Off to the Shrine Circus!

The boys had never been to the circus and now that Sawyer can read, it was hard to ignore all the huge Shrine Circus billboards all over town! The last time that I went to the circus was in Brazil and they shot a little guy out of a cannon with no clothes on.....thankfully everyone remained clothed this time :)

We invited Sawyer's friend Kristin to come with us and the two of them had an absolute blast together!

They had everything from dancing poodles, a crocodile tamer, trapeze artists, a dancing elephant motorcycle daredevils...but out of all those cool things, Raylan was most excited about the popcorn guy that kept coming around with giant bags of honey popcorn. Every time he would walk by, Raylan's little hand would shoot up in the air and he would start yelling! 

All this while he's elbow deep in his own popcorn bag....

We let the kids each pick out a souvenir and they all picked the light-up bubble guns. 

Raylan kept sticking the end of it in his mouth and then pulling the trigger as if he was actually blowing the bubbles out himself :) He had one hand in the popcorn bag and one pulling the trigger on the gun....made for some really interesting tasting popcorn!

These two wanted to sit a few seats down from us.....has this started ALREADY?!?!

Bubble guns never get old!

See? This is how the cool kids do it.

Afterwards we went down to the circus fair to see the animals....and the clowns. Raylan HATED them.

This week was Dr. Seuss week at school and each day they dressed up in different stuff  in honor of it. Last night at 10:15 p.m. Sawyer gets out of bed and says, "I need a whole Dr. Seuss costume to wear tomorrow!" ummmmmm WHAT?? So I threw this together this morning before school, he took another head piece and the 'Thing 2' sign for any other friends at school that had forgotten their costumes..... 

Have you seen the movie, "The Lorax"? It's so cute. If you haven't, the gist of the movie is that there is this guy who lets greed get the best of him and he ends up cutting down all of the colorful truffula trees to make these scarves called sneeds. In the end he realizes his mistake and tries to make it right. So the whole point of the story is to save the trees, be respectful and responsible for the environment. 

Sooooooo the reason for all of that, was so you would get the irony of this paper that Sawyer brought home the other day from school. They had just read the book and were supposed to write down what THEY would have done of they found the last truffula tree.....(with the intent that they would talk about being responsible for the earth etc....) 

So here's what Sawyer said:

If I found the last Truffula tree, I would....

"eat the fruit then I would chop it down then I would make a thede (sneed)." 

ummmm.....I don't think he got the point of the book.....lol

Most Acidic

A few months ago Sawyer came home wanting to participate in the science fair! Now this is an optional thing that requires weekly attendance after school for science demonstrations and then completing your experiment at home. So, every Thursday afternoon Bill would meet Sawyer after school to go to the science demonstrations where they had different professors come in to conduct experiments with the kids. 

For his project, Sawyer decided to see which fruits, veggies and liquids made the best batteries! He and Bill took zinc washers and copper wire and stuck them into the test subjects and then tested the voltage from each one with a volt meter. They tested lemons, potatoes, apples, water, Gatorade, and milk. 

It turns out that they all could conduct electricity but the apples and Gatorade came out the best!

We took pictures of them doing the experiment and decorated his board. Then he practiced and practiced and practiced explaining the experiment.....over and over and over. By the morning of, he was ready to go!

We were proud parents!

Of course Nana and Papa came to see this mad scientist :)

Raylan spend the entire evening shoveling his face with all the refreshments that they had....cookies and about eight bags of popcorn.

They had an awards ceremony...and you guessed it, they all got an award and trophy!! 

(Which personally I think is ridiculous....I want Sawyer to learn early on that not everyone is a winner every time. Winning takes hard work and if he wants to be the best at something and rewarded for it,  he's going to need to put in the time and effort it's gonna take to get him there. When everyone gets a trophy, it never pushes the kids to get any better. Why should kids who put in minimal effort be rewarded the same as the ones that worked their tails off? We are really setting them up for a heart breaking reality check when they get into the real world and aren't praised for doing the bare minimum. Phew.....man got a little carried away there. Getting off my soap box now.) 

With all that being said, Sawyer did do a great job and we were VERY proud of him and his effort!

His experiment was awarded, "Most Acidic"!!!!

He was already planning out his experiment for next year on the ride home.

Meanwhile this one keeps getting into my lipstick.....at least he has been paying attention and knows what part of his face it's supposed to go on....