Making Tissue Paper Parachutes

Sunday night after all of our Conference festivities, we made tissue paper parachutes that the boys found in a science experiment book they got from the boys next door. They turned out to be really easy and a lot of fun. You need:
tissue paper (I think the snowflakes add just the right touch don't you? :)
tape
thread
paper clips (we used safety pins)

We made two different sizes so we could do an experiment on them and see which one would fall the fastest. Our first size was 12x12 inches and the next was 8x8. We taped 6 inches of thread to each corner (tape on the OUTSIDE of parachute). We then connected all of the string in the center in a knot and tied it to a safety pin.
Then it was time to test our HYPOTHESIS. I think it is fun for the boys to learn what a hypothesis is and to make a guess on what they thing will happen. They all guessed right and my hypothesis was wrong! Of course.
Then we went up to the ledge by our room, the boys had to stand on stools and we then had a parachute extravaganza. It was so fun to see little tissue paper parachutes all over the place.
The boys loved throwing the safety pin in the air to watch it flip and sail down to the ground (don't be alarmed that Hunter's little legs are over the side...Josh was holding him).
Josh got into the act too.
They were pretty into it.

Testing our hypothesis.
It took a few times, but we got our DATA at the end. I really hope that my boys grow to like science. How fun is it to figure out how and why things work? I think science is a scary word sometimes and people (me) can be intimidated of it. I have loved learning more too and figuring out a little bit about how the world works. I think this was my favorite experiment we have done so far.

Monkey Hat Photo Shoot

I bought this cute hat on Etsy for McKay's first birthday shoot. I finally got around to it this past week.

I am so excited to get these printed off to hang in his room. I am going to do a little collage with them.






This is one of my favorites. 



I always know that the shoot is over when my subject is crawling away :)

Hunter and Lincoln were my helpers for this shoot so of course we had to get some pictures of them too. 

General Conference Spring 2011

I love General Conference. The Saturday session is always a little wild as we always (spring and fall) have soccer games on Saturday (thank goodness for Tivo). But the Sunday session is a regular holiday at our house. I LOVE it. It is so fun to hang out in our pjs and make good memories. I like that the boys were looking forward to it like they would any holiday. They should look forward to it right?
For breakfast we surprised the boys with this fun hot chocolate. Add a Peep and everything is more fun :)
Poor McKay struggled that day as he has EVERY day with teething. This molar has been a beast and it isn't even half way through.
We had French Toast (Josh's favorite) with orange syrup. Josh and I LOVED the orange syrup, they boys were slower to come around.
Then Palmer kept saying, "we'll go down stairs and then you can get our surprises ready." That boy is always so afraid I will forget things. So Josh took them downstairs and I got their surprises ready. We always try to make their snack healthy as we know that we are going to be in the house with them all day and we don't need them to be bouncing off the walls. We usually just do apples and Goldfish crackers. This year we gave them all a puzzle to put together along with their Conference packet. It was fun to do puzzles all day.
Okay so ya know what I just said about "healthy snacks"? Well, we canceled that out with this little activity. It was so fun, but holy mackerel they were hyper. I am going to do it again next conference, but maybe with ONE candy bowl. I got this idea at 8:30 the night before so it is a little thrown together, but you put 5 different words on 5 different bowls full of something (the idea used candy, but again, I will not do all candy again), when the kids hear the word, they get to get a piece out of the bowl. It really kept them listening and they were even shushing each other so they could hear. That was a change for sure.

The funniest thing happened when President Monson gave his talk about temples. He said "temple" over and over as well as "family". I know it is horrible, but couldn't stop laughing because it was a frenzy at the candy bowls. The boys ABSOLUTELY know what President Monson talked about. It was a really fun idea.
In between conferences when I was getting everything ready for dinner I heard all sorts of commotion from downstairs. I called Josh up to ask him to help me with something and this is what I saw (can you see his safety glasses under the Batman mask?) The kids were having a pretty good time with this crazy guy ;) They haven't stopped talking about it.

Josh built them each a "base" that they could have a little gun war from.
He even was thoughtful enough to get some pictures of the whole wild thing. I tell you what, there was a lot of laughing going on. Apparently Josh was the most hit target. Lincoln was laughing as he was telling me today when we were looking at these pictures "Dad got hit A LOT". I have a feeling that it explains some of Josh's nutty costume choice.


For dinner I tried a new recipe. I have never made sweet pork tacos, but have always wanted to. They turned out incredible (recipe coming soon :) and the left overs have been just as good. They were also easy peasy, which is always a plus.
For the next session our little booklet that we printed out from Sugardoodle had the funnest craft. The boys cut out all of the pieces and then when they heard the word on the piece during conference they would go and tape it to a balloon. This is what we had when conference was all done. They liked drawing the faces on too. I think this would be easy to do yourself as well. Paper plates would be perfect for this. We also snacked on this while listening to the inspiring talks.

After conference we talked to the boys about the "Armor of God" found in Ephesians and what each piece means. When I was young my mom made some amour for my brothers to wear. Definitely on my to do list.

For dessert I made these easy Peanut Butter Chocolate Eggs. I actually had all of the stuff for it right on hand.

The last thing we did was to make parachutes and raced them as well as tried some experiments with them. I am not posting this here, because I think it is already long enough. I will post them later, but they were really fun.

I have to say in years past Conference Sunday has just really been a long day for the kids as well as Josh and me. The boys fight when they are bored and the parents end up really grumpy. This year we were prepared with so many fun things to do that we loved the whole day.

Photo Shoot with McKay-Sneak Peek

Today I had a little photo shoot with McKay. He is teething a molar and pretty miserable, but he was so good for our little shoot. Actually the fact that he wasn't feeling well might have led to the fact that he just sat still and let me take pictures of him, which NEVER happens. Here are a couple. I will post more soon!

Cheers to Hunter!

Alright, I am well aware of how random my blog is. I don't know that I have ever seen such a mish mosh of every this and that. I have thought long and hard about it and tried to decide if I should divide it up and put crafts on another blog, but then I came the the conclusion that he mish mosh of randomness is my life. That the little crazy moments that I blog here are the ones that I want to remember. They are the ones that matter to me. So, I hope that you will bear with the fiasco that this blog has become and just chalk it up to the fact that I am a random kind of gal.

So onto another random happy moment in the Nelson family. Hunter has memorized the "Pledge of Allegiance" at preschool (please note his sad looking owie he got while skateboarding on the only warm day this year.  He actually crashed twice in about 10 minutes and has another one on his tummy.  Very sad). None of my other kids have had to pass that off, although they did learn it first at Jacque's awesome preschool. I think it is a new requirement and he is BURSTING HIS BUTTONS he is so proud of himself. Now if that isn't something of note, I don't know what is. He also got to be the class leader on the day he passed of the Pledge and so he came out of preschool to meet me positively decorated in badges.  Good day huh?
I can't tell you how many times we are either coming or going to preschool and he starts reciting the Pledge. Lincoln of course not wanting to be shown up chimes in and we head down the road to the rhythm of their patriotic little voices. I actually have to admit when I hear them reciting it my buttons are close to burstin' too.
And as I was telling Hunter that I was proud of him and what a genius he was for memorizing the Pledge, he stuck up his little piggies for a picture (I guess he is also proud of his flips). We bought some flips at The Children's Place (for $3-sweet!) and he wears them WHENEVER he can get away with it. I told him they are for when the weather turns warm and he has pointed out that it is warm in our house. Hunter usually gets the best of me, so of course I told him that he can wear them in the house (and he sneaks them OUT of the house whenever possible). He is in LOVE with his "army fwip fwops".

Spring Where are You?

Remember that day last week when it was nice and the weather wasn't bitter cold (as it has been ever since) and we actually caught a GLIMPSE of Spring? That was nice.

Some Funny Things

I just wanted to record some cute things that the boys have done lately.

Lincoln has had a sore throat for the past three days and he came and told me that he thought he might have "Shrek throat" (strep throat)

We did a little activity while watching general conference with candy and we had M&Ms and Skittles.  I was eating some M&Ms and Hunter wanted to see what was in my hand.  I showed him that they were M&Ms and he started laughing and said he thought I was eating "mosquitoes."  I couldn't for the life of me think why he would think I was eating mosquitoes until the next day he ask me if he could have some mosquitoes.  Again I was confused until he showed me the Skittles.  He has been thinking the whole time that we were calling them mosquitoes.

Every time I put warm food on McKay's high chair tray I tell him "it's hot" so he won't touch it and then I blow on it to cool it down.  He has now started blowing his lips every time I say the word "hot".  I was making dinner and preheating the oven.  He was climbing up on it and I said "McKay, the oven is hot"  He immediately started blowing on it to cool it down :)

I was also blowing up a balloon for him to play with and he would blow every time I did.  He is the CUTEST little kid and makes me laugh all of the time.

I was playing one of the boys' harmonicas for McKay because it was making him laugh.  All of the sudden Lincoln grabbed it and threw it across the room saying "that's annoying!"  I thought kids liked annoying things!

Shark Week Therapy...and a Craft!

I am a firm believer in making motherhood fun. I think that one of the ways you make it fun for yourself, is to share things that you love with your kids. Random fact about me, I really like Great White Sharks. I think it is mostly in a freaked out fascinated way that I like them.

A few weeks ago at our school book fair I let the boys all pick one book. Hunter insisted on a picture book about sharks. I thought that was a great ideas as I myself really think sharks are cool. Then we did a scout activity at our house and the boys had to do a report on a creature that lives in the ocean. Palmer of course wanted to participate. He did a report (complete with a picture he had drawn) of a shark.

When the scouts left, my boys wanted to watch a shark documentary and their "smart" mom had the bright idea to check Netflix to see if there were any on there. Well, not only were there some, but my favorite all time shark documentary was on there from "Shark Week" on the Discovery Channel called, "Air Jaws" (your already cringing aren't you?) People don't get eaten in this little show, but it shows the Great White Sharks leaping out of the water to eat seals (and it is SO COOL!). Why in the world did I think that wouldn't traumatize my kids??? So we started watching and their eyes were HUGE. I thought they were thinking it was cool and then I started hearing them say "poor seals" and then Hunter said he didn't want to watch it any more. Oh my goodness what was I thinking?!?!
So Palmer decides that he wants to draw some pictures and this is what I see when he is done. It is an ocean scene.
complete with a shark eating people (with their eyes x-ed out, in pools of blood...) and fish.
We also recently went to the zoo with the scouts and got to see "Nature's Nightmares." Palmer especially enjoyed the piranhas...can you tell? Can you see their sharp teeth?

He has also started reading the "Goosebumps" books. He really doesn't handle scary things well and we have had some doozies of nightmares. So pretty much I stink and may have to invest in therapy for this child (okay not really, but the poor kid has really been through it.)  Thank goodness he agreed that we could put "Goosebumps" away for a while.
Oh a different note Palmer recently came up with a craft that he wanted me to share with you. He cute up some straws and threaded them them on some yarn to make a necklace. He was pretty proud of it and loved it to pieces (have you noticed that my boys are always wearing their undershirts in our crafting pictures? This is what they like to wear to bed and we must always craft when they are in their pajamas. I promise they do have other clothes :)

Close up version. Great work Palmer (and please forgive your mother for being so clueless)!

April Fool's Day 2011

This year for April Fool's Day I knew that the boys wouldn't be as unsuspecting as they have been in years past. Now that Palmer is in first grade, he usually knows what's going on (sometimes I miss those days of obliviousness). I decided that I wanted to do my April Fool's prank before school so they weren't on their guards. I froze some milk in their cereal bowls the night before. We bought the "good" kind of cereal for them (they should have been onto me. We don't usually have cereal on week days and when we do it is the boring kind). I put a thin layer of cereal on the top of the frozen milk and then a little milk on top of that.
For their drink I gave them orange Jello instead of orange juice.
When I called them to breakfast they were so excited! They couldn't wait to dig into the cereal.
It wasn't as easy as they thought it would be. Palmer was so funny, he just started scraping it off the top and eating it.
Lincoln was pretty ticked at first (he doesn't like stuff like that, poor kid that I am his mother), but he came around and started laughing with the rest of us.

After the cereal thing they were all on their guard.
They liked the prank (again I know I am just opening myself up for pranks in the future...I hope they are nice!)
I think the best part for the boys was eating orange Jello for breakfast :)