Valentine's Day

Thank you for the package Grandma and Grandpa Davis- they both loved their dogs. Avery also loved the hack sack. We watched a few videos on you-tube and now he has a new skill to learn.


Alia loved her dog and hugged it until she saw the candy. She loved the caramel heart, but didn't like that it stuck in her teeth.


Avery's school Valentine's this year


Chocolate covered strawberries for his teachers and suckers for Avery and Alia. The suckers were easy to make. It is two mini candy canes with white chocolate in the middle.


Avery and I made a bee like this just before Alia was born. This year she wanted to make her own. When I compared their pictures, Avery's hands were much bigger than Alia's but their feet were the same size.

Food Stamps

While Scott ran in the Tough Mudder and froze (it was Georgia's coldest day this year) we enjoyed a day inside painting with food.


I asked them what foods they thought would make good stamps. Avery decided on a carrot and cutting potatoes into shapes. Alia noticed the star in her apple during lunch so we decided to use that too. I saw the idea for the celery on pinterest.


Alia said she was making a chicken. Venus was nearby in case any paint-covered food landed on the floor.


Avery loved mixing the colors and covering his paper.


The celery made a really cool flower.


Here is their finished artwork. Avery made a 3 flower bouquet for Daddy for Valentine's day. There is a purple spider next to the yellow flower. Alia's chicken is the pink circles on the bottom of the page.


After painting they decided to eat celery and pretend they were Wonder Pets.

Alia turns 3!

Today we celebrated Alia's 3rd birthday. Going with tradition, we allowed her to make up the rules and activities for the day. Here is her day in pictures.


Alia and Banana 3 years


We decided to do a room make-over for her birthday present. We had her sleep in our room and we re-did her entire room last night. We decided to paint 3 walls pink and one wall green. We also got her a twin bed, bedding set, decals, a carpet and a huggle pod. She was the most excited for the huggle pod. It was fun seeing her reaction this morning.






When she saw the hedgehog she said she couldn't touch him because he bites.


Avery made her a gift for her birthday.


It's a tree with Alia standing next to it. He has been drawing a lot of trees lately.


Scott took work off today to spend the whole day with Alia. She was excited because he was finally able to go to gymnastics with her.


This massive foam pit is her favorite part of gymnastics. She runs down a trampoline runway and jumps off the end.


After gymnastics she wanted to go on a bike ride in Avery's Wee-hoo. (Avery was at school).


After picking up Avery she wanted to play at the park. Alia loves the park and asks to go everyday. While swinging she lays her head back and yells, "Look at me, I'm laughing on my birthday!"


We also watched the ducks and geese on Lake Peachtree




Next stop, GiGi's cupcakes. We enjoyed the warm day and sat outside eating our cupcakes and ice cream. She chose this chocolate one because it had heart candy sprinkles. She ate almost all of the frosting and none of the cake. We also shared a pint of Marble Slab ice cream.


This weekend we traveled to Platteville to celebrate Mom and Alia's birthdays. Alia had a dirt cake and mom had her favorite- cheese cake.




Amanda got Alia a Build-A-Bear. She helped Alia put it together at Mom's. Alia loved stuffing the dog and sewing the seam.




Alia and her new puppy.


Bama and her grandkids
Alia- 3 years
Gaven 13 years
Jaycent 6 years
Bama 54 years
Austin 8 years
Avery 5 years

All things marshmallows

It's that time of year again, when the marshmallows from the summer smore spree have turned. They are sticky, gooey balls and hardly edible so we decided to make sculptures and marshmallow shooters.


We've done the sculptures with Avery before but this was Alia's first time. She made her sculpture, then ate all of the dried fruit in the bowls. She also enjoyed cutting the pineapple pieces up with the scissors because they would fly across the room and Venus and Maia would race to eat them.


Avery was more into making something this time around. He decided he wanted to build a snowman. It was neat to watch him try to figure out how to get his snowman to stand up. After several marshmallows and lots of toothpicks he was able to get him to stand.


The snowman, his name is Chola.


We decided to launch the rest of the marshmallows with our homemade launchers. The idea came from here.


Ready to launch....


It was a successful launch as you can see from his victory face!


She would get so excited when her marshmallows would fly instead of plop to the ground. It took her a few attempts but she finally got the hang of it.

Look Who is Reading!

He is reading The Big Hit from Starfall

Happenings

A picture catalog of what we've been up to. Some of the pictures happened before Christmas but I didn't get a chance to post them.


Daddy and Alia painting the playhouse door. Avery picked the color to match our front door.


She painted her hair.


Building with blocks. Meet Avery's moose family


and Alia's friend Remy.


Over Christmas we ordered from this company. They accidentally sent us a Hugglepod. When we contacted them, they told us to keep it! Avery loves sitting in it.


For Christmas I got Scott a container of nuts still in their shells. Avery and Alia loved smashing them open with hammers and rocks. They made a great team because Avery didn't like the nuts but Alia did so he would crack them open for her and she would eat them. I didn't have to worry about the shells because Maia and Venus were the clean up crew. After they went through most of the Christmas nuts Scott and Avery went pecan hunting. They found a pecan tree close to home and threw a ball in the tree to knock down the pecans. Avery said he should have worn a hard hat because they kept hitting him on the head. They gathered a coffee can full of them and Alia loves eating them!


Scott is training for the tough mudder in February.


I found this experiment on pinterest the other day and wanted to try it out. It was an awesome science experiment about liquids, density and chemical reactions. Here Scott is explaining how the experiment works. Alia looks so attentive here.


You mix oil, water, and food coloring and then add Alka-Seltzer tablets. It's cool to see how the water bubbles rise.


The end of a spoon. Mom and I have been hiding this blue spoon on each other since Avery was 3 months old. Avery was playing with it at our friend, Nick's wedding and we accidentally left the reception with it in his car-seat. We happened to visit my Mom when we discovered the spoon and she said, "Don't leave that here!" Of course I left it in her pillowcase. That started what would become a five year battle to see who would end up with the spoon. Each time we would see each other the spoon would end up in a new spot. It's been in detergent, a cake, flowers, a make-up case, a suitcase, a game, a light, a cereal box, on a Christmas tree, on the baby spoon package (shown in the picture)...... the list could go on forever. The game has to end now because the spoon was accidentally thrown out. I taped it to the back of my mom's calendar thinking she would easily see it when she took it down, but she didn't and it got thrown out. At least Mom ended up with the spoon last and I won the five year game! Look out Mom, you never know what new game awaits us for 2012!