Good looks and Brains!

The boys and I have had a "Brilliant" day so far. Kace notified me that OMSI was having a free day to celebrate Einstein's birthday. I did a little research and it was a OSHU brain fair that OMSI sponsored, so I decided it would be a good day to do something inside since it is, yup, raining again.
I had wanted to see their DaVinci exhibit anyway, Come to find out it was only the OHSU brain fair portion that was free so we stood in line to purchase our tickets to the remaining part and as we stood in line a lady with 3 kids herself approached me and stated that she had a family pass that allowed for 2 adults and 5 kids and wanted to know if we would like to get on her pass. Like anyone will say no to saving 30 bucks right? It was awesome! I love the random acts of kindness that people do and that one is definitely a cool one. I myself am a holder of a few family passes to other places around town and now will be passing on my "pay it forward" when we go to these places.

The boys working on a Mad Scientist Experiment

These are real brains... the boys decided not to stay too long at this portion of the Brain Fair..the crafts and candy was definitely more their style.

One little... Two little...

It started innocent enough, Cris was attached to a stick that he found while we were hiking one day. I let him keep it, it was harmless and I honestly thought I could hide it in a corner until he forgot about it.
Let this serve as living proof that you can not ignore or hide a little thing, because it will grow into something bigger. I went up to the boys' rooms this evening to collect dirty clothes that somehow crawled out of the dirty clothes hamper and onto their bedroom floors...and this is what I found...


I guess he has a collection going now, or he has blueprints somewhere to build a fort, either way they are getting bigger and I am just not sure what to do with a piece by piece tree in my house. I'm laughing I really am, but for those of you that know me, I am also wincing inside. Sticks! and they're getting bigger! so I wanted to count them...... 13! a bakers dozen, but wood! What a silly kid!

Back in the Old Days

Our house has been busy with school projects, and I don't really mind...it is fun for me too, it brings back the memories and gives me and the boys some fun time together. I like it when I am able to help them with homework and we can enjoy time together.
Lately it seems that as our kids get older they bring up a lot of the "when you were a kid" or "is that how they did it when you were younger?"... I find it humorous because we did the same thing to our parents... you know "back in the old days".

So kace has been learning about the Colonies and the Revolutionary War. For a project they had to write articles as if they were writing the headlines for that time period and to obviously show what they learned. So a trick to making the papers look like they are older than dirt, or as kace put it 'these look like the real Declaration of Independence- did they have this kind of paper when you were growing up'....uhhh no, my child, but thanks for making me feel old... yet again:)
I was given a ginormous box of Lipton tea. I am not a fan of the regular stuff, but didn't feel like being rude so I accepted it, little did I know how handy it would be... I made a big cup of the worlds strongest tea(10 tea bags to be exact). I let the tea sit for a bit then we proceeded to yellow our paper.






Of course there was strict parent supervision in adding the finishing touch of the burnt edges... (it was I who played with the lighter the entire time, and even burnt myself a time or two, inhaled a few paper ashes and had a burnt smell in my house for 2 days.) Totally fun...just don't tell the boys;)