• WhiMSy love: Cool Chunky Crayons Tutorial
  These would be so much fun to make and then color with!
  (tags: crayons crafts)

Clara’s 3rd Halloween — and she definitely got the concept this year (she even practiced trick-or-treating on our door yesterday). We went to the big downtown safe trick-or-treat extravaganza/mob scene and then tried out the other houses on our new street — only one of which had even bought any candy since apparently no one ever comes trick-or-treating there (one of the others gave us a persimmon, and the third with people home gave us a full-size candy bar out of their freezer.) Then we went up to Lisa’s (and probably was one of their only trick-or-treaters for the night there too.) Last weekend Clara went to a Halloween party and yesterday was the parade at daycare and a party at the Little Gym, so I think she definitely has had a full Halloween experience.

Here’s our little construction family — appropriate, we thought, after all the house renovations we’ve been doing!

Here she is in the parade at daycare:

And with her friends last weekend:

More Halloween photos

Clara turned 2 today! With the impending move (we’re about half way packed and the house should be ready to move into in about 2 more weeks of fix-ups) we didn’t manage to throw her a party or anything, but tried to fill the day with some of her favorite things and will be bringing lots of cupcakes to her daycare class tomorrow.

She’s talking up a storm these days — our current favorite is when she comes over and asks “whacha doing mommy?” and then when you answer says “oh” like it’s something profound. She parrots back pretty much everything so we’re trying to be careful with what we say. She talks a lot about her best friend Camryn at school and we’re all very sad that Camryn and her family are moving to Texas in 2 weeks! The two of them have been together at daycare since Clara was 3 months old and just love each other. Clara talks about her all the time — “Camryn is a busy bee” (their 2’s class at daycare) — and Camryn is incredibly useful for positive peer pressure (look, Camryn’s doing that, why don’t you try it?) She still loves to color and paint, to hang on any parallel bar she can find (especially at her weekly Little Gym class), to go on the swings and slide at the park over and over and over again, to watch Curious George (part of our nightly bedtime routine) or read her Curious George books, to watch Elmo, jumping (which she really wants to do but can’t quite get both feet to time it right yet), to dance (especially in the bed of “Abba’s white truck”), to sing the “spaghetti song” (on top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese…), to help with the laundry, to scold the cats (“No sitting on the table Mitzy!”), to push her baby doll around the house in the toy stroller, to make cookies (real with me and the ones in her toy kitchen). She’s also very into throwing food and pretty much everything else she gets her hands on onto the floor, especially when she’s done eating.

And, after all the fun (and chocolate) today, her birthday present to us was going to bed early tonight!!!

• Digital Think In
  Brian's joining an impressive group of folks for a 1-day event in San Fran.
  (tags: brian)

• San Jose quietly building a green reputation – San Jose Mercury News
  (tags: environment green sanjose)

Clara (and me) wishing my mom and very happy birthday!!!

• Fisher: Kids have fun thinking inside the box – San Jose Mercury News
  Clara would love this exhibit made of cardboard boxes. She's been making tunnels out of the ones we have at home.
  (tags: boxes museum)
• Collecting – Packard’s Visions of the Future, When It Still Had One – NYTimes.com
  Bill's car show was in this NY Times article talking about the Packards that were going to the show.
  (tags: concours)
• Solicitor of Labor Gregory F. Jacob Joins Winston & Strawn in Washington, D.C. | Reuters
  Missed this press release a few days ago about my friend Greg. Happy birthday and congrats to him!
  (tags: greg)

• Mustanrd and Other Cover Crop Effects Vary on Lettuce Drop Caused by Sclerotinia minor and on Weeds
  Congrats to S for a paper he co-authored appearing in the October issue of the journal Plant Disease (almost 2 years after he left that position)

• Following Trash on Its Journey Through the Waste Disposal System – NYTimes.com
  Through the project, overseen by M.I.T.’s Senseable City Laboratory, 3,000 common pieces of garbage, mostly from Seattle, are to be tracked through the waste disposal system over the next three months. The researchers will display the routes in real time online and in exhibitions opening at the Architectural League of New York on Thursday and the Seattle Public Library on Saturday.
  (tags: recycle)
• Mosquito Bites: The Real Reason Some People Are Immune – WSJ.com
  Wow – stress may keep away mosquitos?
  (tags: mosquitos)

• Nieman Reports | Digital Media’s Key to Success: Must-Read Content
  Brian's article for Nieman Reports
  (tags: brian)