Halloween Curls

We prepared Simone's hair as scheduled, but the outcome was not as we expected.

All good so far

Playful mood as Betty Boop

"Why did you make me look so weird?"

Simone giggled at the sight of her curls but later withered at every subsequent glance.  The thought of her classmates seeing her with curly hair, I think, started to frighten her.

I kept assuring Simone that her hair would turn out ok because I would comb out the curls and her hair would be as beautiful as Snow White's wavy hair.  As time ticked away, Simone lost confidence in her mommy's hairdressing skills.  Realizing that she would be emotionally scarred if she went to school not feeling comfortable, I wanted to take one last picture of how curly her hair was.  My solution was to wash her hair to get the curls out quickly.  It was as if the ringlets were kryptonite and she was losing energy and hope as long as they stayed on her.  

Breakdown

When I combed her hair and put her costume on, the regular happy, tickled Simone came back.   Seeing her cry earlier broke my heart and seeing her smile relieved me to see the old beautiful Simone again.

The Wonders of Epoxy

Building a house seems easy now in comparison to building the interiors of a bus.  The walls of a house are straight for the most part.  The bus is more like a ship in that a cross section every 18" will change. Heck, it changes more quickly than that in some places!  

We came across a bad-looking detail when we built out the first overhead cabinets.  At the obtuse intersection between two panels was a gaping void.   

Just in order to glue the panels together, we had to first clamp one panel to create
a grabbing surface for the second clamp.

Do you think anyone will notice?

Yikes!

I immediately thought that I could create some wood piece to fill it in.  Michael had a better idea:  E P O X Y !

He took a class recently in Orlando in which he learned about epoxy, resin, fiberglass, etc.  It was meant to assist him with his future plans of making a plane.  It came in handy with our F-ed up corner. 

Thank goodness Michael loves to teach me the new skills he learns.  It turns out that epoxy is pretty simple to use!  West Marine has these spouts that dispense the right proportions of the liquid that you need.  They had this expensive filler material that I noticed looked just like sawdust.  So guess what we did for our filler - we collected sawdust from our tablesaw and used that free material instead!  We might be able to be the first LEED-certified bus in the world!

Application was very easy, much to my surprise.  The last time we had worked with epoxy was when we were attempting to waterproof a plywood box to attempt making our own water tanks.  The trick this time was to use a delayed hardener (keep your lewd comments to yourself!) liquid so you have time to apply the mixture and to mold it in place.  We waited 2 hours for our mix to harden.  When we had used the hardener from Home Depot, we had about 30 minutes tops.  

The next step was to sand.  We used a 60-grit on a belt sander and an 80-grit on an orbital sander at the top where the former could not reach.  

Still ugly, but on it's way to beautiful!

Void filled!

Next step ... paint!

This was so much easier than finding a scrap piece of wood, cutting it on a router, filling it in the holes, waiting for the filler to dry, sanding and then painting.  Epoxy is the way to go!

Curly Hair Practice

For Halloween, Simone will dress up as Snow White, a character who has short hair.  Simone has long straight hair, but that's ok - we have the power of sponge rollers and mousse on our side!

We practiced last Friday night and Simone kept her rollers in all night.  Simone wanted to do the practice run earlier, but I told her she wouldn't get the same effect of surprise (on Halloween) if she went to school with her curly hair.  When Friday night came, she was so excited to get her first rollers in.

She had to check her look immediately.  After just 6 rollers in, she was so curious.

... and tickled with the blossoming transformation

Simone was happy when it was all over, but I think she enjoyed getting my undivided attention to her hair.

She really really likes it!

Max liked the mousse that I put in Simone's hair.   He kept on stealing it and taking it to his Daddy who would put some in Max's hair.  Pretty soon, Max started just putting it in his hair by himself.   Simone wanted to play hairdresser too and put some curlers in my hair.

Simone slept through the night with the curlers.  I was afraid her regular tossing-and-turning would jostle the curls, but they held up pretty well for the most part.

Simone wakes up looking so pretty!

Ta Da!!

Max looks unsure about the whole hoopla we're throwing Simone.

It works!  Simone's hair gets super curly!

It turned out great!  I also learned that the bigger rollers were quite futile . The gentle waves they created were gone in a couple of hours.  On the eve of Halloween, we'll be putting the smallest curlers in Simone's hair so her hair can appear really short!

What do you think of that, Simone?

Gorgeous, darling!

2013 Halloween Decor Outdoors

Last year, I felt a little bad that the kids' Halloween decor was so subpar.  This year, I wanted to step it up - not a lot - just  a little bit and with some input from the kids.

Max had made an Autumn-themed wreath in Gymboree.  It fit our decor beautifully!

Sparse webbing, but we were working on it.

Simone's pumpkin on the left and Max's on the right.
The baby pumpkin comes from Max's Gymboree art project

I love to be scared by zombies!

I let the kids take big swaths of webbing and decorate trees.  Here's what Simone concocted ...

Can you see the scary web?

Simone is very efficient when she's decorating

Max and Simone were actually more concerned about people coming to see their work.
They kept screaming, "Come see our zombie heads!  Zombie heads, everyone!  Zombie heads!"

I took the first green web/bow around the tree and tried to make it look more menacing.  Michael cleaned the shop vac's filter downwind in (my) hopes that the dust and dirt would latch onto the web.  It didn't turn out as rustic as I had hoped.  The web looked straight out of last year's Halloween clearance aisle at Target, which it was.

Delightfully, the kids took the hanging web blob and fastened it to the mailbox!  They also added a little touch of zombie to greet anyone or anything entering our mailbox.

Boo!

We had a great afternoon decorating and then playing in the said decorations.  The kids attempted to get caught in the webbing.  At one point, Simone took my camera and started taking pictures herself!

Heeellp!

Max the Fly looks quite happy to be ensnared!

But not for long because here comes the Giant Female Floripino Spider.

More Bus Progress

Things are ramping up in the bus!

Overhead Storage:

Starboard cabinets seen from the front of the bus

Next thing to do is fabricate the facade and dividers

Shower:

We added an arch to our shower entrance.

We've had to put in multiple layers of wood filler to smooth out the plywood floor.
The drain is off-center because the present location is the only place
we can put the drain without disturbing other systems below.

Do you like the hot pink?!?

Don't be alarmed (nor too excited) about the hot pink corners.  It's not a final paint palette, but instead a waterproofing material that is pink when wet and turns red when it's dry.  Since we're not doing a typical shower that would have used a material called cement board that is water resistant, we've had to stop the water penetration with a liquid waterproofing membrane that dries hard.

Chaperoning is Scary!

Simone's class went on a field trip and I had volunteered to be a chaperone.  Well ... I tried to be a chaperone, but really couldn't because I had Max with me and I really couldn't be watching the kids as well as a solo mom could.  But I tried to help anyway and found out that field trips are not fun for the adults.   Wrangling just 14 kids in one classroom is tough, but multiple groups of 5- and 6-year-olds in a large, public space such as the Children's Museum is downright horrific.

from top left corner going clockwise:
Nicole, Jasmine, Kaylynn, Simone, Amonye, Emiylah, Tyler, Fredo
Aidan, Zion, Mia, Logan, Eamon, Jimmy Paul.

The energy that the kids have on a school day in which they do not have to attend school makes them pay even less attention to persons of authority. Compound this with the fear of losing a hyper child in a sea of other children and you have an experience you never want to volunteer for.

Max didn't help any because he couldn't grasp the concept yet that, on a field trip, there is limited time to spend at a limited amount of exhibits.  He is used to going wherever he wants and exploring to his and his sister's hearts' content.  He was devastated when he couldn't visit the sand area and thus started increasing his whining and tantrums.  I promised him that we would return to the museum when it wasn't a field trip.

Despite my horror, I think field trips are great for the kids!  I remember loving them and all the anticipation and excitement leading up to the trip.  The pictures below will illustrate how much fun Simone and her classmates had.  However, I am through with volunteering as a chaperone.  That is some tough work!

Rock Scissors Papers  is the latest game rage of the 1st grade.

Glazier Museum's latest exhibit is about dinosaurs!

This was a really cool exhibit!  The kids could "dig" for fossils
while dressed up as archaeologists

Oviraptors (the egg-thief dinosaurs)!  Naw, it's just Max and Simone
hiding out in a faux cave with their looted faux egg.

Lunchtime: I welcomed this break because the kids stayed in one visible spot!

The museum is very close to Michael's work so he decided to visit us all at lunchtime.  When I located Michael off in the distance, I was trying to wave to him to catch his attention.  Simone's teacher, Ms Whitley, asked me, "Girl?!  Who you waving to?  Who you know?"  I felt funny as if I was smuggling a fanboy into a VIP comic book post-convention party, but it all turned out ok.  I'm just a worry wart.  Maybe in the future I'll have chaperoned again and think of myself on this day as a such a nervous nelly.