Late Night Science

Last night, at about 11:30, my older two were still up playing video games with a friend, who's been staying with us. I  was on facebook and read a post about a science experiment a teacher friend had done with her class. It looked really cool so my daughter and I tried it.

We poured a little bit of milk onto a plate and then added one drop of each color of food coloring near the middle of the plate.

  Next, we put a drop of dish soap on the end of a cotton swab and dipped it into the milk.

 Then, watched, as the food coloring appeared to race away from the cotton swab! Super cool!  We played with it a few more times and invited my son and our friend to watch as the colors spun and glided through the milk away from the dish soap.

 

  (Find out why here)

After it had mixed a bit, my daughter noticed that if she quickly dipped the cotton swab in and out, little balls would pop up and roll across the surface of the milk. Very cool and fascinating, but we have no idea why. We wondered if they were air bubbles, trapped with soap molecules, looking for fat molecules. Whatever it was, it was amazing watching the perfect little green spheres race across the top and then disappear back into the milk.  

Eventually our experimenting led to playing with oil, water, food coloring and dish soap.

 Our house-guest told the kids that they should ask their teacher if they could try this at school. They told him they didn't go to school and he seemed surprised. "Really?" he asked, and my son replied "Yeah, this IS school" We don't usually call it school, but this is our life.

Science. 

For fun. 

At 11:30 at night.

 

Since it's the time of year for packages, I found myself with an abundance of packaging peanuts. My daughter asked if she could play with the "snow" and I said yes. She threw it around in the living room for awhile and even made a "snow" angel. Then they decided to take it out in the trampoline.

Legoland and Empanadas

My older kids decided that they wanted to make a dinner from a different country every week  Our first one was empanadas from Argentina. I can take absolutely no credit for any part of this. My daughter did the research, found the recipe, bought the ingredients and she and my son made them completely unassisted. They turned out great!

It worked out perfectly because while they were making dinner, I was busy preparing for our Legoland trip the next day. The homeschooling umbrella school that we belong to was able to get us the field trip rate of $5 a ticket! So, of course, we had to take advantage of the amazing price. Legos are out every day at my house. Sometimes, it involves whole days of complex building and playing and other times, it's just someone tinkering around while they watch tv, but they are almost always being used, so we were really excited about going. We woke up at 5 am, drove about 3 hours, and got there when it opened at 10. We had a great day at the park. The weather was beautiful, the lines were fairly short and, despite serious lack of sleep, we all had really great time.

Braving the chilly early morning weather

My favorite part was Mini World. I want to be a Lego sculptor when I grow up.

Mini Miami

We loved this because the building with the red spiral staircase in the middle is one of the kids' favorite landmarks

Mini first family

Mini NY

They had classes in here. My son had fun learning to program a Lego Mindstorms robot

 

ahhhhhhhhhhh

Putting out the fire. 

At the end of the day, the lines were almost gone so the girls spent the last hour or so going from ride to ride.

Playing in the Duplo playground

Legos and Star Wars. It doesn't get much better than that....except maybe, Legos and Pirates of the Caribbean. (There's a slight possibility that I'm really a little boy)

After the park closed they had a Lego tree lighting ceremony, complete with "snow".

 

I didn't manage to get one single picture of all 4 of my kids together, but this one was really sweet.

Then we got back in the car and journeyed home. We chose a different route home for easier stopping, since the baby was not very happy about being in her carseat on the way back. So, it was a bit of a longer trek back, but we did eventually make it home in the wee hours of the morning, exhausted but so happy to have gone.

Saint Nicholas Day is December 6th but we celebrated it a day late this year. My sleep-deprived mommy brain (yes, I blame that for everything) somehow got the dates mixed up this year and by the time I realized it the kids were already in bed and it was too late. Saint Nicholas Day is a holiday remembering Saint Nicholas, the man behind Santa Claus. Many of the Christmas traditions we have today like Santa, gifts, and stockings originated from this holiday. I was always told it was a German holiday, but it's celebrated in many different cultures in equally different ways. This is the way we celebrated it as children and the way my kids do today. On Saint Nick's Eve the kids make their list for Santa Claus and put it in their stockings. Then, during the night Santa comes, takes the list and leaves a few little gifts. My 8 year old went to bed a believer but this morning is having her doubts about Santa Claus. And while I know 8 is pretty old to still believe in Santa Claus, I was really hoping disbelief wouldn't set in until the baby was old enough to believe. So, it probably will be the first year that everyone is in on the big secret and sadly a little less magical.....but there's always next year!

making her list

the reindeer have choices

and now he knows why I wouldn't buy him the juggling balls he was asking for yesterday

'Tis the Season............

Our house has been overtaken by Christmas, as we prepare to celebrate the Christmas season. I absolutely love this time of year and everything that goes along with it. I try not to bite off more than I can chew and thoroughly embrace every moment of this time that is never here for long. I love Christmas music, Christmas decorations, Christmas crafts, Christmas movies, Christmas books, Christmas shopping, Christmas traditions, I even enjoy baking at Christmastime!

I love Christmas, I love my kids, and I can't think of a better way to spend my time than together, doing Christmassy stuff!

 

 Decorating ourselves

 Decorating the tree

 While we were busy with our tree, the dolls were trimming their own.

 I thought we were all making snowflakes, it turns out it was just me

 and the little neighbor girl

 making decorations

 

 

A Little Bit of Adventure

I started out today wanting adventure. We've been couped up inside for the past couple of weeks rearranging rooms again and I was dying to be outside, to explore, to find something new and to experience nature. The rooms are finally functional and mostly organized, it was the start of a new week and I was ready to do something exciting or atleast different than cleaning, sorting and moving furniture.

First off, not all the kids were as enthusiastic about adventure as I was. Some would've been content to just stay home and others wanted to be out, but not necessarily outside. After much debate and discussion we decided to go to a very touristy area of the beach that we rarely go to and have never really explored. It offered something different, some shopping areas and still, the great outdoors......so of course, it started raining. On to plan B. We settled for wandering around Toys r Us to get some Christmas ideas. Not exactly a wild outdoor adventure, but it would have to do.

We explored Toys r Us for awhile and did find some really cool stuff and lots of Christmas inspiration. My middle daughter had me take pictures of all the things she liked. There were a lot. She also found a really cute bug playground that she bought with her allowance.

My son found an accordion that he wandered around playing and I enjoyed finding a selection of non-plastic toys that don't light up, talk or play music that I might like for the baby. Nothing against plastic toys with batteries but do they ALL have to be?

After Toys r Us and a quick rest to feed the baby and eat some sandwiches we had packed, the sun finally came back out. Instead of going home, we decided to turn another way and see what we ran into. So, we were getting mildly adventurous. We stopped at a park we hadn't been to in a long time. The kids climbed a rock "castle" that they like, while I watched some raccoons and took a few pictures.

We took a very short-lived nature walk through some trails. Since not everyone was happy to be there, it wasn't quite as spectacular as I was hoping for, but it was still fun.

We thought this log looked like an alligator......

 Exploring the mangroves

On the ground, all around the mangroves were little crab holes. We'd see them move out of the corner of our eyes but as soon as we'd look they were gone.

 HIDDEN PICTURE

He blends in really well but if you look in the very center of the picture, you'll see a little brown crab

After that, we headed to the pet store to purchase another replacement mouse for my daughter, her only requirement for the day. Then, with a little mouse carrier buckled into the backseat of our van, we headed home. It was not the amazing outdoor adventure I had envisioned. There was some rain and grumpiness and arguing, but it was still a nice day, filled with many good moments.