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I woke up this morning feeling sore and tired from painting yesterday. I went to make a new post with no idea what to write about yet. There it was right in front of my face. This is post 300! Happy 300th Blog Post to me.


I saw post 100 come and go with no real feeling toward it. I figured 100 really is not that big of a deal.

Then 200 came and went. I think that was some time over the holidays. I was way too busy rushing to get holiday posts done so I did not pay 200 much mind.

Now I hit 300 and I wanted to appreciate it. First because I hit 300 in well under a year. That says a lot when I am so busy all of the time. Second because I really enjoy doing my blogs.

Doing these blogs makes me feel like maybe someone out there likes what I have to say and thinks I have great ideas. Ha Ha Ha

Sorry I do have a problem with staying serious for too long.

I would like to thank all of my readers for still being around to witness the 300th post.

Winter is the time of year for a lot of static so what could be a better time to have a static electricity experiment. Kids always get a kick out of it when they touch something and get a shock. This experiment will be fun and educational.




**Materials

scissors

Styrofoam tray from your supermarket (ask at the meat or bakery counter for a clean, unused tray)

masking tape

aluminum pie tin

**Instructions

1. Cut an "L" shape off of the styrofoam try by cutting around one corner.
2. Tape the "L" shape onto the pie tin to make a handle
3. Rub the remaining styrofoam tray on your head to build up static.
4. Place the styrofoam on the table upside down.
5. Using the handle only, hold the pie tin a foot above the styrofoam tray and drop it on top.
6. Slowly touch just the pie pan with your finger. What a spark!
7. Carefully lift the pie pan up by the handle and touch it again for another great spark.
8. Drop it back down and begin again.

These steps can be repeated over and over again until the static charge runs out. Then just rub the styrofoam on your hair again. How about trying this in the dark? Check out what color the spark is. Kids will love doing this one in the dark so they can see the spark as well as feel it.

**What We Learned

Rubbing the styrofoam on your hair pulls electrons off of your hair and piles them up on the foam. Some of the electrons that are in metal are "free electrons". This means that they can move around freely. They want to get as far away from the styrofoam as possible so they jump to your finger giving you a spark.

When you pull the pie pan up and away from the styrofoam the electrons no longer want to move away. The pie pan is also short a few electrons since it gave them to you. When you touch the pie pan again it pulls the electrons back onto the pie pan giving you another spark.

**Is this how lightning is formed?

Lightning is when electrons move between clouds and the ground or cloud to cloud. The moving electrons heat up the air so hot that it is 5 times hotter than the sun. The heating up and expanding of the air creates a supersonic wave that is heard as thunder.

How cute is this idea?!

Put those old game boards to good use and add a new fun look to a room. A game room or kids room would look fabulous with old game boards on the wall.



Game rooms often get forgotten when we decorate. You do not want to spend a lot of money on them so this would be a cheap decorating idea that would still look great.

If your families are like ours you will have some laying around the house somewhere. Over the years game pieces get lost and game boxes get broken. Every time we move we still bring partial games with us. I always figured that the missing pieces would show up somewhere and I hate wasting things. Now we have tons of partial games in the closet and I do not want to throw them away.

All that is needed is some velcro strips. You can attach the velcro strips to the wall and the back of the game boards and your decorating is done. How simple is that? I would recommend tracing them on the wall with pencil first to see how it will look first. Then you can have a great looking arrangement.

A couple weekends ago James and I went out for my friend Linda's birthday. Three people in our group proclaimed that they HAD to have French Onion Soup every time they went to a restaurant that had it. I decided to make some myself. Here is my recipe...


Ingredients

• 8 onions, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 8 cups beef stock
  
• 1/2 cup dry white wine or sherry
  
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and pepper
• 1 loaf French bread
• 2 cups grated Gruyere

Directions

1. Saute onions and garlic in oil over low heat until tender and golden.
   
2. Sprinkle flour over onions, cook a few minutes more, browning the flour well.
   
3. Add stock and wine and bring to a boil, add thyme and bay leaf.
   
4. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer gently for at least 20 minutes.
   
5. Add salt and pepper, to taste.
6. Meanwhile, slice French bread into 3/4-inch slices and butter both sides.
   
7. Toast slices on griddle until golden brown.
   
8. Ladle soup into an ovenproof bowl, add toasted bread and cover with cheese.
   
9. Place ovenproof bowl on a baking sheet lined with tin foil.
   
10. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 5 minutes under a hot broiler or the highest rack possible in the oven.

The idea of both of these awards is friendship. I have at times passed awards out to people that comment the most and to people that are top droppers. This time I wanted to be a bit different. The four blogs I picked to pass these on to are people that drop often and have made comments. The two do not always go together.



These are the blogs I will pass the awards on to...

Everyday Living

1 Blog and 2 Sides

Paul's Health Blog

EZ Great Life

I have seen many people joining Project Wonderful in the past year so I figured I will try it out for awhile. I am still in the wait and see how it goes frame of mind.


You can see the add space in the right side bar at the very top. I actually bumped the Entrecard drop box down a bit to accommodate the ad space. Depending on how it goes I might just pull the drop box back to the top.

I started the bidding at $0 but I hope it will go up fast. I am not too sure how many people advertise on Project Wonderful so I will see how it goes. If it does not do well I may just go back to my original plan of handling all advertising myself.

If you would like to contact me with any advertising requests feel free to email me at melissa(at)yourfunfamily(dot)com.

Valentines Day is coming up very soon. I printed out these cute Valentines coupons last year and they were a big hit.


The full page is 6 coupons. James loves getting back massages so I actually cropped the image into separate images and put them together on a page as a Word file. Then I could have more of the ones I wanted and none of the ones I did not need.

I printed out plenty of the back massage ones. It was always cute to find a coupon sitting out somewhere for me to find when he wanted a back rub. Remember a fun family has a fun Mommy and Daddy too.

Scholastic is now taking nominations for the Mommy Blogger Awards 2009.

Now I am not saying you should just go vote for me...
They have spots for 3 people so you could vote for more than just me. Think of your favorite mommy bloggers and go nominate some.

I got the Your Blog Rocks award from Simply Digiscrap. I wish I had the time to learn digital scrap booking. She has some great designs you should check out the store too.




This award I will be passing on to...

Karen & Gerard Zemek
Everyday Living
Nessa's Place

I got the Lemonade Stand Award from Tahtimbo over at Everyday Living. I am proud that it was passed on to me. I really like the Everyday Living blog and my girls love the Friday Fotos.


I thought the girls just looked at blogs once in awhile when they helped me do drops. That is until they called me over one day to see the Friday Fotos. I found out that they go check them out each week.

I will be passing this award on to...


Stacy's Random Thoughts
Paul's Health Blog
Simply Digiscrap