Basketball, Spelling Bee, Ceramics, and More! {January and February 2020}

A lot happened during January and February.  Olivia played fourth grade basketball.  Elizabeth placed third of four places in her class spelling bee to move on to the grade level spelling bee, Trusten geared up for a school band concert scheduled in March—he plays drums—and Carissa and I shared a ceramics class on the Crowder College main campus.  The rest of her classes this semester are online courses, and I started my second term with WGU at the beginning of February.  I used my lifetime learning credit with Crowder to pay for my tuition for the ceramics class, while Carissa must take the class for her Art Education degree.

We all six went to one of our favorite hiking trails in the Big Sugar Creek State Park.  The sun was setting as we made it to the last stretch.

During one of my walks on which only Elizabeth accompanied me, she kept asking me to watch her run.  Here she is geared up to run.  She finally talked me into racing her.  I do not run, people, unless I'm naked in the yard when I hear someone driving down the road or when my life is in danger—then you ought to see how fast I can blaze, even barefoot across rocky terrain—so she fairly beat me.

Elizabeth worked on a writing assignment at school:

The girls dressed alike one day, and Olivia painted hers and Elizabeth's toenails to match:

I got to enjoy a walk with all four of my babies down to the icy cliffs (though a lot had melted away, already).

My dad signed us up for six months of Yum boxes from other nations.  This Monster Munch was one of the surprises in January's box.  Aren't they cute?

Olivia played basketball for the first time, and I really enjoyed watching her games.  She made a basket during two of the handful of games they played.  Though I got some good moves on film, I never caught her making a basket.  Someone else did, and they were kind enough to share the footage:

Looook at the curls on this frostweed.  I took this picture on a fun, lengthy hike we all six took one day.

The first project Carissa and I worked on in our ceramics class was a simple pinch pot.  Later on in this post, I shared my finished product.  It looks ok, but it was my first time ever making anything out of clay, and it wasn't great.  The next project was a "natural object," using hollow form.  I chose to do brain coral, and I'm pleased with this particular project.  Yes, the object is entirely hollow inside with vented holes beneath.

Carissa chose to make a stump for her natural object, which can be seen on the left in the following picture.  After we produced our natural objects, we were to make a teapot inspired by our object.

I am mostly pleased with my brain coral tea pot, though I think I made my spout too long, and perhaps the handle is a bit too big, too. 

Trusten and Elizabeth were excluded from public school for a week because someone at the school had come down with a case of mumps.  I'm almost 100% certain all four of my kids (vaccinated, partially vaccinated, and non-vaccinated) got the mumps, but it was such a mild illness that I never took them to the doctor, so it wasn't on record.  The school would not accept Trusten's partial vaccination.  Olivia was able to stay at school. 

I'm continually awed by the great sycamores, but I especially love seeing their white bark brightly sunlit.  It looks far more awesome (the true meaning of the word) in person.

After one of Olivia's games, the team got together at Mazzio's to eat pizza.  The boys had stayed home, but Elizabeth enjoyed with us, and we took food home to the boys.

We had so much fun exploring one day, but the boys were outfitted in such a way that I wouldn't dare share their pictures.  They'd come after me.  I loved this moss-covered tree.

February's Yum box was filled with goodies from France:

My natural object and teapot were bisqued in the kiln:

Wow!!!!!!!  My day was totally made by finding the fossil below.  We find plenty of crinoids around here, but this appears to be some sort of brittle star, but I can't find one online that has more than five arms. I think I'm going to have to say this is my favorite-ever fossil find. 

I glazed my pinch pot, and here is the finished product.  Some places I needed to glaze more, but I found myself needing to hurry so that it would be included with a group to glaze.

The next project we started was a coil pot.  Mine was the largest by far.  I am hoping to pot a plant in it. Unfortunately, I meant to cut a hole at the bottom for drainage, but I ended up forgetting until I thought it was too late.  I mentioned it to my instructor, and he said that it would be against the project's specifications, anyway.  I made leaves like those of Albizia julibrissin, and the animal is supposed to be a fox.  The pot is far from perfect, but I'm relatively content with it so far.  I have not yet glazed it, and as I write this, I am not sure when I'll be able to go glaze it. 

I ate chocolate cheesecake for breakfast one morning. Mmmmm!!!!!!!

I really like the picture below.  It captures such joy, and it looks neat!

The picture below was taken on the same day.  Olivia is dragging her foot because she can't walk.  She was playing around, but I don't remember why. 

We went to Crystal Bridges again with a free family ticket and went through the "All Things Being Equal" exhibit that featured artwork by Hank Willis Thomas.  The purpose of the art was to get people to meditate on how black racism still is very much alive in our nation but is reflected in different ways than in the past.

My Lizi won third place in her class spelling bee.  Four winners and an alternate were chosen. I'm so proud of her!  She gets so discouraged about things, but I know she can do them.  Spelling is something at which she excels. 

The last ceramics project before moving to throwing on the potter's wheel is that of a hollow avatar built from a slab of clay.  I envisioned a beautiful piece of art, but that was not the end result.  Pictured here is first my chosen sketch and then a quick 5-minute maquette that I was supposed to reference throughout my building of the piece.  I'll post my pre-bisqued pictures of my avatar in my next blog post.

We read the following two books during January and February.  I was pleased that Trusten really enjoyed Hatchet.  He likes survival-like stories.  Hideout was a suspenseful read, too.

Until next time...

Family, Love, Literature, Crystals, and More {November and December 2019}

We enjoyed a lot of good family fun during the last two months of the Roman year.   We went through a crystal exhibit at Crystal Bridges Museum.  Here are a few of the pictures I took:

The following were amazing geometric devices that were so fun to gaze into.  It felt like you could go on forever through them.

Neat how the geometric display can be seen reflected in this crystal!

After we finished the exhibit, we went outside the museum and walked the trails:

We read the following book, which was a sweet story that involves a girl who enters the care of her aunt and uncle after the state removed her from her parents' home.

We liked that book so much and found the description of another book of hers interesting enough that I bought and downloaded it on my Kindle.  It is also told in first person by a girl whose father left her, her mother, and her brother, and they became homeless and started living out of the mother's car. 

We never failed to enjoy the winter wonders outdoors.  I took new pictures of some frostweed (Verbesina virginica).  I walked with the kids down to the icicle-laden cliffs so that they could play.

I'm happy to say that I truly have the perfect-tasting fried rice down, and not only that, but I also make the perfect Japanese white sauce, too.  I had been disappointed the first several attempts, but I'm ecstatic that I have finally mastered this.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it.  It is very time-consuming and labor intensive, though, to cook and refrigerate the rice, saute fresh vegetables (onion, zucchini, mushrooms, and broccoli are our favorites), scramble the eggs, fix Japanese white sauce, and fry the rice. But it is sooooo good!

And look!  I made two cheesecakes for a sabbath dessert one week—one pistachio and the other raspberry, both with homemade crusts.  They were delicious!

In the previous post, the rat Tobin was featured.  The following rat is his brother Buddha.  Carissa trains the rats to go through obstacle courses for treats.

In late December, I read the following book to the kids, since its setting is winter.  It's a ghost story, but it teaches a lesson about racism, now and historically.

William sometimes goes on longer hikes with us elsewhere, but this time the three of us hiked near home.

And we went bowling, too:

When I had all four of my babies, we enjoyed a fun hot dog and marshmallow roast:

We visited my parents and other family.  I got my dad to take a walk with Carissa and me, and we ran into the boys driving the ATV down at the boat landing (White River).  

The four girls (including my two nieces) always spend ample time hanging out:

Meg and I

Then it was back to everyday life again.  During this semester, I stayed home to work on my bachelor's degree online and did some substitute teaching.  Two mornings of the week, Carissa has on-campus classes and drops the kids off at school on her way. I always see them on their way at the door.  

Sometimes I go for a walk and only one child joins me.  Often the child is Elizabeth.

Trust and Liv went through a brief spell of wanting to go hang out on the roof of the house.  

Trusten was assigned a cell project.  He was able to choose whether he wanted to do an animal cell or plant cell.  He and I worked on it together, and it was fun.  He really memorized the cell parts and what they did with ease.  He's always seemed to enjoy biology.  Hmmm, wonder from whom he gets that. ;-)  

I made up some sort of cake bread/cake that I think was both vegan and gluten-free.  Oh yeah, it was flourless, I think.  It contained banana and avocado, chocolate, and I don't remember what else.  I've got the recipe saved somewhere, if anyone wanted to contact me for it. It was somewhat good.

We were able to give the kids winter solstice gifts:

We also celebrated Elizabeth's eighth birthday.  My baby is getting so big!  

She likes to get cakes half vanilla and half chocolate.  She eats a bit of both.  She requested the candy decorations this time around.

Her class sang "Happy birthday" to her:

My biggest baby passed his driving test!  We left there and went to get his license.

Elizabeth made a Rudolph reindeer for art in school:

I made some sort of coconut cream pie that was a lot better than any sort I'd made before:

At the tail end of the month, we visited family again:

2019 was a pretty good year.  We certainly dealt with some challenges, but we enjoyed a lot of good fun and learned plenty of new things.

Until next time...