Snowy Eve

NEXT VICTIMS?: Today we started down the path of another science experiment. This time we'll be trying to grow "prehistoric monsters" called Triops.

Our first steps today involved reading all the directions and setting up their tank (filling it with sand, water and their 'castle'). Tomorrow, we'll put the triops eggs in the tank and hope like hell we don't kill 'em all.
In reading up on triops, I learned that hundreds of thousands of them were taken to space on STS-121 in July of 2006. They hung out on the International Space Station for six months before returing to Earth in late December.

TAKE NOTE: Tuesday is Musikgarten day, so this morning we made sure the kids were caught up on their homework. They had to copy some note pattern cards into their workbooks, and locate those same note patterns in the song "Canoe Song."
MEGA MATH: Today we reached the end of Chapter 5 in the kids' math books. That meant it was time for a review exercise, which was four pages long and included addition, subtraction, some weight-related stuff, less than, greater than, multiplication and division. It was a bit daunting at first. "This is impossible," Annabelle whined.

"No it isn't, Annabelle. Nothing is impossible!" CJ said with gusto. And then they each powered through the pages and only missed one problem apiece. I was very proud of them.

HOW GOES IT: I realize we should have done some helicopter education ahead of their flight on Saturday, but figuring it was better late than never, today I found some great info - including an informative video on the How Stuff Works Web site.

ROOT, ROOT, ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAM: We spent a significant amount of time yesterday getting ready for the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) game last night, pitting Oregon vs. Auburn for the national championship. (I heard on the radio today that game was the highest rated cable broadcast EVER. Amazing.)


We cooked and decorated and cooked and then cooked some more. About the third quarter Annabelle handed Christian and me a note labeled 'privite' on one side. The other side said ...I thought it was pretty darn cute. :)


GREAT GAME: This afternoon Annabelle was playing with the wonderful Nintendo DSi XL. She was playing a Brain Age game - which is actually many games. And one of the games shows the player a list of words for X amount of time, and then the words disappear and the player has to write as many of them as they can recall.


SNOW GO: We very nearly didn't go to yoga today because snow was in the forecast for this evening and I reeeeally didn't want to be stuck up on Beacon Hill in a snowstorm. However, when 4 o'clock came and it was snow free, I decided to take a chance.


Mercifully, the snow held off until about 7 this evening, more than an hour after we were back home from yoga. The kids (and Christian) played outside in the snow for a good half hour - all after bedtime. But it was now or never, as the white stuff is supposed to disappear early tomorrow.