Here's another fun experiment that we tried this week. It uses oil and water like the polar bear experiment, but this time Oliver and Buttercup were able to really see how oil and water do not mix.
You'll need:
an empty 2 liter plastic bottle, rinsed, with the cap
a large bottle of vegetable oil
water
liquid food coloring
a plastic cup
a funnel
First, fill a plastic cup with water, then add the food coloring of your choice (both of my little scientists prefer blue) and stir it up.
Pour the oil into the empty bottle until it's half full.
Then add the colored water to the bottle.
You'll see some pretty cool results immediately after adding the water.
Screw the lid on tight, then turn the bottle on its side and swish the contents around a little bit. 
Even after a little jiggling, you'll see that the colored water molecules are still not mixing with the oil:
Then -- the kids' favorite part! -- shake the bottle as hard as you can to see if you can get the oil and water to mix!
Immediately after, it does look like the oil and water mixed together. 
But 30 minutes later, it's easy to see that the oil and water are separating again:
And 10 hours later, they are almost completely separated. This is because oil is not as dense (heavy) as water, so the water sinks and the oil floats. 
I am getting so excited about Thanksgiving coming up next week! The leaves are finally changing and we did our first Thanksgiving craft yesterday morning. It was supposed to be a cardstock picture frame sized to fit an index card, but 1) I didn't have any cardstock, 2) or index cards, 3) and I couldn't find my exacto knife to cut the centers out straight. So they're a little misshapen. As most of our crafts are. ;-)
This is Buttercup's frame. She decorated the "frame" with crayon and marker doodles, then drew a picture of . . . something . . . in the blue box in the center. Above the box, I wrote the things that she is thankful for: candy, Mommy and Daddy, Aunt Anna, Grammy, markers, that God made me, Skylyn [Buttercup's friend] having her birthday, Theodore, Skylyn's mommy named Mrs. Jessica, Oliver, herself, pizza, the computer, pears, her striped shirt, and her Lightning McQueen sheet.
And here is Oliver's frame. He decorated the "frame" with crosses, and drew a picture of himself singing the Imperial March (ha ha ha ha ha!!!!) in the blue box in the center. Above it, I wrote what he is thankful for: God, Thanksgiving, Jesus, that God made the world and us, that He made Theodore be in our family, that God loves us and is in our hearts, and that turkeys are here so we can have Thanksgiving. 
I am definitely saving these frames to look back on in future years. :-) I just love my sweet babies!
So tonight I decided to try to make my own tex mex black bean burgers for dinner instead of using frozen. I was going to wing it, then I thought that I should probably try to find a real recipe just to make sure they were edible. Since it was the first time and all. I found a recipe that looked promising (and on the Meatless Monday website, no less!), and since we had all of the ingredients and we have a family of big eaters, I made a double batch.
Well, one of the steps involves a food processor. I don't have a food processor, so I used the blender to grind up my onion and bell pepper. It -- of course -- turned into orange mush, so I strained some of the (nutrient-rich!) liquid off and mixed the rest of the pulpy orange mess in with the beans and seasonings.
To wrap the rest of this up, the burgers baked for almost 20 minutes (it was supposed to be 10) and still were not firm or actually, any different in texture than they were before I put them in the oven.
Plus, they looked like a patty version of a dirty diaper. Tonight was one of those very, very few nights when I told the kids, "You can eat this, or you can have a sandwich instead." :-)
Despite the appearance and texture, the "burgers" tasted great, so Hubby and I wrapped them in tortillas with a little bit of cheese. Yum. Good thing they're tasty, because we have lots of leftovers.
I haven't chronicled our day in pictures in a while, not since Oliver was 2 and Buttercuppie was a baby. (Wow.) So I figured it would be fun to do it again now, about 2 1/2 years later, and see how things have changed. :-)
First, everyone woke up and we had breakfast:
(Ha ha, poor Buttercup. She is so not a morning person.)
After breakfast, Buttercup helped me take out the trash while Oliver got dressed.
Then it was Lego time.
And snuggle-on-the-rug time.
After I put the baby down for a nap . . . 
. . .I fixed a snack for the big kids . . . 
. . . then they made some drawings and played with dress up clothes.
After the little boy woke up . . . 
. . .we went to meet some friends at an indoor playground.
When we came home, it was time for lunch and rest/nap time for the big kids.
While Buttercup was napping and Oliver was resting, Theodore and I got to play by ourselves. Which mostly consisted of him beating up this sea turtle . . .
. . .and drooling on the couch.
All that playing makes a little fat boy tired! I put him down for another nap . . . 
. . . and then Oliver came out of his room since his rest time was over. I set him up with his LeapPad so I could drink my coffee and read some of my book . . .
. . . then he wanted to make Christmas gifts and cards for his preschool teachers. (Hey, sounded like the perfect idea to me! Less to do next month!) 
Buttercup joined us after she woke up . . .
. . . and Theodore joined the party about 30 minutes later.
Since everyone was up and it was a chilly but dry day, we went outside for a nature walk. 
She makes the funniest facial expressions!
While we were out walking, Oliver thought he dropped one of the darts for his Nerf gun (it was actually still attached to the gun, but he didn't realize it until we got back home). So, naturally, he had to use his telescope eye to look for it.
His telescope eye wasn't working too well, so he had to use his night vision goggles. (Maybe if he'd used his regular eyes he would have noticed that it was still with his gun.)
Theodore was content the entire time we were walking! This bodes well for future runs with the jogging stroller.
After we got home, the big kids went in the back yard to swing while I went in to fix dinner.
But they got too cold (the high was 60 degrees today, brrr!), so they came back in for more Legos . . .
. . . and playing on the rug.
The rest of the day was a little too busy for more pictures, but involved things like eating dinner, complaining about dinner, playing with blocks again, playing outside in the dark, taking baths and going to bed. Another fun day with my fun little people!
