Sing, Sing a Song Saturday

I started doing what I call Sing, Sing a Song Saturday.  I'm going to post one song on Saturdays that the boys or I like. 

The song may be part of a movie, a kid's video or just a song we like. I'll try and include why we like it and/or the history of the song/singer.

Looping is what this next artist is about. She, and I want to stress she because a lot of people in her comments called her and he, sets up many loops and proceeds to sing to them. The band is called tUne-yArDs.

Do you know what make me mad as hell? When people get bullied online and/or real life. Merrill Garbus from tUne-yArDs had labels fighting over her because of her unique sound. What happened? She gets made fun of because of the way she looks in YouTube comments. I simply love her soulful voice and how she changes her outfit to match what she's singing about.

She Possesses an expansive sound that marries a coarse folk with the bold pop sensibility of an R&B, African influences, and a lot of DIY aesthetic.

This song is called Powa. It contains two loops going on to start the song out.

This is a tiny desk concert put on by by the support of: NPR.

 This song is called Bizness.

WW: Monster Trucks {Linky}

This last weekend we went to the Lowes Clinic.

The boys made monster trucks.

Can you tell they had fun with their project?

You Can Follow Me Here:

Spider-Man Has a Heart!

Mica was invited to a birthday party on Saturday night. I was going to take Isaak out on a Mommy and Isaak date. Then the birthday party mom messaged me on Facebook, and said we were more than welcome to come if we wanted.

I left it up to Isaak. He at first wanted to go on a date. Then when he saw that everything was Spider-Man he changed his mind.

They even let Isaak in on the games. Such a nice family!

Isaak got really upset when the birthday boy started getting his gifts. I asked, "Why are you upset Isaak?" It wasn't because Isaak didn't get presents himself. He was upset because he couldn't pass the birthday boy a present.

Isaak won one of the games at the party. Mica was mad that Isaak won. He thought there should be prizes for everyone. I said, "Nope! It doesn't work that way son!" When the boys got home Isaak said, "Mica you can have my prize. I'd much rather have you enjoy it."

On Sunday Isaak was wanting whatever Mica wanted for breakfast. I said, "Isaak if Mica jumped off a bridge, would you do that to?" Isaak said, "Well ya I would! I'd have to go find Mica!"

Isaak is in a Giving stage. Mica's in a Me stage.

Meet Mimi

We made the fastest snow woman ever! It turns out that boys, or maybe it's just my boys have no attention span in the snow. They want to stop and throw snowballs every chance they got.

Meet Mimi:

Mimi has button eyes, a carrot nose and Mica found a handle for a bucket in the snow, that was her mouth and she has a leaf in her hat. Mica named her.

Viking Tees

I decided awhile back that I wanted to make viking tees for the boys.

I saw this shirt awhile back from Tea Collection:

I really badly wanted my boys to have a viking tee. I also thought, That would be so easy to make!

Of course I wanted it to be my viking drawing. I set off to make my boys viking tees.

Here's the drawing:

I tried ways to transfer onto a t-shirt. Charcoal on the back and tracing it didn't work, chalk on the back and tracing didn't work either, neither did carbon paper. I took a longer approach and started stenciling it out.

Until I ended up with this x2 (1 for each child):

Then I began to paint it with fabric paint. This is the first time I've used fabric paint. The tips get so clogged. I'm not impressed with the designs of the bottles at all. They bended pretty easily though! I put a white sheet of paper behind the front of the tee, so when it bled it bled onto the paper and not the back of the shirt.

The one with the orange beard is Mica's. The one with the red beard is Isaak's. I sort of let them pick the colors. I say sort of because at first Isaak wanted a green beard and Mica wanted the eyes to be traced with green. I said, "No." to those things.

I decided to put actual rivets in the straps of the hats. If this was actual leather, no problem, it's a t-shirt material though. I had to put fabric under the t-shirt to get the rivets to work.

Isaak's shirt is a bit big. He'll grow into it.

Sometimes You Need a Little Sunshine!

Do you know what made my day this weekend?

Isaak's picture of a sun! He's really into googly eyes; I could tell the sun had them.

Sometimes life isn't on your side. A really horrible article was written about the school I teach at. It was on the front cover of the newspaper this weekend. The guy that wrote the article hadn't even stepped foot in the school's doors. It was about our federal student loan debt being number 1. One really strong thing, is that it didn't mention private loans. We don't offer many of those since we're a private school; some just are not available to the school. Private loans often times have bad interest rates. Since they are private, the government can't track those. Many schools give out private loans along with federal loans. The writer didn't mention a thing about our mock interviews, the fact that we help the students multiple times to write up a better resume, that we have mandatory job shadows, we have them attend Meet the Pros (where they hang out with pros all day long for 2 days), we hold an in-house portfolio review night, we have 2 portfolio classes, they get consistent emails with job opportunities before and after they graduate. Another strong fact if money is an issue: We do not allow just anyone to come to the art school I work at. We turn people away; people that do not have what it takes to expand in this field. Our employment rate is very high compared to most schools. The school does not have an alumni association, so alumni is not called to beg for money. I was pretty upset over this article. I did not feel the writer did his homework.

What the writer did was equal to me reviewing a product poorly without using the product first. It really upset me.

What was really good to see is students past and current making counter comments on the online article backing up the school.

Seeing Isaak's sun drawing just made me much happier.

Sing, Sing a Song Saturday

I started doing what I call Sing, Sing a Song Saturday.  I'm going to post one song on Saturdays that the boys or I like. 

The song may be part of a movie, a kid's video or just a song we like. I'll try and include why we like it and/or the history of the song/singer.

The artist I'm covering this week is Alison Balsom. I'm going to share a little bit about Alison.

I have a surprise at the end of this post. 

She was born in the UK. Alison first started out in acting. Later she went on to become the valedictorian of her high school. Then she earned a Bachelor's degree from Princeton and a Master's from Trinity College in Ireland. She later joined a group as a folk singer and singer-songwriter having released her first alt-rock/country album, 'FIRST.' She was a part of the group Alison and Stone. Now she is known for playing the trumpet in classical music. She plays concerts all the time.

Learn more about what Alison is up to now here. She has many classical CDs out.

Are you ready for the surprise?

Here is Alison Balsom as a child:

Source

Does she look familiar? She played Nancy Olseon on Little House on the Prairie. Her character on the show was not very nice, but she seems like a sweet heart in real life. It was an odd find; that I didn't expect. Her name on the show was spelled Allison, but on her CDs now it's spelled Alison. I know it's the same person I watched interviews where she talked about what she did then and what she's doing now.

If you want to see more about where stars are now on Little House on the Prairie check out my post here.

Shoveling

We got hit with snow at 1 pm today. It just kept on snowing all evening long.  Isaak and I shoveled when we got home.

This was just the start of it. Daddy had to go out and shovel some more.

Isaak was very talkative, while we were out!

Isaak: "Mom I'm digging for fossils! Ok?" The person across the street laughed. 

Me: "Ok! Have fun!" 

Isaak: "Mom I'm going to make a snow angel! Ok?" 

Me: "Alright have fun. Just try and do it in a spot I already shoveled, so you don't pack the snow down." 

Isaak: "What? Never mind Mom I'm making a Transformer in the snow instead! Ok?" 

Me: "Alright." 

Isaak: "Mom what does it look like if snot falls down in the snow?" 

Me: "I'll get you a tissue!" 

Isaak: "Mom I love this shovel! I'm cold now. I'm going inside. Ok?" 

Me: "Ok."

Dapper

I went ahead and bought Easter clothes for the boys at Crazy 8. I have no clue how long their Easter sale is, so I decided to just bite the bullet and buy them. I figure the boys can wear these for their pictures to. I get pictures taken around their birthdays and one of the two together in the spring or summer.

We have a Crazy 8, but it's supposed to snow like crazy here for 2 weeks. In fact all the public metro schools are out today. I just didn't think I'd get out and go across town to shop with 2 little boys this weekend. Shopping with them is really the last thing I want to do.

I need your advice. What kind of shoes and undershirt would you get with this outfit?

I'm thinking any plain t-shirt would work. Like a springy green, light blue or even white. In pictures their feet could go naked. On Easter they will have to wear something on their toes. Crazy 8 featured these shoes with the outfit:

Would you go with shoes like that, or something different? My boys have never had shoes like that before, maybe they would wear them.

They are both between sizes of pants. I got them the bigger size. Isaak a 6 and Mica an 8. If they don't work I'll take them back to the store and they can just wear jeans.

Doc Isaak Apel

Isaak likes to wear his play clothes to bed. His hospital scrubs to be exact.

 The trouble is:

• They are getting a little small to pull over his head. He has a small head, so I'd think that would be the least of our problems.
• He likes to tuck his shirt in and pull his pants way up like Urkle. 
• He also puts his shirt on backwards or inside out almost every time. I'm not sure why. Maybe it doesn't have a tag like his other clothes do. 

He'll wear them until he can't wear them anymore. We've gotten good use out of his scrubs. They were Mica's before they got handed down to Doc Isaak.