Thursday, October 30, 2008

waking up on your birthday

Derek's 6th birthday! We hung lots of streamers on his door and down the stairs after he fell asleep last night. He was very surpised when he woke up!
Katie dropped confetti on him as he went down the stairs.

His birthday party is Star Wars themed.

NO Peeking while I get your gift.

Keep those eyes covered.
Of course the presents that 6 year olds want are Legos! And big sisters
are behind you making bunny ears!

I hope you have a wonderful day! I can't believe you are 6 already!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Homemade PiΓ±ata – The Death Star

Keeping with our Star Wars theme for Derek’s birthday party we are making our own piΓ±ata.

It will be a great craft project – learning paper mache. And it will be cheap!

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We tore up a few pages of newspaper.

It was fun to show the kids how they will rip straight down! Derek discovered he could rip several pages folded in half.

(We made wayyy toooo much! But I didn’t know and we had a lot of fun ripping!)

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This is an old beach ball that had holes in it. We taped it up to keep the air in.

I made paste out of flour and water.

We did this project outside!

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Here is our first coat.

The paste made a huge mess. Unfortunately mom wasn’t so fun in the middle of this project when they were dripping the paste all over the table, the ground their feet, arms & clothes.

It took some scrubbing to get it off the table and our hands. Thank goodness we did this outside.

I used a strainer as the prop. It was wide enough for the ball and air could circulate to dry it.

The next morning I set it out to dry in the sun. We left for church and came home to a very dry ball with a huge crack. The air in the beach ball expanded in the heat and broke it open. My husband thought I would be disappointed. It worked out fine. I was able to deflate the beach ball and pull it out. Then I filled it with candy. I inserted a coat hanger that I folded up and left the hanger part out. Then I taped over the crack and started another coat of newspaper.

This time I did it using watered down elmer’s school glue. This made a much easier process, much cleaner and the results were MUCH more smooth. I did 2 more layers. Each layer took about half and hour to do and I left it to dry overnight.

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On to painting.

Our house is a greyish color and the perfect color for the death star.

Here is Derek painting.

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Hanging up for the paint to dry.

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I used a Sharpie to draw in the details.

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READY TO PARTY !

Monday, October 27, 2008

Parenting lessons from the Saints

Found an excellent article for today On the Word Among Us webpage
http://wau.org/resources/article/parenting_lessons_from_the_saints1/

Parenting Lessons from the Saints
Down-to-Earth Help for Raising Our Children
By: Louise Perrotta


Enjoy!
Laurie

Science Museum fun

Playing with sand on the spinning disc was so much fun. We played with it for a very long time, looked around the museum and then came back for more.
The spinning was hypnotizing and the designs are always different.
This would be a great thing to re-create at home. Maybe a pottery wheel and a box to hold it filled with sand.




Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Cheers pub Boston, MA



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Plymouth Rock

Well Here it Is! A big rock in a very big marble gazebo on the side of the road, right on the water's edge.

Derek & Jacob cousins 2 months apart in age. Jacob turned 6 the end of August and Derek will be 6 the end of this month - October.
Geoff & Julie standing outside the gazebo.
Katie doesn't want to be in anymore pictures. See Plymouth Rock down in the sandy hole behind her?

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Saturday, October 04, 2008

USS Constitution Boston


The kids made a cute picture with the USS Constitution.
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