Making A List

Summer time is just around the corner and that means one thing, a list of things to do around the house while the weather is nice.  We (and by we I mean me) have put things off for a while on things that need to be done.  For example, our bedroom hasn’t been painted in 10 years (actually I think it might be more like 12 years).  Kris had picked out a new paint color and I have had it on the list of things to do but just never got around to doing it.  I figure it is something that should take a day, two at the most, as long as I have all the supplies I need. 

But that is just one thing.  Kris and I are going to be putting together a list in the next couple of weeks of things that I need to get done around the house.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get most of them completed by the end of the summer.

Sugar Cube Castle

During spring break Ali had an extra credit project she could do, make a castle out of sugar cubes. This was because her class is reading the book, Castle in the Attic. It was quite an ordeal. The description of how to do it was to use a dab of glue to hold the cubes together. But after trying it, we found the glue melted the sugar, and thus, didn't hold very well.

We found a website that dealt with making things out of sugar cubes (you really can find anything on the interwebs) and said that in order to keep the sugar from melting to use an icing mixture of powdered sugar, an egg white and cream of tartar.

It was a long process... This is what we did initially to make sure it would work.
We had to make it with four separate rooms. That was sort of hard to do but we did our best. We decided not to put in a door or windows, just because it was too hard to make with the size of the cubes. So Alison decided we would make it solid and just paint the door and windows on. At the end of day two, this is where we stood:
and finally, we finished things off:
Then finally, she painted on the windows and door:
Not too bad considering we had no idea how to do it. The one thing that is goofy looking is that the towers had to be left open to make them "rooms". I just hope they don't collapse.

Manatees

With no Packers game this afternoon, we had some time to help Alison work on a school project. She had to pick an animal and do an informational report on it by making a poster or a diorama along with a written report describing things like what the animal eats, all about its habitat. She got the project assigned while she was out sick, so we were just working off the assignment sheet. I am not quite sure that we helped Alison exactly right with choosing her animal, but we did pick one that she thought was really cool and one that no one else would do, the manatee.

As soon as her report and poster is done, I'll post final pictures but part of her assignment was also to either draw a picture of it or make a model. Ali wanted to make a clay model, so we went to the hobby store yesterday and got a small container of clay and while watching the crummy football game today, Ali and I put together our best representation of a manatee. I think we did a pretty good job. Now we just have to wait for the clay to dry so that we can paint it and be ready to turn her project in next week.