Check out my view!

So my good friend {read:sistah} Laura commented that I'm not blogging enough... At all.

So... I thought I ought to show you all what I've been up to this summer...

We spent a great month with our cousin Ashley from California. We took her to parks, went swimming, saw matinee movies, rode "Roaster-Coasters", and laughed a LOT! I'm so glad she was able to come and get to know these crazy Northern relatives of hers!

After the Fourth of July, Fritz tried to stay focused at Washington Intensive Wrestling camp. It was an intensely tough week of training, perhaps a little much for his barely First Grade body! Poor kid even fell asleep in the car on the 2 1/2 minute drive home three days in a row!

Itty-Bitty turned nine, so we planned her a backwards birthday. We made her pinata from a leftover snack box -covered in scrapbook papers and about 50 sheets of fringed tissue paper- and filled with more than 5 pounds of candy! We decided to serve a lunch  meatloaf "cupcakes" with pink mashed potato "frosting" along with "Corn on the Cob" cupcakes. Surprisingly, the meatloaf was a huge hit!

Itty recieved another exciting gift on her birthday.... a new baby cousin!!!! His name is Jamari Lee and he is absolutely adorable - and not at all underloved! Checkout our little "Pajamas" and all of his adoring big cousins!

So.... now that it's finally gotten decently warm up here in the Great White North, there is one last view that I am particularily grateful for.... the lake by my home! Ahhh the peace.

I hope you enjoyed this (seriously condensed) photo-recap of our summer!

Stay cool and don't forget the SPF!

Science Fair Blues

Sister Suzie has a Fifth Grade Science Fair project due the week before Spring Break.

Great.

No Problem... Except, there are a MILLION AND ONE rules for the stupid thing and I.can't.stand.complicated. BUT.... being the good, involved, uber-savvy mom I am, I immediately snapped my fat mouth shut attitude in check and set to work finding experiment books for kids on our local library website. I think we checked out seven or eight.... we ended up coming up with an interesting twist on a time-honored classic.



Setting up the experiment
(don't mind the date-stamp LOL)



THE POTATO CLOCK!

We looked at diagrams online and I was pretty sure we could set this puppy up with NO PROBLEMS! HA!

Every explanation I found listed two frustrating pieces of needed equipment. A 1.5-2v  LCD clock, and alligator clips. Now, these are fairly commonplace items... not hard to find at your local hardware or big box store. Except, based on the comments of the type of batteries used, I assumed we needed a little tiny travel clock. And based on the *ahem*not-so-helpful-employee*ahem* at the hardware store, the alligator clips are FLIPPING HUGE! HA!

This meant that tonight's initial set-up of the project took significantly longer than my estimated "throw it together, 30mins - tops" exclamation, and included a tantrum or two... mostly by me. I know. I'm hanging my head in shame. Despicable.

The up-side to this wildly, adventurous scientific journey is that we FINALLY got the stupid rigged circuits to work and Sister Suzie is well on her way to a decent grade - despite my ineptitude!

Here are a few pictures of her work.



Set #1



Set #2

In-home Science Center

Wordless Wednesday - Itty-Bitty's Native American Plank House

 Our prototype

 Itty-Bitty and the start of her Plank House

The Alligator means 'courage', the Frog is for 'energy',

and together they make a 'man strong enough to hunt' -- or so she concluded.

Native American Plank House, complete with "totem pole"



Linking up to these blogs today:

Day of rest...

So, my girls are at their dad's for the weekend... I should be enjoying myself right? WRONG! I am never completely myself when my girlies aren't home. Sure, Fritz and I had lots of fun with Nana and some cousins at McD's yesterday. We did all the good fun stuff yesterday ... like... fixed breakfast, he broke my camera, dumped out all the cinnamon and sugar.... wait... "He broke your camera?" you say. Oh yes. He did. My new one.... my fancy, first one in 12 yrs one.... BROKE! played at McD's, got a toy at McD's, shopped at Wal-Mart, got lost from Momma at Wal-Mart.... Yup... Lost. Called the Manager type lost. Shut the doors type lost.... and what did this sweet boy say to me when he was found???
"Momma! Where were you? I was looking everywhere for you! You should find me next time."

We won't even go into the lovely episode he had in Church today... or the mess I just had to clean up.... Wasn't this post supposed to be about Sunday being a day of rest? Riiiiiiiiight - not if you occupy my world it isn't. It's just LIFE!

But, alas... I do love it so. Sometimes.... gotta go... Fritz just said uh-oh....Again!

Intro

Hi! Ok this is the first time I've really done these... I have set up a few... but I never remember the link or passwords... so i can never go back and update them! LOL

I mostly joined so that I could leave comments for my friend Laura and at least have something interesting for her to read, even though I'll have probably already told her about it over the phone first anyway!

So... single with kids. Kinda complicates things a bit, huh? I was thinking the other day how different my life is from those of my married friends. How often do we just want someone to fix the dinner, or do the laundry. How great would it be if we had someone else to deal with 'clean-room duty' and what about trying to find a sitter so you have more than 10 minutes of adult conversation without ear-splitting screams of elementary school girls in the next room? Heck, forget a sitter, single parents can hardly affordto buy gas anymore, let alone a regularly scheduled night out.

I just have four words in regards to this: "THANK HEAVENS FOR NANA'S!"