"Why yes, yes it is," I replied in all honesty. I knew we were going out this afternoon for a Christmasy photo-opp and of course CJ had to be wearing a horrific, bold, seasonal sweater for the occasion.
And so, he donned the cotton acrylic blend and buttoned up the peppermint candy swirl buttons. And - I think he rather liked it. I think his favorite part was hearing himself jingle as he spazzed about the house.
This afternoon, CJ, his ugly sweater, and the rest of us headed to Swanson's Nursery. It's a holiday tradition for us, since moving to Seattle, as evidenced here - a (photoshopped) pic of the kids when they were much younger in Swanson's sleigh.
As you can see in the lead-in photo in today's blog, Swanson's upgraded their sleigh this year - the new one is bigger and better. But we HAD to wedge both the kids into the old one for, well, old time's sake.
Other attractions at Swanson's include Curly and Moe, a camel and a donkey. We were happy that they were awake when we arrived. Seems like the last couple of years they've been snoozing when we showed up.
Curly the camel was busy eating. The kids tried to feed her/him some hay, but it wasn't interested, and so we just watched it chomp.
The nursery also has some reindeer (Donner and Blitzen, in case you were wondering).
The reindeer were, shall we say, rather low energy. Annabelle and CJ theorize that they're conserving their resources for their around-the-world trip on Christmas Eve.
The nursery also has a sweet model train setup.
One of the scenes depicted in their railroad world had a gold prospecting/Yukon theme, which the kids loved.
Another vignette had a Northwest Native theme, which fit nicely into a book we read together this morning...
LIVE AND LEARN: This morning we read a library book, "Secret of the Dance," a story by Andrea Spalding and Alfred Scow, with illustrations by Darlene Gait. It's about a Native American boy and his family who spirit away by boat to a clandestine location in order to hold a Potlatch ceremony. They did this at great risk as these ceremonies were outlawed by the Canadian government at the time. According to this book, during this period of prohibition, Aboriginal people were forced to hold their ceremonials in secrecy, and risked prison and the removal of their cultural artifacts - and even their children - if they were discovered.
We loved the book's bold, colorful illustrations. They inspired our morning art project. The kids each designed a Native-inspired mask.
CJ decided to do a bear mask. I love it. :)
Annabelle opted for a raven mask, tho I must say, it reminds me more of a parrot. :)
She wore it quite a bit today.
HAPPY HOURS: Early this afternoon, we watched a video, "Pulleys and Levers," part of the great The Science of Disney Imagineering series. We absolutely LOVE these videos - they feature great science lessons and are presented in a completely engaging way.
The kids were absolutely rapt during the entire program. They learned lots about simple machines, and how levers and pulleys make work easier by either multiplying or redirecting effort. We learned the formulas for
calculating mechanical advantage given effort and resistance.
In a "bonus" test along with the video, the kids did really well, which is great, considering the subject matter is rated grades 5-8.
Late this afternoon, while visiting a new-to-us Mexican restaurant, we used a margarita glass to experiment with levers.
When the glass was put far away from the fulcrum and they didn't have much lever to use, the kids found the glass was relatively heavy and hard to lift using a short lever.
However, if they had a long stretch over which to apply their effort/energy, it was a breeze to lift the glass using the lever.
Nothing like happy hour engineering. ;) Consider it science AND social studies. After all, today marks the anniversary of the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment (December 5, 1933).
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