Jack & the Beanstalk

Missoula Children’s Theater came to town again this fall, and this year three of our kids got parts. . .okay, due to illness, every kid who auditioned got a part. Unfortunately, Boy Genius fell prey to the fever and missed the last day of rehearsal as well as the performances. He would have been one of the Merchants (although he had really hoped to run lights again).

Bouncy Boy was a Magical Bean. He acted like he was having fun and he did a great job onstage, but he grumbled a lot about having to go to rehearsals and performance. We’ll see how he feels about it when it’s time for next year’s auditions!

Twirly Girl was the Harp. No words, just a dance; but she did her part very well and looked forward to going each day. Apologies for the poor photo, but my camera battery died before we had a chance to take a better one.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

This one’s for Papaw

We won’t begin our new home school year until after Labor Day, but have been using some of the lazy days of late summer to work through Mona Brookes’ Drawing With Children. I’ve had the book and supplies for an embarrassing amount of time and finally ran out of excuses. For the most part we have enjoyed the lessons and are currently working on identifying the different elements of shape (dot, circle, straight line, curved line, angled line) as we follow directions. Today’s exercise was not from the book, but having 4 boys in the class I figured we should at least try drawing a simple car!

Boy Genius, Drama Boy, and Twirly Girl are all pretty pleased with their pictures, and enjoyed adding details such as a traffic light, buildings, and so forth.

Yes, I drew a car too–it is much easier to show than tell the little boys “draw a curved line over each wheel.” Silly Boy says his is the Larry-Mobile; somewhere to your lower right he drew in Larry-Boy and the Fib. Bouncy Boy was not having a good morning even though I think his car turned out well enough.

Twirly Girl sews Ottobre, too

(I know, this is incredibly delayed–I forgot I had this picture on my camera until I uploaded the banana bread picture Saturday night.)

Here are Twirly Girl’s blue ribbon fair projects. The orange and yellow floral denim and white rick rack are from my stash, both well-aged. Her bag is actually a beginner project from Nebraska 4-H’s sewing materials (thanks again, Diane!). Her skirt is from Ottobre 4/2004, design #10, which has a yoke and six gores. She made size 122 with length added. I traced the pattern, figuring most girls would use a pattern that did not need tracing. She did the rest herself. She finished her seam allowances with zigzag as she’s not ready for the serger yet; some of the seams are pressed open but most are pressed to one side and topstitched. I already blogged about her matching top, which I sewed although she added the applique.

She’s full of ideas for next year’s projects, including pajamas for Baby Boy. . .but I notice she hasn’t been in the sewing room since she finished sewing the trim on her skirt.

Reserve Champion

Here is a picture of Twirly Girl’s finished cake, which earned junior Reserve Champion in Handicrafts at our county fair last month. She got quite a few comments on her cute design, and the judge’s only real critique was that her frosting should have been redder for her apple border.

County Fair

Fair warning: this post is pure mommy brag, as the kids’ 4-H exhibits were judged today.

Drama Boy baked coconut toffee bars for his foods project, and received a purple ribbon–this means he can sell his goodies at Friday night’s Purple Ribbon Bake Sale as well as send some to the State Fair next month.

For his other projects (GPS, shooting sports, shotgun, and sports fishing) he made posters. He received a purple ribbon for GPS and blue ribbons for each of the rest; his shotgun poster also received Reserve Champion for his level.

Boy Genius received a purple ribbon for the yellow cake he baked for foods and a blue ribbon for his cake decorating entry. Did you know they use styrofoam cake forms for the fair?

His bug collection received a purple ribbon in spite of a last minute accident leading to a stop at the hardware store to buy new glass on the way to the fairgrounds. . .

Twirly Girl’s sewing projects were judged last week. She received blue ribbons for sewing both her tote bag and skirt and a red ribbon for modeling them; she must be bashful like her mother. She also received Reserve Champion ribbons for her skirt and her modeling (only 3 juniors this year).

Like her brothers, she received a purple ribbon in foods (chocolate chip cookies). Her cake decorating also earned a purple ribbon as well as Reserve Champion! I need to get a picture of the finished cake as her borders were really cute.

Considering that this was Boy Genius and Twirly Girl’s first year, and last year Drama Boy only entered one project, I think they all did pretty well! Meanwhile Baby Boy wondered what all the fuss was about, and why everyone was baking and frosting but not feeding him.

PS: I got brave and entered my linen blouse and stars apron in the open class; I haven’t been back to fairgrounds since they were judged, but rumor has it my blouse got a blue ribbon and my apron a red ribbon. Grand Champion in that division went to last year’s winner. . .I am not sure how that works, as he is a professional.

ETA: I goofed; he was Reserve Champion this year. Grand Champion went to a set of impeccably hand embroidered dish towels.

Treasure hunt

Drama Boy is doing GPS/GIS for one of his 4-H projects this year, so naturally the whole family needed to go geocaching to try out the new GPS last week. There are more geocaches around our little town than I imagined; we only looked for 7 or 8 of them and found 4 on our first trip. Guess we’ll have to go again!

Twirly Girl’s turn to hold the GPS:

Hmmmm. . .it should be around here somewhere (but we never did find it):

Success! Bouncy Boy found this one, and Drama Boy helps open it up to record our find in the log:

They looked all around (and under) the bridge, but this one remains to be found another day:

Although it was a rather hot day, this was a fun family activity that combined exercise with adventure. By the time we got back home, the kids were asking when we could go again!

Colonial penmanship

Some time ago, one of Twirly Girl’s Cowgirl friends gave her a feather. In looking through an out of print Felicity craft book, she found directions for making a quill pen and berry ink. Larry helped her trim her feather into a pen, and I found some red raspberries on sale for her ink.

She kept at it, but she found that dipping her pen in ink made writing much more tedious than using a pencil or a modern gel pen.

Sugar buzz

Pictures of the latest round of cake decorating efforts, from Monday night’s meeting (a lesson in shaped cakes) and from Twirly Girl’s trial runs of her fair cake ideas. Once again, she fell apart during the meeting but did a great job finishing at home the next day. Who can know the mind of a 9 year old girl. . .

Boy Genius’s train:

Twirly Girl’s bunnies:

And Twirly Girl’s fair ideas. I think these are both trees: one in summer and one in autumn. I assume she’ll use brown for the trunk on her cake for fair.