Cooking, Sewing and Painting mostly

Arden got back into cooking dinner this week.  Damien helped him to make slouvaki.

We went to a Chinese calligrapy exhibition;one-stroke calligraphy last weekend.  The exhibition and the philosophy were beautiful.  We're hoping to go to an ikebana demonstration that they are also doing, this week.  Arden and Gabriel both did some calligraphy printing whilst at the exhibition.  This is Arden's print.

 We did quite a bit of sewing this week.  Even Irving had a try.

Irving's stitching.

Arden's pyjamas.  We've pinned the legs together, and I overstitched the edges to strengthen them for him.

Gabriel's tie getting close to completion.

I started making a bag.

We finished Arden's block on the Bible Creation story.  Some paintings from this week.

Arden's painting.

My painting of humans being created.

Irving at work!

Arden's book put together.

We finished reading "Little House on the Prairie" this week, and Arden is all enthused for the next book, but I haven't got a copy of it yet.  I ordered a pattern for pants for Gabriel to sew, after he does a basic piece of sewing on the sewing machine, though he hasn't decided what to sew yet.  Willow had a meet and greet session for a youtube series that she's going to be in over the weekend, and finally we caught up on our meeting sessions with her.  We also all sat down to try a DVD learn to sing series this week (the name of it totally escapes me right now) but the techniques the guy was using reminded me of Michel Thomas.

5 Years in Perth

Since arriving here in 2011, Willow has been counting the years and reminding us, of the anniversary of our arrival every year.  This year, since it was "half a decade" as she put it, she was keen for us to have breakfast at Dome, as we did the year we arrived here.  So Tuesday morning we headed out early, so that Damien could arrive at work on time, and went for breakfast.  Only thing was, that pretty much everything went wrong!  Or at least on my and Damien's end of it.  Damien ended up mostly coated in milk and had to go home and get changed. Since Dome's service had been so average this time, we headed to a coffee shop in the Treasury Building, had a drink, and I picked up a rose, for Damien to cheer him up a bit, after the chaos of the morning!

 Arden and I have been reading the Bible, and creating a story book about God creating the world.

Arden's painting

My painting

I wasn't feeling the best yesterday, so to help me out, Gabriel painted with Arden.

Arden's painting

Gabriel's painting

 Arden has been working on modelling pyramids and prisms in his maths this week.

Gabriel's tie is getting closer to completion.

Arden and I planted some linseeds earlier in the year; these are the seed pods and a dried stalk.  The stalk would be used to make linen. 

Seeds removed from seed pods.

Enjoying homemade pumpkin pie over the weekend.

Gabriel has been working on finishing his essay comparing "Romeo and Juliet" and "Iolanthe" and is currently reading "Swiss Family Robinson".  He is moving on to history this semester (though we still have a few bits of science to finish off).  He is researching and writing about the history of transport, communities and communication.

Willow is back at musicianship classes this week, and has a welcome party for her next performance, which is a youtube series this weekend.   She has recently started using a music theory website to help her fine tune some of her aural music skills.

End of term 2

Amongst Iolanthe performances we managed to get a little bit of school work done, but mostly we spent the time recuperating from the intense performance schedule (9 performances in two weeks).  Fortunately there was a long weekend in the middle, and so Damien was at home that day.  During the second week Willow got a cold, with a hoarse voice, so she learnt all about being in the chorus and being unable to sing!

Arden had been working on a block on homes, during Iolanthe, and we had hoped to get out and see some of the local historical buildings during the show, but we decided to leave it til a bit later, since people were run down, and it was a very intense schedule for Arden.  Arden did manage to build a model of our home in lego though, based of floor plans that he drew up.

We've had Arden and Irving playing knights and princes around here a little bit recently, and this led into building block castles.  Note the drawbridge.

Arden and I have been working at a book of creation from the Bible this week.  Lots of english and lots of painting.  Working at nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc; writing the story up in cursive and painting an illustration for each section.  

Gabriel has been looking at steam and combustion engines, we have plans for a more practical component during the break, but mostly we focused on theory during Iolanthe.  Some of the steam videos Gabriel watched.  This page was meant to be mostly combustion engines, but ended up a mix of things engine related.  This week Gabriel has moved onto chemistry and distillation.  We're hoping to distill essential oils after the break, and as a lead up he's making cold infused frangipani oil (we're thinking of trying this again later in the year, when the frangipanis are more fragrant) and a lavender water.

Willow has been doing a little sewing again, and made herself a small purse.

 

Gabriel is currently hand sewing his tie, and Arden is making progress on his jammy pants. I've been making a new bra out of green gingham;  I'm making the straps much wider this time.  On the whole I've been happy with my previous bras, except the width of the straps.

 We found this wooden ironing board in the hard waste.  Was too nice a piece of wood to let it get thrown out.

Arden and Irving being fairies on winter Solstice.

Enjoying my breakfast the day after solstice;taking in the sun, before getting started for the day.

We had our first home education excursion for awhile out to the Supreme Court this week for a hypotheticals session.  Willow and Gabriel found the process quite interesting.  Since Arden and Irving were too young for the session,we had a few other errands to do, for Irving's birthday tomorrow, so we met up with everyone later.