Happy May! Let's Catch Up on April

I used to blog on Friday mornings, but I haven't been home the past few.  So once again, I've gone longer between posts than I intended to.  

My Easter/spring bulletin board.  Students made the butterflies, using watercolor on coffee filters.  

Gotta take pictures of the bunny on Easter, right.  

I feel like it's been a while since I showed Tuzi.  

I was requesting books about Native Americans, in preparation for a discussion of the original inhabitants of the lands we'll be passing through on our summer trip.  The NA craft book caught my eye and I added it to the batch with an evil smile.  I'm not sure why they hate it so much, but I really feel like it's good problem solving practice for the girls.  Pictured above is Hannah's twig horse (deer?) that refused to stand on it's own.  

And here's Katie's project.

It reminds me a little of a Swedish Dala horse.  It's fascinating to me that cultures around the world have similar crafts.  Someone shared Italian papercutting on Facebook recently, and I was reminded of papercutting in both China and Mexico.  

I was not delighted to place this order.  Uniform buying with 8 weeks of school left is not my favorite.  But Katie had either lost, destroyed, stained, or outgrown most of her unis.  The way things usually work, if she managed to keep these nice to the end of the year (the tan skirt is already stained) she'd have a huge growth spurt over the summer and not be able to wear them next school year anyway.  :sigh:  

Tried something new!  I made white bean/chicken chili, and we liked it.  Yeah for a new menu item in our boring repertoire.  

I know I missed pictures of at least 2 library piles.  

We had an anniversary.  

Josiah was going for "bird nest" cupcakes, which we've made with jelly beans in the past (and green coconut).  But the only jelly beans I found were red, so they turned out looking more like holly/Christmas cupcakes.  

The weather has been beautiful, so I took Grumman out for a stalk in the back yard.  

I don't think I have a shot of the finished product, but we made hermit crabs in ocean scenes (it was a 2 week project), and one of my first graders called his "Scrachy" for some reason, which tickled my funny bone.  

Processing some new books for the library.

At some point we'll have a biography of every president.  That day is not today.  Tomorrow's not looking good, either.  

I was struck by the size difference between Fiona (left) and Grumman (right).  He's so much taller and longer than she is, yet they're the same weight.  

I picked up some new snapdragons to fill in the hole between the middle yellow section and the right yellow section.  There's some babies growing there from seed, too, so it should fill in a bit soon.  I'm concerned we're going to lose the plant on the right this year, though.  They last about 3-4 years here, which is great, but they've started to look withered and dry, and they're not bouncing back.  

We read dinosaur poems for poetry month so I wore my dino skirt.  

Paul had Katie pull some weeds as a consequence for an issue at school.  

I took Tuzi's cage outside to give it a good cleaning, and Grumman was so offended that I was outside, and the bunny was outside, and he was stuck in the house.  

Fiona availed herself of the opportunity to check out the bunny cage, since the lid was open.  

Fortunately, Tuzi was still outside in the playpen when she did that.  

Not to be outdone, Grumman had to weird out over the playpen box.  

This is where I'm going to split the post so it doesn't end up being a mile long.  More pictures tomorrow.   

Our Spring Break Week

I've been sewing!  I went to a quilt show with a friend, and came home with some new fabric, which inspired me.  

Here are the fabrics I picked up.  The center is a charm pack that coordinates with the two prints on the left.  

I decided these needed to be a bag.  These are the (sideways) front and back of the bag.  

I had the yellow piping in my bias tape bin.  The white is the lining of the external pocket.  

I picked up some foam interfacing at JoAnn's.  This is the "trying to figure out how to sew the guts and have everything right side out at the end" part.  

Seriously, Fiona?  Usually Grumman is the one messing with my sewing stuff.  

He must be a bad influence.  

The finished bag, side one.  Straps are made from navy, extra wide, double fold bias tape with a stripe of lime twill tape.  

And side two.  The inner lining is the bottom navy print.  I bought a Bagnet that's the baby green of the lower right charm square.  

Katie had a biome diorama project for school.  This is the "working on it the night before it's due, in pajamas with bath hair" picture.  

This is the, "Hey, Hannah, take a picture of your sister's finished project for me" on the way to school shot.  

Ah, now this is what usually happens.  While I was puttering in the sewing room, I found a UFO and decided to finish it.  So when I picked up the foam interfacing for the bag, I also got a yard of minkee to back the little blanket I was working on.  I got to the point where I was ready to put them together, so I spread the minkee out on the floor, and Grumman lost his mind.  He ran over, slid onto it like a baseball player, grabbed it, bit it, bunny kicked it...  little psycho.  

Eventually, I shoed the Grum away and serged the top to the minkee.  Then it was time to bind the edges.  My basket of bias tape yielded almost enough bias tape.  :sigh:  

The finally finished product.  (This UFO was started during the mask sewing part of the pandemic, 3 years ago.)  It's a small blankie, a good car seat size, so I'm sending it off to Texas for the grandbabies.  

I spy Fiona in the window.  

JoAnn's is dangerous for me.  Even though I went with a list of like 5 items I needed, I ended up with a few extras.  Such as this Starry Night inspired print that became napkins backed in navy flannel.  

And there's my Grum-lin (Grumman the gremlin) who immediately came over to "model" with them as soon as I tried to take a picture.  

Proof of life that Jack still exists.  He had something on his elbow that he couldn't see, so I was going to take a picture of it so he could look at his elbow.  He recently had a birthday and got new sheets as one of his gifts.  Because when you're an adult, presents can be practical.  

Katie brought home her mountain biome in one piece, so I took a better picture of it.  

While we were on Spring Break, Katie got the opportunity to participate in a medical study at Shriners.  

They took some measurements, we answered some surveys, and they had her do some step ups to get her heart rate up.  Then we went to the lab for a little finger stick blood test, and then a couple more measurements and we were done.  It was an easy way for us to give back in a small way for all the care we have received there.  

Dropping Jack off at work, we often see bunnies in the mornings, but this was the closest one we've seen.  I'm always afraid of hitting them as I roll through the teardrop shaped loop where I let him out, so I go really slowly.  

Having a week off has been a nice rest.  We've had one "thing" each day, but not been so booked up that it's been stressful.  Hopefully we'll go back refreshed and ready to hit the massive twirly slide that is the chaos time between Spring Break and the end of the school year.  

Our Week Turned Into Our Month

I started a post on March 3, got distracted, and never finished it.  So I have a bit of catching up to do.  

We got a couple of new St. Patrick books this year.  This one rhymes, and I read it to my younger students.  I wrote my own read aloud for the older kids.  

Josiah had covid again, and Hannah was sick, so I tested her, but fortunately, she didn't catch it.  Just some garden variety bug.  

Continuing to utilize our public library on a weekly basis.  We used to go on Saturdays, but more and more we end up going after school on Thursday or Friday.  

Speaking of reading, I got up for a minute, and when I came back, Grumman had commandeered my spot!  

There was a concert at school.  Hannah played a couple of piano pieces.  

And both girls sang.  

My 6th graders are clamoring to do book talks, because every 3 book talks earns them a duck.  

Going through the car wash by myself is still one of my favorite things.  

I know snapdragons are supposed to be an annual, but no one told mine.  They last about 3-4 years for me here.  These guys are volunteers that sprang up across the path from where I planted them.  I need to get a couple more plants this year.  I have a big blank spot in my planter.  

Annaliese came for a visit and took the girls to Target.  Hannah came home with a grown up pair of scissors, among other things.  She wanted a sheath for them, so we made one from duct tape.  

And the, "really mom?" teenager look.  

A sweet little book I read my students.  It's about a dog that rescues a little duckling in a storm, and their friendship that develops.  

The nice, clean, before picture.

My mom gave me some neon cardstock.  So I decided we'd use that to practice our cutting skills, and I bought some neon paint to add flowers to them.  (I tried the paint on black paper. but the results were disappointing.)

And the kindergarten neon vases.  

I got a British Monarchy Family Tree poster for my birthday.  Being a big history geek, I've been adding a few post its here and there, where there's not enough detail.  

Spring has sprung in the library.  My big kids helped me with this month's bulletin board butterflies, so we talked a bit about the butterfly life cycle.  

Easter books are out.

The middle school and high school students went to a cooking class field trip.  

They made fried rice.

The finished butterflies (watercolor on coffee filters, with pipe cleaners) and bulletin board.

Hannah is holding the books in place to they don't topple over.  

This week is standardized testing at school, so I only have preschool, K and 1st grade classes coming to the library.  And next week is spring break.  Looking forward to it!