Rescue Heroes

Deborah recently found a fun new way to get our two young sons, Seth (age 5) and Noah (age 3) to help:
Using an "intercom" voice you say "Calling all rescue heroes. I need a diaper. this is an emergency. Please use your jet pack and come help me."
The help comes flying in with arms out like a plane.
Unfortunately you have to wait for him to use his "rope" to pass the diaper.
But although slow, it works.

Secret Ingredients

Last night Deborah asked Seth (our 5 year old) to put water in Sophia's bottle.
He told her he knew how to put the formula in as well.
Deborah asked, "Are you sure? 4 scoops?"
He said yes, so she told him he could do it.
He brought back the bottle and smilingly said,
"Mom, I put in a secret 'gredient. It is my special recipe!"
She warily asked, "What?"
Seth replied with a big grin: "5 scoops!"
She let Sophia drink it, figuring his scoops probably weren't full anyway.
I can think of worse "secret ingredients"

Cassandra Wins 1st Place in State for Inspirations Entry

Cassandra's "Theater" piece (she had to write, direct and film it herself) won first place at her school, the region, and now the state. (Elementary Division, 3-5 grade) Jessica's theater entry also won first place. Melissa had an entry that made it to state which won high honors. Melissa and Jessica were busy attending the science fair, and so they missed this awards assembly, but they were represented by Cassandra who accepted on their behalf their trophy and other awards.

Melissa's Science Project - 2010

Melissa created an projection screen with multi-touch capabilities using infra-red light sources read from a wiimote, and adapted the the TUIO interface, to a custom Java application that she wrote. The majority of the work went into getting the bluetooth stack to work with Windows, and testing the wiimotes, but she also spent considerable time installing, configuring and writing code.

Jessica's Science Project - 2010

For her project Jessica turned on an off different electrical outlets from an iPod Touch. She set up the web server, created the web page, connected the AJAX code to a serial proxy, build an "Arduino" microcontroller, and programmed, it, and connected a custom circuit in a power strip that allowed for optically isolated control of four different power outlets. We had a lot of fun. Here she is at the State science fair with her project.

Science Fair 2010 - First Place!

Melissa and Jessica both won first place in the state science fair!

Fish Kiss

Noah was pretending to sail
Deborah said to him "I think you are a fish."
Noah: "No, I am not a fish; I am a person."
Deborah: "If you move your lips like this you can be a fish."
Noah: "That's not when I'm a fish. thats when I'm kissing too much."