Eggs'tra Cute

Because Easter falls on General Conference this year, Malia got to wear her Easter dress today. Yellow is her favorite color so she has been anxious for me to finish this dress. She thinks it is beautiful.

And isn’t Matthew handsome in his dashing new suit? He picked it out as a birthday/baptism present.

Got Milk?

Back in September when Matthew had his annual blood test done I mentioned that he had been okayed to do a food challenge for milk in bread. We try to do those challenges when he is off track so he doesn’t miss school and today was the big day. He was nervous, of course. I was nervous to (his worst reactions as a baby were to milk which means I kind of freak out when I think about him having milk), but I didn’t let him in on that fact. Luckily for all of us, he did great. There were no reactions at all. That doesn’t mean that we can get all crazy with the milk, but it does mean he can eat bread and buns that have milk in them. The criteria are that it has to be baked at a high temperature for a long time so that the particular protein we’re dealing with breaks down. So he needs to eat some kind of bread with milk at least twice a week to keep his body on the right track. This is definitely a step forward for him.

Now we need to schedule a food challenge for coconut.

It's Not Just For Kids

Earlier this month we went to an origami exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art. It included a bit of the history of origami but was manly focused on the technological uses of origami. Since that is exactly what Daniel wants to do when he grows up, he was thrilled about the whole thing. Even for those of us who are not obsessed with origami, it was a pretty cool exhibit. While we were there, we overheard a professor tell a class that Robert Lang would be giving a lecture at the museum. For those of you not in the know, Robert Lang is a world renowned origami artist and physicist. That combination may seem strange, but there are actually a lot of mathematicians, engineers, etc. who are into origami. Daniel knows very well who he is so attending a lecture given by Robert Lang was an exciting thought. Kevin took Daniel down to the lecture last night and so Daniel is going to be my guest blogger and tell you all about it.

Last night, dad and I went down to BYU to hear a lecture given by Dr. Robert Lang. For those who don’t know who this is (probably everybody, because he is an origami person, and I’m the only one really in depth into origami in our family), Robert Lang is a mechanical engineer that uses origami to engineer things. He was down at BYU to go along with the origami exhibition down there. He is an amazing artist. To support that claim, here are some things he has folded. He designed each one.
 

Anyway, he lectured at BYU and I went. It was great! He talked about the origins of origami. He talk about how a man named Akira Yoshizowa made and revolutionized origami and made room for more complex models. He then went and talked about the math in origami. He talked about how at any point in the middle of the square, the angles all add up to 360 degrees. The crease pattern also has to have two colorability. This crease pattern is for the two praying mantis model, called Snack Time. 

      

He also talked about the Bug Wars. This was an origami conflict that was all bug one-up-man-ship. An example would be, “My spider has 8 legs.” “Well, my dragonfly has six legs and four wings, and that is 10.” “Well, my beetle has 6 legs and 2 antenna and each leg has 2 claws, which equals 14.” And so on, and so on. It got to the point where it was long, skinny legs. “My praying mantis has longer legs than your stag beetle.” “Well, my model has twice as many long and skinny legs.” It just kept going. Dr. Lang then talked about how to do really complex models in three “easy” phases; 1. Pre crease 2. Collapse 3. Shape. I got a verbal shout out when he talked about phase 1, “And this young man has been doing this since he got here.” I had brought along a crease pattern that I was folding. It was the crease pattern to the Imperial Shuttle from Star Wars. After the lecture, I went up and met him. He talked with me for a minute about my origami skills, and I got a picture with him. I had a great time! With what I learned at the lecture, I have been able to make my folding skills better. I hope to be able to make some of the models shown above in the future.