Family
Travel & Vacation: Adventure Science Center (Nashville, TN)
During our recent visit to Nashville we went to the Adventure Science Center. The kids LOVED it! It was a lot of fun hanging out, playing, and learning with the kids for several hours. We were there when it opened that morning and left when it was closing 7 hours later, I would say it was a hit with the kids! Even better is our whole family got in free (WOOHOO) because we are members of our local Roper Mountain Science Center in Greenville and the museums are part of the same affiliation.
Brina and Karlie discovered that they CAN lift a car off the ground, using the right tools!
Activity that simulates walking on the moon, they had a blast!
Karlie especially liked the Space Chase room. Standing near her favorite planet….Saturn!
The space room was two stories high, this is looking up from the ground level. Pretty neat!
Chatting with Brina, the old fashion way!
Brave Karlie putting her hand into the mouth of a fish and pulling it out of the log.
The water table was a popular spot for the kids!
Brina checking things out!
Karlie using the wind from the Jungle Gym to blow the sails on the sailboat!
Karlie in the bubble under the dinosaur as Brina points out that the dinosaur is moving.
Karlie generating energy on the bicycle! Pedal faster!
Parachute race! Whose going to win! You raise the parachutes on the pulley system, when it clicks they release and see who lands first!
Locating our house!
Found Grandpa and Grandma’s house too!
Exploring particles and magnets….
Feeding the giant mouth!
Trying to master the digestive track maze!
At the top of the 3 story jungle gym you can look out over downtown Nashville. Great view!
Jake and the girls waiting for me to come down from the top. They obviously move faster, ha! Fun times with the family.
It’s probably been awhile since Jake’s been on a 3 story jungle gym. He was a good sport and allow the girls to “show him around!”
This was a laser game that we played several times. The good activities compete against the germs / sickness to see who will win.
Jake playing checkers with Karlie.
Brina maneuvering the wheelchair around the ramps and basketball court. Takes some skill getting around places in a wheelchair.
Travel & Vacation: Nashville – Parthenon Park
Our family was able to spend a couple days in Nashville, Tennessee recently. We had a little bit of time to burn before heading to our next adventure so we stopped at one of the parks near our hotel. The contained a full-scale replica of the Athenian Parthenon. It was massive! The re-creation was built in 1897 for Tennessee’s Centennial Exposition. The Parthenon represents classical architecture. It was pretty neat seeing it!
Sitting near the statue with the Parthenon replica in the background!
If you look closely you can see two people on the steps of the Parthenon (that is Brina and Karlie). They look tiny!
The side of the Parthenon. Can you see us?!
Hanging out on the steps. We look so small!
This statue near the Parthenon is of John W. Thomas. John Thomas was a native of Nashville and was the President of the Nashville Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway for many years.
The outside of the Parthenon replica in Nashville, TN
Venting some energy out on the play ground for a few minutes!
Teaching Our Children: How to Build a Catapult
A fun little experiment for the whole family
The girls were talking with Jake recently about catapults. He decided to make it a teachable moment for the kids. They worked on designing and building a catapult. It was a lot of fun to watch them working together. The girls were super excited to see how well their catapult experiment worked! Thankful for a husband who takes the time to do fun and educational activities with the kids. Great memories with their Daddy!
Jake & the girls catapult design
Little pieces of the catapult that the girls have sanded
Brina working hard
Karlie sanding her piece of the catapult
Teamwork!
Ready to launch the first unsuspecting acorn across the driveway! It worked really well! 🙂
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Science Experiment: Why Do Leaves Change Colors?
Why do leaves change colors?
Recently we did a science experiment with the kids. We were talking about leaves and why they change colors. In the Spring and Summer they are various shades of green, but once the cold weather of Fall hits the leaves start changing colors.
What is chromatography? The definition of chromatography is the separation of mixtures into their constituents by preferential adsorption by a solid, as a column of silica (column chromatography) or a strip of filter paper (paper chromatography) or by a gel. We decided to uncover the rainbow of colors found in each leaf. The kids picked 9 leaves to experiment.
Science Experiment Items:
- Leaves (different colors and types)
- White Coffee Filters
- Rubbing Alcohol
- Scissors
The leaves contain a green pigment, chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is used to capture sunlight. By using chromatography you will be able to see the different colors present in the leaves.
Collect a variety of leaves to test. Pour 1/4 inch of rubbing alcohol into the bottom of a jar. Cut the leaves into small pieces and put each leaf into its own container. Cut the coffee filter into 1 inch strips. Put a strip of coffee filter in each container (the bottom of the strip should touch the rubbing alcohol) and you can fold the top of the strip over the top of the container.
Watch carefully as the rubbing alcohol moves up the coffee filter paper. You will notice the colors moving up the paper as well. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes for the rubbing to move up the paper.
We did the experiment saw the results and then “just for fun” we left it overnight to see what would happen.
One of the girls picked out 2 dark green leaves and one flower petal to test in this experiment. I figured they might as well see what happens with it too!
One of the girls picked out a red, yellow, and orange leaf to experiment with today!
Check out the cool colors!
What one of the leaves looked after sitting over night; after the rubbing alcohol evaporated.
As you can see the red flower petals (in the container on the left) did not amount to much color on the paper. The other two leaves did great!
Some cool colors found in these leaves.
Our 9 different leaf experiments and the colors we found inside them. We found the most variety of colors in the dark green leaves. The lighter colors on the left were ones that were turning colors (yellow, orange, and red leaves). The one on the right that looks almost white with a very faint yellow color is the red flower petal. Glad I let the kids experiment with that too even though it wasn’t a leaf, it was still a good learning lesson.Organized Chaos: Easy DIY Headband Holder
The headbands are now hung up in the girls closets so they can access them easily!
We have a lot of headbands in our house. There are two girls in our home who wear headbands, however, it was getting to frustrating trying to figure out the best way to store all the headbands. Just putting them into a storage box wasn’t working because it was a mess, headbands were getting broken, it is was impossible on a busy school morning to find a particular headband before rushing off to school.
I decided it was time to come up with a solution that would help keep the headbands organized. The idea started while I was putting away a swimming noodle…. Which happened to be a good size to hang a headband on so I decided to give it a try.
The pile of headbands that need to be organized
All you need is a thick noodle, hanger, headbands, and knife!
Cut the noodle to fit inside your hanger.
Slice one side of the noodle so you can slide it onto the hanger. The thicker the noodle the better.
Hang your headbands on the noodle and your done!
The headbands are ready to go into my daughters closet!
We have used this headband holder / organizer for several months now and it works awesome! Each girl has their own headband hanger on the back of their closet door so they can reach in and grab whatever headband they want to wear that day.
Heart Reflections: Spending One-On-One With Each Kid
I cannot remember how old the girls were when we started with official Date Nights, but we always tried to make sure we had one-on-one time with each child even when they were little. That could mean taking one child to the grocery store while Daddy reads to the one at home. Now that the girls are older we give them several Date Night options that appeal to them.
We do a mix of “Home Date Nights” and “Out on the Town Date Nights” to help make it more cost effective for the family. Most months we swap, usually one of us goes out with one child and the other stays home (great chance to watch a movie or do puzzles, play a game or build a castle out of legos). The date nights with the kids give us time to have fun, make memories, and opens up a multitude of opportunities to have some heart to heart conversations with our kids.
Also, it is very important that your children see you and your spouse go on Date Nights and have fun together too. Usually when Jake and I go out the girls want to make sure that their “turn” is coming up soon! Thankful for time to spend with my family!
3D Printed: Heart Puzzle
Super cool heart puzzle my husband made for me with his 3D printer.
While I was away Jake made me a 3D printed heart puzzle, love my man! It was a sweet surprise when I came home! He is so thoughtful! The “flowers” or gears on the heart rotates around and when all of them are aligned it looks like the heart in the pictures. Super cool! The girls thought it was fascinating too!
The pieces had to be printed in several settings and then he clipped them together to form the puzzle. So thankful for my man. He is always doing things to brighten my day! Love him!
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Playing Bananagrams
Brina reading me the directions to the Bananagrams game
Our family enjoys games! The kids are always up for playing a game. Occasionally when we get done with homework early or have a little extra free time we try to find ways to have fun. One of the things the kids will often ask me to do is play a game with them.
On this particular day Brina wanted me to play Bananagrams with her. I finished up dinner prep work while she got the game set up and read the game directions to me. We had a great time playing the game together!
It is important to me to take the extra time whenever possible to stop all the “busy work” that I need to do around the house and play with the kids. I am thankful for our time playing together, the great laughs we shared, and for some wonderful conversations that took place during the game that day. It was so worth it!
