We decided to have a fall festival, and as part of it, we decorated the window with leaf/crayon/waxed paper art. See if you can guess who did which ones.

We decided to have a fall festival, and as part of it, we decorated the window with leaf/crayon/waxed paper art. See if you can guess who did which ones.

Coolest picture of Xander ever! Thanks Cody!

Cody caught this shot of Xander at Katalina's birthday party yesterday! It is replete with Xanderness. Xanderosity?

The World According to Xander

Those who have a basic familiarity with behavior psychology can skip to the next paragraph. In the terminology of this discipline, an "extinction burst" is the name for the phenomenon that often occurs when a previously reinforced behavior ceases to be reinforced. The frequency and intensity of the behavior increase just before the behavior ceases, or is extinguished. (A classic example is when you put money in a vending machine and your soda doesn't come out. Before walking away in disgust and frustration, --extinction--you are likely to engage in an extinction burst: you push the button several more times, jiggle the change return, perhaps even slap, kick, or try to shake the machine.)

In our area, we had a few days of beautiful, mild spring weather, and then suddenly winter seemed to come back with a vengeance, with several days of nearly constant snowfall. Yesterday, referring to this phenomenon, commented yesterday, "Winter is having an extinction burst." It looks like some of that training he's done with his pet rat has also colored his perception of the rest of the world.

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The Lost Sheep according to Gwen

I don't know if they had a lesson on the Parable of the Lost Sheep recently in her church class, or if this just came straight out of her funny mind. Either way it cracked me up.

Gwen: I made up a funny story

Once there was a lot of sheep, and each day it neighed, I mean baaed, and each day one sheep runned off.

Mamma: Uh Oh Where’d it go?

Gwen: You don’t know

Mamma: I don’t know?

Gwen: You don’t want to know

After the sheep runs off one of the horses neighs. And after the horses neigh the chickens cluck. And after the chickens cluck, the crows beat at the scarecrow. And after the crows beat at the scarecrow the farmer goes “Yahoo!” And then the farmer said, “What’s all that noise going off? I’ve had enough of that noise! I wonder why they always do that and why my sheep always get lost!” And one day when he had only one sheep left he goed looking for the other ones, and meanwhile while he goed looking for the other ones, his one last sheep got lost, and it took him 15 years to find his other sheep. And when he got back he found his only one sheep ws gone, and he put lots and lots of cowbells on his other sheep so they wouldn’t get lost while he was looking for his one sheep. And it took him 2 days to find his other sheep. And one night he heard the same things, but except at night. But of course, that was another story.

Louisiana Wetlands Tour

Some highlights from the wetlands tour Rus took, including alligators and other wildlife.

Isaac's watercolor dragon

Isaac came home from school with a great grin on his face, exclaiming "I get to draw a DRAGON for homework!" He drew and painted it with watercolors. He'll turn it in tomorrow, and after he gets it back, we're planning on framing it. We made a short video of him displaying and describing it: