Dinosaur Dig

The cubscouts in our ward asked Josh to help them do a dinosaur dig for pack meeting like the one he did when he was cubmaster a few years ago. Josh was really excited to do it again and I made sure to take pictures of the process. It's really a cool thing to do, especially if you have little people interested in dinosaurs.

Josh makes a rough sketch of a dinosaur (this year it was a stegosaurus) and then makes a few batches of salt dough, grabs his plaster of paris and plastic wrap and he's ready to get to work making bones. The process takes awhile because it takes time for the bones to set up but in all it isn't that difficult.

Josh uses the salt dough (in this case pink) to make the molds to pour the plaster into. The plastic wrap helps keep the dough from getting sticky and sticking to the bones. Josh roughly follows his sketch and makes impressions in dough to make the bones. He does it in batches and changes the mold as needed. (Pictured are some vertebre.)

The result is a pile of plaster bones. The thicker you make them the less likely they are to break. The biggest threat to breakage is trying to pull them out of the mold too soon. I figure that a broken bone is okay because that's the way you find them in the ground.

The fun part is putting it all together. Our stake has a pavillion and volley ball court on one of the chapels' property. We used the sand in the volleyball court to bury the bones. Josh layed them out first to look like our dinosaur and then you bury them. To hide the evidence of where we put it, Josh tossed on top. Sam and Elijah were very much interested in the whole process from pouring the molds to laying out the dinosaur and covering it up. Sam was off somewhere when it came time to excavate the bones but Elijah was in the middle of all the action.

The cub leaders and Josh brought paint brushes for the kids to use to excavate the bones. It helps them to go slower and be more careful at uncovering the bones and it makes it feel a bit more authentic. It was quite fun to see this hord of kids gathered around a spot in the dirt exclaiming that they had found a bone in the sand and carefully brushing away ll the sand. (Another cool thing is the way the bones look with the sand filling in the little crevase from the plastic wrap. It makes them look old.)

The whole process of uncovering probably took 10 minutes and I think everyone was rather pleased with their work --especially Josh.

Menu Board Revisited and LOVED!

A few months ago I picked up a few wall charts. I blogged about possible uses for the charts and I am still using one of those ideas. I thought I would show a few more details about my menu board and how I use it.

The menu board is working really well for me. I like that it is big, dead center, and hard to miss. Planning and actually cooking what I plan has become a lot easier. When it gets to be 3 or 4 o'clock and dinner starts to weigh heavily on my mind, I can look at my board and feel relief knowing what is on hand for dinner. All I have to do is throw it together, all the brain work has already been done.


I have created for myself a little menu planning station. I have a maganet clip on the fridge with my printed grocery list along with a magnetic basket to hold a pen, dry erase marker, and my menu cards. You can print off a copy of my check-what-you-need grocery list and/or save it on your computer and customize it for yourself (which is what I did with a list I found online).

I'm a sale shopper so I keep tabs on what's on sale in grocery ads for the week and they greatly influence what I'm cooking. I can go through my menu cards and pick out the meals that use the ingredients I know are on sale. It is so much easier to do this with the cards in hand then trying to dig through all the recipes or do it mentally. If I decide to do a paticular dinner I circle what ingredients I need to buy, make a note on my grocery list, and put the card up on my board. Some meals I generally always have the ingredients for and others I will have to complete with my shopping. By circling the needed ingredients I can remind myself at a glance whether I have the ingredients yet or not depending on which day I actually make it to the store (always an iffy thing depending on whether I have the car and what mood myself and my children are in).

Also on the cards I can make note of what leftovers are in the fridge so Josh knows what is availible for lunches.

For those recipes I decide to try that are new or haven't yet been solidified into my regular cycle of meals, I simply write them in with the dry erase marker on the back of an existing card.

"Be a Girl"

Sam came up to me this morning and asked me where his "BB" was. I helped him find it and then continued brushing my teeth. Later I found him watching his favorite show Curious George with "BB" on his head. He does this when he wants to "be a girl" with long hair.

His blanket is still his friend and lovey. It is obviously showing the wear and tear of being a little boys best friend. You might also notice that Sam is wearing his crocs on the wrong feet in addition to his jammies and messy face from breakfast. He's my cute little friend that loves to give me big running hugs.

It's ALIVE!

I am happily sitting at my finally revived desktop. I can finally do all the projects that of course came to mind while my computer was down and I couldn't do them.

It turns out the part that Josh ordered to fix our computer did not have the right connectors and wouldn't work. With the shipping cost it wasn't really worth sending back and ordering another. Then it dawned on me that our frineds had an old computer sitting around waiting to be escorted to the recycle center. (Not sure why I didn't think of it a week ago.) Thank you Ashley and Quinn for donating your old computer so Josh could salvage parts off the carcase! It worked and we are happily in business again. Josh, you are amazing once again.

The Upside

There is an upside to our desktop being out of commission all week. Josh has not been able to play WoW (World of Warcraft, a role playing game).

Even better, I was able to get him hooked on a new hobby: Family History.

I am a happy girl!

My Monk's Bag

I found this pattern earlier this year and actually made a bag using the pattern for my sister for her birthday. I've intended to make one for myself for awhile and finally got around to doing it this week.

I got the owl fabric for my birthday from my mother and I love it! I made a few adjustments this time around by making the handle a little longer and boxing the bottom. I love the wide strap, I sling it across my back and it is so comfortable. I also made a flower out of felt and pinned it on just to add some detail.

My "Little Builders"

We had fun at the museum yesterday. It was very crowded so we didn't get to spend as much time exploring the new builders exhibit but the exhibit will be there all summer and I'm sure we will be back.

The exhibit is completely hands on designed for kids 2-7. It is full of various building blocks, pullies, conveirbelts, gears and much more.

Out side the trucks were parked. Elijah picked a big tractor to wait in line to get in and drive. He was very excited about it. Sam on the otherhand waited in line but when it was his turn he decided he didn't want to get in. Silly kid.

As part of the even they were giving out plastic yellow hard hats to the kids. Elijah was really excited to get one as was Sam though he was a little more shy about it.

Ironically

This morning the boys and I went to the opening of a new exhibit at our local museum. The exhibit is called "Little Builders" and focuses on building activities for kids ages 2-7 (very cool and VERY crowded, we will have to go back). For opening day they had our city power and communications department bring out their big trucks and bulldozers for the kids to explore.

Anyway, I did my little post this morning about things I should be grateful for despite the things that are not currently functioning as they should be right now. We went to the museum (with the power and communications company trucks), spent some time at the park with friends, then I come home and try to check my email and discover that while I was gone the power had gone out, reset my modem, and now I couldn't get on the internet from my laptop because to reset the modem I had to do it from my desktop computer (or so I thought, my amazing husband comes to my rescue yet again).

ARGH the irony-- I'm visiting the power company while at home the power goes out and one of the things I listed as being grateful for was suddenly jinxed.

A Time to be Grateful

Well, my dishwasher top rack still doesn't clean dishes, I have a collection of murky water under my kitchen sink along with a still dripping pipe, and my desktop computer is still dead to the world.

It seems like a great time to be grateful for the things that I DO have...

*I have running water.
*The bottom rack of my dishwasher still manages to come out with clean dishes.
*I have a laptop that is working
*and I dare not say it too loudly... my washing machine is still working (please don't jinx it!)

Grateful for my Computer Savvy Husband

I was typing a blog post yesterday and out of nowhere the computer went CAPUT. No warnings, no sounds, it just stopped working and wouldn't turn on again. This is where I am grateful. Josh took a look at it and in seconds determined that it was probably that the powersuply had over heated (it helped that the top of the computer was rather warm and there was a bit of an electrical heat smell). I am grateful that Josh is comfortable with computers. He built our computer in fact and has kept it alive over the past 6 years with a few upgrades here and there. Josh simply goes online to http://www.newegg.com/, orders the part he needs and a couple days later it arrives and Josh puts it in. Easy peasy. I am grateful that he is able to do it. Yet another reason, among many, that my husband is amazing.

(I'm also grateful that I have a laptop otherwise I would not be able to do posts yesterday and today)

Other Josh related news: his chip seems to be WORKING! not exactly as designed but it is being more promising than ever before! YAY!

Aspiring Photographer

This past week Elijah has discovered that he can take pictures with my camera. It started with having him try and take a picture off me for a bio. He discovered how easy and fun it was and decided he wanted to take more pictures. He is still figuring out how to get the camera steady and give it a chance to focus before he pushes the button all the way but some of his pictures turn out pretty good. It's lots of fun to see what he deems picture worthy. He's a pretty cute little boy. I just love the expression I was able to catch on camera. It captures him well- my silly cute little boy.

Here are some of Elijah's pictures from outside our apartment and also from our hike.

Impromptu Family Outing

Yesterday morning was a bit depressing. I had planned to go garage saleing but Josh at the last minute remembered that he was helping someone in the ward move and that ended up taking a lot longer than anticipated. I was left at home with two squabbling boys and a large, smelly, black puddle under our kitchen sink (ew sick!! and maintenance has yet to come about it). By the time Josh got home I was a bit frazzled and Josh still had to go into work to maintain his "fridge." I was at the end of my rope. That was when Josh stepped in and decided that we were all going into work and then out for a hike. I dragged my feet a bit but we all ended up going and despite already being sore from kickboxing the day before I did end up enjoying myself and being with my family.

It was a bit overcast and cool, perfect for being outdoors. We ended up hiking up behind Josh's lab. I guess they own a lot of the property up into the foothills. Elijah determined that we were going up to the top of a hill. He was a ball full of energy and practically ran up the hill. Sam on the otherhand was content to say "I tired" and ride on Josh's shoulders.

The view from the top of the hill was quite beautiful. Elijah and I had fun taking pictures of the wild flowers and mountains and Sam loved looking out for the birds and bunnies. It started to sprinkle while we were up there and the smell was heavenly. There's nothing like an afternoon out in nature with your family to brighten your mood. Thanks Josh!

Three Weeks and Counting...

until the Family History Expo in Loveland, Colorado! I've been reading the class schedule. I think I'm going to have a hard time deciding what classes to take. I'm hoping that the teachers all have a detailed sylabus so I learn something even if I can't make it to their class. You can drool over the schedule yourself on the expos website. There are classes for everyone, beginner to expert, US and International localities.

The Physics of Ice Cream

Last week Josh came home acting like a nine year old cub scout excited to get into trouble. He had brought home with him a container of liquid nitrogen which he uses at work to cool down his "fridge." He had actually buckled the container into one of the boys car seats to insure it's safe arrival home. The idea was to make ice cream with the liquid nitrogen and Josh was super excited.



He and the boys mixed all the ingredients in a bowl and then it was time for the exciting part... bring on the smoke!








I got most of it on video, it's a bit long but its pretty cool how fast you can do ice cream. The process probably took a total of 10 minutes. Yay for instant gratification! I was really surprised at how well the ice cream turned out. The next day it came out of the freezer and scooped out like store bought ice cream. Mmm Mmmm Good!

You're a bit crazy and a dare devil sometimes, Josh, but I will admit it was a fun and yummy idea. We even did a repeat of it at our friends house for FHE. Thanks Josh my scientist man!

***Okay so the video won't upload, ANNOYING! I'll try it in another post. Meanwhile you can see a video of our ice cream adventure for FHE at our friends house.

1st Annual Colorado Family History Expo

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This Year's Garden

Our garden is in. I did starts inside again this year and I am beginning to think they are not worth the effort. But anyway, they are now in our garden boxes and things are going pretty well. We planted peas, cucumbers, basil, jalepenos, and bell peppers this year. The peas are doing really well. It's fun to see them curl their vines around our makeshift suport system. There will be more pictures to come as things grow. (We opted not to do squash this year after last years experience. They took over the world. We'll see how this year's goes.)



If you want information about our garden boxes and how we made them there are links on my post from last year. Also if you click on the label "Garden" you will get pictures from last years gardening effort.

For Mother's Day Josh got me a beautiful hanging pot of flowers to put out in our "garden." Our balcony is becoming quite an inviting place.

Finally Solved!

Josh has had this rubix cube like puzzle kicking around our house since we have been married. Apparently he has had it since he was sixteen or seventeen years old. The whole time it has been floating around my house it has been a mix of colors. Every once in awhile Josh would sit down and try and figure it out but would always give up long before it was solved. Josh even tried finding a solution online but was unable to follow the complex directions to solve it.



Then a couple weeks ago he comes and finds me with the biggest proudest grin on his face and the solved puzzle in his hand. He had finally solved the puzzle! He was so proud he even took pictures of it himself to prove that he had done it and then let me take a picture saying I should blog about it. He's sure silly and boy do I love him!



That man has a lot of patience and determination when it comes to puzzles and I am grateful that it carries over to his research. If it were otherwise he would have given up long ago on his project. His fridge is finally cold again and we're praying and crossing our fingers that his chips work this time.

Family History Blog Updated

For those of you that are interested I have posted some new finds on my family history blog. I have been playing around with the church's website lab.familysearch.org and have found images of original documents for my ancestors in the records search. CHECK IT OUT and do a search for your own ancestors! It always amazes me what new stuff is becoming availible at a click of a button.

Grateful for...

Park Days

• Sunny day with a cool breeze
• Sunscreen and sun hats (I learned my lesson last week)
• A couple hours spent with fellow mommies while the kids run rampant

Everybody needs a good laugh

Well, everyone needs a good laugh once in a while -a good side splitting, tear crying, wear you out laugh. Thanks to our friends Ashley and Quinn at our ward talent show last night I had my good laugh. Even better they posted a recording of it on their blog (Josh was the camera man and it's a good thing I wasn't, I was a blurry mess with tears from laughing so hard) so all can enjoy and I can visit whenever I'm in need of a good laugh.

Ashley and Quinn YOU ARE AMAZING! Thanks for sharing your talents!