Emily, the hairstylist

Emily does my hair while I read out loud from a chapter book to the kids before bed (We're currently reading Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh)




(she's getting quite good at french braiding!)


She also occasionally does my hair while we're watching the boys' water polo practice


And sometimes while the boys are rough-housing with daddy in the playroom (notice Connor off pouting in the corner?? LOL)


It's possible I have bald spots from where she's experimented with weird twists and "rats nests", but for the most part, she treats me very gently, and it's nice to have my hair brushed and played with while I read! It's possible I bribe her by promising to read longer if she keeps brushing... *grin*

Science Kit Fun

Jared got a wonderful science kit from my parents as part of his Christmas present, and we sat down over the weekend and tested out the first few experiments.

The first one was called Dancing Powders. You mix a little bit of citrus acid and baking powder together, then add some water, and everything gets all bubbly. Looked a bit like a cup of Sprite after the bigger bubbling died down! My picture turned out blurry, so I don't have one of this experiment.

The next experiment was called Color Changing Liquids. We filled two cups partway with water and set them both on a plate. We added a tiny bit of red cabbage powder to each of the cups. It was suggested in the directions that we NOT stir the powder in right away, so we could see a "waterfall"





It even got really swirly looking!


After we stirred the red cabbage powder into the water, we ended up with two cups full of purple water. We added baking soda to one cup, and citrus acid to the next cup.

The one with baking soda mixed in turned blue


And the one with citrus acid mixed in turned red


We were then instructed to pour some of the red liquid and some of the blue liquid and mixed them together in a third cup. Can you guess what happened?

Red + Blue = purple, and baking powder + citrus acid = bubbles (carbon dioxide bubbles), SO the red liquid and the blue liquid mixed together turned into a purple bubbling liquid! (which truthfully didn't bubble nearly as much as the first time we mixed baking soda and citrus acid, but I believe that was due to the more diluted concentrations this time around)




It was at about this point that Jared loudly proclaimed this science kit was the coolest thing ever. *grin*

The third experiment was called Acid or Base? We prepared cups full of water and red cabbage powder, then put drops of other liquids from around the house into the cups in order to test of they were an acid or a base. As Jared found out, milk and Coca Cola are neutral, lemon juice is an acid, and dish soap is a base. He had a GREAT time adding drops and waiting for the color change to determine "acid or base?" We'll definitely have to run this experiment again with some other liquids!

The fourth experiment was called Colorful Jiggly Crystals. For THIS experiment, we again filled two cups partway full of water, but this time instead of adding the red cabbage powder FIRST, and then adding the baking powder and citrus acid, we were instructed to mix the baking soda into one cup and the citrus acid into the other cup BEFORE adding the red cabbage powder. Once the baking soda and the citrus acid cups were well mixed, we got to add the red cabbage powder.

The color change was IMMEDIATE! Remember how adding the red cabbage mixture to the water resulted in a purple "waterfall"? Look at the difference when you add the red cabbage powder AFTER mixing in the baking soda and the citrus acid!


After we stirred the red cabbage powder in thoroughly, we again mixed part of the red liquid with part of the blue liquid, so that we now had three cups of liquid: one red, one blue, one purple. The next step was to add in a small spoonful of polyacrylamide (pah-lee-uh-kril-uh-mide) crystals (which looked similar to rock salt!), and left them alone for a few hours.

After the time had passed, we were instructed to pour out any remaining liquid and see what was left in the cups. Colorful Jiggly Crystals!


The hard little crystals had absorbed a lot of the liquid, had grown several times their original size, and were now, truly, jiggly, intead of very hard.

Jared wanted to take the jiggly crystals for his sharing day Wednesday, so we stuck them in a ziploc bag and set them aside. The blue ones started turning more of a moldy green color, and then started turning brownish, so we tossed those ones, but he was able to share the red and purple crystals. I was pretty impressed he remembered they were called polyacrylamide crystals.

There are still several other experiments in the kit, and it seems as if the kit provides enough materials to run the experiments more than once, which is nice. Jared is already chomping at the bit to try out the rest of the experiments, and also to try out some of the experiments in the science book he got!

Yarn Projects

All three kids in their finished monster hats:


side view of Jared's (he requested a mohawk!)


The main reason I wanted to learn how to crochet was to be able to do different flowers. There are SO many more options for flowers when you crochet instead of knit. I sat myself down in front of some youtube videos and made these pretty flowers!


I was going to attempt a crocheted rose as well, but the power went out. Instead, I sat down and made a little hat in order to attach one of the flowers I'd already made to it.


The hat pictured above turned out to be too narrow for the baby I had in mind, so I ripped out a few rows, redid the ruffle, reattached the flower, and now I have a hat for a much younger baby (which I'll be sending off sooner than later, Kaci!).


Last, but not least, Connor's teacher had pinned the scarf on the left on Pinterest, and I hunted around on Google for a pattern that came close to what she'd pinned, and made it for her (on the right side). Crummy cell phone picture, but you get the idea!


It's much softer than it looks in the picture, FYI!

After the snow...

And after the snow came freezing rain:










The birch tree out back was bending over practically in half. No surprise when two hours after I took this picture, two of the sections cracked off and crashed to the ground!


The Rhody out back was flopped over to about 1/3 of the height it normally is, and branches off the maple tree which I can usually walk under were bent so far they were touching the ground.


Dan told me to offer the kids the opportunity to bundle up, wear a helmet, and knock ice off some of the plants (nothing we could do about the tall fir tree and whatnot, but we could attempt to rescue the decorative maples, the fruit trees, and the Rhodies!). Emily volunteered, though was NOT happy about the helmet (or how hard I laughed when I saw her!!). Better safe that sorry, though, there were some LARGE chunks of ice coming down on us as we were banging at the branches!

Sledding Fun

As soon as we could manage to get eat our breakfast, layer on the winter clothes, and gather up the sleds, we were outside and sledding down the hill in the alley behind our house to enjoy the SNOW!!










The kids spent hours sledding, and I spent hours doctoring up the sled run... LOL Patching up thin areas, building up a sturdier "wall" along the one side of the sled run (keeping kids out of the ditch and away from the tree they seemed magnetically drawn to!)

Let there be snow!

Well, my last blog post showed a wimpy scattering of snow from earlier in the week, but we woke up he following day to real SNOW!

Another inch fell throughout the day, but I forgot to take another photo


This picture doesn't show it very well, but the snow was nearly as high as the top of Charlie's back! You can see the snow all over his chin as he was (unhappily) trying to get through the snow to get to me so I could rescue him


Longer pet fur and snow aren't a good mix. Less than one minute in the snow and he'd already formed snowballs on his legs! hahaha!


It's hard work trying to get three kids and two pets somewhat nicely into the same picture


Emily was far more cooperative!

Snow!

We got a little taste of snow this week, and while it wasn't deep, and was awfully slushy, the kids made the most of it and enjoyed it while it lasted!





Em hooked up with some kids from the neighborhood

Little Gentleman

At the kids' school, Kindergarteners attend a full day of class M-Th, and have Friday's off. His teacher works at a local boutique on Fridays as a result. Connor ADORES his teacher and often asks if we can stop and see her at her "other work", and always wants to bring her coffee (it's widely known she likes to drink coffee!). We've gone a few times, and have brought her coffee, but I told Connor we really needed to remember to ask her what her favorite coffee is, and could see her the following week instead. His repy? "Just text her!" (in that lovely "duh!" tone of voice). My reply? "Here's my phone; go ahead."

I figured it would be a good way to encourage him to be practicing sounding out words and remembering to use to spaces, etc. The message he sent looked like this:

wut iz yor favrit flavr uv cofe? frum Connor

She replied and told us her favorite flavor of coffee, so CJ and I made plans for Friday, which included purchasing and delivering coffee to his teacher! He also decided he wanted to write her a note and draw her a picture (for privacy purposes on this blog, I've blocked out her last name and place of work).

(he made sure she noticed he used the word "luv" in the note, too. "Do you see that word above my name?" sooo stinkin' adorable!)


(this is the first time I've seen Connor attempting drawing bodies; they're usually just heads with arms and legs! LOL)


Connor melts my heart with how thoughtful and sweet he is. In addition to wanting to deliver coffee and a note/picture to his teacher, he also ran errands with me earlier that morning and held doors open for me, pushed the cart, told me he loved me 20+ times, gave me numerous bear hugs, AND told me I'm the best mom ever. Yes, he's got me wrapped pretty tightly around that little finger of his! *grin*

knitting, knitting, and a little crochet

My friend Kaci is due with baby #2 in February, so as soon as I got through the Christmas rush, I finally tackled some of the projects I'd planned to make her for the baby-to-be:

this little hat has a removeable bow, which is actually a hair clip for when baby is older!


I've been seeing a lot of squared off hats lately and I think they're so cute! I made this one big so she'll have it for next year


I've also been seeing these snuggle snacks all over Pinterest and had to give one a try!


I dug out Em's old doll, "Boy Baby", to show off how it looks. He's a little bigger than a newborn baby, so there should be some growing room in real life.


The same weekend I finished up Kaci's gifts, I found out my friend Kristina and her husband had been chosen to adopt a baby, so I scrambled to whip up a few hats to send to her. I stupidly assumed the birth mom (or birth parents, in this case), would choose them a month or so before the birth and we'd all have a little warning, but as it turns out, they got THE CALL and TA-DA, they're immediately new parents! I'd have done a little snuggle sack for baby Mikey as well if I'd had a bit more notice, but since he's already HERE, I didn't want to waste any time getting him his gifts!


And then with a little encouragement from a friend (thanks Kelli!), I got online, figured out how to crochet (at least how to crochet the stitches needed for this particular project), and crocheted Connor this monster hat from Pinterest


The eye is a little messed up, but I'm overall quite pleased for a first attempt at crocheting!! Emily and Jared have already put in requests for their own monster hats. *grin*