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!