Thanksgiving themed ratty cage

Purely for my own entertainment, I made the rat girls a cube hammock shaped like a turkey for this week.  I crack myself up.

Someone checked it out right after I let them back into their newly cleaned cage.  (Dixie? Hard to tell without seeing the whole rat.)

Turkey backside, with Roux climbing up on the right hand side.

They prefer napping on TOP of the cube instead of inside.  Figures.  This is Mimi? I think?

That's all 3 piled up on there, and Roux facing the camera.  Mimi is facing the feathers, and Dixie was on the bottom of the pile with her head off to the right (not visible).  

Stop disturbing our nap with your camera, woman.

You can expect Christmas themed cages in the weeks to come.  I figure, why not?!

Crafty Catch Up

Halloween crafting! 

I did an order of some Minion hats for a couple of friends at church and their kiddos.  They dressed eleven boys and one girl (from only 3 families!) all as Minions together.  The big kids had yellow ski caps, but I did crochet hats for the babies and toddlers.   I had to google to find out what a Minion was when they asked me to crochet, though.  I still need to rent the movie! 

Pattern: http://www.etsy.com/listing/81487804/despicable-me-minion-hat-pattern-crochet

I only had to do one costume for my own kids this year.  My sons unanimously voted to be Spidermen, but my little lady wanted wings and feathers to go with the owl hat I did for her last fall.  

 

Rats!

The rest of the crafting I've done lately has been for the rats.  We got a trio of pet rats a few weeks ago. Here was their cage all set up the night before we went to pick them up.  I sewed their hammocks, 

and their snuggle scarf (it helps the kids to handle them without getting scratchy toe nails on their necks or risking a rattie getting loose.

Funny story about this cube hammock.  Hazel had this nasty nightgown that was all stretched out and sad and I told her she had to stop wearing it.  She was so sad!  BUT when I suggested that maybe she let me make something for the rats out of it, she was overjoyed.  Hazel adores the rat girls.  So here it is, beloved froggy nightgown, turned cube hammock.

Wrap Up Catch Up

I fell off the blogging bandwagon, and now I have a few weeks to catch up on!

We finished our row of The Salamander Room with a diorama of Brian's room and a trip to the Insectarium.

Jono, eating a piece of cricket fudge.  Nasty.  He loved it. 

Hazel wasn't so sure. 

Our caterpillars grew and changed! We so enjoyed watching that process.  I want butterfly plants in my yard now!

all four, as chrysalises (is that how you spell that?!)

We fed them oranges until they all emerged, and then we let them all go.  

Here you can see the nasty red juice that squirted out of each chrysalis as the butterfly emerged.  Looked like quite the battle scene in there by the time they all came out to play!

Kids, waiting anxiously for our butterflies to take flight! It took some gentle encouragement in the end. 

After that, we did a unit on The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge.  Daddy left town in the middle of this unit for a week, and well... mama lost steam.  We didn't do as much with this book as I had planned, but we enjoyed the story, and our DIY lighthouses were very popular nightlights for a few days.

We went on a field trip with our homeschool group to see a children's concert at the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. It was so fun! They had stations set up with a couple of people to introduce us to the various instruments.  After we cycled through the stations, we got to listen to a short concert with the whole orchestra.  

violins

oboe

full orchestra

Mama and her entourage, after the show

While Daddy was gone, we drew and painted pumpkins, and then took a trip to the super awesome Miss Heather's Pumpkin Patch.  

face painting

"pony" rides

my adorable children!

While Daddy was gone, Grandma and Grandpa came to visit!  They were lucky enough to be in town for a Johnette Downing concert.  Everyone who knows us knows that we LOVE to go hear Ms. Downing's free children's concerts in the French Quarter.  Grandma and Grandpa were excited to get to go along.   Last week's concert was pretty crowded with field trips, but Hazel and Charlie didn't let that stop them from dancing to the Boogie Woogie Jive!

Grandma and Grandpa also took a trip with us to Storyland.  Playing at this park makes me want to go home and read fairy tales.  Or, watch Once Upon a Time. 

And then finally, with Daddy home and grandparents gone, we got back on the school bandwagon with a few day's study on the election.  On Tuesday, we read If I Ran for President, which was definitely the best overview of the election process for this age group that I found.  Then the kids came with me to vote.  On Wednesday, we colored in our US map with dry erase markers to represent election results and discovered that we had re-elected President Obama.

Next up, a unit on Thanksgiving! Thanks for catching up with us!