Party , park and play

I took Jack and my nephew,Aiden to a Ninja party  this week at the library.  They made crafts , listened to stories , had a karate  demonstration  and even  got to practice  their  own  moves.  Jack had baseball practice  after that and I was worried how I was going to entertain Aiden, but he  did just fine.  He played  with Jack's  teammates  little  brothers. Jack said he wants to start Kung  Fu next winter.

The weather was beautiful  the first half of the week but I knew  it would get colder towards the end of the  week , so we took advantage. I  came home from work Tuesday and said "it's  nice outside , let's  pack a picnic  and  go to the park". Jack was excited,  we stayed  until the sun went down. 

People always ask me what I eat in certain situations, since I can't eat gluten.  Most people say , well what's left? I say a bunch of food. Example of  recent  picnic  or ballgame food that I have packed:

Sandwich  on gluten free bread , a piece of fruit and cheetos , doritos or stax.

String cheese, a beef stick or pepperoni ,a hard boiled egg , almonds  and fruit

Kind  bar  and an apple

This particular  picnic,  the night we went to the park , I  packed:strawberries , a fruity pebble treat  and I made  my own lunchable  with gf rice crackers  , cheese and summer sausage. That  is just a few  examples of quick make  and take  food. Most of the time I cook at home and just take the leftovers  to work  for lunch the next day.

Also Jack finally opened  his Kinder egg that his Uncle  Doug brought him back from Germany.  They have. Caution , choking hazzard written allover it because  it is a German chocolate hollow egg with a kids  toy inside.  Jack was so excited that he got a fox.  He loves foxes.

Then to wrap up the week. We road  the carousel at the mall, then  he watched the new movie Home with his Grandma and spent the night at her house.  Jason and I went to a comedy show.  The next day I took Jack  to  the farmer's  market , baseball  practice and to the park to play with friends.  He doesn't realize  this but we are carefully  curing him if his winter laziness.  The weather is supposed  to be nicer today and we are going on a nature hike and to practice  baseball  in the yard.

Sadly we did not  get to any cool science  experiments  this week. Jack and I worked on how to write a story instead.

The bouncy naked egg experiment

With Easter right around the corner, Jack wanted to do the bouncy ,  naked egg experiment. We put an egg in a mason jar of water and we put another  egg in a mason jar of white vinegar.  We didn't  have a complete  mason jar , we had the jars with the hole at  the top for a straw. I didn't want the whole  house  to smell like vinegar so I put saran wrap on the jar before I put the lid on. We used brown eggs because that is all we had . Immediately  you could see the egg in the vinegar was bubbling causing a reaction and their was some brown residue at the top of the jar from the brown shell.

After 24 hours , the egg in water was slightly  cracked and little of the egg white  was floating  in the jar.  I took the egg out of the vinegar and rinsed it gently under water and rinsed out the jar and replaced it with fresh vinegar,  then I placed the egg back in the jar. You could tell it was already rubbery but still had a little shell left on it. Then  I  soaked them for another  24 hours.

On the third day we took the egg out and observed them.  The egg in water was like a normal egg. The bit  of egg white that leaked  out had the consistency  of jelly.
The vinegar egg was awesome , it had swollen in size , was rubbery , see through and bouncy (up to about 6 inches).  When it finally did break and you could feel the rubbery membrane, it felt like a balloon.
While we were patiently  waiting on eggsperiment , we had a park day  with some friends  and had a family dinner with Jack's  cousins  over.

The Science Behind it:

The shell of the the egg is made of calcium  carbonate. When you place an egg into vinegar,  it starts to bubble , which is the chemical  reaction of the acid in the vinegar reacting with with the calcium carbonate  producing carbon dioxide.  You'll  also notice  that the egg gets larger as it sits in the vinegar. That is because some  of the vinegar is absorbed in the egg through  its semi-permeable membrane. Jack said the egg smelled like vinegar when it broke too.

Electricity and basketball

It has been raining so much lately that we made a rain gauge and have been measuring the rainfall. We did a static electricity experiment  with a balloon and went to a cool basketball party at the library.  I try to get him out and socialized as much as possible. These two other children  that were  at the library  were so well mannered and they all three played so well together. Jack dislikes art with a passion but when  the other two went to the art table Jack got creative too. I absolutely  love this library  branch and all the amazing programs  they offer. 
They made basketball  cookies with ores and candy coating . They played basketball  with makeshift hoops and had several art activities.  They made a picture  by dipping  a basketball  in paint and them put the ball pattern on the paper. He didn't  want to get paint on his hand so I did my handprint on the basketball then Jack colored a basketball and drew a disco  picture on the back.

Out and About

We did an experiment  called the color  disappearing  experiment.  I can't  find my afyer picture just the before. Use food coloring  and color water then add small amounts of bleach  and watch the color disappear. 
The weather is finally getting a little warmer  and the sun is trying  to make an appearance . We went on several walks and started  practicing  baseball  this week. Maya was excited.  

Then we went to an amazing  Irish Dance  show  called Rhythm  In The Night.  Everyone loved it. I got tickets for my Mom and Stepdad for an early mother's  and father's  day gift. I got a ticket for my soon to be sister in law  for an early birthday present. The older I get the less stuff I want. I rather  go places and do things with people.