La Tire Ste. Catherine

November 25th is La Fête de Ste. Catherine. Time for la tire!

We've only made la tire once before and thought it would be fun to make some this year. I pulled out a recipe from Ricardo. Kyra pulled out the saucepan and the girls measured all the ingredients. They were allowed to stir the mixture initially but maman took over as the temperature of the candy mixture rose.

As I was surveying the thermometer, I suddenly noticed something wrong. The candy thermometer was cracked! Luckily it is just the outside glass tube that was cracked. But that means the first batch is no good! Off to the store for a new thermometer and back to the beginning. 

Take 2 

After visiting 7 stores to find a new thermometer, we restarted the recipe. It took a lot longer than expected to cool so the girls couldn't help with the pulling. The did get to pull small pieces. Hope they have fun distributing the candies at school.

Joyeuse Fête de la Ste Catherine!

Taiko

Last weekend was a taiko weekend. The girls and their friend Kai posed with Taiwanese character before performing their taiko song.

Halloween Costume Adventure!

I could have also used the title 'A trip to Home Depot and Two Trips to Michael's Later'!

It is Halloween week and we are just coming off a weekend of Halloween costume creation. Alia is a s'more this year and Kyra is a coal miner.

Our Halloween costume adventure began last week, when we went to Home Depot to buy a paint coverall for Kyra's costume. I thought I would dye it orange for her miner's coveralls. First trip to Michaels'  Saturday morning to buy dye and foam pieces for a living s'more! At home, I prepared the dye as directed on package and starting the soaking process for the coveralls.

While the coveralls were soaking, Alia created her s'more costume, with a little help from mom and a math lesson from papa called "How to best calculate where to put 9 points equally spaced on a square".

I checked in on the soaking cover all during the day and was started to fear my plan was not working. When I took the coverall out of the dye and followed the instructions to rince and hand wash item, I discovered that the coveralls remained white!!!!

Sunday morning saw me back at Michaels to purchase 3 XL t-shirts that were on sale. I cut the sleeves off 1 shirt and sewed them onto another shirt to make 'long sleeves'. Next, I took the rest of the now sleeveless shirt plus a bit of the third t-shirt and sewed a pair of pants. We used silver duck tape to cover the seams and voilà! Luckily we had Wayne, our Big Pit - Pwll Mawr bear to help us out.

Both costumes were a success and the girls had a fabulous time trick-or-treating with their friends from school. They braved the rain and came home with a bag full of treats.