Saturday my sister and her family went on a hike and took some great pictures of the mountain I mentioned in a blog I wrote a little while ago about becoming a hermit.  If you want a better visual check out her post titled Scraped Knees... at Keeping Up With the Jones.  I don't have much else to say.  I'm feeling way grumpy so don't ask me about it or I might just tell you, and it won't be nice (it could be titled why I hate the west, why I hate the midwest, why I hate a certain famous blog, why I hate public school and homeschool, and why I hate waking up and yelling at my kids to just put on a shirt and pants and go out the door) and I might even post a video link to castrating a  sheep or bull that I have been tempted to post for awhile for all the fans of a certain blog that I dislike.
I did have a wonderful day yesterday, though. My youngest son saved me a seat right next to him at church and was very sweet to me all day.  My second to youngest son woke up and asked if it was finally Mother's Day as he has been asking if it's close yet all week.  He excitedly gave a present he made for me at school which was a bookmark with a picture of him on it.  I am thrilled.  I have one of my oldest son I keep in my scriptures that he made when he was 3 and I love looking at how little he was and have been thinking I should make one of each of my kids, so I was excited to see it was done for me.  My third child was having a pretty good day until his primary lesson was on prayers-  Saturday we went for a walk and he found his little brother's airplane his brother dropped.  I asked him to put it in the zipper pocket in his jacket, but he didn't.  He lost it.  His little brother cried.  He said a prayer to find it, but he didn't find it.  Anyway, the lesson was about a little boy who lost something and prayed and then found it-sometimes the answers to prayers is yes; about Zacharias who had to wait for baby John- sometimes the answer is not now; and about a little boy who was sick and prayed for his mom to let him play with friends anyway- sometimes the answer is no.  I only know that's the lesson because I ended up helping in another class, but when his teachers told me he was unusually naughty that day, I bet you can guess why too.  Not much of a blog or and ending. 
Sorry today I'm in such a grumpy mood, tomorrow will be better.

Over the winter I did a few art projects with my kids and the neighborhood homeschoolers.  Here's some pics- almost an online art show. 

This is an acrylic painting on the right with the photo she copied on the left.
Here is dolphins in colored pencil by another student:

And here is a close up of an allium blossom by another student:

those were the 10 year old and up students.  Now for the younger & some stuff we just did at home:

I found some shrinking paper at the craft store a long time ago and finally found a use for it. In honor of President's Day we shrunk a president.  This is the before shot.  You can see clockwise an Obama, George Washington, a flag, Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln, Obama, and Teddy Roosevelt in the center.  Unfortunately, I melted a little girl's Jimmy Carter and did not get a picture of him.  Here's after the baking of the shrunken presidents:

Another project (paper collage and tempera) inspired by the many flag art pictures by Jasper Johns:

Next up tempera paintings:

above is titled "Princess Dress"

Gnome doors:

Next post:  Line and shape art- the basics of all art

More art!  The basics of every art are line and shape.  It's what you have to start with and the building block of all pieces.  You can break anything complicated down to the basic shapes and lines so I like to really drill that into my students and do lots of projects with that focus.  Here's some bean art focusing on free form shapes:

 And now for art focusing on geometric shapes:

  This is another thing I found at a craft store a long time ago and finally found a use for it -window cling vinyl in 81/2 X 11 sheets.  I cut them into tangrams and circles.  I have extra because I was going to give one set to each kid, but instead I decided one set per family would be plenty.  If you are interested I can mail you set if you ask in my comments.  They will fit in a regular envelope and are light weight so I don't mind paying the postage.

Another great birthday!  Yesterday was my son's fourth birthday. :)  He wanted to do a pet show party after hearing the story Biscuit Wins a Prize.

So far I think this was the easiest and cheapest party with the biggest WOW factor for the kids.  You are welcome to copy :).  Here's what we did:  the invitations (my son did the stickers himself)

deocorate-

the kids got out all their stuffed animals and placed them around the party area and we hung a welcome to the pet show sign, guests arrived and checked in their pets (stuffed animals- each brought one and my oldest son set them on a pedestal of sorts and pretended to look at their teeth & posture etc. and my daughter pinned a "best pet" ribbon on each),

ate lunch (hot dogs, goldfish crackers, scooby snacks graham crackers, cheese sticks, clementines, and drank lemonade), painted pet rocks (my youngest found in the yard) and glued on googly eyes,

played leap frog and pin the tail on the donkey, had a pet parade, did an agility course with our pets (that my kids and some neighbors put together), played with a parachute and bounced the stuffed animals in it, sang and ate cupcakes, and opened presents.
For party favors (here's the wow) we sent each kid home with a gold fish (and a small envelope with food)!

I found bowls at Michael's for a dollar each and goldfish are a dime and pennies each.  The kids were thrilled!  We had music too- my husband put together a pet playlist of about 20 songs he had on his mp3 player with some kind of pet in the title.  I added a few to my blog playlist, I'll have to ask my husband for a complete list.

We also had some special guests my son invited- Flame and Shadow, the birds we occasionally babysit for some friends.  Originally he wanted to only invite pets that he knew, but we eventually talked him into inviting friends and letting him mail an invite to Flame and Shadow.  His party was so cute!  He came up with such a good idea. :)

A blog I read mentioned someone named dugout dick.  http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/04/23/1164899/death-of-caveman-ends-an-era-in.html
I never knew who that was, but maybe some of you familiar with Idaho might.  Anyway, I am totally fascinated by him.  Mostly because...  I used to wish I was like that.  Maybe I still wish that a little bit, if you happen to have access to my library check-out history (a few too many homesteading books this past winter). When I was in high school I stared out my window and the window at school at the mountain and thought about going up there and living off the land or about one summer building a raft -I actually wanted a boat like the one Anne (of Green Gables) found and recited poetry in, only without a leak, but thought maybe I could actually pull off a raft.  I wanted to take the raft and spend my summer floating down the Bear River and into the Great Salt Lake or at least to the bird refuge.  One reason I didn't was because a whole summer would be a long time to live off the land on a raft, but maybe I could do a week?  I opted out because I was afraid I might go through some rancher's property and he would shoot me with a rifle for being on his land.  But the mountain option, if I needed something I could just walk down and get it.  My parents probably told me both those things are illegal, which may have played a part in stopping me.  I wanted adventure, I wanted to get away from worldly cares and the typical high school issues, and I wanted to avoid growing up I think, but still felt grown up enough to live on my own in a makeshift shelter on the mountain and grow my own food and hunt.  Every once in awhile I'd fantasize about it. I also thought about my best friend coming to visit me and telling me about everything going on and who has a crush on who and that I really should come off the mountain.  It's probably good I had never heard of Dugout Dick or might have been further inspired to try it out. Here's a link to a video of him.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD53LVjXIHs
The reality?  I wish I could find a video link of this- It would be more like when Nacho (from Nacho Libre) seeks solace in the wilderness and builds his shelter of sticks that is too small and not very protective and then his friend comes to visit him and he says, "How did you find me?" and his friend says, "I saw you from the village" and you see these people not very far away who wave at him.  That is my favorite part of that movie, I laugh hysterically, because that was totally me!  Only I guess not really, because I didn't actually do it.
Admit it, there's a part of you that wishes you were a wise old sage living in a cave that people came to visit, or if nothing else there's a part of you that can picture me that way.