Crazy days......

Well, the craziness that attends the last quarter of every year is in full swing at our home!

This year it started with back to homeschool and has or will include four holidays, three birthdays, the annual SVP conference, a baptism, visits from both Grandparents, the Gala reopening of the dinosaur exhibit, visits with the cousins and that's just what happens here!

Here are some photos of our latest trip to Aunt Gay's home. Sarah and the kids were there and Jake and Julie had a blast with the cousins they had never met before. It was kids galore. Of course, all the craziness was caused by my kids and no, I don't want to go into it!

Baby Sith Power

Like Jora is going to be left out of the Star Wars Craze in our house. She personally prefers the red light saber wielded by only the greatest Sith warriors. I told her she must wait until she is at least one year old to tattoo her face.

Allen is pretty sure he can come out unscathed against all three of them.

Jacob and Julia Jedi

Here is Xiphactinus and Clidastes. This is what goes on at our house after hours. Luckily, we all still have our limbs intact. Wait until you see Jora wielding a lightsaber.

Dino bits

Finally-The Corythosaurus pelvis that I have been working on for 4 months is now complete and recently sent to New Jersey where it will be remounted. A lot of things are going on at the museum these days. I was asked to do a little repair work to our almost complete juvenile Camarasaurus and to consult on the remounting of Stegosaurus. It is still amazing to me how much a good bath and a dynamic pose can change the once plodding and dreary Stegosaurus into Super Stegosaurus. In other parts of the exhibit the Cretaceous Seaway is being finished with a couple of marine vertebrates being cleaned and mounted. Xiphactinus is the 10 foot fish on the bottom and on the top is the large marine reptile Clidastes. Stay tuned to see the finished mount of Stegosaurus and more of the Cretaceous Seaway.

I like to move it, move it!

Jora is a walker. She took her first steps during the beginnings of August and by the time her 8 month birthday plus one week rolled around she was stringing together 4-6 steps. She is, as of today, choosing to walk instead of crawl in most instances. It is crazy how early it is for one of our Shaw babies. Jacob walked at 11 months, Julia walked at 10 months and here is baby Jojo walking at 8 months. It really doesn't matter to me in the convenience arena because I believe that once they crawl - it's all over with, they might as well walk and keep their hands clean!



In other news, Jacob received his trophy for winning the Greenfield Little League Baseball Tournament. The team trophy, which is literally taller than Julia, will hold a place of honor in our home for one month in the coming year. I'm sure on our month there will be much picture taking and posting so keep watching! We have geared back into serious homeschool once again and are tackling some serious Math an Language Arts this year. We think he is doing great with reading and will continue our reading program but with less of the Nazi approach

Julia is staying the course with this whole 2 year old 10 year plan. People have told me that it only FEELS like 10 years, it doesn't actually LAST 10 years. She is deep into "I CAN DO IT MYSELF" territory and has the JACOB IS LOOKING AT ME COME STOP IT BEFORE I SCREAM THE HOUSE DOWN howl down to this eardrum shattering, glass splintering and dog torturing pitch. Above you see the reactions we get when we ask her to do anything not on her immediate do for myself list. I wish we could catch on film her unguarded self. It is beautiful and hilarious. She has an unbelievably infectious laugh and believes with her whole heart that anything Jake is doing she must also do with more exuberance and flair. She loves to dance and always invites jacob to join her. "Jake, come dance with me!" We have all cut the rug with Julia at one time or another to her favorite dance hits of the WIGGLES! Even JoJo has been seen standing by Julia in front of the TV shaking her baby groove thing with Wags the Dog. (When we replace our Digital Camera I will endeavor to capture the moment for future boyfriend bargaining.)

Oh yeah, How do you like my new Tat?

The Unholy Fusion

Who knew that if you mixed three or four Tyrannosaurus skulls together you would get a multi- colored monstrosity. In this case, we only have a few pieces of one Tyrannosaurus skull and we want to make a complete skull to be mounted onto our Tyrannosaurus specimen. We then had to go into the collection and find other skull elements of a similar size to complete the skull for our specimen and make it scientifically accurate. Each color represents a different individual or specimen. You also can get a pretty good idea of how many different bones make up a Tyrannosaurus skull by the many different colors. Check back later to see the finished specimen that this skull will be attached to. Our very own Frankenstein monster in the works!!


Side view and view from inside mouth. Skull elements from at least three different Tyrannosaur individuals were used to create this composite skull with some epoxy (blue) to hold them together and sculpt missing pieces. We still need to attach the snout.

Dinosaur Spaghetti

The dinosaur I am currently working on (Corythosaurus) has a mass of spaghetti-like strands running along the tops of the back, hips, and tail vertebrae. They are known as ossified or bony tendons that form within the animal during life to buttress the skeleton very much like the cables on a bridge. One reason for them in this case is to help hold the tail up off the ground. I must say they are a real bugger to prepare though. There are tendons on top of tendons crisscrossing back and forth. I have finished preparing the tendons on one side of the back vertebrae and am now preparing the tendons on the other side.








Finished Tendons

Other side-Tendons still need a lot of preparation because rock (tan color) needs to be removed from between the tendons.