egg geodes

you have to admit, martha stewart is pretty cool...whether it is her or the people she hires...i love many of her ideas...

here is one using alum (which i ordered from talas.com) and egg shells and glue...to make 'geodes'
first we cleaned out egg shells and then painted the insides with white glue...then sprinkled alum on the glue and let this dry overnight...

next day we put 2 cups hot water with 3/4 cup of alum and dissolved it...
then added the egg shells and let the crystals form for 24 hours..

today we dumped them out of solution....and look! aren't they pretty!

i'll find the site so you can see the proper way to do it....i think you are supposed to blow the egg shell and let them sit perfectly upright yadayada....

we did the adams abbreviated version =)
 

 

 

 

 

theodora's crown

i am not sure if we made this the right way up or not =)
the plans didn't tell us which way was up and which was down ;)
but the kids didn't care....

this is justinian's wife's crown from the byzintium

which by the way, i love their story....justinian was a farmer's son who loved learning so much that he worked his way to become the emporer of byzantium and his wife was a bear trainer's daughter in the circus who was intelligent and beautiful....
they made decisions together ....

so long ago...
i love it!
 

 

visit from andy!!!

uncle andy!!!!
andy came to help josh put the engine back in the dump truck and wonderfully after 2 full days of work, it is back in for the most part...only to discover the transmission is 'destroyed'...
????????

what a fiasco!!!
this has certainly been an expensive fix and we aren't quite there yet...but when it is running again it will have a 'new' engine and a 'new' transmission....
 

 

 

 

a lovely visit from marie and joan

the kids go wild when any of their grandparents come to the door...it is utter joy for them =)
and marie and joan have always been grandparents to the kids...

we showed them around the land and the chimney and the house and the classroom and the baby =) 

 

 

 

 

our kids

wow, they are so awesome.
 

 

 

 

 

chickens big and small

josh moved the chickens into their new coop a week ago or so...i like knowing they are dry and safe... and he also moved the little chicks (only 3 of all those eggs hatched...i think it got so hot...they eggs all had little chickens in them but didn't hatch!!! )
into one side of the rabbit hutch with mama...
all the rain last night, it was nice knowing that all the critters were doing alright...and dry
 

 

 

 

my man

i am so proud of josh...
just because...

he is hard working, kind, thoughtful and just plainly a good man.
i am so blessed to be his wife...and the kids are so blessed to have him as daddy...

 

yolk painting

we have been studying the monks and reading about how they copied books so meticulously...and then painted around the edges ...often using yolk paints...
and also da vinci used yolk paints in many of his paintings...

so we used some embossing powders with yolks and jack made 4 really lovely colors...and then carefully painted this "r" that was in his history book 

 

 

 

 

school projects

in a bob book of the kids i found a page of stickers with sight words on them...so i taped them to popsicle sticks...when we need a break in our day of school,...i get jack to roll a dice and then he chooses that many sticks, read them and then transfers to another jar...our dice i found on line and it has 12 sides so sometimes he gets a bunch...=)

and i found this little suncatcher project on someone's blog...basically you just put the beads in the muffin cups and bake at 350...it doesn't take long and once cooled they pop right out!
the red beads didn't actually work to be see-through but the others were pretty!
 

 

 

 

a visit from marybeth and the kids!!!

 

 

 

 

 

still here!!!

so i have tried countless times to upload pics this week but picasa isn't working!!!! ahhh!!!
i have such fun pics of little titus (tie tie) and the kids playing with grammy and pops and marie and joan and andy and aunt mary....alas!!!

anywho...feeling great and loving having new addition ...he is so sweet !!!!!

more soon and hopefully pics!!!!!