A Day with Leah

In an effort to have our kids help more around the house - or at least clean up after themselves - we created some reward jars. Everytime the kids do their part, i.e. set their beds, clean up their clothes, set the table, etc. they get tokens in their jar. Once the jar is filled up, they get to spend a whole day with either Mom or Dad doing whatever they want to do. Leah is the first one to get her jar filled up so she and I spent Saturday together...

We started the day at Denny's where she enjoyed the free breakfast she earned at school by having perfect attendance. Then it was off to a friend's birthday party...

complete with a princess bouncy house castle

and a pinata.

After the party, we headed up to the University of Texas where they were hosting an "Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day". Leah wasn't so sure about it at first, but she warmed up pretty fast once she got started. Of course, it helped that all the instructors kept complimenting her on her creativity. We made bubble blowers, gliders, gumdrop domes, musical instruments, kaleidoscopes, and rockets!

But I think the favorite activity of the day was learning about robots and trying out the RoboDog (made with Legos!)

We had a great time together and got home just in time to visit with Uncle Brent and Aunt Emily who came up for the weekend.

BBQ Capital of Texas

On Friday the kids had a day off from school and Andrew had the day off work as well, so we decided to take a trip down the road to Lockhart, Texas - about 25 miles south of Austin. Our trip was in part inspired by a book we read about the library there - Librarian on the Roof!One of our first stops was the very library we had read about... it does have some very cool architecture and an interesting history.

It was fun for the kids to see that it was a real place and helped them to understand that some things we read about really did happen.


After our history lesson, we found a couple of parks to play in

where we could enjoy the sunshine

and learn about static electricity.

Then it was off for some tasty barbecue... as the BBQ Capital of Texas, Lockhart boasts four very good barbecue joints: Black's, Smitty's, Kreuz, and Chisholm Trail. I've eaten at all of them except Kreuz and so far I think Smitty's is my favorite with Black's coming in a close second. We'll have to get back down that way to try Kreuz one of these days so we can make an official ranking :)

Anyone else have an opinion?

Al Rescate!

We became animal rescuers today when Peter came running in from the backyard calling, "Mama, Mama there's an animal in the grass outside!" Since I couldn't see anything from the house, I figured he had found the remains of a bird or mouse. However, when I went outside for a closer look, I found these little guys...

Three baby squirrels

I was amazed that they were still alive because they must have fallen out of their nest - at least 20 feet up in our cedar elm. So we boxed them up and took them out to Austin Wildlife Rescue.
I think Leah was secretly hoping they would already be closed so we could keep them overnight, but these guys were pretty small and I don't think they would have survived. They went straight to the incubator at the Rescue Center. And the kids have a great story to tell at school tomorrow.

Crayon Hearts

This year both Leah and Lincoln have kids in their classes with serious food allergies - and I would rather not contribute to the sugar high that Valentine's Day has become - so this year we made crayon hearts. Finally! A use for all of those little broken crayon pieces that you can't quite bring yourself to throw away, but that nobody can use for coloring anymore...

The kids helped by peeling off the wrappers and separating the colors. Then we melted them in vegetable cans in a pot of boiling water. Once the crayons were melted, we stirred them with craft sticks to even out the colors and poured layers in a silicone heart mold, waiting for each layer to harden before pouring the next.

If you use a silicone mold (you can usually find them at Target in their dollar section during the holidays), you can also just put the broken crayon pieces in the mold and melt them in the oven at 250 for 20 minutes. Let them cool and harden in the oven as well. This will result in a more swirly pattern and you can mix colors to make cool designs, but you must use all the same brand of crayons or you'll get weird results because different brands have different wax/color ratios.

If you use the pouring method, your molds don't have to be silicone (although the silicone works better). I've also tried using these ice cube molds from IKEA - they work pretty well, but I think the wax leaks through because the ones I've used now have a waxy residue on both the inside and the outside of the mold. This method also evens out the consistency of different brands of crayons.

If you try something else that works or have any other ideas for using up crayon bits, let me know... thanks to a schoolteacher grandma, we have LOTS of crayons to use up :)

Snow Day!

This morning we woke up to see....

snow outside!


Which meant we got to climb back into our warm beds
and lay around in our pajamas doing

this instead of rushing around to get ready for school.


There was really only about 1/2 inch of snow on the ground,
but it was fun to play in for a few minutes

Peter was the only one who didn't even attempt to go outside -
probably thanks to his less than fun experience in the real snow in Utah
(Nothing like a face plant into a snow drift to make you a bit wary)