Mendocino

Quick trip to Mendocino for the weekend. Mendocino, it's a tiny town, very quiet, on the cliffs about 2 hours North of San Francisco. Overcast most of the time, except for a glorious sunset, when the sun finally moved below the clouds...

Of cabbages and men

Small conversation caught last night between Kyan and Anastasia, about the first big ship to bring immigrants to North America. The name of the ship was... the Cauliflower...

Photo: the Mayflower, a cauliflower in full sails...

New crafty blog

Since August, I'm taking online classes from the UK about surface design (to create fabrics, but also wallpapers, stationary, ...). Therefor I've been pretty busy, which may explain the lack of news on the blog. But the result is worth it, I love the classes (almost done) and the ton of homework which comes with it. I also completely redid my crafty blog to accomodate for future job research.

So, HERE, it's the home of the new blog (all the old posts have been imported), and it's easier to remember the address: www.theLazyGiraffe.com.

 

 

 

 

 

And should you be interested in what I've been doing with my little fingers, here's an example of a very early exercise, where we had to go out scout for geometric patterns. The exercise is on the left, and I liked the idea so much that I took it a few steps further last week.

Californian temperatures? Not really.

It's been a few degrees below freezing for over a week now, but last night was the coldest:-5 degrees C. We found some ice in shallow spots where rain water was trapped. On the picture, taken at 4pm on the deck, the ice hasn't even melted. The funniest part is to observe the level of adaptation of the locals: at the market this morning, there were as many hard core in shorts blowing loudly on their hands to keep warm as people in big winter coats. I even spotted someone shopping in a ski suit!!!

Owl mittens

Little gift I knit for Anastasia for Christmas. Kyan got the same ones in blue.

Reading on the couch

Kyan is making big progress in reading, and Anastasia is closely following with her writing. It's always cute to see them read stories together...

By the Golden Gate Bridge

November not so chilly. Kyan had a day off from school and daycare. Excellent excuse to leave work early and go to the beach.

Pumpkins and elephants

Visit at the Oakland zoo after Thanksgiving. The first stop was at the elephants, who seemed to really enjoy the pumpkins. And for the rest of the tour, we heard Anastasia begging to go back to the elephants to sketch.

Zebra and spider

It's what the kids chose to be for Halloween this year. Kyan chose his fabric, a fleece with big white dots on mocca background, and I think it looks a lot more like a spider then if it would have been plain. He insisted on having all 8 legs, though. And Anastasia wanted to be a zebra with flowers...

Pumpkin

Halloween is around the corner, and we went to a huge pumpking patch in Petaluma. Kyan knew the place already as he had been there last year with his class. Therefor he was our guide in the corn maze, but even with a map, it took us 30 minutes to get out.

Cute

Two news from Kyan: the first one, it's that he has to wear classes to read. He's super excited about the new accessory, he chose them blue and very strong, and is really proud to wear them. I didn't think one could be that excited to wear glasses. The second news is that he started reading on his own, he's learning quickly and can now read stories to his sister. It's adorable.

Cleaners

These ones are rather harmless, with their daisy-vacuum cleaners, no need to worry about chemicals. I was very focused on my computer when Kyan inquired if I needed cleaning around my desk. Just for the look it was worth it. As for the cleaning, well...

Friends in Japantown

We had the visit of the Doreaux, always a pleasure. The kids, on both sides, couldn't wait to see each other. And since the "big girls" needed some japanese design goodies, we took the whole gang to Japantown...

Karate

Kyan needs to move a little, and we thought that karate would be a good idea. First, because he can use some help on his gross motor skills. Then, because we like the philosophy behind the martial arts. And finally, he's been doing some wacky kung foo moves for a while, one of these days he may end up in front of somebody who really knows martial arts. So far, Kyan loves the classes, and is very proud to show Anastasia what he's learned.

News from the Giraffe

A few weeks ago, I submitted 8 designs of children clothing to a startup which, through contests, produces and sells the most successful submissions. Out of the 8 designs, 4 got selected, and now it's time to vote. This week, you can vote for bottoms (leggings, shorts, skirts), until August 28th. The tops will come next week.

So, if you're interested in supporting The Lazy Giraffe, you can vote through your facebook account. To vote, follow HERE, sign up with your facebook account, and click on the little heart on the design you like (you can vote for as many submissions as you like). You can also click on Follow and therefor will receive all my future submissions.

The theme is "Urban Garden", for little girls 2-6, Spring '13. And if you'd like to see the other submissions, it's HERE.

Thanks a bunch...

Not so quiet after all...

Last night, Neo the Cat decided to take off. Since it's part of his bad habits, he can only go out in the backyard tied up to a long leash, which doesn't seem to bother him. The problem is that last night the leash got untied, and Neo was left wandering in the nature dragging a 20 foot long rope, with a strong possibility to get caught on a fence or a tree. Hoping to catch Neo before it ends up in a very precarious position, I took the kids and went search the neighborhood. That's how we met a whole bunch of people living on the street behind our house, and Kyan and Anastasia had a blast on the adventure, meeting new people and knocking on doors to go check in everybody's backyard. They even got some chocolate along the way. Not much luck finding Neo, though...

I kept on looking outside all evening, in case Neo would show up. In the process, I bothered a garden snake hidden in the wild rose bush, a skunk roaming behind the shed late in the night, heard a family of opossums by the fence, and went in the backyard at 2am to check on suspicious noises to find three raccoons perched on a tree. Given the mess we sometime find in our garden, I suspected we had a few nocturnal visitors, but never imagined it to be such a popular spot (it's a rather small garden). And, of course, still no cat.

That silly Neo finally showed up in the morning, and with all the possibilities to get trapped, got stocked with its leash on our steps to the garden. Lucky, lucky cat, but no more roaming for Neo for a while...

As for the pictures, I didn't take them but am hoping to be lucky enough one of these days to have a camera handy at the right time...

Quiet garden

A few news from the garden: the great peach tree which had delighted us with fabulous fruits a few years back is no more, old age or sickness, we don't really know. On the other hand, a shrimpy apple tree we had cleared out of overgrown bushes when we bought the house is doing fantastic every year, it produces a lot of apples, quite small to be honest, but absolutely delicious.
And while the garden is growing, I did some henna...