Orange Sorbet, Pomp, & Circumstance

We started out the morning by making orange sorbet from the juice we had previously squeezed from our tree.

Then while it was hardening in the freezer, we went to Josephine's preschool teacher's house for her preschool graduation. It was a very fancy affair, complete with caps and diplomas.

Here Josephine receives her diploma from Teacher Monica.

The highlights for Sunny and Ida were the popsicles and the swinging bench.

Weekend Playhouse Construction

This weekend Sven started out by using a rake and carefully leveling out the area in which the playhouse is to be built.

Next he used a 4x4 to stomp the ground flat.

He then carefully laid out the cement pieces on which the foundation frame would sit.

Using sidewalk chalk, he uses the Pythogrean theorem to figure out the length of the theoretical diagonals in order to figure out whether his frame is square or not. He explains this thouroughly to Josephine as he sketches it out.

Josephine then makes her own sketch of the playhouse and carefully explains it to Sven: "Here is the door . . . and here are the windows . . . and here is me!"

She then attempts her own Pythogorean theorem.

Then Sven saws out the pieces of lumber which will ultimately become the foundational frame.

He then nails them together.

Polymer Clay, Orange Popsicles, and a Gingerbread House

This morning Josephine and I went to Michaels and got some new packages of polymer clay, so the first thing everyone wanted to do when Sunny and Ida arrived was to try it out.

Sunny made a tadpole and a heart, amongst other things.

Josephine also made a tadpole and several beads.

Ida made . . . well, you can see for yourself . . .

Next we picked oranges from the orange tree, squeezed them, and made popsicles from the juice. They were very refreshing later in the afternoon . . .

In December I optimistically bought a gingerbread house kit from Trader Joe's, but since we spent a few weeks in Sweden over Christmas, we never got a chance to build it. Things have been really crazy since then, so the kit, marked with an expiration date of August of this year, has sat unused for all this time. So today we decided to build our gingerbread house (pepparkakshus in Swedish) . . . in MAY!!! What fun!

It began with beating the egg whites for the icing.




Once the icing was finished and it was time to construct the house, Sunny announced that she had to change clothes first. I thought perhaps she wanted to change out of the bat costume and into her real clothes first, but then she emerged from the bedroom dressed from head to toe as a princess! Apparently bats make icing, but princesses build gingerbread houses.

Sunny started building the house, using the icing as glue.




Ida just wanted to eat the icing.






Jo also did her part in gluing the house together.


Here sunny is adding icing icicles as decoration.

Josephine adds icing-coated gingerbread shapes as decoration.

Now here is the point where the lovely creativity of children really takes over. Sunny then announced, once the house seemed to me to be complete, that they really needed to have cotton to use as snow. I took out a bag of polyester fiberfill, and in no time the yard was filled with very fluffy snow. Then Sunny once again announced that they needed to sprinkle sugar over the house, for more snow. I took out the confectioners sugar and a strainer, and . . .

The masterpiece:

Since it is May, and I have no desire to have a gingerbread house sitting around, I quickly gave in to their ample requests to eat the house right away. Here Ida starts with one of the figurines.

In no time the house was leveled, and three girls sat groaning on the couch, complaining that they couldn't eat another bite. The funniest part is that when you look at the remaining pieces, there doesn't seem to be much missing!

Drawing Together and Feeding Worms

Today the girls drew together on a big sheet of butcher paper.

Later we went out and fed the worms.

Ida and Sunny both loved holding the worms.

Banana Muffins

Today we made banana muffins. Ida especially liked licking her fingers after putting in the sugar.

The girls were really good at scooping the batter into the muffin pans.

And what was Ria doing this whole time?
Chowing down on a ricecake nearby . . .

Field Trip -- Loud Flying Things

The bombers are in town! This is a very exciting event for my husband, a huge WWII buff. Every year some WWII bomber planes come to Moffet Air Field. My husband finally got around to going yesterday, but was too late, and they were not allowed onto the field. So today we took a little field trip out to Moffet so that we could have a chance to see them on their very last day here this year. Ot was a very fun fieldtrip for both Josephine and Iain.

On the way there I told them both about how my grandfathers had all been soldiers in World War II. Josephines reply was, "Wow! That's a great responsibility for your grandpas!" Yes, it definitely was.

The major plane on display was a B-24 called Witchcraft. After we got home, Iain and I did some Internet research and found some old photos of this very same plane. Here's a link to the page we found most informative:

http://www.467bg.com/witchcraft.html

The plane was absolutely beautiful. We got to look at it very closely, both inside and out. Here's the plane in its entirety:

Here are Josephine and Iain admiring the graphics on the plane (by the way . . . it's "Pirate Day" at Jo's preschool this afternoon, which will explain her bandana and stuffed parrot on her shoulder).




Here is the original flight crew after the very first mission:





Original ground crew:



This is the other side of the plane.


Flight and ground crew after 120th mission:


Josephine and Iain under the propeller:



Next we got to actually go inside the plane.




Jo and Iain were both most excited about the machine guns (no ammunition, of course--which I had to thoroughly explain before they would even attempt to go near them). After a complete examination, they were much more comfortable, each took their places, and they repeatedly exclaimed, "Ready, aim, fire!"



Here they are inside . . . their heads barely stick up above the window.

From there we all walked across the catwalk through the bomb bay . . .







. . . up to the cockpit.

From there we exited the plane and then admired the machine gun turret ball below.

Now from one loud flying thing to another . . . mockingbirds! For the last few weeks we have been plagued throughout the nights by the loudest and most annoying (though, I will admit, thoroughly fascinating) bird calls I've ever heard. Josephine even woke up one night at 2:30 a.m. and yelled from her bed, "Why are there birds chirping at night???!!!" So I did some Internet research and learned that these are none other than mockingbirds. During the mating season, unmated male birds are notorious for chirping all through the night. And they are LOUD. In addition to that, they don't have just one constant sound that you can eventually tune out. Every few seconds they switch to a completely different tune. Some tunes sound like car alarms, some like other birds, some like angry squirrels. I learned that they have repertoires of between 50 and 200 different songs, and that they have completely different repertoires of fall versus spring songs.

Then today I spotted one outside and got a couple photos of the culprit. It is so very plain and innocent looking.