Pond Scum?

A while back I purchased some loose leaf tea that required sealed containers to put it in. So I've been washing and reusing old glass jars as they make their way through the kitchen. Normally not a big deal. The last jar however had previously held peanut butter. Turns out even after washing it by hand and the dishwasher the peanut scent persisted. So this was the obvious solution in my mind.

What you see is roughly two infusers of used tea leaves dumped into the jar with water added. After a few days it got nice and murky. The kids found this really fun to swirl around and see how long the leaves took to settle. To the best of our knowledge nothing came to life and invaded the house in this process either. Best of all, it seems like this worked in cleaning out the peanut scent and replacing it with some good old fashioned Market Spice cinnamon goodness.

Valentine's Day Special

Around our house, Valentine's Day (and other) cards have a tendency to be homemade. Depending on who is doing the giving, this can be due to either really enjoying making cards or not remembering to make one until late the night before and not wanting to go to the store. I won't say which category I tend to fall into...

This year though I did something a little different to go with a handwritten note for the girls. They both seemed to like them, although I think I could have improved the design a bit if I had found some proper slopes to work with.

Flying Saucers

We dug an old Spyrius 6835 Saucer Scout out of the box of sets we have been working through.  On opening the box we realized we didn't have the instructions, but I think we did a pretty good job at this.

Pretty quickly we started digging around in the parts bin and this showed up.

Then things started to get a bit scary when more visitors started arriving.

It seems that we have an invasion on our hands!

Mermaid

The 5 year old came up with this mermaid design all by herself.

I am a Robot

We first built the Spyrius Recon Robot (set 6889) as a lazy afternoon build.  Both girls seemed to think it was pretty cool judging by the contention over who got to play with it first.

At one point while tired of waiting for her next turn to play with it, the younger one was inspired to build her own robot.  The imagination of youth is an amazing thing.  I can't wait to see what her creations look like as she gets older.

Cooking Aloo Palak

One thing the kids enjoy doing is cooking with Dad.  It's fun to cook with anyone, but cooking with Dad is a unique adventure.  It often involves making a mess and/or playing with kitchen appliances that are normally off limits.

Recently, we attempted making Aloo Palak from this recipe.  For those who are unfamiliar, it is an Indian dish consisting of potatoes (aloo) and spinach (palak).  The highlight of cooking this meal was getting to run the spice grinder and blender (with appropriate supervision of course).  This particular dish involved blending a large amount of freshly cooked spinach and using turmeric when boiling the potatoes.  That led to this during the cooking process:

Without a doubt, this was the boldest colored vegetables I have ever prepared.  Too bad I didn't add enough ginger and garlic to the dish so the spinach flavor was a bit overpowering.  With the addition of chili powder it was decent at least.

Oh, and the kids, they ate something else entirely for dinner.  I said it was fun to cook with Dad, not actually eat anything he makes...

Interplanetary Arctic Explorer

In a large box of sets purchased last summer we had a few Ice Planet 2000 sets.  Among them were some small impulse sets that had some neat white wheels for driving around on a snowy planet.  It seemed like a good idea to combine as many as we could find onto a single vehicle.  From here my helpers dug through the parts looking for interesting white pieces.

We then applied some various shades of translucent blue to give it some color.  This particular model made use of many studs and white 1x2 grates.  Coincidentally we had just stocked up on those at the Lego store before building this particular creation.

So far the explorer has been unsuccessful at finding alien life, but we are still hopeful it will find success.

A Tall Colorful ... Something

As much fun as it is to tear into a massive set and build a Troll Castle on a weekend afternoon,

it is really important to remember that just a few bricks and a desire to see how precarious of a structure can be built is also an exciting endeavor.

Such a project is especially exciting when being aided by a 2.5 year old who is eager to help and doesn't quite appreciate the fragility of very tall skinny towers.  At least she is willing to help rebuild them after the occasional collapse.

Turn Into A Volcano

A quick science project is always a great way to end the day.  This particular day we started out with some aluminum foil and a paper cup sent home from school with a youngster anxious to share what she had learned with the rest of the family.

The obvious thing to add to this is some baking soda and vinegar...

And maybe we should put some food coloring and dish soap in before we add the rest of the ingredients.

It looks like something is starting to happen.

And there she goes!

After a few more additions of vinegar and baking soda we've managed to establish a pretty decent mess.

Hurray for science!

The Limo

One of the most fun sets we have built is 3222, the awesome Helicopter and Limousine set our 5 year old got for her birthday.  It was a fun build, and has been very fun to play with.

But then the Rebel Scum showed up and starting making trouble in the neighborhood.

They even corrupted a noble Snow Trooper into the gang. Oh my!