Sunday, February 22, 2009

DuPage Children's Museum

We babysat Alex yesterday. Our plan was to go to the zoo again, but the wind was too intense. So we decided to take him to the DuPage Children's Museum in Naperville. We all had a great time. In the car on the way there. He was being silly.

Rick tried to explain gravity to Alex in this part of the museum.

Still working with gravity. Alex would run the ball to the top of the ramp and then run around to meet it at the bottom.


Rick just waited for the ball at the bottom of the ramp.



Gears--Alex was quick to catch on to how this worked.

They have a cool workshop with real tools for the kids at their level.





This was a tunnel above the workshop for the kids to climb through. Alex told Rick to go back downstairs because he was too big.

The water exhibit was on our the favorites.



Rick is inside the bubble and we are dumping water on him.



Drying off afterwards


Bubbles


Ice cream break



In the Wind Tunnel



This was like the bank teller. Alex loved watching his ball going through the tunnel and sending it back and forth.


He was trying to reach an air gum but had to press his nose against the glass...it was really funny.




This is what he was reaching for.


Mirrors


A giant light bright


Making faces in the mirrors



I was trying to measure him on this mat


Back at our house eating his Valentine's Day cookie.


Henry Puffer Talent Show 2009

On Thursday, Puffer had their annual Talent Show. I was recruited to be in charge of changing the music for each act, which left Rick to take pictures.


5th and 6th grade girls (and Timmy) before the performance.


Mr. McDaniel and Jack (pretending to be Mr. McDaniel) were the MC's for the evening.
It was very cute.

Nate on drums. This was almost everyone's favorite performance.

4th grade girls

Sharon and Harry doing some hula hooping!

Kaitlin Irish Dancing


Rowan hula dancing

Elizabeth singing...I don't remember what, but it was cute.


Mackenzie dancing...quite impressive for her age.


Alex did a gymnastics routine. There wasn't really enough light to get a great picture, but we have some nice action shots.

Student Council advertising during the intermission


Mary is on the left, she is one of my favorite 2nd graders.

The Macerana...who would have thought it was still around.




These kindergarteners sang "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"


One of the final acts was the 5th and 6th grade girls dancing.


Delaney was the only one of my students to participate in the talent show.







Taking a bow at the end of the show

Monday, February 16, 2009

Paper Gradin' Kind of Day!

Today I was off school for President's Day. I spent the entire day from about 8:00am-5:00pm (minus 30 minutes to run on the wii fit) grading papers. It wasn't my first choice of what to do with a day off school, but now I am completely caught up. I had a lot of projects to grade and writing assignments which always take the longest. Back to school tomorrow!

We also got Comcast internet today. It should make our internet speed significantly faster.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Brookfield Zoo- our first 2009 visit

We got Alex a zoo membership again this year for Christmas. Jackie and Alex have already been, but this was the first time we have gone in 2009. It was chilly today, but no wind and very few people. We had a really nice time!

One of the best pictures ever taken of Alex and me.



Alex had been talking about his Spongebob Ice Cream ALL day!
The eye balls are gumballs though and have to be taken off before he eats it. I had the pleasure of doing so today!

The Bald Eagle was being fed while we were at the petting zoo. Neat, yet very disgusting.

The Monkey House at the zoo is completely different than I remember as a child. It was hard to get many pictures in there because of the humidity, but the gorillas were very photogenic.



The elephants were inside because of the cold weather. This one was getting a manicure.






This hippo was HUGE!!




The giraffes were one of the coolest things about today. They were inside so we were much closer to them than when they are outside.


The smaller one was just born in August.



This door is how they get outside. It is so narrow, but it is all these guys need.
This is a statue of the new baby giraffe. It was actually life size of when it was born.






Probably my favorite picture from the day. This was on our way out of the zoo.