Sunshiny Kitchen

At long last, we've finished the kitchen!  ("Before" pictures here)

We went with a light buttery yellow with a stronger yellow on the door (and the wall with the big window) and a very light version of the same yellow for the trim.  The door picture actually shows the colors correctly, some of the other pictures look more lemony than buttery.

We liked the big open window seat so much that we decided to store the cookbooks and home school stuff elsewhere, and make it a real seat!

We couldn't find pre made cushions, so, after some hours of trying, we went to the fabric store and got foam and fabric for the seat cushion and some coordinating fabrics for pillows.  In the picture, I haven't finished the pillows, but we just did for Girls' Night!

I want to make some pot holders out of the extra turquoise duck that we used to cover the foam, to tie in the rest of the kitchen, but it really looks nice with the blue/green of the counter tops.

 But moving all that stuff out of the window meant organizing some place else to put it all: the guest room/office/planning center.

I now have all my "school" books in the same place, along with the copier and all the filing stuff.

Plus, I have a desk!

So that just leaves the home school room...

Oob Wants You to Know

I have a walking stick, and I have a cape, and I have a hat, and a beard, too!

And I have a sword!

Kazoo Madness

Klenda and Zorg each have a kazoo.  They each play their kazoo very, very well.  They have figured out how to play all the music from Super Mario Brothers as well as Mozart's variations on Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  They play in tune, they even play in harmony.

They only problem is...they still sound like kazoos.

They are driving me nuts.

This may all count as unattended consequences since I have been busy painting the kitchen, a Sisyphean, Herculean, really big job that involves taking apart everything in the most used room in the house, detailed cleaning and organizing, and piecing back bits of it around meal times so we can, you know, eat. The Sisyphean part is the continual accumulation of dishes as I paint.

I can see why I haven't done it for nine years.

The Zoomlians have been helping quite a bit, but the rest of the time they are off working on their own projects.  Unfortunately, one of the projects is becoming professional kazoo players.

Zorg (as I enter the room after hearing them play an assortment of Star Wars music): Hey, Mom, what's your favorite song?

Fortunately, my mind went completely blank at the prospect of my favorite song being rendered by dueling kazoos.  Seriously, I could not think of a single song.  At all.

Tie Dye

This year, I really want to do more art projects, and how better to start than an easy end of summer tie dye?

The kids all did shirts, and my apron got splashed in the process, so I thought, "Why not?"

Leena's shirt was in the wash, so she graciously did camera duty.  Thanks, Leena!

Mxyl did free hand drawing on his: a cross, a light saber (embellished after the fact with markers), the Blender symbol, and a ring.

Oob (who decided he did not want his picture taken), has a green and blue splashed shirt with red letters.  The letter dye bled enough that the casual observer can't tell what they say, but he knows: PVZ.

Speaking of which, did you hear the big news?  PVZ2, coming next Spring! 

Not that I'm excited or anything.  I just hope it comes out in time for Zombie Day.

Seven Quick Takes Friday

1. What do you call it when you ignore your 5 year old and he breaks Styrofoam into a million teeny tiny pieces, each statically charged to cling to everything else in the house?

Unattended consequences.

2. Did you know that 3 out of three repairmen who visit your house will find having a life sized giant squid battling a shark on the ceiling to be... odd?

But none of them will mention it.

I find that odd.



3. We have completed The Great Migration!  The redoubtable Bill spent quite a bit of the week changing over all of our computers (three for three).  I was waiting for David Attenborough to show up and start narrating: "This CPU looks harmless enough, to be sure, but lurking unseen within the case, we have another matter..."

4. Actually, I feel as though a lot of my life would benefit from David Attenborough narration.  This is also the fault of the indefatigable  Bill, who has recorded several hundred David Attenborough documentaries for me.  We are HUGE fans!  In case you've missed him, this is why:

5. We had our First Day of No School!

This is an annual event in which we celebrate that the summer crowds are gone at all the parks and museums.  Or maybe we are celebrating that we aren't tied to the school schedule.  Or, maybe, I'm just celebrating that I get to be with my kids.

At any rate, we went off with another family of homeschoolers to Watkin's Park.  Our kids call the place, "the big enormous playground with the little tiny zoo."  The zoo (nature center) is made up of injured raptors, and a wide assortment of exotic pets that outgrew their owners.  So fun!

Here Choclo and Oob watch the turtles.

6. Mxyl started his 3D modelling class!  His first assignment was to take a dozen, randomly sized and placed eggs, get them all the same size, and put them in a basket. The eggs and basket were made by the teacher and started out in black and white.

Homeschoolers, what can you do?!

7. Happiness is... Reading with Dad!

More with Jen at Conversion Diary

Found Science

We walked to Mass the other day.  While our usual parish, St Jerome's, is at least 5 miles away, there is also a much closer parish where we like to go for daily Mass.

It's a one mile walk each way - a nice distance for exercise, conversation, and finding things.

That day we found a dead cicada, an unidentified strange bug, an hibiscus flower (in our yard), and a butterfly wing.

Except, when we looked at it under the microscope, we discovered it was not from a butterfly!

I knew that butterflies had smooth bodies and moths had hairy ones, but I did not realize that moths have microscopic hairs on their wings!  In fact, each of the tiny scales which give the wing it's colors, ended in three hairs!!

This particular wing was pretty beaten up.  It had a section in which many of the scales had come off.  What were the tiny bubbles? Zorg wanted to know.  It turned out that the wing itself is perfectly clear except for many carefully arranged holes where the scales once fit. Amazing!

We also looked at the other insect wings with the scope,and the bodies and flower with magnifying glasses.

Sea Week: Bubbly

 It's been a rough few weeks and months.  Lots of people in the hospital (my father in law's dad is in now), a few deaths (three in the past week), the strokes, and various sickness.

And the loss of our own little one.

One reason I did Sea Week last week (and into this week) was to give the kids something to focus on beyond all the heavy stuff.

Here are Klenda and Zorg making the shark.

Here is Mxyl putting up the squid's mantle.

It's amazing having kids big enough to reach the ceiling!

 Remember the bubble painting?

I finally got around to using those in a collage!

We cut out bean shapes, with a large hole on one end (Mary's face) and a smaller hole lower down (Baby Jesus' face).

The kids glued the bean shape to other paper, then drew the faces.

This was a simple, sweet craft that worked well for a wide spread of ages.  Mxyl (top) did a detailed face using proportions he learned in a portraiture video, Choclo did a smiley face (and made Baby Jess say, "Goo!").

We did it on the Feast of the Assumption.

I had providentially stumbled across these foam sea life stickers while excavating perusing the home school room.  We used the extra bubble paintings as a back ground for under sea scenes.

Klenda's was the most elaborate.  She cut orange bubbles for sand, blue for water, and an edge piece for the dolphins jumping out of the water!

Sea Week: The Return of the Squid

 It's been a long time since we've had a squid in the house!

This time, for sea week, we had two teams: Squid Team and Shark Team.

Yes, I did have an illegal amount of fun calling out, "Squid Team!"

Squid Team built this life sized model of a giant squid!

Squid Team roll call: Mxyl, Leena, and Oob.

It's really hard to take a picture of anything 50 some feet long indoors.

The mantle alone is ten feet, it's arms are 20 feet long (orange), it's tentacles are 40 feet (red), and it's eyes are the size of dinner plates - no, wait, they are dinner plates!

Shark Team built this life sized model of a young Great White shark!

Shark Team roll call: Klenda, Zorg, and Choclo.

Our shark was only 10 feet long and about 5 feet wide at it's widest point (counting fins)

I found it astonishing that they were able to sketch out the shark with no input from me besides finding a book with a shark picture!

Naturally, the shark and squid had to be locked in mortal combat, because, you know, they were right there!

Since we were sticking sea life to the ceiling, we made an assortment of fanciful balloon fish to feed them keep them company.

Sad News

Patrick has died.  Thank you so much for your prayers!  He was able to hang on for his whole family to come be with him (half his family is from Ireland).  Please continue to pray for his family.

Patrick Update

Unfortunately, I have bad news.

Patrick has had a lot of internal bleeding and his brain is swelling.  They did a brain death test today, and it showed no brain activity, even in his brain stem (which controls basic bodily functions and is the last to shut down).

They will do another test after 24 hours just to be absolutely sure, but, I think it would be a major miracle if he survives.

Please continue to pray for this little boy and his family.  They still don't know what happened to cause all this, or why he went in the car to begin with.