Making A Mummy!

We're really enjoying learning about ancient Egypt using the Story of the World Ancients book and activity guide.  Although we hadn't officially arrived at the chapter about mummies yet (it's in chapter 4 and we're still back in chapter 2), our Lift the Lid on the Mummies book and mummy making kit came in the mail.  Red couldn't wait to do it so we did the project during Tom Thumb's nap yesterday.  


We decided on the kit because one of Story of the World activities for chapter four is making a mummy out of a raw chicken.  While this probably would have been really cool, there are a few reasons the chicken mummy wasn't going to work for us:


1. I'm a vegetarian right now (I know saying "right now" seems funny, but I've only been eating this way for three months and don't know if I'll be able to sustain it for the long haul).
2. We have two cats that are constantly trying to eat everything edible (or sometimes inedible) in sight.
3. The idea of having a raw chicken lying around the house for six weeks grosses me out.


In the end, this kit was a great alternative to the raw chicken mummy project, especially since the book included in the kit is designed to be read as you do the project .  Here's how the mummy making went for us.  You need to allow at least two hours to complete this project.  When you open the box, this is what it looks like inside.

Red was super excited to open up the mummy and check out his little plastic organs, although she was bummed out that there was no brain for her to pull out of his nose with a hook! I think she may be reading too many Egypt books right now. :-)

Red named her mummy Happy because she said it looked like he was smiling.  What do you think?

Next, we had to make the canopic jars to store Happy's organs.  The description on Amazon says this kit is for 9-12 year olds, and I think the process to make the jars is the reason.  They are made of a heavy glossy paper.  Each jar is made of a rectangular piece and a circular piece of paper that must be cut out and glued together.  This was definitely a team effort.  I did all the cutting and gluing and Red held the bottom of the jar (the circle piece) on to the cylindrical part of the jar (the rectangle piece) while they dried.  Once all the jars were glued together it was time to put Happy's organs in them for storage.

Each jar came with a resin lid that represented the god that was supposed to protect that particular organ.  Here's Red putting Happy's intestines in their jar.  We had some issues with Imset's head (the liver god) falling off his jar.  We kept yelling "Put the lid on that liver!"

After our canopic jars were complete, it was time to wrap our mummy.  

One thing I have to say about this kit is that they should have included some more gauze.  We had to re-wrap Happy a couple of times in order to get full coverage.  If you buy this kit, plan on having some extra gauze on hand to make the wrapping part easier.  The kit included a sticker sheet with amulet stickers for you to stick on your mummy as you wrapped him up for protection.

Here's Red posing with Happy after he was all wrapped up.

Next, it was time to put him inside his sarcophagus.  

The punch out mask was included to put on Happy after he was wrapped.  When you're done you're supposed to seal the tomb with this sticker and then bury it.

Red decided against the sealing (why would you seal it?  Then you can't play with it anymore) and decided she wanted to decorate it like a real sarcophagus instead.  Since we didn't have any gold or jewels, she settled for tin foil, glitter glue, and beads.  I covered the lid for Red with tin foil and then she decorated it.

Here's the final product.

Happy even looks happy on the outside of his tomb! 

Overall, this was an excellent project.  Even though it required quite a bit of parental participation, it was great fun!  I would highly recommend this kit as a vegetarian alternative to the chicken mummy.

On a separate Egyptian note, Red just attended vacation Bible school with her friends and the theme was Joseph and Egypt.  What a perfect tie in to our studies!  I have great admiration for the coordinators of this vacation Bible school.  Check out the pyramid and the girls' costumes.  They got to wear those everyday that week.  We'll definitely be going again next year.  They had a grand time!

The kids and I are off to Chicago on Monday to visit my cousin's family so I may be on hiatus for a few days again.  Ah---gotta love summer!

Red's 6th Birthday Beach Party

The last week has been INSANE---thus, why I have been missing in action on my blog.  First up, Red turned 6!  Yay!  I lucked out because she wanted a backyard beach party for her birthday.  Last Saturday we had a bunch of little girls and Tom Thumb on hand for playing in the sand,

swinging on the rope swing,

eating cake,

and running in the sprinklers!

Everybody got flower leis, hibiscus garland crowns, and a bubbles with a balloon attached as favors.  Tom Thumb had a pool cake made of Jello for his 1st birthday a few years back and Red wanted the same thing for her cake except a beach instead of a pool.  Here is a close up of the finished product complete with brown sugar sand, the Jello ocean, a Fruit Roll up and pretzels volleyball net, Fruit Roll up towels, gummy Lifesaver life preservers for my multi cultural Teddy Graham people, and gumball beach balls.  The only problem I didn't foresee was a gaggle of girls yelling at me as I cut the cake --- "I WANT THE VOLLEYBALL NET!  GIMME A GUMBALL!"  Oy!  The Cobbler said next time I should have back ups of all the novelty decorations on the cake.

Thanks to all of Red's friends who made it a great time!

Red's birthday present from the Cobbler and I was getting her ears pierced.  I wasn't allowed to get mine done as a kid until I was 10, but I always thought that was a little bit unnecessarily strict.  It's not like it's a tattoo or anything!  Here she is before:

And here's the after shot:

She looked a bit choked up for a minute and said, "I'm fine.  I'm NOT going to cry."  Once the girl who pierced her ears cleaned them and gave her the mirror, Red did a little happy dance, and then said they felt great.  She's told everyone since then that they felt like a shot in the ear at the time but feel fine now.

After making breakfast for my parents and the Cobbler on Father's Day, my mom, the kids and I hit the road and made the 4 1/2 hour trip up to my parents' cottage in northern Michigan.  Even though the weather was a little unpredictable and rainy most of the time we were there, the kids loved it as usual.  Red and Tom Thumb read some books together up in their room in the attic---

and my older sister Lisa came over with my nieces and nephew one night.  Lots of Tinkertoy/Magnatile fun was had by all.

Since we returned yesterday we've been busy making a mummy as part of our Story of the World study!  Watch for a post on that soon. :-)

Book Review: The Art of Racing in the Rain

They laughed and then they moved on to discussing other options.  This happens to me often at my book club.  I'm the one who wants to read either the "depressing books" or the "weird books" or so it's said.  I got shot down when I suggested The Road and Left to Tell last year.  I suggested The Art of Racing in the Rain a few meetings back.  When I said I heard it was about the relationship between a dog and a race car driver from the dog's point of view you would have thought I grew a third head.  Yes, it happened.  My choice shot down again.  I couldn't blame them though.  I'm the one who suggested we try a classic (which ended up being A Tale of Two Cities) and I didn't even finish it.  Although the club eventually did come around and read Left to Tell, I didn't think they were going to agree to The Art of Racing in the Rain anytime soon so I got it from the library to read on my own.


I admit it---the premise is unexpected.  The narrator is a dog named Enzo who is approaching the end of his life.  You find out from Enzo in the first few pages that he's an old dog whose owner is named Denny.  Denny's wife Eve got sick and died, and you learn Denny's been through some hard times.  You learn all this up front.  Then you get to hear Enzo's story from the beginning.  A lot of the plot sounds like a clichéd Lifetime movie.  There's the wife's illness and coping with that.  There's an alleged crime and a custody battle. If the dog wasn't in this book it probably wouldn't have even made a book reviewer look twice.  But there is a dog in this book.


What makes this book special is Enzo's unique point of view.  He's a dog with feelings, preferences, and plans for the future.  He loves his family, he wants what's best for them, and he fights for it.  When humans disagree or can't understand each other, he sees the truth.  Despite Enzo talking about his desire to be reincarnated and be a man himself, I was reminded repeatedly while reading this book of the MIT commencement address given by NPR's Car Talk's Click and Clack back in 1999.  I saw it broadcast on television and the address at the time really made an impact on me.  They said to achieve nirvana you need to be unencumbered by the thought process.  According to the MIT newsletter, "Tom said that his theory, dubbed reverse incarnation, holds that instead of leading future lives as better and better people, good people will come back as a golden retriever, a cow, a worm and finally grass, getting happier in the process."  I think dogs really are happier.


In the end, this book is special.  It's unlike anything I've ever read or will likely read in the future.  It's a compelling read.  Enjoy!

This is the crown of Egypt?!?!

It's official----we've done our first lame craft from The Story of the World activity book.  We read part of chapter two yesterday about Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt.  The one king was known as "the King with the White Crown" and the other king was known as "the King with the Red Crown."  The activity was to make your own white crown of Egypt.

Something you must know about me---I detest crafts that take skill beyond the grade level for which they are intended.  This is one of those crafts.  I had to do all the taping and sizing for the kids with the wax paper for the crown.  They got to crush up the paper to make the egg shaped item that sat inside the wax paper, but that was it.

Second, I hate crafts that have no value beyond the moment you make them.  These stupid hats were off their heads and trash worthy in less than 10 minutes.  Look at King Narmer's crown in this picture.  This is what the white crown of Egypt is supposed to look like:

Granted, Red wanted the pink crown of Egypt and Tom Thumb wanted the yellow crown of Egypt, but this is what we ended up with (for the 2 seconds that they lasted):

Oy---hope the upcoming crafts are better than this!

The Cobbler continues his crazy work schedule through Wednesday.  He worked yesterday and today, and he's been going at least 10 hours and up to 15 hours per day.  Who knows what I'll be doing to keep these monkeys entertained this week! ;-)

Cave paintings---The Earliest People, Part 2

A cave art example from the book The Stone Age People

As we wrap up our overview of the nomads and early people, Red, Tom Thumb and I decided to do some cave paintings.  Needless to say, we don't have a cave in our suburban backyard to paint so we followed the instructions offered in The Story of the World Ancients activity book.  


First, I got the kids set up in their smocks (always an adventure) and cut a grocery store paper back in half for them to share.

Next, to make it more cave like and less grocery bag like in texture, the kids did some paper squishing.  Tom Thumb was a tough guy.

Red really put a lot of effort into the smushing.

Then, I mixed them up some brown, red, and tan paint and they got started.

A good book that I found at the library for this time period is called The Stone Age People.  If you have a problem with depicting prehistoric man to your kids, this book isn't for you, but if that doesn't trouble you ---what a great resource!  There are TONS of different activities in this book.  There are similar activities to what is suggested in the Story of the World activity book but go into much more detail plus much more.  There were two pages in the book devoted just to cave painting which Red used as reference when she was doing her painting.

Here are the finished works.  First up is Tom Thumb's painting.  I haven't done nearly as much painting with him as I did with Red at that age.  I think we should do it more often!

Next up---Red's masterpiece featuring a horse, reindeer, and wild cow.

We had a grand time cave painting!  Now we're on to Egypt!  I just ordered the Lift the Lid on the Mummies book and make your own mummy kit.  One of the upcoming activities is mummifying a chicken.  Yep, a chicken.  To be honest, I was kind of grossed up by having a raw chicken hanging around drying out in my house for six weeks, not to mention I can't imagine how our two cats would feel about that.  The Cobbler wasn't thrilled either.  He said, "You won't let me eat a chicken, but you'll make a chicken into a mummy?!?!"  Another blogger who I follow suggested this kit.  It looks pretty good so I'm hopeful that it will be an interesting project.

The Cobbler and I managed to sneak out for a couple of hours to go out to eat for our anniversary.  We went to one of our favorite places in Ypsilanti called The Sidetrack.  I ordered a tempeh philly with sweet potato fries and it was outstanding!  For a second there I thought they had made a mistake and given me the meat version---it was that good!  

Today we're off to swim at the hotel again and probably do some household organizing.  I was teasing one of my friends yesterday that sometimes I wish I could just sweep everything into a garbage bag and throw it away!  We just have too much stuff.  As soon as I get rid of something, something else arrives to take its place! 

Three cheers for the weekend!

Story of the World Ancient Times: The Earliest People, Part 1

We read Story of the World: Ancient Times chapter 1 yesterday--- The Earliest People.  It was about the nomadic life in the Fertile Crescent 7000 years ago and the nomads transition to farming.  I'm really enjoying how the book is written in a conversational style and not a typical textbook format.  Part of the story was about a seven year old girl named Tarak and her responsibility to gather food for her people.  She even caught lizards with her brother so her mother could make lizard stew.  Mmmmmm....maybe I should whip some up for dinner tonight.

Red decided she wanted to try a couple of the activities from the Story of the World activity book. One was building a hut either for you or a stuffed animal.  Because the Cobbler did such a great job cleaning up the yard this spring, there weren't a lot of branches left to construct a hut.  He did leave several large branches he had trimmed off a tree under the big pine tree so we leaned those against the tree trunk and I helped her throw some blankets and sheets up over them.  She and Tom Thumb sat out there for a good while in it eating  crackers and (it's a miracle!) not arguing!

Red also tried some map work for the first time.  Here's the map she colored of the Fertile Crescent area.

She insisted on coloring the Red Sea red. :-)  We had a good discussion about how Lebanon is part of the Fertile Crescent.  Her close friend's father grew up in Lebanon so we compared Lebanon's location on the globe to the map she colored.  We're planning on doing a couple more of the activities that go with chapter 1 so I'll do a separate post when we do those.

On a sad note, our crumpled wing butterfly died after 6 days of life.  He was looking more and more withered and tired as time went on.  Red found him dead this morning.  She was sad, but seemed to understand that it was going to happen eventually.  I know it was just an insect, but I'm a bit down about it myself.

And finally---today is my anniversary.  Eleven years of trials and bliss!  Ha ha!  The Cobbler had to go into work at 7AM this morning, but when I came downstairs I found this:

I have been coveting this mirror at Pier One.  Often on our date nights (we go out a couple of evenings each month) we just go up to the shopping plaza near our house that has stores like Target, TJMaxx, Michaels, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Pier 1 and just browse.  I had seen this mirror a few times and commented on how much I liked it, but how I didn't know where I'd put it and that I knew it wasn't really the Cobbler's taste (he is decidedly more conservative than me decorating wise).  I have no idea when he got it, but this morning there it was!  What a thoughtful husband I have...  

Because of the nature of his work this week (i.e. going into work between 6AM and 7AM and getting off between 8PM and 9PM), the Cobbler has a hotel room right up the street from our house at the Hyatt, where the event he is working is located.  The kids are DYING to go swimming in the hotel pool today so I better get ready to take them over there.

Happy Friday everyone!

The butterflies are released...sort of

 Yesterday, Red decided it was time to release the butterflies.  She took the habitat to the backyard and opened the lid.  After a few minutes, this guy came out and fluttered away.

A few minutes later, another one flew off over the fence into our neighbor's yard.  Then, our poor friend with the crumpled wings decided it was dinner time.  Commentary is courtesy of our neighbors Justine and Kara.

It was very cool to see him eat.  This was the first time we had actually seen one of them really eating and not just standing on the orange.  I found the straw apparatus that they use to eat (the blacker line that looks like a leg) simply fascinating.


Then there were two.  I had to head off to book club, but the Cobbler told me later that eventually the last butterfly with the good wings flew off too.  Since he can't fly, Red decided to let our crumpled winged friend live out his life in the habitat.  And he seems content to do that.

On the scientific side, we'll be able to observe how long its life is and whether or not it lays eggs.  Unfortunately if it does lay eggs, we have nothing for the larvae to eat.  The instructions say in order for them to lay eggs they must have "a good supply of hollyhock, malva, nettle or thistle leaves," which we do not.  I guess we'll have to wait and see.


Here are some photos from Red's kindergarten graduation and picnic.  95 degree weather couldn't keep those kids down.  They did a song and dance, ate, and then ran all over the place.  Red was disturbed by the fact that some of the little boys took their shirts off, but I wouldn't let her take off hers.  I got a lot of "But why?" and "That's not fair."  Geez---I didn't think I'd have to deal with that one for a while.

Here they are before the song and dance.  Red is far right.

Then they graduated.  The lights are off because it was so darn hot.

Pizza time!

And now summer OFFICIALLY begins!