Pinspiration - Shadows and Chalk

I was showing Victoria some of things I had pinned a while ago and she thought this activity looked like fun.  So as soon as we had some fresh sticks of sidewalk chalk and a sunny day, out she went.  It's a simple activity but kinda fun.  I think it's easier to do it with two people as one can stand still while the other draws the faces and accessories.  But she did most of these on their own and they turned out well.  It was interesting how quickly the sun was moving (this was closer to the end of the day) because when she had drawn some, came in the house to get me to come out and then when she stood there again, she had to maneuver her head to fit the face as the shadow was in a different position.  Just one more thing to add to our list of fun with chalk.  

Visitors

We were honoured to have a visit from Catherine and Hannah last week.  I'm not even sure how long it's been since we've seen them . . . but I do know it had been WAY too long!  It just happened to work out for them to stop by on their way to Disney (LOL . . . doesn't that sound like we live close to Disney??) and when Catherine emailed me, I was so excited!  I guess we both lead busy lives and our visits are few and far between.  Could this seriously be the last time we got together?  Look how little all the kids are!!  

Check out Denver and Hannah!  I hardly remember them being that small!  

Anyway, we picked right up from where we left off.  God sure knew what he was doing when he made our paths cross.  We totally relate to each other we "get" one another. Ya know??  The kids had a lot of fun playing with Hannah too and after she warmed up to them, I think she had fun too.  This is the best picture I could get of all of them.  Not the greatest but it will have to do.  

See how much they've grown?

And this is kind of a cute picture of Hannah and Victoria having a good bye squeeze.  

Thank you for squeezing us into your busy schedule Catherine and Hannah.  We loved it that you thought of us and stopped by on your way through.  Can't wait to see you again and hang out.  Let's not leave it as long this time!  

Pinspiration - Naked Egg

There are so many cool ideas on Pinterest that I want to try.  I don't want to just keep pinning and pinning and never try any of the things I pin (although I assume, realistically, the majority of the pins won't get done).   But I also want to try to post the pins we've tried on my blog.  So here's the first one.  

I saw this quite a while ago and thought it would be so cool to try.  Finally got around to it last month.  Click here to see the pin.  

All you do to make the egg "naked" is soak it in white vinegar.  Here are some pictures of the process.  You can see the chemical reaction happening as the vinegar is bubbling and getting all foamy. 

It took a few days for the shell to completely disintegrate - longer than I thought - but it worked.  And here is a picture of the egg without it's shell.  Crazy!  

If you look at the original pin, you can see that you can do some other cool things with it like dehydrating it and making it a different colour.  I had planned to try that too but just didn't get around to it.  

The egg sat on our counter for a few days and on one of those days, I had fried up an egg and was having it on a sandwich.  Victoria saw what I was eating and said, "Oh, is that the naked egg you're eating?"  Oh my word . . . I almost threw up thinking about eating an egg that had been soaking in vinegar and then sitting on my counter for longer than I care to mention.  LOL! Gross!  

Sleeping Angels

I LOVE pictures of our kids sleeping.  I've posted them numerous times on my old blog . . . maybe a few times on here too.  Can't remember.  Anyway, here are the latest.  Don't they just look so peaceful?  Refueling for another busy day of play.  

Minion cupcakes

Victoria loves to bake.  She is constantly pulling out ingredients and throwing together some sort of treat for us.  I barely ever bake anymore because she does so much . . . and I'm okay with that!  

The other day she got a request from Aunt Christy to make some minion cupcakes.  So we searched out all the different ideas online and set out to get our supplies.  There were a few things that were outside the normal for us.  We don't usually have rockets and twinkies in our house.  In fact, I didn't even know they still made twinkies!  Brings me right back to my childhood!  

Anyway, the cupcakes were baked and the icing was made.  

First step for the minions is to cut the twinkies all in half.  

Each half twinkie then gets rockets for eyes - some got one eye, some got two.  They were stuck on with icing.  

Then a tube of black icing was used to outline the eyes, make an pupil and draw lines down the sides of the twinkies (I think those are the arms of the glasses??)  And last but not least, mouths were drawn on with the same tube of black icing.  The eyes and the mouths really made the minions quirky. Victoria made some of them looking up or sideways and some of the mouths were also half smiles - kind of like smirks.

When they were all ready and each cupcake was iced, a minion was placed on the top of each one.  

Here they are completely done.  They turned out so cute!

Wouldn't it make you smile to open your fridge and see this?  

You did a great job Victoria!  Aunt Christy was so pleased with the results.  

I'm back . . . . I think . . .

Soooo . . . it's been a long, long time since I last posted.  Wow.  My excuse is that we moved and then got sick.  Although I think the move would have been a good enough excuse on it's own.  We're nowhere near settled but our basic necessities are unpacked and we can function.  I have a lot of catching up to do with blog posts and hope to get some of them done in the next few days.  Not much else to say.  And just because I don't want to call this post done . . . especially without any pictures . . . I will leave you with a picture of Frodo.  We often wonder why he's so smart and now we know why.  We caught him reading the other day!

Perhaps we'll have another student in our classroom this fall!  LOL!  

You can never be too safe

I was going through some pictures and came across these.  They make me laugh every time I look at them.  Cause you seriously never know when playing the computer will become dangerous. And not just any old regular bike helmet will do.  Better to be safe than sorry!  LOL!