The Egg Drop

Last Monday, we spent a good portion of our day staring up at the 70 foot ladder of a fire truck. What were we doing? Our homeschool co-op was having an egg drop contest.



At co-op, we have been studying physics this year and what better way to research and learn about physics than making messes with eggs?

Right?

No.

The egg messes were just an extra bonus. I some how missed out on contests of this type during my educational experience but apparently a contest involving the building of a structure meant to withstand destruction is pretty common. Bob built some kind of egg protector in high school with the understanding that a bowling ball would soon bring death upon it from above.

Like I said, I don't remember being assigned this kind of thing... but I did make a neat tie-dye shirt in high school chemistry. It was on Senior Skip Day. Our teacher promised that she would fail us if we skipped. I didn't skip but I think I only got a C.

Bob and both Daniel and Michael worked on this egg capsule after discussing a little of what happens to objects as they fall as well as what happens on impact. Looks like Josiah was helping here, too.



Daniel really led the design team. After all, it was his assignment. Here he is sharing his thoughts with us. Michael is also sharing something with us in the background.





So here we are for the actual event. Daniel is ready for rain in the blue slicker. He's standing with the boys of his Pregrammar class. I was proud of them for standing so still and polite for so long. Things got crazy towards the end but really, they stayed together as a class for most of the event. Good work, PG!



Here are Michael and a couple of his preschool class pals, also watching carefully!



Up goes our egg capsule. See it poking up it's pointy head down there at the bottom of this shot?



Now the only question that remains is: will our egg survive?!



The answer: Um no.

Drippy eggings seeping out of the egg capsule upon post drop examination.

Oh well!

Here are some responses from the kids in our family:

Mercy: I watched the fire truck... then I fell off my chair!"

Michael: Our egg broke... but our capsule survived!

Daniel: That's okay. I like destroying things.

Next time, we'll put ours in a yellow purse. I'll bet that egg made it just fine!

Josiah has a birthday!

This little boy had his first birthday a week ago. Funny baby. Josiah enjoys exploring these kitchen cabinets that are wide open to better accomodate his curiosity. Yes, that must be why they don't have doors on them...


Aside from enjoying the freedoms of crawling about the house, Josiah likes balls and mini bagels. For some reason, he gets to eat a lot of mini bagels. I'd rather he eat more fruits and vegetables. We're working on that. It's definitely not his fault. He likes fruits and vegetables, too. We're just experiencing a lack of kitchen functionality. We won't go into all the reasons for that just now. (It may have more to do with a lack of mommy functionality than the um kitchen.)


I love watching Josiah's language development. Currently, he's doing a pretty good job of frantically signing "more" and "please" and sometimes "thankyou" at mealtimes. He's frantic because he's in a huge hurry to get whatever is coming to him. He also just started signing "water", although his version is sticking his finger in his mouth. I think it's cute.


Some of the words he says are:

Ball - "baaw"

Bottle - "bobbin"

Daddy - "daadeee"

Mommy - "mama"

Other things Jo does, just for the record, include crusing everywhere and standing alone for short periods of time. He likes to have crawling races with Mercy and he does not like to be constantly touched, hugged, poked, kissed nor sat on by her. (But this seems to be part of his daily routine.) He sucks on his stuffed elephant's trunk during naps and at night. Gross. We wash elephant as often as possible!

Okay! On to his birthday party...

We celebrated with family this evening at a restaurant- it worked out fine but generally going out to eat is not the easiest with all the wiggly kids. We all had a good time, I think.


The birthday boy checks out this gift from his cousin.


Michael helped with the opening of presents. Michael also fell backwards out of his chair, climbed into an adjacent booth to "fix" the window blinds and visited opposite ends of the table by crawling beneath it during the course of our meal. Daniel was busy playing with Auntie Heather's Iphone... Mercy was somewhat stuck in her booster chair. Really, family gatherings should not take place at restaurants but sometimes they have to... We will be sharing more of our behavioral expectations with Michael beforehand if there is a "next time".



And then we had little brownie cupcakes topped with Cool Whip. Josiah gobbled up the Cool Whip and rejected the brownie.


Happy Birthday, Josiah! We love you, Jojo!



Just had to throw this peaceful moment in here... I think they are all playing this game by their own rules. None of them actually know how to play Bionicle at this point but that doesn't matter. It was a relaxing afternoon.

That's all for now,
rebecca

A Return to Blogging?

I sure hope so. Posts have been extremely sparse to nonexistent around here due to the morning sickness portion of my current pregnancy. But I've missed the little updates to our family record here and my intention is to post more often again. Oh and I had a request for more fun pictures of the kids, too. I can oblige!


Mercy enjoyed this box until she realized she couldn't push herself in it. She's very persuasive. She got all her brothers involved by the end of the evening.



Josiah looks uncertain here...


I'd be concerned too, Jo Baby. She doesn't have a great track record with you, does she?


Look closely at Daniel (the one standing up). He is posing for this picture. Goof.



I like this one of Michael and Mercy. I like how their smiley eyes have the same squinty shape.



Daniel gave a report on circuits and electricity at our homeschool co-op this week. He got himself all dressed up and ready in the morning in his "nice" school clothes. Here he is giving each of his classmates a chance to switch on the light and "complete the circuit" to make the light bulb come on. I'm proud of his ability to speak to his class comfortably. He is required to give a report about 6 times a year at co-op which has given him a great opportunity to practice this skill.

We love our homeschool co-op!


Bob found this on the kids' bedroom door. It says: No one allowed except MichaelDaniel. (With some alternate spellings and the lovely skull and cross bones below...?)


Mercy might be too big now for a sink bath but we do it anyway sometimes.


Now that wasn't too hard to do was it? At 15 weeks, I'm staaaarting to feel better. Blogging is by no means at the top of my list of things that I want to return to doing more often. No. The list is more like this:

-Make dinner more than once or twice a week
-Speak kindly and quietly
-Begin some fun read alouds with the kids in an effort to "do school" again
-Finish the laundry

It's a short list but when it's time to break out of survival mode, its baby steps, right?

Enjoy these silly funinabox pictures!

rebecca