Science Fairs and Birthday Parties!

That is the run down on my week...

My Itty-Bitty tried so hard to make a nice science project for her school science fair.
She came up with it all on her own, growing green beans with different soils to answer the question:

"Which soil will make the plants grow the fastest?"

She had three soil samples and labeled them: Fertilized Soil, Potting Mix, and Dirt (from our backyard). Then she wrote a prediction; The bean seed in the Fertilized Soil will grow the fastest and largest.
Unfortunately, her initial soil samples had too much water in them and the seeds floated to the top...
She pushed them back into the soil and finally they began to grow! Part of the experiment was to be exact in her watering and to measure, regularly, the growth she observed. We were all so excited for her as the sprouts began to break the surface!

I'm not sure exactly what happened then .... to make it veer terrible off in the wrong direction.... but veer it did. It might have been the cats, who love to sit in the window and paw at stuff. It may have been the little brother.... who was a little too over zealous about pulling touching the new growth. It may have been the really amazing tip the Little Scientist found in a gardening book. Apparently, putting eggshells in the soil is a wonderful fertilizer. Knowing that she couldn't add extra items to one soil without also adding to the others, she haphazardly carefully dropped piles of crushed eggshells on the tops of the soil. On top of the teensy-tiny little sprouts. *shakes head* Thankfully, we pulled enough off of one to get a decent shoot, but it didn't do enough to save the project. In an effort to salvage the project, she: planted a new batch and made new predictions, she put together a wonderful project board, and turned in the whole thing. She didn't win any awards, but she felt good about what she learned and she was happy to see the projects her friends did also. It was a good learning experience for all of us.

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On the other end of the week, our focus and planning has turned to the next celebration in our home.

The seventh birthday of my sweet little boy!

When it comes to birthdays, I always have amazing, grandiose ideas.... however, they rarely come to fruition. *sigh* This time, I didn't plan anything at all.... until 9days before the "friend party"... And I called parents and blamed their lack of invitations - on the shoddy mail system out in our little town!

Yes, you can vote for me as Mother of the Year here!

So, anyway, in our family, the most anticipated part for me is the telling of each child's "Birth Story"! Last night, I snuggled my great-big little boy on my lap and retold the whole beautiful event.... in appropriate terms, of course! Fritz really loves to hear about when he was a baby, baby. It makes him all sweet and cuddly again, so I always love it as well! After a sweet family prayer, thanking Heavenly Father for our sweet little boy and our beautiful family, Nana and I finally got those big babies to sleep. Sister set her alarm for 5:57am and of course, Itty-Bitty woke up to it and ran to wake the Birthday Boy!

Another tradition we have is The Birthday Fairy. She ... I'm sure it's a she, although I've never actually seen her.... is related distantly to the Tooth Fairy and the House Fairy, so I hear. The BF comes in the night (duh) and leaves a specially wrapped little gift for the child to open as soon as they wake up! I am not sure exactly how she came to visit our home, but not a single birthday goes by without the children anticipating her return. Fritz received a Kre-O (like Legos) Transformers set today, and when I went to get the kids up, he was sitting on his bed with Itty-Bitty building Bumblebee! After getting dressed, we celebrated Master "Fritz's" birthday today, eating pancakes for breakfast, bringing cupcakes to school, having his special meal (Reuben Sandwiches with potato salad and chips), etc.

We opened a few gifts after dinner.... he was very grown-up and good-natured about the two pairs of long johns and t-shirts. He really is getting big! He was so much fun when he opened his new Hex Bug Nano "environment" that we decided to give him all of the pieces we had been saving for the big party! The kids were all having a great time snapping together the different pieces of track and watching their bugs "battle". Even the cats and dog got into the action! It was after 9 o'clock when I finally got him to take it all apart and get into bed. We ended the night with simple prayers and a customary lullaby. Hush Little Baby, was the request tonight.

Gosh, I love this sweet little man. I am so grateful for all of the wonderful blessings he has brought to our family. I don't know why Heavenly Father lets things happen the way he does, but I am eternally grateful for His wisdom in bringing this special spirit into our lives, we love him more than we ever could have imagined. I will forever be a better woman because I am raising one of the Lord's Stripling Warriors!

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

So glad it's Summer!

Well school's out... I'm SO glad! I have a basement to declutter and kids to set free in the backyard! I have every intention of spending my afternoons down at the beach -- once it stops raining of course! Here are a few things that have happened since my last post...

First of all, some very exciting news for me... I was able to do something I thought I would have to wait many years to do. I was able to have Temple work done for my Great Grandma Jessie Aurora Bowser, my Great Grandpa Charlie Bowser, Great-great Grandmother Sarah Clements, as well as for my Grandpa Gene Driggers (my mom's daddy). I went with the youth to do the baptisms, I haven't done that since I was 15. It was very cool to see the awesome youth in my ward! They were so happy to be there, and they were so welcoming to one another, I love those kids! What great examples you are to my children! Then the next week my mom and I did the names in a session. The men's names were done the same night! It was such a cool week! I felt so close to my Grandma! Way cool!

For spring break, we took a family vaca to Seattle/Tacoma and went to the zoo(saw a really cool bald eagle and elephants), the science center(the butterflies were awesome and so was the planetarium), and had dinner with our Grandpa and Grandma Leonhardt (we love you and miss you and can't wait to see you again!)! Then we traveled back through Spokane and down to Rigby, ID to visit our friends Sara and Barri Farnes. We had an amazing time there reconnecting and walking around BYU-I. Sara and I did a session at the Rexburg Temple, and we even got a little guided tour... of the sealing rooms and the waiting area for the children. It is so beautiful!

Things got a little crazy after that though... Mom was in California, I was in school.... Girls started Softball. They played on a team called Hot Chili Peppers (the team chose it because their shirts were red!) Both girls did so great this season! I'm so proud of them for stepping out and learning something new. This was Sister's first time playing and Itty-Bitty was the youngest and smallest player -- being the only 6yo on a team of mainly 3-4 graders! They were AWESOME!!!!! They made good friends, as did I, and their coach was fantastic!

Things got really wild when my brother Dave got very sick from an abcest tooth. He was so sick they hospitalized him and did two oral surgeries to remove the abcesses.... EW! I spent a lot of time at the hospital so his son, Jon, could see him. It was a very tender week and I am so grateful to have been able to help my brother and nephew. I am so grateful for the Lord's hand and plan in our lives. I am so grateful for David, for being my brother and my friend. I am so grateful that I have a good relationship with him. I love him so much! I am so grateful he is healing well and able to get back to his regular routine!

After I took Dave home from the hosptial, I did something really stupid and got into a car accident.... IN my mother's car!!!! EEEEEEK!!! Thank heaven that no one was hurt. My kids weren't with me, which was another blessing because I got a little hysterical when I couldn't open the front doors. I had to climb out through the back of the Mountaineer!!! Mom was still in California, so I had the 'pleasure' of calling her and reporting the damage.... Oops! So... that brings us up to about last week.... LOL

There was other stuff like: Fritz and I went to Cattails with his class... Itty went to Riverfront and to the lake with her class, Sister went to YMCA with her class and climbed the wall there... Oh, we got a new kitten too.... Purrsia.... she's really cute... looks like a Mini-Me Domino. Domino boycotted the house when Purrsia came, for about three weeks!!! Talk about tempermental!!! But she's back inside now, staying up on Fritz's bed because Sabrina and Purrsia can't get up there! Laura came for a dance....YAY!!!! Mom bought a new car.... Suzuki XL7 -- way cute! And... I think that's about all!

WOW!!!! I'm so glad for Lazy Dazy Summer!!!!!!