Evan's birthday (late)

THIS is the EVAN's BIRTHDAY post! (yeah, it is quite late)
Although EARLY for his party with friends (which will probably get its own post).
anyway...

What could this be??

And what's this one????

YAY! 24 different colors, just like Ben's!

Buildable traintracks are a present for both of us!

What's under the packing-safety-plastic stuff?

UM, wow. just Wow. these cake people are very skilled,

considering this was meant to fit a cake at least 4 times this size.

And from Snugabug & aunt lindsay (who were able to visit :) ):

A baseball-auto-pitcher thingy!!!

I think Evan had a FUN birthday. and I enjoyed it too,

because I got to help him with the traintracks.

-Ben

Crystals!

On monday, we also made crystals (idea from here), as well as pom pom poppers.

Evan forming his pipe cleaner shapes.

Stirring, stirring, stirring to dissolve borax in water.

All in a row (pre-crystal-growth)

My robot.

DRAMATIC view of my crystal robot.

E for Evan

Balloon (and weird face)

EVAN's robot.

All in a row (after growth)

-Ben

From Mom:  This was SUPER easy!  The kids had used a recipe from a science kit to attempt to make sugar crystals, with only a tiny bit of success after several days of waiting, but the blogger I borrowed this project from seemed very confident about it, so we gave it a shot.  Our crystals are HUGE compared to others I have seen - wish I knew what affects their size!  If you decide to try it, I highly recommend using pipe cleaners instead of pencils or dowels to suspend the forms from, because it is really easy to adjust them to the right depth in the solution below.

Pom-Pom poppers!

on Monday, we made pom-pom poppers (idea from here)!

Sproioioi....                  POP!

hmm, what's this?             POP!            WOW!

pulling is fun!          huh?             my pom-poms are gone !

Note: the secret formula is: balloon+paper cup=POPPER!

-Ben

From Mom:  These were really fun, and snapped all three of us out of not-so-great moods!  My favorite part?  Both kids decided to decorate their poppers, and mine as well... love that they are crafty like me! 

Rolo-centered chocolate cookies (HIGHLY delicious)

For WCW, we made yummy chocolate caramel that use a Rolo candy in the center to provide the caramel... YUM!!!!  (Delicious, simple, 4-ingredient recipe from here.)

How the Rolos were pressed into

the middle of the dough balls.

Roll ball, press in caramel candy,

re-ball form, put on sheet.

fun, right, guys?

About to be baked...

...and after baking! YUM TIME!

-Ben

Road trip '12!



We're home from our summer road trip! We had a great time, and did so much fun stuff!

Playing play-dough at mrs. sarah's house!

Evan&Katy going for a swim in the frey's pool

We also went to this fun pirate theme park.

Another pic of Evan diving. These are all out of order,

but I kind of like it like that.

Santa and some of his elves were on

summer vacation :D

One last thing: a train! They had a whole safari

scene set up in a tunnel this goes through!

Well, that's my brief summary of our summer road trip!!! -Ben 

Como Park/Zoo

For somewhere fun friday, we went to como park/zoo.
It was fun, because mom had a groupon for free unlimited ride wristbands for both of us.

the polar bears (Evan's fav) were sleeping

in the shade because it was so hot. this one

kept pawing at the bugs by his nose in his sleep.

Me and Evan went on a train in the park.

There was also this awesome ride that goes

 up and down (yes, that's all it does. quite fast!)

It was great! -Ben

A few more pics added by Mom:

Waving to Lisa, since we're on her favorite ride!

This seemed like a terrible idea at the beginning, but everyone made it out alive.  phew!  I love Ben's knobby knees sticking up out of the car.

Brownie Pops!

For WCW earlier this week, we made yummy brownie pops (thank you for the kit, Auntie Mary!)

The original ingredients (except eggs and milk,

 you know that kind of stuff)

 Evan mixing. Odd that something so delicious

could be made from something so disgusting-looking.

 Pops In a Pan (sounds like some convienent-

pre-packed lunch/dessert thing, doesn't it?)

 before...

 and after decorating!

The two Pop Dudes!

Building with play-dough and various types of sticks

On monday, we built stuff using play-dough, popsicle sticks, straws, and pipe cleaners. it was one of the best things we've done this summer.

He's Perry, Perry the platapus!

AAH! it's a robot!

Evan likes ice pops!

Mom made this. It's awesome, isn't it?

Another art piece by mom that I love.

Top view! :)

 Me holding up one of my art pieces,

entitled gaurdians of the red straw

Another one by me.

Evan sculpting...

...A dinosaur ice pop!

More pics from this will

be posted soon! (originally I was going

to put 20 photos on one post.

with loading time, NOT a good idea)

-Ben

From Mom:  Who knew that play dough & a bunch of art supplies would be one of the best things we did all summer??!  I was all ready to paint or do something else that required a lot of effort on my part, but this is what Ben chose.  It was interesting that it took Evan a few tries to really get into it - he bounced in & out for a while, and then was suddenly inspired to make his dinosaur ice pop (when given popsicle sticks, you *must* make popsicles!) & was all intent concentration after that!  He cut tiny pieces of straws to use for the dino claws, and painstakingly used a toothpick to make dino's face.  Unfortunately, I could not get him to hold the finished product still enough to take a decent picture, so you will have to take my word for it!