glamour girl dress

This was a fun little project I worked on today.  The tank top was a hand-me-down from someone (Thanks!) and the fabrics were remnants.  I just sewed up the sides of the skirt, hemmed it and basted the top of it to ruffle it.  Then I attached the skirt under the tank top.  Afterwards, I thought it needed more glamour so I sewed the tulle along the hem and added a tulle flower to the tank top.  It's a little long...all the better to grow into.

one happy dog

Yesterday we, meaning Keith and Megan, turned our old sandbox into Muffy's new swimming pool.  The sandbox contents had gotten, well, gross, after the last rain.

Muffy really needed a little place to cool off.

She loves it so much, she winked at me.

the invention of hugo cabret

Ever since I read Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick, I have wanted to read The Invention of Hugo Cabret.  Two weeks ago we watched the movie, Hugo, and we loved it.  The story is so fresh and interesting.  Brian Selznick has a way of blending fiction with reality and he's good at it.  Finally, I found a copy checked in at the library this week.  I read it in two days.  Like Wonderstruck much of The Invention of Hugo Cabret is in pictures, much of them drawn by Selznick himself.

I loved the book just as much as the movie.  Seeing the movie first did not diminish reading the book in anyway.  Whoever cast the actors and did make-up for the movie did an excellent job matching the physical appearances Selznick gave them in his illustrations.  The storylines of the movie and book differ a little, but not significantly.

My favorite quote of the book:

"Sometimes I come up here at night, even when I'm not fixing the clocks, just to look at the city.  I like to imagine that the world is one big machine.  You know, machines never have any extra parts.  They have the exact number and type of parts they need.  So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason.  And that means you have to be here for some reason, too." --Hugo Cabret

This quote reminds me much of this verse from Ephesians.
"¹⁴ As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; ¹⁵ but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. Ephesians 4:14-16 NAS

God is fitting his church together with all the exactly right parts, and you, if you are His, are one of those parts.

What a relief to know that we are fitted together and held together  and we don't have to do the fitting and holding like Papa Georges or Hugo or Hugo's father do with their tools and their gears and cogs.
But that Christ holds all things together, including us. 

¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For in him all things were created:  things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;  all things have been created through him and for him.  ¹⁷ He is before all things  and in him all things hold together.  Collosians 1:15-17 NIV

Remember on those days, when you can't hold it together, you really don't need to, Christ is holding all things together.

sea center texas

Yesterday the children and I went on a very neat and fun field trip.  We headed down to Lake Jackson, Texas and visited Sea Center Texas.  Sea Center Texas is run by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.  The main purpose of Sea Center Texas is to hatch and raise three species of native Texas Gulf fish. 


In the visitor Center, there is a touch tank, and aquariums that display the various types of gulf water environments and the fish one would find there. We loved the visitor center, especially when we got to see them feed the fish.

  

After that we toured the hatchery.  Sea Center Texas hatches and releases red drum, speckled trout and flounder (just added this year).  Why?  Because the numbers of these native fish had decreased and they want to make sure we have a good population of them in the Texas Gulf waters.  When they are released they are only fingerling size, but they have a much greater survival rate than those in nature.

In this photo are tanks that are temperature and light controlled to trick the red fish and flounder into thinking that it is fall, and time to spawn.  In the mornings, the Sea Center Texas guys collect the eggs and count them and take them to the incubation room.

This is the incubation room. 
It was full of mosquitos and there weren't any eggs incubating the day we visited.  But there were some fish in this tub the kids are looking into.

After this we went out to the fishing pond. We didn't get to see all the ponds where they put the hatchlings.

The last thing we did was the wetlands tour.  We saw some turtles and a yellow crested night heron.

I'm thankful to our wonderful homeschool group, Gulf Coast Christian Home Scholars, and the GCCHS volunteers that make all the field trips possible.

taking of a passport photo

The name of my blog came from my husband's response to the idea of our family going on a mission trip together.  When I brought up the idea, he said, "It would be good for the kids."  Now, we are starting to make progress towards that goal.  This week's mini goal is to get passport photos taken of the children. 
In the middle of last year, I went to CVS and paid eight dollars too many for one of the worse photos ever taken of me.  I look like, let's just say, a very disturbed person.  Thinking back on this made me want to avoid that for my childrens' photos.  Besides the fact that it would take twenty-four dollars, plus tax out of our mission trip fund.  The mental block I had about taking the photos myself was due to the precise government requirements for the passport photos.  Then I found a website to which I could upload my photo and crop it correctly to suit those requirements.  I used 123passportphoto.com.  Then I saved the image to my computer.  I can print it to a local store and pick it up in an hour!

Here's what I used.  One child held a piece of white foam board behind the child being photographed.
Took picture on auto.

Uploaded to the website and cropped it correctly.  Sent it to ritzpix.com where I had signed up for a free account and received 25 free prints.  All of this to receive absolutely free passport photos.  And now we are one step closer to our trip.

I Heart Faces Photo Challenge: Hey Girl

This photo is submitted to the I Heart Faces Photo Challenge for  the month of May.

smoodles, smoochies, sweeties, & the dog.