MythBusters...

This week was book fair at the elementary school.

When I was a kid, I L-O-V-E LOVED book fair. The shiny new books, the jars of sparkly pencils, boy band posters, calculators in neon colors. Sigh...love. So naturally, when it was time for my own children to experience book fair, I was pretty excited.

Alas, book fair is not the wonderland of possibilities to a parent as it is to a child.

Pretty much here's how it goes... "Can have these?"... "Those are HOW much?".. "Why can't we get more books?"... "Stop taking all those books off the shelf!"... "What a ripoff!"... "Why do we always have to get books at the library?!"... "No, I will not buy anymore sticky hands"... Sad.

Even with all the frustration, I still have those fond memories of book fairs so long ago, so each year I will buy one book from the book fair.

This year Aidan picked this book. It's basically a book of kitchen science type myths, with experiments and "myth-busting" activities for kids at home. Naturally, Aidan couldn't wait to get started, so off we go a myth-busting!

Armed with 4 dollars worth of supplies from the candy and soda aisles, the setup begins.



Sophie, anxiously awaiting zero hour...



The boys consult to develop the best plan for optimum explosiveness.



The joy of science!



Final instructions...



Ready to run...



4...3...2...1...



Thar she blows!





Great fun! This weekend we will attempt lemon powered LED lights and how to stop hot chili pepper burn. Sweet.

HALLOWEEN!

It's Halloween at the house of spooks.
Ghosts and goblins have us shaking in our boots!

Aidan finally settled on zombie for his costume this year after mulling over some very diverse ideas (including two headed dragon and wizard with a jet pack). Bren did a pretty good job with the gore. He made the suit jacket out of a black sweatshirt and scrap fabric.







Here come the others...



Little tink spreading pixie dust. Sophie had a great party at her preschool yesterday. It included t-shirt painting, halloween games, trick or treat and a pinata to wrap it all up. Pretty fancy for sure.





Asher finally let me put on his gnome hat. Here he is guarding the front door.



On a break from guard duty. Even gnomes need technology breaks.



Daphne knew exactly who she wanted to be very early on. Her costume earned her first place in the church costume contest.





Bren decided to break out the Moses costume complete with a new and improved beard made of polyester quilt batting. His efforts earned him first place in the adult church costume contest as well.





Sophie says, But mom, what is Halloween for?
I say, To dress up, get candy, and put up spooky decorations.
Sophie says, Cool.

Yes it is.

Things I love...

Favorites:

Fall - It has finally arrived. This morning's air was truly "crisp".

A visit from a friend sorely missed. And now missed some more.

Leftovers from a birthday lunch - taste even better in bed with a book.

When happy kids run into the backyard yelling things like "FOR NARNIA!" and "That stick is not the only source of my power!".

Amazon super saver shipping.

Walks with good friends - the best therapy.

New fabric - The colors. The patterns. The perfect folds. The smell even.

General Conference Women's Broadcast - Can't wait.

Tiny, lawn mowing, baby butt.



I hope your week has been equally lovely.
Emilee

The Dog Days

Ah Summer, where have you gone? Summer answers: "Nowhere, I'm staying forever."
It's been 100+ degrees here for nearly three months and it shows no signs of breaking. Today was the first day of school and I believe we hit 105. I had sweat running down my back before we even got from the car to the school doors. Anyway, I thought you all might enjoy seeing some pictures from our last summer frolics.

As you can imagine, the kids have spent a lot of time in the lame little pool that we got them at the beginning of June. They've been really good sports about it too.



We set up the slip and slide and break out the twirly sprinkler and then it's really a party. Asher really loves the little pool and will gladly climb right in with all his clothes on if you aren't fast enough to catch him. After every swim, the kids enjoy a Popsicle and usually finish it all before it drips down their arms and off their elbows.







A few nights ago we decide we needed to have a campout. However, as we went down the list of things that we either didn't have (air mattresses, enough sleeping bags, where is the tent?, etc.) or didn't want to do (sleep outside when it's still 101 at 11pm), we decided to just eat s'mores and call it good. However, when we went outside to roast the marshmallows over the grill, our feet were burning on the patio, the chocolate was melting before you could get it out of the packages, and our grill's gas tube sprung a leak. So we went back inside for plan B. You may think that we wimped out on this point, but did I mention that it's really hot here? Anyway, Bren roasted our marshmallows over two candles (a la The Sandlot) and we had a good time anyway.









Despite the horrible heat, Bren and the boys have spent plenty of time in the garage constructing a variety of things. Bren has the shop set up pretty nicely now. (He doesn't like this picture though)



Bren managed to get most of his "collection" organized and sorted. It's kind of pretty all put together like that. I've got to hand it to him though, for picking most of it out of trash heaps and old guy's garages, he's got a pretty good assortment of wood.



As he was sorting all the wood bits, Bren put scraps in a cardboard box for the boys to have. Aidan and Asher spent the good part of one morning sawing, hammering, and getting completely filthy. (Aidan did the sawing) Aidan ended up with a pretty impressive hot wheel track with ramps and little tiny warning signs all nailed together. Asher was just dirty... but he had fun.





LOVE.

Lucky Number 7

Today Aidan turned 7. Since it was an odd year (7) for him, he got to choose a party theme and invite some friends over. Pirates won over Legos, Star Wars and Power Rangers this year. It was a great time, complete with attacking crabs, pirate duds, balloon swords, a treasure hunt and chocolate cupcake ships.




Here are the cupcakes and treasure maps with compasses. The picture is super blurry (sorry Whitney) but it's the best one I got. I think you can still make out the cupcake cuteness... or fierceness as they were pirate cupcakes.



Here's Asher trying to steal some pirate booty before the guests arrived.



After finding treasure trapped within the evil crabs, the kids purchased pirate garb from "Ye Old Pirate Shop" run by Miss Daphne.



Aidan getting into character and Asher in full pirate duds with balloon sword.





The girls wouldn't hold still long enough to get their pictures taken. Daphne was busy organizing and facilitating, and Sophie was just busy. I do wish that I had been fast enough to get a picture of Sophie and the pinata. She beat the snot out of it. The biggest challenge of the morning was keeping Asher out of the pile of captured "evil crab" balloons. He kept taking flying leaps into the pile.



Bren made Aidan an amazing wooden sword and put together an electronics kit complete with motors, LEDs, batteries, wires and switches. They are planning to make a UFO out of wood and then light it all up with the LEDs. (Although Aidan is now adamant that Whitney should be involved - hint hint)





Happy Birthday Aidan!

The Beach... sort of

A few minutes north of us we have a TINY little beach. It's at a park in Little Elm off of Lake Lewisville. Since it has been so crazy hot here lately, we took a trip up to the "beach" on Wednesday. The kids had a great time. It was almost too hot when we first got there but as the sun started to dip down it became more pleasant. We brought our dinner up... perhaps a mistake since most of it ended up a little sandy. May have to rethink the food next time.



Asher had a fantastic time with the shovels and had no problems crawling right into the water and splashing around. So somebody help me understand why the bathtub is such a place of terror for him?



Phia was equally happy, and true to her social little self found a friend named Jessica to play with part way through the afternoon.



Daphne helped build a rather impressive sandcastle (of which we have no picture) and ferried Asher all around.



Asher with "John Woo" shovels.



The girls. Looking old.



Aidan spend most of his time trying to get his large plastic pirate ship to float. But Alas, his ship turned out to be less than sea worthy and he let Asher bury it in the sand.

All in all a good summer day.