Ingrid and Grandma started this cute little couch on Monday and I helped Ingrid finish it today. It’s cotton fabric sewn and stuffed with batting or Polyfil, over a cardboard frame.
Marisol is Ingrid’s mouse that I knit for her birthday. I got the pattern from Ravelry.com. I made her sweater on my own, but it came out bigger than I wanted and I’m going to make another one soon.
We had a two part celebration this year: a tea party and a bowling party. The tea party was attended by Aunt Tana, Grandma, Aunt Claudia, and Bella, Nathan and Ollie. I spent the morning shopping, baking and cooking away, and soon became overwhelmed with how much work there was to do! I forgot a bunch of ingredients at the store, everything took longer than it should have (of course!) and keeping the kids from fighting over helping was not easy either. I had to scrap the blueberry scones from the menu. But the kids had a great time helping me dip the chocolate strawberries, making the little quiches, and especially assembling the edible arrangement. I could see the magic in their faces and that made me really glad to have them involved. The food turned out well, the table that Ingrid had the kids set and decorate looked beautiful, and we all enjoyed some sinful little foods. And most importantly, Ingrid got to have a “real” tea party at last.
For the rest of the family, we had a bowling party at the local alley here in Redwood City. I baked the cakes at Claudia’s house (another disastrous undertaking), and brought home what was salvageable. The mini 4-inch and 6-inch tiers were white cake with raspberry mouse filling and the 9-inch tier was chocolate with Oreo cookies and cream filling. Well the chocolate cake stuck to the pan too much because I’d forgotten my parchment paper and so that was unusable; the raspberry mousse was perfect until I added the other half of the puree and then it flopped into a liquidy mess. So what we did instead is just a mini 2-tier white cake with cookies and cream filling, hot pink buttercream icing with nice little decorations, including some flowers that Ingrid had piped and frozen a few days before. And we bought a big half sheet chocolate cake from Safeway which Ingrid also loved. It worked out well, I got to make my little cake for her and the chocoholics got their wish too.
We all had a ball bowling, who knew bowling could be so fun? Ingrid and I loved loved loved making buttercream flowers, and coloring our buttercream. We spent an evening learning and freezing the ones that looked OK. Ingrid told me: mommy this is the best day of my life! I kinda felt that way too, after watching countless episodes of Cake Boss we have both been itching to try it out for ourselves. The dilemma now is how to keep up our new hobby. I’ve already left a message with Claudia suggesting a cupcake decorating party, just for fun : )
I made these swan cream puffs from a recipe online. They came out GREAT! My favorite item at the party. The filling was instant vanilla pudding but the dough I made myself (super easy) and I piped the necks with a bag and round tip. The wings are just the top third of the biscuit, cut in half and stuck into the pudding. Yummers, can’t wait to make these again some day…
Lego men that daddy made out of chocolate!
Now that it’s September and the summer is traditionally over, I decided it’s time to go back to more formal homeschooling. Ingrid has been learning all summer regardless, as questions come up and are answered. She’s been asking about addition so we talked about that frequently. She learned the lyrics to several TMBG songs; to swim a little more. She learned how to paint with a roller on our dinette, and a bunch of other small things while daddy was working on the house. She made several paintings on her own. And played with her cousins, also very important work.
I’m starting out this school year by returning to the Math workbook. This week Ingrid learned all about a ruler, how to use it, what measuring is for, what inches are, how to measure things bigger than a ruler (measuring tape). I gave her a bunch of items to measure around the house. We just happened to finish a little doll sized couch from a sewing pattern, and I’m going to let Ingrid do all the measuring for the next piece of furniture.
Ingrid has gotten pretty good at sewing and can just about use the sewing machine on her own. I’m not sure where that fits into the plan but she sure does love it : ) We’re going to mix in sewing projects (measuring, cutting, planning, fine motor skills?) with reading which she now does on her own for pleasure. Also will continue to read to Ingrid daily. We just finished Frankenstein. By finished, I mean: put away. This is the first book we did not finish. The subject matter got too sad and I read ahead and it only gets worse. So we picked up The Swiss Family Robinson and will start it tonight. Also we’ll continue with Art projects because that’s another thing she loves. Then once we get back on the road there’ll be natural/people history, or whatever opportunities come up.
In this pic, we’re at Fort Funston. We’ve been going regularly, as the dogs are allowed to run free there and it’s such a beautiful beach. It’s a good hike to get to the beach, about half an hour down and 45 minutes back up, and that’s part of the appeal for me. It gets us out of the house and exercising. Usually we bring a yummy picnic but this time we ate first as we were pressed for time (homeschooled in the morning). Ingrid built a castle and danced around on the sand while I threw the ball for Ginger and kept and eye on Otto. Otto loved it most, jumping around like a puppy and swatting other dogs to entice them to play with him. Ingrid and I also played a little frisbee until the ocean took it away from us : (
Aunt Tana gave this little set to Ingrid for her birthday. She’s been wearing it daily ever since! I like seeing it on her, as it matches nicely with our new wall color : )
We got up early and it paid off big time! We got great parking, and awesome seats for the free They Might Be Giants concert at Stern Grove, San Francisco. They’re miniscule but they’re right there on the stage, behind Ingrid, John & John. So exciting!
