Happy Groundhogs Day

Happy Groundhogs Day!!! 

Punxsutawney Phil emerged just after dawn on

 this morning to make his 125th annual weather forecast.

He predicted that there will be an early spring!  

Yay!!!

We haven't really had much going on this past week.

Zachary had a boy scout meeting, 

but neither Mike nor I went 

because Mike is in Miami working. 

And Christina took the Durango to school. 

 So we had another mom pick Zachary up.

Luckily she had a booster seat he could use. 

Yes, he is still in a car seat. Both boys are.

Until they are OVER 4'9". 

Right now Zachary is 3'4" and Caleb is 3'31/2"

Caleb is as tall as Zachary was 6 months ago.

I have a feeling that Caleb is going to soon grow 

taller than Zachary. 

The boys had a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese

on Sunday. They have to wear socks, so Caleb

put on socks and sandals, then he walked around

calling himself Grandpa.

Hmmm. 

Which Grandpa wears socks and sandals?

 Christina and her friend in one of her classes

wore matching pants to school the other day.

 Caleb and Sofia.  His best friend.

 At Calebs den meeting on Saturday the project

was learning about eating healthy.

My kids have always been good eaters.
Zacharys favorite food is broccoli.
Not broccoli with cheese, but raw broccoli.

Caleb will eat just about anything.
 He loves all kinds of food.

I don't typically feed my kids food that have
Red Dye #40 in it because

the dye is made by crushing up these bugs and
extracting the red 'juice' that comes from them.
 The boys didn't really get it, until I showed

them this picture and read them an article about how they do it.

There are two principal forms of cochineal dye: cochineal extract is a colouring made from the raw dried and pulverised bodies of insects, and carmine is a more purified colouring made from the cochineal. To prepare carmine, the powdered insect bodies are boiled in ammoniaor a sodium carbonate solution, the insoluble matter is removed by filtering, and alum is added to the clear salt solution of carminic acid to precipitate the red aluminium salt. Purity of colour is ensured by the absence of iron. Stannous chloride, citric acid, borax, or gelatin may be added to regulate the formation of the precipitate. For shades of purple, lime is added to the alum.

Yummo! Who wants to eat that cherry popsicle now!?

Now if something is red they know to ask
whether or not its dyed with Beets. 

Or else they wont eat it! 

Caleb wanted to take pictures of all his NASCAR stuff

 to send to a new friend in Phx. 

(friend of the Mattingly Great Grandparents

who sent him some diecast cars for Christmas)

So he took all the things he could find, and took pictures.

This is just ONE of the pictures. There is about 20 more.

For no reason whatsoever, Caleb and I were looking thru 

old pics and I showed him how we could change how the 

pic looked thru the editor.  He told me to make 

Uncle Leonard Santa. First it started off with just a beard.

An hour later, this was our creation.

Aren't we the talented ones?

Happy Groundhogs Day to everyone!

An Early Spring? Thats WONDERFUL!