weird, wacky and wonderful

A bunch of those things going on at our house.

First - games - wonderful.

Lucy had an assignment where she needed to make a game using magnets - for a study on forces.  She wanted to use her magnetic littlest pet shops for her game, so she made a game called "Leap Frog".  Using magnets underneath to move the frogs ahead spaces, you would draw a card to tell you how many spaces your frog could move.  You also had to make sure you stayed on the lily pads.

We used a cardboard box and left little legs to hold the game up.  You'd slip your hand underneath to hold the magnet under your frog and then move it along to move your frog.  Very cute.

The day that they were all due, everyone in her class got to play with everyone's games.  That evening Lucy came home and made up a bunch more games - target games ("darts"), question games.... and there they sit on our fridge.  In case you are wondering, the clip magnets with straws stuck in them are the darts.....

This one is from work.  I'll just let the spine label speak for itself (please, please note that I am not saying this to you, the reader!!!!!!!).  I burst out laughing when I read it for the purpose of shelving it.

As for the weird, we had some leftover Diet Dr. Pepper from last Sunday when Maddy had a whole whack of friends over for lunch.  We kept the half-consumed bottles in the garage, where it was very very cold.  I went to go and pour some for myself - it was still liquid - and it instantly froze when I poured it!  Weird and wacky!  It felt kind of like gummy candy consistency - so bizarre.  It thawed in a minute or so and then was fine.  Also odd.... once I opened the bottle, the stuff inside started to get solid as well.  Gotta look up that science.

Definitely wacky.  Cade loves peppers.  Since we were having wurzbroccoli, he asked to have another vegetable instead.  He asked if he could have peppers.  I said yes, but I was not going to slice it up for him.... he could do that.  He took it whole instead.

The creative play in Lucy's room the other day.  I can't tell you how much I love seeing stuff like that.  Who needs big fancy toys when you can make a great play-place out of books, hats and wall-hangings.

It still has been ridiculously cold and I was very surprised to see a picture that I took on the website when I looked at it to see the weather the other day.  This photo was used without permission or my knowledge (I submitted some for an article they were doing on Mia's 7th grade trip), or photo credit.  I sent an email suggesting that this change in the future.

And last bit of oddities.  We finally finished clearing out mom's place yesterday - moved the last of the furniture and boxes.... trying to find places for a bunch of it and hauling other stuff off to the thrift store.  It was beastly cold, of course, so Eric, Kim and I were miserable.  Well, Eric and Kim were much more miserable as I was inside much more than them.

After the first round, Eric brought me (and Lucy, she went along) back home and went out to finish up.  When he got home, he had a look of "how-bizarre" (saw-pasaw..... private joke) on his face.  So he tells us a story.  He was loading up the BBQ when he noticed a shot of purple in the trees.  He looks up about eye level and sees a little bit of purple string hanging in the evergreen trees.  Looking closer, he sees that the purple is frozen in a chunk of ice.  He pulls it down and this is what it is: 

Mia's headphones that she has been looking for for months!  She thought she had left them at Grandma's but we could never find them.  We figured once we moved my mom out of there, they would turn up.  Well, they did, but not in the way we thought!!

They must have gotten outside - perhaps she had taken them and they fell out of her pocket or something.  Then probably one of the many snowfalls came, covered them up, hiding them from us all. After getting packed down over the weeks, they were finally set free when Eric chipped away at the driveway one day and with a swing of the shovel, they got flung into the nearby tree.

The amazing thing it that they didn't get damaged at all - not severed by the chopping up the ice, not damaged from being driven on or frozen in crazy-cold temperatures, or from being flung up in the tree and hanging there.  Crazy.

Not sure if this last one fits in any of the categories.  I finally got a bunch of fabric I ordered for covering a bunch of my thrift store chairs.  Pretty excited about it.  One fabric in particular, is a cozy addition to our home, albeit not welcomed by most of those dwelling here.  I ordered some white and gray fake fur with which to cover a chair.  I'm so excited about it!!!!  But the rest of the family thinks I'm pretty wacky.  What else is new.  I opened up the bag it was packaged in and big chunks of fur fell out.  

Do we have a large, long-haired dog going through some foul medical treatment, causing clumps of fur to fall out?  No, it's just my future favourite chair.....