happy birdycake

Friday, February 11, 2011

Cookie time!

It's been a great first cookie sale run for our daisy scouts.
We had a great cookie booth success, as well as the door to door and mamas and papas helped tremendously to get little daisies excited about this new experience.
We visited TD bank for a tour to see how a bank runs and to learn about saving our money, just in time to talk about our cookie sale profits and what we will do with them.
With so much to do and talk about, I am sure our next meeting will be buzzing with ideas.

(even the train station is excited!)

Our cookie bundling for our customers at Daddy's office.

Our daisy scout thanks !

Badges are starting to accumulate and according to daddy who is the official badge sewing expert.... "When applying badges, start at the middle and work your way outward. Looks better graphically!"

Honeypie and I worked on learning the value of money at home . We made coin rubbings with crayons and created and played a money game.

And if you are interested ...
Girl scout cookies sell for...

Support your local scout troop!
Buy cookies!

Though personally , as delicious as that thin mint is ....
(Wish they were made with more wholesome ingredients in mind...)
Hmmm
:(

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Monday, February 7, 2011

The marzipan pig, by Russell Hoban

Today we read a beautiful story called "The marzipan pig" by Russell Hoban and illustrated by Quentin Blake. Many of you might remember Quentin Blake's illustrations from all the Roald Dahl's books (The witches, Matilda, Charlie and the chocolate factory...) and Russell Hoban from the "Frances" books, (A bargain for Frances).
This story is about a little lonely marzipan pig that falls behind a couch and whose feelings off love reach out to a little mouse, a hibiscus flower , an owl and a bee in a series of events that occur after he was eaten. ( Loooooveeeee! They all say). A symbolic story of love, its fleeting moments of happiness and sweetness. If you do not know what marzipan is... it is a sweet made of almond paste and sugar and marzipan pigs are a symbol of good luck in Germany, often given as gifts during holidays.

We made our own Marzipan Pig too!

And just because I was curious...
Mr Quentin Blake is still alive and has a wonderful website to visit. (here)
and though Roald Dahl died in 1990... his legacy lives on in his super cute and funny website. If you like bouncing farting chickens.. you must visit!!! (here)
and "the marzipan pig" was made into a movie by HBO. (here)

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Leek soup with dill oil

Today's we made this delicious leek and potato soup with dill oil, inspired by Heidi Swanson's recipe.
(Here is the recipe!)

It is so tasty and super easy to make. It was devoured by all here.

It just called for 7 ingredients and but we left out the butter... It doesn't really need it. I also just dumped all the ingredients in a pot and used a handheld blender to puree at the end, keeping it a bit chunky as she suggested. ( I was pressed for time).

If you haven't visited her blog.... please do so! ( Here)
Besides the fact that her vegetarian recipes are amazing... her photos are gorgeous!

(all in the pot...)

(The dill oil)

mmmmm!

(Everything tastes better if it is in the shape of a heart. So the dill oil was sampled by my little picky eater here and deemed delicious! ;)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Friday, February 4, 2011

Art day

When honeypie found in the closet old watercolor sets that belonged to mama long ago, she adopted those as her own, just like a perfect art lover would, gathering and collecting tools and inspiration for creating. (She had plans!)
I totally understand. I,myself, am an art supply hoarder.... there, I've said it. I don't think I am ashamed. There isn't an olive or jam jar I don't collect for future use. Egg cartons and toilet paper rolls will not be spared from my collection.
(So if you need some... You know where to go.)
Paper is my lover. Rice or origami, textured or colored, those seductions beckon my hands and I can't even begin to talk about brand new colored pencil sets or the smell of inks without sighing... Mmmmmm.
Today she found Daddy's pastel set and mine from when we were in art school together and added that to her collection. She then asked me to show her how to use the pastel chalks.
So that's what we did today .
Who to better introduce pastels than the master himself... Degas.
I love this series of children's art books by Laurence Anholt.
The one we read today is called "Degas and the little dancer".
It tells the story of how Degas came to meet "Marie", the little ballerina who posed for him as he created his "little dancer" sculpture.
It also tells the reason why Degas began to sculpt and to use pastels as his art medium. (He began to loose his eyesight.)

Today we just worked on a still life using apples. With the pastels, honeypie tried to capture the lights and darks she saw while working on dimension.
We used textured colored paper which works best with pastels, (better than white paper) brings their colors out. Chalk pastels are easy to use and great to blend with your fingers!
Chalk pastels are different than cray-pas... which are oil based pastels. Those are a whole other medium all together and I'll talk about them another day.