January was good for Joey!

After all the holiday madness was over, we settled back to life as normal. Well, as normal as it gets for us! January was a big month for Joey, though. On the 16th, he celebrated his 8th birthday. We didn't have a big party - just family over for dinner and cake. Joey got all kinds of fun presents from the family. He was especially excited about the Moon Sand that his Grandma Lynn got for him. Moon Sand is supposed to be sand that's moldable - like Play Dough. It's fun to play with, but once Kristin realized she could mix colors, we ended up with one big blob of gray Moon Sand. Sigh!

Of course, turning 8 meant it was time for Joey to get baptized! He was so excited for his big day. Here he is with his Dad, all dressed in their white suits. (Matt requested that we not post full body shots since those white suits aren't exactly flattering). It was a really special occasion for many reasons - and what made it extra nice was that Joey was the only child getting baptized that day. So the whole program was centered around him. My mom and I both gave talks, and we sang Joey's favorite songs. It was really nice to have it so focused on our family. After the baptism, the whole family went out to dinner at Red Robin (Joey's request!). It was a great evening.

Joey was also very excited because Mom finally gave in and allowed him to try one of the many science experiments that he'd seen on "Beakman's World." If you've never seen Beakman's World, I highly recommend that you check it out. Beakman is WAY more fun than Bill Nye the Science Guy. But I digress. We watch Beakman's World every week, (actually, we watch it on the Spanish channel, so I guess I should call it "El Mundo de Beakman") and Joey is always anxious to try out the science experiments they show. One day, they showed how to grow your own salt crystal garden. It didn't require any elaborate supplies or frightening chemicals, so we decided to give it a go.
To grow a salt crystal garden, you start with a container with some cut up sponges in it. Then you dump some water, salt, ammonia, and liquid bluing into the container along with a little food coloring if you want the crystals to be something other than white. Then you wait. After the first day, the crystals weren't very impressive:

Here it is on the second day:


And the third day:


As you can see, on the third day the crystals started creeping up the side of the container. I wish I'd kept taking pictures because eventually, the crystals had completely taken over the container, and were spilling over onto the counter! Joey was so excited about the crystal progress. Mom was less than thrilled. But it was all in the name of science!