Bureau of Land Management Field Trip

We went on a great field trip to the BLM. The kids had a blast. Nick really enjoyed it until Smokey showed up, then it was all downhill. Seems Nick still doesn't like costume characters.



Before Smokey, the kids got to learn about fire safety, and hear the story of Smokey The Bear.



They got to meet Smokey, I couldn't get a picture of Nick with him though, since Nick was hiding on the other side of the room, as far away as he could get. At least he wasn't the only kid there scared to death of Smokey.


Our group photo. We just barely got Nick in the picture, he's hiding behind our friend over on the side far, far from Smokey. It looks like she's blocking him, but that's just because he was trying to figure out how to hide behind her. Crazy kid.

The kids got to crawl through the truck. Nick enjoyed that. They also had a chance to shoot the hose, which Nick would have done, except it had a stale, kind of citrusy smell to it, and it made him start dry heaving, so he ended up hiding from that too. I think it would've been okay if he hadn't already been so worked up about Smokey.

All in all though, he says he had a lot of fun, so that's all that counts.

Radio Station Field Trip

Two weeks ago we took a field trip to a radio station broadcast center. It was a short field trip, but the kids enjoyed themselves. They got to see where the DJs talk into the microphones and where they record their ads. I just got the pics, so here are a couple:




A photo of the group (almost the whole group of us).

A few extra pictures for Grandma and Grandpa

Grandma and Grandpa sent a little box of goodies for Nick, as they often do. Here are some pictures of Nick opening his gifts:


Nick loved the pirate santa ornament!


I'm just going to open this one behind my back. (We don't know why he tried to open it behind his back, he may have been trying to hide to avoid the camera, I don't know). Once he did finally get this open, he told Erik that this gift must be for both of them :) So it looks like daddy is going to be helping with the airplanes.



A new game, yahoo!!

Volcano Explosions

Today we finally exploded our volcano, actually, wasn't much of an explosion because we had a hard time getting the baking soda into the narrow mouth of the bottle, but it came up pretty decently.





Coloring the "Lava" (vinegar)




Measuring out the baking soda.

Outside now, here we go!



In goes the lava



Putting in the baking soda



Watch it explode!



Let's go see what it looks like now!

Art Show

Last night Nick decided he wanted to have an art show. He called himself Runner, and gave us a ticket to get into the show. He had set his pictures (quickly done line drawings done in dark colors on dark construction paper) up in the living room.



Nick and his art show.

Volcano Continued

We worked some more on our volcano today. Today's job was painting the volcano! That was fun, and surprisingly didn't take too long or make a very big mess at all either, except for the paint the Nick flicked into my hair :)


Starting painting.


Finishing up.


The Finished Product

Church Program

Nick was in the kid's program at church today. Each of the kids had a small part to say. We weren't sure if Nick was going to get up and do his, because he flat out refused to try yesterday at rehearsal, but today he got up there and said it no problem. I was so proud of the job he did.

E-mails

Nick still loves writing e-mails and they are becoming easier and easier to read. Here are two I got today:
uwinapris

Translation: You win a prize

ugetachriptoobarwrld
Translation: You get a trip to bear world

Now we just need to get him to put spaces in between the words and he'll be all set!

Gravity and Volcanoes

Well, now that we're all caught up, here's what we did today:

Science: We are learning about gravity, so Nick learned to use a digital scale to weigh things and see what gravity's pull is on them.



History: We started building a volcano, my plan was to do a small model volcano now and save the fancy stuff until he was older, but he wanted to do an exploding volcano, so it became a big project. I'm excited, it's coming along really nicely.



This is how we started. The whitish stuff we have is homemade playdough.


In progress


Growling like a dinosaur at the volcano. I'm not exactly sure what this accomplishes, but the pictures cute.


The finished volcano model. (finished for today that is)


And just for fun, here he is being a goofball. Can you tell his was in a crazy mood today?

Halloween

Nick was excited all day about going trick-or-treating. Unfortunately, he started getting the flu right after we went out. After half a street he decided he wanted to come home, within 2 hours his temp had shot up to 102.4 and he was a pretty sick little M&M. I'm so glad we had gone to Boo at the Zoo, because between that and the bit of trick or treating we did, he got a lot of candy and felt like he went out to trick or treat.



Ready to go Trick-or-Treating.

Unfortunately, we didn't get a lot of Halloween day photos because Nick was so sick, but we did enjoy watching halloween movies and relaxing once we got back.

Carving the Pumpkin

Let's carve the pumpkin:

Nick wanted a vampire pumpkin, so he drew on a paper what he wanted, and Erik translated it into this cool design:



Starting the carving


Gutting the pumpkin. Once again I tried to convince Nick to get in and help gut it, and once again he refused to even touch the guts :)


The final product


All lit up, we always light it up with a glow stick, this year it added a really eerie green glow that made it really fun.

Boo at the Zoo

It's become an annual tradition since we came to Idaho Falls, it's Boo at the Zoo. Boo at the Zoo is one of our favorite Idaho Falls activities, it's essentially trick or treating at the zoo. We went the Thursday before Halloween (Halloween was on a Saturday). This year was the first time we'd gone after dark and it was super fun with all of the lights and what not.


Here we go, ready to start. Notice the thick coat. He was dressed in 3 layers under the coat and 2 layers of pants. It was VERY cold, but it was a lot colder the next night, so we picked the right time to go.


All ready to go. Notice we've added a hood now. Boy, his face looks grown up in this picture!


An M&M riding a chicken!


Golfing Game - he played for a while, but didn't quite make it in the whole, he did get it stuck beside the hole though.


Nick under the inflatable cat.

Explorer's Club Halloween Party

The Wednesday before Halloween we had a party for the homeschool Explorer's club group. Nick spent the half hour before running around singing "I'm an M&M" (to the tune of the farmer in the dell), while B (the little girl I watch) ran around singing "I'm Tinkerbelle" it was hysterical.

Getting Ready for the party:

Dipping Marshmallows in Caramel for caramel covered marshmallows.


More dipping. Nick insistead on the "aprons". I really need to get the boy a real cooking apron :)


I'm an M&M!


The dynamic duo!

Partying kids:





I don't know why he decided to sit at the table, he usually can't wait to have a "picnic" on the floor, but he sure had fun.

Colds, colds, and more colds

We've had a lot of colds going around here lately, and so we haven't gotten a lot of projects done, we've been focusing mostly on math and English. The science we've done has been focused on reading stories about types of energy and what not. For history we've been learning about Halloween and the history of Halloweeen.

Sorry I haven't been able to post, but I will try to get some pictures and posts up in the next day or so.