Abe's Whiskers

We have continued our study of Abraham Lincoln over the past week, by reading the following books:





Here is a sample of the book read by the author:

Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers






And, as long as we were reading about Abe's whiskers, we decided to make a set of our own:

We made the beard out of one long piece of black wool yarn, big enough to tie around Blaze's head, and several pieces of the same yarn cut into 10 inch lengths.










Just for fun, we've started reading The Dragon Slayers Academy series as bedtime stories. We've already finished the first book and are a little over halfway through the second.

Corner View: PLaces of Reflection

Lake Alice on the University of Florida campus is a lovely place to sit and reflect on life while looking at the reflections in the water.








When I told my husband what the theme was for this week's corner view, he suggested I take a picture of our bathroom, because that is the only place where I am ever really alone, so here is a picture of me "reflecting" in the bathroom:



For more peaceful places around the world, check out the other Corner View participants listed on the sidebar of Spain Daily.

Unplugged Challenge: Container

This week's theme on Unplug Your Kids was "container", so Blaze and I went to Michael's craft store for inspiration and came home with two of these wooden boxes that look like books, which were on clearance for $1.49 each. Blaze has been carrying around a set of recipe cards for about a week now, so his box is going to look like a cookbook and be a storage box for his recipe cards.

Blaze chose red for his "book" cover, which seemed fitting for a cookbook, since two of my favorite cookbooks are red (my sister took a Psychology of Color class once, where the students were taught that red makes people feel hungry).



After the red acrylic paint dried, Blaze painted the "pages" white.

Whistle while you work


Also with the white paint, Blaze used the alphabet stencils to write cook book across the "front cover".





Finally, it was ready to hold the recipe cards.

Patriotic Pizza and Fake Fireworks

When I went to the bank yesterday, I was given a free pair of rainbow glasses, for enhanced fireworks viewing, but since Gainesville isn't having any fireworks this year, blaze has been having fun wearing the glasses and looking at every light.



I even used the glasses to take some pictures of Blaze.



The starbursts that look like fireworks are the moon and a streetlight.

Independence Day

The city is not having any fireworks this year and our apartment complex has announced that sparklers will not be permitted, so I guess we'll just be celebrating with festive food this year.

DH made this eggless cheesecake and I decorated it (there are not the right number of stripes, but there are 50 blueberries).




No-Bake Cheesecake

2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1/2 Cup sugar
2 Cups boiling water
4 (8 ounce) packages of cream cheese, softened
1 (14 ounce) can of sweetened condensed milk
a little lime zest
the juice of two limes
1 teaspoon of vanilla

graham cracker crust

1. In a large bowl, mix together gelatin and sugar. Add boiling water and stir until sugar and gelatin are dissolved (about 5 minutes).

2. In a blender, combine the softened cream cheese, lime juice, lime zest, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla. Blend until smooth. Slowly pour the cheese mixture into the bowl with the gelatin mixture, Stirring constantly.

3. Pour into prepared crust in large rectangular glass baking pan.

4. Refrigerate at least 3 hours. Decorate.

Last Year's 4th of July

Homeschool Blogger, where I had my blog last year at this time, is getting ready to move their entire site, and since I don't know if they'll move the contents of an obviously inactive blog like mine, I figured I rescue a few more of my old entries. So, here is what we did last 4th of July:

7/4/08

     Happy 4th of July everyone!
     We had our fourth of July picnic last night, because Gainesville always has their fireworks show on the 3rd. 
      The fireworks almost didn't happen this year, because the University and the City were having trouble coming up with enough money to pay for the event, but after they had already announced that it was canceled, an anonymous private donor came through with the money they needed.
      We didn't want to go join the crowds, so we sat out in our little garden house and had a picnic dinner and played with sparklers. 

DH drinking the Moxie soda his friend brought him back from Boston

Death lights a sparkler
(o.k., it's really Nika in her hoodie, but it looks like Death)

           For a while we had a family of tourists join us. They stopped by to look at the bamboo house and talk about gardening and stayed for quite awhile. Having guests scared off Nika, because she was feeling crowded and doesn't like talking to new people.
     The tourists left when the bugs started biting, so DH, Ula, Blaze, and I had the the whole student garden area to ourselves for the fireworks.

The Harry Potter Bedroom and Why We have So Many Copies of Deathly Hallows

Since there is a new Harry Potter movie coming out soon and we are huge Harry Potter fans, I thought I'd post some older pictures of Blaze's Harry Potter themed bedroom, right after we decorated it.







The fake stone wall was made out of stone print contact paper and then I added rub-on ivy decals.



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As long as I was thinking about Harry Potter related stuff today, I decided to scan some of the pictures from the release of the last Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (these were taken before I had a digital camera). We ended up with 3 copies of Deathly Hallows when it came out, which worked out very well, since there were four of us who wanted to read it right away, but we only had to pay for one. Blaze one two copies from Harry Potter costume contests.

The public library held the first event we went to. They had crafts, games, refreshments, and fortune telling, as well as actors reading a passage from one of the Harry Potter books and a costume contest.





Dumbledore presenting Blaze with the costume contest prize:




Getting ready for the Midnight Release Party at the bookstore.





The bookstore costume contest winners:







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We will not be taking Blaze to the new movie, because if it's true to the book at all, it's really too frightening for him, but he loves the first 3 movies.