Glass Bead Teacup

Dancer made this for a fine arts 4-H project.  We went to a thrift store, there are several of them around here, and she got a china teacup and saucer for $1.20.  The glass beads were $6.00. 

The beads were really pretty all poured in a bowl.

Using hot glue, she started by gluing each and every bead on.  After about an hour and half she had to find a better way to do this.  She ended up filling in small areas on the saucer with hot glue and then pushing the beads into the glue.  For the cup she again did small spots with the glue and then rolled it in the beads then pushed the beads together and flat before the glue hardened. 

The finished cup. 

The picture doesn't show how beautiful it is and the original picture looked better, it is blurred on here for some reason. 

Productive Weekend

Dad worked the weekend and it was suppose to be cold and raining everyday.  Because of these two things I planned for us to get a good chunk of the 4-H projects the kids signed up for done this weekend.  It didn't rain but it was coldish.  We did get a lot done so I am calling the weekend a smashing success. 

Friday Spark finished his Geospactial project.  He made a book about our geocaching adventures and added a list of things that are handy to have with when caching and page of geocaching vocabulary words.  Looking back that was maybe too big of a project for him, but since we aren't doing at the last minute it worked out okay.  He was able to start it, take a few weeks off from it, do a little more, take a break from it again, work on it again and so on.  He should be proud of it, he did a nice job, and I was happy to check it off the to do list. 

Spark also did a food and nutrition project on vitamin D.  I was a little surprised that he picked that topic but I think Dancer might have had something to do with it.  It was hard to find much information on vitamin D that wasn't way to technical for the average person, much less a fourth grader, but we did find enough to make a poster. 

Dancer got three projects done. This one is under the category of Exploring Animals.  She chose to do a poster about how long it takes from a chicken to hatch from an egg until the chick that comes out of the egg is able to lay an egg.  It takes about five months if you are wondering.  She added in how the egg is made in the chicken and what happens most days inside the egg.  It takes 21 days for an egg to hatch so the development of the chick is rapid.

 

Her next one was Wildlife Biology where she did a poster about the nine different turtles that make Minnesota their home.  Wildlife Biology is one of her favorite categories.  She had all the research done for this one before hand and only had to find pictures of turtles and then put it together.

The last one she did was Fishing Sports, another favorite of hers.  She did this poster on how the catfish and bullhead are related to each other.  She add in some information on what bait they like and what the bag limit is.  It is pretty interesting, I didn't even know that the two fish had anything to do with each other.

Dancer holds the position of historian in our club which makes her responsible for the club scrapbook.  We got two pages of the scrapbook done and got more pictures developed so it should be up to date soon.

We also had time to play ball a couple of times, watch the movie Tangled twice, go to church, take a walk, play several games of RACKO and Mario on the Wii, get some chores done around the house and run to the grocery store a couple of times (it's about 20 miles round trip to the nearest grocery store of any size so this makes the list of things we did because it isn't just a quick jog, we actually have to plan at least an hour to go).   The icing on the weekend was that kids were really focused and didn't even hardly argue with each other. 

No Comment

That sums me up on Blogger, I can't comment, just keep getting kicked out to the log in page.   People have left us comments so it only me? Now that I think about it, if you can't comment you can't let me know.  Funny.  Anyway I feel like I am only half blogging because I can only post.  Hope this is a glitch they are working on.

The Feeling Is Not Mutual

While the goats find Vidalia interesting, she does not feel the same way about them.

Niko telling her to come back in the corral with them, they will be nice.

They can't control themselves, they chase her around.

Knock it off she says.

She has had enough of them for a while and is leaving.

Giles gets in one more jeer before she leaves and tries to catch up with her.

Awww, the goat free zone!

They Grow Up So Fast, Goats That Is

Every day Spark goes out and sits with the little goats.  Lola is his favorite and he tries to hold her but she usually just jumps up and down.

This is Desdemona not one of the babies but it is such a good picture of her.

Calliope is still nursing her two.  I can't image how much milk she is making although they do both eat hay and graze.

Spark and Lola, she is the only one that is easy to hold and any more and she isn't all that easy, they are just getting so heavy.

Giles in  the feeder.  What is the fascination of standing in the feeder, they all do it even the big girls.

They love to nibble clothes and hair.

Niko looking surprised at his shadow.

Blowing Dandelion Pictures

Dancer thought it would be cool to get a picture of dandelion seeds blowing off the top of the flower.

Spark said he would help.  He picked the dandelion and

puckers up to blow.  You just tell by his face he has something else in mind.

Brings it towards his lips.....

and pops it in his mouth.  He then blew the seeds out, but by then Dancer was so shocked she quit taking the pictures.  She also didn't try again.  Brothers!

The Good Check Up

It has been a year since Dancer got her braces of and she had her one year retainer check up today.  At six months out she could go from wearing her braces all the time to 12 hours a day.  He asked her today how many days she had missed wearing them and she said none.  He asked her again and I verified that really, she wears them 12 hours every day and even keeps track of the time she puts them in so that she wears them long enough in the morning.  As of today she can start wearing it only when she sleeps.  The orthodontist said if she sleeps for seven hours just wear them seven hours etc.  Dad made the comment that she will still be wearing it 12 hours a day.  She does love to sleep, always has.  Her teeth look just as great as they did the day she got her braces off so we are very happy with the way things are going.

The not so exciting part of the appointment is that he thought she will probably need her wisdom teeth out next summer.  That seems young to me, her 12 year molars just came all the way through, she got all her teeth late.  On the x-rays from her regular dentist appointment a few weeks ago they showed that they are coming in at an angle.  We don't want to have gone through all the expense and pain of the braces though to have them goofed up with wisdom teeth.  We won't dwell on that now, we will just be happy that at one year out her teeth are still as straight as man can make them.

Our Brave Girl

We should have been mowing the lawn tonight but instead we went to find a few geocaches at near by boat landings.  We took Nikki, who is afraid of almost everything including water.  The first three days we had her she shook continuously.  We thought she was cold, she weighted about three pounds and wasn't much bigger than a Guinea pig.  Now we think that she must have been scared.  She came from a fine place she just has a nervous personality.

We took her out on a dock and after a few minutes she quit doing the Army crawl and actually stood up.

This was as close as she was going to get to the edge.

She wouldn't walk on these grates that are at the beginning of the docks.

Dancer carried her across them.

Then all of a sudden, the dog who doesn't like to get wet past her toe nails, was in the water and acting like she was enjoying herself! We don't usually take her with us because she is so hyper and nervous about everything, but we are starting to take her with more so she doesn't have to be in her kennel so much.  She has to be in there when we are gone or she does naughty stuff.

The scene from the back seat, Dancer reading with Nikki riding on her lap.  Dancer usually does word finds in the car, she loves word finds.  Today we were at the library where she got some new books and it is hard to write with a dog on your lap so she was reading tonight.

The last boat landing we were going to go to was down this road, which wasn't much more than an ox trail.  The road was half a mile long and when we got .3 of a mile down it there was a humongous mud hole that there was no way I was going to drive through.  The problem was there was no way to turn around and it was almost dark.  The road is so narrow that there was only a few inches on each side of the car until the woods started and once in a while not even that much.  I don't know how you would ever get a boat down there.   Anyway, not being able to turn around meant that I had to back out.  We started backwards with Dad trying to tell me when I was getting to close on one side.  I was trying to keep the grass between the  front two tires but that meant I couldn't see when the road turned and there were a few long stretches where there was no grass in the middle of the road.  The kids kept saying that I was doing a good job, and Dad kept directing my backing up, but Nikki must have been tuned in on how tense we all sounded because she started doing her choking, coughing hyperventilating, panic attack thing she does.  I didn't even know dogs could have panic attacks before her. Dancer got her calmed back down and Dad got out and helped by walking right behind the car even though there were enough mosquitoes out there to leave him completely bloodless if it had taken much longer than it did.  How long did it take?  A good twenty minutes, that tells you how slowly I was creeping along.  After about .2 of a mile there was place where I could turn the car around in couple back up pull forward maneuvers.  We were almost back to the beginning of the road but I was still happy to drive out hood first especially since there was house right at the beginning of the road where a man was out with his dog and waved at us as we drove in.  I bet he was thinking, look at those idiots they are never going to get down the road and back again in that vehicle.  What he should have been doing is frantically waving at us that we would be facing peril if we ventured down the road.  We are going to go back again, not at dusk like tonight, park and walk down to the lake.

Double Date

Dancer loves, loves, loves the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  She has been counting down the days until the new one came out for months.  She had a friend who was going to the Thursday night/Friday midnight showing and she could have gone with her but we said no.  She was fine with that but she knew that her friend had seen and she hadn't.  We told her since she couldn't go to the midnight showing we would go to another showing some other time.  She has been doing everything she is suppose to be doing and getting all her work done with no nagging from me so we wanted to reward her with the movie this weekend.  Problem is I hate to go to a crowded movie and this weekend the parking lot at the theater was packed (we drove by a couple of times).  There are 18 screens and they were showing it on eight of them and I would guess all eight were packed.  To keep our promise we said that we would go to the Sunday night late show.  I didn't think it would be very packed on a Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. even if it was opening weekend. 

Earlier in the day Spark said that he would rather see Rio.  Not being a huge fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, I jumped at the chance to say that Dad could go with Dancer and I would go with Spark to Rio.

Dancer and Dad headed down to Pirates of the Caribbean, which was only being shown on one screen at that hour.  There were about 30 people there, I know because I counted them as they came out when we were wondering where Dad and Dancer were.  Where they were was watching every last credit roll by because Dancer wanted to experience every single second of the movie.

Spark and I saw Rio.  I actually hadn't heard of it until Sunday, nothing against the movie I  just don't keep up on such things.  It was a cute movie about a parrot that gets bird napped and has to find his way back to his owner.  I think that I enjoyed it because we have a parrot and Blu, the parrot in the movie, did a lot of the same funny things that our Bert does.  There were only six people in our showing, one of which was a mom with a smaller boy.  When I saw them I thought, good we won't be the only ones here with kids and look odd for being out so late on a "school" night.  Spark really loved the movie but we didn't sit through every last stinking credit.

Put Both Hands on the Wheel

Spark is just itching to get to mow the lawn, Dancer did at his age and the thinks he should be able to as well.  The requirement for mowing the lawn is that you need to pay attention and not hit anything.  Things have been hit in the past by Spark.  To show that he is ready to mow lawn he has been driving the lawn mower around the yard without the mower on to practice and show us what a good driver he is.  I am in the house and I hear him singing at the top of his lungs, when I look out he is waving his hands in the air.  I yell out to him that he needs two, count them two, hands on the wheel at all times.  There is a good chance that Dancer will be keeping her spot as the lawn mower.  I also wonder if it is going to lose a lot of it's appeal when they can both mow lawn.

Proper lawn mowing technique with hand placement.

The Wheels On The House Go Round And Round

I run out to get the mail this afternoon and when I turn to walk back to the driveway I look to the north and see a huge house coming around the corner.  I yell for Spark to get the camera.  It took them a while to get to our driveway so I wonder if they had trouble maneuvering around the corner.  First a truck with a wide load sign came by and then

this house gets closer.  Here I was out on the lawn to take the picture because I figured they couldn't really see what I was doing.  I am a shy picture taker, I would be a little creeped out if someone came out of their house and took a picture of our car as we drove by.  For the rest of the pictures I jumped behind a bush on the side of the driveway.

This is as close as we are probably (hopefully) going to get to a next door neighbor.  If we had a neighbor this close we might as well live in town.

But they are not to be our neighbor, they head on down the road.  Was it something we did?  I don't think we are very loud.

Just as we turn to go back inside the garage came down the road.  Wonder where they are taking it.  I always wonder how good of a deal would you have to get on a house that it would be worth moving.  This doesn't look like a especially fabulous house by any means.  My next thought was I can't believe I am not stuck behind this thing for miles when I am in hurry to get somewhere. 

CHICKENS!!

If we go out on the deck with a treat for the chickens and yell "CHICKENS," they come running from where ever they are.  A chicken running is a very funny sight indeed.  Sometimes I find a treat for them just to see them run.

Dad's Birthday

We celebrated with lunch out at Space Aliens with Grandma and Grandpa. 

Dad played some games with the kids.

The tickets were just shooting out of the machines.  I played one game and won one ticket, par for the course.

Dancer has a whole handful.

Dad and Grandma.  I have never thought that Dad looked like his mom, but in this picture I see a little resemblance.

Mom and Dad.

Dancer, Dad and Grandma

Spark choosing what his prize will be.  This is the longest part of the whole trip as he has to look everything over.

Park Flower Beds Look Good!

Our 4-H club takes care of the flowers at all the city parks.  A couple of families go to each one and either clean out the last years dead stuff or plant new.  We were assigned a park that only needed cleaning, took us about half an hour and we were all done.

Before we started working the garden looked like it was more than half dead.

There were some insanely long crab grass roots in the mulch.  This is actually a short one, a couple were over three feet.  It must be the perfect medium for them to send out their long runners.

After the clean up.  A few more nice, sunny days and this is going to really look good!