May the 4th Be With You, Cinco de Mayo and Robert and My Dueling Science Experiments!

It's not often that two major holidays happen to be right in a row. May 4th was Star Wars Day..."May the 4th be with you." So we went to Pottery Barn Kids to make lightsabers, eat super fancy Star Wars cupcakes and particitate in all the rest of their festivities.

Then Daddy took Captain America (Stanton) to see the new Avengers movie, a close second to Star Wars. While the boys were at the movie, I took Noelle to Claire's to buy headbands. It was her first time there, and she was in heaven. She asked for some fancy scarves too because she said they make every outfit more fashionable. We just stuck with the headbands and a bouncy ball for Winston, sort of as a thank you to him for not breaking any of the items he pulled down off of the shelves.

We ended the holiday with a night of swimming and watching the super moon. We talked about how it was definitely bigger and brighter than the moon has ever been before. And then we found out the super moon was actually the next day. Turns out it was still the same old moon we'd been starring at all night, not the super one, but it was still fun looking at it anyway.

The next day was Cinco de Mayo. Noelle and I went to a modesty fashion show that Grandma put on for the 8-11 year old girls at church. Noelle felt very special to be the only little girl there. It was a lot of fun, and such a cute activity!

After it was over, Noelle jumped and danced (and fell)all over the runway, sporting one of her new Claire's headbands and her most fancy, modest dress. While we were at the fashion show, Daddy and Grandpa and Stanton and Winston were at a seafood restaurant in Guadalupe, where Stanton tried squid, sea snails and octopus for the first time. Disgusting! He said he actually liked it. Gross, gross, gross!

That afternoon, the Cinco de Mayo partying began. I made my own trip to Guadalupe to my favorite mercado to purchase a pinata. Then i went to Walmart to get candy for it, and I saw this festive cardboard cutout. I can't even resist a cardboard cutout on a regular day, let alone a holiday. I was by myself though, so since I didn't have my little photographer Stanton there to take my picture for me, I had to ask someone else. So, in the combined spirit of Cinco de Mayo and my own ignorance, I asked some guy, "Puedes tomar un foto por favor," to which he replied in perfect English, "Sure. I can take a picture of you." Exhibit A of why I never use my Spanish!

For Cinco de Mayo evening we went bowling with friends.

Winston was pretty into it for the first couple frames with Alli's help, but then he just decided to mooch snacks off of people instead. That's one of his favorite hobbies. I myself, usually stink at bowling, but I ended up getting 3 strikes and 5 spares during my game. I felt cool! I may have bowled even better, but I put on Kathy's unlucky sombrero in the middle of my game, and it ruined my streak.

Then we went to Somburros for dinner and whacked open the pinata afterwards. It was a muy Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

On Sunday night we baked cookies, and as we were getting the kids ready for bed, Robert started telling the kids about his 5th grade science project on color mixing. He mixed food coloring in water and the same food coloring in milk to see if they turned out the same. Then he mixed the same colors with crayons and markers and all sorts of other stuff. Well, that led me to my evn better 5th grade science experiment of pouring water (with yellow food coloring added for effect) into different brands of diapers to see which diaper could hold the most. Then we both started dissing each other's science experiments, so much so that we recreated them right then and there and let the kids decide whose was better. (I don't know when we became so competetive. It must have been the glow race and the "stinging" defeat of the jellyfish lady.) So he did his 5th grade science experiment, which turned out to be cooler than I thought.

And I did my 5th grade science experiment, which turned out to be grosser than he thought. However, we did learn that Huggies diapers absorb 4 1/2 cups of yellow water before leaking, very informative. I tried to convince the kids before voting that I should win because I have a Bachelor of Science degree, and Daddy has a Bachelor of Arts degree, so if we were painting pictures, then he would win. They had no idea what I was talking about, and our tactful little diplomats said they liked them both the same. So our science experiments tied. I guess they were both equally awesome in different ways. Plus, the kids were happy because Robert and I were so distracted with impressing them with our experiments, that they got to stay up an hour past their bedtime, in the name of science.