Star of the Week

Natalie was star of the week in her class recently (I forgot to get a picture of her poster before we sent it to school.) She is such a fun kid - I am so glad she is in our family. Some of the things we highlighted on her poster included...

Her love of fruits and vegetables (she'll pick an apple, edemame, nectarines or grapes over almost anything else.)

Her creative-ness - I included a picture of the banana butterfly she made recently. (o:

Beach trip pictures - Natalie loves the beach.

A picture with her grandmas and grandpas - Natalie LOVES her grandparents so much and talks about how much she misses them all the time.

Natalie and Twilight - Natalie is such an animal lover.

A "fashionable" pic - Natalie is always coming up with her own fashions.

Pictures playing with her sisters. Natalie loves playing Polly Pockets, princesses, pirate princesses, school, primary, T.V., interview, house and camping with Angela and Sarah.

I also had to include one of the many, many works of art Natalie has created.

Natalie is such a nut - she keeps us laughing and makes me smile!

We love you Natalie!

Spring Snow

All the drops of melting snow looks like sparkling diamonds in the sun on our Japanese Maple

I like the reflection of the trees in the water droplet...

We got about an inch or a little more of snow that we woke up to this morning. The way the school district has made their decisions this year, I honestly thought school would be at least delayed. Luckily, everything was right on schedule. (Or we might be going to school through July - making up snow days!)

Everything looked so beautiful this morning. After getting Sarah off to school and taking care of a little problem she had. (Long story short, my poor stressed out sweetie was too shy to talk to her teacher about getting behind on some work yesterday - that wasn't her fault - so I went to help work out the problem.) Anyway, when we got back I let Angela and Natalie run around and play in what I hope will be our last snowstorm for the year. (o:

It was beautiful because everything was covered in white and the sun was shining, melting everything quickly. All the little drops of melting snow in the sunshine were glittering and begging for pictures. (o: I took pictures until the girls were begging to go inside and finally get some breakfast! I was having too much fun . . .

I Only Believe in Science

That title will only make sense to those who've seen and appreciate the humor in Nacho Libre. I'm on a Nacho kick today . . .

So this week was the kids' Science O Rama at school.

Science O Rama is such a funny name for the kids' science fair - it makes me think of Chuck A Rama - are those still around in Utah? Good old Chuck A Rama. (o:

So Anyways (as Nacho Libre would say) -

We had a very busy week. Ahem . . . I had a very busy week. And I learned a very big lesson. What is that lesson, you say?

Don't wait until the last minute to do a science fair project. That is the lesson my friends.

Because if you do, you might end up staying up until 2:00 in the morning finishing up your child's lovely science fair board. So take it from me - procrastination stinks!

In my defense, I had no idea the part of actually putting all the "stuff" on the board would take HOURS. Yes, that's right, HOURS. Getting every little thing matted and figuring out where to place everything and making it look nice is very time consuming. (I am a little of a perfectionist, mind you.) But I have to say, I think they turned out pretty nice.

The saddest part is that because I did so much in the middle of the night, Sarah and Natalie didn't get to help much with the assembly like I imagined. On the other hand, if they would have been helping then it would have taken DAYS. (o: Next time, we're starting much earlier!

This one was Natalie's project. We hid Twilight's "stinky" food in the family room in different places and timed her to see how long it would take her to find it. We did three series of playing this game. The first time, we played 5 times in a row with no break. (Hiding the food in the same location, but changing location between series.) Then we waited for a few hours and played again waiting 5 minutes between the 5 searches. Then we waited another while before playing a last time - waiting 10 minutes between the 5 searches. The more time we spread between the "hide and treat" game, the longer it seemed to take Twilight to find her food. We had fun making the little charts at the bottom of the board. Natalie did these by hand (with my help) and I think she did a great job. I also love her picture she did on the left side. Natalie was one of only three Kindergartners who participated in the science fair. Her teacher was so cute and let Natalie present her board to the class. She made Natalie feel so special for doing her scientific research! (o: (See picture below of Natalie's presentation.)
I mentioned Sarah's experiment in an earlier post and here is her board. Daddy helped do some lovely graph's at the bottom, that turned out really nice. I think I already mentioned what Sarah did, but I'll review once more for our memory's sake (since this is our little family history). Sarah watered 5 plants with various liquids including milk, sugar water, lime drink, salt water and plain old water. We were surprised how well the milk and sugar water did. They actually grew better than the water sample until the very end of the two weeks. Surprise - the lime drink and salt water killed off the plants rather quickly!
On the left side of the board is the part of the experiment where Sarah watered white violas with colored water to see if they would turn colors (just like when you put cut carnations in a vase with colored water). After two weeks, there was no color. So, we concluded that the color molecules must not be able to travel through the root system. (Or they need to be watered for longer with the colored water.)
On the right side of the board we showed what happens when you water plants with various amounts of water. The more water the plants got, the taller they grew! However, the most watered plant had fewer flowers.


Sarah and Natalie were so excited and proud to have boards up at the science fair. That made the very late night catching up worth every minute. Apparently, Sarah's board will get to go to district, which she is TOTALLY excited about. I'm hoping maybe Natalie's will go too (I haven't heard the official results) because she will be sad if not. But that's the way it goes sometimes.

Another bonus for the science night was that OMSI came to the school and did some cool experiments and had some great displays and things for the kids to do and play with during the night.

One other little note that I am proud of . . . some of you might remember from our past e-mailings of the family Post that last spring I held a "Science Girls" club at our house every week. I was so proud to find out that Sarah's good friends, Monica and Taylor, who were in the club, both did science projects for the fair too. Not that it was all because of me - but the whole reason I did the little "club" was to help the girls feel confident in their abilities and excited about science. I loved looking at what Monica and Taylor worked on - they did awesome! It got me motivated to start up our little club again this summer. They've been asking all year...

Yeah for science! (o:

Fabulous Fire Fighter Field Trip

Angela just stared at this fireman with her mouth open like this the whole time he was getting on his gear.

We got to go on a fantastic field trip this week. We love going to the fire station (we went 2 years ago with Natalie's group). We felt so special - there were 6 firemen (more firemen than preschoolers!) who took us around their station. We toured their living quarters - the kitchen, bedrooms, living room, etc. The had dispatch call out a "practice" call to Smart Cookies and they showed the kids their cool trucks, fire suits and tools. It was awesome. The part I appreciated the most as a mom, was when one of the guys got all dressed up in his gear to show the kids that they might look a little scary (and sound scary - the mask sounds like Darth Vader), but if a fireman comes to your house in a fire, they are there to help. The fireman talked to the kids about not hiding or running away from them. As you can see in the picture above the fireman - Angela doesn't look too sure. (o:

We loved our field trip - these guys were so nice and I am so grateful for the service they give to our community. Especially since Sarah's scary accident on the playground last year. Having such kind, well-trained and professional people to call on in an emergency is such a blessing. Yeah for firemen!! (o:

Little Princess

I decided, since I have three girls, I should learn how to do something other than piggie tails and pony tails in their hair. (I still LOVE piggie tails and always will.) So I came up with a plan. It is too overwhelming to try and do fancy things with all the girls' hair every Sunday - it would take too long and I often have meetings on Sundays. So I had an idea to let the girls take turns each Sunday to be fancy. Angela got her turn first this last Sunday.

My friend Janessa (fellow mom of three girls) shared a blog that she found with fancy hair style instructions. (I added a link to the title of this post). Angela's hair-do in this picture is very beginner compared to some of the stuff I saw on the blog, but I am still proud of it. (O: Baby steps. If the girls are good and hold still during their "hair salon" session, then they are rewarded with painted fingernails. (o: Angela did very well - so she is showing off her lovely purple fingernails above. She LOVED being so fancy on Sunday. Natalie and Sarah were a bit jealous, but seem excited for their turns in the coming weeks. Thanks for the inspiration Janessa!

Yesterday...

Yesterday, while I did this (see explanation below) . . .
Angela did this! What a cutie!
Natalie joined her when she got home from school. . .

I love when the girls find good things to keep themselves busy while I am doing nutty things like trying to can butter. Ever heard of it? Well after canning 10 jars, I found out it is not really recommended, so don't do it. (o:

I got the idea from a food storage book. When I was having trouble and none of the jars were popping/sealing, I decided to send out a call for help. I wrote an e-mail to a girl who runs a really great website with recipes, tips and ideas for food storage. (The title of this post is linked to it) I asked if I was doing everything right. She was great and responded very quickly. She sent me a link to an article that gave some reasons why it's not recommended. Mainly because the "canning" method you use for it doesn't get hot enough to kill any potential bacteria.

For those of you who are wondering why in the heck I was trying to can butter and aren't familiar with food storage - here's the reason. Our church leaders really encourage families to gather food storage for "a rainy day". That way when weather events, natural disasters, job loss and other unpredictable events happen in our lives, we can take care of our families and have food ready. I have loved working on getting our several months supply of food. It was awesome when the snowstorm happened in December. We did have to eventually run to the store to get milk (but we have dried milk for a bigger emergency - I'm just not a big fan of the stuff) but we never had to worry about running out of food. I walked out to our shelves in the garage and always had what we needed for meals.

So anyway, I got to thinking that it would be nice to have butter on hand, but you can only keep so much in the fridge. When I saw the idea I thought it would be a nice addition to our food storage. Oh well! Crystal recommended keeping Crisco on hand and there are also some forms of powdered butter you can get, FYI.

Like a Kid in a Candy Store...

A few weeks ago Aaron Brother's Frame store was having a clearance sale. 75% off all their inventory! They were closing the location nearby and wanted to get rid of everything. I went three times during the sale. I couldn't get enough. There are so many things I've been waiting to hang up because I needed frames! I bought the three matching frames above and the prints inside them for less than $30! The frames are quite large - I don't know if you can tell. I was happy with the great deal I got. Ned* and I have always wanted to use our big entryway walls to make an art display. We've had the other two paintings for a while and were excited to add a few more to our collection.
These pictures have been waiting for nice frames for YEARS! I could never find the right frame for the right price. I love how these turned out. These are sketches by our good family friend Peggy - she is like an aunt to me. She is a great artist and gave me these beautiful cards years ago. I always thought they were too pretty to use and wanted to frame them for our lighthouse themed bathroom. They really make the bathroom look extra nice. Thanks Peggy!

I have a bazillion more frames to fill with pictures and prints. I have a few already with things in them waiting to be hung. I'll post more when I get things up.

The only sad part of the story is that I found out later that the store eventually put everything on sale for 90% off!!!! Wow - I guess it's good I didn't know - I would have bought more frames than I could ever hope to use. I LOVE frames!! I am grateful to have found some really screaming deals! Thanks to Shannan for giving me the heads up. (o:

My House Stinks

(Note: no we don't always make Sarah wear her bike helmet when she is gardening. (o: Only when it's for science experiments! he he )

It is science experiment season in the northwest.

The kids are working on science experiments for the science fair at school next week.

Sarah had a cool idea for hers...

She is giving some pea plants different kinds of liquids to "drink".

We are watering one with milk, one with lime margarita mix (it's an ingredient for Billy*'s ribs), sugar water, salt water and of course, boring old water.

After two weeks of watering, the smells from the various liquids (especially the milk) are getting pretty rank. I'm happy that tomorrow will be our last day for collecting data and we can throw out the stinky plants.

We did a couple other experiments with watering - this one was seeing how using different amounts of watering affects plants. I thought this turned out very cool. The "over watered" plant is very leggy and hardly has any flowers and the underwater plant has hardly grown and is looking sad.

Just in case you were wondering, plants don't like salt water.

Sarah and I were actually surprised how well the "milk" plant did. It looked very healthy up until just two days ago. I think the milk starting to spoil is the problem, otherwise, milk might actually not be such a bad thing to water with! (o: The sugar water plant has also done surprisingly well and is still doing good.

The sugar water one is second from the left and the water "control" plant is on the right. Obviously, the tried and true method of watering with water seems to be the best for plants. Surprise! (o:

We also did one more experiment with white flowers in soil. We tried watering two of the plants with red and blue colored water to see if the flowers would take on those colors. After two weeks, they are still as white as can be. It works with cut flowers in a vase, but doesn't seem to work for flowers in soil. Interesting. (o:

Natalie has also been doing an experiment, but we have had such disappointing results, we are going to try something else this weekend. We tried doing a taste test with Twilight using different flavored waters. She refused to drink ANY of them during our 4-6 hour long test periods. Stubborn cat! That's okay though, we have another cat experiment up our sleeves, she won't get off that easy! (o: Hopefully she'll feel up to a game of hide and go "treats" this weekend.

Thinking of You...

Dear Twilight,

The house is much more calm without you. There's no one running like a screaming banshee through the blinds, no one messing up the girls Polly Pockets while they play on the floor. No one has been scratched all morning.

It is kind of nice...

But we miss you and we're thinking of you.

I know you don't understand why you had to go in the travel bag and in the car to that guy who gave you shots a few weeks ago. We tried to calm you down on the ride over, but as far as I can tell, you don't really understand English.

You were very sweet and quiet as we signed the papers for your surgery.

Don't worry I opted for the extra pain killer after so you won't be in as much pain.

We hope you will forgive us for making you have a rough day today,
We said a prayer for you to not feel too much pain.

As we left the vet's office, Angela asked, "why we gave our kitty to them" and when we got home, Natalie got into position to "catch the cat" as the girls often do when we come in from the garage door, since you always like to escape and explore. (I think it is funny the girls all fight for this job and they have to take turns. As soon as we get home the question always hanging in the air is, "Who's turn to catch the cat?")

Even though this is not fun, we just don't think it's a good idea to let you procreate. (o:

No offense, we think your potential kitties would have been adorable, but in the last few months we've learned how much work a little trouble maker like you is and one of you is all we can handle!

We promise to take extra good care of you when you get home this afternoon and we'll keep Angela at a distance, although it will be very hard for her to not pick you up and give you a squeeze.
It will be nice to have you back, messes, trouble and all - the house isn't the same without you.

Natalie found this tattoo at the vet's office and put it on herself (on her face!) before I knew what she was doing. I guess it's her little tribute to her kitty. I'm sure she'll get some comments at school today. Natalie and Sarah were very sad and worried for Twilight today, it was very sweet.

Preschool Fun

We have had fun this year going on preschool field trips every Thursday for Angela's little preschool co-op. Yesterday we rode, scooted and walked over to the Gerber's house for a fun "frog-hopping" adventure. Miss Arianne taught a frog lesson this week and thought it would be fun to have the kiddos play on the Gerber's gymnastics equipment and play frog hopping games.
We discovered that Angela is very flexible!

And Natalie is an awesome jumper! Also, her hair looks really cool when frozen in time!

Natalie has often been a guest of honor at the field trips since she has afternoon Kindergarten. Although - we don't get to take our sweet time most days because we have to run and feed her lunch so she gets to the bus on time. (I won't miss half day Kindergarten next year, but I will miss having Natalie with me more!)

This was one of the darling froggy cupcakes Arianne made for all the kids. Angela ate the darker eyeball part, but you get the idea. Isn't it cute? (Arianne does professional catering and is very talented at these sorts of things - we are lucky to have her in our group!)

Angela loves when it is her turn to get Bobolito Bear, the preschool pet. The last time she got him the first thing she said she wanted to do with him was get ice-cream. Luckily, I remembered this time and we got a Frosty with Bobolito the day before he had to go to someone else.

This is Angela and Natalie with Angela's good buddy Tyler. They are pretty cute together. Kayelynn and I often carpool the kids since we live close to each other and I love to hear Tyler and Angela's conversations in the back of the van. One afternoon Angela asked Tyler, "What your dad's name?" They talked about their dads and their names and how they went to work for about 5 minutes. Cute kids.

Polly Pocket Art

(o: We have Polly Pockets out all over the place every day. Sometimes they are spread all over the floor around the castle Angela got from Santa. Some days they are all over the game table in the front room. This particular day, they were all over the kitchen table and they looked so pretty in the sunlight. (o: I love to see the scenarios the girls set up with them each time. They have some pretty cute furniture (Playmobil has great stuff and it's perfect Polly Pocket size - they have cute little details like teeny towels and perfume bottles, etc.) Anyway, the girls LOVE to set up little scenes and I get a kick out of seeing how they set it all up so meticulously. It's a shame when they have to clean it up at the end of the day, but if they didn't I would go crazy.

One more...

I forgot to mention one of the books Angela and I picked and brought home from the Art Museum bookstore. We got the hardback version of this book. It is filled with tons of pages of pictures, like the one on the cover - of fruit and vegetables with a lot of personality. We loved the book so much we both sat on the floor of the store laughing for about 20 minutes enjoying each page. There are no words, just LOTS of fun-filled pages with some very imaginative food! I've seen other shorter versions of this book - board books, etc., but this one has tons more. Very imaginative and fun to look at with little ones! Heck, even for adults, this is a very cool coffee table book. I have this one up on our book display in the living room. It just makes me happy. (o: