Monet-inspired Cakes

After our last impressionism paintings, I had the idea of painting with frosting. Kids are always willing to pile on the frosting! I was originally going to do this on cupcakes but realized they wouldn't be able to do a scene on such a small space.

So we baked two cakes from one box of cake mix in 9 inch pans.

After the cakes cooled completely we created a blank canvas with white vanilla frosting.

We also made several different colors of frosting.

We thought about Monet's palette in many of his paintings.

We used butter knives as paintbrushes. I thought about using real paintbrushes but didn't want the little hairs in the frosting.

The kids thought about Monet's outdoor paintings and then decided on what kind of scene they wanted to create.

Goose decided on an ocean sunset.

Binky decided on a mountain sunset scene with a river.

He said, "This is fun!"

But he made it clear that he will not be eating any cake.

It's not his favorite dessert.

This masterpiece of an ocean sunset with the moon rising is by Goose.
I love the reflection of the sunset in the ocean!

And this masterpiece of a grassy mountain with a flowing river at sunset is by Binky.
I love how they knew exactly what they wanted to paint and then did it.
They even used smaller brushstrokes like Monet.



We also read this beautiful book to inspire us. This would be a great book for younger kids.
The illustrations are so pretty.
The above book and art playing cards are also great.
Go fish with impressionist masterpieces is my kind of card game!
We had so much fun with this project.
And after dinner we have beautiful cakes to admire and devour!

Lithium Atom Model

Daddy twisted some wire for us and we stuck it in some clay.

Then we tied some string in the middle of the inner circle .

We cut the string so that it was hanging only to the center of the circle.

We found some red, yellow and green air dry clay and made 10 little balls about the size
of a small grape.

3 yellow for the protons, 3 red for electrons and 4 green for the neutrons.

The outer electron shell has one electron and the inner shell has 2.

The nucleus has all the protons and neutrons.

We clumped them all together around the end of the string.

This is our model of a lithium atom.

We looked at the periodic table and noticed how all the elements are arranged by their atomic number, how many protons are in the atom.

We looked at my camera's lithium battery.

Did you know lithium is the lightest metal on the periodic table?

We plan on making several more molecule models just to compare with each other.

We had fun with this project.

It's fast and easy!

fortune teller, fashion and legos

Binky's fortune teller

Binky's legos

fashions by Goose

There's been a lot of lego play going on in our house. We had to clear off an entire bookshelf to hold all the lego ships Binky has acquired in the last year. We're hoping this keeps them together longer!

Goose has been designing like crazy! She can sit for hours sketching new designs.

I really love what she comes up with. When I was her age I was doing the exact same thing.

Only I wasn't as good as she is!!

Linnea in Monet's Garden is a great book!

I read it to the kids before we went to the museum to see The Birth of Impressionism exhibit in San Francisco. They really got into the story. In fact, we all wanted to get on a plane and see Giverny for ourselves!

Binky and I had a great day yesterday together. We saw Shrek 4, which was kinda cute, but not great. Then we headed to the comic book store for some reading material. There are some cats that live in the store so Binky was curled up in the cat's corner reading comics. Oh, how I wish I had brought my camera!

After that we had thai food for lunch. Binky loves chicken sticks, I mean satay, and coconut ice cream. After lunch we had a long walk home.

It was such a wonderful day for me. One of those days I will look back on when he is a teenager and never home.

Blue Belts

combinations

roundhouse kicks

Kata 2

Pinan 2

Blue Belts

Celebration!

I am so proud of Goose and Binky!

Impressionist painting

"Vases" by Goose

"Boba Fett" by Binky

We began a study of Impressionism this week. As you can see the kids really enjoyed it!

We talked about the birth of Impressionism in Paris.

We looked at Claude Monet's Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise.)

We admired Caillebotte, Cassatt, Cezanne, Degas, Manet, Renoir and Sisley.

We talked about light and color. And moving the canvas in plein air, outside, to really capture sunlight in the painting.

We looked at the short, broken brushstrokes used by Impressionists.

And then they painted!

Since we weren't able to get outside, Goose chose some vases to paint.

Binky chose his favorite Star Wars character, Boba Fett, to paint.

His helmet, actually.

Hey, at least I got him painting!!

I LOVE how they turned out!!!

Next time we'll paint outside in the sun.

Like Monet!

Enter to Win

Stephanie over at Ordinary Life Magic, Too is giving away World Myths and Legends: 25 Projects You Can Build Yourself.

This book sounds great!

Head on over and leave a comment if you want a chance to win a copy for yourself!

"Thank You Mom"

Goose made me a "Thank You Mom" book for Mother's Day.
I have to tell you it brought me to some serious tears!
This is what it said

Thank You Mom
You're always there for me and thank you for all your care and love.
We will always need you.
You're the one we come to when we have a problem.
You're the one who listens to everything we say.
You are special and don't forget it.
Mom, you do everything right and always will.
You know what's best for us.
You are the brightest thing in the world.
You love me and I love you.
Sometimes I can be a pain but I will always love you!
We love you so much.
Here's a poem I wrote for you:
You are perfect in every way and don't forget we are here to stay with you and love you forever.
the end
Poems speak to the world.
We love you mom and we will forever
thank you for every little thing possible.

I told you, some serious tears!!
I am truly blessed to have my Goose and Binky!

Happy Birthday Binky!!!!

Binky turned 8 today at 2:47am.

So to celebrate we had a Lego party!

These soaps were in the goody bags and they are so cute!
I mean super cute! I found them here.

The rest of the goody bag was filled with a lego mini-set and lego shaped candy.

You can actually build with the candy pieces!

Binky wanted an icecream cake so we looked for a lego cake at Baskin Robbins.

They don't make one.

So we took some photos of our legos and they made their "Freeze Frame" cake with our photo.

We loved how it turned out!

Here's my boy on his 8th birthday.

He's asleep now and all I can think of is how amazing he is and how blessed I am to be is mother.

Happy Birthday Binky!

I love you

xo

Tug of War

This was a very cool experiment!

We used rubbing alcohol, food coloring and water to demonstrate how the water and alcohol molecules react when they come in contact with each other.

They immediately seperate! They are both pulling away from each other in a tug of war.

The water moves away and takes some of the alcohol with it.
The water forms a ridge around the alcohol.

Eventually, the water wins and takes over the alcohol.


You have to watch the video to see the pulsating ridge of water as the two different molecules pull on each other!
So cool!
Thanks again, Janice VanCleave for another fun and educational science experiment!

a walk in the woods with my niece

I took my niece to my favorite place yesterday.

We got up bright and early and headed for the woods.

It was a gorgeous day!

So bright and clear.

The creek was full of water from all the April rain.

I was so proud of her for doing this 5 mile hike without a single complaint!

Hiking is not something she does very often.

After the hike we stopped for a sandwich lunch before heading home.

I had a great time!

I don't get a lot of alone time with my niece, so this was quite a treat!

The kids and I haven't been here so far this year, so I may take them this week.

Any excuse to be surrounded by ancient redwoods!