Noah demonstrates using a Mortar and Pestle

Today, Noah demonstrates to the audience how to use a mortar and pestle to make a gourmet salad sprinkle mix for our family dinner.

Noah's sweet "I love you" cards

Oh how I'll miss Noah when he goes to school!

Several times when I'd been gone from office, I'd come back to find a little "surprise" from Noah, laying on my desk.

This card had something very special inside... some of Noah's allowance he was giving me! (of course I gave it back to him!!)

This card was an "I love you" card with rainbows inside.

OM Regionals- Matthew-- 1st place

Viewers may be like me and not know what "Odyssey of the Mind" is when they first hear it, so I'm including a link to their site: http://www.odysseyofthemind.com/. Below is a brief recap of the program:

Odyssey of the Mind is an international educational program that provides creative problem-solving opportunities for students from kindergarten through college. Team members apply their creativity to solve problems that range from building mechanical devices to presenting their own interpretation of literary classics. They then bring their solutions to competition on the local, state, and World level. Thousands of teams from throughout the U.S. and from about 25 other countries participate in the program.

Matthew and Taylor both qualified and made it on an OM team this year. Matthew also participated in OM last year.

Today Matthew's team won 1st place in their division, Earth Trek. Below is an explaination about their "problem" they had to solve. Winning means they move on to state competitions in April in Newport, AR.

Earth TrekDivisions I, II, III , & IV: This problem requires teams to design and build a small vehicle that will visit four locations. The locations will be different places within one or more team-determined environments. Each time the vehicle leaves a location it will look different in appearance, and after leaving one of the locations it will appear to be a group of vehicles that are traveling together. The team's performance will incorporate the visits to the locations, the environments, and the changes in appearance of the vehicle.

The first clips is their actual Earth Trek skit. The following 2 clips show the judges asking them questions in order to grade them.

OM Regionals- Taylor

Taylor's Division in OM is listed below:

Primary: Candy FactoryGrades K-2In this problem teams will create and present a performance about a Candy Maker and her/his factory. The twist is that the primary ingredient for each type of candy has to be something that is healthy. The team will create a setting that looks like the inside of its candy factory and have five samples of candies. During the performance the Candy Maker will present the candies to customers and explain how each is made.

Taylor was "Tay the Tool Man". He was the mechanical guy that created the conveyor belt for the candy. His division is not graded.

Taylor's 2nd grade report- JFK

Taylor was assigned John F Kennedy as his 2nd grade report. Tay and Mom worked on this together (it was fun). He had to present his report to the class, along with a tri-fold he made.

Taylor

Taylor- Stitches out & Shattered Tooth

Taylor's final recovery. He got his stitches out on Feb 24th. Dr. Farris released him to play Upwards Basketball in his last game of the season on Feb 28th.

He was still unable to eat on the side of his mouth opposite his broken jaw, so we went to Dr. Lucke (dentist) on Wed March 4th, only to find that he had a shattered tooth (a baby molar, Praise God!). She pulled it and another baby tooth that was preventing a permanent tooth from coming in.