Traveling Vietnam War Memorial Wall

I was so excited that this traveling wall came to our town! We stopped by it on our way from church and ended up getting quite a history lesson. In addition to the wall, we also visited the museum there. Even though we drive by the museum all the time, this is the first time that we visited it. Because we had been studying World War II, the kids were really interested in that section. It really brought the lesson to life for them!!

The Sun

We tried to watch the lunar eclipse a couple of nights ago. Of all nights, it was so cloudy that we didn't have a clear view of the moon. We caught 3 glimpses of it when it was about 2/3 covered. We lay outside on blankets until 3:00 in the morning. We could see the orange tint in the sky but never got to see the moon covered completely. We tried :(

Speaking of eclipses, we are prepared for our next solar eclipse! While studying the sun, we made a device to help us see it without looking AT it.

We also used a jar of water to separate the light waves of the sun into a rainbow. This wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, but we did manage to get a small rainbow.

Happy 12th Birthday Carter!!

Carter chose to go bowling on his birthday this year. This isn't the first time he has chosen to bowl on his birthday. He even had one of his birthday parties at the bowling alley. Even though we don't do it a lot, he just loves it. I couldn't believe how good he had gotten. I don't know if he can beat Jeff yet, but he beat the rest of us. We all bowled and had a great time!He requested biscuits and gravy for his birthday dinner and peach cobbler in place of a birthday cake. For his party with friends, Carter wanted to go ice skating. He chose two friends to go with us, and we drove to Mississippi to the nearest ice skating rink. We got there and found out that the rink was closed! Carter was so disappointed but handled it well. We let the boys play laser tag then took them to see a movie. It was worth the drive for Carter just to get to play laser tag...he LOVED it.

Happy birthday Carter....we love you!!!

Happy 13th Patrick!

We have another teenager! I always knew this day would come but secretly believed that it wouldn't. I somehow felt that, while everyone else's children turned into teenagers, that mine would stay kids forever...not so. The funny thing is that I'm okay with it, not because I want them to grow up and leave, but because I just love who they are becoming. They are less work with more fun at this age!Patrick decided that he didn't want to go anywhere on his actually birthday. He got a new video game and wanted to stay home to play it. He did, however, want to go to his favorite restaurant that night...Olive Garden. His cousin, Caiden went with us. As always, it was yummy!!! The Olive Garden happens to be my favorite place to go too!
Afterwards, we came back to the house for cake and more gifts. Patrick chose to have an icecream cake. We were all almost too full from eating out to even have the cake!Patrick didn't want a big party this year. He said that he just wanted to get together and hang out with friends. He suggested a movie, but there was nothing good on. Jeff, however, turned our living room into a theater with a projector that he borrowed from work. The kids watched a movie on the big screen then played their video games on it for the rest of the night. Patrick did let us make him a cool popcorn cake.

It was hard for me not to go all out for this party! I love to take a theme and run with it. I wanted movie posters and cool tableclothes. I wanted big movie candy boxes and cute movie tickets lying around. I did, however, restrain myself. The most I got to do was make the cake and buy big popcorn buckets from the video store. What I did find out was that a party can happen without all of the extra stuff! Most importantly, it happened exactly as Patrick wanted it.

Happy birthday Patrick!! We love you!!