One of the "joys" of this desert town...

Where we live it is windy or maybe I should say WINDY!!! Today is one of those WINDY days. I would say that this time of year at least 1/2 if not more days have high wind advisories. This generally means 20-30 mph winds (at least) and gusts anywhere from 50 to 60 mph. These are days that we stay inside, that is until I have to pick kids up from school.

Today the wind was blowing just right to produce a pretty terrible and annoying dust storm right through the elementary school. Right where bunches of kids and parents were trying to gather backpacks, lunch boxes and children! Blah, I really dislike the wind. Here's a little idea of what it looked like:

As one teacher put it: free exfoliation!!

What's growing at our house...

Week after next I'm teaching preschool again and our theme is science. So I've been rounding up simple science experiments for the this kids to try. Yesterday I tried a pretty successful one-growing crystals!! I've found there are a lot of ways to grow crystals: rock sugar, epson salts, alum. I plan on trying a few of these.

These crystals were made with salt, ammonia, water and liquid bluing. I had  no idea what liquid bluing was, but apparently it's a laundry whitener. It stains your fingers blue, so I'm unsure on it's whitening ability, but it sure grows crystals!! (here's where I found the tutorial: http://amymorby.com/2011/08/09/grow-your-own-crystal-tree/)

I started these yesterday. The tree shaped one in the morning and the round one in the evening.

This one is a toilet paper roll. I put some food coloring on it to make the crystals colored.

This one a cut some pieces of cardboard and slid them together with no food coloring.

I will be posting a full tutorial and explanation on my craft blog in the next few days as I try different tactics. But here's the recipe:

• 1 TBSP salt
• 1 TBSP water
• 1 TBSP liquid bluing
• 1/2 TBSP ammonia

Shaken up (in sealed bottle) or thoroughly stirred and poured in the bottom of a bowl (I used styrofoam so it wouldn't soak in). Place your cardboard on top and watch it grow.

 But this one was a fun quick way to see something cool grow fast!!

Easter Preschool...

Last week I taught preschool and our theme was Easter. We had a great time (or at least I did and hopefully the kids did too!).

Here are a few of the things we did:

"Carrots" made with golfish

"Carrots" made with cheese puffs!

Chow mein birds nest

Egg & basket matching game

Egg hunt

Bunny ears

Color matching

Resurrection story

Painting egg puzzle

M&M, frosting and nila wafer flowers

Thanks Kathryn for the idea!!

Happy Easter...

I feel like I totally dropped the Easter ball this year. No new Easter dress for Emma or ties for the boys. No dyeing eggs. No family pictures. I think I was too engrossed in figuring out preschool ideas for Easter that I just didn't make the time. But luckily on Sunday the Easter bunny did remember to come and leave Easter baskets and hid Easter eggs all over the house.

 

Hopefully that made up for the lack of other Easter festivities! That and the fact that we had pancakes, eggs and pig (otherwise known as bacon!) for breakfast!

Produce section egg hunt...

Today after the morning session of General Conference we loaded up and headed to our Albertsons grocery store. They were having and Easter egg hunt. They've had them in the past and had hard boiled eggs. I'm not a fan, but I knew this year it was plastic filled eggs!! I figured the kids would each get a few-I was wrong!!

Can you tell Emma was excited!!

Let the hunting begin!! It was all through the produce section!

Henry got the hang of it pretty quick!

Mo didn't want to stop for a picture!

There was no shortage of eggs! Every kid we saw gathering had baskets filled to the brim!

Do you think he enjoyed it?

Here's the haul after I refilled 26 eggs for Mo to take to preschool this week plus another small bowl that didn't fit!!

I'm kicking myself that I already bought some Easter candy!!

Soccer players...

We signed Bud and Emma up for Spring soccer season. Both of their practices are on Wednesday nights which is nice they fall on the same night. Unfortunately they're not at the same time-5:30-6:30 and 6:30-7:30. This week is was COLD and WINDY!! N8 came home with Mo and Henry and I stayed with the soccer players.

Emma's games are all on Friday nights. She loves they they get a snack at the end!

Bud's game was this morning (Mo wasn't feeling well so N8 and Emma went):

Bud hasn't played since Kindergarten and his team ranges from 9 to 11 year olds. He is by far the scrawniest player on the team. They both seemed to enjoy their first game.

Another try at a green thumb...

While perusing slickdeals.net on Friday morning I saw a post that Home Depot was having a "Spring Black Friday (weekend)" sale. This included 50% off all of their veggie and herb plants. So I headed over and picked out some tomatoes, peppers, squash and onions.

Once home I still had to clear the garden on last seasons VERY dead tomato plants, turn the soil and get it prepped.

Here's the result, I hoping for a more successful garden this year... we'll see!