Christmas coloring pages

A few weeks ago I posted the turkey paper doll drawings that C, my SIL, created for me to use in my classroom right before Thanksgiving. They were such a huge hit with my students, that I asked her to do more for Christmas / winter. If it's possible, I think these may be even cuter than the turkey! I LOVE the summer outfit for the penguin...and you can't go wrong with a snowwoman Mrs. Claus!


If you would like copies of these, just let me know! E-mail me at confusaled@hotmail.com, and I'll send 'em to you.


Wanna know a secret? I still love to color...and I do these each year with my kids!




Hey, even snowmen / women get cold, right?



Mrs. Claus - classic and classy.

For the penguin lovers in the crowd...

Every penguin needs some black tie attire for the holiday season. Those work parties...

Carmen Miranda wannabes, eat your heart out.

For penguins with Johnny Depp complexes...

Wanna go snorkeling?

Rag quilt update - pictures!

I finally got around to taking some pictures of my completed rag quilt! I am so proud of it! I still need to wash and dry it a few times to continue the fraying of the "rag" edges, but other than that, it's ready to go. It is not perfect. Not all of the seams line up on the back, but they are all pretty close.

Now I just need to find a place to use it! I love the fabrics, but they don't match anything I have in my house. There are ten different fabrics, but they all go together. I may end up keeping it in the living room in my basket of blankets for tv watching.

Here are the photos. I can't decide which fabric I like the most. I just love the way they all look together. What do you like best?

Sew what?

Okay, about two or three years ago, my mother-in-law gave me a sewing machine for Christmas. I appreciated the gift, but I don't sew. I didn't even know how to thread the machine. I tried to muster up some enthusiasm, but I don't know how believable I was. (Unfortunately, lying is not one of my considerable talents.)

My sewing machine has been collecting dust for a long time. But yesterday, I pulled it out. One of my friends is an awesome seamstress! She can make just about anything! She even has a super duper fancy embroidery machine. She can do it all. I was hanging out with her yesterday, and she somehow managed to talk me into sewing a rag quilt.

I'm still not sure how it happened, but it's AWESOME!! I am almost done. I even have enough extra squares I may be able to make a matching pillow or two!

I'll post pictures when I get finished. Keep your fingers crossed that it comes out as well as I hope!

PS It's all sorts of sock monkey fabrics! It's about the cutest thing I've ever seen!

New layout

Do you like my new layout??? I LOVE IT!! A million...no a billion thanks go to my good friend Leah. She made my banner for me, and played with the colors on my blog. It's beautiful! And she's FAST! We talked on Friday about changing stuff around. Late Saturday night I sent her some pictures, and voila! Sunday morning it's all done. She's amazing!

Gingerbread House Build-Off 2007

I know it's late...really late...but here are the photos from the 2nd Annual Hocking Family Christmas Gingerbread House Build-Off!! Don't ask me who won...I don't know. In all honesty, it should have been H and C, but we ran out of time and didn't vote.

This year, we decided to come up with a boatload of "themes" and put them in a hat. Then, right before we started the competition, we drew one of the themes. That way nobody had the chance to scheme and plan and practice ahead of time. Well, by nobody I mean H and C...they kicked our butts last year!

We had lots of great ideas, but the one we actually drew was "Seven Wonders of the World." Everybody had thirty minutes to look stuff up on the internet and plan. Apparently, there are WAY more than seven wonders... Try looking it up on Google - you'll find all sorts of different categories of Wonders of the World.

Here we are all working. Dad's watching us...

J and I decided to incorporate three Wonders into our gingerbread sculpture. We had Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China and the Empire State Building. We even had little mini Teddy Grahams as Druid priests.

H and C did the Galapagos Islands. They even had turtles pulling Santa on a boat.

Mom and Dad did a Pyramid, complete with camels and Egyptians.

Happy Valentine's Day!

To be 100% honest, I don't typically enjoy holiday's like Valentine's Day that fall in the middle of a school week. The main reason I don't like it is that I feel bad for some of the kids. High school is not like elementary school - not all of the kids get Valentine's. And some get tons. While I'm happy for those who do get them, it makes me sad to see the other kids walking around empty handed. Some of the kids don't seem to care, but others really do.

Last year, I even had a girl send herself flowers at school and claim they were from her boyfriend. The only thing is, she had never mentioned a boyfriend before. It was a lot like that episode of the Brady Bunch when Jan claims to be dating a boy named George Glass who didn't even really exist. Do you remember that? It was uncomfortable to see her lie, just to fit in.

And, on top of the kids feeling bad, there's ALWAYS drama about fights and date plans, etc. Then there is the class disruptions. Office aides delivering stuff, clubs who sold things delivering, call slips for kids being delivered so they can go to the office to pick stuff up. It's crazy.

Oh, and don't forget the sugar. That's all they eat, all day long. Even big kids are affected by that much sugar. Some it makes sweeter...most turn into little Tazmanian Devils.

So, you see, I'm not really a grinch about the holiday. I'm not. It's just not my favorite day.

I usually try to buy Valentine's pencils or erasers or something for kids. That way I can make sure that everyone gets something. But this year time just slipped away from me and I didn't get around to it.

I got a few Valentine's from kids. My favorite, though, came from two of my cutie-pie freshmen. Amanda and Logan were in Spanish class together, and they were making Valentine's. They made one for me.

Here it is:

J was really cute, though. He stopped at the store and bought me flowers, a card, and chocolates. He also got the fixin's for shrimp jambalaya (he's half-Cajun), crab legs, garlic bread and my favorite cherry cheesecake for dessert. It was sweet! I just felt bad that I couldn't eat any of it...I finished taking my antibiotics from Strep throat on Wednesday. On Thursday my throat was sore again. Today, it's terrible. I'm going to go back to the Urgent Care in an hour when they open. Cross your fingers, and hope it's not strep hanging on.

Now I'll be a better photographer!

For my 30th birthday, J was going to give me one of the really cool picture frames we got for his mom for Christmas. It's digital!! You put a memory stick in it, and it will play a slide show of the pictures. It will also play music. I have wanted one for a long time, and we finally did the research around Christmas because we thought it would be a great gift for his mom. She's a professional artist, and we thought it would be super cool if she took the picture frame with her to art shows and just had a slide show playing of all her prints. She takes her portfolio with her, but that can be kind of bulky, and you have to get people interested enough to stop and look through it anyway. We thought the picture frame slideshow may catch peoples attention, and then they may look through her portfolio. Great idea, huh!

Anyway, the frame we bought for her is the one that Consumer Reports said is the best for the price range we were shopping in. It's the best quality and the most bang for the buck. Unfortunately, a lot of people must read Consumer Reports because it's sold out. We were lucky at Christmas, but J was unlucky last week.

On the other hand, my second choice of gifts was a new digital camera. I love the one we have, but it is four years old. That's ancient in technology terms. And it's very bulky, so I just don't take it places very often. I thought if I had a smaller camera, I would take it more places, and record more events. I did some research, and we went to three different stores before we settled on the Sony. I LOVE IT!! It was a bit more expensive than we had hoped, but my dad and step-mom had sent me some money for my birthday, and we threw that in our "budget" and we were good to go. I am SO excited!

The only thing that stresses me out a bit, is that it's got a touch screen, and it didn't come with a camera case. I got online to look for one, and the one I want is backordered for two months. Figures, huh? But I will find something, because I won't be throwing it in my pocket or my purse until it is protected!

Isn't it pretty? It comes in black and red, too, but for some odd reason, silver was the only color on sale at Circuit City. Go figure. I obviously got these photos off the internet. I couldn't find a good picture that shows the touch screen in action, though. But instead of turning dials and knobs, you just touch the screen! The camera case I want to get has a stylus included, which I think will help prolong the life of the screen. Keep your fingers crossed!

It's little, but it's powerful. The memory stick was on sale, too...it's a 2GB memory stick that cost the same as a 1GB stick. And, are you ready for this?? With the pictures set at the highest quality setting, it will hold 636 photos!!!

I can't wait to quit being sick so I can go out and get a camera case and start playing with my new camera! Hopefully I'll be a better photographer with more practice, and a better camera. This camera even has a "smile detector" in it! When you focus in on someone's face, when they smile the camera will take the picture automatically...no more missed smiles! In theory, anyway. I'll let you know how it works out! I hope J is ready to be my subject, because I don't think Sid and Zoe really smile all that much.

Wedding Scrapbook

I've posted before about how I can't seem to find the time to do any crafty stuff. Here's further proof: I made my Mom a scrapbook about my wedding, but haven't made one for myself. I was smart, though, and scanned the pages before I gave it to her, so at least I have that!

This was my very first attempt at a scrapbook. Please forgive the terrible cutting / cropping of photographs, and some oddly placed pictures. I'm still pretty proud of it, but I would definitely go back and do some things differently now!

And now, for your viewing pleasure, my (Mom's) wedding scrapbook.