Splendid: March 2008

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March 2008

March 24, 2008

Uncanny family resemblance

Of course you always have features that you are born with that resemble features your parents have. But they say that after many years of marriage you start to look even like your spouse....I don't see it, but what do you think?

Here's me and my parents, of course, I think I have my mom's eyes and my dad's hair color, but that's it????

dad

mom

okay, I see some resemblances, what do you think?

Now here's my kids... of course they are the spitting image of their mother!

Pixie girl

Cricket

But you CANNOT tell me that my husband and I look ONE iota like each other!!!

Your thoughts?

Posted at 12:36 PM in Family and Friends | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

Easter weekend

What a great Easter weekend! My parents flew in and it was so nice to see them after all these months! We BBQed Friday night then McKaylah hosted a sweeeeeeeeet dance party with flyers and tickets she made up. We drank wine and bay breezes and danced to Culture Club, Flock of Seagulls, Feist, ABC and more fun tunes. Saturday we went to Manayunk, a neat neighborhood in Philadelphia to deliver more Love Notes (my parents had only heard about it, they had never witnessed it first hand) and they thought it was so funny. It was pretty breezy that day until we returned home for our neighbors annual Easter Egg Hunt block party. McKaylah and Ava found lots of eggs, ate waaaaaaaay too candy and drank hot cocoa, and then came home to dye eggs. McKaylah and Ava had recently received dragon eggs from Hogwarts, and so they dyed those as well (before they need to be returned since of course under age Muggles can't raise dragons!) I made a yummy vegetable soup and we had more wine and bay breezes. Sunday of course was an early morning get up and get looking (and hiding more) eggs. They girls loved looking for eggs over and over. Later in the afternoon it actually turned quite nice and we went for a walk before our delicious dinner was done baking. After we enjoyed the cupcakes my mom and the girls made earlier, all decorated so sweet! Then it was "Talent Show" time, McKaylah organized a talent show with flyer's and tickets and schedule. I did miming since my all my acts were taken (humph!), Dave did cartooning, and Ava did singing and baton twirling. Then Rose and Ava did a ventriloquist act, which was hilarious! Rose and Dennis also danced to 1234 and then McKaylah did gymnastics and twirling. Rose and Dennis ended up winning, but I did get honorable mention....

us in Manayunk

delivering love notes

Easter Egg Hunt block party

good big cookie, and love note tucked by coffee travel mugs, perfect for some unsuspecting passer-bys!!

heading to diabetics anonymous

dying easter eggs

easter eggs (and dragon eggs)

making cupcakes

easter cupcakes

sugar HIGH!!!!

Easter egg hunt at home

Happy Easter, ya all!

Pink! Matches my ears!

egg by the fairy door

Talent show singing!

Ventriloquist duo

Cartooning was Dave's talent

Dennis telling word puzzles for his talent

Dennis and Rose danced to 1234 as another act

baton twirler

harmonica for the talent show

Gymnastics by McKaylah, you may have seen her at the Olympics or the Weinerstiens barmitzvah

The Incredible Miming Talents!!!Danielle -classic!

the MC has the final scores....and the winner is.....

Rose and Papa for their spirited dance duo!

Ava is devastated she didn't win!

Posted at 12:12 PM in Celebrations, Domesticity's, Family and Friends | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 12, 2008

artsy, but not so fartsy around here

We all love arts and crafts around here. Sewing, scrapbooking, jewelry making, collage, painting, you name it and we're gung-ho to try it. Here's a little peek into the last couple weeks for us...enjoy...

Lucky because layout, in honor of St. Pat's day, a rainbow with the reasons I'm lucky...

Fairy Birthday layout

Home layout

King Dad scrapbook layout

ART ATTACK!-the name of my art classes/shop if I ever open one...discuss...

Here's a couple Kandinsky repos McKaylah did, and an altered Vinny Van Gogh head Ava did (hers has chicken pox she said)

cartoon repo of the Kandinsky and VG repos

"Winter Waits" art project I'm selling on my etsy, watercolors, wax pencil, tempura paint, lace pieces, glitter, yum!

in the window the girls Van Gogh "Starry Night" painting, next to a real Starry Night painting I bought from a traveling artist. Also, on the window sill there's a black and gold paper piecing/collage that's representative of Gustuv Klimt's work,"Tree of Life." I'm putting art kits together for that one as well.

the fireplace mantle decorated with spring and easter stuff. I'm making a banner to hang across the front now.

these were my Granny's Easter bunny figurines, there's 3 of them. I love them because they remind me of her, and they have glitter on them...

Henri Matisse project we did last week, all collage work, Ava's is the house, McKaylah's is the underwater scene

We've been crafting up a storm around here. McKaylah started sewing lessons two weeks ago and her teacher cannot believe how good she is on a sewing machine at the young age of 7. Personally I'm not surprised as she's always been pretty artistic and crafty.

here's her first ever sewing project, she made this pillow for my mom out of different fabric pieces and sewed around the two hearts and everything all by herself. I'm a pretty proud mama! If any of you out there in Blogger Land wouldn't mind leaving her a comment below she'd be so delighted to hear from you!!

She loves to embroider and sew by hand, along with art classes here. Ava has been taking art classes there, too. They love their art classes at AAC, but we do double at home. We always have papers, buttons, stickers, paint, etc. out. McKaylah started an Art Appreciation discussion time with me every Wednesday as well. We read another chapter each time of an art appreciation book I got, and we love it.

(here's the back grounds of the Abington Art Center)

I've been making more hairpins and rings to put on my etsy, as well as I just put together a kids art kit titled "Winter Waits." I thought it appropriate for the chill we've been having here in the northeast (will spring ever come???) I also have put together an art kit for kids (or those who act like one) that is a softie owl. Patterns are included, felt sheets, fabric to make wings, a beak, etc. Buttons for big eyes. A very simple project for a child about 7 or so and older. All hand sewing. I've been painting and scrapbooking more this last couple weeks and looking forward to my jewelry class in June in Portland, Oregon with Sally Jean, can't wait! Since I've been scrapbooking more, I have been logging on to here, and just really enjoying getting to know some other women who are super talented and make me so jealous with their artistic flair!

Our owls, the red on the left was done solely by McKaylah, she cut everything out, sewed it by hand, etc. Mine is the blue one.

Ava's springtime goddess ceramic figure. The back has dreads, so cool! Dave snagged it from me and took it to work to have in his office!

McKaylah making a cat template for a printing project

good clean fun!

all "arteeests" need a break!

McKaylah's final print piece

Ava using a brayer to paint her cat template

SUCCESS!

Ava's rainbow "catwalk"-Ha! Ha!- thank you-you're all beautiful, I'll be here all week!

Posted at 02:39 PM in Crafting | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

Maple Sugaring class- sweeeeeeet!

Tapping into a maple tree, there's an old school metal bucket and cover

filling up a bucket with sap water

a tree dripping sap water, notice the drill hole.

We took a Maple Sugaring class this week at the Treehouse. What a great class! We actually tapped into a couple trees, one maple and one elder, to see the difference of taste. Both flow with sap water, but the maple was of course sweet, while the elder had a grassy taste. The maple sap water is actually very pure and healthy, too, with loads of minerals like potassium, magnesium, calcium and manganese. McKaylah took it yesterday with her homeschool chums, while Ava and I took the class today as a toddler class. We learned how people used tools to tap into trees, how you do it without harming the trees, how it works, and how you then take the sap water and boil it down for many hours into a super condensed syrup. Hence why real maple syrup is so expensive today. It's quite a process and though we used the old-school method of a hand-operated drill, spout and bucket, nowadays maple sugaring companies use more modern, less labor intensive methods. Anyhow, we found it really fun and informative. We made small maple shaped sugar trays, like the kind you make ice-cubes with, and also purchased some Pennsylvania maple syrup, not from our outing. Did you know it takes 40 gallons of sap water to make one gallon of syrup? Pretty amazing to think about. Also, you have to think of how much we are using of the trees resources because that sap water is also the trees food needed to grow. When tapping into trees one should remember that the tree truck needs to be big enough to withstand the tapping, much less adding more than one sprout. Pretty 'sweet" class...