Need the Grandmas' expert opinion

Hi Grandmas,

Starshine is doing her biography project on Ruby Bridges, who helped integrate Louisiana public schools in 1960. She needs to present her project in costume. I have been trying to convince her that 1960's 1st grade fashion is not all that different from 2010 (minus the sparkle). A quick raid of her closet yielded a knee length dress with collar, matching cardigan sweater, folded over bobby socks, and black mary-jane shoes. If I work on my braiding styles over the next week, and throw in a bow, I say she is a spitting image of the cover of the book she read from the library.

Starshine is not convinced. She thinks she looks like a regular kid going to school.

OK - Grandmas - does she look like a 1960 1st grader??

Oh the injustice...

During Black History Month, Jr. Princess learned about the story of Rosa Parks. She then had to fill out a worksheet describing "a time when you were treated in a way that you didn't like."

Well, we laughed out loud when we read her grave injustice...

"My sister cheated on Sorry. I got mad."

In Starshine's defense, I don't think she cheated on Sorry!

Starshin'e Own Blog

Today, Starshine decided she wanted to create her own blog. [Insert mom sniffle here as I am hit by how she is becoming so grown up and independent].

So click on the link http://starshinessuperstarthoughts.blogspot.com/ to check out her own personal musings...

Candy making fun

Jr. Princess went to a birthday party yesterday, where the theme was candy making. I thought it sounded like a super fun idea, and still was blown away with the cute little candies she came home with...

What a fun idea!

It gave Starshine and me the opportunity to go by fabric for her International Festival dance costumes. Yep - I got roped into making 11 "China-inspired" costumes for her Girl Scout troop. Wish me luck (and sanity!)

Eulogy for Pinchers

After a few months together, we discovered this weekend that poor Pinchers had passed on. Being that crayfish are nocturnal, he may have been dead for a couple of days before we noticed.

This was our first pet experience, and a good opportunity to see if the girls were ready for a "real" pet. Starshine assures us that many other classmate's crayfish have already passed on, so we are not the world's worst crayfish owners - yeah. Starshine doesn't seem to devastated, and considering for the past 3 months Starshine barely remembered to keep him fed, we are definitely not getting another pet anytime soon. Pinchers - we'll miss you...

Room Makeover

Due to the Labor Day 2010 water leak, we had to get the bathroom re-drywalled and a new door. Well, one nice door in a lower level of crappy doors didn't make sense, so I decided to get everything fixed that I still hated about our lower level. So, goodbye crappy doors, warped shelf boards, ugly paneling and bad baseboard workmanship. It was an ugly two weeks of the clan getting on each other nerves caged up in the upper level, but wow does it look nice.

And, since Starshine's room needed to be repainted because of new drywall, I decided it was time to let her makeover her room how ever she wanted. Here she is painting it dolphin-blue...


And because she had an ugy mish-mash of hand-me-down furniture, here is her brand-new loft bed (curse the 4+ hours it took to put this together, and the now waiting for 7 more screws to be sent by mail...)

It's not totally done yet, but as of tonight both girls are sleeping down stairs, alone. (Though Jr. Princess is not looking at this as a positive like M&M Dad and I are.)

Needless to say, Jr. Princess is P.O.ed that she is not getting a room makeover until she's a little older. Aaaahhh, second child syndrome.

At least the loft bed came with oodles of thin pieces of Styrofoam so we could have super fun practicing our karate moves! Can you tell we've watched the original Karate Kid lately :)

3rd Grade Science Fair

At the girls school, they are now required to participate in the science fair at least once in 3rd-5th grade. Guess who excited to hear this - me! How come my schools never did this??

Starshine is not a fan of science right now. Well, neither was I in elementary school when it's all about earth science and other "not chemistry and physics stuff." So in an attempt to make sure she enjoyed this experience I asked her to pick anything about science she has enjoyed in the last 3 years, and we would make a project out of it. She picked growing crystal trees. Done - we ordered some on the Internet.

After a planning meeting a few weeks ago, her friend came over this weekend to run the experiment. They worked so hard typing up their info, taking data, and assembling their board. I had to help with the general guidance of how to run an experiment, and we had to bring in M&M Dad's assistance to make some good graphs, but other than that, this was all there hard work. (Though, I don't really think the school prepared them AT ALL to be able to do this. I hear now that 1st and 2nd graders are be prepped, so hopefully Jr. Princess will be more prepared...)

And here's the result:

Feel free to ask her about whether crystal trees grow better with hot, room temperature, or cold solution! (Oh, and Grandpa L - do not start asking lots of complicated questions!!!)

I had so much fun doing the science fair project with my friend.

Yeah - that's success in my book!

Happy MLK day!

Yesterday, Starshine asked me why we don't celebrate MLK day. I tried to explain that it's more like Veteran's or President's Day - more of a remembrance than a Christmas or 4th of July-like celebration.

Well, that did not appear to be a good reason to her. While I was at work, and she was home from school with M&M Dad, she crafted her own MLK family celebration, including festive banner and other decorations, a MLK trivia quiz during dinner (I'm proud to report M&M Dad and I tied at 7 of 8 correct), and ice cream sundaes for dessert.

"Happy MLK Day

Blacks and Whites are Created ="

She loved her class book on Harriet Tubman, and is currently working on her class biography project, where she picked Ruby Bridges. She has such passion and interest for learning about desegregation and the Civil Rights movement.

It was a wonderful MLK celebration.

Happy New Year!

OK - I didn't blog for several weeks due to all of the holiday craziness, and I ended up finding all kinds of funny photos as I was cleaning up some cameras this weekend. So, I'm definitely belated on our New Years Eve festivities.

We had our second annual family game night this New Years Eve. Jr. Princess was a surprise winner last year with her Rock-Paper-Scissors domination, but this year she had to learn the agony of defeat. (Losing gracefully is still a skill she is working on...). The girls made fun medals again, including a large, Grand Champion medal.

This year's big winner was Starshine! At first she had a mini fit because I "suggested" she take a dive in Guess Who so her sister could at least win one game, but then she decided to be nice. If only she knew how many games we have lost on her behalf in the past.

Later that weekend we watched Mrs. Doubtfire with the kids. Jr. Princess was so inspired, she wanted to dress up like a boy and try to fool people, too. Isn't she the cutest boy??

Glasses 2.0

Unfortunately, Starshine inherited her Dad's bad vision, and exactly a year after her first pair of glasses, we were back for more. She wasn't super thrilled with Target's selection this year, but I still think found a great choice in these purple ones...

Wow, her hair is getting long. They loved the movie Tangled, but I've been trying to make them understand that super long hair is a massive pain to keep nice. Maybe we'll do haircuts soon...