Oscar is Three
Donna Jean Pack

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
This year, my sister Sara’s family sent gifts to my family (like many big families, we only send gifts to one sibling each year). It’s such an amazing gift and such a smart idea that I have to share. Knowing how much my kids love to put on the Nativity pageant on Christmas Eve, she scoured her local thrift shops and came up with perfect costumes for all the main parts.
These costumes have all the right details. Great jewelry for the wisemen. Special containers for the gold, frankincense and myrrh. The shepherd has a super cool belt. The angel has a beaded halo. Sara embellished and altered her bargain finds as needed.
It is such a wonderful gift idea — and it’s not too late if you know the perfect recipient for this sort of thing. You could even start with Mary & Joseph and the Angel this year. Then add the Wisemen and Shepherd another year.
The packages arrived this weekend — marked Open Upon Receipt. And my kids have been in and out of the costumes ever since. They’ve been working on an “improved” script for the special production and there has been lots of debate about who will be which parts. Luckily, we’ll be sharing Christmas Eve with two other families this year, so we have plenty of people to choose from.
The costumes came stacked and folded with cards identifying the character and any applicable notes on the back (like: wear bracelet on the upper arm). Here they are in all their glory:
And here they are on the models (with the shepherd featured above):
Thank you, Sara! And thanks to Steve, Zella, Ruth, Ike and Lucy — who I’m certain contributed in many ways. We love the costumes. They’re just right.
Christmas Card Photo

Remember these awesome photos by Jan Von Holleben I linked to a couple of weeks ago? Well. I also shared them with my kids. Up on seeing them, their brains almost exploded with the possibilities. They immediately started suggesting scenarios and similar photos. So Ben and I figured we could use Jan’s brilliant technique and create an image for our Christmas cards — satisfying our kids and checking our cards off the holiday list in one fell swoop.
We’re not sure if this is the final shot yet, but I share this with you now in case any one out there wants to try something similar in time for Christmas. Very fun. Very satisfying. And it gets better with each try. Here is the progression of our attempts and a few tips we learned along the way.
1) The content. We wanted to take advantage of the flying aspect, so we decided the angel speaking to the shepherds would be perfect. We call the image: Unto You a Child is Born! We also immediately decided the babies wouldn’t get to be in this particular image. Neither one can hold still for even 2 seconds.
2) We practiced without a real backdrop, standing on the couch and staging the kids on the area rug, just to see if we could get the hang of it before we committed to more work.
3) Next we attempted the photo with the backdrop. Initially we tried to use the black pavement of our driveway for the night sky, and the grass that meets the driveway as the ground. But it was just too cold the day we shot the photo, so we moved it inside.
4) We shot indoors in the afternoon and there was still plenty of light. We used rolls of black garbage sacks for the backdrop. (The garbage sacks were kind of hard to work with. I think the driveway would have been easier.) We stood on a ladder to take the shots. One thing I really liked about Jan’s pictures is his use of every day objects as props. We tried to do the same, using diapers for the angel wings and keeping the costumes simple.
5) We love our little Canon Elph. But it’s not a real, real camera. So we could only get the photo so clear. At which point, we called for a favor from Guest Mom Sara’s husband, Travis Stratford. He came with his awesome camera and awesome camera skilz and we shot again. This time at night. Can you believe how much clearer his shot is? Awesome.

6) We are trying to decide if this is the final shot or if we should make one more attempt. Things we would change at Travis’s smart suggestion: make Ralph’s clothes more contrast-y against the black. And mess with the light sources so that angel Olive looks like she’s illuminating everything else.
7) A few last notes. The kneeling and standing were harder to pull off than the flying. The whole project would have been easier if we’d changed the title to “Angels We Have Heard on High” or something like that and had all the kids flying. And if we’d kept shoes on our shepherds that would also have helped. The shoes help keep their feet straight.
If you attempt one, I hope you’ll share. We can start a flickr group of Jan Von Holleben knock offs.
Big Day for Ben Blair


It’s true. It’s a very big day for Ben Blair.
Tonight, from 5:00 to 7:00, he’ll defend his doctoral dissertation. (It deals with the tensions between teachers and schools — in case you’re curious.) I’ve read it. All 230 pages. And it’s super smart and very well written. Full of interesting words and terms like: Dialectic. Institution. Discourse. Trajectory. Cultural Form. Mythos. Logos. Bracing. Phronesis. Bureaucracy. Objectifying Consciousness. Rationale. Deliberate. Conception. But mostly “dialectic.” I think it says dialectic 1 million times.
He also refers to loads of interesting thinkers and philosophers. People like MacIntyre, Dewey, Rousseau, Van Manen, Plato and on and on. The whole thing is very impressive and academic, as it should be. He’s worked incredibly hard on this for an incredibly long time. In fact, we originally moved to New York, over 6 years ago, so he could accomplish this very thing.
And unlike his fellow students — or even professors, in most cases — he’s done this worthy thing while also adding three kids to the family of four we had when he started. While taking turns as primary bread winner and stay-at-home dad as needed. While teaching 3 of his kids to ride a bike and snow ski. While being an exceptional father. An exceptional husband.
He even sends me cool links to share with Design Mom readers. Just today he sent a link to these too-great-for-words photos by Jan Von Holleben.
Ben Blair is a good man. No doubt he will do an amazing job tonight (but feel free to wish him luck anyway). And then he’ll have a PhD from Columbia University. And then I’ll call him Dr. Ben Blair.
Tonight, after his defense, he is meeting me at Grand Central Station and we are heading to a hotel for the weekend. A well-deserved weekend without any kiddies. So I won’t be here tomorrow. But I’ll be back Monday (well rested!) with big news about my week of Holiday Giveaways.
Hooray for Ben Blair!

Headlight Dancing
We had some friends over for dinner the other night — delightful company — with three beautiful children. And as they were leaving my kids came outside to wave goodbye. We had to rearrange the cars in the driveway so they could pull out, and (who knew?) it sparked the best finale to a good day we’ve ever had.
When my husband pulled our car back into the driveway, the headlights were focused on the garage door, lighting it up and we could hear the car stereo blasting something with a good beat — I’m thinking it was JT. The music was rocking enough that the kids were feeling it and started dancing in front of the headlights and watching their shadows on the garage door. We did this for a good half hour. The baby, sleeping soundly in her bed, missed the whole thing.
When everyone had their fill of dancing, we came inside, and Maude, the eight year old, (and the child with the best dance moves, by the way), climbed into her pajamas summing up what we were all feeling, “I loved that, Mom. That was my favorite night. It’s great to be in this family.”
Letterboxing
Last week I mentioned an end-of-summer adventure I was going to try with my kids: letterboxing. I’ve received a bunch of questions about letterboxing, so here is my rudimentary explanation of what it is:
People all over the world put together boxes containing a blank book, a pen, a rubber stamp and an ink pad. They hide the water-proof box in public place (like a park) and then post clues on how to find it on the internet. Letterboxers look up the clues and search out the book, stamping their own books with the stamp they find and making a mark with their own stamp in the letterbox’s book. I hear there are over 20,000 boxes hidden in North America alone. (You can find lots more information at letterboxing.org. This article was especially helpful.)
I was supposed to go with three friends — local letterboxing experts. But I was slow to get the kids up and going that day and we missed our chance to meet them. (Next time girls! Really.) So that my kids wouldn’t collapse from disappointment, we ended up letterboxing on our own. And we’re hooked!!
We packed a letterboxing kit before we left:
stamps
ink pads
blank book
pen
a canvas bag to carry our kit
Luckily, I had all of this on hand. If letterboxing had required a trip to the store that day, I’m afraid it wouldn’t have happened. Apparently, many letterboxers prefer to make their own stamp — just the kind of project I love — but was glad I had these pretty insect ones on hand for our first try.
We found the box after following all the clues — which happened to lead us on an in-depth walk around one of our favorite parks. We stamped our book, and made some notes and added a green leaf and a red leaf to our book as reminders that our adventure was at the end of summer and start of fall. We put a snail stamp into the letterbox’s book (because we were so slow to find it) and our thumbprints as well.
We especially loved realizing there was a letterbox hidden in a place we already knew and loved. And further realizing there were probably letterboxes at many of our favorite haunts. For our family, I can imagine this being a perfect Sunday afternoon hobby.
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Recipe: French Custard Ice Cream

French Custard Ice Cream Recipe
Ingredients 2 cups milk (whole or 2% work best) 2/3-3/4 cup white sugar (depending on how sweet you like it) 5-8 egg yolks 2 cups very cold heavy cream Vanilla to taste Pinch of salt (optional — add at the end) Directions Heat milk in a heavy-bottomed saucepan (3 quart is a good size) until steam rises off the top and bubble form along the edge of the pan, but don’t let it boil. In a large mixing bowl, whisk egg yolks and sugar until thick, homogeneous, and light yellow. The sugar will start to dissolve. You can also use a hand mixer for this. It will fall back on itself in ribbons when it’s been whisked enough. Slowly pour a little of the hot milk into the eggs and sugar. Whisk. Pour the rest of the milk very slowly into the eggs and sugar while continuously whisking. Pour back into the pan. Cook over low to medium heat until the custard registers 160 degrees F on an instant read thermometer and is thickened. Use a fine mesh sieve to strain custard into a clean bowl. Add the cold cream and stir in vanilla extract. Refrigerate until very cold. Freeze according to manufacturer’s directions. Yields: approximately 1 1/2 quarts. From there, the sky’s the limit. You can add fresh fruit purees or juice. Add different extracts, such as almond. Add chocolate. Anything your little heart desires. By the way, if you need an ice cream maker, these Cuisinart Ice Cream Makers can be found here for a great price and with customer reviews — along with other brands. But, might I suggest a Cuisinart? I adore mine. The Krups has gotten good reviews from America’s Test Kitchen. Kitchen Aid even makes a bowl attachment for their mixers. Like most ice cream makers these days, you just have to freeze the bowl. No more rock salt and ice. P.S. — No churn, berry ripple cheesecake ice cream.Credits: Photo and recipe by Lindsey Rose Johnson.
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