We had a great time trick-or-treating last night!
Sid went as Marlon Brando in The Wild Ones.
And I was an Egyptian again.
Hope you had a fun and safe Halloween, too!
For Miss Aveline, who will go as Pippi Longstocking:
Ave picked out the buttons, she felt that anchors were perfect for Pippi’s apron since Pippi is a seasoned seagirl aboard her father’s ship the Hoptoad. I concur.
For Miss June, who will go as Ponyo:
Here’s a previous post where I encouraged you all, dear readers, to go see Ponyo in the theaters. Watch the trailer again, it’s sure to lighten your spirits.
These are the pieces of the costumes that I sewed, along with my sketches. Pictures of the complete costumes, on the wearers will be featured later.
Happy Halloween!!
We learned in our Astronomy course (Exploring Creation with Astronomy by Apologia) that it is not safe to look directly at the sun, but that viewing the sun with a Solar Pinhole Viewing Box is safe! So we constructed one. See the teeny dot on the white paper?
That’s the sun shining through the pinhole we made in the foil, which was taped over a large square we cut into the opposite side of the box.
Supposedly, if your hole is big enough, you can sometimes see dark spots on the sun’s reflection on the paper and those are sunspots! We didn’t see any this day, but we’ll do some more solar viewing and try again.
Another day, while studying the sun, we got out the magnifying glass and melted and burned stuff.
I still am blown away that the sun’s rays can do that from roughly 93,000,000 miles away. How about there being solar flares that dwarf Earth? That makes me feel insignificant and significant at the same time. It’s so cool getting to relearn this stuff with my kids and hear their thoughts on these matters.
Sidney recently went to Barcelona for 7 days. It’s always weird when he’s away. I find myself feeling zombie-ish, or maybe it’s more like sad ghost-ish. I attempt to retreat from the feeling of being only half a person by doing things like adding multiple UFO and haunting documentaries to my instant queue and vegging out, tripping out and creeping out with my favorite friends (a.k.a. our kids).
We had a long Sunday that week that Sid was away, no school, no errands to run, no more UFO documentaries available on instant. I needed something to lose myself in to pass the long day. Sew . . . I sewed. The pattern came from a book I got from the bookstore in Mitsuwa a while back called Cotton & Linen. It has super cute patterns for projects made from cotton and/or linen. Good thing the instructions are illustrated cause the whole of the text is in Japanese.
I used a sheet I bought from a thrift store and the silvery bias tape I made from an old flat sheet of ours. I love this tank top! I extended the length beyond what the pattern called for. I like the fit a lot.
Photo by Jonny
Then, as a whole, we celebrated the 13th anniversary of our elopement the very next day. <3 4 ∞
A couple of weeks ago we studied the Ajanta Caves of India. We learned that the monks who carved out the caves and lived in them, painted the insides with beautiful frescoes. We saw some of those frescoes online and then, at the recommendation of our wonderful history curriculum, The Story of the World, we painted our own frescoes onto damp Plaster of Paris in our front yard. As we did so, Aveline said that she thought painting on plaster was more fun than going to Disneyland. Jonny, June and I enjoyed doing it as well.
Jonny painted a zombie and victim fresco.
Aveline painted this one and then requested that I add to hers the same flower I did on June’s. So it became a collaboration, she had me add the sky and I made the big plaster dollop into a billowy cloud.
June, Aveline and I all worked on this one.
In history we briefly discussed peoples who lived in the Himalaya Mountains in the Middle Ages. These people, we learned, relied on their woven clothing and blankets to stay warm. So we weaved.
Good thing nobody is relying on our woven goods for warmth. All we ended up with from our efforts was a woven rug for the doll house.
She seems to appreciate it well enough. Cozy?
How did Ave talk me into this? I was supposed to be starting dinner, but the little gal got a hankering for a fairy doll. My mind started reeling figuring out how to execute it, but I was set on starting dinner. Then I thought, “Jennifer, you know the kind of mom you want to be is the kind that would chuck everything, once in a while, to grant the whim-wish of one your precious children (especially your middle child).” And so Mary Fairy was born.
Ave got to pick the eye-buttons and lip floss color.
Her pink hair is made of fabric strips hand-sewn to her head.
