Lemonade

I like lemonade.  No secret.  My Girl likes to make lemonade and we set up a stand in the kitchen and sell it to each other and the stuffed animals. 

We have two lemon trees in the backyard.  One is quite large and has plenty of lemons.  They are still mostly green, but coming along nicely.  The other is a small dwarf meyer lemon tree that we got as a wedding gift.  It is well traveled having moved from California to Utah and back.  Now that it is back in it's native land it seems happy, but is rather neglected.  I actually got better and bigger lemons in my Utah living room where I had to baby it with special light, just enough water, and polinate the blossoms with a paint brush.

I've discovered that while I like the basic lemonade I like variations even better.

Basic Lemonade
2 quarts of water
Juice of 2 or 3 lemons about 2/3 cup
2/3 cup sugar disolved in 1 cup water

Variations
1.  Sweeten with rose syrup instead of sugar.  This is great hot or cold.

Rose syrup is bright pink and smells like roses.  The flavor is fantastic in small doses.  You don't need much.  I had a bottle I got from a room mate ages ago.  I think she got it from a friend.  That bottle said made in Lebanon.  I finally used it up and found more at the International market not far from here.  Even though it is called an international market I believe the family who runs it is Lebanese so I was pretty sure to find it.  They also have Halva, a wonderful sesame treat.

2.  Muddled mint, cinnamon stick, and anise.

We were out for lunch and the lemonade was so delicious.  The waitress told me what had been added.  I don't know anything about the amounts or how it is prepared.  I'll need to experiment.  You could see the mint floating in the pitcher.  I could just add the extra ingredients to the lemonade and mix it around a bit or I could make a simple syrup infused with the cinnamon and anise.  Any suggestions?

What's your favorite lemonade.
 

Reading

Here's what we've been reading lately.  By "we" I mean she.  My girl is starting to read.  We figured out Buddy boy could read when at four years old he asked us to explain "all you can eat pizza".  He'd read it off an ad at the pizza place.  Until that point I didn't know he could read much of anything.  I guess the Electric Company he had been watching worked. After that we got him books at the library to read himself.  He loved it and still does.

My girl wants to read now, but she won't watch Electric Company so I guess I'll teach her.  We talk about letters and their sounds as we do our thing during the day and read books like the sound box books below.  I've also done a little with word families.  Books like Play with "i" and "g" and the flip a word books by Harriet Ziefert  help with that.  Now she is starting the Bob books.  She is very excited to have books that SHE can read.

Buddy Boy has been reading too of course.  He is mostly interested in non-fiction.  He has really been enjoying the Magic Treehouse Research Guides.  We've read about ancient Rome, Greece, and Egypt, and pirates.  Over the summer he read a lot about gems and crystals and caves.  I love our library.  Along with all this informational and hightly educational non-fiction, he reads Asterix and Obelix, Calvin and Hobbes, and Tin Tin.   It was fun to watch him make the connection between the facts about Julius Cesear conquering the Gauls and Asterix.  There's a Tin Tin movie coming out this December, but I think it might be too intense for the kids.  We'll watch it on DVD in a few years.

Spooky food

The other day after school the kids asked for a spooky food snack.  Here is what I came up with.

Deviled egg eyeballs.  Spooky enough for you?

p.s.  My girl is wearing the original all-day-all-night gown.  The neck kept growing and was nearly down to her navel so I used part of a shirt she had outgrown to fix the problem.  The white is a cotton knit eyelet and not stretchy at all.  So cute.  It makes the whole thing look better.

Ninja

It all started here, in Ninjago, the land of the Lego masters of spinjitsu.  We bought the minifigures.  We bought the books.

Cole DX - ninja of earth

Then I saw the cookie cutters and couldn't resist.  Because really, who can resist a ninja-bread man?

Now that it's almost Halloween it is time for costumes.  Buddy boy has been asking for a ninja costume for quite awhile.  So here it is, finally, ninja moves and all.

I found the black knit for a great deal.  The only drawback is that it is 100% polyester.  Or maybe that's a plus.  His costume will last forever.  Archeologists will ponder over the significance of the golden dragon.  I used pants and shirts we already had as a pattern.  Thankfully these things do not require a precise fit.  The head thing is made from three more or less bullet shaped pieces sewn together to make a hat/hood/mask/whatever you call it, with a gap in the front one for his face, and ties coming out the sides that cross in front and tie in back.  I drew and cut freezer paper stencils for the dragon pattern and painted them using metallic gold fabric paint.

If only you could see the perma-grin under that ninja mask.

School pictures

Here he is last year.  My sweet boy.

And this year...

Who's little gap toothed ragamuffin is that?

So I have to wonder.  Is My Boy pulling a little Calvin here or is Bill Watterson just really tapped in to six year old boys.

Tablets

At school Buddy Boy is studying Ancient Rome in one of the afternoon centers.  Each center includes four lessons on a topic.  They are all taught by parents.  Last year I taught potions to the lower grades (K-2).  This year some of the lower grade center topics include simple machines, cooking, gardening, theater, outdoor games, and digital photography.  There are others, but I don't remember them right now.  The upper grades usually have different topics.

Back to Rome.  Last week they talked about architecture and aquaducts.  This week it was about Roman numerals and Latin.  They made writing tablets which were pretty cute.  My girl saw Buddy Boy's and wouldn't let it go, so we made one for her.  They are pretty simple.  Two cardboard rectangles and a cardboard frame of the same size, modeling clay and a little bit of lacing to hold it all together like a book.  There you have it, the original laptop.

The modeling clay doesn't need to be very thick and may be better if it's thin.  At the most it is the thickness of the cardboard.  As you can see we didn't have enough of any one color for My Girl's tablet, but that's OK.

Satchmo - one more time

Last year I made a paper cut for my brother.  He had requested a Louis Armstrong picture.  I made one and it got lost when I used it as a sample for the school silent auction last fall.  It only took me a year to get around to the replacement.  It is quite different.  I hope he likes it.

Sew fun

Awhile ago I saw these shirts on Pinterest.  Since My Girl likes elephants and Buddy Boy has been trying to fly, I thought that they were the perfect thing.

So I made my own versions.  I love how the sleeve is the elephant trunk and the arms are the airplane wings.  So much fun.  Here is the airplane shirt for Buddy Boy.  At first it was WAY too big, but now it just fits.  Hopefully he won't grow too much in the next few weeks.  I have extra grey to lengthen the arms or body if needed.

I did the propeller and the rest with a freezer paper stencil. I had the metallic silver fabric paint, but the red is regular craft paint. I think that the fabric paint is better. It's thicker and more flexible when dry.  The red looks fine now, but I'm not sure how it will wear or wash.

And here is an action shot.

Now for the elephant.

I really like it.  It was a little short so I added a bit of a ruffle on the bottom.  I thought I had my bases covered.  Pink, check... elephant, check... ruffly bottom, check...

 Then I ran into a problem, an absolute refusal to wear long sleeves.  She wouldn't even try it on.  I'm really hoping she changes her mind when it gets cold.

Sailing, sailing

Dad likes sailing, not that we have really done much together, but that doesn't matter.  His uncle had a boat and he did some sailing with his family as a kid and teenager.  We rented a little Hobie cat for an afternoon on our honeymoon, but that was awhile ago, and I wasn't very good at it.  I had a hard time getting the concept for some reason.  Anyway, we are now the proud owners of this little 8 foot el toro sail boat.  The shovel on top tells you it's an el toro.  One of the advantages of this boat is that it is small enough to put on top of our minivan.  It needs a little work on the paint and varnish, but is otherwise in good shape with all of it's parts.
 

I think it will be a lot of fun.  As you can see it isn't very big, only one or two people.  One website said it was perfect for two children to sail.  It will be awhile before I let the kids go out by themselves on this thing.  My girl needs to learn to swim first.  When they are old enough to sail on their own I think we need another one so that we can race, assuming I learn to sail the little things before then.

There are a couple of reservoirs nearby that will be perfect for sailling this little boat.  I'm looking forward to it.

Do you like the new haircut?  She says she looks like Dora the Explorer.  I like that there is a lot less complaining about combing.  We both win.

A big bead

Awhile ago I ran across a book on wire crochet jewelery.  I was interested.  I like wire.  One of the projects was a bead like this.  It reminded me of the beautiful jewelry by Niiro, the Entangled collection.  The example in the book was a 1.25 inch cube.  I went with a smaller oval bead.  It was pretty easy to do, just chains slip stitched together wherever they cross.  You start with a larger hook and go smaller and smaller until you completely cover the wooden bead you started with.  After I decided the wire was thick enough I tucked the end in and tapped it all down with a hammer to pack the wire all together and smooth it out.  You can still see a little bit of wood through the wire, but I'm done.  I like it even though it is pretty big and I'm more of a small simple jewelry person.  I also need to string it on something a little better than balloon ribbon.  I'm still thinking.