Modeling Clay

Connor is sick as a dog on the couch and so I am trying to hurry~thus the really creative title. (o: I wanted to share an awesome modeling clay recipe. This week we are discussing the ocean and all that is in it. We decided for a science project we would make the clay and then for the art part we would make oceany things with the clay. It is from the 1997 version of Better Homes and Gardens Junior Cookbook. (http://www.amazon.com/Better-Homes-Gardens-Junior-Cookbook/dp/0696207087/ref=reader_auth_dp) I had the book out to get ready for the next couple of weeks because we are going to be discussing cooking, healthy eating etc. I saw the recipe and just had to try it.

It makes a gorgeous snow white dough that sparkles just a bit. Here is the recipe.
1 cup cornstarch
1 16oz box baking soda
1 1/2 cup water

Mix it all together in a sauce pan. Cook over medium-low heat~stirring constantly for-umm-ever until it thickens and forms a sorta ball, but mostly it's just really really super thick. Dump it out onto a lightly cornstarched counter and leave to cool for a bit. Once it's cool enough to touch, knead until smooth. Wrap with plastic wrap until fully cooled. Can be refrigerated for 2 weeks~kneading to soften. Can air dry for 1-2 days, or bake in 300 degree oven for 30 minutes, then turn oven off and leave in for about 1 hour. Baked clay will acquire a slight brownness during baking. When dry, use paints to decorate.

That is kind of a combo of instructions from the book and my own experience. We are going to let ours dry for a few days because I don't want the brownness. It's such a pretty white. Today we "sculpted" fish and used our giant gingerbread man cutout and made little men. Once they are all dried out the boys will paint the men to look like themselves. I will post pictures of the final results, but wanted to share the recipe. I have made a lot of homemade playdough in my day~being a preschool major and teacher and all, but this is a new one for me.

Enjoy and have a super great day!

Runaway Guinea Pig!

Yesterday morning Joseph got up and did what he always does. Says good morning to Fluffy. Unfortunately, Fluffy was not in his aquarium!! Apparently during the night, little Fluffy discovered that if he jumped up onto the top of his hiding house, then he could jump out of the aquarium and onto the bags of Timothy hay behind it. We feel very strongly that the movie "Ratatouille" is to blame for all of this. We have been watching that movie a lot since we got it for Christmas. Guinea pigs are in the rodent family. I think Fluffy was inspired. Well, anyway, we woke up Travis and an all out alarm went out. We broke out the flashlight and started looking. We found him under the couch right next to his home. We tried to coax him out with his favorite food~celery~but he was terrified (sneaking out isn't so much fun after all). Travis lifted the couch, I went to the corner, and Joseph climbed under. Joseph was able to grab Fluffy and bring him out to safety. It took about an hour for Fluffy to calm down and eat anything once he was back in his home. We put a home made lid on the aquarium above his hiding house to prevent future escape attempts.

The saddest thing of all was when Joseph started to cry and asking us why Fluffy would run away. He was concerned that Fluffy didn't love him anymore and ran away from home. He has given the little pig several stern lectures since this all happened. I'm sure Fluffy is very sorry and it won't happen again!

Happy New Year! And new baby too!

We hope you all had a wonderful new year celebration. Ours was very nice. Travis and I both had to work, but he worked early in the day and I only had to do 3 hours in the afternoon. By 7pm we were partying! See the picture? Doesn't it look like a bunch of wild and crazy party animals? (o:

Travis's parents came over per tradition. This is the 12th new year we have celebrated together. Basically we did the same thing we do every single year. We ate a lot of food and watched "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World". We sat around and had good discussions and just had a good time.

In other news, I would like to introduce Danen Nate Anderson. Born New Years Eve (phew for the 2007 taxes!) 8 lbs 10oz. Jamie sent me this picture. Doesn't Braelinn look like such a good big sister already?

Christmas 2007

Christmas was a good day for the Nelson Family. Here are a few pictures of Christmas morning. I made them small because there are so many. I hope you can all see them well enough. Captions below each picture.

This was a couple of days before Christmas, but very festive looking. They were sitting by the tree and fire eating a giant bucket of Christmas popcorn. Life is good!

This is after Santa came and before the boys got up.

Connor was very happy with his ten billion helicopters and airplanes that he got.

Travis got a mini weather station from Santa. It's now 35 degrees outside, 69 inside and there is 47% humidity in the house. (o:

Joseph was thrilled with every single thing he got. He kept saying everything was the best!

Spencer was a bit sleepy still but quickly woke up once the presents started coming his way.

Connor and his "hairplanes" and "airacopters".

"Lovely in the morning" mommy got a snow globe with "Our Princess Dawn" engraved on the front. Thanks mom and dad! (so it's now official and engraved~I am a princess!)Here they are with their Thomas train carnival track thingy in the box....
Here they are after is was put together.
Joseph wanted to wear a tie for Christmas dinner, but he also wanted to wear the cool new clothes he got, so he did both!

You can't really see it, but it is snowing in this picture. First time in over 30 years that it snowed on Christmas day in Seattle. It came down for a couple of hours and then went away, but it really made our day!

Can You Get High on Baby Powder?

Today I made the mistake of letting Connor out of my sight for 5 minutes. That's all it took. He went into the bathroom, got the baby powder out, and proceeded to cover himself in white. On the bright side, it smells really good in the house now. Like a giant newborn baby. The cleaning up part isn't as much fun, but it's just baby powder. Unfortunately, we don't have the cornstarch kind, so hopefully he didn't inhale too much of the evil unnatural talc! So, for all those who looked at this picture and thought Travis and I had a naughty side business that Connor got into, no, it's just baby powder!

A Perfect Tree!

This weekend we decided to get our tree. We do fresh ones, so we like to wait until the middle of the month for them. I think because of our schedules this year we waited a few days longer than normal, but nobody seemed to notice too much. (o: Usually we all go as a family to Carpinto Brother's and pick out our tree. This year I told Travis to just go over to the closest store and bring one home. He took Joseph. They ended up going to the little nursery down the street. They grabbed a tree that was all folded up and wrapped in twine. Kinda took a gamble on what it would look like, but it was easy to transport. Just threw the thing in the trunk. We paid about $15 less than if we would have gone to Carpintos too. He "unfolded" it and this is what we found.

It is a beautiful tree! We had to trim some off the bottom as you can see, but it is the freshest tree we have ever gotten. The whole place smells wonderful!

I took this after shot yesterday morning and of course the sun had to be out. The one day in the month that the sun decided to make an appearance I tried to take a picture. But you can still see the perfect form of the tree. We were very proud and impressed with our "gamble" tree and have decided that this is the way to go every year.

Lastly, Travis was goofing around with the camera while we were decorating. He has discovered the macro setting, so he was taking macro shots of all of us. (this is why he's not in any pictures) I have to include them cause I think they are kinda funny. The dirty faces of the boys and the nice pimple face of Dawnie. (o: We think Connors turned out the best. It's what I think Travis was trying to get with them all. Spencer, of course, moved and was acting goofy.

It's Been a Week???

I can not believe that it has been a whole week since I last blogged! I'm a bad girl. Sorry! So, a quick week in review. Saturday the boys and I went to the airport and picked up Grandma Nelson. She finally returned to us from Utah. Her mom, who lives in Logan, has not been well and so she wanted to go down there and spend some time with her. But, we got grandma back!!! The boys were super thrilled about hanging out in the airport and didn't mind the 40 minute delay. Then, grandma came home!!! Yet another thrill. So, that was a good day.

Sunday the Seahawks beat the crud out of the Arizona Cardinals and clinched the NFC West title for the 4th year in a row!!! Woohoo! Go Hawks! Oh~and church was good too. (o:

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were just busy with errands and Travis and I working. We did a little decorating~like wrapping our front door like a giant present, but otherwise they were not super eventful. Friday (yesterday) was a really great day because Travis and I both had the same day off! We took the boys on a ride to see Christmas lights in Seattle and just get out of the house. We went to visit Grandma and Grandpa Nelson and see their Christmas decorations. We were going to help them put up their outside lights, but it was, ironically, too dark to hang up lights. (We'll go back in a couple of days.) Then we came home and lit a Duraflame log, had dinner, baked a few gingerbread cookies and hung out. Travis and I read some more of our Secret Societies book. It sure is nice to have the whole family together from morning to night. Days when only one of us has to work is good, but these days are great! Then we have the days like today where I am home then Travis comes home to kiss me goodbye. Those days aren't so fun. We have really come to appreciate each other a lot more now that we are apart more often.

That's about it. Today I took the boys to do some shopping. Travis is at work, so I took the boys with lists in hand. We first went to Kohl's. It was pretty insane there. We stood in a corner and watched Daddy work his customer service magic. He's so good! Since it was the Early Bird Special still, plus my employee discount, plus the friends and family appreciation time (if you ever want coupons for those days, let me know), I was able to buy $64 worth of goods for $22!!!! Awesome, eh? The best part is that everything you buy at Kohl's is really good quality. I feel good about the day. (o:

The "Gingerbread" House

We didn't quite get to the building of the gingerbread house (or graham cracker house in our case) on Wednesday, so we did it tonight. Travis is at work so he wasn't able to help, but last night he and the boys painted pictures with finger paints and glitter glue, so he was able to do some special fun things last night. (we saved him some candy) I think Connor ate more than he put on the house, but he enjoyed himself and that's what is most important. It has a place of honor up on the bar by my fancy nativity. (I have 6 nativity scenes. The boys call that one the fancy one) Now we are watching Frosty the Snowman and then it will be bedtime. Here is the final product. Getting ready to begin. Notice Connors fingers are already in the bowl of candy?Joseph putting his finishing touches on. Spencer just kept adding and coming up with new ideas. Connor is going to be dreaming of sugar plums I'm sure after all he ate!
Final product looking down on it.

Secrets and Pizza

Travis and I have been reading a book together just for the fun of it. He reads to me on the couch in the evenings. It's a nice bonding time and we've both learned a lot. Not only about the subject, but the guy who wrote the book has an incredible vocabulary and we've actually had to keep the dictionary close by. It's called "Secret Societies" by John Lawrence Reynolds. It discusses in tremendous detail the histories of certain "secret" societies. How they originated and what they are really about. Some of the societies are the Assassins, Templars & /Freemasons, Druids & Gnostics, Kabbalah, The Mafia, Wicca. It's been a really interesting book and we have learned a lot of history of the world. The best part though to me is the fact that we are taking the time to read to it together & discuss something besides Kohl's. (o:

In other news, I took the boys to Pizza Hut the other day. All by myself to a sit down eating place. They were very good. I signed our 'school'~the Nelson Boys Academy~up for Pizza Huts reading program, Book It! They sent me charts and coupons and so once the boys read a certain amount of books that I allot, they get a coupon for a free personal pan pizza. We went during lunch time. They have a lunch buffet so I got the buffet, Connor eats free, and the other two had their pizzas. We walked out pretty stuffed~all for $8! It was a lot of fun.They told each other knock knock jokes while they waited for their pizza and we discussed the holidays and had a really great time. Now they are asking what they can read to earn their next pizza.

So, that is about all for now. We are going to make "gingerbread" (graham cracker) houses tomorrow and start working on their Christmas cards. They are insisting on making some of their own this year.

One last thing. Everyone who can, please pray for my brother David and his family. He leaves for Iraq next month. He will be gone for I believe about 5 months. He, they, could use the prayers starting now because the mentally preparing is just as hard as the actual going. He will be leaving his wife and 4 little ones behind, but we know that he will be back in no time. Thanks!

Snow

I wish I had a camera, but yesterday we got lots and lots of snow. Why not take a picture of it now? Cause we live in Seattle! When I went to work at 7pm, the roads and everything else was covered in snow. When I went home at 1:30am, the snow was all gone and it was raining. Crazy weather! But, the kids had a lot of fun watching it snow during the day. We took a drive into Seattle to see the Christmas lights. It really started coming down while we were out. The roads got a bit slick, but we had a lot of fun.

So, there is our current conditions. I hear that it's going to be in the 50's next week! It's never dull in Seattle. (o: