Miles and The Fish

Dave took Miles out to do a little fishing. They caught a fish and Miles insisted they keep it. Dave forgot to prepare Miles for the next step, which was to bleed out the fish, which caused Miles to cry unconsolably and to beg Daddy to "fix it".

So I took Miles the next day to PetsMart where we bought a Beta fish that he named Fish. And all is right in the world once more.

Valentines Schmalintines

On Valentines morning, I came downstairs to make just a regular breakfast, when Cruise said, "Mom, aren't you going to make us heart pancakes?" He literally was tearing up. I told him I tried last year but that the batter stuck to the cookie cutters. Of course I couldn't not try when I'm staring into the face of a heartbroken child, who was dreaming of heart shaped pancakes for Valentines breakfast. Luckily, I quickly got the idea to put the batter in a piping bag, so I whipped up some Valentines pancakes for the boys. Miles slept through it, but still refused to eat them when he woke up. He wanted circle pancakes. You can't win 'em all.

The boys had each bought a small box of chocolates for the ladies in their lives, but Jett last minute decided Camry hadn't been too nice to him over the past year, so he shared the box with his brothers. Ha ha! Cruise gave his to Claire. Of course. 

The night before, Dave sent me on a scavenger hunt for a dozen roses, even though we had agreed to not getting each other anything for Valentine's day. So I was just slightly irritated that he bought me flowers because I literally got him just a box of Hot Tamales. Wife of the year right here, I tell you what. But I loved the roses. And the scavenger hunt.

I helped out at both the boys class parties. I had the kids in Jett's class each decorate wooden heart magnets. I always try to have the kids do something I know their parents won't throw away. I figured a magnet is always good for fridges. Cruise's room mom planned a chocolate dipping party and it was insane. A lot of fruit and treats and a lot of chocolate in many colors. The room mom is kind of amazing but she's one of those people who makes me super nervous. She talks really fast, moves really fast, and most of the time I can't process what she is saying quick enough to respond. So it's always an anxiety-ridden experience helping with parties in that class this year. 

For the boys, I got Cruise and Jett each a special Valentine's Hershey's candy bar and Miles got a V-Day Minion marshmallow on a stick thing. 

On the 15th, Dave's parents were kind enough to come watch Miles while we went out to Tsunami for lunch. We had an amazing lunch and enjoyed not dealing with crowds. 

And that was Valentines! 

Science Fair

A couple weeks ago, the boys participated in the school science fair...again. I tried talking them out of it, but they just had to do it.

Cruise had a little trouble at first trying to come up with a project because "Do birds understand English?" and "Is time travel possible?" are just not science fair do-able. Finally, we settled on "Which color are birds most attracted to?" So for his, we (I) painted six hanging baskets, each a different color, and filled them with bird seed. Each of them were hung on the treehouse in the back yard. Unfortunately, the yellow one broke and all of them weighed more at the end due to the rain and snow. But he somehow managed to still get a 1st place ribbon. His findings showed that the red one was the most popular, but since we put them back outside, the yellow one seems to be doing the best.

Jett's, I thought, was 1st place worthy but came home with a 3rd place, which is still really cool. Dave came up with his project question, which was, "Which has more bacteria? A dog's or a human's mouth?" For his, I had to order prepared petri dishes on Amazon. The first batch showed up and after two or three days of sitting in the package waiting to be used, they were growing bacteria. So, we had to return those and quickly ship the next set from a different seller that turned out great. He swabbed his, Cruise's, Miles', and Lucy's mouths, and eventually found that Lucy's definitely had more bacteria.

I realized just how expensive doing two science fair projects is. I didn't really add that up last year. So I told the boys they should do the Storytelling festival next year instead.