Part One -- A Little Housekeeping

And now on to our regularly scheduled programming. The next few posts have been in the works for a few weeks now. To prevent information overload I've divided the past month into a 3-part miniseries to recap the events as they've been set in motion. This first segment is entitled "a little housekeeping." So here we go.

The last few weeks have been CRAZY. We found out on May 12th that Scott got the job in St. Louis; a whirlwind of activity ensued as a whole lot of painting, patch-ups, cleaning, and organizing were done; we listed the house a couple weeks later just in time for Memorial Day weekend; and since then we have somehow managed to keep it all (somewhat) clean in the interim. But before all THAT, there was all of THIS going on...

Science Experiments:It's been a while now, but I'm sure you're all dying to find out what happened with Ethan's science experiment. I can safely say that neither a chicken nor a bouncy ball emerged from the eggs. Hahaha. Here is what did happen:

The vinegar (which is an acid) dissolved the egg shell (which is made of calcium carbonate) and left in its place a rubbery alter-ego that, to some degree or another, looked and behaved like a water balloon. It was interesting to note that the three different types of vinegar "cooked" the eggs to varying degrees of "done-ness." Since I am not a real scientist and I don't care enough about this experiment to find out why this is so, I'll simply let the pictures do the talking for the rest of this segment.

Up first -- The Rice Vinegar Egg

The bouncy ball did not make it past the second bounce.


Next -- The White Vinegar Egg

Ethan carefully taking the egg out of the jar.


This one handled a slightly higher drop before bursting.


And finally -- The Balsamic Vinegar Egg

Dropping the ball (it bounced a few times).


And sticking a fork in it.
The yolk had the texture of a not-quite-hard-boiled-egg.

Yard/Bake Sales:
And we're moving on. I believe I mentioned in the last mammoth post that the kids were hounding me to have a yard sale with all the junk that was collected during our spring cleaning frenzy. I finally gave in after I realized that it wouldn't take all that much effort on my part (after all I already had bags of stuff ready to go to Goodwill), and that it would really make the kids happy. But of course, nothing is THAT simple, and those greedy little opportunists quickly seized upon my moment of weakness and began clamoring for a Bake Sale as well. Two dozen peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, three dozen oatmeal scotchies, and four dozen cupcakes later we were all set. Luckily for me there was no fighting over who was going to sell what. In a rare moment of agreement Grace claimed sale of the cupcakes and Ethan eagerly took over the cookies.

The Saturday morning of the Yard/Bake sale dawned rosy and bright. After being postponed for about 3 weekends in a row, the kids were FINALLY able to fulfill all their hopes and dreams. Ethan helped Scott post signs around town, Grace and Sophie "helped" me set up shop in our driveway, and sweet little Jane gamely hung out in the Jumperoo while all the hustle and bustle went on around her. {for the record -- Jane wins the super champ award for the last month of life}.

Four hours later and it was all over. By some providential stroke of luck, Ethan and Grace each "earned" exactly 4 dollars with their baked goods. I'm not quite sure how this happened -- seeing as to how the cupcakes were a much hotter commodity than the cookies -- but I was there the whole time and to the best of my knowledge there was no money laundering involved. Funniest line of the day? -- Grace screaming "I don't want to tithe!" while running into the house after we told the kids that they would be able to pay tithing on their money at church the next day. Hahahahaha. A mini life lesson was learned after I broke it down for her and showed her what a tiny amount of tithing she would have to pay compared to what she got to keep. After all 10% of four dollars is not all that much. Oh and another thing that is not all the much? The $23.75 we made off of our Yard Sale that day. Hahahahahaha. Oh well, next time we'll try and create some better publicity. All that really mattered was that all the leftover junk was swiftly loaded up when the sale was over and taken directly to Goodwill. Go was not passed and $200 was not collected. Hahaha. (Everyone loves a good Monopoly joke, right? RIGHT?? hahaha).

Getting set-up

Grace moody about something.

How can you NOT want to support this Bake Sale? Hahahaha.

And Goodwill-bound.

Random funny picture -- later in the day I looked out the kitchen window to check on the kids and this was the scene I saw: All three sitting stock-still and staring into our neighbor's backyard. A little disconcerting, no? With a bit of follow-up I discovered they were actually being entranced by the mesmerizing act of a tree being chopped down.

Class Plays:
The closing weeks of school held a host of activities for our little scholar. First on the docket was that class play alluded to in a previous post. Luckily for me, Ethan accepted my idea for his "simple dog costume" -- I had him turn his black skeleton jammies inside out, glued two black socks to a headband for ears, and told him I'd be there beforehand to blacken his nose with eyeliner. A lovely idea in theory. Of course, getting anywhere on TIME these days is an unattainable feat, so what happened in reality is that we BARELY made it to the school on time and (because we have awesome luck) Ethan's group was the first to perform. Oh well. He didn't look much like a dog (I actually heard a parent behind me asking a friend what animal he was supposed to be when it was his turn to speak) but I don't think he realized it and that's all that matters, right? Hahaha. What we all realized, however, was that being in a stuffy cafeteria on a blazing hot day in an un-air-conditioned school might be construed as torture. I don't do well when I'm hot.

Waiting for the play to start.

Enjoying his part.

The Gingerbread Man group.

(No seriously, this is possibly the lamest costume creation I've ever come up with.)

Research Projects:
Also tied in with Ethan's end of the year festivities was his first ever Research Project! His assigned animal was the Eagle and after checking a stack of books out from the library I helped him set up some categories of information he wanted to find out (such as where they live, what they eat, what they look like, etc.), helped him read through some of the books to find answers, and then let him write his facts down and organize them into the right category. Throughout the whole entire process he was VERY concerned about plagiarism -- apparently his teacher had a big talking to them about it at the beginning of the assignment -- and that was one of the main concerns that fed into the several melt-downs he experienced before the project was done. All-in-all I think it was a very successful beginning to his academic career. Hahaha. To be honest, Ethan is my mini-me. He reminds me so much of myself sometimes, it's scary! I remember freaking out over the stupidest stuff when I was kid that wasn't even a big deal. Not that I'm saying plagiarism isn't a big deal. But you know what I mean.

Along with the report they had to create a visual aid. After several attempts to dissuade him from making a diorama (what is it with elementary school and dioramas?) I finally helped him to see the light of day and convinced him to create a poster instead (much easier and cheaper, not to mention he could do it ALL BY HIMSELF -- always a perk when it comes to school projects). He wrote the report all by himself and I merely typed it up for him when done. Here are the results:

-->

Ethan's Report on Bald Eagles

Bald eagles live in really big nests. They can be six feet across. Bald eagles live by rivers and in tall trees. Eagles’ nests are called “aeries.” Bald eagles’ eggs are white and sometimes they have spots. The eggs are pretty much three inches long. The mother will lay two or three eggs at a time. Baby eagles are called eaglets. Usually only the strongest eaglet will survive because they will kill the other birds that hatch. They are covered with soft fluffy grayish-white feathers called down when they are born. There are 59 different types of eagles. There is the boot eagle because its feet look like boots. There is the golden eagle too. It’s called the golden eagle because it is goldish. The bald eagle is just one of the types. The bald eagle is a bird that is a member of the sea and fish eagle group. The bald eagle is not really bald it is really just a brown bird with white feathers on his head. Its body is blackish-brownish. Its head, neck and tail are white. Its feet and beak are yellow. Eagles usually weigh between 7 and 12 pounds. Eagles can grow up to be 3 feet tall. The bald eagle eats fish, small mammals, water birds, and dead animals. Sometimes the bald eagle hunts in pairs. The bald eagles mostly eat fish. Eagles have large wings and can glide through the air a very good distance. When the eagle soars, the feathers of its long wings spread out just like fingers and then they bend up at the tips. They usually live to be 25 years old. The bald eagle used to be endangered -- this means that there weren't that many left. In 1963 there were less than 1,000 bald eagles left in the world. In 2007 there were like 20,000. So they are not endangered anymore. Eagle feathers are hollow and very light. The bald eagle is the symbol of the United States of America. The end.

The end indeed.

Coming up next time on the miniseries of May!

Part Two: A Whole Lot of House
(and here's a sneak peak):

It's the mama bear's bed and the baby bear's bed. But which one is Goldilocks??