New Year's Eve

The girls and I headed down to the Dallas Museum of Arts for their annual Kids New Year's Eve celebration....at noon.
No pictures, but the girls won a creativity contest for the "best wrapping of a mom". (No pictures because I was wrapped up.)

Christmas Eve

I gave the kids their dolls on Christmas Eve....early. I didn't want the really cool things to overshadow my efforts. ;) The kids were in absolute awe. Especially, Libby. She kept saying, "You actually made ALL made all of this?!"
I also had the girls put the dresses on that I made them so that they would match the dolls when they were opened.

I finished the dolls!

In the middle of November, I decided that it would be a good idea to make dolls for the kids for Christmas. A month should be PLENTY of time, right?! I finished the last seam and button last night. Two nights before Christmas Eve. If I had a bit more time, I would have been more elaborate with the costumes, but I did all six outfits this week, so I couldn't do too much. I can always add to the wardrobes, right?
So, here they are:
My favorite, Alaric (oh, I named them for the kids, so they don't end up being called brownie, blackie, Mr. Curly, etc. :p). Alaric means Ruler of All in German.
His shirt is made from a scrap of gingham that I had and a sweater of Ken's that had shrunk. I washed it in hot water to felt it even more (boy, is it thick!).
The first two are Joseph's.

This is Zuri (Swahili for "Good Looking")


Libby is getting Darby (Free in Gaelic)

and Marisol (Sunny Sea in Spanish)


Caroline is getting Erin (peace in Gaelic)

and Meiying (Beautiful flower in Mandarin)

Ginger Cookies and Berry Ink

We have been studying the Civil War in Moving Beyond the Page and today we talked about what a soldier's life would have been like.
After we finished our reading, we had a couple of fun things to do.
First, we made ink out of leftover raspberries (how lucky was that?!), vinegar and salt. Did you know that raspberry ink is blue when it dries? We didn't have any quill pens handy, so I snipped the end of straws to make a point. It worked great!

Then, we made gingerbread cookies. We had an assembly line going....scoop, roll in sugar, place on pan (we rotated so that everyone got to roll the balls in the sugar. ;)) The cookies are really yummy.

Dance Party-House Party

Last week, we got to host another House Party. This one was for Wii Dance Party 2 and what fun it was! We hosted our Girl Scout Troop's Holiday Party and the girls danced for 3 hours!

Here is our fearless Scout Leader, Sally, joining in the fun

Midsummer NIght's Dream

I can't believe our fall semester of co-op has ended! We had such a blast with our Renaissance themed semester.
My class was called "Shakespeare Shorts". The kids spent the entire semester working on an abbreviated version of Midsummer Night's Dream. The entire play was 15 minutes long! We had 10 weeks to get our act together, so to speak.
All three kids were in the play. Joseph was Oberon, the Fairy King, Libby is Helena and Caroline is Titania, the Fairy Queen.
A few of the kids braved going scriptless and did fabulously. Most of them could have done it without their scripts (I know that I have been hearing lines spontaneously for weeks from my three!) However, with 10 weeks of 1 hour per week to get it all together, I didn't push memorizing lines.
The kids DID gain a really thorough understanding of their character and the language of Shakespeare.
I had my kids watch the movie version at the beginning of the semester and then again at the end. Their comprehension of what was happening in the story was completely different by the end of the semester.
Yay for "Shakespeare Shorts"!
Here is Helena, talking to Hermia and Lysander and learning of their plan to leave Athens and marry.

Here is poor Helena following Demetrius around (and annoying the heck out of him) while Oberon watches.

Oberon, sprinkling the flower into Titania's eyes.

Curtain call

IESI Recycling Day

Our trash and recycling company sponsored a "Recycling Day". Who could pass up an opportunity to see a recycling plant in action?!
They had a lot of different exhibitors. This one is demonstrating worm composting while Libby snuggles the earthworm.

The medical center demonstrated some first aid and had cool hats

The fire department had badges AND hats.

This table is a demonstration of erosion. The kids really enjoyed predicting which houses would fall into the river and when.

We also got to see where our recycling goes when it leaves our house. It was like a giant Rokenbok set!

Finger Knitting

Yesterday, at co-op, I professed my absolute boredom with knitting. I just can't sustain my attention on it. Maybe that is partly because I have never learned to do anything other than just knit. I would not have a clue how to begin making a recognizable object.
But after making this loudly known yesterday, today Libby asked if I could show her how to finger knit again. She was quite the expert when she was about 5, but she hasn't done it in a long time. Then Joseph and Caroline thought that sounded like a really fun thing to do today, so we headed for a quick trip to the store to buy some yarn (because Ginger has found our yarn box and likes to take off the lid and remove the yarn from the box...not good for yarn.)
Libby is finger knitting. Joseph and Caroline are using spool knitters. They are basically the same technique...one uses fingers and one uses little posts. 

We had to give Ginger some of the old yarn that we had. She must be part cat. She really wanted to steal the yarn that the kids were working with.

Halloween!

This year, we ALL dressed up in some form or fashion.

We had Alice

The Mad Hatter

The White Queen

The Cheshire Cat

You can see the Jack of Hearts in this picture (walking the White Rabbit)

Some places we didn't spend much time at...