A tale of two Birthday Cakes and some Mythical Creatures

Here we have the two birthday cakes. What a story! Lets start by saying, there was a party the day before her birthday at Tolosa St Reserve. We'd invited alot of people, and surprising many said "yes". This is awesome, but it meant that I had to make two cakes to make sure there would be enough. I was also making Fairies in A Meadow too, so initially I was going to make 20 chocolate fairies which had colour (see above pic). Well, I spent one and a half days (which I didn't really have) to make those. Each time I made two, one broke coming out of the mould. I also had an enthusiastic Monika who wanted to eat them straight away. So with the problems I was enduring I made the decision just to have enough for the cake, and to do plain chocolate for the Fairies in A Meadow. Well, I had enough coloured ones to do a fantastic birthday cake, having them all standing in a circle supported by their wings. Monika got into these a few times as everyone was curious and wanting to look and they didn't keep her away! Anyways, I'd saved enough to do the cake and have plenty of plain to do the Fairies in A Meadow. Then on the day of the party I FORGOT both cakes (both Gluten Free and Dairy Free by the way, and the white choc was sweet williams that is GF and Dairy Free, so I had made up a couple especially for the party in case there was a child who needed that). So... that meant she had two cakes for her birthday instead. Below is a Bratz Pixie cake. This was meant to be with Nan and Pop when we visited them at home so she could get her presents from them. Before we got out the door that day, she'd got in and eaten or bitten into all but these two left on the cake. The others were spares of the Fairies in A Meadow. So Above?Below is the result of two days of cooking. Not quite what I was hoping for... but at least the birthday girl enjoyed herself, right?

Below is just before the final eating of the cake (she's grabbed a fairie and started plowing in before blowing out the candles, its has melted a bit onto her face).

Here's a better picture. Look at that mischievous GLEE in her face. HaHa Mum, I GOT IT!

Here is the boys at Nan's place, it was cute so I'm sharing it.

Here she just blew out the candles with the cake at Nans, she was so fast I couldn't actually catch the glow of the flames...

So this is her second go at blowing out the candles!

Getting into her present bag at Nans. This is cute little story. She's a great cleaner upper, (why else would we keep such a cheeky lass around?) Nan's got a toy bucket, and she knows she has to put toys away when its time to pack up. As a gift, Nan had given her a toy with wheels and since a large majority of toys have wheels in the bucket she immediately took the toy from her pressie bag and put it over in the toy bucket.

Nanny has now taken a little something from us. Every time she gives the birthday child a gift she now gives a little gift to the others. Here they are enjoying little lolly bags she gave to them.

We gave Monika a COOL SCHOOL, similar to the DACS (digital art creativity studio) from Fisher Price. She loves it in short bursts. It takes the place of a keyboard for use in a PC, in fact it has a little keyboard, and a place to do 'writing' etc. She also got a Dora CD expansion pack for it, and a Littlest Pet Shop, way too young of course, but she wants to play so bad when the others do, so why not? She's over shoving every little thing into her goblet, so there is no danger there. As per our family tradition, she gave each of her siblings LPS toy each too, with the exception of Kai again, who got a Bee Beany Bear, which he was wrapt in again.

The Party: Here is the Dragon Pinyata, that Andrew put so much effort into making and it was the highlight of the BBQ party! So cute isn't it? Its paper mache and plaster of paris.

And here is the Pin the Tail on the Dragon game:

Here is naughty Monika trying her best not to be caught on camera.

Here is the costumes, theme: Mythical Creatures (I took photos of all the dressed up children, but I won't be posting them here without permission): In descending order, Kai is a Marine Orc, Dante a Swamp Monster, Labyrinth the MerFairy, Raven is a Tengu (Japanese Shape Changer - in this case he is a Raven), and Monika, the Fairy Princess. Monika and Labyrinth have new wings from the fairy shop. Beautiful aren't they? They can do anything to them, sleep in them wear them in the car, trample mud into them and they'll come up good as new with a wash in the washing machine. Great, aren't they?

The Mythical Creatures of course is an extension of the learning we've all been doing. We have not moved on from Greek Myth yet, we are amazed at how much there is to learn, that and it is on top of their other lessons, and sometimes we jsut don't get time to do it. That's all for now, Q.

Animalia marks the turn of a decade

For a young friend of the families. Happy Birthday M. 10 as of yesterday... it was an animal themed dress up party. The girls were butterflies, Raven came as a raven, Kai as an elephant (his favourite animal), Dante a shark (his favourite at the moment). We brought young M glue, sticky tape and a dress (which got lots of approvals from the girls in the room.)

So here is the photos of Raven, Monika (above) you can just make out her wings), Dante and Kai (front and back shots), and Labyrinth (front and back shots).

This is stunning of Raven, he looks so cute!

2nd above Labyrinth dons my friends bee face mask, so cute *), and you can just see her bee costume to the side. The last photo I included because it was really such a great photo, imbued with such poignancy, the end of a party and all the people who brought it life have gone away. Three photos above is when I was trying to get Monika to smile, I had just given up and was going to take the shot anyway and this was caught so beautifully at that special moment!

Dante and Kai actually made their face masks, they were fantastic, and Labyrinth helped make her antennae. So, the lesson today here folks was social interaction and craft based. Labyrinth's special friend Z decided he wanted to be friends with Dante more and dropped poor little Labyrinth like a hot potatie. But she still had a good time with M, which was more important. Plus she got to learn that being too forceful isn't helpful sometimes, and a gentle touch is far more appropriate sometimes. he got a bit freaked out because she was too affectionate and hugged him too much when he got slightly injured. (fall from a walnut tree). Really, my kids are very affectionate and many other children don't 'get' it. Shame really.

I met a person in person I'd only known on a forum before. That was interesting. There were other people there I knew or met that day and they were all lovely interesting people. I only wish in some ways, that I could put a little capsule of time in and get to spend enough time with each person without making my family starve or be too bored. We were the last of the families to leave, at 6pm as it was.

And then there was Kai's final assessment for his leg. He doesn't have to have it rebroken! It has a bone length difference of 14 mm, but overall difference of 3/4 of a centimetre so they said that's close enough. Bottom line is his legs will play catch up on each other until he is about 16 years old, but shouldn't be noticable, and then it will be normal thereafter. So, it was a great day, and with brilliant news like that, what's not to like? Q.

10 Days of Sheer Bedlam

Dante's Amazing Shark (who is thinking about his next meal)!

But wonderful, amazing bedlam...

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I did an essay for uni about Creative Arts in the Classroom. It centred on making arts the centre of the curriculum, as opposed to Language Arts and Maths. Well, naturally, I took it liberally and very much got immersed into it. Of course I read to the children but little else. I did set them to task. They made little books, and here is a selection of the images from those books:

This is their impressions of drawing the fire/heater:

Friday night they went to a birthday party for a Young Monkey. It was great! Great talking to friends my age while the children played and rampaged through the house. There was games and laughter and much happiness. I learnt a friend who once homeschooled now is the bus driver for her school. A Bus! I don't even have a car licence! I am a bit of a dreamer so I wonder if it would be a great idea anyway....

Saturday. We went shopping for things to make a paludarium! A paludarium is both an aquarium and a terrarium, part land and part water. Its going to be Andrew's and my gift to each other for being married for 10 years.

Well, just the tank set up a bit so far, and don't have all the bits, but its a beginning. We are also thinking of getting a pure white budgie for the set up also.

The children also enjoyed a craft activity after a play at Bunnings. They made pet rocks and painted letters. Labyrinth met a special little guy at Little Monkeys party, and made hers for him. Heres some pics:

1. Raven's work. 2. Kai's work. 3. Labyrinth's work, and 4. Dante's work. That really took all day, the shopping and such. Also, Dante was teaching Kai how to read in the back of the van!!! Labyrinth loves to read to the other children as well and lately she has read Meg and Mog and Dr Suess to the children. It's great. Both Dante and Labyrinth has read Diddy the Dinosaur to Raven and Monika.

Other news: Monika is now crawling very competantly! It took her 6 weeks to coordiate moving arms as well as her legs but she got there! Raven is now recognising colours and shapes! YAY! We have new neighbours who seem decent, a boy called Toby who is Dante's age, and a toddler girl, they also have a baby? Unsure but I think so. Labyrinth and Dante have good friends now, and I am happy for them. Kai is really scaring me. His broken leg does seem a little longer than his other leg now. We find out 6 days after my birthday and a little over a month before the anniversary of his break whether it is going to need to be rebroken surgically. Believe me, I'm dreading the thought. Poor bugger! Not sure if I described it before, but it was literally a long diagonal break from one side to the other, over 2/3rds of his femur bone. They told us it was the type of break one gets from a parachute or car accident, and he did it in a stepped hole at Tolosa St Reserve. He must have come down hard onto his knee and snapped it. It really is a parent's nightmare to see a child's limb in a grotesque position! I'll catch up further tommorrow, as I said there is a lot to say! We live a busy life, and we love it.

Who ever said a homeschoolers life was slow and boring????