New Glass Panel

So here is what I risked life and limb for...well, at least limb! I've had it in my head to do something like this for a long time. The pic just doesn't do it justice! I think the light from the surrounding windows washed out the picture (click on the pic to make it larger, that might help). It's 45'' x 20.5", and I put it up in our living room. The trees are made of a vinyl sticker, and I love them! One thing I particularly love in the PNW are the beautiful sunsets with the trees silhouetted, and I wanted to try to recreate this. You can't see the panel at all from the front of the house (it's behind our lace leaf maple), so you need to come visit! It's above where I do my daily quiet time, so I will be able to see it light up as the sunsets get later in the winter. I am really going to enjoy this!

Ilea

Ilea went to a birthday party where they had an amazing face painter! She used the colors in Ilea's shirt, pink, white and lt orange to match her face in wonderful swirls. She also used silver sparkles to give it some pizazz. She looked great, and got lots of double looks for the rest of the day! And even after a shower, there were sparkles on her face the next morning!

Kyler

I think I've mentioned before that Kyler is one of the luckiest kids I know? While we were at the skating rink, a boy whom he'd just met gave him 50 cents. Since he couldn't buy any food for 50 cents, he went to the coin machines. His broke, and started spilling out 9 or 10 little containers with toys in them. Some had rubber animals and some had tattoos. Kyler had one of these small rubber animals before, a pig, and now he had a bunch more. 2 dogs, a pig, a cow, a hippo, a monkey, a bear, and an elephant. So he decided to make a home for them. He realized he needed 2 environments, and made one for each group. He put little platforms on the trees for the monkey to sit on, and vines hanging down. There is even a pond for the hippo and elephant, and mud hole for the pig. He always surprises me with how creative he can be!

Z is for....

Zip Zap Races! And Again, I am totally copying our friends! In fact, we even borrowed one of their cars to use! These remote controlled cars are called Zip Zaps. The kids enjoyed setting up the obstacle course and had fun with the cars even though the charges don't last long. Sorry these posts are so late...we did finish our alphabet activities last week, since that was supposed to be the last week of summer....we should be starting school next week, and hopefully things will get back to normal!

Y is for...

Yarn Eggs! I saw a fantastic book on Easter eggs in the library. We picked Yarn eggs for Y-day of course. We'll keep them until spring. They are blown first, and then just use glue and yarn. It was a little hard because your fingers got sticky from the glue and then stuck to the yarn. The kids made 1 each. If you use toothpicks to help keep the yarn in place, it's a little bit easier, and 2 people helps. I ended up helping Kyler and it came out fine. They look great, and will be a great addition if they make it until next April!

X is for...

X Shaped Pancakes! Yes, I am shamelessly copying our friends the Littles with thier idea for X day! The kids didn't want to do anything that really started with 'e', like extra, excite, extreme, and we didn't have access to a xylophone or x-ray. So here goes.

Also, as a follow up to Vinegar experiments, we played with our 'rubber' egg a little bit. It is a fun experiment. About 1 second after I snapped the picture the egg popped! They both did get to hold it and feel it, and maybe if we left it in the vinegar longer it would have been stronger. They were interested in how it could transform so much! It was a good idea, even if it took a few days to finish.