water beads, floating and sinking, walk in the woods and a new haircut

Water beads and my stupid, crazy, cheap, homemade light box

 (string of star night lights under a tupperware top).

Light shining through the water beads.

 Scent containers.  

This one is an old spice container and cotton balls with peppermint essential oil on them.

The other two have fake flowers with lemon EO, and the little one has whole cloves.

We keep them in her kitchen, and both kids love to 'cook' with them. 

 Lots of soups have been created lately.

She liked it.

"You smell mommy."

Science 

We've been trying to find opportunities to talk about science in our everyday as often as possible.  Recently we've had lots of balloons in our house, some sank and some floated.

We talked about gases, helium, oxygen, broke out out periodic table.  We observed the floating balloon over a couple of days and discussed why it started to sink after having it only1 day.  We talked about the size of gases and how they move.  We 'moved' like gas (fast and bumped into each other a lots, which she thought that was tons of fun).

Then I had her search through the house for things she thought would sink or float in water.  Here is what she brought me.  Her hypothesis was that the things in holes in the would float. 

 I thought it was a fantastic hypothesis for a pre-3 year old.

Oddly enough, she really didn't like the sinking things.  She seemed worried about losing her items and wanted me to take them out as soon as she saw them sink.  So we only played with the floating items.  Still, she had a blast playing in my sink, and that's really the point.

(I got to fold the laundry)

(I got to put away the dishes)

"I can't look at the camera mommy, I'm busy".  Yes, she really said that.

(I got to get lunch all ready for the kids)

Washing her giraffe balloon.

 Hanging out with Daddy.

Sitting together playing one of Jeanne's video games, which she apparently already outgrew. 

I was having a horrible day.  I felt horrible, tired, grouchy, short and just plain blah.  I needed to de-stress so we went for a walk through the woods.  I brought an empty egg crate for Jeanne so she could collect things to observe later. 

As soon as we got on the trail, she grabbed a big stick to walk with.

When I took Loki off my back for lunch on the trail, 

he decided he wanted to go for searching for a stick too.

I deliberately didn't take too many pictures.  I needed to breathe.

Hubbers has been asking me to get Loki's haircut for a while now.  I resisted knowing he would be a screaming mess.  But, after a very stressful month of lots and lots of working, I surprised hubbers with a short haired boy.  And yes, he was a screaming mess.

Before.

After.

After.

What do you think hubbers said when he saw Loki?  

"Oh, I think I miss the long locks"!

UG!