Sew historical

Well, it's that time again - history presentation time. For the last two months, we've been studying anything in American history from the end of the Revolution up to around the 1850's. Jared decided to do his presentation on the Lewis and Clark Expedition and Clarissa did hers on the American flag. We also decided to use this opportunity for the kids to learn some new skills. Jared decided to make a dugout canoe like Lewis and Clark used. We bought his some chisels, searched for the perfect piece of wood from the yard and made sure he wore gloves and then let him go to it.

He also wanted to wear a Lewis and Clark costume, so he found my old Indian costume and some extra fabric and decided that he wanted to sew some longer sleeves for it. He's been wanting to use my machine for a while so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

After a couple days of hard work and only two cuts. The canoe was finished. He even made little paddles for his castle men to use while in the canoe.

And here is the finished costume. The stick is supposed to be his gun. He also sewed the pouch for his gunpowder (that really has his camera in it). Oh, and we sacrificed his old monkey costume to make a "coonskin" cap.

Clarissa told the story of a girl named Caroline Pickersgill who helped sew the Star Spangled Banner that hung at Fort McHenry outside of Baltimore during the War of 1812. So for her project she hand stitched a flag. This was her very first time stitching anything. I really expected her to tire of it after a couple stitches, but she persisted through knotted thread and everything until it was completed.

Here she is giving her presentation with her finished flag. She also dressed up like Caroline in the book. Overall, it was a lot of fun and I think both the kids felt proud of their accomplishments and new skills learned.

Cousin Kaden comes to visit

Chris' brother Mike came with his wife and son from Texas to visit us for a couple of days. The kids were so excited to finally meet their only cousin on the Mattson side. Kaden is about a year and a half and we all fell in love with him immediately. He is so happy and full of smiles. Here are the kids being crazy with Uncle Mike and Kaden.

Amber wearing her "Ho Ho" pajamas and playing with Uncle Mike.

Tuesday was St. Patrick's Day so Sarah painted all the girls' nails green.

Jared especially loved having Kaden around because it meant he wasn't the only boy. Kaden thought Jared was hilarious and would laugh at anything that Jared did.

Clarissa climbed right up on Mike's lap the first time he sat down and was in his lap every time he sat down after that.

In the afternoon we went to Pandapas Pond for a nature walk.

We took a break to blow and catch some bubbles.

The Mattson cousins.
A family picture.
Mike's birthday was on the 11th and Clarissa's is on the 18th, so I made a cake and they each got to blow out a candle.
Although Kaden took to the kids right away, he was a little more cautious about me and Chris. But, he did let Chris hold him before they had to leave. Isn't he adorable?

A very GREEN day

Last Friday, one of my friends came over and we did some fun activities with the kids. In preparation for Spring gardening and St. Patrick's Day, we have been studying about Ireland, leprechauns, gold/money, potatoes, and the Potato Famine of 1845 which brought many Irish immigrants to the United States. So naturally...we decided to do some potato carving/stamping. Jared got a pocket knife for Christmas and is always looking for an opportunity when he could use it so he was thrilled when I said that he could carve a potato. He decided to make a pot of gold with a rainbow coming out of it and a gold coin. I carved a shamrock, a leprachaun derby hat, and a star.

The girls were so excited to get on their paint shirts and create some original Irish art using green, gold, and yellow paint. I should mention that as we designed our garden plan for this year that Jared decided he wanted to plant some potatoes and as I know nothing about growing potatoes I got a bunch of books at the library about potatoes. We've been reading stories about potatoes, folklore about potatoes, gardening books about potatoes, etc. After doing this potato stamping activity, Jared informed me that if he hears another word about potatoes he won't ever want to see another one much less grow them, so...we put our potato stamps in the compost (not trash - remember this was a GREEN day) and haven't said any more about potatoes.

Another GREEN activity that we decided to do was to make our own paper. The idea started when we were reading a book called From Gold to Money and we decided to make our own money. We started out by getting a bunch of paper out of our recycling bin and tearing it into little pieces, which the kids decided was a paper salad. Then we added water to let it soak, which then became a paper soup.

Next we used a paper blender to grind the paper soup into paper mush - yuck. Then we sifted the mush onto a screen, squeezed out all the water and let the paper dry.

Here is our paper drying. It is very colorful, which prompted a discussion about money and the colors and fibers that are used to make sure it is not counterfeit. My friend surprised me with her great knowledge about money and showed the kids how to find things like keys and spiders and magically appearing heads on their money (see Clarissa in the background with the magnifying glass). Finally, the kids designed their own dollars, including disappearing ink watermarks (but I forgot to take a picture of them) and we cleaned up our mess and called it a day, a GREEN day.

Chocolate Chili?

Last weekend our ward had a chili/chocolate cook off. Well, chili has always been one of my favorite dishes since I was a child eating my Dad's chili, so I just had to enter. But...I wasn't alone. Both Chris and Jared decided to enter as well. Chris spent weeks trying to find the perfect chili recipe to use and Jared created his very own, one of a kind chocolate cake recipe. Here are the results. This is Chris' sausage chili. It's very meaty of course (3 lbs.) and has Italian smoked sausage as well as chipotle salsa to give it that smokey flavor. Out of 16 pots of chili, he won first place for "best flavor"! And yes, he made it himself. He made it before he went to work in the morning and let it simmer all day.

This is my chili. I remember calling my Dad after I tried to make chili the first time and asking him what went wrong. It tasted like beans with meat in it; he informed me that you have to use a lot of chili powder to flavor it, not just a little. Thus began my love for HOT stuff. I am known in the ward for liking it hot, so it came as no surprise that when people tasted pot #16, it was spicy. My chili had three different kinds of beans and three different kinds of peppers as well as a lot of seasoning and a kick of Valentina hot sauce. Needless to say, mine won first place for "the most spicy." We really got a laugh out of the fact that as we were driving to the cook off and listening to disco the song that says "I'm looking for some hot stuff baby this evening..." came on.

Here's Jared with his original "Rocky Chocolate Blowout." Jared also spent weeks designing his creation. He drew layered pictures of what it would include, he wrote out the ingredients list, tried several different names, wrote out the recipe, and rewrote and rewrote it. I didn't have to worry about giving him practice writing assignments during those weeks. So, here's the recipe: A two layered chocolate cake with chocolate chips baked in each layer. Chocolate frosting in between the layers and outside. Topped with crushed up Oreo cookies, chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, and chocolate syrup. You might think that it was too chocolaty or too rich, but it was actually really good and everyone liked it. He won 2nd place for the "most original" out of like 20something entries. Congratulations Jared, we're so proud of you!

Overall, it was a very fun evening, one of the best ward activities. Guess you can't go wrong with chili and chocolate!

Peek-a-Boo!

I just love these candid moments.

Curly Girls and Girly Girls

What do you do when it's cold outside, you have cabin fever, and three girls? Hairdos of course. We've been having a lot of fun experimenting with hair lately. This is Clarissa all ready for church. I used hot rollers to curl her hair.

This is what Krystal's hair looked like after we took out the rubberbands. She had her hair in two knots on top of her head which was really cute. We couldn't resist taking a picture of her crazy curls once we took the knots out.

Last night after baths I tried three different things. Knots for Amber, braids for Krystal, and Socks rollers for Clarissa. They were all so excited to have pretty hair for church in the morning.

Here's how they all turned out. Amber's hair was sooo crazy curly that I had to put it up in a ponytail to tame it a little.

This is just a picture of all the girls when our friends came over to play. The girls were swarming around little Maggie and then we noticed that they were all wearing pink so we just had to take a picture.