Joe's birthday, Seaworld, and Such

 Joe had another great birthday, filled with food. I made baklava for him (on the plates), he requested a grocery store cake with butter cream frosting...all they had was this girly pink one. But no complaints from him. Then, to top off the food fest, we went to Texas Roadhouse. Happy birthday, Handsome Hansen!

Then, Joe went out of town for 3 days, and we made pizza.

This is what happens when you leave a two-year-old with a bag of flour and some dough. Before and after.

Then, on Thursday, Sea World had its annual homeschool day.  It only cost $4/person, plus free parking. This is a great deal, believe me.

This is probably our last time going to Sea World, so I was nice and bought my kids cotton candy. It was bright orange. Now think about Ruby and cotton candy. I wish I would have gotten a picture. It was all over her hair, hands, face, and clothes.

All of the rides were closed, but it was an educational day, so there were animal encounters that were self-guided, then there were two shows at the end where they tell you and show you how they train the animals. It was all very fascinating to me. In fact, I counted it as science for the day and had Dottie write two facts she learned from each animal encounter in an essay when we got home. Aren't I a nice mom?

After Sea World while Dottie and I were playing catchup in school, this is what Elliot was doing with the Scrabble Cheezits. Sorting.

Another science experiment. We tried catching carbon dioxide in one of the bags of this homemade scale. Our scale was a little rickety, so it didn't work as well as it should have.

And finally, every week I've been buying one of these books from Amazon, used. They are Usborne's 1001 Things to Spot. You can find them for $.01, and then you pay $3.99 shipping. That's not a bad price to pay to keep Elliot and Ruby occupied for a week. Plus, the used copies I've purchased have all been in great shape, even the ones deemed only "acceptable" by Amazon.

Next week, I'm babysitting my friend Jessica's 3 little boys from Tuesday to Saturday. Needless to say, I won't be doing school on those days. We had extra school today and tomorrow, then we'll only do Monday and Tuesday next week. I thought while the boys are with us we'd have an arts and music week. I'll let you know how that goes.