Kid Books

Today we had our kid book book club.  We usually do this in December, but you know, now it's February and we are finally getting around to it.  Part of the problem seems to be finding a day after school when all of us can make it.  It's getting harder as the kids get older.  We may need to start having book club overlap with park day once a month.  Once school is out it will be easier.

Here are the books I brought.

I started reading James Gurney's art blog and then found his Dinotopia books at the library.  We've been working our way the series at bed time.  They are great.  A nineteenth century man and his son are shipwrecked in a dinosaur/human utopia.  The illustrations are wonderful.  Color and Light is an art book all about painting, you guessed it, color and light.  I've read quite a few art books from the library.  This is one of the best I've read.  I'm not through it yet since I only read a bit at a time.

Buddy Boy isn't a fan of Math.  What he means by that is that he isn't a fan of arithmatic work sheets.  He does fine in math at school, but I wanted him to see that there was more to math than arithmatic.  These books are great for that.  A friend told me about I Hate Mathematics.  It is probably better for kids who are a little older, but he still enjoys it.  The other bookwas on the same shelf at the library and is part of a Time Life children's series called I Love Math.

My Girl's favorites are Elephant and Piggie.  They are wonderful.

This one was a favorite among the kids, especially the boys.  Brick of Mormon Stories, stories from the Book of Mormon illustrated with photos of Lego minifigures.  This isn't professionally done and you can tell from the photography and layout, but he reads it and enjoys it.

I didn't take this one, not PC.  It is however still a book that both Buddy Boy and Dad really enjoy together.

These Basher Science books have been pretty popular at our house.  Boddy Boy is really interested in crystals, minerals, gold, and now space, thanks to a space science center at school.  There are many others in the series which include other branches of science.

Happy Valentine's Day

I have a very social daughter.  For weeks she has been talking about her Valentine's Day party and wouldn't let it go so I figured we might as well do it.  I'm not a party person, but she may change that.  It's one of, or really the main reason we decided on five day a week preschool for her next year.  She'll love it.  Her best friend will be there with her and some of her other friends are starting kindergarten so they won't be available for morning playdates anyway.  Buddy Boy was completely different.  He would still rather be at home with me.  They are just polar opposites in this way.
We invited a couple of friends over for the morning.  They came with their moms and younger siblings and I think we all had a good time.  We made heart sugar cookies.  We decorated them with colored sugar and sprinkles before baking to avoid the whole frosting step.  It worked well.

I cut hearts and words out of cardstock with my Sillhouette machine and we used them for little crafts.

We made Valentines, butterflies, flowers, and creatures.  I got the idea from Buddy Boy's Big Backyard magazine.  These are just a few that were left over after everyone went home.  The kids had fun, but it might work better with kids that are just a bit older.

After eating our cookies and strawberries there was dancing.  These girls are real dancers.  They loved it.  There was a bit of an issue about whether to do freeze dancing or regular dancing, but we did both and that seemed to please everyone.

So there you have it, our Valentine's celebration.  Dad and I celebrated by watching war movies and folding laundry.  We're hopeless romantics that way.

Alley in Eze

Here is a paper cut I did of a picture from the watercolor painting tutorial I did a couple months ago.  My painting is here.  I wanted to see what it would look like in a different medium.  It is interesting to see the differences.  If nothing else it really points out that my art in both mediums need a lot more work.

It isn't bad, but isn't great either.  You can't really tell that there are flowers in the pots.  I think that they should have been cream.  In the painting the center of interest is clearly the top of the stairs.  Here the doors and the arch are more interesting.  I may try to rework it a bit or do another one.  Perhaps an even more simplified two color version.

This is the original photo.

Actually, this is the original photo which I cropped for my painting and paper cut.  After looking at it again, perhaps it was a mistake to crop out the second arch.  I wanted a closer view so that I could include more detail, however the second arch is a nice repeated element.

Knits and crochet

I don't often sew with knit fabric, or maybe I do.  Here is my latest.  It isn't much to look at on the floor but I really like it.  It's pretty simple, a floor length knit skirt with a slight A-line.  It's versatile enough to wear often and long enough to wear over long johns, a full 42 inches from waist to hem.  I saw a long skirt in a catalog and the "tall" version was only 35 inches long.  The church is freezing in the mornings and this has helped a lot.  I wear it with some black ankle boots with high-ish heels.  It's been great.

Here is another winter project I finished up recently.  I've had the yarn since June.  It's an amazingly soft wool I bought myself for my birthday.  I had an idea to crochet a mobius scarf, a cowl with a half twist.  I got started on this one and never got the twist in.  I used a heavy yarn, a big hook, and a rib stitch to make it thick.  I like it.  I can wear it as a regular cowl like this.

Or I can add a twist like this. 

I have some yarn left over.  Maybe I'll try a different design as well.  But then what will I do with two cowls in the same color?

Finger painting

We had a good time finger painting the other day.  The weather was nice and I think that finger painting is best done outside.  We haven't done much finger painting.  I fear the mess after cleaning up after Buddy Boy when he was about the same age.  He was head to toe in paint multiple times.  My Girl is quite a different painter, sun glasses, apron, dainty painting one finger at a time, with a wash cloth to clean her fingers.

Here is one of the masterpieces.  Peaches on a blue tablecloth.

Here is my version.  I'd forgotten how much fun it can be to finger paint.

Movies now on Police Jones

The Police Jones website now features a movie.  This has been something lacking ever since Police Jones went live.  The technology and technical know how of the team have finally made it happen.  I helped construct the set.  My Girl and I pushed the button and Buddy Boy did everything else.  I must say he has the basic ideas down, but we do need to work on the execution.  It was a lot of fun.  Check it out.

The low tech how to.  We set my regular little camera on a stack of books to take the pictures.  A tripod and camera with a remote would make it easier to take pictures without moving the camera but weren't necessary for what we were doing.  We snapped whenever Buddy Boy told me he was ready.  I then resized the photos using Gimp to make the files smaller so that the software could handle them all.  This took awhile.  If anyone has a suggestion on how to resize a bunch of photos a quick and easy way I'd be glad to hear about it.  We then uploaded all 192 photos to MonkeyJam, some free stop motion software I found.  I set the frames per second rather low so the end result is rather jerky, but it makes the movie last a little longer and you can see what is happening a little better.  So snap some photos and have some fun!