Rain Day!

It rained today, which is (sadly) sort of a big deal around here, so we had an all rain-themed day.

Arthur insists on wearing his new Christmas bow tie every day.

 

 
First we took a walk in the rain to the neighborhood park.

Then we went home, dried off, and did three science experiments about rain and clouds:
A rain jar
Make your own cloud
and
Make a mini water cycle

Cloud in a jar

Beatrice really loved making her own cloud in a jar, she did it over and over and seemed to understand the water cycle, etc.  Most of the science was over Arthur's head but he liked dripping dyed blue water from a turkey baster into the rain jar.

Then I had them each draw a picture of their favorite thing to do in the rain.  Arthur's was "walking with my family and my dogs, but not in the blue lava, it will kill you."  Beatrice's was "riding on the back of a whale with my brother."

Beatrice and Arthur, in the rain, riding on the back of a whale

The last thing we did was write poems about the rain.  Beatrice's was long, to say the least - some key lines include, "Rain rhymes with cane," "It's not salty!" and "When the water on the earth gets burned by the sun, it becomes a gas that goes up into the sky." 

Arthur's much briefer poem follows:

Rain drops out of the sky.
It drips - drip drip drop!
It comes out of the sky,
And it comes out of a jar.

(The rain jar, that is.)

I'm really into these themed days - we recently did one all about maps and another about plants.  Beatrice has been asking to do one about money, but I've been putting it off - she still doesn't know what money is and I want to preserve her innocence a little longer.

The Best Cookies of All Time

I made these caramel-stuffed chocolate chip cookies from the blog Table for Two and they are seriously the best cookies I have ever made. 

But most importantly, I made them one week ago, stored them in an airtight container on the counter, and today they are still completely soft.  Apparently the secret is replacing baking powder with cornstarch.  Now I want to try and apply this cornstarch trick to other things, like sugar cookies. 

(These oatmeal cookies from Smitten Kitchen also stay soft a really long time, but I've never gotten it to work with chocolate chip cookies before.)

School Photos, Fall 2013

Today I picked up the kids' fall school pictures. Arthur looks adorable as always in his first real school photo (you just can't take a bad photo of Arthur).

   

Back row, left to right: Miss Vanessa with Estella, Miss ? with Lucas, Miss Ashley with Michaela, Miss Maria with Tanush

Front row, left to right: Emma, Henry, Arthur, Ivy, August, Zoe, Isabel, Grace

Poor Beatrice looks vaguely ill. She (like me) is very self-conscious in photos. Pretty much the only way to get a good photo of her is to take a candid one; as soon as she knows she is being photographed she can't figure out what to do with her hands or her facial expression.

Back row, left to right: Miss Amy, Effi, ?, ?, ?, Leila, Miss Stephanie, Miss Monique
Next row: Nicolas, Anthony, Austin, Christos, Cian, Lena, Connor, Donovan,?
Next row: ?, Beatrice, ?, Sadie, Ayano, ?, ?, Lorelei, ?
Front row: Oliver, Jude, Sebastian, Srivar, DJ, Liam, Liam, ?