Hot Ones

Do you watch Hot Ones? The YouTube show where celebrities eat progressively spicier wings while answering interview questions?

This show is very popular in our home. Lex decided that we needed to order some of the sauces. So we could eat the like celebrities eat. 

They both survived.

I'm going to need to buy more milk, though.

Hanamikoji

 As part of our Eastern Hemisphere Summer Camp at Home, Connor and I learned how to play a new game yesterday:

The art is gorgeous. The gameplay is fun and quick.

The game is for two players.  I like it.  Do recommend. Two thumbs up.

Sorcerer & Stones

Tonight we played a new game based on Chinese legends.  I bought it as a part of the summer camp homeschool thing that we do.  It's a great game.  We laughed and laughed and I'm looking forward to playing it again soon.

Turing Tumble - A Marble Powered Computer

I ordered this as a kickstarter, and I am so glad I did. 

It's interesting and fun to play with.

Cards Against Humanity Family Edition at Home

Cards Against Humanity has released a free game to make at home to play with the family while we are all stuck at home.  I highly recommend it.  We will buy it once it is a thing that we can buy at the store, and once going to the store is a thing we do again.

I picked the smaller card version to save on paper and ink.

Then, we cut them all out.

It's just like the regular Cards Against Humanity game, but appropriate for anyone to play.

We played the first game until someone had five points, and I'm not bragging, but I won.

Okay, fine.  I'm bragging.

Click the link.  Print the cards.  Cut the cards.  Play the game.  Have the fun!

Lan Zhou Ramen & Sweet Hut

Tonight we went to dinner with some friends to celebrate the anniversary of the adoption of their daughter from China.

We went to dinner at Lan Zhou Ramen, which is known for their hand pulled noodles.

They gave the kids some dough, so that they could try to make noodles, too.

I got a cold cucumber salad, and some chicken stir fry noodles.

It was delicious.

Then, we went to Sweet Hut for bubble tea and dessert.

We played Sushi Go.  It's a great game!

Fourth of July 2018

This year shall be known henceforth as The Year of the Smokebomb.

The kids saw some little smoke bombs near the sparklers at the grocery store, so we bought two little packages.

They really liked them.

And they liked them so much that they talked us into going to the fireworks store to buy some more, bigger smoke bombs.

This is what was left on the kitchen counter AFTER they decided to take a break from the smoke bombs:

The Colossal Smoke Ball was definitely the best one.

The little hand grenade smoke bombs were neat because you could pull the pin to start them, but they did tend to cause some small burns in the process.

We also bought some huge sparklers when we were at the fireworks store.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!

Souvenirs

What did the boys pick out from the gift shop at the Truman Presidential Library?

I'm glad you asked.

Lex picked out a little replica of the replica of the Liberty Bell that we saw.  (Yeah, I know, what is he going to buy when we visit the real Liberty Bell in Philadelphia?)  It's a working bell, and he said that he was going to use it to train Tik.  Then he changed his mind, and said that he was going to put it by his bed, so he could ring it and I would know that he wanted his breakfast in bed.  Then he changed his mind again, and he put it with our little village of souvenir buildings. Which is fine by me.  That whole breakfast-in-bed-at-the-ring-of-a-bell thing was a little sketchy, in my opinion.

Connor picked out a coloring book.  Which is amazing!  I am finally getting him to color!  I *heart* coloring, and my children, well, they have always been reluctant color-ers.  Which has been breaking my Crayola-loving heart.  But that seems to be changing!

This coloring book is awesome, because Connor loves the presidents, and he has been fascinated by their pets since we saw an exhibit about presidential pets when we were at the George W. Bush library last December.  For the record, some of the presidents have had some strange animals at the while house.

I also think that he picked it out because he is currently working on two of these types of coloring books already.

We are learning all about the Greek Gods and Heroes and myths this summer while we are learning Greek.  We are also reading the Percy Jackson series of books.  He usually picks a God, and I read to him the page about the God in this book, and then he colors the picture that goes with it while I am reading a chapter out of Percy Jackson.

Sidebar:  Connor and Lex demand that the third Percy Jackson book be made into a movie already!

The other coloring book that we are already working on is this one about pirates.  We did a unit study on pirates this summer, because summer=pirates, and also because we read the Magic Tree House Book #4:  Pirates Past Noon.

I really like the Magic Tree House books because there are two books on each topic.  One is the fictional story, and the other is a nonfiction companion that covers the related topic.  Book one was about dinosaurs, book two was about medieval knights and castles, and book three was about Ancient Egypt and the mummies.  We did an entire unit study for each one of these topics this past school year.  We are currently getting ready to read the fifth books in the series, Night of the Ninjas (the fiction book) and the Ninjas and Samurai Fact Tracker (nonfiction companion).

What Connor didn't know when he picked out another Dover Coloring Book at the gift shop was that I have already bought a few more for this coming school year.

One is going to be used for our United States geography and history lessons:

And this slimmer volume is going to go with it:

And, finally, it is high time that the boys learn the sign language alphabet.  It drives me crazy when I am trying to finger spell a word to one of them as a secret message and they don't get it.  I have been trying to get Kevin and the boys to learn it for years now, but it's time that they actually do.  And this book has a few signs for each letter as well.

Because secret messages are cool.  And they can come in handy when you need them.

Wordless Wednesday: Summer Edition

Palo Duro Canyon: Grandma Ella & Papa Kirk Edition

We took Grandma Ella and Papa Kirk to explore Palo Duro Canyon with us one afternoon.





It was pretty windy at up on the top of the canyon, but the weather was still pretty great.

Official Family Portrait at the Canyon: April 2015 Edition

We did a little hiking and exploring.



The CamelBaks are still some of the best things that we have ever bought for the boys.  Lex might be ready for the same size that Connor has.  His is smaller, and we had to refill it halfway through the day.

Also, I have decided that I want one of my own, as well.  With pockets for my cell phone, car keys, sunscreen and a little first aid kit.  Not that my cell phone really works down in the canyon.  There isn't any service down there.



The boys have also outgrown their cowboy boots from last spring, and Lex hasn't quite grown into Connor's old pair yet.  So, they both need new boots, too.

Sectional Anywhere Chair

Lex has taken to pushing two Pottery Barn Anywhere Chairs together to make his very own sectional sofa chaise lounge.

It's actually pretty brilliant, and I expect it is just as comfortable as it looks.

In which Lex goes to the ophthalmologist for a check up

Busy as bees in the waiting room.

Sidebar:  Connor loves to scribble.  He will scribble and scribble until he wears a hole in the paper.  I bought a travel Spirograph for him, and he loves it, and it makes prettier scribbles.  I loved my Spirograph when I was a kid, and this travel one has been living in my purse and used often lately.  It uses a post-it note for the paper, and it was the best $7 I've spent recently.

Report:  The doctor is very pleased with Lex's new glasses, but he is still only seeing about 20/30 out of them, so we are going to increase the amount of time that he wears his eye patch to four hours every day, in hopes that he can achieve and maintain 20/20 vision between now and when the pathways between his eyes and brain are set for life, which should happen sometime between 7 and 9 years of age.  He is still only four years old, so things are still good.

In which we have the house painted.

The new house needed a paint job.  The whole thing.  So we spent a few days getting quotes from various painters for the work, and then we picked one to get started.

The painter wanted to buy our paint from either Lowes or Home Depot, so he suggested that we go to the store and get some paint samples to make sure that we liked the color.

I went to Lowes and bought a few little sample cans of paint:



We decided that we liked the lightest color, called Tagsale Linen.

So, I gave the painter the name and code for the color that I liked at Lowes.  He showed up and started painting, and we noticed a problem.  The color that he was painting all the walls did not match any of the sample colors that I had painted up on the walls throughout the house.

It was pink.

I didn't like the pink, so I got my paint sample back out and painted a patch next to the color that the painters were putting on all of the walls. 

The pink color at the top left is the Tagsale Linen that the painter brought.  The tan color at the bottom right is the Tagsale Linen sample that I bought.

After doing some research into the matter, we discovered that I bought my paint from a different Lowes store than the painter did.  You would think that all the Lowes would be mixing the same paint colors to match, but each branch manager is allowed to manually override the tolerances on their paint mixing equipment.  So even though Lowes wants you to believe that Tagsale Linen will be the same at every location, it can be very different.  (So be careful, other painters!)

The painters weren't happy with Lowes, or us, actually, but they color matched my sample paint and started over:

See the cut work with the correct color going up over the wrong color?

And finally, here is a shot of the dining room painted the correct way:



I think it looks great.

Connor's First Soccer Game

And so, the first game of Spring 2013 Soccer was held on a very cold Saturday morning.  Icy winds blew across the soccer fields.  And it was early in the morning, so the sun did little to warm the world.

Am I being overly dramatic?  No.  It was dang cold.  This is how Connor "warmed up" before the game, but I use that term loosely, because there was no way he ever could have gotten warm.

Fortunately there was a snack bar that sold hot food.  Nothing says brunch like hot cocoa, hot dogs and ring pops at 9:15 AM.



Who's idea was this so-called "spring" soccer anyway?  April is the cruelest month.  Indeed.



Even Zane was so cold that Lex was concerned about keeping him warm. 



Despite the cold, Connor was a trooper, and he really enjoyed his game.  He was all smiles on the field. 



The Under Armour warm gear that I bought for the boys has to be one of the best investments I've ever made in their wardrobes.