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A Garden Visitor – A Busy Bee

July 5, 2009 By Laura 1 Comment

The other afternoon, Little {O} and I were working around the gardens, pulling weeds and pinching off dried bits of flower parts, when we noticed we weren’t alone. There was a bumble bee, working right along beside us. It was amazing watching him work, seemingly oblivious to our presence. So graceful, as he floated around. It was but moment, before I couldn’t take it anymore. I asked {O} to keep an eye on him, while I ran into get my camera.

He was all over the place, as was my exposure, as he went from light flower to dark, and back again….I could hardly keep up with my settings, and I didn’t have a macro lens either. So…technically far from the best shots they could have been, but it sure was fun taking them!

These are the moments, when I’m just so fascinated with the brilliant details of God’s beautiful work.
We thought we’d just share the moment with you, and we hope you enjoyed it, too.

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Sail Plymouth – 2009

July 5, 2009 By Laura 3 Comments

This weekend, our town held a 3 day event called the SAIL Plymouth 2009 Festival.

The festival was kicked off with the Welcome Sail of the Amistad & Peacemaker ships into Plymouth Harbor, on Thursday night, to their docking location by Plymouth’s Mayflower II. To learn more about the history of these ships, you can click here.

On Friday night, in honor of our visiting ships, they had a Parade of Boats! It sounded like a fun and exciting event, and we thought the kids would really, really enjoy it. So we joined the crowds of people along the Plymouth Waterfront, to watch. I’m not the best night-time photographer yet, but I dentid my best to capture the beauty of these decorated boats, for the event.

The kids were SO excited. It really was a perfect and beautiful night for the event. The kind of summer nights we just eat up!

Sail Plymouth 2009

Here’s a good handful of some of the boats in the parade. The boat owners were to do their best to make their boats look the most festive, by using lights, music or other noise makers, etc. They were judged by 3 judges, one of whom was Peter Arenstam, author of ‘Nicholas – A Massachusetts Tale‘, among other titles. (Nicholas is the first chapter book our 6 year old triplets read, this year, and I very much enjoyed it myself, as I’ve blogged about! Peter, we learned, is a resident here. )

I really loved this one.

The paddle wheel boat was pretty cool looking too.

Uncle Sam aboard here, cracked us up. But I did think the American flags, waving off the back, was a very nice touch.

Once some boats reaches the end of the route, they looped back. So soon we had boats passing by each other.

It was a really nice crowd of people down there, and we really enjoyed ourselves. When we got home, the kids watched a great display of firework, right from the school room window, as they do every 3rd night of July. The 3rd of July gets pretty crazy around here. Not on our road, but there are bonfires, fireworks and parties for miles along the beach shores. It’s an annual tradition. Although we do have deeded beach rights to a private beach that we enjoy quite a bit year round, and the beach is within walking distance, this particular night it is just too crazy down there to be a safe or nurturing environment for the kids. But they were quite happy with the boat parade, and the fireworks they see this night is a just a neighbor somewhere back there, who sets them off every year. The view is perfect from our school room windows, so the kids pull up a bench and enjoy the show! Then, it is bedtime, and a very late bedtime for them.

We had a full weekend ahead already, but the SAIL Plymouth Festival continued through the weekend, with a carnival, blessing of the fleets, fireworks (the latter 2 being annual events), and a Farewell to our visiting ships! It was a summer night to remember, that kicked off a weekend of celebrating for us!

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Liberty Shakers! – A 4th of July Craft for Kids

July 1, 2009 By Laura 5 Comments

I thought this 4th of July craft, we call Liberty Shakers, was a great one for the kids to make, so they could have a little something to make some ‘joyful noise’ at our various celebrations coming up for America’s birthday!

Living in America’s Hometown, our town most always has a huge, big long 4th of July parade through the heart of our downtown area. But this year, there will be no parade, due another exciting event their holding. (Which is even more exciting, and we’ll be sure to document and share with you when the times comes.) Anyway, my point is, if there’s a 4th of July parade in your town, your kids will love having these along. Maybe they can shake them for the fireworks finale too!!

Very young kids will definitely need some assistance making these, but none at all using them! : )

Here’s what you’ll need for supplies:

Bathroom tissue tubes, and/or paper towel tubes cut in 1/2
A pile of white copy/printer paper (or any white paper)
Clear acetate sheet protectors
Small jingle bells
Any red/white/blue ribbon
Red/white/blue star stickers of any kind
Clear shipping tape (not shown, but it was a lifesaver)
Fiskar cutter (also not shown-not needed but I use it A LOT for most everything regarding cutting straight paper.
*Craft glue – *Note there are glue sticks on the corner. Can I just vent for a second? I’ve decided I despise glue sticks, because every brand I have ever tried has been lousy. We ended up using the same brand glue in an Elmer’s Glue style bottle. Elmer’s glue would work too. But my opinion is, it’s never worth bothering with the glue sticks. Great concept for kids, if they actually worked. Thanks for listening.

Here’s how you make them:

1) Grab a sheet of white paper and a tube, and placing the tubes end at the edge of the paper, mark off the width of paper you’ll need (where you’ll cut).

2) The roll the tube in the paper to determine how much length of paper you’ll need, and mark that side. (Similar to determining how much gift wrap you need to wrap a present.)

3) Here we are cutting the size of paper we need, determined by our tick marks, using the * Fiskar cutter.

*If you don’t have a Fiskar cutter, but find yourself doing crafts that require cutting in a straight line, this tool is worth it’s weight in gold! I use it ALL of the time. They are available at any fine crafts store. The orange blade piece pops out for easy replacement and it also comes with a scorer piece that pops in!

Now if you don’t have this tool, using a ruler and pencil to mark your lines from your tick marks, and cutting with scissors will work as well, of course.

4) Put glue at one end of the sized piece of paper you cut > the end that will run lengthwise with your tube.

5) Start rolling the paper around your tube.

6) The end of the paper you are rolling should have the glue already at the end, to seal it to the tube.

7) Now, this next step I do not have any photos of because frankly, it took a little figuring and a lot of assistance on my part. So there was a little too involved to be photo-taking. But…..you need to cut some circles out of your white paper , that do not need to be perfect. But these paper circles do not to be about 1/2 or so bigger than the end of your tubes. You may want to trace the end of the tube as a guide, keeping your pencil tip away from the edge of the tube. Then you can cut some small slits around the edge of your circles (toward the center, for easier folding. Because you need to use these circles to close off the end of your tubes. Placing the circles at the end of the tube, fold over the tube all the way around. This is one step that the clear packing tape came in very handy. We just cut the right size pieces of tape and wrapped it around to hold the paper closed over the tube end. Comprendez? ONLY CLOSE ONE END OF THE TUBE AT THIS POINT!!!

8) Let the kids count out 10 jingle bells, and drop them into the open end of the tube.
Also, maybe using more or less will make different sound effects, but we did not test that theory, so please do not hold us responsible with that idea. : )

9) NOW, you can close the remaining open end of the tube, following step 7) above.

10 ) Next, take an acetate sheet, and cut it in half, using the center ring whole as a marking point.

11) Then cut fringes with either scissors, or your Friskar cutter. You need to stop an inch or so, short of the end! You do NOT want to cut all of the way.

When you are done, you should have a piece that looks like this below….

So you are going to need this fringe piece for EACH END of every tube you are making.

12) Again, no photos here, but wrap the fringe piece(s) around the end(s) of the tube(s), with the base on the tube, and fringe ends extending off the end. And again, clear shipping tape was perfect for securing it.

13) Decorate the tubes with sticker as you’d like.

14) To further dress up your shakers, you can use the red, white and blue ribbons in various creative ways. You can cut long pieces of the ribbon and tape them at ends of the tubes along with the fringes, and/or wrap them around the tubes as bands-again using tape to secure. For {O}’s, we tied one band, on one end, with a big bow, and long ends, to make it girly-girly for her. : )

15) Once they are all decorated -they are ready for S H AK I NG!

red white and blue July kids craft

I love that they kind of look like fire crackers, too.

HAVE FUN, making some ALL-AMERICAN NOISE!!

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Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream Without an Ice Cream Maker – Kid Recipe

June 29, 2009 By Laura 1 Comment

The other day, {A-11} asked me if she could make some homemade chocolate ice cream. “Ice cream?” I asked, puzzled. “Yeah, Mama. Ice cream. I’ve made it before and it’s really good!” “Uh huh” I answered. But I was thinking, ‘Without an ice cream maker?‘

So got out all of the stuff, and I started taking photos. You know, just in case this one turned out ok. Maybe I could use it for the blog. Even if it was less for Vittles (as in, edible), and more for a kid science experiment in the Home Schooling section! So, I found my purpose in sticking around for a bit, and kept shooting.

She got out all she said she needed:

Participating Ingredients: milk, cream, sugar, cold coffee, and cocoa baking powder.
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*In a small bowl, 1/3 C of baking cocoa powder.
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*1/2 C cream
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*1/2 C sugar.
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Start mixing.

Ever tried mixing cocoa powder into a wet ingredient? I was starting to wonder if we were on candid camera. You can mix and mix and mix….and the powder just doesn’t seem to get wet. For people like me, it’s a small exercise in patience and faith.

But eventually, it actually does start becoming a unified wet substance.
I think using the back of the spoon, and pressing out any powder pockets you can, is a good idea.
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*Add 5-6 teaspoons of cold coffee.
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*Measure out 3/4 C of milk…
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…and pour it in.

Then mix some more.

Now, to be honest, at this point, I still had my doubts. So I walked away to get back to work at my computer. But she poured the contents of this bowl into a clean and flexible container with a cover, and put it in the freezer, overnight.

The next it we took it out, and it still looked………questionable, to me. Just a tad.

But then we scooped some out, put it in a bowl and stuck a spoon in it.

Well, if I wasn’t a blue-nosed gopher.

Ice Cream.

And it even tasted good!

* The amounts of this recipe only make a small batch of ice cream. Maybe 2 servings. Or 1, if you really like ice cream.

So multiply amounts as you wish.

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We Picked Our 1st Garden Strawberry!

June 29, 2009 By Laura Leave a Comment

Back on June 11, {O} came running in the house all excited, because Daddy had let her pick the first garden strawberry.

It’s was a BEAUTY, don’t you think? Thank goodness it was a good size berry, because every one of us were so excited, we had to split it 6 ways! My bit was just a tad bitter, I think. It was kind of hard to tell because it was so small.

There were a few other of the June-bearing berries here and there, that were almost ready for picking, too.

Some were in earlier stages than other, but they still looked like they were going to be good ones!

Only a few days later, many that were green had already really ripened up nicely. Things were looking rather promising!

Although now and then, we find one like this, and it just doesn’t seem quite right. They sure make us laugh though! Perhaps as we become more educated gardeners, we’ll learn just went wrong with berries like these. Gosh…I almost feel sorry for it, the more I look at it. But God doesn’t make mistakes. Right? Maybe it’s sole purpose is for us gardeners to find the gift of chuckles among the leaves and vines. It sure works for me!

All of the kids have enjoyed the excitement of building garden beds, and watching things grow and develop. But it’s evident that {O} really feels the joy and passion inside that I do, with this new experience of gardening.

You know….I was just about to say that I wish I discovered the joy of growing produce in your own gardens as young as {O}, when I was suddenly flooded with a few childhood garden memories of my own. In fact, I’ll have to dig up and share with you all, a little something I just remembered I have stored away, that I think you all may appreciate. If for nothing else, because it’ll give you a little gardening chuckle.

I did love gardens when I was little, come to think of it. So maybe it’s not a new passion after all, but just a forgotten one, that has been…..hibernating. I’m sure glad it’s decided to come out, and fill me with daily joy.

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HAVE FUN, making some ALL-AMERICAN NOISE!!

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