Every kid makes butter at some point in their schooling. I remember doing this in kindergarten, and I had also found, on the kindergarten website I get my science ideas from, that they also thought kindergarten was a great age to make butter. All it takes is some heavy cream, salt (if desired), a jar with a lid and some shaking. When I announced that we were going to make butter the boys were thrilled and immediately ran to get a piece of bread, not thinking about the work they had to do in order to get this tasty butter.

I split the cream into 2 jars, handed them each a jar and let them shake it. We were having a great time! We had arms shaking, and soon whole bodies were shaking, jumping and dancing their way to fresh butter. Now, what they didn't tell me, and what I didn't remember from school, was that kids are only interested in shaking a jar of cream for about 5 min. If you have a classroom filled with 20-25 kids and each kid shakes the jar for 1-2 minutes this would be perfect. But, with only 3 people in our "class" I think you can imagine what happened. The boys shook for about 5 minutes and then I got to shake both jars for the remaining 20-30 minutes. It was well worth it though! We have delicious butter to top all our breads and we all can say we "made" it.

Max was really enjoying his time shaking the cream at first.


Russell shows the pain and hardship you have to go through in order to get freshly shaken butter.

Today was the inauguration. I'm sure that is not new news to anyone. I'm not going to tell you how excited I was and that I was glued to CNN all morning and afternoon. I'm not even going to tell you that I was moved to tear when seeing the mass of people gathering for miles in D.C. just to be able to say they were apart of this historic event, or the feeling of great hope as President Obama spoke of change that our country needs so badly.

Instead I will tell you how Russell and Maxwell responded to this historic event. (Yes, we did spend the morning and part of the afternoon in front of the T.V.. We did our school work on the living room floor, with the T.V. on...don't judge me.)

Every time Sen. Diane Feinstein stood up both boys would yell, "not her again!"

Maxwell LOVED Aretha Franklin singing. He bobbed his head along with her and when she was done gave out an enthusiastic "WOW".

Russell loved when they would show the little Obama girls. Maybe it's a crush, or maybe he thinks it's pretty neat that they are just kids and get to be there. Who knows.

Maxwell was disappointed in the people who were looking around during the prayer. He kept saying "busted!" when the camera would catch one of these "naughty" people.

The most exciting part for each of them was hearing the word DEMOCRACY. This is a topic we have been covering in school. They (especially Russell) know what this word means and really got a kick out of hearing it used in Obama's speech.

As I was explaining how Obama was being sworn in and would hold office (if all goes as planned) for 4 years and then he can chose to run again (or not) and others will have the chance to run also, yada yada yada... Russell decided this sounds like a game. He thinks it would be a great idea for us to play the game someday. HaHaHa!!

As they scanned the mass of people who had gathered I asked the boys "how do you think these people are feeling?" Each boy immediately responded that they looked happy, very happy. I think they were right.

Sure, not everyone is as enthusiastic about this new president as some. Time will tell if all this hoopla was for good reason or not. But right now, it seems change is coming and any change will be welcome.