Home School Science Fair

Last week the boys participated in our local homeschool science fair. This year there were 30 entries...from Kindergarten through 8th grade! We had a great time working together on these projects and I think they both learned quite a bit from the whole process. At this fair, 2 judges evaluate each project and give constructive feedback. Each participant got a certificate. Our favorite part about the fair is getting to look at everyone else's projects...it is always so amazing to see how creative these kids get with their topics.

Some of our favorites were:

How a Submarine works (with an actual model of a submarine and a tub of water)

Testing a trebuchet

Geckos and which foods are most nutritious for them

How food color affects our brain and our taste buds

Lemon powered clock (it ran for over 24 hours!)

Here is Eric with his project...Dissolving Pills in Acids and Bases.
Bay and Leah with his display on Birds that come to our Birdfeeder.

Cozy and Finished!

Dennis and I got to finally rearrange the living room to open it up to the woodstove and we got the gas stove moved and put downstairs (not yet hooked up). It seems like we have rearrange this room so many times, but I think finally we really like how it feels. Open to the stove, open to the kitchen and center of activity, yet still cozy and intimate for conversation.

another exciting thing for me was that, because we used the double wall stove pipe, we are able to hang the mantel behind the stove. i was afraid that with the pipe going straight up, we would not be able to hang it, but there is only a 6" required clearance to combustible surfaces from the pipe! Amazing!

Anyways, the pictures below are in order as you enter our front door/foyer and move around the room clockwise.

view from the foyer. the armoire is sitting where the gas stove once sat.

view from the hall between the kitchen and living room

view from the back corner of the living room looking towards the kitchen

view from the bedroom hallway looking out

Cozy Heat in the nick of time!

We finally got our woodstove installed last night....just in time for the arctic blast that is coming today! It is supposed to be a high of 20 degrees tomorrow...below zero at night! We have been contemplating replacing our gas stove with wood, due to the ever-rising cost of propane, and just because the gas one (though we absolutely love it) just isn't quite enough to heat our entire house. So the gas stove is moving downstairs to our newly refurbished basement/playroom.

We fired up the woodstove this morning (the installers left at 10 pm last night!) and already the house is toasty warm---easily 74 degrees in here!

Here are pictures of the process of preparing for the stove. We decided to build our own hearth...at a fraction of the price of a pre-made one that you buy, and much larger and more attractive in our space than a square one. Dennis and I laid out the area to be tiled with 2 sheets of cement board for the base. Much to my surprise, since Dennis had just recently had gotten stitches in his back and couldn't bend and stretch, I found out that I would be the one laying the tile! No pressure or anything on me...

Dennis cutting the tiles...

Heather setting the tiles in the mastic. I did the diagonal tiles all first, then laid the border tiles. I had everything all numbered so we could get them in the right places once they were cut!

I think the border tiles make the project. Here is the job without any grout.


And below, the finished project (except the wood trim has not yet been stained). This is right after they installed the stove, before a fire was built in it.

Transformation for the New Year

Dennis and I decided to kick off the New Year with a transformation of the basement into a den/game room. We have been thinking of doing this for some time, and somehow just ended up plunging into the project during his last few days off from work. It has been quite the project, and was actually lots of fun, as it required me to organize and purge a lot of junk that has been collecting in our unfinished side of the basement.

The plan was this: half of our basement is unfinished and is used for storage. However, there is just too much open space and we wanted to be able to use some of the space for storage, and the rest of the space as living space. We decided to create a 12x12 room for storage, and make the rest of the space a play area for the kids, and a family game area as well. My dad and brother helped out with the 12 foot long drywall sheets, but other than that, Dennis did the construction and electrical work all by himself!

Dennis contemplating the area to be framed. Can you begin to see the stuff that covers the floor of the basement?

Here it is framed and the beginning of electricity being run. Eventually we will put some type of floor down over the concrete, but for now, it's just concrete with carpet remnants here and there.

I like this shot, looking out through the framing to the collection of stuff in the rest of the basement. All that....has to come in here!

View of the finished storage room. The doorway will have bi-fold doors on it soon. When you walk in the storage area, the left side is completely shelves, and the right side is stored furniture (beds, dressers, etc.). It is an amazing transformation! On the far wall behind the ping-pong table we put up a dartboard area, and I have hung some pictures on the walls since taking this picture.We hung a roller shade in front of the heating/water heater stuff just to hide the ugliness for now. It also helps keep stray ping-pong balls from going too far. The kids are having a great time now that they can actually play ping-pong!
The den/toy area. Far from finished, but so much cozier than once was before. We are borrowing my brother's tv/dvd. The kids legos, dart guns, and most of the boys' toys are moving downstairs. We have an old set of french doors we will be installing in the doorway where i am standing taking this picture which will help open the area up to the adjoining room (which is my sewing area off of our bedroom).

Now the fun is done and back to school/life/work as normal! I hope that your New Year is wonderful!

Santa Anecdotes, cont'd...

Leah continues with her hilarious observations on Santa. I don't know where she gets this stuff!

We finally got to see the fire truck with Santa on top the other night. Gramps came out to watch with us. He picked up Leah and the conversation went something like this:

Gramps: Are you going to get to see Santa on the fire truck?
Leah: Yes, but you know the real Santa is dead.
Gramps: (trying to hold back laughter)....How did he die?
Leah: His sleigh ran into someone's house.

I can't figure it out...what is my kids' fascination with Santa all of a sudden? Our policy on Santa is that we just tell the kids exactly like it happens. Jesus is what Christmas is all about. We give the history of St. Nicholas and so they know he was once someone who was alive, and now his legacy lives on in the imaginary character, Santa. Anyways, we have heard many humorous comments by the kids the past few days, and Leah especially seems enthralled by Santa, with Bay coming in a close second :)

#1 Our local fire department has one of their volunteers dress up as Santa and ride throughout our area on top of the truck, sirens wailing, throwing out candy. They have a schedule of which back-country roads they will be visiting on which nights. Last night was our night, so we went out to wait. The whole time, Leah is singing..."Sa a anta Claus is comin' to town..." They must have gotten a call, because they cut the tour short, so we went inside. Leah went back to her room and came out with her play phone. "Mommy, Santa is on the phone, do you want to talk to him?"

#2 During a recent trip to the mall, Leah, shy as she is of all the children, saw that people were going to sit on Santa's lap. "Mommy, can I go sit on Santa's lap and see him?"

"Of course not, honey. I am not allowing you to sit on some strange man's lap in a mall!"

#3 We went caroling with our church a few weeks ago. One of the people who came along dressed up as Santa. The people in the nursing home loved it! So did Bay. The whole time, he buddied up with Santa. Held his hand as we walked around. Talked about the one thing he really wanted for Christmas that we already told him there was no way we were getting. (He totally knew who it was under that costume, but something in his child's brain told him differently!)

#4 We are getting ready to install a woodstove. We will need to put in stovepipe (it will be exposed). Dennis and I were discussing specifics about this upcoming installation and the light bulb went off in their heads..."Now Santa will have a chimney to come down!!!"

Crazy kids.

Preparing for Christmas

I am sorry for the blog silence....our family has been battling a nasty cold/virus for the past 2 weeks. It has hit one after the other about 2-3 days apart, and seems to last for an entire week, so you do the math! Eric is the last one hit, and he went down today. Anyways, in the midst of our self-imposed quarantine, we are still trying to prepare our hearts and our home for Christmas. I hope you are doing the same, and I promise more posts in the near future.