Halloween

Here is the boat all decked out for Halloween. I don't have a good enough camera to capture the detail and light, but you get the idea. The colorful skull flags are my favorite and come from a cool etsy shop called Bad Baby Quilts.









Our setting for a spooky breakfast!

Zach in his KING TUT costume ready to seize the day. Our neighbor Jen made the costume for him, she ROCKS! The hat came from Chasing Fireflies.




























Miss T dressed up as Cleopatra and the two Egyptian royalty made quite a pair as they paraded up the street to the old folks home.


Z & I used to volunteer at the old folks home across the street. We don't go regularly anymore, but we always get his buddies together on Halloween to parade through in costume. It always brings smiles to the sweet old faces.



Then we walked back to the marina for a Halloween party! We always through a party for the kids after the old folks visit as a thank you.



I mad some play dough in black and orange with glitter and peppermint scent as a party favor. We put them in some tins that Zach and I decorated, and gave them out with ghost cookie cutters.



The treat table!




























These were glow sticks wrapped up in cool
Halloween paper.














Zach painted this picture which he said was called "October". I think that sums it up nicely.



HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Mummy Dearest

Z has been asking me for many, many months now to mummify something with him. He started with a chicken, but I have to be honest, I am just a little too squeamish to gut and prep a dead chicken for proper mummification. Not to mention, that's a rather large dead thing to display on the boat.

So after some research we settled on a potato. Apparently, potatoes decompose much like people do, only faster, smaller, and cleaner. So we cut a person shape from a potato and set him in a container of salt and baking soda for 2 weeks to decompose. The funny thing was Z insisted on putting him in a sarcophagus and tucked the rotting container deep into the bowels of the closet for the proper mood.




We got him out 2 weeks later and Zach started to wrap him up.




Then with a lovely coffin from the craft store painted by Z, we laid our friend to eternal peace in the afterlife. Or rather to temporary stinking of our life on the boat.

The boy LOVES his mummy. He brings it everywhere to show to people. He's named him "King Jones". Right now the mummy lives in the salon on the nature table with all of our fall/ Halloween stuff. I am hoping I can secretly do away with him by Thanksgiving. ;)




If you want to try this at home, check out the instructions we followed in DIG MAGAZINE.
page 28

Concentration

Z now loves to sew. Not sure where he got that from since my sewing skills just about equate his. But I love watching him concentrate and happily create using color and texture, and yes a real needle. Luckily we have good friends and neighbors who actually know how to sew in case he wants to pursue this further. And he has an invite from Dan at the marina canvas shop to come by on a cold day in the off season and spend the afternoon sewing pirate flags! He keeps asking me, "is it cold enough yet to go work with Dan now?"

Things That Make My Heart Sing

The look of concentration and peace when Zach is painting.

The look of sheer joy and the happy dance that happens when he hears the song Space Oddity by David Bowie.

The Gratuitous Pumpkin Patch Shots

Me and every other parent in North America .

Water Taxi

A sunset ride back to the boat on the water taxi with a boy who has ice cream pulsing through this veins.

The Fort

Playsilks are the ultimate form of amusement. They pack away small and play big. You can never have enough of them.

Beach School

Even at the tender age of 4, spending the week at the beach in late September/ early October raises eyebrows and draws out the inevitable question, "what about school?!"

What ABOUT school?

I couldn't help but think of the myriads of 4 year old sitting in "kindergarten prep" all day long with the average 15 minutes of outside play time. This is the most incredibly beautiful time of the year, and little children should be out using all of their senses, all of the day, soaking all of it up.

BUT... that doesn't mean no time for ABC's.



In fact, while I was lazing about the beach concentrating on the hunt for the perfect shell (which I never found), Zach discovered that when you take the broken tail of a horseshoes crab and pop it on the tip of a common seagull feather... VOILA! A classic quill pen! He decided he wanted to practice his writing on the beach. So he used a flat piece of driftwood as his eraser/ Zamboni. Then he declared that he would only be writing the names of famous pirates, scoundrels, and sea captains.





This is Zach writing "AHAB", as in Captain Ahab of Moby Dick.





He framed in sticks and shells his favorite of them all. Captain Bligh (he spelled it phonetically) from his new favorite book Mutiny On The Bounty.



Now that's what we call school!

The Beach (Rehoboth Oct 2008)

Psychedelic Playdough

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup warm water
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon oil
• 1/4 cup salt
• food coloring or pastry coloring for brighter colors
• glitter and/ or peppermint, lavender, or sweet orange essential oils
  

Mix flour, cream of tartar, oil, and salt in an old cooking pot you don't care too much about.

In a separate container (coloring MAY stain container), mix food coloring with warm water and pour into pot. (add essential oil and glitter too if desired)

Stir over medium heat until smooth.

Remove from pan and knead until blended smooth.

Place in plastic bag or airtight container when cooled, and it will last for a long time.

The Master Plan (September 26, 2008)

ZACH: "You know what I want for my 5 birthday? A machine that I can get in and control the earth. So if I want a volcano in Annapolis I push the volcano button and a volcano erupts up and if I want a snowman I press the snow and ice button and I get snow and ice to build my snowman with. I want to control the water too with it so I can go underwater and go up again if I want to control the earth again and then I can go to every continent and control it there by that machine.

So can I have that for my birthday? PLEASE?"

ME: "I don't know if a machine like that exists?"

ZACH: "Then I can invent it. We can build it ourselves! Let's go get some materials at the hardware store, ok mama? Ok?"

National Building Museum Washington, DC

A visit with Grandpa and Grandma V at the National Building Museum...

This is the space where one of the many inaugural balls held in Washington, DC every four years takes place.





































Zach decided to try and build an arch. A great hands on lesson in compressive strength.












So if I scale this thing and hide up top maybe I can hang out until the inauguration and then make a grand entrance by...

Under the Stars

The light was leaving
in the west it was blue
The children's laughter sang
and skipping just like the stones they threw
the voices echoed across the waves
its getting late

It was just another night
with the sun set
and the moon rise not so far behind
to give us just enough light
to lay down underneath the stars
listen to papas translations
of the stories across the sky
we drew our own constellations

So Big (September 2008)

Day on the Bay (August 2008)

A lovely sail with Miss T



























I'd like to see a monohuller try this! ;)