A Frustrating Day.

Geez, do you ever have those days where EVERYONE in the entire house woke up on the wrong side of the bed?? Be glad you weren't in the Teeter house today...sheesh.

It was a good day, full of lots of fun things...like math games. There is a book called Family Math with all sorts of fun math games that we like to play. I knew I should have stopped before we even started when everyone glared at me when I asked them for their estimates on how many tablespoons of garbanzo beans it would take to fill up a small cup.

We all made our estimates, and then took turns rolling the die to see how many scoops we got to put in on our turn. Then we'd re-evaluate our estimates. In concept, we all should have really enjoyed it. Alas, when I broke out the 1/2 tablespoon and the 1/4 cup and Russ started explaining the intricacies of formulating an educated guess based on the data we had gathered from the first time around...there was nothing but glassy eyes. Actually, Sam was eager to do the experiment again...but it was more of a "how many garbanzo beans do you estimate I can stick up my nose?" sort of experiment. We're not going there again...

After everyone went their separate ways for a bit, we came back for breakfast. And paper airplanes. Paper airplanes make everyone happy, right??

They do Sam!

Doing experiments with the planes' stability. It was hypothesized that the plane would fly better without the ribbon--the ribbon would just weigh it down. The kids were less than impressed that it was actually the opposite effect, and Sam crumpled up Russ's airplane. And Russ was grumpy. We again all went our separate ways to cool off.

Finally, it was time for the Polar Bear Slide!! Brooklyn decided she wanted to be a polar bear, so we did her hair with bear ears and put a nose and whiskers on her. She was so excited!! Sam was still pretty bummed that he didn't get to go though...he is too short.

Yes, she talked me into doing it with her. It looks sunny and warm, and it wasn't bad...55 or so, but it was windy. Brr! And the water...BRRRRRR!! Unfortunately, I should have measured Brooklyn better though--you had to be at least 48" tall, and when I measured her, the only thing I had on hand was a piece of paper. Soooo...apparently my paper-measuring system wasn't perfect as she was a half-inch too short. She was devastated.

So we tried to cheer her up by doing something else cold--frozen yogurt!

The kids both got blueberry and Russ got mocha, vanilla and chocolate. Silly me, I agreed to share Russ's with him and I don't even like mocha. Blah. I ate more of the kids' than I did his, hehe.

We walked down and hung out by the water fountain, in case Brooklyn wanted to put her swimming suit to use and play in the water. Everybody was chilled though, and we headed home.

Russ decided to enlist the kids to help washing the car and truck. Of course this ended in tears and screams, as it seems impossible for Russ to keep from spraying the kids with ice cold water, even if they are fully clothed. Sigh.

Then we found out why our seeds are disappearing so fast out of our "squirrel-proof" bird feeder. Geez. The nerve of that guy.

Then the kids decided they wanted to play with the fake snow that they got for Christmas. It was pretty neat!Add a little water...

...and it explodes!

After the snow started getting flung all over my freshly-swept kitchen, I directed the kids outside. They requested some colors...sure! I just have to find the bottles, the food coloring, rinse out the bottles, mix the colors up and ohlookatthat YOU DUMPED THEM ALL OUT. Onto the pavement. That is now stained green. Awesome.

At this point we deemed it Quiet Time. We set the kids up with a movie, Russ went to the back room to search YouTube for how to plant pomegranate seeds, and I went to bed. Ahhh, it's been forever since I've taken that great of a nap!!

Russ made everyone dinner and then gathered up flashlights and we headed to the park for some night-time play.

Unfortunately, there was much screaming and whining and crying even while at the playground! At night! Nobody wanted to go searching in crevasses with their flashlights or do hand puppets in the tunnel slide or ANYTHING. So I took this creepy photo and then we went home where there was much whining, crying, ear-splitting shrieking, and all-out madness when bedtime was declared.

Sigh...let's hope everyone got the Grumpies out of their systems today. I'm ready to start over! Tomorrow I'm hoping we can head to Muir Woods again and maybe hit Point Reyes--the gray whales are migrating past there! At this rate though, I'll be impressed if anyone drags their carcasses out of bed before 8am...we'll see!