What we love to read this past week or so

Okay, to make sure I actually get this post written this week I am writing it first. HA!

As you can see we've started studying DINOSAURS! Or as my kids say "SAURS!"

Quick side note, I tend to heavily edit dinosaur books when I read them to my kids for a couple of reasons. 1. I find it rather annoying when a "fact book" puts in a lot of theory and doesn't say it's theory, we don't know why dinosaurs disappeared, and it's hard for my kids to grasp that the five different pet theories presented in the different books aren't fact. 2. I don't believe in evolution so I don't tend to say "millions and millions of years ago," I just say a long time ago.

Did I mention my pet peeve of stating theory as fact, really, we don't know that this dinosaur was a good Mommy, we have a few bones, and not even a complete skeleton.

Okay, off my soap box. Hopefully.......

How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night- I LOVE this book, my kids love this book, and I love watching my kids as I read this book. I'm hoping to film them acting it out. It's the most hilarious thing you've ever seen. There are lots and lots in this series. I have the four from a few years ago when this was the Kohls Cares for Kids books. So, we know how a dinosuar does at a doctor and how they eat. The others haven't ever come up to the original for me. But, my kids don't suffer from many of the problmes listed, if anything the books give them bad ideas.

Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs- This is a little simple for my kids. They liked it okay, but there was no great inspiration from them on this one.

Oh Say Can You Say Di-no-saur- Dr. Seuss actually works (technically it's not written by him, since it was published after his death, but it's using his characters and his style) works really well with dinosuars. He's hard to read sometimes because of his tongue twisters, and I find dinosaur names impossible to pronounce often.

Dinosaur Dinner- This met with mixed reviews from my kids. Batman and Princess loved it because they've decided they like plant eaters. In particular Batman likes brachiosaurus (who used to be called Brontosaurus before we discovered the wrong head was put on it, much like Pluto used to be a planet, but is now a planetoid). Superman didn't like that T-Rex is almost not mentioned at all, and there aren't a lot of meat eaters.

Donkey Dreams- This is a Christmas book. Why is it in here now, when I try so hard not to read books out of season? Because someone got into my Christmas books and got it out. I got asked to read this a couple of times in a row. I love the illustrations for this book, and the kids love seeing what the donkey dreams he's carrying, and then seeing the baby Jesus at the end.

Scooby Doo Shiny Spooky Knights- This is one of our most used Tag books, according to the reports I get from Leap Frog my kids have spent over 10 hours reading this book. They're Scooby Doo fans, in case you can't tell. There is a non-Tag version of this I found out when I was creating this post, and I do like this as one of the better Scooby Doo books. So, if you have a Scooby Doo fan hunt this one down.

Oh, and one last one that I couldn't put in the carousel because it doesn't have a picture:

Dinosuars Those Terrible Lizards- This was my book as a kid, which of course makes it magically interesting to my kids. It's really geared for a slightly older age range, so I do a lot of summarizing and editing, because they don't want/need a thesis on the merits of stegosaurus. Here's why I love this book, it's written from a Creationist view point, but it does include the other side, so it does say here's what Evolution is and here's their thoughts on why the dinosaurs are gone. Obviously it does support creation, but it doens't completely ignore other viewpoints.

So, that's what we read this week, go see what everyone else is reading at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.

Preschool: Dinosaurs week 1

READING



We continued to work on blending. I've been using two sets of the Fridge Magnet, and every now and then get tempted to buy the lower case letters set. But then I rmeember, I have a felt board letters, and wooden letters to go with our See and Spell puzzle, and then there's the letters I cut out and laminated from a workbook. So, I realize I really don't need to buy more letters. That would be a want.

I've been alternating with having them form the words out of the letters I give them, and I form the words and they read (in reality guess, but it's progress, because the guesses get better).



We read the poem 5 crazy dinosaurs from here (there's about 10 other ones to choose from):

5 crazy Dinosaurs sweeping the floor
1 got swept away, then there were four
4 crazy Dinosaurs chased by a bee,
1 got stung, then there were 3
3 crazy Dinosaurs playing with glue,
1 got stuck, then there were 2
2 crazy Dinosaurs out for a run
1 fell down, then there was 1
1 crazy Dinosaur acting like a hero
He went out to save the others, then there were zero

Ideas to go with this poem: find all of the numbers, look for letters, act it out (we used the felt board for this, and each kid got to take turns taking a dinsoaur off, I had to assign who got to be the last dinosaur because they all wanted to be the hero)

MATH



We used these flannel dinosaurs a lot this week. It made for great visual math problems. Counting the dinosaurs, comparing which group had more, are there more plant eaters or more meat eaters?

SCIENCE

Again with the dinosaur felt set we did many different activities, to see more go here.

LIFE



We made cookies because we saw them in a story. And yes she is licking the beater. I know it's not good for you, but I did it as a kid and survived just fine. (Yes, this is called rationalization).



This isn't really any skill, I just have a funny story. So, next to my computer is the printer/fax/scanner machine we have. The fax portion is just annoying because it has a phone and the kids love to come up pick up the phone and yell as loud as they can, "Hello, hello?" Then not really hang it up, and run off. It gets really old.



This was Uncle Sean's shirt as a boy. Uncle Sean wore it all the time during the summer, and he had a black hair net and pretend glasses that he would put on when he was pretending to be Clark Kent. As you can see I come by my pack rat tendencies honestly, because this has been in my Mom's house for 20 years.....



The silly boy fell asleep right under my feet, while I watched SYTYCD with a friend. He slept through the entire show, and his brother climbing over him to get into my lap.



Oh, and we went to the Rennaissance Festival here in Texas. To read more about that, and how much I LOVE it, follow the link.

I hope everyone else had fun weeks. It's amazing to me each week, how I start off thinking we didn't really do all that much, and then I sit down and see all we've done.

STart- Dinosaur cookies

Here's what happens each time I read a book that has a picture of cookies in it, "Mommy can we make cookies, can we make cookies?" This becomes the nonstop question until I make said cookies. Back when the boys were 2 this question lasted 2 months, because said cookies were meringues and I needed to get the particluar ingredients.

So, I had this planned activity....... Then we were reading through the magazine, I have no clue where I got it, but it's super cool because it has TWO, that's right two books in it: Time Train, and What Happened to Patrick's Dinosaurs. After reading the books we're looking through the different activities in the book, when the kids spot this.



Candy and cookies together, are they in heaven? So, we used up a lot of our Halloween candy decorating cookies. The candy sticks (what we used to call candy cigarettes in those less enlightened days) became light sabers. Dots and M&Ms were spots galore. And whatever other candy they could find. The whole while they narrated what was happening and what they thought their cookies really were regardless of the cookie cutters they had picked out.

And all those pictures I thought I took are mysteriously gone.





Found the pictures, okay really only one of them was worthwhile:



And here's our cookie recipe (this is a true family heirloom, I'd take a picture of the original, but it's in a shadow box. It's a newspaper article from the 30s or so:

INGREDIENTS:

1C shortening
2C sugar
3 eggs
1 t salt
1.5 t vanilla
3/4 t almond extract
1t baking soda (which can be left out)

Mix all of this together first, then blend in 4.5 cups flour.

Refrigerate about a half hour.

Then roll it out and start cutting out cookies. Let your kids decorate.

Things I learned during this:

1. Life savers melt in the oven and make a big mess that is hard to get off a cookie sheet, so do milk duds.

2. Candy sticks do fine as long as they're completely on the cookie (let's face it they're royal icing that's just shaped well).

3. If you have some of the cookies cut out beforehand the kids get much less impatient and enjoy the activity more.

Oh well, they were very yummy and the kids had lots of fun.

I'm linking this up to:

A Mommy's Adventures- A Story+ Art= A Great STart.
My Bilingual Boys who are hosting a what to do with your leftover Halloween Candy.
Raising Itty Bitty Bookworms over at Kids in the Kitchen.

Texas Rennaissance Festival

I love this place. Jeff and I have been going together since we were dating, and I think we've only missed one year in that time frame. I even went when I was pregnant with the boys in a dress I modified to fit my very pregnant tummy.

This was Princess' first year to go to Ren Fest, she went in the Spring to Scarborough.



Before we went in and anyone got dirty at all. Notice even at the beginning of the day Princess was convincing people to carry her. She's very good at that.



We started off the day at the pony rides, this was what Princess desperately wanted to do. The boys had fun valiantly swinging their swords about. We had to convince them that was a bad plan.



Then we hurried over to the Maze, this is one of my favorite parts, I don't know why. The kids thought it was great fun to try and find the dead ends. They'd run to the end and then laugh like it was the most hilarious thing they'd ever done.



Of course the day had a few injuries. But, it was an amazingly blood free excursion. I'm a horrible Mom for taking this picture (I'm going to use the 200+ pictures I took for a story book for the kids, this will make a perfect captures kid picture), and I did pick him up as I took the picture.







We went fishing, and poor Princess got splashed by her brothers both times when they threw their fish back. I really need to find a hair thing that will stay in her hair. That and a way to keep it out of her face.


I let my kids shoot a gun, okay it was a paint ball gun, and I think it was actually a cross bow. Superman is concentrating super hard, notice the tongue sticking out.


My little carnivores eating up the turkey leg. I don't really know what you would eat there if you're a vegetarian. Of course I'm not, so I don't look for those types of food.



They got to dig out crystals from the dirt mounds in this "cave." My plan is to use the whole series of pictures I took in here for when they're captured and forced to work in the mines in the story I'll write.



We watched a super cool falconry show, but this is all Princess cared about. She took about 5 other pictures, but I think most of them had the Dr. Pepper bottle in it.





I love these two pictures of Princess. Isn't she so cute? I think this is the time she was happiest the entire day, except when I let her drink massive amounts of Dr Pepper, which I usually don't do.



The boys and I rode on the "King's Swings," I think it's called. Regardless of the name it's a great arm workout, you're providing all the power of the swing, and it's probably be easier if someone was seriously pulling on the other side.



We took a time out and while we did the boys worked on holding up pirates.



I just thought this looked cool. I'm thinking this can be a ghost pirate they have to rescue or something.



We watched the joust a couple of times. I really think this is where my boys got their favorite colors from, blue and green: the blue and green knights. The great irony being neither time we watched the joust were we sitting with the blue or green knight (Germany and France), but we sat in England both times. And the weird part is the cheers have been changed around, the Germans used to get the super bloodthirsty cheer, but now Spain has it. Spain used to have the "spiritual" cheer, and now England does.

I personally liked it best when it was Germany cheering "Murder, Murder, Disembowel, Eviscerate!" It just seemed much funnier. And, I also am not remembering that completely right. There's just something funny about a noblewoman chanting that in her perfect dress.


And, the parasol was my major purchase for the trip. I've been searching for one for two years. Finally found the one I liked. Stupid chipmunk face I have.

Grilled Skirt Steak, or poor man's fajitas

Here's how we usually make fajitas: I buy the fajita package from HEB that's pre-spiced, and all you have to do is grill it and then slice it up.

I thought it would be interesting to do something that was vaguely making it from scratch.

That was the theory. Reality as always, turned out a little bit different.

Ingredients2 skirt steaks (about 1 pound each), trimmed of fat and cut in 1/2 crosswise (I used one)
Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Vegetable oil cooking spray
Chimichurri, recipe follows

Rub the salt, pepper, and onion powder into both sides of the steak (at this point you would really think I would have noticed it was folded in half, but I didn't). Sprinkle the vinegar over it. Let sit for at least a half hour.

Be glad you noticed this early enough to be letting it sit for a half hour.

When your husband gets home have him grill the steak to medium rare. The only way to cook a steak.

Chimichurri Sauce:
4 cups flat-leaf parsley (from about 1 large bunch)
6 cloves garlic
1/2 to 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 heaping teaspoon red pepper flakes, optional

So, you cut up the parsley, dump it in the food processor along with the garlic and pulse it into smithereens.

Now add the oil, and the vinegar, it ends up being the same vinegar as above because I don't have red wine like I thought.

Add paprika, or was it chili powder, just a dash, because you can't find red pepper flakes. Stir like crazy.

RESULT: Mixed feelings on the whole thing. I'm the only one who liked the sauce at all, and it wasn't my favorite. Everyone took their "No thank you" bite of the sauce, and then wouldn't touch it again. So, I think I'll stick t the HEB fajitas. The parsley was a little overpowering, and you didn't really taste a lot of anything else.

Oh well, hopefully next week I'll have better luck. I'm looking up my next recipe as I type. Go check out more over at I Blame My Mother.

My recent sewing projects

We've had two weeks of light schooling, relatively light, here because I've been sewing like crazy trying to get all of my various projects done.

Ages and ages ago I posted asking about a shirt to go with my dress. It's one of those long term projects I've been working on for ages and ages.

I found a gorgeous caramel colored silk and splurged on it. Then I cut it out on the largest size I could find of the pattern and pleated the neckline and sleeves.

For those who don't know,this is for smocking and this is a way to put elasticity in a garment without adding elastic. It's also a way to ensure the garment is properly modest because it's not too form-fitting (hey, that's one of the reasons for it back then, you have to find a way to gather 5 yards into a reasonable shirt).

So, here's what I've made:



Last week I made the boys shirts, I finished up the final details on my shirt, and I made this bag:



The hand-sewing for the body of the bag and the smocking of the flap was done last summer on our drive up to Wisconsin. I just wasn't sure until last week, exactly how I wanted to finish up the bag. I'm thinking of doing the lattice smocking on the bodice of my shirt to help cinch that in a little bit. Right now if I wear the shirt without an over dress or a corset it almost falls off of me. [Insert your own bawdy joke here]

I'd like to get a quilt done for Craft Hope...... But, I'm thinking reality is not going to get that done in time, I just hate to not live up to my commitments, but I'm doing the best I can. Of course I also wanted to get a quilt done for Princess so she could up into a "Big Girl" bed, but I don't think that will be done for Christmas either...... I've got lots of pieces for it.

Tomorrow, I'll show our actual trip to the Texas Renaissance Festival.

Open Ended Art: Matisse

I ended up deciding after the fact that the activity wasn't super open-ended, besides my kids do better open ended when left completely to themselves.

Here's the intended activity, vaguely inspired by a page from Carisa's dino pack.


Batman, who after the fact went back to his desk and glued in his "Space Guy awards" (from his Tag reader, they've discovered they get awards, so now this is the latest excuse not to go to bed).

Oh, here's the story that goes with Batman's: "It's a space guy fighting a 'saur, and the space guy has a light saber." Everything he does now has to have a space guy with a light saber.


Superman actually made a dinosaur, and then needed a crayon to draw a mouth.


And Princess did a multi-layered collage. After she was "done" she added the coloring book page, and some other stuff I can't quite figure out what it is.

But, here's what they do all by themselves




This is Batman's rendidtion of "Space Guy Stickers"


Princess's random stampings.


Batman's random stampings.

So, that's our open-ended art for the week. Sadly I couldn't find ANY books on Matisse in our local library, so for my kids this was more of an experience with collages than anything else.

I'm hoping I can find a book on future featured artists, I'm really excited about this idea, because I love the idea of studying artists.