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A Little Craft for the Baptism of the Lord

I love to find little ways to weave our Catholic faith, so rich in tradition and rhythm, into our everyday life. There's just so much to explore and embrace, the mind boggles to think of all we could do between January and December.

But there is no need to over-extend. Just the daily prayers and devotions, the real learning and time spent together at home, the recognition of the beautiful feasts here and there ... this is all we need.

Certainly some days warrant a bit more merriment than usual - a Mass to attend, a party to throw, an elaborate craft to create. But our Church has prepared a whole calendar's worth of days to celebrate our Lord. Blessed are we, to find so many reasons to show and share our praise.

I truly believe these little actions - humble, certainly, but nourishing all the same - are weaving a strong, beautiful fabric in our life - a mantle to wrap around my children's hearts. Someday these precious hearts will be bared to the ways of the world. How fervently I pray they will be well prepared to meet those ways - to go forth and show the world their own ways first and foremost, to always be in the world and not of it. So while they are in my charge, I will do my best to prepare them - to help them always know the love of their family, their faith and their God.

(This is my bumbling introduction to a post of small projects from our day. Please see my dear friend Alice's beautiful post for a much more eloquent message - one that inspired me to take a step back and consider why it is I do what I do here at home with my boys.)

So let me get on with my post, then. As you already know (or guessed from my title) today is the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. I had nothing big planned as of last evening and then slowly a few things came together. Not the least of which was my generous friend Katherine's lovely coloring page - which I quickly printed out for today. It was so much nicer than the picture I had planned to use from Art 1 for Young Catholics.

Over breakfast we read today's Gospel ... and directly afterward we read a chapter from Crackerjack's CCD book. Last week CJ's class read about the sacrament of baptism and they even held a pretend baptism at the holy water font! Everyone was assigned a name tag - cousins, aunts, godparents, priest - our very own Crackerjack got to be the father and hold the baby doll (the "mother" wanted no part of it, lol).  When asked what name he gave the child, how my heart swelled when he said with a shy smile, "Dawn." So this experience was fresh in his mind as we began our talk today on baptism.

I thought it was neat when I asked the boys "How is water important to us?" and Bookworm responded, "We need it for life. Life begins with water." We immediately connected this to how, with the water of baptism, we begin our life with God.

Next thing the boys knew I was at the stove, and had begun making a candle. You can imagine how quickly they joined me! In our faith, one of the symbols of baptism is the seashell, so when I came across a walnut shell candle idea in All Year Round (looking forward to Candlemas) I immediately thought of this variation. It's not really candlemaking - but it comes as close as I ever have!

I gathered up a few tea light stubs and placed them in a can, which then sat in simmering water. Once the candle wax had melted, I poured it into the waiting (clean, dry) scallop shell. Just a few minutes later, while the wax was still quite soft, I pushed a white birthday candle into the center. There the candle stood, while the wax solidified around it.

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And here is the finished product:

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I think a few of these would make a nice summertime birthday gift! We floated our lighted candle in a small dish of water while we set about our morning work. Here you see the boys coloring in Katherine's beautiful pictures ...

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In the background of the picture is the Tomie de Paola Book of Bible Stories, one of our favorite resources, from which I read aloud as they worked.

For an afternoon treat we had shell-shaped cookies with tea. These are eggnog clamshells, a local specialty, and Pepperidge Farm Rialto's - chocolate cookie sandwiches filled with raspberry jam and dusted with powdered sugar. (Y-U-M.) After we ate, we worked on maps of the Bible lands (from Uncle Josh's Outine Map Book), locating and drawing in the Jordan River.

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Earlybird and I stopped at the grocer on the way home from speech and I was inspired to pick up some seafood for supper - scallops, cocktail shrimp, and Annie's Shells-and-Cheese. Easy but memorable.

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Finally, if I may, please let me share with you my boys' narrations from today (also seen attached to the pictures above). I found a neat exercise in Saints And Feast Days; the instructions were to describe an eye-witness account of the Baptism of our Lord. The boys pretended they were passers-by taking in the scene that unfolded on that day:

Bookworm:

"Something strange happened this day although at first it seemed like nothing could have possibly been so peculiar. As I was walking by the River Jordan, I noticed someone in the river doing strange activities with other people. Upon closer investigation, it appeared to be that he was baptizing them. I had found out about this by overhearing some people talking about it earlier today in town. Well, anyways, now they were asking him if he was the Christ, and he said, “No.” Then when another man came towards the river, he began talking about how he was not worthy to tie the thongs on this man’s sandals. Pretty soon I caught on to the idea that this was the Christ that everyone was talking about and that he was asking the man who was baptizing the others to baptize him. Then in the middle of all this activity the sky opened up and a dove came own to him and then, as I learned afterward, he had the Holy spirit inside of him. After I saw this I immediately headed back to the village and told everyone what had happened. They said they didn’t believe me and I told them that maybe they should go and ask John the Baptist. I’m not sure if they did but I am sure of one thing - the Son of God now has the Holy Spirit within him. I felt amazed."

Crackerjack:

"I was walking along the river Jordan with my brother when all of a sudden I saw tons of people watching someone in the water with another person. I thought they were playing a game in the water and then I realized he was pouring water over that person. The others were all watching. I noticed on the hill there was a group of more people coming and I wondered why. I thought to myself, is this some sort of magic trick or something? Then I realized someone was being baptized but I didn’t know what it really meant. I heard my mom say it before but I never knew what it really meant. I wanted to go ask my mom but it was a long ways back since I’d been walking with my brother for a long, long time. I asked somebody and they said that he was being baptized because he wanted to, but the baptist said at first he didn’t need to be baptized. I knew that he was being baptized for a reason but I didn’t know what reason. And then I saw a dove coming down and I wondered why a dove would be here. It is sort of a rainy day today ... But then I realized the dove was not using the wind it was using golden fire. It flew right into him and I wondered was this some sort of magic trick they’re doing? But then I looked all around and realized it wasn’t magic - it was really going right into his body! I felt like I was trying to make my mind up if it was a magic trick or if it was a celebration and I finally decided it was a celebration."

Well, that was our day in a nut, er, seashell!

Thanks for bearing with another long post. :) Until tomorrow, Good Night and God Bless!      


Eight Thumbs Up! (A Movie Review)

Bill, Bookworm, Crackerjack and I went to see Night at the Museum this afternoon Night_in_the_museum_1(Nana  stayed home with Earlybird). I am so happy to say it was a terrific movie! We all agreed it had a great cast of characters, a great storyline, lots of action and humor - an excellent family film all around.

I asked the boys to review the movie here at my blog; of course they were happy to comply. These reviews might contain a smidgen of a spoiler (though nothing you wouldn't learn from the trailer), so proceed with caution!

From Crackerjack:

"This movie was about a man who got a job at the museum and everything comes to life at night. A monkey steals the keys and even the skeleton of a dinosaur comes to life! I would describe this movie as exciting, scary - no, not scary - silly and ... did I say exciting?"

From Bookworm:

"Today we went to the Imax theater to see a movie called Night at the Musuem. Imax is a type of theater that features a large 3-D screen. (This movie was not shown in 3-D but was really great on the big screen!)

"In the movie a man called Larry Daley gets a job as a night gaurd at a natural history musuem - however, it turns out that the job is not as easy as it seems for everything comes to life at the musuem and it is very difficult to make sure nothing goes wrong! For example, the monkey named Dexter is prone to steal keys or rip up the instruction manual. Attila the Hun is terrible and known by all of the museum creatures as someone who might rip their limbs off. And the railworkers and the Roman Empire figures are often waging war on each other no matter how many times Larry tells them to get along.

"I liked the amount of humor in the movie. If I told you my favorite part it would probably give the movie away so I will just tell you that it is when Atilla is begging Daley to let him rip someone's limbs off - just a little!

"I'd say that this movie is very appropriate for all kinds of children and that it is a great family movie. I give this movie 5 stars."

What I liked about this movie, (Dawn speaking here) was that, on top of it's fine entertainment value, it really got us excited to visit a museum! There's a message in this movie, one revealed by museum guide Rebecca as she explains to her tour group (and Larry):

"This museum was originally dedicated to President Theodore Roosevelt ... He had a passion for history and believed that the more you knew about the past, the better prepared you were for the present."

A great point to remember. And in closing, here is one more Teddy Roosevelt quote I found online, this one not about history but about children and family life:

"For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison."
~ Teddy Roosevelt, An Autobiography, 1913

Well said, Mr. President!


Science Fair Day!

Stef is hosting the 4Real Science Fair today and the boys and I happen to be kicking off our winter astronomy study! According to the Handbook of Nature Study, our timing is perfect:

"The natural time for beginning star study is in the autumn when the days are shortening and the early evenings give us opportunity for observation. After the polar constellations are learned, we are then ready for further study in the still earlier evenings of winter, when the clear atmosphere makes the stars seem more alive, more sparkling and more beautiful than it does at any other period of the year."

We've been on an outer space kick for some time, due to Earlybird's intense interest in this subject. (Remember this post?) But now we will officially begin a "study" of the stars, planets, sun, moon and many other aspects of astronomy. We will use many different living science books and hands-on activities to supplement our study. I will follow a portion of Behold and See 3 as a spine (or a framework), breaking the subject down into one section a week. As a fun kick-off we gathered up our solar system resources and set them out on display:

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Above you see some of the resources we'll be using - coloring books, field guides, notebooks, fiction and non-fiction materials alike. This display is set up just below the planet posters we borrowed from my good friend Beth, whose oldest son (now 11) was also into space stuff when he was a little guy. We have been the lucky recipients of many wonderful space-related materials from our friends:

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No sooner did I have our science fair set up put together when EB caught wind of the plan.

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Excuse the belly shot, but I had to show you his much loved, hand-me-down, space shuttle sweatshirt. (More thanks to Beth!) EB loooves his "blast off" shirt and he also loves wearing this backpack, which was handmade by Beth's mother:

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EB wears this bag out sometimes, but mostly just around the house! Next, I asked EB to show me some planets in one of his favorite planet books ...

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Here is EB pointing out Neptune. (This boy loves his planets.)

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Then the older two boys tried a quick experiment to illustrate how the sun can be bigger, and yet look as small as, the moon. They first compared the size of their thumbs to each other's heads. Then they stood apart from each other; it was further apart than shown below, but for photography purposes I had them stand closer. Next they each closed one eye and held up their thumb in front of the other eye. They noticed that their thumb could "cover" their brother's head!

Reason being:

"Your thumb looks the same size as someone's head if the person is far away and your thumb is close. It works the same way with the moon, which is close to the earth and the sun, which is far away and bigger." (Behold and See, p. 76)

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And what would a science fair be without a little bit of light saber action? Actually the boys were using them as pointers at that moment - the very next it was all Star Wars again. I think I asked "Which planet is made entirely of gas and if it grows in size would become a sun?"

Answer: Jupiter! Or as EB calls it - Memaju. (If you ask EB which planet is his favorite, he places a finger to his nose and says "Mmmmmm ... Memaju!")

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These are so neat - rubber ball planets! Crackerjack got to play with each ball as we read about the planet it represented. These are great preschool science for EB, too (who was napping for this part).

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I asked the boys to line the planets up in order - note the asteroid belt in between Mars and Jupiter and the shooting stars off to the left and right. :)

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A few of the planet posters up close:

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As we read about the planets, I wrote down the boys' narrations and at long last made up fact cards for our planet posters. I'd like to share what the boys said:

Sun: "The sun is just a big star but it is special to us because it helps us see and it helps things grow."

Mercury: "It is so hot it can cook a pizza! It would be a strange place to live - no air, no clouds, no weather, no blue sky."

Venus: "Venus is hotter than Mercury even though it's farther away from the sun. Its clouds act like a heavy blanket."

Earth: "Life can grow here so it is special and perfect. Only earth has continents (there are seven)."

Mars: "It might have once had life. It is very windy and sandy. It is known as the red planet because it is made up of red sand."

Jupiter: "It has a big red spot on it. It is the biggest of all the planets we know."

Saturn: "Saturn has the biggest moon in the solar system, called Titan. The rings are made up of chunks of rocks and ice and moons that keep those chunks from escaping into outer space."

Uranus: "It spins on its side. It fell over because a giant something the size of the earth crashed into it and bam!!!"

Neptune: "It is blue and windy and is hard to see because of a thin layer of fog."

Pluto: "Pluto is made of rock, not gas like the other outer planets. It is no longer a real planet, but a dwarf."

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Two more items from Earlybird - above you see his most favorite (and gigantic) space book, open to the page about space exploration.

And below you see the wooden star he decorated with markers and stickers. (These plain wooden stars are less than a dollar at the craft store. Add a package of stickers and EB is all set for some fine-motor crafting!)

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And finally, I caught this snapshot of EB just falling asleep - clutching the foam crescent-shaped moon from a craft kit we'd worked on.

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A few future plans:

  • visit a planetarium
  • participate in our homeschool group's science fair
  • learn about the history of space exploration
  • put on a planets play
  • set up our telescope
  • set up our astronomy notebooks
  • create a moon chart
  • redecorate EB's room in an outer space motif. (He's getting a huge solar system mobile for his birthday next month.)

I hope you enjoyed our Science Fair post! As we are just starting our study, I am sure we will have more to share along the way. Thanks for stopping by!

And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; He made the stars also. (Genesis 1:16)


Flushed Away: The Reviews are In!

Flushed_awayYesterday the boys and I met friends for an afternoon matinee, the newly released Flushed Away. We were also joined by what seemed like thousands of other kids who had no school due to Veteran's Day, LOL!

At supper last night, as the boys filled Daddy in on the movie, I whipped out my laptop so as to capture their "narration" in a post.

Crackerjack got things rolling ...

"This movie was about a pet mouse who got flushed away ..."

"Wait," I interrupted, fingers paused over the keys. "Wasn't he a rat?"

"No, he was a mouse," CJ said. He turned to his brother for confirmation. "Bookworm, wasn't Roddy a mouse, not a rat?"

"Right, he and Rita were mice," Bookworm replied.

"Guys, I'm pretty sure Roddy was a pet rat ..."

"But you said people aren't allowed to keep rats as pets." CJ challenged.

"Well, you know, this is the movies," I said quickly. "And besides, they're from Ratropolis. Don't you think if they're from a city called Ratropolis it would mean that they're rats?"

Pause.

"And what about Sid?" I reminded them. "He was a rat, right?"

"Yes, he was definitely a rat." BW agreed.

"I think Sid was wearing a wig," CJ felt compelled to add.

We had come to a standstill in the rat/mouse debate, when I decided to play hardball - I went to Google. We found the definitive answer not at the official Flushed Away site but at, of all places, The National Catholic Register.

Rodney was indeed a rat.

So with that small, but rather important detail cleared up, it was on to our reviews:

Crackerjack:

"This movie was about a mouse rat that lived in New York London in a fancy house as a pet. I didn't know that was London! The people that owned the house left on vacation, I think - (I don't really remember) - and a sewer rat came to their house. He got there when their sink backed up. Like the same thing that happened to our sink, except a rat didn't come flying up at our house. The rat exploded out of their sink and ate some of their hot dogs. Then he flushed Roddy down the toilet. Roddy ended up underground in a place called Ratropolis. He was in a weird city, a different city, a city full of rats and mice, and slugs and frogs and flies. He ended up involved in a "grande" adventure with a girl mouse rat named Rita. They were trying to escape from the Toad who was thinking up a plan that would have been very, very, very bad for the rats of Ratropolis. Roddy had to figure out: live down there forever or go home. Can I say what he decided? No, I probably shouldn't.

I give this movie 50 STARS!!"

Bookworm:

"This is a movie called Flushed Away, and in it, a pompous pet mouse - I mean rat - named Roddy, encounters a sewer rat who gets launched into his house during a back up in the sink. Since Roddy's owners are away it's up to him to get the rat out, but when he tries to convince him that the toilet is a jacuzzi and that the flush will make bubbles come out, Sid the sewer rat pushes him in instead and pulls the lever. Now Roddy's stuck underground in the sewers of London which is a lot like the London above except completely different and mouse size. I mean rat size. And his only chance of getting out is a female rat, Rita, who is running away from an evil toad who wants her for stealing a gem. I don't want to give too much away, but I will tell you that near the end, Roddy discovers that his objective is not to get back to the upper world but to stop the toad from doing something terrible.

I give this movie 9 out of 10 stars."

We were very excited Daddy brought home McDonalds last night for supper, especially Flushed_away_1because this week's theme is none other than Flushed Away! We even made this cute little craft as instructed on the side of the Happy Meal box - a "Jammy Dodger" boat made out of a straw, a chicken McNuggets carton and a sail we punched out of the box.

My take on the movie? Very cute, with some potty humor (a given it seems these days), all in all very fun. Loved the slugs, the surroundings and Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet and Andy Sirkis were great. You know how I love anything British. :) If you see this movie, I have to tell you - the part where Spike says to Whitey "Keep your legs straight when you hit the water!" (in full cockney accent) - a scene which is actually shown in all the commercials - had me laughing to tears.

Have a great weekend everyone! And if you have time, please consider sending me a post, picture or e-mail for the Loveliness of Homemade Gifs Fair on Monday!


Winter, by Bookworm

"Try to imagine that there is snow on the ground everywhere. The sky is white from all the clouds and there are snowflakes falling down like goose feathers. The street lights are on, even though it's daytime, each one with icicles hanging down and a clump of snow on top. The tree branches are all covered with snow and every now and then a little too much piles up and falls to the ground, creating a small cloud of mist. The birdfeeders are covered with hungry birds hanging all over them. Snowplows go by every other minute and there's smoke coming from every chimney.

That's a winter wonderland to me."


Friday Photos!

My goodness, Friday came up fast! I went to hand over the camera to the boys, when I realized the batteries were dead! So this week, the boys are narrating pictures I took over the past few days. Next week, of course, we'll return to our regularly scheduled programming! ;)

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One-Legged Sparrow by Bookworm

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"These pictures show a one-legged baby sparrow that we have been watching. She's part of a big family of sparrows of at least a dozen birds! (Mother's note ~ there are probably 7 or 8 total). They come all the time and they love this place, because we keep it so safe for them. We do that by keeping cats and other bird hunters out of the yard. They also enjoy all the seed that we put out for them!

We can tell they are a family, because some of the sparrows appear to be adults and some look like babies. We can tell there are babies because recently the smaller puffy ones have been fed by the taller skinnny ones. The babies will open their beaks and shiver their wings. Then the adults will go down to the ground, eat one seed, and then fly back and deposit it into the babies' mouths! And they get along really well too; they don't fight like sometimes sparrows do.

This particular one-legged sparrow is like Strong Wings, a one-legged Junco who used to live here. He migrated to the north this spring and now this one-legged sparrow is his summer replacement!

We don't have a name for him yet - can you help us think of one?"

Choo-Choo Train by Crackerjack

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"My younger brother Earlybird and my older brother Bookworm were playing choo-choo train while my mother was cleaning the living room. I decided to join in so Mama saw the camera and started taking pictures. And then this is the picture. I'm in the middle. Bookworm is blowing the whistle. Earlybird is in the caboose and I am in the coach. That's all. Except I have a lot of fun when we do this!"

A Cute Little Chipmunk by Earlybird

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Actually Earlybird did take this picture! Well, he helped. ;) It's taken through glass, so it's a bit fuzzy, but you know how we cant' resist chipmunks around here! We were watching this little guy the other day, when we realized he is Chippy, a chipmunk whose life we saved back in April. (His tail is a stump - that's how we know.) He is one of a group of four chipmunks who visit all together, another woodland family, we suspect!

Earlybird giggled watching him scurry around. Chippy can even climb the tree! He likes to sit in the tray feeder stuffing his cheeks full of seeds (you can see they are quite puffy here). We all love watching the wildlife that visits our yard, and Earlybird is no exception. He is working on learning not to tap (read: bang) the glass, so the critters will stay around for a while. :)

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Thanks for joining us for another week of Friday photos! :)


In the Mood for a Mystery?

"It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books that are yourSherlock_holmes_1 own."

The above quote is by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose birthday happens to be today!

And Since Bookworm is between books right now (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Call of the Wild to be precise), he has been assigned a story or two in The Great Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Puffin Classics). ;)

HT: Google


Nature in a Nutshell, May 2006

We're finally getting around to assembling the new Nature Notebooks I keep talking about. Our first few pages consist of sketches, coloring pages, and notes made by us all. To expand upon these notes a bit, I asked the boys for narrations while we reminisced about the past few weeks in our yard.

I thought I would share some of this conversation as I type it up for our notebook. It might not be too scientific, but to me, it will always be priceless: Nature_notebook_page1_1

Mama: Thanks for being here today, boys. I'd like to write down some of the things we've seen in our yard over the past month or so. Let's see what we remember ...

Bookworm: We found a sow bug (or maybe it's a pill beetle) under a rock.

Crackerjack: I think those things look like rocks!

Bookworm: We learned Garlic Mustard is an invasive species.

Crackerjack: We must defeat Garlic Mustard Now!

Bookworm: The Bleeding heart is pink.

Crackerjack: The Bleeding heart is red.

Bookworm: O.K. just say the Bleeding heart is pinkish-red.

Crackerjack: And that we bought them at the nursery with Daddy.

Bookworm: We found some mushrooms called morels. Unlike most mushrooms morels have holes or cells all over them.

Crackerjack: Wow, I thought morels was a girls's name but actually they're a type of mushroom!

Bookworm: The American Goldfinch has gotten extremely yellow.Worm_coloring

Crackerjack: He's a cool bird that's Mama's favorite color.

Bookworm: The female spruce buds are wider and shorter and the males look like miniature pinecones.

Crackerjack: I didn't know before that female pinecones are red and male pinecones are brown. I think it's that way because pink is a girlish color. And so how about this tree? This tree is very old but actually it is still growing.

Mama: How do you know that, Crackerjack?

Crackerjack: Because it grows pinecones in the spring and that means its alive.

Bookworm: I spotted a very small butterfly in the yard, and if you keep your shadow off of it then you can get a very close up view.

Crackerjack: Wow, I wonder what type of butterfly it is, maybe there's a book we can check.

Mama: Honey, we found out it's an Eastern Pine Elfin, remember?

Crackerjack: Oh yeah, now I get it.

Bookworm: There are two red squirrels now, and one of them is chubbier than the other.

Crackerjack: Yep, we seem to have our old buddy Red Tail back, but now we found another red squirrel. We call him Red Face.

Mama: So, what kinds of birds have we seen lately?

Bookworm: Eastern Towhee, Brown-headed Cowbird, Mockingbird ... several newLady_slipper_coloring species.

Crackerjack: We saw Orioles just a few days ago, but I haven't had a chance to get a good look because I couldn't get there in time.

Mama: How about in the woods, anything going on out there?

Crackerjack: In our woods there are deer that have been spotted, but there are motor-bikers that love going through these woods and we think we should maybe make a call to make them stop because it is not very good for the animals for those motor-bikers to be going through their woods.

Mama: O.K., let's wrap up. Any final words before we go?

Crackerjack: I'd like to say we have 4 cats and we take care of them very well. And for goodness sakes, I say, one of our cats, Poochie, just almost ate one of Mama's sewing needles! But luckily my brother, Bookworm, went dashing down the hall and got the telephone so we could call ... um ...

Mama: Do you remember the numbers we call in an emergency?

Crackerjack: Nope, but I wish I did. Anyway, luckily we didn't need it. I don't know how we got it out but we did.

Bookworm: I know how it happened. Daddy had to pull the needle and miles of thread out while Mama held Poochie still to keep him from swallowing it.

And there you have it in a nutshell, the Nature Report for May 2006. Stay tuned ... I'm sure there will be more before too long!


Ice Age 2: The Reviews Are In!

But for educational purposes, I'm going to call them narrations ... 

Bookworm says:

"Yesterday I went to see Ice Age 2 with my friends. It was a really good movie! It was about how the ice age animals discover that their valley is basically a giant bowl about to flood, and that there's a boat at the other end of the valley which could get them out safely. The entire movie is about their escape. The old characters are all back but their personalities have changed a lot ... Diego is more scared this time, but still "worrisome" to the others in the herd. He was rather, let's just say, troublesome ... especially to Sid! Manny is much more worried about his species going extinct than ever before. Sid is now convinced that he has to do something about his respect, orIce_age  lack thereof. The new characters include two crazy and unbelievably annoying possums, and a mammoth who thinks she's a possum. I'd say there's a ton of funny parts, but not as many scary parts, in my opinion. My favorite part was one with Scrat, the crazy rat-squirrel, but I don't want to give away the ending. My least favorite part was, it was a lot more fresh than the first movie. I'd give it 4 1/2 stars."

Crackerjack says:

"I went with my friends to Ice Age 2 in the theatre. I sat next to my friend Yippie and Mama. I ate popcorn and I had lemonade, but I had to take my candy home for later. All of the characters are still in this movie but Sid is really upset that they don't think he can do some things. Diego is much more friendlier to everyone becuase he knew them more and they were sure he was part of the team. Manny was much more afraid of his species going extinct. There are two really annoying possums; one is called Crash and the other one is called Eddie ~ they're pretty funny! Ellie is another mammoth, she's a female and she thinks that she's a possum. There were two really weird creatures that look like an alligator except for some strange reason one was much bigger than the other. And one was purple and the other was green. They were pretty bad. My favorite part was at the beginning when Sid said to "Call me Squid!" But I didn't like it when they were fresh. How about I give it 3 stars?"

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By the way, did you know that scientists recently discovered a species, a kind of rat-squirrel creature, that was previously thought extinct? Read about it here. My boys are convinced that Scrat (that crazed, squirrelly rat from the movie) has survived all these years!