She looks much too grown up in this picture

Juice

Corey is very into juice lately.  So most nights I make up a batch of fruit juice and a batch of green juice.  He drinks the fruit for breakfast and takes the green stuff to work with him.  Tonight we took some pictures.

The fruit.  Apples, oranges, red & green grapes, pineapple, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries.  Tastes delicious.



And the green.  Kale, spinach, cucumber, carrot, apple and lemon.  Tastes a little like grass but not too bad.  And better than trying to actually eat all of those things.



The after picture is before we added the carrots.  It kind of loses it's pretty green color after that and just looks a little like crap.

The Giggles

John randomly gets the giggles and can't stop laughing.  And then he always yells at them "go away giggles!"  It's funny.  Then after a couple minutes of crazy laughing he just goes back to doing his work.  I had my phone when the giggles hit today so I recorded him.

Hazel coloring

I can't believe her sitting in a big chair coloring and stuff.  She obviously didn't get the memo that I'm not ready for her to stop being a baby yet.

Quote of the Week

Corey: Who left the TV on?

John:  Bella turned it on and forgot.

Me:  Someone go turn it off.

Bella:  Well if I turned it on then John has to turn it off.

Me:  No, if you turned it on you need to turn it off.

Bella:  Don't you know anything about taking turns?

Static Electricity

We have a lot of it in our house.

Books

John read this book today for the first time.  It's probably the longest book he's ever read on his own.  And I got a video of him reading it, which I was going to post, but it ended up being over 10 minutes long so now I'm thinking I won't.  He did great though.  He's getting a little frustrated with level 2 of 1st grade phonics because "the words just keep getting harder."  So today I had him read this to boost his confidence a bit.


And I've had Bella start reading the Magic Tree House books herself.  I had already read several out loud to them and they love them.  I'm having her read one chapter a day to me and she's doing awesome.

Making Juice

We got a new juicer and we all love it.  The kids (and Corey) find it very entertaining to juice things.  You can also use it to make pasta, peanut butter and frozen treats.  The kids still don't know about the frozen treat option on it though.  It should come in handy this summer, much healthier than ice cream.

We started our day off making juice.  Apple for the kids and pear, pineapple, strawberry for me.  Yesterday I made them carrot/apple juice and even John liked it.  I also made a carrot, kale, cucumber, celery, apple mixture and Bella actually liked it.  John thought it was gross, no surprise there though it does take some getting used to.  Just goes to show though that Bella really does like everything.

Electricity

We learned a bit about electricity today in science and the book gave an example of rubbing a balloon in your hair and how it stands up.  We had extra balloons from the vinegar and baking soda so we pulled one out.  They all had fun playing around.  Then they moved on to rubbing their hair against the couch and shocking each other's noses, which totally freaked Phoebe out and the fun was over rather quickly.

Quote of the Week

Most of the southbound interstate signs around here say Las Vegas and Bella realized that for the first time today.  She screamed with excitement from the backseat today.

"Mom, Mom!  It's says Las Vegas, turn here!"

If only it was that easy.  Corey later explained to her that Las Vegas is 6 hours away.  But we assured her we'd be going this summer.

Baking Soda and Vinegar part 2

This time it was John's turn to blow up a balloon with baking soda and vinegar.  And we let Phoebe do it too.  Neither of them had watched Bella do hers so it was new and exciting.

And I figured out where they had seen of video of this activity.  I downloaded a free episode of Mister Roger's Neighborhood to their iPods and in that episode Bill Nye the science guy is the guest star and does this activity.

A letter

We got a bunch of these animals cards and envelopes in the mail last week so I gave them to Bella.  She went nuts writing everyone letters and giving them out.  This one though she got to address and take to the post office.  So someone special should be getting a cute bear card in the mail soon.  And if you're reading this and you get the card, she's expecting a phone call in return.

I love this girl

I was trying to take a picture of Phoebe coloring and Hazel demanded I take her picture.

The best toys aren't really toys

I set up this activity for Hazel today to work on her fine motor skills.  I put out pasta, cotton balls and straws and then gave her a bunch of different sized jars and some bags to put the items in.  Also spoons to help transfer things.

She prefered to use her hands to pick things up but did use the spoon a lot when I encouraged her to.  She loved it and played for about 45 minutes happily.  Even after we moved things to the side and started playing with other toys she kept going back and playing with the pasta.









Taking things out of the jars is just as much fun as putting them in.

Cloud Dough

I found this recipe for cloud dough (which is supposed to be similar to moon sand I guess) and thought we'd give it a try.  So late last night after all the younger kids were asleep Bella and I made some.  The recipe is 8 cups flour and 1 cup baby oil, but we made a half batch.

Bella had fun measuring everything herself.


Put all the flour in the bowl


Measuring the oil


add the oil


and mix it all up


And play




It behaves like wet sand.  And since I love the smell of baby oil it smells great too.  It is quite messy but very easy to clean up.

Cake!

We rarely have cake or any dessert at all around here.  I'm not much of a sweet tooth but we had a box of cake mix in the pantry so I decided to make it yesterday.  I let Bella make the frosting.  The store bought frosting I had on the shelf expired over two years ago, that shows how rarely we do cake around here.



Bella wanted red frosting, as that's her favorite color right now. 


It of course ended up pink so we switched it to purple.




The best part

Baking Soda and Vinegar

Last week we were learning about chemical energy in science and the example given was the reaction of baking soda and vinegar.  We played around with both last summer and the kids loved it.  They remembered something they saw in a video though about blowing up a balloon on a bottle and wanted to try that.  So I picked up balloons on my last shopping trip and today we gave it a shot.  Well Bella did anyway, John's grounded and hasn't got to do it yet.  He'll get to do it later.











She loved it, as you can see in the pictures.  Now she wants to blow up a ton of balloons and leave them on bottles to decorate the house for Hazel's birthday next month.  I think that's a pretty cool idea.