Quiet Book

Good News Minute: Alex has gotten a job!!!! He will be working for a company called Casa Latino. Their office is located in downtown Cele.bration and it will be about 3 hours every morning, but hes getting paid pretty well. And, that also gives him the opportunity to work somewhere else after class. He's had two other great interviews and he will hear from both of them this week. We are keeping our fingers crossed for Marr.iott!!!

On the other hand, I have not heard back from anyone about interviews and I haven't heard from the one place I did get an interview with (which was almost three weeks ago) :( So much for that college degree, Huh?! SOOOOO, I have decided to try and see if I can possibly work from home creating cutesy things for kids!!

I would like your guyses honest opinions on these too...

One of my creations that I absolutely love is the Quiet Book I made for little A. I have made a total of two of these. One for Avery and a woman I used to work with bought one from me for her grand-daughter. Both were personalized. Here are some pictures of Avery's; unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to get pictures of the other one so I'll just have to tell you a little about each of the pages.

Here's the cover. On the other one I made I put her name on the inside of the cover.

Alex wanted Avery to have a sports page in his book, so on this one there are different balls that are connected to ribbons (so they dont come off the page) and the activity is to put the balls in/out of the bucket. It can als be used when Avery gets a little older to recognize different kinds of balls and their names.

This is a fun page for Avery right now... it is basically just a variety of beads on thin ribbon attached to the page. He can slide them back and forth, count the number of beads on each row and also recognize the different colored beads.

On this one I took the picture without the actual shapes attached - so, the attachable pieces are made of felt and on the page the shape is outlined with the name of the shape written in. On the other book that I made I put the names inside the shapes in English and Spanish.

This is one of my favorite pages. The page has a flower pot and the flowers are button on - so the center of the flower is a button and the actual flower has a button hole in its middle and they detach. I also did this page on the other book that I made and that one actually turned out better than this one because I made the flowers reversible, so she had four different style flowers.

I love, love, love this page too!! So I made the page look like it had a cheese pizza on it and then I created three different types of toppings - pepperoni, onions, and peppers! So, Avery can create a pizza with which ever of the toppings he wants. Another option could be making a hamburger, or ice cream cone.This one is less of an activity and more for just the different kind of textures. The kids are made out of felt, the eyes are button and the scales are sequines that are tied on with embroidery floss. This is definitely a page that is great for smaller children.I hate to keep saying it, but I love this page!! I put this one in both books - the ladybug's spots detach - they are snap on/off. This can be done with really any other animal that has spots - cow, giraffe, etc.This is Avery's counting page. I love the pyramid and that they are sort of color coded, though that wouldn't be necessary it's simpler. This page was in both books I made but for the other one I did the pyramid and I wrote out the numbers in English and Spanish on either side of the row. In Avery's book the color page is pretty simple because I was in hurry to finish it. In the other book that I made I did the colors page similar to the shapes page but wrote the colors in English and Spanish instead of the name of the shape. So, the page could really be done either way!This is the last page in Avery's book. I didn't write a caption, but I do think it needs one. This activity is a puzzle of the airplane and two clouds. As you can see, the Airplane is traced and each piece of the puzzle is a different color. I also did a puzzle in the other book that I made, but her's was a little more difficult because of her age. The puzzle was a large castle, with 13-15 pieces in four different colors.

Both books also had pockets on the two inside covers, great for storing book pieces, stickers, crayons/markers, small spiral paper, etc. I made a couple pages different for the other book because I was making it for a little girl and she was bit older than Avery.

The mother wanted at least one page having to do with bible stories, so I made two. One page was a Noah's ark and on the actual page I put a boat with an open top and ramp. I found some cute animal buttons and decided I would do a two-by-two activity. One animal was attached to the page while it's match would fasten next to it or be stored inside the boat. The other bible page I made was about the Creation. On the page I put a blue circle of felt, and tied a couple of animals to ribbon and attached them on the sides of the circle. I made green felt pieces for land and a velcro sun/moon at the top of the page.

Other pages I did for her were ABC's, where she would match a letter to the object whose name began with that letter; and I also did a tic/tac/toe page for her - a simple game that she could play with parent, sibling or friend.

So, I am thinking about going out and seeing if there are little boutiques that would display a couple of my books and maybe some business cards for a small portion of each one I sell, I was also thinking of posting them on ebay, etsy or something like that.... I am also thinking about doing a few other things such as hooded towels & bath mitts, hair bows, and maybe some of those "wellness bags."

Please tell me what you think. Will these things sell, the books in particular? What do you think they are worth? What's your advice on marketing them? Do you think I could also target child care centers? Any and all comments are welcome!! Thanks everyone!

Jobs?!?

So, most of you know we just moved to Or.lando for Alex to go to school here at UCF. We have been here about a month and things are going pretty well... except for we have no income!! We have both been searching fervently for jobs in this area but so far not much has come of it. Did we make the wrong decision in moving during a time where jobs are so scarce? This is what Alex really wanted to do but now we are thinking maybe we should've compromised for a program at a school closer to home.... and not that I'm think I'm too good for some of the jobs that are "advertised" but now that I have my degree I'm at the point where if I have to get a job I don't really wanna settle for something with crappy hours and pay. Not to mention that daycare is also something that I have to consider when job hunting.... Guys be honest - am I expecting too much??
If you have an job hunting tips that you care to share - please please please feel free to do so, we appreciate any help we can get!!

iGraduate

So, as you know from my previous post, I graduated in December. I know it's taken a long time but I feel like 5.5 years is pretty good considering I got married and had a baby through it all.... Here are some pictures for the ones I love who couldn't be there - I'm not sure why, but these pictures posted a little bit smaller than usual...

This one is one of my favorites...

These were actually taken about two weeks after graduation but there was no one else around so it was nice. It felt so weird to be standing there at the Arches in my cap and gown, I am so ecstatic that I have finally accomplished this huge goal! Yay me!! Believe it or not, I have been thinking a little bit about graduate school.

Many know this, but there is an old legend that if you walk through the Arches at the University of Georgia before you finish school, you"ll never graduate. So, here I am finally walking through in my cap and gown - it's official!!

Me with the fam

You can't finish out your college career at UGA without ringing the Chapel Bell!! This thing has been here for over 100 years and was originally used to call students to classes - nowadays its rung to toll Georgia football victories - what a sweet sound!

Nap.Time

Hello all. It's nap time and I feel like this is the best time to get around to this! It's already middle January and I have posted in almost three months, I thought it'd been longer so I was a little relieved but still disappointed in myself for not documenting some really big moments in our lives from the year 2009.
For one, Alex got accepted to UCF so we had to prepare to make this huge move right at the end of the year; we both graduated - me with my Bachelor's degree from UGA and Alex with his Associates from Gaines.ville State... so trying to get ready for the end of the year and graduation also brought a lot of additional stress. But, we made it!!
Then there was the holidays. Of course the shopping and insane traffic is also stressful, but what a great time of year! This year was not technically Avery's first Christmas, but definitely his first Christmas being aware of what's going on. I have to say even at 14 months he really got into the ripping of the paper and unwrapping of gifts, but once that over with he could have cared less about what was inside!! :) He did get a lot of cool things that he will be able to play with when he gets a little older... because my mom always gets awesome stuff for almost nothing at work he is one spoiled kid. On the other hand we get everything new for yardsale prices!!! What a blessing.
SO, we made our huge move right before Christmas and stayed with my parents through New Years and now we are in Or.lando and Alex has started school. We have learned how to be extremely tight with our money because neither of us have found jobs yet - its a blessing and a curse. I LOVE staying at home with Avery all day - and also being able to get household things done that I was always too exhausted to do during the week back when I was working. Though I have checked into working at a center here thats really close to Cele.bration, because well... we have to have some form of income, right?! Some good news is we are living at the Perschka's condo here, so housing is one expense we don't have to worry about right now - also a blessing. I told Alex he just needs to go out into the community - door to door - and ask people if they will be his sponsor. My sister actually had a room mate once who did that and it was her only source of income.... but I think she also ran some sort of youth group so maybe that was her job.
I have to say the one thing that I don't like about living here is that our close family and friends are so far away. Luckily, I have some extended family that live close by ranging from about 30 minutes to 3 hours away so that's a plus.
Avery seems to be adjusting ok to this new place; he loves to be outside, so I know he will love it once it warms up a little - we have been stuck inside the last week because it is "exremely" cold here haha. He is starting to get to that age where he wants to throw fits when he doesn't get his way.... what the heck - he is NOT two yet!!!! He has a crazy temper, and I think I know where he gets it from (...Alex...) I shouldn't complain because all in all, he is a really good baby. We have been spoiled.
Well, we miss everyone back home and hopefully we'll be coming for a visit soon. In the mean time, I've got to go finish The Time Travelers Wife before Avery wakes up!!! Bahh!!

Vote For AVERY!!!!!

Guys, I have so much to tell you about Avery's birthday and the little party we had for him ~ BUT, this is kind of important right now so I'll get to that later. We entered Avery into the Gap/Disney Family casting call and we want/need you to vote for him!! You have to register to vote, but it doesn't take that long - seriously.

Here is URL: http://family.go.com/gapcastingcall/entries/jperschka22/901564480/

OR http://family.go.com/gapcastingcall/entries/jperschka22/401564614/

Thanks so much for your votes!!

llama, llama lots of drama

I'm not going to lie folks, I do like to hear gossip - I don't really like to talk it, but listening is not so bad. Though it's probably not a good choice (to contribute by listening), but you can't always control what people around you are talking about - can you??

I don't really want to get into details cause that would be gossiping, right?! =) but I do want say that over the years working with about 40 other women one could hear a whole heap of gossip.... enough crazy stories and drama to be like a reality show, or a soap opera {they are practically the same, right?} -
Or maybe like a Grey's Anatomy without all the sexual tension and more catty-ness; without all the Derek and more of the Christina; without all the cool lab coats and more of the ugly krk shirts..... you guys catching my drift here? Seriously, I wish I could be making money off of it.

And, if it wasn't gossping, I would tell you some of the stories that are going around right now!!

not crazy, but weird... kind of.....

guys - can you believe it? there's another alex n jess on blogspot!! ok, I guess its not really that surprising, but seriously - I just realized the importance of little symbols like the dashes in our blog address because otherwise they are exactly the same.


I'm wondering if this is stalkerish - because when I accidentally found theirs, I read some of it!!!! We are kind of similar, but so different. We have the same names of course and we are at the end of college/graduated.... but they are like world travelers and we are more settled and have our sweet baby boy. Both obviously blessed. It was interesting to see, definitely.

so guys, even though you probably link to our blogspot from either your own or someone elses, if you ever happen to type it in make sure you remember our dashes!!