6th Grade Science Fair

Kendall finished his science fair project and won 2nd place. I don't care about all of that--I just wanted him to get a good grade--he got an "A!" Kendall called me at 8:45 am on the day of the fair and told me parents could come from 9-11. I wasn't even dressed and ready, so I got ready and went over at 10 and found out that it ended at 10:15, so he's lucky I made it!! There were some really fun projects.

35!

Happy Birthday to me! I turned 35 on January 30. It was a super, busy, crazy Saturday, but it was a lot of fun. My parents, baby sister, three of my brothers, sister-in-law, and nephew all came down and we hung out and then went out for pizza. We finished the night with one of Kendall's basketball games, followed by cake and ice cream. Kristen decorated the cake--I LOVE snowmen! It was a great day, I just don't like getting older. This was the ONLY picture I got of my "big" day.

I'm Back.....Kind Of.....

I'm having problems with my digital camera. We had a couple of trojan viruses on the computer and when we got rid of those, things have been messed up. I plug the camera into the computer and it's telling me the scanner can't be found and now I can't even find the cable and I can't find any batteries that will work in the camera. So...I've put off blogging because I want pictures to go with the posts.

Here's a preview of a few of the things to come.....

*My 35th Birthday
*Kendall's science fair
*Kristen....something about Kristen, but I can't remember what
*Our "new" dog
*Our home (in a tropical location)

Stay tuned and I'll try and get everything up and running soon.

Geography Bee

Congratulations to Kendall!! He won the school geography bee yesterday. Each 4th, 5th, and 6th grade class held a class bee last Friday. The top 3 went on to the school bee. Kendall was #4, but one of the students in the top 3 didn't come to school, so his teacher sent him. He answered all 4 of his questions right and made it into the top 10 and then the judges said that only one student (not Kendall) had all the correct answers, so if any of the rest of them missed a question, they would be out. Kendall had them all right! He tried to tell them that, but didn't want to argue with adults. I was going to go up and say something, but they proceeded on. He missed that question, along with 6 others students, so they said he was out. At that point, I went up and said something. Kendall's very good friend was sitting next to him and missed both his 3rd & 4th question. At the end of the 4th round, he went to leave and the judges said, "No, you only missed one. You need to stay." He said he had missed two and left and they thanked him for being honest. What I think happened, is that they marked one of his misses under Kendall's name. I said something about that and they said they didn't make mistakes. I said it was fine, but I just wanted to be sure. Kendall's teacher came up and said that he was keeping a close eye on his 3 students and Kendall did NOT miss any until this round. We told the judges they could do what they wanted--it was their decision. They decided to have a top 4, instead of top 3 because it was only fair. They went through 3 rounds with all 4 missing their questions and then on the 4th round, Kendall thought and thought and said, "This probably isn't right, but I'm going to guess what I think it is." and he was right! Okay...now for my soapbox: apparently a girl in his grade called me a swear word (and the teacher too) saying that we cheated for Kendall and got him in when he should have been out and that we told him the answers. WHY CAN'T SOME PEOPLE JUST BE HAPPY FOR OTHERS ACCOMPLISHMENTS??? Shouldn't we be cheering each other on and supporting each other??? Don't we all have different strengths and weaknesses??? I was only trying to do what was right and fair and if it happened to someone else's kid, I would have done the same thing. I'm trying not to let a 12 year old upset me because she's jealous or something, but it just bothers me.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

Kristen and two of her friends decided to have a fun day pampering themselves yesterday (no school). I was lucky enough to do their hair again. Another mom did their nails--very cute faces on the thumb and a different color on the fingers. And the last mom got to feed them lunch and let them play. They decided to make a gift for each other. I wasn't informed of this until Sunday afternoon, so we finally found a website with simple crafts and had the materials to do it. We cut off the bottom part of some old levis that were going to be thrown out and made a bag out of it. I thought they turned out sooo cute and Kristen is going to use hers for a dance bag. Oh...I was kind of shocked....but Jenna saw how cute the hair turned out (uneven braids and a bun) and wanted hers done! What a fun day...

Crafts

I work with the 14 and 15 year old girls in our church. We had a lesson on overcoming fears. Basically, it was teaching them to try new things and to overcome feelings of inadequacy and fears of failure, because you never know when you'll discover and new love, talent, hobby, etc. We gave the girls about 6 weeks to try something and then we had an activity and talked about it and displayed things we did. Wow--these girls are sooo amazingly talented!!! I am not a crafty person. I see others houses and wish mine looked like that, but I don't have the talent or the patience to get it that way. I always feel inadequate in that department when I'm around my sister and my sister-in-law--they are sooo talented! Anyway...I decided to get a couple of wood items and mod podge scrapbook paper to them. I didn't have a clue what mod podge is and I had NO idea how to do it. My little sister filled me in, but I was on my own. I'm happy with how my things turned out, but I'm still not crafty by any means!

Kendall's Science Fair 2010

Kendall has another school science fair coming up. He worked really hard on it during the Christmas break, since it was due the first day back. He came home with the journal still in his backpack and said so few kids in the class got it done, so the teacher extended it another week. I made him turn it in anyway. :)

He decided to eat jalapeno peppers and try different things to see what would cool the burning in his mouth: water, honey, orange juice, and ice cream. The ice cream worked best. Peppers have a substance in them (capsaicin) that is not water soluble, so the water didn't work. Sugars are said to work, but didn't for him--maybe if he would've had a big bottle of honey it would have. Citrus fruits and juices are supposed to help, and it did, just not as much as the ice cream. But dairy products have a protein in them that neutralizes the capsaicin (fatty things and cold things also work well). The ice cream had all three of those, so it worked amazingly well.

If you're ever eating hot, spicy foods, be sure to have some ice cream (or a cold glass of milk) nearby.