Birthday Party Battles

This week ended our bean seed science experiment.  We learned that seeds need water, warmth, and air to wake up from their dormant state.  However, they also need sunlight to make their own food so they can grow.  These were shocking results to all.  Caroline was proud of her growing seed.  We sort of destroyed the ecosystem within the plastic bag by opening up the top to allow it to grow taller.  Josiah's seed, which sat in a dark closet, did awaken by opening up, but with no sunlight it did not grow more than a little root.  Henry's seed, which sat in the refrigerator, didn't even shed it's testa (seed coat).  Simple experiment, but a good teaching tool for them to see what would happen.

Josiah started off his week showing quite the initiative.  He was waking up at 5:30/6:00 a.m. and immediately started his school work.  His goal was to finish school by 10:00 a.m. He did a great job on what he accomplished, though he didn't quite finish by 10:00.  The problem of his finishing early was that he went to play with Caroline while I continued to work with Henry.  The result was lots of yelling and fighting from upstairs.  So, finishing school early: awesome.  Lacking self-control when playing dolls with your sister: not so awesome.

For one of our history lessons, the activity was to make paper bead necklaces.  The kids rolled a triangular piece of paper around a pencil, gluing it's end so it remained in a 'tube' shape when slid off the pencil.  Once dry, all the tubes were strung on a piece of yarn for a necklace.  No one actually wore their necklace and most will probably end up in the trash in a few days when I see them on the floor.  But we can say they worked on their fine motor skills and had fun with it.

Our CC group had a field trip to see the Snake Man this week.  We had to drive nearly an hour to a library in a different county because none of the libraries in our county would let Snake Man take his snakes out of their containers, which pretty much defeated the purpose of his visit.  We saw Snake Man a few years back, but it is always good to have a refresher course on snakes, especially in this part of the country.  Clearly, from his presentation, this man loves his snakes.

After the talking came the touching.  I touched a couple, and though they felt cool, I made myself photographer for our group, so conveniently I could not hold one.  Someone had to capture the magical moments!!  Josiah did touch some, he held one, and he was pretty into it.  Henry touched some and was definitely interested, but he didn't hold one until the end (and another mom got that picture).  Caroline looked at them, but spent most of her time chatting with the girls from her class.  Caroline keeps telling them that they're all invited to her birthday party.  The birthday party that only she is planning for MARCH!


Henry got his New England Patriot's lunches this week.  I missed the simplicity of Caroline's meals last week: butterfly, smiley face, etc.  Plus, most days I had to explain the meal - not exactly showing skills if you have to ask what it all was.  So, in order of the pictures, we had: #12 (Tom Brady's jersey number); Rob Gronkowski's face complete with black under-eye make-up, bandaids, and gauze (because Todd says he gets injured a lot - I personally have no idea); hot dog football on the grass, with the added deflated balloon to pay homage to the Deflategate which put the Patriots into Super Bowl XLIX; and finally a football helmet.  The helmet apple looked better in my mind.  In reality, it looked like a messed up apple, so the tired looking ping pong ball face seemed to make it all just come together.  I don't think Henry's going to ask me to use my paltry creative skills in the future.


The kids were super excited to get a package from Grandma & Grandpa this week.  It was filled with all sorts of chocolates, cookies, and candies, as well as some toys.  They have been feasting on it all weekend (and sometimes even with permission).  When you see candy wrappers on the countertop at 7:00 a.m. and a sheepish grin from the transgressor....uh-huh.

New football, hair bands, and giant magnet!

Here is one such transgressor dressed as Luigi from Super Mario Bros.

We had a super busy weekend with birthday parties.  All of Josiah's classmates are turning 10 this year so it is turning into a big party year.  Yesterday's party was a Nerf Gun War.  After food and cupcakes at the house, we all walked to the park to have their Nerf gun battle.  This was Josiah getting himself ready.

They played until the boys were all sweaty and smelly before heading back to the birthday boy's house.  The parents were brave to allow all those stinky, sweaty boys back in their house.  I thought their foyer said it all.  At least they were all respectful and took off their shoes.

Henry had a birthday party today for his friend from CC.  They had a bouncy house in their backyard so the kids went from bounce house fun to Bay Blade battles and back again.  Bay Blades are the hottest thing in their age group.  They are these spinny top things that "battle" it out in a plastic arena thing.  I don't know if they go for whose spins the longest or whose knocks whose down.  However they do it, it's incredibly entertaining for 6-11 year-old boys.  (Both our boys always ask to go to CC early so they can get some battles in before the day officially begins.)  Towards the end of the party they had a pinata, but instead of hitting it with a stick, this one had a bunch of ribbons on the bottom.  Each kid held onto a ribbon and when they all pulled together, the bottom fell out.  I think somewhere, someone got whacked a little too hard with a pinata stick and sat down to reinvent the pinata.  Henry had a great time and brought home lots of candy to share with his siblings.

It was an exhausting weekend, but a fun one for the boys especially.  Caroline's going to try and talk her classmates into having birthday parties when she gets to CC this week.  And so begins another week.