Ethan Is 3!

**Note:  As I was looking through my blog today, I noticed I had several "drafts" that I never completed.  So you might just see a few OLD pics in the next few days.  It's fun to look back & see how much my boys have grown!

Grant's Graduation Film Reel Cake

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of creating a graduation cake for one of our dear friends.

He is heading to Liberty University in the fall to study Film Production,

so a movie inspired cake was in order!

I first asked him to give me a list of his top 30 movies.  I created some film strips

with a film strip bulletin board border that I found at a party supply store.  I found

images of his favorite movies & cut & pasted them to the film strip boarder.  Then,

I laminated the film strips.

I created the film reels using scrapbook paper & aluminum foil.  

I covered one side with foil (the side that wouldn't be seen) 

and glued the scrapbook film reel to the other side. I free-handed the black

figures on the gray paper.  I also laminated the scrapbook reels.

(Practicing with cake pans & dishes to make sure this would look right.)

(Practicing a little more...)

(Trying to envision how this would all come together...)

I iced all the cakes with "silver screen" colored buttercream icing. 

I couldn't complete the assembly until we traveled 3 hours to their home.

Thankfully, the cakes made it safely!  

(My husband is a great driver!)

Finally got it all assembled!

And there you have it!  

The film reel graduation cake!  I hope everyone enjoyed eating

it as much as I enjoyed creating it!

We're so proud of you, Grant!  We look forward to 

seeing how God uses you to change the world!

Hiking at Beavers Bend

Today we took a little afternoon field trip to Beavers Bend State Park & hiked the South Park Trail.  We found one geocache too!  It was nice to be out & enjoy God's creation!

Coolest Science Experiment EVER!

We are loving Evan's 9th grade Apologia Biology course!  

Yes, it's HARD and yes, he has a TON of very difficult 

vocabulary words & concepts to learn.  

But the experiments are AMAZING!

He finished his experiment on OSMOSIS this week, and it was so

 fascinating that I have to share his summary report with you!

 We put an egg inside of a mug filled with vinegar for 24 hours.  That made the shell of the egg come off. 

 

 After the 24 hours, we took it out of the mug, and put it inside of a mug filled with Karo syrup. 

 

 It made the egg sink in because the syrup drew out the water portion of the egg white material.  

 

 This process of particles passing through a semi-permeable membrane is called OSMOSIS.   

 After soaking the egg in Karo Syrup for 24 hours, we placed the egg into a mug filled with distilled water. 

 

 This made the egg swell back up!  It filled the egg with water through osmosis again! 

 

 It actually made the egg expand 14% larger than its original size. (The green ribbon was the length of the original circumference of the egg!  It gained some weight!)

  The original circumference of the egg was 14.5 cm and the circumference of the egg after the distilled water was 16.5 cm. 

 

 It felt like a water balloon!  (So he just had to throw it to see what was inside!)

This experiment taught us the principle of osmosis!

First Winter Snow

We had the threat of a really bad ice storm this weekend, but instead we got a bunch of cold wet rain!  

But last night, right before we went to bed, it started snowing!

 We didn't get much...but it was so pretty! 

 My camera captured Eric's cold breath!

 Although it's still in the low 30's, the snow started melting this morning!  

 Poor Eli is shivering!

 And Ethan slept so late that most of the snow was melted before he got up this morning!

He kept saying, "Please don't melt!"