Science Fair

Both kids participated in the school's science fair this year - Max was required to, and Ave wasn't. She did it for the fun of it. Ave's project was about probability and Max's was about relative density of different liquids.

Camo gone wrong

112 minutes

Santa's Lodge. We waited in line for 1 hour 52 minutes to see Santa. What with one of Santa's elves being within a stone's throw, both kids were well behaved the whole time. You'd think the day before Christmas, the line would be short. It was in Greeley... oh yeah, that's because it was the Greeley mall where no one ever goes. Since I don't have Santa photos to put with this, here are some photos from earlier in the year:


These are from a gymnastics birthday party in November. Here, Max and the neighbor are having a contest to see who could keep their face in the snow the longest. When I went out to see what they were doing, looked a little odd after all, they decided to call it a tie. Seems like that would hurt, but both of them said it didn't.
This is from the trip to the Littleton Historical Museum.

Merry Christmas

These photos belong on Midi's page, but she's just so darned cute napping under the Christmas tree. Most of her trips under the tree involve batting at ornaments - the bottom foot or so of the tree is now ornament-less. Well, by my computer's clock, it is no longer Christmas Eve, so MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Now, off to bed, as Max will have us up very early.

Crazy hair day at school

Thursday was Crazy Hair day at school, the kids last day before Christmas break. Mom found a bottle of blue hair spray, Max made use of dad's gel, and both got a dusting of Ave's sparkly hair spray. When they got their hair washed, a day or two later, the shampoo lather was quite blue.

Stalactite

The stalactite. That wasn’t. But it was a darned interesting experiment. We dissolved a couple of tablespoons of baking soda (the king of kitchen chemistry ingredients) into 2 cups of water. Then we put paperclips on either end of a string of yarn, to weigh down the yarn, and strung it between the cups. Then we waited. This is day 1:

This is day 3:

This is day 5:

We had to conclude that Colorado, with its 19% humidity, is just too dry to make the stalactite. The yarn dripped for a little while, but not long enough. But the soda made the most interesting mushroom like formations. And yes, we ended up with two strings of yarn as the first piece was acrylic and didn’t wick water all that well. After a full week, we decided to experiment a little more. We added hot water to both cups, a little food coloring, and stirred up the solutions. The blue dye wicked through both yarn strings in just a few minutes and both yarns started dripping again. But, the next morning, the red dye had fought back, and had won one of the yarns over. Getting the water flowing again caused lots of the mushrooms to fall off, but they appeared to be rebuilding. But a week was long enough, and we dumped the lot down the kitchen sink. No stalactite, but some interesting good fun.

Hi Ho Hi Ho It's off to work I go...

Wow. I would have thought I would have posted scads of stuff whilst I was home. I didn't. For the first four weeks it was constant stress of trying to find companies that were possibly hiring to apply to. The last two weeks, having received and accepted a job offer, have been packed with projects, trying to get as much done as possible before returning to the normal routine of work. I'm really glad I got a job, particularly with all the bad economic news these days, but I will be a little sad to give up being a stay-at-home-mom. It has been nice to pick up the kids after school, have snack, and get homework done before dinner. Of course, getting up 90 minutes later in the morning wasn't too bad either. ;)

With a little luck, I will get some stuff from my 6 week 'vacation' posted soon. Stuff like the kids trying to make a stalactite. Great pictures of that kitchen chemistry experiment to share. I also finished painting my kitchen cabinets (yes, I actually finished a project). I finished knitting Ave's scarf (don't tell - it's going under the Christmas tree). I finished a project for Elise (don't tell her either - it will be going under her tree).

But, that's all for later, it's time for bed. And I have to get up early tomorrow.