Leaning Tower of Pisa

Our latest article project was on a recent earthquake in Italy. The article was an especially rich one and involved many different subjects. Because of Italy's many historic buildings, we made Leaning Towers of Pisa that I think turned out nice!

Natalie - note the clouds!

Caleb

Annalise

Pinata Prep

Natalie's birthday is almost here and she had two requests - a trip to the zoo and a pinata.  She has been extra excited about her birthday this year, so the pinata was gotten to right away.  She drew out what she wanted and we made it.

Irene with the front and back.

Painting the sides

Painting the back.

Adding the petals.

Finishing Touches

Voila!

And after all that, she still wants to hit it with a stick!

My Project

One of our neighbors has made a little front porch with paving stones and it made me start thinking about the little area next to the front door where we had a forest of philodendron growing. The philodendron was getting overgrown and I knew it needed to be thinned, plus there were some plants called "oyster plants" growing along the back corner that I wanted to get out permanently (just touching them causes skin irritation).  The kids helped me tear all that out and measure the area - even though it looks small it is about 42 square feet and the pavers are square foot pavers.  Being a penny pincher, I thought there had to be a DIY way, so I began looking into homemade paving stones.  In the end, I am not sure this will be much cheaper, but it is easy and fun to make the stones look unique.

Here are some stones drying:

And here are some finished stones:

I'm using cardboard boxes from Aldi for the forms.  It works very well - they hold up long enough for the concrete to set and tear away easily when the stones are dry.  (Plus they are free!)

As with anything, it has gotten easier as I've made more and more of these.  Fortunately, the only hard part of making concrete is lifting the 80 lb bag.  If you can make ramen noodles, you can make concrete.  Because I am dealing with small amounts of concrete, I've found it best to start with some water in my bucket and add scoops of concrete individually, mixing well between each scoop.  We have a drill attachment that makes this very easy.  Once the mix is about the thickness of pancake batter (for fat fluffy pancakes, not thin crepey pancakes), pour it into the mold.  At that point I pick leaves to leave an impression.  I wanted to go for sort of a concrete garden.  So far I have 16 stones - the product of two 80 lb bags.

The kids want to make a hand imprint stone, so that will probably happen before the project is finished!

DIY - Roofing

My husband - a man of so many talents I can't keep count!

Preschool Project: Thing Alphabet

I took down Natalie's Thing Alphabet today in preparation for starting school soon.  She really enjoyed making it and is suddenly very interested in writing letters.  She wrote the names of all her friends' names on her valentines, which is way beyond what I expected of her!  Valentines Day was so much fun for her this year.  She loves flowers and hearts and all things pink and lacy. 

Another thing she is excelling in is being a big sister. :) 

Knass Knock Off

There are a lot of u-pick strawberry fields around here.  It won't be that long before they'll be back in business and most of the fields boast extras like u-pick veggies, fresh fruit milkshakes, or cinnamon rolls.  The most popular that I know about is Knass Berry Farm in the Redlands.  It is worth the drive, the cost, and the wait in line for their hot cinnamon sticky buns.  But going out is harder these days, so I decided to try to make them at home.

I found a blog of someone who moved away from Miami and missed these rolls.  She had used the recipe from this site.  Only she omitted the orange zest and pecans to be like the Knass buns.  My result:

That's from Rob's phone, this one is from mine - doesn't take as clear pictures, but you can still see the sugar boiling on top of the rolls.

The dough was a rich, high fat dough (benefit to going to Knass - you don't know how many tablespoons of butter were used!).  I used dark brown sugar, but next time I will used light - the sticky part had a slightly burned caramel taste - not bad, just not subtle.  Also, I am going to try using a metal pan (instead of glass) and leaving the buns in the pan while the sugar cools a little.

All in all - they were very, very Knass like.  These are cheaper, but their price is not exorbitant.  To me, it always feels like we get there later than we intend to, end up waiting in line, and bring them home only to find they have lost the lovely warmth, so with these that did not happen!  I made them the morning we ate them, but the recipe calls for an overnight rise and that will make next time even easier!

Sleepy Hollow

Football is probably my favorite sport.  When my Slovak neighbor asked me why, I thought a while and realized that my liking it has a lot to do with liking the fall season.  Football reminds me of pleasant sounds, pleasant weather, and pleasant food.

Monster Cupcakes - ok, not all fall food is perfectly pleasant...

I recently picked up a book of short stories by Washington Irving which included the story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow".   I remember thinking that was a scary story when I was a kid (I hadn't read it, I had just seen the Disney version - and it is scary!), but reading it as an adult, I see that it is a funny story.  Ichabod Crane is such a ridiculous character and his encounter with the "Headless Horsemen", while intense, is clearly a set up.

"Sleepy Hollow" is a quick read and should interest you if you are interested in early U.S. culture.  It's set about a generation after the Revolutionary War and gives heavy, colorful detail of the landscape, people, and food.  In fact, it's description of food is enough to make you hungry!

[Ichabod Crane]'s mouth watered, as he looked upon this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind's eye, he pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce

 I found it particularly interesting because it is set in New York, and I have copies of old letters that suggests that at least some of my ancestors lived there before moving south.

More fall...Halloween!

Soaring!

Karana

Fairy Princess

Elizabeth II  (I like the crown Annalise made for her and it was super cute in person, but with the way she is holding her hand, I think it makes her look like the Pope!

Irene is wearing the same dress Natalie wore to be Elizabeth I in the PEP Renaissance faire.  Elizabeth I was a red head, but Elizabeth II had brown hair when she was young, so that is the "real queen" we decided Irene should be!

"Astrid, Toothless..."

Trial Run

A local shopping center had a pre-Halloween event today where the kids could trick or treat at the stores and participate in a costume contest. We would have gone just for the candy! But the contest boasted cash prizes - $150 for the first prize, $100 for 2nd and $50 for 3rd.  Personally I think the amount of money is kind of excessive, but it did bring out lots of kids in costume!

Toothless is a few days from being finished, but here is Hiccup.  The fur on the vest is from a baby bear costume we bought at Goodwill.  The helmet - also Goodwill.

Trying on Toothless:

Annalise's costume proved that it needed a trial run.  Definitely needs straps!  It fell to her waist and got caught in her shoes.  Plus she has too many accessories for her to be comfortable (you can't see her quiver in the picture) and she does not like the flower crown.

Fuzzy picture of our Fairy Princess, but her costume worked best.  Her homemade crown is most comfortable worn sideways, but that didn't bother her a bit!

Irene got tons of compliments in her queen dress.  We decided on Elizabeth II, because she had dark hair when she was young.  (Back in 2010, Natalie wore it as Elizabeth I, who was a redhead.)

Unhappy baby facing the sun.  Does anyone else think it looks like she's breathing fire?

After all this costume planning and creating, I am not going to feel guilty for taking a few samples of their candy!

Coming Together

A labor of love...

Costume Progress

We're making some progress here with our costumes...I think next year we are going to require costume requests to be less complicated.  Caleb told me today he thinks next year he'd like to dress as Abraham Lincoln!

I attached the Toothless head to the diaper box (see behind Caleb) with no problem.  The tail was too heavy.  So we set to work building a new tail.  It would have been nice to get it right the first time, but it was much easier to put together the 2nd time.

Our Fairy Princess has earned her wings!  The wings Natalie found at Goodwill attached with velcro instead of arm straps.  Yea!

I think Karana's yucca fiber dress is going to need straps!  Annalise is going to wear a ballet leotard underneath. 

Irene is just happy Mommy doesn't have to work on her costume!

Costume Sneak Preview

We are working on Halloween costumes when time allows. Time does not allow that much!  And when you hear our plans, you may think we have bitten off more than we can chew!

Caleb is planning to be Hiccup Riding Toothless.  We found several interpretations of this online and set about making our own version.  I was feeling kind of stumped and one day just sat down and made a tower of cardboard loops to start the tail.  From there, Toothless began to come together.

I thought at first we'd just do plain cardboard and paint it black like our shark head last year, but that involves "leatherizing" a great deal of cardboard, which is time consuming - although the cardboard is nice to work with at that point.  Instead, we are covering the cardboard with paper mache.  The tail is now ready to be attached to the body.

Tail fin attached.

Tail fin detail - the "veins" are straws cut in half lengthwise.

Horribly fuzzy picture of the tail with side fins attached.

For the head, I made a mouth of cardboard and a piece cut to look like a side view help with the shaping and to hold the mouth in place.  Then I took some packing paper and crumpled it around the head into a Toothless-ish shape - taping it to hold the shape.

I added on the eye and brow and the four ear-like parts.  They are straws covered with paper and once the head was paper mached, they looked pretty nice.

All this is going onto a diaper box and then we'll have to think about wings.  I don't know what we are going to do about them yet!  Fortunately, the Hiccup part of the costume should be easy.

Annalise is going to dress as Karana from Island of the Blue Dolphins.  Karana tells of two skirts she wears - one of yucca fibers and one of comorant feathers.  We are going to try to replicate the yucca one.  We have some fiber like fabric for that.  And Karana wears a wreath of flowers on her head and bone or shell jewelry.  She's also barefoot, but I think Annalise will have to wear shoes!

Natalie is going to be a Fairy Princess.  I had some sparkly purple fabric I got in the remnant bin and never used and made a somewhat rough dress for her.  She loves it and made a crown from cardboard and found the perfect pink wings at Goodwill.

Irene - the kids wanted her to dress as a hummingbird and we got so far as sketching a design, but I get the last say and this year, she is going to wear Natalie's old Queen Elizabeth dress.  We'll just find some brown haired historical queen to say that she is!

How to Get Free Donuts - a Lot of Them - Tomorrow

Tomorrow - September 19 - is Talk Like a Pirate Day and Krispy Kreme is observing it by giving away free donuts.  If you ask for a donut "like a pirate", they'll give you one donut.  If you DRESS "like a pirate", they'll give you a dozen.  You may remember that we participated last year!  We came home with 4 dozen donuts, shared them with everyone we could find on our street and still had donuts to throw away in the end.

The dozen donut giveaway requires that you include at least 3 pirate-y items in your costume.  So here is a quick tutorial on how to quickly create a tricorn hat:

Dig through your trash to find thick enough paper to make a hatband.  I used a political advertisement.  Cut into strips and staple into a circle that fits your head.

Cut three hill shapes from the long side of  black, brown, or your favorite color construction paper.

Staple hill shapes around the circle.

Staple ends of hill shapes together.

Voila - you can stop here or...embellish!

For Caleb we glued on a skull and crossbones, but I like feathers.  To create a feather - cut a long tapered shape from construction paper and snip the edges to make look...well...feathery.

Be sure to leave the middle!

Staple feather into inside of hat - I cut one of the snips too deep and had to reinforce with a toothpick and tape.

Be Blackbeard - minus the beard...

or Captain Smollett.

Add an eye patch and a hoop earring and you've got yourself a dozen donuts!