Zooming Along

Hello! This is Si.
Today I want show you a ramp that my brother, Chris, and I built. It is not the best, but after a lot of trial and error, we finely got it to work.
We first started out with Chris putting a thin piece of wood out for the kids to run their little cars down. Then I got out another piece to make a bigger ramp. Next we went around the house searching for ideal spots to place the ramp. We ended up deciding to nestle it in between the cushions of our living room couch. After several test runs and minor adjustments, it was finally completed. Viv and Sam had so much fun with us. They would run up into the kitchen, climb up on a chair placed by the wall overlooking our living room, and then send their car down the track. Here are some pictures.
Signing off,
Si (and Chris, too :)

Building Igloos

This week we received about four inches of snow so we decided to do some building - igloo building, that is! This is the igloo that Sim and I built.This next igloo was built by Chris and Gabe.


You can see the little addition on the side - this was built for Nate. We made these igloos out of the piles of snow shoveled from our driveway. Because it still wasn't quite enough snow, we shoveled our yard to get what we needed. The day after we built these we got some REALLY cold weather. It's amazing though, inside the igloos it is quite a bit warmer!

Staying Warm 101

A couple tips on how to stay warm in the winter when the high for the day is -8.
1) Have a wood burning stove. Very helpful to thaw out snow encrusted boots and children.

2) Eat hot soups or chili.

3) Wear lots of layers.

4) Pile numerous blankets on your bed or, in my case, have two little "body warmers" (a.k.a. two of my little siblings) in addition to the numerous blankets.

5) Stay indoors if at all possible. Or, if you're like some adventurous young boys I know, if there's snow on the ground and if there are friends to play with, outside they go, regardless of the temperature!

Nine!

Happy birthday Sophie! We all hope you have a wonderful day on you're birthday- nine years old! We all love you so very much, sweet girl!
-Hanna and all of you're siblings

My Lincoln Log Fort

This is an overall view of Boonesburrow, my fort. The blue is supposed to represent a small stream running through the settlement. And there is alot more behind the tower.

This is the view out the front door.

And this is the gateway to the open prairie.

Tagged... Again!

I was tagged by Moriah:

The rules are...
1. Pick up the nearest book- it has to have at least 123 pages.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five other people.

The book that is closest to me now is my Science book, titled Science of the Physical Creation, by Abeka. The four sentences read,

"These reactions may be described as A +BC - AC + B. In a single-displacement reaction, the element B in the compound BC is replaced, or displaced by element A; the result is a new compound, AC, with element B left on its own. For example, the bromine in the compound sodium bromide (NaBr) may be replaced by chlorine (Cl), yielding sodium chloride (NaCl) and bromine: 2 NaBr + Cl2 - 2NaCl + Br2. In a more spectacular single-displacement reaction, aluminum (Al) displaces iron from a type of iron oxide ("rust," Fe2O3) when a powdered mixture of rust and aluminum is ignited: Fe2O3 + 2 Al - Al2 O3 + 2 Fe.

My science book isn't always so hard to understand, its just that page number 123 fell into the chemistry unit! I don't think I'm going to tag anyone else.

*Note* I recently went to Florida for a few days, and I'm hoping that tomorrow will give me a chance to post about my trip.

Ramblings of a 13 year old

I am finally taking the time to post, lest you think this blog has been abandoned. I'm really sorry we haven't been blogging lately and I know that you've probably heard this before but, we are literally swamped! School takes up a fairly big chunk of my day, and afterwards there's always something to be done: laundry, cooking, cleaning and school corrections. Plus, our dad finished the master bedroom in our house, and then, much to the delight of my siblings and I, he started working on our 2 bedrooms upstairs. My dad decided to start on the boys bedroom first so they had to move into my bedroom, which included them taking all of their numerous belongings into my room (a.k.a. two hefty dressers, two boxes a piece of items that were too precious to throw out, two twin mattresses, and all of their extra paraphenalia.).
It was actually okay and very livable, but I can tell you it was a relief when they moved down into the living room for a while. Then dad thought he might as well do both of our bedrooms at the same time, so out we went into the living room, dressers, beds and all. Now the boys had to move down to the basement and we took over the living room, which is where we are at this moment. Dad has almost finished mudding the walls so we will soon be able to prime and then paint the walls which means that soon we will be able to move back upstairs! Hooray! - because the living room does all very well to sleep in, but it is rather crowded and when you have 3 little siblings who tend to be very destructive, and your "bedroom" is the first thing people see when they walk into your house, um, well, let's just say it makes for an interesting life!
Well, I think I'm going to head to bed now, seeing as there is school tomorrow. I am earnestly going to try to post a little more often, but I'm not going to make any promises! Until the next post (whenever that is!).