Saturday, January 31, 2015

Snow Day Turned Science Project Day

Monday we had a snow day. This was nice since we were away all weekend for Henry's birthday bash. It wasn't much of a snow, a couple inches of very wet flakes.

All bundled up for outside fun

Sophie and her snow dog - can you see it?

The girls took the opportunity to conduct their science fair experiments.

Sophie was testing ratios of milk to vinegar to make the best plastic from casein, the protein in milk.

Checking the temperature of the milk

Stirring milk and vinegar together

Checking for curds

Putting cheesecloth in position

Straining the curds

Observing the color of the liquid after straining

Curds produced from various amounts of vinegar (by teaspoon)

Weighing the curds

Shaping them before drying

The messy aftermath


Hannah was testing how much salt to add to water to make an egg float.

Stirring the salt solution

Measuring liquids for varying salinity in each cup

From 1 to 5, all salt solution to pure tap water, with varying concentrations in between

Testing an egg in each solution

The results - an egg floats in a solution that is approximately 10% salt

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Henry Turns the Big Oh-One

This past weekend the girls and I were happy to be able to drive to North Carolina to celebrate Henry turning one year old. You only turn one once, and it was nice to be able to celebrate this milestone with Kelly and Jon. The highlight of the weekend was watching Henry enjoying his monster cake, which you can watch on Jon's Facebook page. Here are photos from our stay:

Adding fur to the monster cake

Balloons are fun!

Decorating


12 months of Henry

Monster Oreo pops

Monster watermelon

The completed cake

Look at that mischievous grin!

He enjoyed the cake, yes he did.

Where gifts are being opened, a crowd of kids there will be

The perfect party hat 
The older kids each colored a monster - this is Hannah's

And here is Sophie's - the Henry monster

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Circadian Rhythms, December 2014

A sleeping angel

Christmas wish list

Cinnamon-craisin granola for teacher gifts

Trying on costumes for the Christmas candlelight tour

Matching Christmas ties

Showing off her quidditch creation

Another season of gymnastics complete

Sophie's decided to take up piano lessons instead

Sleeping angel with all her guardians

Our Christmas tree

Our Christmas tree up close

Waiting for the Christmas candlelight tour to begin at Crossroads

Who knew they had selfies in the 1860s?

Children's Christmas program at church -- Hannah had a speaking part

Charles had fun with the stuffed animals this Christmas

The girls enjoy decorating my homework board for Christmas each year, this is Sophie's side

Here is Hannah's

Gingerbread house from school

Bird's eye view of Hannah's

Cleaning Grandma's bathroom while wearing a covering

Hooville

She really likes the vest Grandma got her, even wears it to bed!

Snuggling with his blankie

Trip to the movies to see the new Annie -- a long-awaited reward for being good at the dentist

Her new bunny for magic tricks