Eighteenth Week - Focus 52 - May Flowers - Quick Post

Well, this needs to be quick. I'm leaving for DC with a group of kids tomorrow and well, I'm not ready. Luckily I just added two pictures this week and that's really all I have for this week. I didn't really stick with the theme - May Flowers - as this week has been so super crazy. Anyway....



Given that I'm gone tomorrow, I got my Mother's day flowers today. A lego rose, a real rose. So beautiful both of them. I also got a letter in the mail from my son telling me how beautiful I am. I love that kid of mine.



It's the husband and I in lego. This makes me giggle when I see it in my office!

The work of everyone else here.

Seventeenth Week - Focus 52 - April Shower, May Flowers

The theme this week for Focus 52 was April Showers bring May Flowers. I couldn't put many pictures up because of the limits - next week I'm off on a student trip very early Sunday morning so I can't post with good timing so I'm just working with what I have.

Anyway, anyway, anyway. Enough on that. The theme.

I thought about what it could mean and I could come up with two major definitions and one literal meaning. Gotta love that English degree.

The first was that hard work pays off - putting up with unpleasant things and then you have beauty. And so ....



Store your acorns, save up and eventually you're chubby and can survive. Save up for winter, put up with the hibernation times and then you'll get a chance to eat as many acorns as you stored. Put up with the hard times of storing and starving and then you have a beautiful spring to run around and be a charming lithe squirrel. Right now, I'm the chubby one. Here's hoping I make it to spring and become the lithe squirrel I was meant to be :)

I also thought of the literal - it's Spring. Flowers are springing up, trees are beginning to bloom, grass is getting green. Here in NL things are show in this process but they're happening. And so:



Flowers. Beginning to bloom. Found during a walk around a pond. We can do that now - the snow is just about gone!

And finally, the final meaning I thought of - put in the hard work in the beginning and then it pays off. My son, my now seven year old son, reading:



Instilling in him a love a reading at a young age means that he will hopefully become an adult with a love of reading.

Ok, some of these were stretching it a bit. Fun theme, busy week.

Work of everyone else here

Sixteenth Week - Focus 52 - Easter

For SOME reason, the theme this week was Easter. I was able to take some pictures I think were representative of my Easter. Most of which I submitted to the pool, some of which i did not because they were more personal then interesting.



Really, this is the emblem of Easter. A child with a face full of chocolate. Of course, he's a beautiful child with a beautiful pair of eyes so it's going to look good anyway (or decent at least). He did have an inability to smile without jumping so I'm very glad for this picture!



We tried to make them joust. They just puffed up and died. No one won.



They're nut free!!



From the top of his Easter basket. I love the cute little fuzziness of him.



I saw the set up and I couldn't resist. He'd had a hard night, needed a little help to sleep.

And, of course, the best celebration of the season:



I made it. I made it. I made it.

Everyone else is here.

Fifteenth Week - Focus 52 - Hope

Hope was the theme of the week. There are so many hopes - some of which sorted themselves out (such as my work computer being fixed - I hoped and hoped for that to come back and then it did). I had hope for spring with so many warm days and the appearance of crocuses. I had hopes and dreams that the sons birthday party would go well. And so here's what I came up with for the pool this week.



I always have so much hope when I play this game. Hope and ambition. I am the family skee-ball champion. I could play this game for hours on end. I love the feeling - the throws, the hopes that you'll do better each throw, each game. Holding my breath when it gets close to the 10,000 point little circle. Yes, this game is a game of hope.



The snow is gone. He's wearing sneakers I think. I just hope that it stays this way. And the trees grow leaves. And no more snow comes. I love wearing my boots in the fall and hate wearing them in the spring.



Not as clear as I originally thought but still beautiful. Spring is coming, ready or not.



In my experience, every time you hold a party for you child, you hope a lot, you wish a lot and you make sure that there's enough there for everyone who was invited, their parents and their childrens children. You hope that people show up because you hope your child will have a big showing. I made 48 cupcakes. We had a bunch left but we had a good showing. 13 of the 23 invited, which, given there's a chess tournament on today (two or three of the kids), spring break holidays ongoing already, Saturday lessons and the stomach flu happening, then well, that's a good showing.



And of course, throughout the party there's that. The anticipation of leftover cupcakes, beer and recapping the entire thing. The hope it went well, and the celebration that it did.

The work of everyone else here.

Fourteenth Week: Yellow

Well, this week was much harder then green. For some reason, yellow was hard for me. Not sure why. I think this week was just crazy - sick child, pd day, etc. However, I did snap a few, and some of them were even yellow!

First, one that is not:



So it's not yellow. But it's cool. I love how it looks - the winding is fantastic.

Then, a yellow one:



The yellow from the bag of eggs pops out from the orange of the lego. We had to look and look and look to find eggs that did not have nuts. And then, we needed 24 lego figures - we found 23. But it came together and we found eggs. And we'll find another minifig. Hidden in there are two small lego sets and two chocolate bars. It was a great shopping trip. And we're nearly ready for the lootbags for the big event next week.

And then, the one that I took at work and had to hide what I was doing...


I was so worried the kids would see me taking the picture. They already think I'm weird. But I couldn't resist - the flowers set out for the pot luck were so bright and yellow and the theme just kept ringing in my head. I think the nutrition teacher would be pleased.

The work of everyone else here.

Thirteenth Week - Focus 52 - Silly

Ok, this week was busy. Crazy. Frenetic. But not silly. Nuts, perhaps. Or no nuts, as the case seems to be. However, the prompt was silly. Not that it was a silly prompt, it was, quite literally, silly. So... what could I take?

Well, I took this one, just to signify the nuts of this week:



I didn't submit it to the pool. This is my son, finding out he's allergic to all nuts. ALL NUTS. Seriously people - do you know how many things out there contain 'traces of nuts'. It's so crazy, it's well, nuts. It fits into the frantic silliness of this week.

I didn't submit this one either:


We had a student recess to raise money for students who can't afford prom. Someone made some beautiful cupcakes for us and put all kinds of quality street in the box. They looked like little jewels. But they had nuts so out they went. It's silly just how worried we are these days - but I hope people are just as silly for my child. This picture also reminded me of the frantic silliness of this week - the recess was a full day crazy event. I liked this picture a lot but it's a very tenuous connection to the theme.

I did submit this one:



It may seem silly, but I like toys. This is one of my protectors in my office. My little ninja. He's a happy guy.

This was a beautiful moment while driving home:


Childhood silliness - making a beautiful snow person who was going to be destroyed in the next day or two. Bringing such beauty in such a silly way. It was appreciated.

And this one...


This just reminds me of the 'If the World Were a Village' book - this is just a messed up village!

The work of everyone else is here.

Twelfth Week - Focus 52 - The View From Here

Ahhhh... this week. The view from here.

I really could not get behind this as much as other themes. This was such a busy week which led to less creativeness for me. I tired to do what I could with it, but really, I guess this is such a sad little view from here - here being my busy life at this point.

First picture, my fashion view:


I try to have my own style, which works for me sometimes I guess. This week it included my plaid skirt and my blue leopard print shoes. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I think this worked.

View across the table:


Staring across the table at my son - he won in his second attempt at Roll up the Rim. My win came much later in the week. I'm 1/12 and he's 1/2. At this point he is still ahead of me - especially since I bought his winning cup for him!

View of the seasons:



The view from here weather wise is that we have no idea what's going to happen next. I can wear spring dresses and winter boots. I don't know what we're going to see in the morning when I look out the window and if it's going to be the same in the afternoon. Frilly dresses with flowers and big ole boots. That's how it is now.

The news this week:



The news is so often a view from here - a way to view the past and learn about the present. Some of my students are working on a display about the Newseum. We made the background out of positive news stories. I think it's fantastic and such a positive look at the week.

Looking back - the view from the next day:



Should have been slower with my samples. I learned. I learned.

Everyone else has contributed here.