Allergy Testing

Today Chamberlin had to go to get retested for his allergies since he seems to be having reactions to more things than he did before. So here was a educational opportunity that wasn't to be missed and both Arowyn & Teagan love watching and learning about things like this. So he decided to take Arowyn along to let her see what all is involved in being tested for allergies. She was completely fascinated by the whole thing and never put down Cham's phone which she used to take pictures of the whole thing. She thought it was so cool that they put a bunch of things on Daddy's back and wrote all over it to tell what each thing was. And how the things that he was allergic to turned red.

 Before the test

Chamberlin's back after the test with all 

kinds of dots and numbers all over it

Cub Scouts: Conservation Department Field Trip

Cham, Teagan & Arowyn were back out with the pack tonight on a field trip to our local Conservation Department. They got to hear all about what it takes to become an officer for the conservation department and some of what her job entails.

Creature Feature: Class Act

Today was our first Creature Feature class of the year and the kids got to learn about classification. Amanda explained how scientists classify animals and what the different parts of an animal's classification tell you about it. Then the kids got to classify random things in a bowl that was sitting at their table and break them up into groups of similar things using their own system of classification.

 Amanda explaining how animals are classified

 Amanda giving an example of classifying things
using Halloween Goodies as an example

 Arowyn

 Teagan

Our classification of the items in the bowl

Oh What Fun We Can Have With Static Electricity

The kids enjoyed using their pop-up pup tents that they got at Christmas today for school. Today was obviously a very dry day though as could be evidenced in Arowyn's hair every time she let her tent her head brushed the top of the tent and her hair stood on end quite nicely. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to learn something fun we deviated from our regularly scheduled work for a little while and took some time learn about static electricity and they fun that can be had with it.

Arowyn exiting her tent 

Teagan after rubbing the balloon very 

vigorously over his head and the little bit 

of hair we were able to get to stand up 

Arowyn with a balloon 

stuck to her head

Ouch!

Well it's the new year and time to learn new things. So yesterday as I was putting Arowyn to bed I found out that she was secretly teaching herself how to sew. I only found out because she was not so careful about returning two of the sewing needles back into their case and they somehow got caught up in the giant tail of her stuffed squirrel toy and when she was carrying it to bed one of the needles got her and she yelped. After tending to her she told me what she'd been doing and so Squirrely got a serious pat down which reveled another needle buried into her tail. After asking her why she decided to hide this from me she said it was because she was afraid if she asked that I would of said no. She has always been headstrong since the day she was born and after talking to her about everything we agreed that the next day I would give her sewing lessons and I would help her finish her pillow she had started. Of course first thing this morning when she woke up she went and grabbed her secret sewing project and brought it to me to hold me to my promise. What she brought to me was what to me looks like a miniature body pillow. It was a piece of yellow felt that she had found downstairs in one of the craft drawers that she had already sewn doing a whip stitch all but one side up. Which she then had proceeded to "stuff" with cotton balls all I really had to do for her was help her tie the ends of in the end and that was it. And yeah tomorrow I need to go buy more cotton balls.

Arowyn's pillow

Cooking With Arowyn: Hawaiian Pizza

Arowyn has been wanting to get her hands dirty in the kitchen with mommy so for dinner today she fixed us a Hawaiian Pizza with breadsticks. No this wasn't completely from scratch but we were to hungry to take the time to make the dough ourselves so canned dough it was. Not that it matters though because Arowyn had a great time doing it and she's already learned way more about cooking than I knew at her age.

Cooking With Teagan: Chocolate Chip Cookies

We're getting ready for Christmas today with doing a little holiday baking. Teagan made a batch of chocolate chip cookies which turned out delicious although one tray of them were slightly over done to the point where they are not burned but they were a tad crunchy. Today was one of our busy days so it took us awhile to get this all done which is the reason for the outfit changes because a couple of times we had to stop where we were to run out to ballet and then later on Cub Scouts and by the time they were all baked it was bed time.

Cub Scouts: Field Trip to KTVO

Teagan and his Cub Scout troop had a field trip to the KTVO news station here in Kirksville this evening. They got to be in the room with the news anchors and sit there and watch as they broadcast the evening news in Spanish. Then after the broadcast they got to talk with the news anchors and got to ask them questions and see how the green screen works.

Teagan's Cub Scout Troop at the news desk 

with Vanessa Alonso & Nancy Cruz

 Vanessa showing them how the green screen works

 Vanessa showing them why you don't want to wear 

this shade of green on the green screen or you disappear!

 Teagan asking Vanessa a question 

about doing the weather

 Teagan telling Vanessa a story

 The Cub Scout troop and siblings with Vanessa

Behind the scenes in the news office

Creature Feature: Turkey Tales

We made it to creature feature today and got to learn about the history of wild turkeys in Missouri. The kids especially enjoyed making their own turkey calls although they were having problems with the finer points of actually making it work.

Amanda telling the kids about the serve depletion 

of wild turkeys by 1925 due to over hunting

The Missouri turkey history timeline 

 Arowyn getting to pet the turkey fether

 Amanda explaining the difference between 

male and female turkey scat

 Teagan gets to try to draw a turkey track

 Arowyn touches the turkey foot

 Amanda demonstrates a wooden box turkey call

 Arowyn making her own turkey call

 Arowyn & Teagan demonstrating 

how they use their turkey calls

Computer Repair

Chamberlin’s computer went belly completely up without warning yesterday so this morning this is what I woke up to going on in my living room floor.

 Chamberlin & Teagan diagnosing the problem 

while the Baby Bobble heads look on

 Disconnecting the faulty power supply

 Teagan holding the bad power supply

 Sliding in the new power supply while Teagan helps 

baby Wicket and baby Chewbacca to get a better view

Adjusting the power supply 

Chamberlin holds the power supply in 

place while Teagan screws it into the casing

Teagan putting the last screw in 

Teagan decided that they should pray for 

the computer that it will work again

Teagan reconnecting the power supply 

Teagan connecting another set of wires 

Teagan connecting the cable 

for the fan in the casing 

The fan lights up! 

After much hard work and prayer they 

have resurrected the computer YEAH!

Arowyn’s Nature Find

Arowyn’s ability to find little gems of nature wherever she goes is astounding at times. As we were walking into our violin lesson today she found this little creepy crawler near the steps of the house so of course she had to stop and examine it and she wasn’t willing to go into her lesson until I had taken a picture of it so she would have something to remember it by. I will say it is a very beautiful shade of green.

 Arowyn next to the caterpillar

The big green caterpillar