Moosh in a baggie

Last night I cleaned out my 5th grader's backpack to find a ziploc baggie full of an unidentifiable moosh that made me gag from the smell!  I asked, "What IS this, and how long has it been in the bottom of your backpack?"  His answer? "I don't know"!!  At what point do boys actually become capable of organizing and taking care of things before they become moosh in a baggie!

The Leprechauns came again!

Did you know that leprechauns visit us at our house?  They do!  They come during the night.  This year we discovered a new secret... if you draw a picture of a leprechaun and leave it in your shoe outside your door, the leprechauns will take you picture and leave you a treat.  We should have copied our pictures before the leprechaun took them.  We will have to remember next year.   They were really cute!  The leprechauns left us rainbow licorice and Rolo gold.

They also left us a treasure hunt!  The night before, we always leave our little pot out on the kitchen table.  When the leprechauns visit they fill the pot with toys and gold coins and then hide it.  Their footprints lead us to the first clue of our riddle treasure hunt!

The excitement didn't end there!  During our green St. Patrick's Day dinner we had another surprise.  We were busy eating our green linguine, broccoli, asparagus, green grapes, apples and kiwi with sourdough bread, when from the chandelier, one of the light covers and lightbulb fell onto the bread plate in the middle of the table shattering everthing and spreading glass shards over the entire surface of the table!  It seems the ring securing the light cover failed and it all came down.  Needless to say, dinner was over more quickly than anticipated.

Jordan, future mechanical engineer!

Jordan recently had a simple machines fair at his school.  He worked really hard to design and build his machine.  He understood the usefulness of simple machines and demonstrated how they can be used.  And he did it all himself!  I am so proud of him!

Extra! Extra! Christian goes to District

Christian and his partner Gideon recieved a Superior rating at the school history fair with their amazing website that they designed and created.  As a result they had the opportunity to participate in the District Fair.  I was so proud of them!  Not only did they learn about their topic, The debate between Neville Chamberlain and Hitler, but they learned to create an amazing website! 

If you are interested in checking it out, go to: http://www.greatdebates.moonfruit.net

Emma on modesty

I was listening in on a conversation from the backseat between the two girls.  They had the Ariel Barbie and Jenna asked why her tummy was showing.  We have been working to teach our girls about dressing modestly and I have wondered how to handle the competing world views.  As I scrambled in my brain to come up with an explanation they could understand and accept, Emma beat me to it with a much better explanation than I was preparing.  I was ready to dive into the fact that not everyone has the same standards that we do and the fact that the makers of the doll don't think or believe the same things we do etc etc.... 

Emma's explanation was perfect.  "She is a mermaid and lives in the water.  If she wore a long shirt in the water it would get very wet and heavy.  When she becomes a girl she covers her tummy."   I need to retrain my brain.  Perfect simplicity!