Princess Preschool

Princess participated in a preschool coop this year. This semester her group was all three year old girls. We had a lot of fun, it is very different with a bunch of girls instead of a bunch of boys. In February we did several things for the letter V. We mixed up a batch of saltdough and shaped it around a glass jar to make a volcano. Then we painted it and made it explode with baking soda and vinegar.

A real smile from my princess! These are rare in pictures lately.

Painting is very popular, we painted extra pictures too.

Ready to see the volcano explode!

Here are two short videos with the volcano lava. They loved it and we ended up doing lava in every color. This was very fun and brought up fun memories of doing this same thing with my older boys when they were little.

Cleaning the gutters and roof

Dinoguy and Fixitman got up on the roof this past weekend and cleaned out the gutters/cut back tree branches/other fix-it type stuff. Hopefully no more critters can crawl thru the mesh screen into our attic - the holes are gone.Mostly I like photos like these to scare the grandmas. Is that bad? Of course they were careful! Plus old houses don't have as steep of roof grades as those new fangled homes. Yet another reason that I like older homes!

LEAP Kid Olympics

We loved watching the olympics this year - maybe it was watching most of them at the beach house with my family, but Dinoguy and Trainboy really got interested in it.

Our group of friends decided to have a more laid back kid olympics. It was a blast! We had a large variety of "events", but allowed the kids to explore them at their own leisure and pace.

Here's Trainboy finishing up tasting his first decorated cookie at the cookie decorating station. (Who says creative events can't be olympic sports?)





Here are the boys and friends participating in the water balloon fun. It was going to be a balloon toss but when I tried to explain that to the kids, I was asked "Why would we do that?" and I had no reply. The kids were more interested in throwing them and playing then in doing an organized toss, so that's what happened!

We played some t-ball, though taking turns took a bit of finessing.










Here is Dinoguy on the bike course, loving his 2-wheeler.










Here is Trainboy on the obstacle course. He had a good time bike riding until he crashed into a red ant hill and got 13 bites on his hand. Thankfully I have anti-itch ointment in my purse!


Dinoguy liked the javelin throw. He threw pretty well. It isn't going to hit our little friend, though it looks that way in this photo!






Bubble blowing is always a fun diversion!












With the net up, we were able to experiment with all sorts of sports - this ball is a bit too big for getting over the net reliably, but we had fun trying!




Dinoguy was interested in trying three-legged races, and had some fun with them. Here he with his first partner. She was a bit short and didn't like her leg tied up so we tried with another friend.

It was pretty successful - they ran around together for a while, figuring out how to move their leg at the same time.






Though after a few runs, they decided to try backwards races individually instead. Dinoguy is still getting the hang of it I guess in this photo - he was backwards the rest of the race!


The marathon race was a spontaneous run by a few kids to the far side of the park and back.

We also had some rhythmic gymnastics demonstrations and many more fun events - bean bag toss, ring toss, flag making/coloring, playground climbing and play...it was a great long day of fun.

Here are all the photos in a slide show if you want to see more!

AEROS show

We got to go to an AEROS show with a homeschool group in the area. AEROS is a Romanian Acrobatic troup. We had a great time, though it was about as long as we could handle, the kids were dashing for the door afterward.

It was a fun show, their was quite a bit of humor involved in it. Dinoguy requested we buy a glow in the dark jump rope after one number. Trainboy liked it when they made shapes he knew, or used blue, his favorite color.


Here is a link to a youtube video of one of their numbers. Link to video

Afterward, we played in the fountain for a bit before heading home.

Behind the Scenes at the Movies

We went on a tour of a movie theatre, getting to see all the behind the scenes stuff and learn lots of cool stuff. No photos - I've been forgetting with the camera. Highlight was when the guide ask the kids what their favorite movie they saw at a theatre was and Dinoguy answered: "We don't go to movies. We're from Utah." I managed to laugh about it with the other mothers, but I was embarrassed! I didn't even understand the comment, much less how to respond to it. Kids are awesome. And for the record, we DO go to movies, just not often - we usually watch them at home!

Cool Things I learned:

1. The sound to the film is on the same film as the pictures!
2. It takes 24 still images to make one second.
3. The film will melt if it doesn't move past the 2000 watt bulb quickly.
4. The theatre employees still have to splice together the trailers, ads, and movie reels. They keep track of which trailer goes with which movie on a white board. The entire film is over a mile long, all rolled up on a giant circular table.


Cool things from the kids at the theatre:

1. You can make bunny ears on the big screen while standing in the projection booth and have a lot of fun with that.
2. Video games with guns or steering wheels are just as fun when turned off as when turned on.
3. Tours at the movie theatres mean free popcorn and candy!
4. Brothers make great horses for playing cowboy.

Volcano Magic

We've been talking about volcanoes lately, so we decided to make one. Here are the directions we used.

First we rolled out the volcano dough.

Then we painted the volcano.

First Eruption.

Second eruption.

Third set of eruptions. Dinosaurs watch the explosion.

Next set of eruptions where we start changing the color of the lava.

When Dinoguy decides to put dinosaurs on the volcano and see what happens.

The dinosaurs take a bath in the volcano lava.

We erupted this volcano for about an hour before having to get ready to go to a playgroup. It was a magical time for me to see the magic of the volcano eruption thru the eyes of my kids (and later, the kids we played with.) I learned so much from my kids in this and had a magical day.

Later, I got more chance for release and understanding of magic for kids in simple play with the colored play-dough. I haven't ever liked mixing colors, (maybe the lack of order?) but some gentle souls in these children showed me the beauty of it and shared their discoveries with me and sculptures and let me take pictures to try and capture some of that magic I found to remember later.

The Stock Show

Did I mention I'm a city girl? Born & raised in the suburbs really. I have country aspirations sometimes, but not a clue about many things country. Fixitman was raised in a small town of 900. He grew up doing farm work for his after-school job. We have had many conversations when visiting his parents where he laughs at me for things I find odd. Like burning garbage & diapers, or letting dogs run loose. (Apparently there aren't leash laws in the country?) The fact that roads apparently exist wherever you drive a car, whether or not it is paved or even maintained and visible. That irrigation canals can be used for swimming and games...but I digress.

The boys and I went to the stock show in Ft Worth last week. We saw a bunch of animals and a bunch of people who are real cowboys and such. I felt like a city slicker more so than I have in a long time. Funny movie. :) The kids got to pet a pig, a horse, and other "real" farm animals, I got to see a cowboy riding a horse while text messaging on his phone. I also got to eat a funnel cake. Mmmmm.....funnel cake. We probably spent just as much time playing on the John Deere tractors and new Chevy trucks as we did watching the pole bending races and walking past all the baby animals. My boys love machines I guess. :)

During a warm up period at the pole bending races, one of the riders came over and let the kids pet her horse and listen politely to them tell her all they knew about horses. It was a good time with friends and an entertaining day.

The labyrinth

Letterboxing, our newer hobby of printing off clues and going off into the unknown to search for hidden boxes with a stamp inside is taking us to interesting places. One of those places is this labyrinth. For a boy who loves mazes, couldn't be a better place in the world right now. Dinoguy loves mazes. He loves to try to do them, maybe part of that is the awesome books by Roxie Munro.

We keep one of her maze books checked out from the library most of the time. This is since last January really when in the co-op preschool we used to do, I decided randomly to do the topic "mazes" for the letter M and checked them out. The kids were fascinated, especially my kid. And with a few short breaks, we've kept renewing them from the library. We really should buy copies.

So we ran around this labyrinth for a while before going to find the cool stamp hidden nearby. Trainboy loves to search for hidden treasure and use his train stamp, Dinoguy loves to open the box and pull out the stamp and make an image in his notebook. What an awesome exploring hobby. :)

Nash Farm

On a warm, but extremely windy day, we went to Nash Farm to pick cotton this past week. Though it was almost 70 outside, the 30 MPH winds made it feel pretty chilly and threatened to carry us away. Hence the coats in the photos. Bet you didn't think we ever used them huh?

But what an awesome educational experience! I don't think I've ever seen cotton up close, and they had a patch they grew specifically for people to come learn about this former cash crop of TX.

We learned all sorts of interesting things about cotton from talking to the friendly guides and picked cotton as much as we wanted, and took home as much as we wanted (it still has the seeds in it and such, so isn't great for much besides lumpy pillows and decorations) but it is SO cool!

The boys loved the cotton but then there were also old tractors and other farm equipment nearby to play on and that was just as cool. Then they found the sheep and started feeding their fingers (ahem, I mean grass pieces) to the sheep, who was luckily very used to kids and friendly.

We had a lovely day with friends, learning all about cotton! It was a great day, and has led to many interesting discussions about how cotton and other materials are used to make clothes and other things.

Paint colors and our home

Here is a photo of our tree and front of the house. Isn't it a gorgeous tree? Love the tree. I also love that it is basically an evergreen here, since it never gets too cold. Did I mention it was in the high 50's today? We played outside some, it was a good day!








Here is a doorway in the kitchen, showing the beautiful color and how it goes with the tile. Ignore the boxes in the background, they are mostly gone now. :) We spent a long time choosing this color and I love it. It is a shade lighter than "brown teepee" and a shade deeper than "pecan sandie". Aren't those great names?













Here is the boys room, which is "Thomas" blue. Honestly, we found this paint in a new can in the garage of our old house, it had never been opened and the boys liked it enough that it became their room color! Free paint is the best!









Here is the couch in the corner of our master bedroom. I don't know if you can see this color great in the photo. It is called "icelandic", and is a pale bluish purple, depending on the light. I love it! (Purple is the best color in the world, thanks for asking. ;) )








Lastly we have Trainboy's train table in the living room corner, so you can be reminded about the pale "oyster" walls in there. Now you have been on a tour of our beautiful paint colors in our wonderful new home! :)

Large Fish!

We went to the Dallas World Aquarium last week. I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun it was and how different it was from what I expected in an aquarium and decided to get a membership because I can easily see us going at least once a month if not more.

While it wasn't as hands on as the Thanksgiving Point Museum of Ancient Life we went to a lot in Utah, it is very amenable to two boys running around pointing at all their favorite things and finding new favorites.

All the display info is on touch screen computers which is a bonus for two boys who love to play with technology. The first picture is of the boys checking out a giant fish in one of the large window displays. The second picture is while we were in the shark & stingray tunnel o'fun, which was one of their favorite places. Third comes the flamingos and fourth is watching the penguins get their dinner.

As may be evident by the last two pictures, the aquarium has lots of bugs & other interesting critters in addition to fish of all types, so it is a fun place to visit. I was really happy that noise levels weren't a problem, and that it was such a child friendly environment.

You may notice that the boys faces aren't in any of these shots - it was nearly impossible to distract them from the creatures to take a photo. What can I say? We had a great time!

Lunar Eclipse

Gee, what are those amazing pictures? You mean you got up at 4 am a few days ago to see the moon get covered by the earth's shadow? Wow!

How did you know there was an eclipse? Your mom sent you an email about it from a notification service she has? What fun. :)

(Unfortunately, my photos of the moon when red and totally eclipsed didn't turn out. Bummer! Guess I'll have to buy a nice telescope before the next eclipse I stay up to watch! ;)

Visit this link to see what the eclipse was like. My photos are from the beginning stages.