Sunrise Christmas Morning

Construction

I have been lazy about blogging. Sorry. We've been a little busy and I've been falling asleep as soon as the kids get to bed and I finally sit down for a second. But here's a picture of one of our Christmas traditions: Gingerbread house making. THis year I found pre-cut kits at IKEA for everyone to put together. Erika also tipped me off to the benefits of hot glueing the houses together. (No one ever eats the houses, only the candy. So this was awesome!!) THe kids had a great time. Then Nate and Jake used them for their project later (we believe in recycling:)). Anyway, hopefully I'll get around to blogging the rest of our holiday. Right now I need to go frost some yummy sugar cookies!

Science Projects for Big Kids

So, Jake and I have spent the last few days messing around building air cannons. PVC, automatic sprinkler valves, a handful of parts from Radio Shack, and next thing you know, we are shooting golf balls 250' into the water hazard out back.

Then, we saw this link, and got some even better ideas. A little poking around on Craig's List, and the next thing you know, we have hooked up a vacuum pump, and sealed off the end of the firing tube.

We needed a target to test out our new contraption, so we lined up the gingerbread houses (all the candy had been picked clean). We placed a bag of rocks behind the targets to stop the ball, and then propped up a flat cardboard box with plywood inside, just for good measure--don't want to hit the neighbors' house. Here is the "before" photo.

We put in 4 golf balls, just for fun. Turned on the vacuum pump, charged the pressure tank to 130psi, made sure there are no cars or joggers . . . FIRE!

It fired through all the gingerbread houses, embedded one of the golf balls in the middle of the bag of rocks, and blew the bag of rocks clean off the table.

Maximum theoretical speed = 760mph
Force: F = PA = P(pi)r2 = (634,407 Pa)(3.14)(0.019 m)2 = 719.5 N = 161 lb

Acceleration: a = F/m = (719.5 N)/(0.038 kg) = 18,933 m/s2
Velocity: v2 = 2ax = 2(18,933 m/s2)(3.3 m) or v = 339.7 m/s = 760 mph or 1,115 ft/s

Our estimate, around 450mph.

Seeing Green

I have been looking for a large capiz chandelier for a while. I saw one on ebay a couple years ago and have been kicking myself ever since because I hadn't been able to find that one again. But....I saw this one at a local antique store and snapped it up. Nate hung it for me yesterday. It involved some jerry-rigged homemade scaffolding and some other make do-with-what-we-have situations.

The chandelier is about 5 feet tall and we hung it in our entry way which is two stories. It's made out of thin pieces of shells. And it is like a wind chime, moving with any breeze. But it gives a cool green tinted light. And I love it at night.

Trail of Lights

Tonight we went to see the lights downtown. Called the Trail of Lights, there are 40 displays set up around a 1 1/4 mile trail in Zilker Park. Some parts are really cool. But it doesn't really compare to the displays at Temple Square. But we make do with what we have.

In the display below the lighted trees were synchronized with Christmas songs. Pretty cool to watch. The sky looks pretty cool because of the long exposure to get all the trees lit.

If you click on this one you'll see Toby making an elfish face. He's a 12 year old boy who hates to have his picture taken, what can I say? or do? This tree is the oldest tree in Austin. I think that it is over 200 years old. But I might be off a little, my memory isn't so great lately.
At least the weather cooperated: it was a lot warmer (5o degrees) than the last couple days (40 degrees) and not raining or windy:) Then we went and got hot chocolates at the coffee shop. The kids loved the chocolate shavings, whip cream, and chocloate stirring stick they were given in their chocolates. (Hazel had to settle for soymilk cocoa and no toppings. But she was good with that). All in all it was a fun night.

Irresistable

It's a good thing that Toby is no where near interested in girls, because, really, who could resist someone so cute?!

Update

Well, the season is in full swing. It seems that there is something every night and tons of things to take up my days.

• I have finished my christmas shopping (Yayyyy!!!!)
• and I've even got most of it wrapped.
• I put up all the outdoor christmas lights.
• Nate and I attended a small get together last week hosted by his boss and
• we enjoyed a casino night themed work party tonight;
• Toby performed in his band's christmas concert last week (he looks so cute in his tuxedo shirt, tie and cumberbund),
• We attended the ASO's performance of the Messiah with the 3 oldest kids
• We had a friends over to sing carols and eat cookies
• we are going to see the Trail of Lights in Zilker park tomorrow;
• We are reading Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, in the original (I didn't realize it was so wordy...I have to stop and summarize/explain pretty often.)
• We tivoed the first presidency's christmas message and watched part of it for FHE,
• we made lots of snowflakes (I am planning on sewing them together like in the anthropologie store display.)
• the ward Christmas party is on Friday where I will be a photographer and Santa will make an appearance (I'm interested to see how Hazel will react with this);
• Saturday is the high school's production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,
• We had a breakfast for the people we visit teach and our visiting teachers (a great way to get all the visiting done for the month at once).
• The activity Day girls are going caroling,
• I think i will take the scouts to do something similar;
• I am going to take the kids to the children's museum to make gingerbread houses,
• we still need to put up the tree
• (but we do have our stockings up:).
• I finally made it to the post office to mail all my packages.
• I started baking for Christmas (But then stopped when I realized that we were just eating it all instead of saving some for later). I managed to lose 5 pounds right after Thanksgiving and I don't want to gain them back.
• I decided that the black dresses the girls already have will work for this christmas and passed on sewing new ones ( I'll do them for easter instead)
• (I have finally learned how to not overdo it to myself.)
• I bought the newest installment in the Uglies series of books called The Extras and am enjoying that in small doses (I really just want to sit down and read the whole thing at once, but I'm having a difficult time finding time to indulge)
• I am almost ready for christmas!
• Next on my list to tackle: Christmas photos and cards, the tree, collecting prizes for the Candy Game (I received a request to play it for Christmas as the requestor missed it at Thanksgiving) and cleaning and rearranging the house to fit all the guests coming for Christmas, and planning for The New Year's Eve Soiree we are planning.

I think we might actually make it through the holidays without too much stress!!!! Hope that you all are having similar good luck and enjoying the Spirit of the Christmas season!!! I'm going to go read my book for a minute or 20.