Step into My Office

Wesley and Annabeth set up a little office in the living room this morning. In case you can't read it, the sign says:

Welcome to Wesley's and Boo Boo's Office
Please wait to be seated
Signed, Wesley Shown and Annabeth Shown

I'm not exactly sure what kind of business they were running. It must have been fairly successful though, they were interviewing new employees.

The (Lego) Showns

Lego had this fun Christmas mini-figure family creator online. The boys and I enjoyed playing around with it!

So, in case you were wondering, this is what we would look like if we were Legos…

Take One and Two and...

Family photos are always a challenge. I will say, as the kids have gotten older, it has gotten easier. Most of the time everyone stands still and smiles, but sometimes eyes close at the wrong moment or or the camera doesn't focus. I thought it might be fun to take you "behind the scenes" of a Shown Family photo shoot.

We picked a spot with decent lighting, but not in direct sunlight because we have squinters. We put the camera on a tripod and use the timer. I'm the button pusher so we get everyone else set up and I hit the button and run.


First one was pretty good.

Oops. Hit the wrong button.

Nice. That's a winner.

That went so well, let's add some props.

Lose the props, add Trevor.

Take two with Trevor.

Just the kids now. Not bad.

Hmmm… looks like Justus fell asleep.

Annabeth says she needs to "itch her butt" and it's all over for Justus.

He'll never recover. And now Annabeth thinks she's funny.

Guess those will have to be good enough.

This is the one that ended up on our Christmas card:

Our Volcano

We have spent the last two weeks studying volcanoes. The first week we made a classic baking soda and vinegar volcano. It was nothing fancy, only newspaper and duct tape with a water bottle "magma chamber", but the boys enjoyed it anyway! We made it a little more exciting with a few unsuspecting stick figure victims surrounding the volcano.

Before

After

Here is short video of the second explosion. We ended up making it "explode" twice because the first time wasn't as forceful as we had hoped and it didn't knock down that many of our stick figures. As you'll see, it was a bit more exciting the second time.

We ended the second week of our volcano study with an interview. We video chatted with a survivor of the Mount Saint Helen's blast - our very own Grandma Linda. My family lived in northern Idaho in May of 1980 when Mt. St. Helen's blew. We weren't in any major danger, but it did affect us. Grandma showed us a jar of ash she kept and lots of newspaper/magazine clippings. My personal favorite was a brochure sent by the government (after the fact, of course!) telling residents how to prepare for falling volcanic ash.

Hayden must have had volcanoes on his mind because a few days later he was playing around on the iPad and created this "virtual" artwork:

Heiroglyphic Hike

Wesley is in the Forestry and Outdoor Adventure project for 4-H again this year. For the first hike of the year, Wesley and Jerry joined the rest of the group on a hieroglyphic hike in the Superstition Mountains. We had never heard of this trail, but now that we know were it is we'll have to go back again. Jerry said it was a pretty scenic (yet easy) hike. Sounds just about perfect for most of our crew.

They had a great time and saw some interesting things - including real hieroglyphs! Looking at the photos I was surprised at how many more saguaros there are just a few miles from here. Jerry said the natural water hole actually had tadpoles swimming in it.

I sent the camera along. Here are a few of the photos Jerry took:

Butterfly Life Cycle

Hayden and JD are in Cloverbuds for 4-H. Some weeks they get to visit 4-H project groups to see which ones they might want to try when they "graduate". Some weeks they just get together and do a learning project.

This week they learned about the life cycle of a butterfly. They read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and watched a short video about monarch butterflies. When the group leader asked why the caterpillar was so hungry when he came out of the egg JD answered: "Because he's in a book called The Very Hungry Caterpillar!" He is so funny!

They also had a coloring page contest (JD won a prize for that!) and a fun activity where they wrapped a partner into a toilet paper chrysalis (JD's team won a prize for this too!).

After finishing the other fun activities, they made these cool projects to help them remember the butterfly's life cycle: