Homemade Blood, Macaronni Men, Caterpillars and Fire Trucks!

We've had lots of themed weeks, but Body Week was pretty awesome...we made blood! It started out as plasma (water dyed with yellow food coloring.) Then we added the red blood cells (cheerios dyed red.) After that the white blood cell marshmallows and then the chocolate chip platelets. Stanton and Noelle thought it was so cool, and I thought it was so cute listening to them talk about their own interpretation of what each thing does. For example, "The red selves make your blood breathe and the white ones punch the germs and fight the sickness."

Then we did some tests on our 5 senses. The first one was with our sense of smell. They got most of them right, except for molasses, which we all agree stinks anyway.

Then we did blind taste tests. They thought yogurt was ice cream and bbq sauce was ketchup, pretty close. Stanton was gagging so hard on the mustard he couldn't even spit out the word. He drooled it out all over the table. We also did touch, hearing and vision tests. If we gave them a score for their sense of sight test, they would both need bifocals because they couldn't see a crouton from two feet away. The 5 senses tests turned out to be pretty fun. There was lots of giggling between all of us.

The best part of body week was our homemade digestive system. We stuck bread down a paper esophagus a which ended up in our ziplock bag stomach, where we squeezed it so it could churn with the stomach acids. By that time dinner just happened to be ready, even though I'd pretty much lost my appetite, but we took a break to stuff things down our own esophagus.

Then we poked a whole in the bag and attached out small and large straw intestines that led to our colon cup. It was both entertaining and educational. Then we finished up by reading the "Everyone Poops" book.

Our last Body Week activity was making Macaronni Men. They turned out pretty well, but I had to buy a lot of different types of pasta, so it looks like we'll be eating spaghetti forever.

The next day it was really rainy, so while Stanton was at Kindergarten and Noelle was at her preschool class, Winston and Ifound caterpillars at the park. We even stopped traffic in the parking lot to save one. It thanked us by gooing us with it's green juicy liquid.

While Winston was at home napping with Daddy, i took Stanton and Noelle to the September 11th Memorial at Tempe Town Lake. It was really beautiful, and we spent a lot of time reading about some of the people on the cards. Soon after we got there, they started picking up litter. I was so proud of them because I didn't even think to do that. They told me there shouldn't be garbage at special places. They are right, and once again, the young shall lead the old.

A couple days later after meeting Grandma Mary and Grandpa Dan for lunch, we drove by The Stuffington Bear Factory in Phoenix, so we stopped in for a tour. It was kinda funny seeing piles and piles of stuffed animal skins. It was like a scary old, less brightly lit version of Build-a-Bear Workshop at the mall.

Let's just say these are the kind of bears that you dream about coming alive while you sleep, and not in a cute "Toy Story" way. It was a memorable experience though, and the kids were happy to get to sit on a 500lb bear.

The next day we went to The Hall of Flame museum. It's the tiniest little place, but we were there for over 2 hours. They loved it!

It was really sweet watching them play "rescue the person on the 500th floor of the Empire State Building." They were throwing babies, and diving to catch them and save them.

Then they colored badges, slid down the pole a billion times and hugged smokey the bear a bunch. Winston played with the toy ambulances and fire trucks and stayed far away from Smokey the Bear.

We ended our weekend by making snow angels in a living room full of packing peanuts. I didn't think about the mess before I made it snow on them, but it was worth cleaning up the styrofoam blizard to see them having so much fun! I love my family!