A visit from Rebbie

Rebbie (my mom) came to visit on Monday, July 2. She got here in time for us to go to the grocery store for dinner items and then pick up Joshua from school. On Tuesday, we went to the park and later Rebbie and Joshua did an art project for the 4th of July.  Rebbie left Wednesday mid-morning.

It was a pretty low key visit, but I was glad to have her here because Brian was working 16+ hour days last week.

goop and gak

We recently tried out a couple of messy goos.

The first is goop or oobleck.  It's cornstarch and water in equal parts. It's super messy.

Then we tried gak. It's equal parts glue and starch. It's not quite as messy.

I'm thinking about making a slime for Joshua's birthday party.  I'm kind of leaning toward gak just because of the mess factor. Though, either one will require a drop cloth of some kind, so who knows. Any opinions for a group of 3 and 4 year olds?

6 months

Evan had his half birthday on June 30th. He had his 6-month well-baby check up on July 5th.  he weighed 17 lbs, 9 oz and was 26.5 inches long. (To compare, Joshua was 19 lbs, 6 oz and 27 inches long.)

My Evan, who has a full head of hair but no teeth, who likes to stand but hates tummy time, who is so vocal we have a hard time getting a word in, who stares intently at food but who, so far, has not really taken to any of the foods he's tried (which now include rice cereal, sweet potatoes, green beans, and apples).

It's just amazing how quickly things change.

eruption

Joshua and I made an eruption (sans volcano) out of baking soda and vinegar.  He was super excited about it!

I had never done this before so I think my proportions were off, but it was still cool.

What we did:
Emptied out a 20 ounce gatorade bottle. Filled it most of the way with hot water. Put in several teaspoons of baking soda. Poured in some vinegar and then watched it erupt.

Then we added more baking soda and more vinegar. And more baking soda and more vinegar. And more baking soda and more vinegar.

I bought two more boxes of baking soda the last time I went to the grocery store so we can do it again. And again. And again.

big helper

Since Evan refused the past few bottles he was offered, and since I'm with him all the time basically, I kind of gave up trying to give him bottles.  Therefore, I've been the only one able to feed him.

Until now.

Check out my big helper!

Joshua absolutely adores Evan and is so excited to be able to help out. I love how much they love each other.

f-stop, iso, and a cute baby

I've had this Canon Rebel XS EOS (or whatever) for, like, 2 years and I don't know how to take a picture with it unless it's in fully automatic mode.

Single Dad Laughing's brother is posting weekly about how to work a camera and so I thought I'd try out the f-stop, shutter speed, and iso stuff he wrote about. 

Well, without a tripod, shutter speed was just gonna have to stay what it is - quick.

But I did mess around with the f-stop and iso. I don't know that what I ended up with is any better than what it would have been on full auto, but hey, it's a first step into taking charge of my camera and at least I can say, I did that!

Not quite right

sweet potatoes

A couple days ago, Evan tried sweet potatoes.

I'm not quite sure how he liked them.