Failed Art Attempt

Life does not always work out as one would hope. That was ALL to apparent yesterday. Thing one and I worked on making cardinal eggs for art. They turned out well (shape, not to many lines or finger prints, etc.). I set up the toaster oven to "cook" them like the directions said. About 10 minutes into the process, Thing Two was clearing his dishes to the kitchen, when I hear "Mom, there's smoke coming out of the toaster oven!!" Good day gone bad in an instant. The eggs and nest were on fire, there was gray smoke coming out of the oven, and it smelled gross. I got things turned off, unplugged, and began opening windows. Finally got some hot pads and walked the toaster oven out to the patio (made of concrete) and dowsed it with water from the house.

We're laking an art project and a toaster oven.

We gained an appreciation for fire safety, not leaving things unattended, a house that could have SO easily burned down, and that cleaning the burned plastic smell out of the cabinets is not such a big thing in life.

Before and after pictures to come (don't think the after eggs have been thrown out yet!).

Chocolate Croissants

We have a tradition at our house to make chocolate Croissants, the first Saturday, after pay period. As that is today, I thought I'd blog about it. Following are photos and directions for how we go about it.

1st: Take out the 8 croissants out. Lay them out on a cookie sheet in sets of two as seen to the left. Pinch the diagonal seem together. You will then have four, rectangular croissants.








2nd: Sprinkle with chocolate chips, as many or as few as you want. To many, though, and it's hard to roll up.










3rd: Roll up and pinch seems together.









4th: I like to set the filled croissant with the seem down. To the left, are the first four (one package of 8 croissant). Continue with the same steps if you are using two packages.









5th: Bake as directed. Here are our homemade chocolate croissants.

New Routines

How are you at establishing new routines? Right now, my track record is not so good. On the Five in a Row Boards, there has been a lot of discussion about Work Box System, by Sue Patrick, for organizing homeschool activities for your kids. It seems like a great idea, twelve clear boxes with one activity per box. You can change the order around every day, have independent work or work with mom stuff; the goal is to get your homeschool kid more independent and to be able to "see" home much more work there is to do.

Had hopes of setting up a variation of this for my boys by today, but didn't make it. I'm not going to "beat" myself up over not getting it (any variation) finished, however will work at it this week. I did make some progress though, the post below this one shows my meeting with the boys as to what they want more of in school and what they do like.

Now I'm off to get started with the day! Have an enjoyable one readers.

Our first school meeting

I mentioned a taboo word this afternoon, the dreaded S word. Boy did I get a lot of fussing from Thing One and Thing Two. "The word?", you ask. SCHOOL.

Not until I started asking the questions did they relax and actually enjoy our time together. The result of our five minute meeting is as follows.

LIKES:

• fun stuff like field trips
• sink and float experiment = more hands-on, science type stuff
• nature study
• Mommy cuddle time

WE NEED:

• recess after Five in a Row
• more Wii or D.S.
• side walk chalk
• bean bag toss
• show and tell
• snack
• charts - numbers, letters, etc.
• school games

Guess I've got my work cut out for me. Off to come up with some school games, charts, and maybe some other stuff.

Almost Six Years in the Making

Yes, this simple Winnie the Pooh cross-stitch has taken me almost 6 years to complete. It was purchased around Memorial Day 2003 for Thing Two. I worked at it, regularly, for a short while, finishing off the honey pot and red shirt, but life intervened. Around April of 2007, I picked it up, once again, with the thought of finishing it, and started on Pooh's belly. I got about half way, in one direction, and stopped again. This time, picking up knitting as a hobby instead.

Well, about two weeks ago, or so, and in between knitting projects, I picked it up again. This time, I was determined to finish it, before Thing Two out grows all things Winnie the Pooh. This morning, thankfully, I finished the inner, light blue border and will have it framed in the near future. What a relief to have this finished.

I can now get back to my knitting with out this one project hanging over my head. Woo Hoo!!!!

P.S. Will blog about Williamsburg on another day. Should be interesting considering the wide range of weather we've experienced this week.

Williamsburg and Nature

The first day we were in Colonial Williamsburg we came across this hawk sitting near a squirrel bray. It was neat to watch the hawk and squirrel play "cat and mouse" as the squirrel tried to get to it's nest. In the second photo here, you can see the hawk's back and left wing extended trying to scare the squirrel away. It did finally make it to it's nest.















There was also a fair amount of snow on Monday as well in Williamsburg. Occasionally (possibly only the second time in about 9 years) I like to take a series of photos, focusing on one spot, but getting closer with each shot. Think it creates a neat effect. These three photos were all taken from inside the unit. In the first, you can see the unused patio, it was just to cold and winter like that day to eat outside (by Friday, it was almost 70 degrees and little sign of snow).


Here, no signs of man, just a white lawn where no one has walked and the woods.









The shrub before the forest, covered in snow.









So, this was Williamsburg and our nature shots. Not many, but interesting non-the-less.