Remember This? Friday

This is another Heidi memory. She and her friend Kathy were crazy about Shaun Cassidy. They had all his albums and wore out their record players swooning to his crooning. I couldn't decide which video to include here so I present them both.

First up is him actually in concert - how cool is that?! What I love about this is how all the women in the audience have the same hair as our hero:



But how can we remember Shaun Cassidy without giving a nod to Da-Do-Ron-Ron?! It just has to be done. I think half of the pics on this video were either on Heidi's or Kathy's wall. Oh the hair, the eyes, the tight pants, the TEETH! Come on now, clap along everybody!

Feeling (A Little) Better

Thanks to this:

The brand I got has added C. I've found mixed results about the safety of this with pregnancy and nursing but it's working so I'm hoping, hoping, hoping it's ok to use. I've heard from at least one other mom who uses it frequently while pregnant and/or nursing without any ill effect.

Truth in Advertising

We bought some baby food at BJ's today and Ben got to chuckling as he hauled in this box:



He wanted to know how they know that these are "favorites". Did they perhaps do a survey of 8-12 month old babies? Which leads us to ask about this case of "delicious" fare....

Whose idea of delicious is this? I can just see a panel of Beechnut employees at a baby food tasting. "Mmmm...I have to say Sweet Potatoes and Chicken is truly delicious folks!" Now, I've tried it. It's not bad but I sure wouldn't say it's Delicious. Maybe Tali would but, well, she can't talk.

Check out JT's Blog

JT emailed one of his favorites from the Blast roster and he was kind enough to respond. He has a nice little post on his blog.

Sick of Being Sick

Not much activity on the blog as this blogger has a nasty head cold. I'm sick of waking up every morning still sick. My head can't handle all the activity of this household and I just wanna feel better! whine, whine, whine Tad doesn't understand why I don't visit a doctor...but it's a head cold and I am pregnant with a pre-existing heart condition which means no decongestants or expectorants for me. The last three times this happened (seems to happen at least once every pregnancy) the doctor offered me antihistamines. Well, fat lot of good that will do me. I went to the grocery store and dug up some echinacia (sp?!) with extra vitamin C and I'll start pumping that into my body. Something's gotta give here. There are many pros to having a large family but I would say when the mommma gets sick is probably the biggest con on the list! Oh to be a *nice* human being again!...sigh....

Remember This? Friday

I'll just tell you what it is - tincture of merthiolate...anyone? anyone? This particular picture is circa 1950's and so well before my time but when I was a kid it still came in little glass bottles with the glass applicator attached to the cap. It burned like nobody's business and stained the skin almost as much as the black walnuts Heidi and I had to pick up out of the yard. Here's the kicker though, do you know what this stuff is?! Themerisol - reportedly the culprit in vaccine preservatives which is suspected of causing autism. Fortunately, it is no longer used in vaccines but hooo-ey! I think every mom I knew could fix anything with a bottle of that stuff and a band-aid. Raise your hand with the permanently orangy-pink-stained fingers if ya know what I'm talkin' about....

New and Improved

I really like Blogger's new Blog Roll feature so I've rearranged all my links to my favorite blogs. It's now easier to follow all of my favorites - clicking on the blog roll will open it in a new window (at least it does with my set-up) instead of tracking back and forth AND you can see who's got an update on the blog roll without needless clicking. So enjoy enjoying the blogs I enjoy!

Hokey Pokey Meme

Ok, I was totally inspired by this post from good friend and fellow blogger Catherine. They fought the Winter Blues one day by recording the hokey pokey and I loved the idea so much I thought I would do it too. BUT I'm adding my own twist to it - I'm making it a new blogging meme - you have it here folks, the birth of the Hokey Pokey Meme! Oooh!! Aaahh! Sit back and breath in the awesomeness of new life.

Now, down to business. Here's the rules:

1. Record your children, your spouse, your dog, anything or anyone doing the hokey pokey.
2. Post the video on your blog, myspace page or whatever you call home on the web.
3. Leave me a comment and let me know where we can all view your video.
Optional 4. Tag a friend or three and force them into the fun. Susan and Don consider yourselves tagged by ME! You're it!

Now, I can't start a meme without giving you my version of it so here it is. Funny thing is, I forgot to learn how to turn the durn sound on on my digital camera so this is the retro silent film version....hmmm...should be in black and white I suppose. I'll try to update with something with sound a little later. Here's what I love most about this video - JT is.....SMILING folks and it looks like...could it be....he's ENJOYING himself!



Now, here's where the rubber meets the momilies road. Who can tell me who's missing and who is that mystery kid in the video?! (I'll give you a hint: Tali was already bedded down for the night so we *know* she's missing.)

Interesting...

We're working on lapbooks based on the book The Purple Mantle which is about the persecution of Christians during the Diocletian era of ancient Rome. I can't wait to show them off here! While perusing the internet for Roman dress I came across this little paragraph (and the photo above)which I've lifted directly from this site:

It is also known that many politicians campaigning for public office would go as far as whitening their toga with chalk in order to stand out more from the crowd. In fact this is the very reason for the name. In Latin candida stands for white. So the candidates were ‘the white ones’. The use of the word has survived unto this day in the English language.

I'm not sure candidates back then were any "whiter" than they are now. In fact I suspect political corruption is a very ancient evil. Funny, then, that such a name should persist after all these years.

I Will Survive!

Thanks to my friend Suzanne for this fun little find:

Yeah, This is why we Homeschool....

I've been feeling rather under the weather this week and JT has been using my down time to teach himself a new programming language. This afternoon I laid down for a bit of a nap and when I got up I found this:



The two year old is sound asleep in his lap and he was holding the baby for me until I got up and could feed her. Having a large family, keeping them all home with me and living, breathing, schooling and even being sick together I think makes them all much more aware of the needs of others and much more tolerant. I am so blessed to have such an awesome family!

DOD - 14 Minute Hopscotch

We were sitting on the sofa watching America's Funniest Videos this evening when a video came on of a grown man playing hopscotch (who, of course, somehow managed to land in the bushes). David reflected on the video for a moment and informed me:

I am very good at hopscotch Mom when it's 14 minutes. If it's 14 minutes I can be very good at hopscotch.

Remember This? Friday

Apparently they still make these things. I have no idea why. They make the most tasteless, textureless popcorn I have ever experienced. The best use for them is to take them into your Sunday School class and have them spew popped kernels all over the floor as a demonstration of manna from Heaven (and, yes, I have been in on such lessons more times than I can count).

Kudos to the Science Teacher

Last night I overheard a snippet of a conversation between JM (age 5) and David (age 4) I heard the words "whale" and "wood" and little else so I went into their room and asked

"Are you talking about wooden whales?"

JM responded with "No, not wooden whales. Whales aren't made out of wood."

"Oh, well what are whales made out of?"

"You know, the usual stuff."

"What's the usual stuff?"

"Atoms."

Of course, silly me - whales aren't made out of wood, they're made out of atoms. You can guess who (thankfully) *doesn't* teach science around here!

FLL Success!

JT and Ben have been working all school year on a First Lego League team. Their team had to design, build and program a robot made with the Lego NXT kit that could carry out a specific set of tasks. They also had to put together and present a research project on an assigned topic (theirs was rising sea levels) which included an innovative solution to the problem. On Saturday they traveled to UMBC for the state competition and kicked some lego butt. In the morning they presented their research project. Ben was the point man for that presentation. He was easy and confident and the judges were also impressed with a little piece of animation JT had put together for their powerpoint program. JT was one of the two main programmers on the team and they had to do a technical presentation explaining the code they had used to program their robot and discuss some of their innovative solutions to solving the problems inherent in the tasks.

In the afternoon they were allowed 3 runs with their robots to see how many points they could amass (each task garnered a specific number of points). Throughout the day the judges were also watching closely for enthusiasm, "gracious professionalism", teamwork and a myriad of other more subtle factors. Each team was then judged on the overall package for the day.

The Brick Masters did quite well. They didn't get off to a good start after having trouble in the practice rounds,

their first official run earned them just a few points.
The second run was the winner for them, getting 120 out of a possible 145 points (the maximum possible was 400 but each team prioritizes which tasks they want to take on to earn their own maximum amount of points - Brick Masters could have earned 145 points if they had mastered all the tasks for which they had planned). Here is a video of their best round. It is difficult to understand what they were doing here but you can at least see the robot in action.



At the end of the day, they won the Best Rookie Team award. Out of 88 teams they came in 27th with their accumulated points which was awesome for a rookie team. The judges were confident this would be a team to look out for in future competitions! Here are a few of the boys with their rookie trophy:

Way to go Brick Masters!