Crafts and Projects

December is always a fun time for crafts and cooking and projects, so here are a few that didn't get their own post. 

I posted the front side of Emily's hat in this post, but not the tricky/scary part of adding the zipper!  It's not super impressive, but it took me about an hour and a half and came out okay.  She has a functional pocket in her hat, which is at least a partial success.

The Helterbrands sent Alice a slew of Pusheen stickers for her Christmas gift.  They are so cute!  I decided to fancy it up just a bit, and sewed some paper pockets on a stiff backing so that they would stay separated a bit, and be easier for her to find.

Alice was invited to Willow's 13th birthday party.  Sadly, the squishimal she picked out online would not arrive on time, so we ended up going to Walmart one day after school (and the first cooking club day) very late, and they only had a few options.  She picked her favorite from their selection.  Since she was a bit disappointed, I offered to make up a fancy box for the stuffie she selected.

The school glue did not work very well with the fancy tissue paper, so I ended up using quite a bit of tape to hold the edges in place.

I think she ended up covering the stuffie with a layer of tissue paper in the end, to make it a bit of a surprise.

Emily chose a butterfly theme for her upcoming birthday party, so we were practicing origami butterflies for her invitations.

Once we mastered it, it was just a matter of folding the printed invitations!  The netting below the butterflies here came out of the free bin at the MSU thrift store.  I thought they looked like butterfly nets, and they were free. ; )

One night I made burgers for dinner.  The little girls thought that was fun, and decided to make up "mutti-donalds."  We didn't have many fries, so everyone was 'forced' to eat apple slices as a side as well.  (In my defense, Aldi was out of fries, and so I was just going to serve chips.)

For MLK day, I decided to try something new and spent about 4 hours making some Biryani.  It was pretty good, but spicey.  The Basmati rice was amazing though.

Emily and Grace came with me to the thrift store and Aldi, since they had the day off of school.  Grace picked out a home popsicle making kit.  We bought some orange juice for her to fill them.  Emily wanted some mini-cupcakes, but she was able to make more full-sized ones from a mix, than it would have cost to buy the little ones.  And Juliet got some pudding mix, because they didn't have cups, so she had to fill our ramekins, but it came out tasty!

My current project is to make Valentine's for my crew out of cutouts from Billy's coke zero boxes.  I don't know quite how they'll look just yet, I'm sure it will depend upon how many I am able to make before Valentine's day arrives.  But I like them so far.

 later days

Wrapping up the School Year

We finally found our stride with homeschooling, about 3 weeks before the end of the year. hahaha lol 

Now that the kids know the expectation, they are able to work without too much assistance on many subject, and so our days are smoother and shorter since we are not moving from subject to subject as a group.

With the extra found time, Emily has been sewing with my machine, and recruited Grace to do the same.  Here they are showing their matching "potato" stuffies.

William wanted a picture with the city he created.

Emily made a "mini avocado" and was disappointed when it was actually true to size. = )

We had what I thought was going to be some caterpillar drama.  One of the caterpillars was the first to become a chrysalis, and it looked like one of the other caterpillars was intentionally bumping into the j shape.  Concerned, I read up on it, and it turns out that sometimes the caterpillars will cannibalize one another, even if food is plentiful.  I was too tired to separate them out, so I went to bed leaving the situation for the next morning.  Luckily, they all "j-ed" that night, so I didn't have to deal with separating them.

One Saturday, the facilitator of the mural meeting was late, I took a picture of the crew standing around waiting (I love urban shots like this.)  We left before she arrived, because we had a list of errands to knock out.

Radio Company released their new album earlier this month. It's the first time I've bought an album on it's release day, in a long time, if not ever!  It is a good album, but short.

I met up, in person, with real moms!  We hit dimes and Charlie's, and closed them both down (8 and 9 respectively.)

 

Avia had all 5 kids overnight at Aunt Rocky's.  They were so excited to go!  Grace and Juliet were the first two ready!

A picture of our newly acquired caterpillars!

The kids wanted to play the game that went with "Rise, Sally, Rise" that they learned in Solfa, so they did.

On a different Saturday, the mural facilitator had us practice painting on the wall.  We were to paint a gradient. Alice was fast, and finished before I could snap her picture.  

Emily made a very pretty rainbow gradient circle.  I did purple in mine, but neglected to take a picture of mine.

In one of our books, we read about St. Lucia day, and how the protagonists' mom had made pig shaped cakes to celebrate.  Her recipe called for cornmeal and molasses apparently.  I couldn't find any such recipe, and the traditional Swedish version had recipes that would take around 2 hours (if you are able to focus on the task.)  So, I found a simple cake recipe that called for molasses, and only took a few minutes to whip up and bake.  I put little pigs made of confectioner's sugar, on top, but literally only Emily noticed.  It made me wish that I hadn't spent the extra time getting out my cutter to make the pig.  But, the cakes themselves were a big hit!

Billy was travelling for work that week, down to Dallas.  They are in tornado season right now, so I got to worry about that while he was gone, but thankfully he was back by Friday. = )

I started assembling our science materials for next year.  I spread out all my 'saved' plastic baggies on the floor, so that I could find the appropriate size for the supplies for each experiment.  Each list had items that I collected from all over the house.  I was almost finished when I realized that not one of my children had messed with my strewn bags the entire time I was working.  What a new season, from small children always trying to kill themselves, to school aged children who leave things alone (and sometimes offer to help!)

I'm awaiting the last of our ordered books for next year, and still need to clean out some binders from this year, but our school supplies are looking really ready for next fall already!

later days