Fabulous Friday

Okay, so it wasn't really THIS fabulous. This picture was from yesterday. We woke up to snow this morning. It hovered around 10 degrees all day. When it's this cold, there's not much moisture in the air, so it usually doesn't snow much.

Our happy little birds were out. Robert noticed this girl yesterday. She's blind in that left eye, so she can't see me coming to the window to take pictures. Her other eye doesn't look so well either--but for now, she has plenty of food and other bird friends.


I'd already planned for a cold and maybe snowy day, so we weren't going anywhere. It was perfect for a PAJAMA DAY! Trevor doesn't care so much, but Holly really likes days like this.


Our newspaper just started a children's daily serial by Katherine Paterson. I think Holly will enjoy it.


This is Trevor candling an egg yesterday. Both kids will be checking these out over the next few weeks. The yolk was not as easy to see as I'd expected, but the air sac was clearly visible. I'd assigned Holly an experiment to determine if eggs absorb water (they do absorb air). Trevor was interested, so he's doing one of those too. Hopefully I'll remember to get pictures.

We wrapped up our week as usual, and Holly wrote a few paragraphs for history. She took minimal notes at the beginning of the week. I can't believe the things she remembers several days later. She much prefers to write fiction, but she typed this up in about 20 minutes. Because I have nothing else to post, here's Holly's writing:

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Nebuchadnezzar was one of the most famous kings in Babylon. He rebuilt his city so it was beautiful again and made a very tall and wide gate named after the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. Because of this, the people called Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar the great. One day, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, a dream about a giant statue of himself, built of gold, silver and bronze. When he woke up the next morning, he ordered the statue built. After a long time the statue was finished. He ordered every Babylonian to bow down to it and worship like a god. Soon Nebuchadnezzar thought himself as God himself. God became angry at this and sent an angel to visit him.

"Nebuchadnezzar," the angel said, "because you think yourself to be better and stronger then God, you will live as a wild animal in the forest, until you admit that God is better and stronger." So at once Nebuchadnezzar lost his mind and ran into the forest, where he lived like a wild animal. His hair became long and tangled and he walked on his hands and knees, which made his knees as tough as hooves. People gathered around and asked each other what was wrong with their king, Nebuchadnezzar the great. Soon Nebuchadnezzar lifted his face to the sky and yelled; "God! You are better and stronger then I ever will be!" And just like that, he became sane again.

Later, Nebuchadnezzar was sitting on his throne, worrying about being attacked by Persia. Then he had an idea. "I know!" He thought to himself, "I'll marry the Persian princess, Amytis. The king of Persia would never attack his own son-in-law!". At once the king of Persia agreed, for he too was worried about being attacked by Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar made Princess Amytis beautiful rooms to live in, but Amytis wasn't happy. She was used to beautiful Persia, not dry ugly Babylon. So Nebuchadnezzar made her a huge garden called the Hanging Gardens. Now over 2500 years later, the Hanging Gardens is one of the seven great wonders of the ancient world.

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