Oliver's aquarium

A couple of weeks ago, Oliver decided to build a Lego aquarium. He worked on it for about an hour the first day, then another hour or so the following day. He announced that he was done, and asked me to come look at it.

Confession here -- sometimes Oliver's Lego creations all kind of look the same to me. (Is that terrible?) I'm proud of him, and I tell him so. I'm glad that he loves Legos so much, and I love watching him work, but . . . to me they usually look like the same kind of thing. A long, flat building or a long boat, or a big police station with all of the same kinds of stuff in it. (He is totally awesome though! I love how his mind works!)

So at first, I saw this and I said, "Yay!! It looks great!" without really looking at it.

And then I got closer and saw all of the detail that he'd put into his aquarium.

One side is two levels, with a parking garage underneath and animal tanks above:

This is one of my favorite details -- a long walkway leading from the parking garage to the admissions window:

Here's the attendant sitting at his desk, waiting for customers:

Inside, past the walkway, is the animal research control center, where marine biologists observe the animals. (At first glance, I thought this was a kitchen, ha ha.)

Oliver also used the windows from his airport to make a shark tank:

And there's also a sea snake exhibit, with a chicken for the snake to eat. :-)

He also made a security desk with a security camera, a small fish tank, a touch pool, and a gift shop. :-)

Pretty cool!

Pictures of the baby boy

I was playing with some of the features on my camera and took these pictures of the cute little fat boy. Enjoy! :-)

Water . . . er, mud table

Last week, the sweet baby boy had his second ear infection (9 days after the first one!). This time, his ear was so infected that it was draining out of his eye. :-( When he woke up on Friday morning, his eye was so swollen that he could barely open it, poor baby. But he was still mostly happy (although he didn't want to be too far away from his mommy!).

By the afternoon, he was feeling a little bit better, and his eye wasn't nearly as swollen. He was the happiest outside, so I pushed him in the swing for a long time, and since it was a warm afternoon, I set up the water table for the big kids to play.

After a while, Theodore wanted to get down (but putting him down on the grass leads to him eating grass, which leads to me fishing grass out of his mouth, which leads to baby tantrums), so he and I went in the sunroom to play while the older ones stayed at the water table.

Then I heard lots of whooping and (happy) yelling coming from the back yard, and I looked out to find that this:

. . . had turned into this:

Ha ha. Why do they always make mud? Never mind, I know. Because mud is fun. :-)

Homemade bouncy balls

We tried another fun experiment last week . . . we attempted to make bouncy balls (another great suggestion from my fabulous friend, Shelly)! I found these directions, and we got to work.

Here's what you'll need:

--borax powder

--cornstarch (not pictured)

--warm water

--Elmer's glue

--cups, measuring spoons, food coloring, craft sticks for stirring, ziplock baggies for storage

Label one cup for the ball mixture and one cup for the borax mixture.

Mix 2 tbsp of warm water with 1/2 tsp of borax into the cup labeled "borax", stir until borax is dissolved. Add food coloring in this step.

(I'm not sure why Oliver looks so grouchy in this picture, ha ha.)

Pour 1 tbsp of glue into the cup labeled "ball", and add 1/2 tsp of the borax mixture, and 1 tbsp of cornstarch.

Let it sit without stirring for several seconds, then stir.

When the mixture becomes too stiff to stir, take it out and mold with your hands. The kids really liked this part!

After a couple of minutes of manipulation, the mixture will be very smooth, not sticky, and will be able to be formed into a ball.

Unfortunately, ours didn't bounce very much! We tried them immediately after, several minutes later, and a couple of hours later, and they never bounced very high off of the driveway. I guess we'll just try again some other time since my little scientists are always up for experimenting! :-)

Making butter

We have a National Geographic Kids book with lots of easy science experiments, and Oliver wanted to try one the other day. We picked the one that showed how to make butter from heavy cream, since it was one of the easiest and we already had half and half in the fridge!

Pour some cream into a container with a tight-fitting lid. Make sure you leave enough room for the cream to be shaken well.

Then start shaking! Shake, shake, shake. The book said to shake vigorously and continuously for 10 minutes. Needless to say, my kids didn't last that long. ;-)

After a minute or so, I took over and shook the containers for another 3 or 4 minutes. Even after that short time, we could already start to see some butter on the top of the cream!

By that point, Mr. Theodore had reached the end of his patience, so I scooped the butter out. We didn't end up with much, but it was just enough for a fun experiment and two grilled cheese sandwiches. :-)

A new computer, and spending time with my big girl

Early last week, my computer abruptly died, and I may have lost everything on the hard drive. Boo. On the bright side, I had already printed most of my pictures, so I have copies of those. We bought a new computer, which came in the mail today! (Yippee!) It's nice. And fast! And purple.

Anyway. On Saturday mornings, Dennis takes Oliver out for Dangerous Boy Time, to do things like rock climbing, exploring, etc (and going to the Lego store. :-)). That way, Oliver gets to do all of the fun, crazy stuff that he wants to do but can't do when there's also a 3 year old and 9 month old around. While they're gone, Buttercup and I get to spend time together while Theodore takes his morning nap! We usually play with Play Doh, but last weekend she was bored with it and wanted to make a craft with cupcake liners instead.

I'm so glad for this time together, because my Buttercup is such a hysterically funny little girl. She is so crazy. :-)