What is that?!?!

Yesterday, I pulled out my old record player and found some records.  My kids had NO IDEA what it was!  But after showing them how to use it, Courtney had a blast dancing around and Ethan loves listening to the books on record.

Ethan's favorite book is the "Pokey Little Puppy."  Courtney just liked the Mousercise record where you do exercise with Mickey Mouse.  One of her favorite songs is called "Bug-a-Boo."

This was the latest technology when I was a kid!

Two Toothless Girls

Heather and her family came over for dinner on Sunday and it didn't take us long to realize that both girls are missing the same front tooth.  We had to take a picture because it was too cute!

Sand Dunes

My cousin, Heather, and her family were in town on a vacation and we decided to join them at the Sand Dunes in Snow Canyon.  We love the sand dunes because there is so much area to play in and the kids love it.  It had been really hot during the week so we went in the morning to try and beat the heat.  Well, it ended up a cool and really windy morning!

When the kids and I arrived at Snow Canyon, the line to get in was really long.  It took about 20 minutes just to get through the gate, and we have a year pass so we didn't have to stop and pay.  We parked and began walking to the dunes to try and find Heather and her family.  We hadn't gone long when we found them, sitting in a little valley with some upset kids.  It was really windy and sand was blowing everywhere, so it was miserable.  We did end up staying in the valley for about an hour while the kids played but we would have to stop once in a while to close our eyes and try to avoid a big gust of sand.  It was insane.

There were a lot of people there and I couldn't believe it because it was so windy that it was miserable.  But the kids had a great time digging and playing.

Pack Meeting

We had a "kick ball" pack meeting the other week.  It was a lot of fun because after they did the awards (Ethan got some arrow points), all the boys and adults went to play kick ball.  Ethan claims he doesn't like kick ball but he played anyway.

Then they gave everyone a snow cone.  The weather was wonderful and it was a lot of fun!

Crayons

Courtney brought home all her crayons from school and they were driving me nuts!  There were little bits of crayons everywhere.  So we greased a muffin tin, put in the bits of crayon, put them in the oven for 7 minutes and then let them cool.  Now she has crayon rounds and there aren't little crayon bits everywhere.  Yeah!!

Birthday Party

Courtney was invited to a birthday party last month where they had pony rides.  The mom send me pictures.  Courtney loved it!

Videos

I finally took the time to get the videos off of Bryan's phone.  So here are the videos of Courtney's Pizazz End of the Year Review.

The first video is of Bryan escorting Courtney out.
The second video is of their dance together.
The third video is of Courtney's lyrical dance.  (She is in the center back with long blonde hair.)
The last video is of their hip-hop dance.  Courtney is in the back in front of the tree that is to the right of the small pillar.  I hope that helps.  She does a "coffee grinder" move when they go to the center to show off.

Enjoy!

Ripstick

 Ethan got a ripstick for his birthday.  There was a bit of controversy surrounding the ripstick.  I went online one day last month to order him a "green ripstick" like he wanted and Courtney was at the table coloring.  I found a good deal, bought the ripstick and had it shipped to our house.  Later that night Bryan overheard Ethan ask Courtney what he was getting for his birthday.  Courtney, being a good sister that she is, told him that we were giving him a green ripstick.  Ethan felt horrible!...as well he should have.

I was at a meeting so the next day Ethan came to me and confessed that he had gotten Courtney to tell him what he was getting for his birthday.  He felt really bad and apologized, swearing that he would never do it again!

Well, I am glad that I shop early for birthday and Christmas because by the time it was his birthday he had forgotten that he was getting a ripstick and was genuinely happy about it!  I can't believe how easily he has taken to riding it.  He never really got a hang of the skateboard he got a few Christmases ago, but he can ride this right out of the box.  Great for Ethan!!

I tried to ride it but Bryan told me that I was a generation too late to play with that toy.  It's just as well because I don't have the balance to ride a ripstick!

The Eclipse

My parents ran over to our eye doctor's office on Friday to get some special glasses so we could watch the eclipse.  It was really cool!

Here are the shadows on the side of our house from the leaves on our
lilac bush:

 The kids in their cute glasses:

Pizazz Year End Review

Last Saturday night was Courtney's Pizazz Year End Review where we got to see all of the routines she has learned this year.  First, though, she was escorted in by her dad.  (The photo is fuzzy because it was off my camera but I will put a new one on when I get the photos off Bryan's phone.)

 

After she was announced and escorted in, they had a daddy-daughter dance.  It was cute!  We were on the other side of the gym so we didn't get great photos but here are some:

 

 She performed the Lil' All-Star Dance, a hip hop to "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf," the jazz routine they have been doing all year long and her class lyrical dance.  It was a fun evening and she did a great job!

 Here is our cute dancer!

Party Videos

Her tooth!!

Courtney's 2 front teeth have been loose for A LONG TIME!!  It took her forever to get teeth and now it is taking forever for her to lose them.  Her one front tooth was bugging her and it was really wiggly.  After her shower, she recruited Ethan (Dr. Pack the tooth extractor) to get her tooth out.  She called it his "second birthday present."  It only took a minute before they came in waving the tooth with Courtney's gums dripping blood.  But she had lost her tooth!!

Her hill-billy smile:

 Stopping the blood:

 It's gone!

 Looking at her new smile:

 For the rest of the night she kept hamming it up and saying that she couldn't say her "s" or "th" sounds.  It was pretty funny!

The one next to it is also pretty loose so she can't wait until that one is gone!

She got a quarter from the tooth fairy and was so excited!!!

Family Party

My parents and sister, Leigh Ann, had taken Courtney while we had Ethan's party.  They brought her back around 5 p.m. and we got ready for dinner and the family party.  We usually just get pizza and then open presents and have cake.  This year Ethan wanted a real birthday dinner.  He wanted steak, shrimp (breaded and "naked"), carrots, celery, strawberries, mashed potatoes with gravy and Sprite.  His wish was my command.  We had a great dinner!!

I breaded some shrimp and left some "naked."  Bryan grilled some steaks and we all sat on the patio and ate dinner.  It was a great afternoon and was so nice in the shade.  (We need to get a patio set so we can eat out there all the time!)

After dinner Ethan was too full to eat cake and ice cream so he opened presents.  He got a ripstick, some Wii games, Legos, helicopter and candy.  He was in heaven.  Then we had him sit down so we could sing to him and eat cake and ice cream.  He wanted a science cake so I tried to experiment.  I made the cake and then went and bought dry ice to make fog come from the top of it.  It worked out pretty well.

I think I needed a bigger cup to have the fog come out of and then it would have been more impressive, but it worked.

 I think, by his reaction, that he liked it!

 Present time!

He's 10!!!

Ethan is 10 years old!!!  Can you believe it? We started a few months ago brainstorming ideas for a really cool party.  He came up with the idea that he wanted a science party.  I, knowing 10 year old boys, figured he would want to blow things up.  So I found some great ideas on the internet for a science party where you blow things up.  Yeah!!

I bought disposable lab coats and safety goggles on the internet.  I bought some film canisters from a science supply store on-line.  I bought a bunch of baking soda, vinegar, food coloring, dish soap, generic diet soda, mentos, alka-seltzer and 6% hydrogen peroxide.  I cut and glued PVC pipe together and made some fun invitations.  And then we were set!

The guests showed up and we played balloon roulette.  It's a game I found at the BYU bookstore on the clearance rack.  You put a balloon in a gun-like contraption, cock the gun and pull the trigger.  It randomly pops the balloon.  The boys loved it.

When everyone had arrived and were dressed in lab coats and goggles, we moved outside to make bag bombs.  We filled plastic ziploc bags with vinegar and then added packets of baking soda, zipped them and let them expand and blow up.  The boys loved it!  They experimented with different ratios of baking soda to vinegar.  (We now have brown spots on our lawn but they had fun!)

After washing their hands, we gave them each a film canister and some alka-seltzer tablets.  They filled their film canisters about halfway with water and dropped in 1/2 of an alka-seltzer tablet, put on the lid and aimed at Bryan!  The lids pop right off and it's great!  (I have video of this I will post later because it's on Bryan's phone.)  Whoever could hit Bryan would get an extra cupcake.

When they had run out of alka-seltzer tablets, we cleaned up and went on to making Elephant Toothpaste.  This was the experiment I was looking forward to.  I had to use a friend's cosmetology license to buy 6% hydrogen peroxide for this.

We gave each boy a bottle with 1/2 cup hydrogen peroxide in it.  They added some food coloring and Dawn dish soap.  We should have had them stir it but I didn't think about that until it was over.  I had mixed 2 Tbsp warm water with 1 tsp yeast in a cup and gave them each one.  They then poured the yeast into the hydrogen peroxide and watched it grow!  It took some of the concoctions a while, and a good stir, before they grew but they did grow and it was so cool!  The boys played with these for a while.  I wasn't sure if they should have been playing with the peroxide (it had eaten some of the skin off one of my fingers earlier) so we had them wash their hands really well.

When they had cleaned up and taken off their lab coats, we had cupcakes and then Ethan got to open presents.  I figured that, as 10 year old boys, they would enjoy playing "Heavy, Heavy, Hang Over."  We did this at every birthday party growing up.  The birthday boy (or girl) sits on a chair and the person giving the present holds the gift over the birthday boy's head.  Everyone sings, "heavy, heavy, hangover thy poor head, what do you wish this person with a bump on the head?"  The gift giver hits the gift receiver over the head with the present.  Then the gift receiver says "I wish for you to have...."  If the gift giver likes the wish they give the present.  Ethan gave them a lot of wishes for cars (and one for a girl friend, but we won't go into that.)

He got Pokemon cards, some games, lots of money and candy.  He loved it!

We then had the "Grand Finale!"  We had the boys put back on their safety goggles, gave them each a roll of Mentos, a 2 -liter bottle of generic diet soda and a PVC pipe Mento geyser (I am cheap and didn't want to spend $7.00 per boy so I made our own and they worked great!).  Bryan went first and showed them how to load their geyser with Mentos and how to screw it on top of the pop bottle.  I had bought a cinder block to stand the pop up in so it wouldn't fall over and spray us all.  Bryan then pulled the pin and jumped back.  Pop went 20 feet in the air and the boys were in heaven!!

Then it was their turn.  They each got to do their own Mento geyser and it quickly turned hilarious.  One boy, after pulling the pin and nothing happening, went up to tap his pop bottle to try and get the Mentos to fall.  He tapped it while his face was right above the geyser.  The Mentos fell and he got a face full of pop!  And the party went downhill in control from then on.  The boys were running through the spray like it was a sprinkler.  It was so funny!  I got video of it that I will post later. 

Here they are playing in the pop spray:

 Trying to set off 2 at a time:

 Ethan got hit!

 Ethan is letting his off:

 The crazy boys!

When they were good and sticky, we sent them home with a pop rocks science kit (edible science experiment) and some Atomic bubble gum that I hope they threw away because it is really gross.

It was the funnest party I think he has ever had, and he's had some fun ones.  Happy Birthday Ethan!!!

Ethan and his friends: