 13,000 more then we did pre-surge." Or Palin could tell Biden that McCain didn't refuse to sit down with the government of Spain, he just didn't commit to anything. Would that be so hard?
Sure we can go to places like FactCheck.org and get a summary of what information was correct and what wasn't, but most people don't. People just hear the soundbytes.
The first debate between Obama and McCain was supposed to involve the candidates addressing each other. Jim Lehrer, the moderator kept trying to get them to do that, but they both went back to the camera.
Popular Mechanics has a list of the 100 skills every man should know. There are also videos and a quiz. I assume they mean the gender neutral "man" as in mankind.
The Jack Lessenberry show on Michigan Radio today was all about Catholics and Voting. The essay was about the Catholic voting block and Catholic Politicians, and it had an interview with Chris Korzen from Catholics United, one of the more centrist groups.
Moon