I was not a carpenter when I woke up this morning. However, Elijah- not generally one for big projects- proposed that we needed a puppet show theatre so that he could put on a show. After evaluating how it could be constructed, we were off to the garage for leftover plywood, screws, and a wide variety of power tools and saws. We now have wonderful, spontaneous puppet shows!
These are great! These were a Christmas present and get regular use. Today Sadie was doing general architectural sculpting while Elijah was building a several tier house for his race cars complete with a consideration for drainage during heavy rains. They are called KEVA planks and I highly recommend them!
On a rainy day, the kids and I took the 5-hour trek to Houston! Daddy was headed to Austin to visit Uncle Scott so we figured we’d escape and do some things we’d been wanting to do out Houston way.
We were thrilled to be a part of the grand re-opening weekend of The Children’s Museum of Houston. It was spectacular! We’ve been to many wonderful children’s museums but this one definitely takes the cake.
The ‘children’ holding up the building’s awning are called “caryakids”- a play on words from the actual name “caryatids”- From Wikipedia- caryatid (Greek: Καρυάτις, plural: Καρυάτιδες) is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head.
This is just cool. Elijah asked me to take a picture of the giant robot made of phones. “What a great way to re-use old stuff!” he says.
We had a lazy evening at a less than desirable Red Roof Inn and awoke eagerly anticipating our trip to The Johnson Space Center!
Apollo/Saturn V is the rocket that took the first men to the moon in July, 1969. It is absolutely overwhelmingly enormous at 363 feet long with 3 stages of propulsion. Incredible.
We decided to make the drive home at 4 o’clock in the afternoon after a great day at the Space Center since none of us was thrilled with the hotel accomodations. We were home and cozy in our beds by 10 PM!
The kids made their own ‘guitars’ out of shoeboxes and different sized rubber bands. Elijah made a bass guitar like Daddy’s using some very thick rubber bands that make a much lower tone when strummed. They decided that we must get the band together and have a show! Shown below is 3/4 of the band in action. We rocked it to classics like Row, Row, Row Your Boat; Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star; and (our favorite) The Scooby Doo television theme song. I have video that I’ll post when I can figure out how to get it off the camera.
It’s a LEAP park crawl! About 16 children hopped on their scooters, strollers, and bikes to take on 3 playgrounds along a stretch of Euless’ bike trail/park system.
We stopped for lunch at the 2nd playground. After the 3rd playground, Elijah and Sadie wanted to show everyone the fallen tree that they had discovered on a previous trip here. It’s safe to say that a fabulous day was had by all.
The kids were extra-cute and I was feeling camera-happy.
Elijah (aka- camera-shy) was feeling quite amenable to a few photos… but only a few! Sadie, on the other hand, took this chance to ham it up!
Gotta love 40% off coupons from Michael’s! On one of our bike rides to get soft wood pieces for signs for the veggie garden, Elijah found this- a rock tumbler. I’ve always wanted to tumble rocks! Excitement was in the air!
Who knew it would take so long?! There are 3 cycles: 1) the coarse grind- coarse grit is placed in the tumbler with water and the chosen stones and tumbled according to instruction for 7 days (empty and rinse), 2) the medium grind- medium grit is placed in the tumbler with water and the same stones for 12-14 days (empty and rinse), and 3) the fine grind- fine grit is placed in the tumbler with water and the stones for an additional 7 days. Whew! All 3 cycles are finally finished. That took patience! We see now why it takes thousands of years for rocks to becomes smoothed by running rivers, streams, and ocean waves!
Happy birthday to our friend, Brett! I didn’t get many good pictures of the party but thank goodness this one came out b/c it’s so sweet and apt!
Brett hugs Elijah while they share their love of Wii.
Declan and Elijah duke it out at air hockey. It was a fun-filled, free-flowing day!
The bikes are in full use as a mode of transportation and adventure. Usually I have to be on rollerblades to keep up but still have free hands in case they’re needed. It’s a great way for all of us to exercise and adventure. We go to Bear Creek Park in Keller quite often and continue to expand our knowledge of the paved bike trails there. Oftentimes we will hitch a ride with Daddy as he goes to play basketball at the gym there, unload the bikes/blades, and head off. They’ve ridden to the bicycle shop in town on several occasions for various needs, grocery shopped (I swap blades for flip-flops to shop then carry our re-use bags in hand as I blade back), stood outside the natatorium and watched the divers, fed the ducks, traversed the giant rocks in the drainage area, gone for ice cream, watched the dog training classes in the park on our way by, appreciated the sculptures and gardens, and more! Most times, these rides end up in the evening. It is so peaceful to ride the lit trails in the dark. We love it!
We’ve been to many parks including several in Euless and hitting Trinity Park in Fort Worth one afternoon before Sadie’s acting class. There’s so much more to appreciate from the seat of a bicycle!
We also ride to do our shopping (I bring the wagon for the groceries) and to go to the library (which is slightly farther so I bike and the kids ride in the bike trailer). Errands are so much more fun to run when they’re made an adventure! Above (left) the kids climb a giant fallen tree in Euless inspecting the roots that pulled from the ground as it fell over, (right) we sit in front of Lowe’s on a trip for vegetable seeds, etc. and eat hot dogs from the vendor before our travel back, (down left) a snowy egret searches for lunch aside the Trinity River in Ft. Worth, and (down right) a cool view of the railroad tracks alongside the Trinity River.
Sadie is about 1/2 way through with her semester of acting classes at Casa Manana and continues to enjoy them immensely. After a few classes of acting games and warm-ups, the class (about 6 girls and 2 boys aged 4 & 5) wrote their own play for the final public presentation. It is loosely (and hysterically) based on episodes 4,5,&6 of Star Wars.
Guess who’ll be playing Princess Leia? She’s thrilled and we’ve been practicing the hair-do. Here Sadie acts irritated at having her picture taken.
While Sadie is in her class each week, Elijah and I sit together on the floor playing Blokus, checkers, doing math problems in a practice book (that he will not write in b/c he loves to do them over and over), and other logic-based games and exercises to which he is drawn.
Check out the new home of Humans Being for show archives and updates on Sarah's endeavors.
