Four!!

N3 turned four on Saturday but his party was yesterday.

He is a huge batman fan.

The candle sequence...
Where else would a green tongue be socially acceptable?

Beautiful Music-makers

The West End Cultural Center had a display by Winnipeg luthiers. There were some beautiful stringed instuments - guitars, mandolins, ukeleles, and other instuments.

A mandolin.
A guitar without the usual 'hole in the middle'.


Harp guitar.
and an eight stringed ukelele.

Just a Reminder

It is still winter.

In the event anyone had forgotten, we got another six inches of snow. How's that for a dose of reality?

Still Air

It is a rare day when there is no wind. Even more amazing when those days occur with high humidity.

The first photograph was taken without the benefit of a flash. The other two show up quite differently because of the extra light.

Colourful

A wide assortment of instruments and colours.

An Ice Castle

On a side street a few blocks from my office, someone has created an ice castle in their front yard.I wonder what they used for moulds.

And how interesting it would look on a sunny day?

Snowy Saturday

We've had about 10 cm of snow in the last few days and very little wind, which is odd for Winnipeg. Very pretty.

It Keeps Growing and Growing

This is starting to get a little monotonous, but this expanding foam is really weird. How long does it take this stuff to set?

Last night when I went downstairs, a protuberance had grown out of the explosion.
It looks like a tiny little alien hand.
This morning, there is another growth coming out of the masking tape,
and the little hand has one seriously long and twirly appendage.
Keep checking back for further developments. We're all in this together!

More Revisions Required

Last night as I was getting ready for bed, I heard a bang. I thought someone had hit the house, but thankfully, as I am sure you have guessed, it was simply one of the balloons exploding.

I went down and put the box back over the other balloon (we had already decided there was no longer a risk of explosion) and went to bed.

This is what it looked like downstairs this morning.

The orange balloon is still pretty squishy too.

Next?

Back to the Drawing Board

The expanding foam continued to do its job overnight, resulting in this rather alarming site when I went downstairs this morning. Nylon and lycra do not contain expanding foam well.
I had to have my head re-wrapped since my first shell didn't work out.
Packing tape works much better than masking tape because it sticks to itself and the nylon better.









The two shell are ready for the second trial.
We acquired some balloons for this set. The Geek found it hard to release the buildup of air inside the balloons without letting the foam escape.

Finally both are ready and are left laying on their 'faces'.
We put a box over top of both shell/ball0on combinations, in the event they exploded. We didn't want the Geek's playroom to wind up textured.
Stay tuned.

What It's Not

Not funny looking cabbage.

Not preparations for a bank job (or in my case, a nose modification)










And it's not working. The expanding foam is escaping from the nylon before it sets. It also is not filling up the entire shell.









We were trying to make a made-to-order hat block like the ones on the lower right of this page.

It's Almost Black and White

In winter, it seems the early morning light washes the colour from most things. If it wasn't for the blush of dawn, it would almost seem like a black and white picture.

Eating Out of Your Hand

Dad has been taming the chickadees.They almost swarm him when he goes to the shop and he has several trying to eat the suet from his mitt at the same time.

The little birds are crazy for calories.
They even came to eat out of my hand.
It is interesting to feel their tiny claws on your mitten or your shoulder.