Brenner's Milestone

Yay! Brenner can now officially write his own name!! If I can figure out how to get the saved image from the iPad to the computer, I'll post his first successes here! :)

Go Brenner! He worked long and hard on this, and I am proud of him! :)

Uncle Ryan's Science Class

So, after dinner tonight as I'm cleaning up the kitchen, my kids come clamoring into the house, surrounding my brother, who is carrying something in a baseball cap. They enter the kitchen, and suddenly the hat jumps. Then the frog jumps out of the hat. For a few comical minutes, Ryan and the kids chase the frog around the kitchen trying to catch him. (Admittedly, the kids were doing more directing than actually trying to help catch the frog.) Then I learn the real intent of bringing the frog into the house.

"Mommy! Uncle Ryan said the frog can swim really well! Can we put him in the bathtub? PLEASE!" I wavered for a moment, but I eventually threw caution to the wind and allowed the frog to be bathed. (Even after he urinated on Ryan's hand twice while the kids were running the bath water.)

So are few pictures to show that the frog did survive, and sure enough, he swam like a champ. In a further experiment, Caelum proved that frogs don't even drown when continually being heavily splashed by an eager 2-year-old.

The kids loved him a lot, and named him Mr. Xanopus. They were very sad to let him go back out into the woods.

1st Grade Begins...

Here are a couple pictures from Aile's first official in-class day of 1st grade (August 25, 2010). Once a week, we join some friends for some joint school time, and here Hannah, Aile, and Anaya are learning the Pledge of Allegiance and working on one of their assignments.

Edible Cells

In Anatomy & Physiology, we have been studying the cell, and it's various parts and functions. So for a fun project, we made an edible cell out Jell-O. The Jell-O was the cytoplasm, then we had Jelly Belly mitochondria, Skittles lysosomes, Smarties golgi bodies, fruit roll-up endoplasmic reticulum, cake sprinkles ribosomes, Twizzlers Pull-Aparts centrioles, and a bubble gum nucleus. We invited some friends over to join us in the project who hadn't been reading the same text, so it gave Aile a chance to teach them about the parts of the cell and test what she had learned. All the kids had fun, and it turned out to be a neat project, worth repeating! (Also, as a bonus to us parents, all those different candies in the Jell-O turned out to be not quite as yummy as the kids had hoped, so they really didn't eat all of it!) :)

Re-creating Adam and Eve

As part of our Bible class, we have been studying the days of creation. The other day we studied about how God created Adam, and them made him fall asleep, took a rib, and formed Eve. So we used some clay and Aile made her own version of Adam and Eve. :)

Entertaining Birds?

All three kids are playing nicely together (yes, I'm serious), when out of the blue, Brenner asks: "Mommy, when can we go to the bird feeder?"

I'm a bit perplexed. Did I hear correctly? "What bird feeder?"

"You know, the BIRD FEEDER!"

"The bird feeder in the backyard?"

"No! The BIRD FEEDER!"

"Where is it?"

"It's at the BIRD FEEDER!"

By this time, I think both of us were getting a little frustrated. I had absolutely no clue what he could possibly be talking about. And he was desperate for me to understand, but could only give that one description. After we went round and round a few more times trying to figure this out, he finally pointed to a building on his car mat where he had been playing--"Here! You know, Mommy, the BIRD FEEDER! When can we go here?!" He pointed again.

I actually kept a straight face, and answered calmly. "Well, Brenner, I'm not sure when we would go there. That's the MOVIE THEATER."

"And to top it all off, he flings his arms out and says, "That what I SAID!"

Little Men on the Moon

We were driving home one evening, and the full moon was already out and quite bright. It looked pretty cool. Brenner noticed it first, which was not surprising. He has had an obsession with the moon ever since I showed him a video of the first astronauts to walk on the moon and we learned about being an astronaut, gravity, etc. Anyway, so Brenner noticed the moon, and commented, "Look! It's a full moon today!"

"Oh, that's very neat!" I replied.

Brenner, for about the 20th time in the last couple weeks: "When can we go to the moon, Mommy?"

"Well..." I hedge. I am trying to come up with a 2oth answer, since the previous 19 apparently did not suffice. But Caelum chimes in and answers for me, in all his 2-year-old logic: "You can just drop us off, Mommy! Can you drop us off at the moon, please, Mommy?"

"That's a very far to go, Caelum. We can't drive there."

"But, I think I can walk on the moon!" He shouts emphatically.

"Maybe someday..." I reply.