My "Sweet" Valentine Card???

OK, so after school on the day of Jake's school Valentine party, he busily and secretively worked for quite awhile on a "surprise" for me. I wasn't allowed to come close to him or even look in his direction- he was all business.

I couldn't help but get excited, thinking he was making me a sweet "world's best mom" Valentine card, or something like that. But then we had to leave to pick Jayden up from daycare, so he didn't finish it. Bummer. Well then the kids went to Oregon with their dad for the long weekend, and my poor sweet card was forgotten about...

Fast forward to Tuesday night... We get home from the Science Fair and Dairy Queen- Jake still on cloud 9 from his bug win- and he comes to me sweetly with the card I'd forgotten all about (that he must have finished at some point) and a little Hershey Kiss. I was so touched- so moved... my sweet little boy had taken the time to make me a handmade Valentine card- late or not- I was ready to read about how much he loved me and how great a mom I am... My eyes welled up with tears- (just kiddin- trying to add to the drama here...) And then I opened the card!

If you know Jake, you know he's nothing if not a goof ball. He loves to tease and be funny. I got quite a laugh out of this- Definitely a keeper. He drew SpongeBob on there because he knows I hate SpongeBob and we always joke about that.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Science Fair 2009

Jake is my science guy. For all his struggles at school with the basics, he truly enjoys learning and experimenting with science. When he's interested in something, he is so focused and engrossed in it. (We won't go into his attitude when he's NOT interested in something...) Anyway, we looked on the internet for the perfect project- one that was "do-able", not too hard for a second grader to grasp, and one that would pique his interest. And the project we came up with was... "Does the Color of a Bird Feeder Matter?" He set out 4 different colored feeders (dust pans from the dollar store- or should I say the 2 dollar store..) and measured how much bird seed was left after 3 days in each feeder (or "brd" as he spells it- even though I corrected him 400 times or so- ugh!!) He repeated this process 8 times. And the result was... (drum roll please...) that the GREEN feeder attracted the most birds (or as he put it- the green feeder "won"). Jake's hypothesis had been that the red feeder would "win" because he thought the birds would be attracted to the bright color. He now thinks that green "won" because "it is the same color as grass and brds (ahh!) like to walk around on grass looking for worms". Gotta love how his mind works!

Oh- the results... HE WON FIRST PLACE for second grade and was THRILLED! He worked SOOOOOOOOOOO hard on his project (the written part was so challenging for him), so I of course was as proud as I could be! He hung his ribbon on his Squakin' Talkin' Fur Real Bird prop (that sat by his project board)- saying that "he owes all his success to the bird!" Goof ball- And then he also attempted (rather unsuccessfully) to convince me that he now needs a REAL bird for home- NOT! We went to DQ to celebrate afterward. Way to go Jake!

Blue and Gold Ceremony

This is the annual "birthday" of scouting. We went to DQ afterwards for ice cream.

Trampoline

Loving the weather these days- think we've had a few weeks of sunshine (or at least partial sunshine)! The kids went out on the trampoline together today and did some stunts for me to capture on film. Jayden likes to play "popcorn" (where she sits and I jump and bounce her), Jonathan likes to play basketball and do front flips, and Jake usually prefers playing in the yard digging or catching bugs- but today was excited to show me his flips and jumps on the trampoline. Oh yeah- and they all were having fun playing the "Dead Man Walking" game... a trampoline favorite!

Zoo

After the Lochs, we headed to the zoo. We only stayed for a few hours because Jonathan was at a friends and I didn't want to leave him there for too long. But, we still had fun. The weather has finally started to improve a bit, and this was a fairly sunny day- for Seattle standards! The hippos never seem to disappoint at this zoo- they were in and out of the water, opening their mouths, chewing a stick... and just fun to watch. Jake had really wanted to feed the birds, but we just missed it (they close early). Jayden went on the merry go round and liked that. We also liked the elephants (kids were excited to see one pooping and peeing right in front of us), and the pink flamingos. Jayden said her favorite part today was the Zoomasium. Jake and I will be spending the night in there in about a month with the scouts (ugh...).

Where are all the fish? (Ballard Lochs)

Certainly not at the Ballard Lochs, that's for sure! We were headed to the zoo on our final day of the mid-winter break when I got a wild hair to take Jake to see the fish ladder at the Lochs. It's close to the zoo (though not quite as close as I'd thought), so we took a little detour and headed there. I was excitedly telling him how many fish he'd soon be seeing as we walked through the park to get there. And then guess what??... not a one! We see more fish in his tank at home! Well I guess he DID see one fish on the informational sign. Jayden liked looking at the salmon egg- to -fish display, but other than that, the highlight was watching the squirrels run around. I guess the time to come for fish watching is during the summer months. We'll have to return so Jake believes me about the number of fish you can see! Clearly I was not born and raised in Seattle, or I probably would have timed this better!

Skagit County Children's Museum

My car needed a 4-6 hour repair (still under warantee, thank goodness) on Friday. Jayden and I went together. Luckily Toyota has a courtesy van and will drive you somewhere- to make the wait more bearable. Jayden and I went to Target first and then walked over to the mall to go to the Children's Museum. I had wanted to take her there since it first moved to the mall, and this was the perfect time. It was bigger than I'd imagined inside- with more to do than I thought, too. Jayden LOVED it. We stayed forever- it seemed (about 4 hours). By the end I was ready to go- but Jayden was not! We'll have to go back sometime.