Don't Miss The Lunar Eclipse Tonight!!

Did you know that there will be an extra long Lunar Eclipse tonight!?!?  (Thank you Christine for letting us know!!)  Jay loves the moon, so we are very excited!  Ha ha we will actually wake him up tonight just so that he can see the eclipse! 

Tonight for the first time since 1638, the lunar eclipse will fall on the winter solstice. The significance of this is that the eclipse will be longer than normal. The Earth will be directly between the moon and sun for about 72 minutes tonight, from 2:41am - 3:53 am Eastern Standard Time. This is going to make the moon a rusty orange-red color for that time. It will be amazing! 

If the skies are not clear in your area, NASA will be streaming live video of the eclipse from their website.  But either way, I definitely recommend checking it out!! 

Feed The Birds

Jay and I made these bird seed ornaments to give everyone last Chirstmas.  It was super fun, and I think we'll make them again this year!  The birds and squirrels loved them, and Jay was very excited to get to watch them eat these treats...a true win win situation!  I think these would be great to make any time of year--I'm thinking of doing some more at Thanksgiving this year.  :0)   

Try them, you'll be glad you did:

Ingredients:
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup water
3 tablespoons corn syrup
4 cups bird seed, any type
soft string (that the birds can use for their nests when the seed is all gone)
 
Directions:
Mix all the ingredients together.
Pour the ingredients out onto a sheet of waxed paper.
Use a second sheet of waxed paper to press out the seed mixture into a layer about an inch think.
Use cookie cutters to make all sorts of fun shapes in the mixture.
Press the extra mixture from around your shapes back out and repeat the process.
Use a toothpick to create circular holes in each shape for the string to go through.  Make sure the hole is not too close to the top of the shape or it will not hold well when you hang it!
Let the shapes dry overnight.
Tie string through the holes and they are ready to hang.
Hang the ornaments in your yard and watch the birds (and squirrels) go nuts over them!
 
Have Fun!!

Daddy picked out a night light...

With our recent move, Jay has started asking us to leave a light on for him at night.  I am not sure if he is scared or just still a bit unsure of his surroundings.  Either way, we decided that he needed a night light.  And I agreed to let Jason pick it out.  Here is what we ended up with:

Yep, thats right....a fish tank. 

A ten gallon fish tank to be exact. 

A ten gallon fish tank, five guppies, three zebra fish, 3 ghost shrimp, and a plecostomus.....

Not quite what I had in mind, but still pretty neat.  And Jay LOVES it. 

Here are our guppies.  Jay named then all Sully. 

Here is our plecostomus.  Jay named him Walter.  And he is by far Jay's favorite!

Here is one of our ghost shrimp.  You can barely see him, but he is peeking out from between the bottom leaves. 

And here Jay grinning from ear to ear.  Want to know how the front of his shirt got wet!?  (And please excuse the lack of pants.  We are in the middle of potty training.  :0))

The Ants Go Marching

Jason told me back before Christmas that he thought Jay was ready for an ant farm, but the idea of having bugs in our house...and then of trying to move said bugs to Grannie's house...and then move them again to a new house was not my idea of something I wanted to try.  So the ant farm stayed on the shelf at the store, and our home stayed bug free.  But then a few weeks ago Jason very excitedly told me that he had found a "space age" ant farm that I just had to see.  And you know what!?  It is pretty darn amazing!!  It is definitely not the creepy and dirty type of ant farm that I remember from my childhood.  

The ants live in this transparent gel substance that acts as a food source for them, and also as place for them to live.  The ant farm unit lights up at the bottom so that the gel stuff glows a fun shade of blue.  The ants tunnel their way through the gel and you can see everything they do.  

Jason was too excited to wait for ants to come in the mail, so he raided a colony of ants in the backyard and collected 30 worker ants and 1 queen ant.  Times like this make me grateful that I married an Eagle Scout because I NEVER would have just gone and found ants in the yard...but he did.  And now we are the proud owners of 31ants.  

 

Jay absolutely loves the ant farm!  He even says good night to it every night before he goes to bed.  Here are some pictures of Jay watching the ants:

 

 

We have had the ants about two weeks now, and they have been busy little ants indeed.  They have four vertical tunnels that are all connected across the bottom by a horizontal tunnel.  And the Queen ant has even laid some ant eggs...or whatever it is that ants do.  And I must admit that they are really fun to watch!  Here is a shot of their tunnels:

 

If you enlarge this picture you can see the little tiny eggs.  They look sort of orange in this picture.  The condensation in the ant farm makes them a little tough to see, but they're there!