Salvador Dali Experience

Recently, we were given the opportunity to visit the Dali Museum for Homeschool Day. It was the perfect time to learn about one of the artists that my husband loves - Salvador Dali. He was a surrealist with some interesting ideas and paintings. This was definitely out of my comfort zone as I love the Impressionists. But it was a great experience for us:)

We started by our Dali experience by reading all about him. Then I allowed the kids to choose the art projects that they wanted to try. Kaleb decided to do the animal sculpture with the long legs. It was supposed to made from air-hardening clay but I found our clay had hardened:(  So I improvised - we used play dough.

I gave them each half a container of green and half of blue play dough to work with. We found some chopsticks and dowels for the legs as well as wood shapes for scutes and tails. They also used googly eyes for fun.

Kaleb was very pleased with his creation. I love his toothless grin at the moment.

J wanted to work on the collage of pictures from magazines. This was fun to watch. I kept reminding them that they were to choose items that didn't go together.

J's picture had some interesting concepts - Kaleb thought the toilet dog was just great! J loved her eye/nose shoe.

Kaleb made two pictures - this was his second. He wanted a toilet dog as well and he put mustaches on each of the people to remind him of the true Dali.

The next project was one that I choose - Dali's Mustaches. I had them draw a face and add a pipe cleaner mustache in any silly design that they wanted.

You can't tell from the picture but Kaleb's mustache (on right) is in the shape of a heart. Love these!

The museum had a bunch of activities for us when we arrived. One of the activities was create your own Dali mustache. I had a hard time getting this picture because we were laughing so hard. We spent all morning at the museum and had a great time. They had listening devices for each of the kids and a great "Mustache Tour" for them to listen to.

I was a little disappointed because some of the gardens were closed off due to Hurricane Irma. Maybe next time:( But we did get a cute picture in front of the Dali mustache! Not too bad for our adventure. See you soon.


Links

The Pinterested Parent - has a cute and easy project for a melting paper clock.

Artsy Crafty Mom - has list of ten projects for Dali.

Little Yeti - has a cute project of a long legged elephant.

Elementary Art Fun - has another long legged elephant art project.

Use Your Colored Pencils - has a great project that uses Dali's mustache. These are so cute!

It Must Be Spring!

One thing I have always disliked about living here is the lack of screens in our windows. Screens are not extremely popular so when you open your window, you tend to get little flies that enjoy your house for awhile (these drive me crazy). I never had anything but flies or mosquitos. J and I were looking through her spring/summer clothes and I kept hearing this constant cooing. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from - until I went into my room.

Imagine my surprise when I found this! A pair of pigeons had made their way into my room and took a liking to DH dollap (his closet). A pair - you can't see the other, she is hidden behind the bag. I think it is nesting time. Now here is the kicker - this is the second time today, they made their appearance. The first time I was so shocked that all I could do was make some noise and they flew off. Thinking they wouldn't be back, I left the window open. Then, to my surprise, they came back. They can't be serious about making a nest here and I can't keep my windows shut all of the time. I would really like screens. Perhaps now, DH would see a reason to install them. This s a definite first for me.

Another Country

This week, we have had to pleasure of leaving the city and experiencing the country for a short time. When we were preparing for this new adventure, I was discussing the "country" with J. J was soo excited that she proceeded to inform Keke that "We are moving to another country!!!" No, we aren't in another country but it can feel that way when you are away from the bustle of the city. We didn't do any letter learning this week but J learned many things. Let me share them with you.....

This is one of the views from our cabin. It had rained just about all week but this day was finally sunny! You can still see the snow on the mountains.

This is a picture of our cabin. This cabin was complete with a fireplace and a loft with a ladder J had to learn to climb up. We enjoyed many nights with a fire in the fireplace. Look at the green grass, we don't really have grass where we live.

This is Montana. This dog loves rocks, pipes, pine cones, and basically anything you can throw. J had to learn to get along with him. She loves dogs but Montana is pretty big and he gets soo excited when you are about to throw something, he will knock you down. He just wants to play. You have to be quick though because he will snatch whatever you were planning to throw out of your hands. Throwing plastic pipe is one thing but you should see the huge rocks he expects you to throw!

Here is J and Kaleb. Although it finally became sunny, it was still cold. Here they are enjoying the playground on site. It was cold enough for Kaleb to wear his mittens. He really didn't like having his hands covered but he managed.

Kaleb in the swing. He zonked out after this picture.

J on the playground enjoying the fresh air! It rained soo much that every time we went out, we came back muddy. I thought I overpacked clothes for the kids but J has used all most every outfit I packed. If she got the least bit wet, she had to change. I finally figured out that we had to have "outdoor" clothes and "indoor" clothes. When she came in, she changed to her indoor clothes. That saved on some laundry.

My darling hubby. This trip was his idea, he found this awesome place. He even got to use his skills of irrigation to help the owners with their field. He may even get yo use a backhoe! Look out! If he does get to drive it, I will post a picture, this should be interesting.

My pretty white Converse sneakers - I don't think they will be the same after this trip. I encouraged Keke to only take one pair of shoes which we both did. I didn't expect the amazing amount of mud here. I was doing good with the sneakers until Montana stepped on me foot with a muddy paw, it was all down hill from there. I really like these sneakers.

Well, I guess it is back to reality and back to the city. Next week, we will resume our letters. I believe we will be on R. (only 7 more letters to go) I passed my first Internet class with a 98% so I am happy! I am currently working on one more then I will be done. yay!

F is for Fire (no...really)

This is just going to be a quick post with no pictures. Today, while making dinner, my doorbell rang. Now, ordinarily, unless I need something from the store, I don't answer. Well, I didn't answer, then about 10 minutes later, it rings again. This time I go to the door thinking that it is my DH coming home from work. Not so. There was alot of commotion in the hallway. People running up and down the stairs with buckets of water. And then I heard the T word for fire and I saw the smoke. There was a fire on our roof caused from the roof repairs and who knows? Maybe the man with the flame thrower who was melting the tar paper on there today. I proceeded to yell upstairs at Keke to get out of bed (she came home sick today) and start running around trying to turn off the stove and lights. We get J's boots and jacket on and I pick up the baby from the crib. We give the men what water we had, not sure it helped though, and we leave. As we end up downstairs, a family from the school (who had called during this commotion and informed me my roof was on fire) met us at the elevator and took us to their house. Their house just happens to be in the other building, opposite from ours, and we were able to watch the fire fighters come to put out the all-most-extinguished fire. It was after I left that I thought of a million things I should have taken - like the passports and birth certificates but I ultimately got the items that mean the most to me - my children. That was all I was thinking about, getting them out safely. After, about one hour or so, the fire fighters left and we were able to go back into our apartment. I was concerned I would see water in the apartment but the only problem it looks like we are going to have is in the upstairs bathroom. It seems the foam/water has leaked onto the ceiling. I hope it dries and won't get moldy. We have a problem with that here and the new roof was supposed to fix that. What can I say-life is an adventure here, never a dull moment. The ironic thing about this is that we are working on the letter F and I had planned on discussing fire safety with J. Now, we had experienced it first hand. Won't that be a memorable lesson?

A New Adventure

We have several family sayings in our house that have quickly become somewhat of "family mottos."  One of them is "Let's go on an adventure," which is really just saying "let's go out our front door." Living here, everyday seems to be an adventure, some more than others. Our DD Keke cringes when she hears that because she know something interesting is going to happen. It could be good, bad, or frustrating but it seems like it is life here in T. Well, we had an adventure once again.

Sunday, October 3rd, I was skyping my DS who is in college. We were video chatting and during our conversation, we had a mild earthquake. I believe it was a 4.4 on the scale but it was scary enough and my son got to experience it with us via our web cam. Everything shook in the house, I all most thought I was dreaming. It didn't last long but even though, I don't think I want to experience that again. I hope and pray that I won't.  That was adventure number one....of the week.

On to adventure number two....at about 4:40 a.m. Monday morning, I began to feel uncomfortable pains. I wouldn't call them contractions but maybe cramps. It was enough that it woke me up and I stayed up for awhile, waiting for them to either increase or go away. I had this happen the other day and all I got was 1 cm dilated, so I wasn't taking any chances. Well, they stayed the same so I woke up Scott and told him that he should be prepared because I thought we would have the baby today. But I wanted to rest alittle and I went back to sleep about 6 a.m.

After an hour, I decided to get up because they weren't getting any better. I wasn't timing them so I couldn't tell you how close they were. We started to get ready to go to the hospital. We made some phone calls, arranged a babysitter for J, called the insurance to tell them we thought it was going to be today, I took a shower, DH took a shower, I got J ready. The pains started to get closer and it was DH that made that observation. He began to run around, trying to get the bags, and I am telling him not to worry, that we have plenty of time.

We get in the car and take J to the babysitter and begin our journey to the hospital. We live in a major city and, well, traffic decided to be extremely congested. And I say, extremely congested. We got stuck in traffic at least 3 times going to the hospital. In the beginning, it was fine and I was doing okay. DH was weaving in and out as the contractions decided to get even closer together. He began to pray as I began to cry that I wasn't going to make it. Then the "oh no" my water broke. That totally concerned me.

DH was praying and I was begging him to stop the car and deliver the baby. He kept telling me that it wasn't far and it was going to be fine. "Hold it in.!!" he kept saying, "hold it in!!" Like I could do that. I laid down in the back of the car, as he ran a red light trying to get us there. I was still begging him to deliver the baby. He pulled up to the ER and started beeping the horn yelling "Hadi, hadi..." which is "hurry" in Turkish. A whole crew came out with a stretcher and they had to pull me out of the car. I couldn't move, the contractions were too close together and I truly expected to deliver this baby right where I was - the backseat of the car.

We were rushed through the ER (apparently they have a parking service for those who come to the hospital in emergencies) and, in less than 15 minutes of arrival, baby Kaleb made his appearance. I will have to say this was the fastest birth I ever had. The funny thing was that I was joking with Scott about having this baby in the car and I was not too far off. If it was up to me, I would have. It was the hardest thing to do, not to push. But it was Scott who wouldn't let me and he kept praying that we would make it. He said he felt this overwhelming peace come over him, telling him that we would make it. Unknowing to us, at that time, Keke was praying with her teacher and classmates in her class while we were struggling in the car.

It was an adventure, to say the least. And now, we have a new member of the family to share in all of our adventures. It should be fun - he has already been inducted into the family with his own adventure - his birth. We will have this story to tell for ages - an earthquake and a baby. Wow, what's next? I shouldn't ask that, should I?

By the way, in another post, I explained that I don't have 8 pound babies....well, Kaleb was a whopping 9 pounds 2 oz. All most born in the car....over nine pounds....wow. I still can't believe he was that big. He is a sweetie and he fits nicely in his newborn clothes and diapers, I wonder for how long though. I just wanted to share, enjoy the pics. Love ya guys.