Science before school

So Kieran, my oldest, is programmed to wake up before 7 am every day. His bus doesn't come until 8:50 so we've often got almost 2 hours to fill before school. This morning he decided to read this scholastic book about digestion called You've got GUTS. Skip to the picture here. He decided he wanted to draw a picture of how food flows through the digestive system. I labeled it as he told me the parts. When Mihir woke up and stumbled into the kitchen. He decided we needed to add a piece of fake bacon in the stomach in the picture. Such little scientists!
{Ps after this endeavour they were planning the angry birds theme park. :-)}

Star wars training dojo

Big man came home from school having done a star wars obstacle course in PE. It got him psyched about making his own game at home. First up hit darth vadar's light saber. Next guess who I am-darth vadar or chewbacca. Last but not least star wars hangman. Too cute. Love his creativity.

The sicko and the sunshine

Today is gorgeous! Like sunniest day we've had in weeks beauty of a day. Little man has no school so you'd think we'd be outside somewhere enjoying all this sun. But alas he is sick. Hacking cough, runny nose, low grade fever sick. So, instead of basking outside, or doing yard work, or walking the block, we're inside keeping our germs and cranky selves to ourselves. {and believe me we are cranky!} I hope those of you lucky enough to be experiencing this awesome weather are out there using up our share.

Our very own beach

We went to Mihir's school carnival a few weeks back and the theme was a beach. As part of the decorations the teachers cut out crabs and lobsters and put the kiddos faces on them. When the event was over everyone got to bring their creature home.
Fast forward to this week in my living room. Mihir decided we needed to make a beach for the crab. So we grabbed my 'sand' colored comforter to be the beach, a blue blanket for the water, and I cut out lots of creatures to join the crab including a shark, a jellyfish, and a few baby crabs. Oh and Mihir made a yellow circle which we hung from the ceiling as the sun. Pretty creative little man!

Bean Castle

So I have been making a farm for Mihir. He wanted little felt animals so I said-okay. What was I thinking? I'll post the results of that endeavor later.
Anyhow I filled the little guys with beans, split peas and lentils. Mihirhaf such a fun time sticking his hands through the mix. He decided that it was kind of like playing in sand. The sand comparison led him to thinking about sand castles which led him to make his bean castle.
A piece of white paper, glue spread in the shape of a castle and dumping beans made a great little project. Although if I had to do it again I would have had him work on a cookie sheet. A little too many run away lentils for my taste.

Family art time

Once agin we spent some time doing art together. Mihir played with his gak and tested how well it left marks on the paper. Kieran drew pages and pages of his Ben10 inspired creations. Subu painted a landscape he found in a book. I attempted to paint a picture of myself. Can't tell if our art time is improving our techniques or just providing together non-battling time.

Ooooo oobleck!

So after big bro decided he didn't want to Gak anymore, little man and I made oobleck. It's basically cornstarch, water and a little food coloring. The ratio is 1 1/2 parts cornstarch to 1 part water. But you can adjust to make it more solid if you like-which we did. Anyhow it's cool because it acts like a solid and a liquid and feels really weird. As you can tell by the pictures Mihir loved it! Spent about an hour pouring and crushing, spilling and building. Good times.

Gak attack!

So my kiddos have been watching tv lately and seeing this gak commercial. "mom we have to buy it!".
Well I am not one to buy something I can just as easily make (or at least attempt to make). So this morning we made some slime/gak.

Super easy recipe:
1 bottle of elmers glue
Food coloring
Two plastic containers
Spoon
Two cups
Hot water
1 tsp or so Borax

So basically I took the glue and divided it between the two containers. I poured water into the glue bottle and shook it up to get all the glue out. Then I had each boy add their favorite color of food coloring and mix it up. Once they'd found the perfect color mix I filled the cups about half way with hot water. I added around 1 tsp of borax and stirred until it dissolved.
Then with them stirring I poured the borax water into the colored glue. Wahoo-it's gak!

A couple observations from the boys experience:
-gak will stick to a fabric napkin (and is a pain to get off)
-It's harder to make the gak fart then you'd think
-gak rolls and bounces really well
-you can break it and cut it
-it acts like a liquid and a solid "mom it's called a sliquid because it is a solid and a liquid.". Actually it's called a polymer but cool new word.
-for one kid playing with the gak was super fun and lasted for about an hour
-for the other making the gak was cool and playing with it was okay but the commercial made it seem way cooler

Luck o the Irish

So the boys decided to make a leprechaun trap. Kieran told me it was to catch a leprechaun so he'd show us how to get to the rainbow. I decided that the leprechaun would visit, turn the water in the toilet green, and leave them a little treat and a poem. Happy St Patrick's Day!

Happy Pi Day!

In honor of pi (pie) day we had faux sausage pot pie for dinner. I never think ahead so I made a krusteaz crust and threw in a bunch of veggies. Both boys actually ate it!

Obligatory snow in March picture

Title says it all folks. :-)

No, really it is mousse

The hubs went out with friends last night so the boys and I had to fend for ourselves. No big whoop. I was total slacker mom and let them watch tv for hours, eat their dinner in the living room, and have chocolate mousse for dessert. While they were eating their mousse I was making my dinner. All of the sudden I heard clank. Walked into the other room and saw kieran's bowl upside down on the carpet. No big deal. Asked him to pick it up, get a towel and wipe off the carpet. Then I turn my attention to Mihir.
That's when I see it. Chocolate Mousse ALL OVER HIS HANDS! On the couch. I grab him and drag him into the bathroom yelling at him about being so messy. I turn on the faucet and start cleaning and then see my face in the mirror. I look super mad. But why? So he's dirty? Big deal.
I take a deep breath. Chuck him in the tub. Get more chocolate mousse and let him go to town! He spread it all over the tub and himself. Then he had fun pretending he was a rescue hero putting out chocolate mousse fires r. Much more fun then screaming at him.

Captain underpants mighty return

So little man decided that captain underpants would make an appearance-first in the backyard and then the front. However he forgot that the temperature outside was 45 degrees and even though the sun was shining it was cold. Oh and there was a nice, brisk wind too. So the captain spent about 10 minutes outside and said to me "mommy it's cold can we go back inside?"

Nature walk with littlest man

So the sun is shining and little man and I decided to go on a nature walk around the neighborhood. These are all the pictures he had me take.
Moss in the sidewalk
The neighbor's tree
the landscape flag
Being Bigfoot in the tree
The Bigfoot tree trunk
The bird's nest
The pretty purple flowers
And the funniest part of the walk was that big man's bus was early and we had to run down the street to meet him. Luckily his bus driver waits.

Green eggs and hat pancakes

So in honor of dr. Seuss' birthday we busted out the green eggs and since we don't do the meat stuff so much at our house we made hat pancakes with stripes of jelly and peanut butter. The little dudes liked them and ate breakfast pretty quickly for once.
Also little man decided he just HAD to have a cat in the hat hat. In the past I had seen them at Target but not this year. So I had some red felt in my fabric stash, and was able to scrounge some white fabric too. I measured around his head circumference and then a did a makeshift compass to make a top. My measurements were off and my hat had some extra fabric but I made it work. And because he's 3 and not a stickler for quality control it worked just fine.

Mihir in his cat in the hat hat
Looked silly and he sure did like that
He had green eggs twice
And he played with friends nice
While his mom was so tired she just sat