A Mom's Year

Creating a comfortable life one moment at a time

Country of the Week: Antarctica / Blubber Gloves

You’ve probably heard of blubber, but I bet you’ve never stuck your hand inside a bag of it. But that’s what I made my children do as part of an experiment for Antarctica Week.

The Blubber Glove experiment (courtesy of the Spangler Science Labs) uses ice water and a bag filled with shortening (filling in for actual blubber) to show how those penguins and seals in Antarctica survive subfreezing air temperatures and frigid water.

Here’s a quick summary of what we did. It’s easy to do and it really works! [Read more…] about Country of the Week: Antarctica / Blubber Gloves

Country of the Week: Antarctica / Fake Snow

Antarctica isn’t a country, technically, but since Little Passports sent us this cool fake snow we’re going with it. Snow-making is probably more exciting for kids who don’t live in a land that’s covered in snow half the year, but they still enjoyed it. All you have to do is add water to the powder and stir. The funny thing is that we all expected it to be cold to the touch, but of course it wasn’t since it’s not actually snow! [Read more…] about Country of the Week: Antarctica / Fake Snow

Lily’s Birthday Party / Favors and Games

Grammy’s melting ice cream cone cake was the highlight of Lily’s party, but I think these ice cream container favors from One Charming Party were a close second.

If you want your favors to look just like theirs, you can order your pint containers from Garnish for about $1 each. I waited too long to order online, so I called a local ice cream store and asked the owner if he’d mind telling me where he bought his containers. He said he bought them in bulk from a wholesale store, so unless I needed at least 500 that option probably wouldn’t work. He asked what I needed them for and when I told him, he said he’d be happy to sell me some. So nice! [Read more…] about Lily’s Birthday Party / Favors and Games

Country of the Week: England / Bangers and Mash

We finished up England last week and are on to—well, you’ll never guess, so please come back tomorrow to find out! But before we move on I wanted to share one last thing with you.

England Week was basically us glued to the television watching the Olympics. Have you been watching? The competitions are incredible, of course, but I love the stories behind the spectacle: Lashinda Demus coming back from postpartum depression to compete in the women’s 400-meter hurdles, Oscar Pistorius racing on prosthetic legs—losing in the 400-meter semifinals but winning the adoration of the world, and Felix Sanchez sobbing on the podium after securing the gold in honor of his grandmother.

Have you heard his story? Sanchez was all set to compete in the 400-meter hurdles at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing when he found out his grandmother, the woman who had raised him, had died. He was devastated by the news and ran a poor race. But he made a promise to himself that he wouldn’t retire until he had won a medal in her honor. [Read more…] about Country of the Week: England / Bangers and Mash