Every so often, I have the kids make the Thanksgiving Place Cards.  We usually make them with white cardstock and construction paper.  This year is different. 

First we gather 14 small clay pots.   The instructions say to use 3″ pots, but I never read instructions; therefore, I brought home 1.5″ pots.

The girls painted each pot black.

Then they picked a fall color and painted the band of the hat.

After the paints were dry, I wrote the names of all the guests on the brim, using a permanent marker.  Once that was done the girls glued on a yellow buckle, and a black foam circle for the brim.

I think they turned out rather cute.  We will be keeping these for our next years Thanksgiving decorations.

You can find the instructions for these at Better Homes and Garden.

A few weekends ago, we decided to go hiking in a state park we have been to. O’leno State Park was the one we picked. It took us two hours to get there, but it was well worth it.

Since Sir Son is allergic to the outdoors and we knew we would not hear the end of it, we let him stay home. The girlies were more than willing to go.

This park is located on the Sante Fe River. There are several hiking trails to pick from. We decided to go on the trail that leads to where the river disappears underground. It comes up later 3 miles away.

The area is just amazing. Here take a look. This view is from the suspension bridge.

The photo below was taken while looking into the river. See how blue the sky looks? It really was that blue.

Now this is a picture of a spider web. The spider was making the web as I took the picture. It was really something to watch. I have decided to do an alphabet photo hunt, so this web will serve as my letter “O”. I also have a “Y”.

Along the banks were gazillion Cypress knees. Some of the trees were huge!

Well, that is all for now. I’ll post more photos in a day or two.

 
Check it out!

We finally hung the watercolor leaves the girls painted a while ago.  I carefully cut them out and had the girls paint on the other side.  Then we hung a brown string across our door leading from the kitchen to the livingroom.

I have the doors closed just for the photo.  Normally they are opened.  This is the spot where Sir Husband will run into them, at least 256 times a day.   Last night Sir Son announced he ran into the too.  So we have a double-header going on here. 

This is the place we usually hang our holiday craftiness.  Christmas might be gingerbread men, Valentines day might be dancing heart people, and so on. You get the picture.  This time is is watercolor leaves and pumpkins.

I got the pumpkin idea from Art Projects for Kids.  The girls cut out 6″ strips of orange paper for our pumpkins.  WE couldn’t push the brads through the paper to attach all the orange strips, so I punched a small hole in each end. It worked great.  Very thin strips of green were cut and then twisted around a knitting needle to get them to curl.  Green leaves were added after the curly strip.

The girls had a lot of fun with this project.

Back in October, I took my oldest daughter out for a Mother-Daughter weekend.  We had some Mother-Daugther things to discuss. 

Sir Husband booked us a hotel room on the beach in St. Augustine, FL.  Our room faced the beach and it was so beautiful.  The first morning was foggy.

This walk down the beach lasted only a few minutes.  The violinist was getting bored, because she wasn’t allowed to go swimming…yet.

Since we had nothing else to do, we drove to the historical part of St. Augustine.  We got there at 9:50am and not a single shop was open.  Most did not open until 10:10 to 10:15.  Why bother, there was no one around.  lol

After walking around a bit, I made The Violinist go into the Oldest School House.  She was beyond bored.  If it wasn’t so embarrassing to her, she would have landed on the ground and had convulsion and refused to go in.  She didn’t.  Maybe it was because she knew I would have done the same thing if she did.  Now that would have sent her running to find new parents.  I mean really, a mother acting like that!  She can’t even stand it when I yell encouragement to kids playing a game.  If she ran off, I can always bring her back by dangling ice cream in front of her.

The violinist favorite place to be was here.  Under all that prettiness, she is a fish.  Now if I was Melanie, I would use my PSE6 and lighten her face, put some sparkle in her eyes, and a bunch of other things to make this a better picture.  Maybe even fix the nose, I don’t know.  It doesn’t matter, I am not Melanie and I don’t know how to use my PSE6.

I went swimming a few times, which is really nice in October.    We also went to the beach a few more times during the weekend.  The violinist went swimming at the beach, but I didn’t.  We forgot beach towels and I had my camera.

Below are Sea Oats.  They are illegal to pick here.  You use to see a framed Sea Oat in just about every home in Florida, along side pictures of palm trees and pink flamingoes.  Now you just see palm trees, pink flamingoes, and shells.     Sea Oats had nothing to do with our weekend.

The next morning was absolutely beautiful!  From our balcony we saw this sunrise.

We even got to see dolphin swim by.  Now that was exciting. 

The weekend was wonderful.  I really enjoyed having just one of my daughters with me for the three days.  I look forward to taking Pea #1 out on her weekend, but at the same time I am thankful it will be another two years.

Give someone a hug and have a great Sunday.

We are now into Module 7 of Apologia Biology Science.    We are learning more about DNA in this section.

The first experiment was to extract DNA from peas.  The instructions say to use split peas.  I do not like peas.  I avoid peas when I can.  Sir Husband; however, loves peas and I still can’t figure out why.  I only purchase a very small bag of frozen baby peas.   The smaller the bag, the better.

So, after reading “split peas”, I had to call someone and ask if that meant cooked, raw, or dried.   No one could help me.  I  am sure they all hate peas too.  After googling  pea something, I came across this little gem.  How to Extract DNA From Any Living Thing.   It is really colorful and full of great information.  If you scroll down a little, you’ll see the visual I was looking for.  A bag of dried yucky split peas.  Visuals are your friends; peas are not.

So, off to the grocery store to buy the cheapest brand of split peas I could find.  When I told Sir Husband what I was planning on doing, he got upset.  I would be putting delicious peas to their death.  I secretly rejoiced and I have yet to tell Sir Husband that I have almost a half bag left.  Don’t tell him, ok?

The first thing we had to do was measure out the peas, water, and salt.

Then you get to visualize Whirled Peas.  It’s a marvelous thing to see destruction of split peas.

Whirled Peas, gotta love it!   Next strain the pea juice and add soap.

 Then you add meat tenderizer, which cuts the protein away from the DNA. 

After adding alcohol, the fun begins.  First you observe what it looks like from the top.

 See the strands above?  Those are the peas’ DNA. 

Then you get to play with it!

and play with it

and play with it

and play with it.

Then I told the students they had to taste the liquid.  They were smart and didn’t believe me.

Aren’t they cute?   Made from copper scrubbies and cotton thread.

In Florida we don’t get the color change, like the lucky people who live up north. So…we have to make our own.

To get accurate shapes of leaves, I printed clipart from Clipart ETC . This is one of my favorite places to get coloring pages. I printed what I wanted on watercolor paper, then gave each girl three fall colors, yellow, red, and green,

I scanned these pictures, so I don’t why you only see part of this one. These are my youngest paintings. I think she did a nice job.

Below is my oldest Pea’s painting. She also did a fine job. My favorite leaf is the Maple.

They liked this assignment so much, they decided to trace one of the leaves and paint it as well. This was done on regular printer paper. Very vivid.   I am impressed they stayed in the lines so well. 

All will be cut out and hung from somewhere in the kitchen. Probably in the only place where Sir Husband will run into them, at least 256 times a day.