August 2020

Covid Pinata for Back to School:

Since I couldn’t plan my normal back to school parties for the kids’ classes, I tried to think of a fun way to celebrate getting to go back to school.  So I ended up making a Coronavirus Pinata!  The kids LOVED it!  They all thought it was a great way to take out some built up quarantine angst killing a covid pinata.  They took lots of turns whacking the heck out of it.  Even Eric got in on the fun!  It was full of a little candy and some fun school supplies. 

I *May* have gotten slightly carried away for my Library Media class... I picked up 74 holds from the library 5 full bags!! ! The first book I read was Princess Academy by Shannon Hale.  So much fun!!  Thanks to these checkouts, Maia did a fun Princess in Black dress up, Donovan read Crossover and loved it, and Serenity reads all the fairy tales and folktales.  Serenity started with the reverso poems and an anthology of mythology. I may have made a mistake though, I gave them to her before she told me if she had a good day, and it took a LONG time before she was ready to talk to me again ;) (My mother thinks it’s only fair, Earth To Chrissie was her mantra when I was little ;) 

I made a tactical error in my book list as I read three books that are first in the series and I NEED SEQUELS! But I need to finish the ones I have first

Highly recommend Dragons in a Bag as both Donovan and I are desperate for the sequel and Zetta Elliot's book list looks amazing, she is definitely going on our shelf. Great story, diverse characters, must have!

Princess Academy is also going in my personal library, along with everything I can get by that author.

The False Prince was a fun read but it's going in the library list and not the amazon cart because I have to draw the line somewhere.

And in a pivot to picture books, Maia DZ and I all loved a Hundred Billion Trillion Stars, a super awesome book to illustrate the concept of large numbers. I'm grateful they wrote out the numbers at the bottom of the page because I don't know what to do with that many zeroes.

I finally read The Princess In Black.  I had tried to talk all three kids into getting it at various times, but they always declined. So when I saw it on my book list for class, I got it! After I read it everyone did . Maia dressed up as the Princess in Purple for an awesome retelling of the story!

Serenity went straight for the Reverso Poems Echo, Echo, and Mirror, Mirror and the pile of world folktales. I read one that was a very cool retelling of the Cinderella story from countries all over the world, I love comparative mythology and this was such a fun and pretty way of learning about it! Glass Slipper, Gold Sandal.

Such a good day!!! Even if I did wake up at midnight and read until 2am to finish the False Prince.

Maia’s front teeth are all gone!  And she loved showing off her loose teeth on Zoom. =)

Maia is rewatching the Great British Baking Show, and begged to make something for Eric and I to judge. We found a recipe for Kim-Joy’s orange blossom York biscuits that she desperately wanted to make, and thanks to Amazon Prime for the orange blossom water she got to do it! I was highly skeptical of the orange blossom because it smells like shampoo to me, but the cookies were good!  Don asked if I was going to keep her around for the next episode, and I said “Absolutely!”  She's the only one with any interest whatsoever in cooking or trying new foods. Serenity would rather starve than make her own grilled cheese sandwich so I am so here for this So even though this is yet another thing you can't make any kind of suggestions to Maia for (such as, we have ingredients for this recipe, why don't we do this one?) we'll keep doing it   Next Maia and I attempted our Battenberg cupcakes. Paul would say... a bit of a mess but the flavor’s ok She went half strawberry, half orange cake with strawberry jam and marzipan. Our marzipan was too gooey to roll, now I know why they are shocked that they have to make it from scratch for the show .  Later, we discovered the problem.  If at first you don’t succeed... read the label. I thought I bought plain almond paste and added ingredients to make marzipan, but Maia told me later the box said marzipan so it was already mixed .

Battenberg Cupcakes

I did something I said I’d never do as a parent... I cut my kids hair . I just can’t take them to the salon and Serenity’s hair was down to her butt... ohh the tangles . Even Donovan’s hair could reach midway down his back when wet. Plus Maia chopped a random sprout out of the top of her hair when she got slime stuck in it that we’ve been concealing with a deep part which also lowered the bar for quality hair . They at least have less to brush! And they all have plenty of hair left if a stylist wants to meet us at the park sometime to fix it

Before =)

After =)

Before

After

Before =) We were stuck at home one day because both car batteries were too dead to jump! That’s how little we drove once quarantine started! Serenity worked on this cool cardboard project for her English class. It’s a tunnel under the Berlin Wall, based on a book she read. She loves WWII historical fiction.

After

My birthday! Escape puzzle and Rose Rock ice cream =)