“The flowers, it is true, are not new; but the children are; and it is the fault of their elders if every new flower they come upon is not to them a Picciola, a mystery of beauty to be watched from day to day with unspeakable awe and delight.” Charlotte Mason (Vol. 1 p. 53)
I was talking on the phone to a new friend, and she told me that she was her parent’s “wild Irish girl.” Such an image flashed through my mind that I had to try and draw it. I’ve always loved the illustrations of Trisha Schart Hyman, and drew inspiration from her work. I borrowed a body position from one of her illustrations from “Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins” because balance and weight of figures is something I struggle with. I am so pleased with how my drawing turned out.
February 5: We got enough snow to make several snowmen! They didn’t even look very muddy at first.
At Homeschool Co-op I taught a lesson on drawing sea turtles from Deep Space Sparkle Art. The kids really loved this one, each eager to explain to me what their turtle was doing, and why they chose the colors they chose.
February 7: We had a family dance at our church. Apple Pie was my partner for the whole dance. (The resident Captain being gone to Guard Drill.) I loved the atmosphere of fun togetherness of the whole night. I guess I got pretty carried away because I snapped the underwire in my bra while dancing…actually that probably can be blamed on my having to tote a huge four-year-old around the whole night.
Saturday, February 8: The weather was sunny and warm, so I took the little kids to the park. I won the “You must wear Shoes” battle and the “You must wear a Jacket” battle, and caved on the “You must wear long pants” battle.
Wednesday February 14:
For Homeschool art we used chalk and oil pastels to create dancers inspired by Degas.
Fancy family dinner with my true loves is my favorite way to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
Saturday February 15 we begin our new gardening attempt. This will be patterned after the “Back to Eden” gardening method using compost and wood chips. We put down cardboard, which I stole obtained without permission from various recycling dumpsters around town, to kill the lawn grass. Our plan is to turn all the lawn between our house and the road into a glorious food forest of fruit trees, berry bushes, asparagus beds, and tomatoes.
The Man of the House drove all the way to Miami, Oklahoma, to get 4 cubic yards of mushroom compost. This is our “dirt” to grow the plants.
In-between the garden beds we are mulching with wood chips to keep the weeds away.
Thursday February 20: Key Lime Pie has been studying bacteria, so today she learned to make yogurt (because it is bacteria that turn milk into yogurt.) She also learned how to read an analog thermometer…bonus!
Friday February 21: Homeschool Co-op was canceled today due to our host family having the respiratory flu, so we did a last minute field trip to the Rogers Arkansas City Museum. It was a great place for a group with a broad range of ages like ours.
Monday February 24: Mother’s Tea Party at the Scooter Pie’s Preschool. Their teachers are amazing. My boys sang “I’m a Little Tea Pot” and they had learned such careful gentlemanly manners.
My passion for collecting math manipulative is only slightly eclipsed by my passion for collecting books.
Banana Cream Pie’s narration of the death of Vortigern (ancient British history)
Today’s art lesson is inspired by Edgar Degas and his Dancer in Green.
Also we read and loved the book “I Dreamed I was a Ballerina” by Anna Pavlova illustrated with art by Edgar Degas
In October, I volunteered to make a wedding dress for my niece so that she wouldn’t have to travel to get one. (There isn’t much available in Southwest Missouri if you want, say, sleeves on your dress or a sweetheart neckline.)
You may think this sounds like an ambitious project, and you would be right, but I have Simon Henry’s book, “The Little Black Dress: How to Make the Perfect One for You,” and a book on making wedding dresses from the library and what can’t a girl do if she’s got the right books and just enough sewing experience to make her think she knows what she is doing?
I used the directions from Simon Henry’s book to pin tissue paper on my niece and then marked and pinned the tissue paper until I had created a pattern made exactly to fit her. The sleeves were trickier than Simon Henry made them sound and I might have become stuck, but my mother-in-law came to my rescue with a magic arm-sleeve-hole ruler that eliminated my pattern drafting amateur mistake.
I sewed 2 trial bodices out of muslin before I finally told myself that it was time to quit stalling and cut the real fabric.
It was my own Project Runway in real life. I stayed up late workingon it, I shed tears over it, I sewed my finger to it, I screamed at my family. SO. MUCH.DRAMA.
I also loved making it, and I can’t explain how something that gave me so much trouble and stress was simultaneously something that I am so happy and proud about.
This dress had four layers of skirts: one lining layer, one satin layer and 2 silk organza layers. I borrowed my mother-in-law’s serger to do the satin and lining layers, but put French seams in the organza layers with my regular machine. I debated this extra trouble for a dress that would only be worn once or twice, but in the end I did it, and I was glad—just the movement of the dress as I sewed it would have been enough to fray some of the seams otherwise.
I hemmed 3 of the skirt layers with horsehair braid. I am in love with that stuff. It is awesome. It made the skirt dance around Maddy when she moved, and it made finishing the hem so much easier than any other way.
I watched YouTube videos and learned how to shape a lace overlay for a bodice so that the seams are invisible.
Then I got really obsessed with adding as many high-end details as I could into the dress. I put ribbon loops with snaps in the shoulders. These were to loop around her bra and undergarment straps to keep them in place under the dress.
I put loops of ribbon to hang the dress on the hanger so that the weight of it wouldn’t pull the shoulders out of shape.
Grandma Rosi hand crocheted these chains which I used to loosely attach the skirt layers together so they couldn’t get horribly twisted or bunched up.
I hand sewed almost 30 pearl buttons done the back of the dress. This took 3 hours alone, but they were beautiful.
I made these knotted thread loops for the top of the bodice and for bustling the skirt instead of using metal loops.
Maddy was radiant on her wedding day, and would have looked beautiful in a burlap sack. But I was really happy about how the dress fit her and moved with her through it all.
I was kind of dragging my feet to start Come Follow Me reading this year—in the last few years we have been challenged to speed-read the Boom of Mormon several times. Even though I was blessed for doing that reading, I had also started feeling tired and pressured every time I read—“gotta get my ten pages in today to stay on track.” As I started reading, I realized this time we get a whole year to savor The Book Of Mormon. I can read it slowly and dig deep and have time to think about what I’m reading. I’m very happy about that right now!
I have 2 main study goals.
One is to look for what I can learn about the Priesthood because Pres. Nelson encouraged us women to do so in conference last October.
Two is to take notice of when what I’m reading is building one of the purposes states in the title page— Showing the great things the Lord has done, Teaching the covenants, and Testifying of Jesus Christ.
My favorite verse this week is 1Nephi 4:2 “Let us go up. Let us be strong like unto Moses…”
I think to myself, “Let us be strong like unto Nephi.”
I read it to the kids, and the Scooter Pies busted up laughing and kept repeating “Let us be strong like lettuce.”
Marvelous Pigs in Satin 