In a glaxay very close to home.....

More and more this is the scene in our living room. We had to buy a kitchen timer to make sure everyone gets a fair and impartial turn. They kids (and daddy) have discovered the lego star wars games and the lego batman games for the playstation. I like these games, the characters and world is built from legos and when something is hit, it breaks apart into lego pieces. To me, it satisfies John's manly need for a level fun with no more violence then when he smashes his cars together.



Playing the videos games has led to the kids wanting to see the movies. Since Brian and I are both HUGE Star Wars nerds, it's like Christmas morning for us. So we watched Episode one, for those of you who aren't big nerds. Its one of the newer, more recent movies. Then a few days later one of the ones from when I was a kid came on cable and the kids wanted to watch. They started asking about Darth Vadar, and I had to be the one to explain that he was Annikan gone bad. Gah, that was awful, it was like I had murdered Santa in front of them. Thankfully, it hasn't ruined anything for them.

And all of it has led to this... Emma's Star Wars book. She has decided to write her own version of Star Wars. If she leaves out Jar Jar, I might have to declare her more credible than Lucas.

We had an awesome day at the zoo! We met up with our friends, the Howards. All the kids had a blast! We really lucked out, we seemed to hit the exhibits at just the right time when the keepers where there.

Here is a pic of my darling Emma with her Princess tiara on. She hasn't taken it off since Terra and I found it two weeks ago at a resale shop. If I would let her, she would sleep in it!


John and Chloe loved splashing in the splash pad. I was really glad we went, it was still warm enough to enjoy the splashing.



We got to pet a baby alligator. Both the alligator and the keeper were super generous with their time.


Oh look, we found the elusive cute little girl exhibit!


We REALLY lucked out here. There is a tunnel through the piranha tank that the kids could crawl through AND it happened to be piranha feeding time. It was so totally AWESOME! the kids laid on their backs and watched the piranha swarm.

Right next to here is the bat exhibit. They were also feeding the bats, but no pics. It felt too mean to take photos in their dark little cave. Chloe couldn't find the vampire bats, and I kept sending her back to look because I was sure they were there. She finally came back and said that she asked the keeper and the keeper said they had "let the bats go". Terra and I started at each other with big eyes and repeated the "let the bats go" part with panic. The keeper thought that was hysterical and came over the clarify that they weren't set free in the building, they had been moved.



John and Chloe love the Komodo dragon, Smaug. Smaug thinks they look yummy too.



We got to catch them bathing the elephants. It was great. As a treat, for performing simple commands like "lift your foot" they feed the elephant little bites of wonder bread. That was weird to me, I would have expected peanuts.... but Dr. Atkins would appreciate the visual.




John tiptoeing through the tulips, or whatever flowers those are.


The very best part of the zoo is the icecream!

Works for me Wednesday: the home ear scope

This thing has a really long name that starts with "oto". Me and my spell check don't want to attempt it.

I am a bit of a germophobe, maybe alot, as you can see here in the lovely handwashing unit study we did. If you saw my medicine cabinet, you might try an intervention. Its all sorted like a drug store shelf.

This is one of my very best parenting tools. You know when your kids come in whining about the sorethroat/earache/sinus pain/insert your own malady here, and you just aren't sure HOW bad it is? Is it go to the doctor bad? lay on the couch bad? or just I wanna bum a yummy throat lozenge bad? This will give the answers! It is the home version of what the doctor uses to check out the nose, throat and ears at the clinic. They also include a mirror for dental problems.

It has a light that is directed right into the area you are looking at, plus the lens offers magnification so that you can see everything a little bigger. Inside there are pictures of what to look for. They show a healthy ear, and then an infected ear. This is the walgreens brand and the one I prefer. I have tried the one that CVS offers, but in an effort to go green they changed out the normal bulb into an LED bulb. Unfortunately, the LED bulb emits a blue light, which colors the tissues you are trying to view. It makes impossible to see if they are red and inflamed.

Now, I by no means am an expert, if I am on the fence, we go and get it checked out. But this has saved us a whole lot of unneccessary co-pays and worried nights.

Rosh Hashanah

We are preparing to celebrate the Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah. Part of this is eating symbolic foods. I have been preparing our unit study for the coming week on Rosh Hashanah and I came across the prayer we are to say when/if we serve fish.

we recite: "May we be fruitful and multiply like fish."

I think maybe we will just serve beef..... don't get me wrong, I love my children. But I am content. I can't lie to God, and I KNOW he has a sense of humor.. I would rather not risk it.

Kemah

Since this week is the big crabcake challenge, we headed down to Kemah to pick up the freshest crab we could... and got a little sidetracked...

Why I won't be winning mom of the year......

Yep, those are my kids. In the rain, playing outside in the rain. Barefoot. Lets all hope those old wives tales about getting wet and getting sick aren't true.

Martha, oh dear Martha

My friend Terra and I have been reading the book "Julie Julia". The premise of the book is that a woman named Julie decided to cook her way through Julia Child's French cookbook. We had an inspiring idea. Why not take someone we really respect and try to do the same thing? Child was out, neither of us thought we could talk our families into eating organ meat. I mean, blech..... Instead we chose Martha Stewart. We both want to boost our "skills" and everything is more fun with a friend.

I have this love/hate relationship with Martha Stewart. First, she has this valiumed up flat, alien affect, sometimes it makes it seem like she might unzip her skin at night to meet up with her pod mates. Plus, I have watched her show since before jail time, when she was clearly very rude to her guests. On the other hand, she is so awesome. She finds the best projects and they always turn out perfect. Her magazines, her show are all total eye/craft/recipe candy for me. The frustrating part for me is that I kinda want to be that, I want my projects to turn out that perfect. But it never happens..... never. ever. I might be a bit jealous. See, Martha has 15 people to focus just on perfecting her crafts and recipes. At my house, we have me, and three children who want to get involved and "stir the pot". For example, yesterday I was trying to cook a simple grilled cheese it burned while I gave lecture #411 "why we shouldn't hit our sister".

We wanted to see what would happen when you took two reasonably intelligent moms, added six children and see what happened in REAL life. So we named the blog Really? Martha. Sometimes that will represent how Martha's recipes translate into real life with kids and sometimes we might be screaming that at the top of our lungs while trying to complete a frustrating project.

Below is the pic of our first project that came out really awesome. Next up, Crab cakes!!!!!