Scott's Birthday and random pictures

 I guess she was tired! 

 I loved the pictures of the people on this dry erase board.

 They love the dress up box and emerge from the basement as new characters.  Alia was a pirate princess and Avery was being a ninja.  

 We were playing tag around the house and Maia would not stop chasing us and biting our ankles.  The only way I could get her to stop was by tying the scarf around her.  She would try to run and then slip on the scarf!  I love Avery and Alia's genuine smiles in these pictures.

 Avery and Alia brought Scott breakfast in bed.  Avery was so excited to surprise Scott that he asked me everyday for a week if it was time to make Scott breakfast.  He made Scott granola, yogurt, and coconut cereal.  They came in quite early as you can see from the level of alertness Scott is displaying in this picture. 

 

 We picked and processed 8 gallons of strawberries on Saturday.  The strawberries were so tasty!

This was the first year Alia and Avery both helped pick.  Alia did end up eating half a bucket but she did help once she was full.

 This year we made Scott Irish Car Bomb cupcakes. They were amazing!!!!  The center was filled with a dark chocolate ganache.

 

 Scott wanted a big cupcake.  When we sang "Happy Birthday" Avery sang, "Happy Birthday dear old guy!"  It's only going to get worse from here on out.   

 

 This time we made our ice cream with almond milk and it was the best we have made so far.  

Grandma and Grandpa Davis got Scott a composter.  This kids had other ideas for it....they filled it with toys and spun it around and around.  Neither of them were happy when we put it outside and filled it with food scraps.   

Great Urban Race

Scott and I love Amazing Race and have been watching the show since it first aired. Well you can imagine how excited we were when we heard about The Great Urban Race. The race was this weekend and we had a blast! Our team was the e-LEMON-ators and we dressed in all yellow with a few lemon accessories. At the start of the race each team is given an envelope with 12 clues that lead to various locations around Atlanta. Part of the challenge was figuring out which clues to do first and where they were at. We ran 8 miles and covered a total of 30 miles by public transportation. Each location had a challenge to complete before we could move on.


Go team e-LEMON-ators!


There were so many people and lots of neat costumes. One guy was dressed in a giant Wheaties box. I can't imagine how he ran or got on and off the trains and buses.


At this location Stephanie ate a freeze-dried squid and Scott had to run with scuba gear on and a tank over his shoulder.


This clue gave us trouble. We ended up going 8 miles out of our way when we went to the wrong fire station. The clue was looking for an old fire station that turned into a restaurant and we went to an actual fire station.


This was my favorite place because we got to sample homemade bakery goods. As you can see from the picture, Joe and I didn't quite figure out you could adjust the hats.




We had to find 4 people to give piggy-back rides to. These kids were excited to help us out. I felt bad for the girl I was holding because her grandma kept saying, "don't drop her, she's really heavy."


The hardest part for me was navigating MARTA, the train and bus system in Atlanta. I had never been on MARTA and for those of you who know me, I'm not the quickest person to figure out how things work. I could never figure out how to use my breeze pass to open the gates and my team members were always way ahead of me. At least I was the comic relief on the team!


This stop was my least favorite stop because we had to learn a few salsa moves. I have never been very coordinated, especially when it comes to learning dance moves. The instructor had to keep stopping to make sure I got the moves right because no matter what he said I always started with the wrong foot or went the wrong way. Again, I added a few laughs to the day!

In all, we had a blast and really enjoyed getting to see Atlanta on foot and by public transportation. I would love to do this again, but would like to try another city...maybe one I am more familiar with.

Easter 2012

This year we celebrated Easter a week early so we could celebrate with family on Easter.


We started 12 days before our celebration with Resurrection eggs. Each day you read a part of the Easter story in the Bible and then open the corresponding egg with the story. Avery and Alia loved guessing what was in the eggs before we opened them. The eggs were a great way to lead up to Easter and talk about why we celebrate Easter.


On Saturday morning we made Resurrection rolls for breakfast. This is a neat way to talk about Jesus and his Resurrection 3 days later. We made sweet bread the night before but you can use crescent rolls too. Take a marshmallow (it represents Jesus) roll it in cinnamon and sugar (they represent the spices used to prepare his body) and then roll the marshmallow in the dough which represents the tomb. We asked the kids what would happen to Jesus after 3 days. Avery said he would disappear or melt.


The tomb is empty! These make a really tasty breakfast too : )


We also did another experiment this year with vinegar and an egg. The egg Avery has in his left hand sat in vinegar for a week. It was a great discussion about osmosis. The egg really grew in size and the vinegar dissolved the shell. We shined a light on it to watch the yoke move around. Scott had the great idea to break the egg in baking soda to see what happened. When he cut the egg the yoke shot out at him from all of the pressure and then it made a big fizzy mess. The kids loved that he was covered in yoke.


This year we dyed our eggs with kool-aid. It was fun picking the colors out at the store and it was a simple mixture of 2/3 cup water to one packet of kool-aid. The house smelled amazing and the dyes were more vibrant than the Easter egg dyes.


Time to find the hidden eggs! Avery found a treasure map to help him find his eggs. Scott drew a map and placed x's where the eggs were.


We did picture clues with Alia. It took 3 eggs before she caught on to what she was supposed to do. She is holding the picture of the wagon to show how she knew where the egg was.


Baskets!


She immediately stuffed her mouth with a gumball.


Our annual Easter picture outside.


This year was memorable because in this picture we were tipping backwards. When Scott sat down the whole back side sunk into the ground.


Silly string fight! This has become a favorite tradition during Easter. Avery was very excited when he saw the string in his basket. It was nice to see Alia enjoy the game this year since she cried last year.




On Saturday we went to Rock Ranch for an Easter egg hunt. It is a 1,250 acre cattle farm owned by Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy. They hid 26,000 eggs for the kids to find. We came home with at least 50 eggs. The farm had many other things to do as well. The kids loved the animals and the tube slides.


I found this idea on Pinterest and brought them to Avery's school for his Easter party. It is a frosting bag filled with Annie's crackers and tied with a green ribbon.

Science fun!

As a kid I remember putting so many different foods in the microwave to see what would happen to them. Marshmallows were so much fun to watch and eat and skittles ended up being a colorful mess of crunchy goo. Well, this weekend we saw an experiment on Steve Spangler's site that involved ivory soap. His video explains the science behind the experiment.


This is Baxter. Twice this school year Avery has brought Baxter home for the weekend. Baxter is showing how to do the experiment. You put a bar of ivory soap in the microwave on a VERY large plate and set it to cook for 2 minutes.


Pretty cool! Once you take the soap out of the microwave it deflates a little and hardens again. We used our soap for bubble bath but I've also seen recipes online for bath tub paints.


Yesterday we took advantage of the nice weather and last weekends rain storms. We made little boats out of milk caps, toothpicks and cardboard. We had a lot of fun setting the boats in the creek behind the house and racing them. Some how Avery and Alia managed to stay clean and I was covered in mud. We found that our boats did best with a sail when the wind was blowing but the sail would get caught up on things. Avery suggested taking the sail and toothpick off the caps to see what would happen. While the boats didn't go as fast, they were able to break free when they got stuck and continue down the stream.




She picked the green boat and Avery picked a yellow one.

6 month picture updates

Alia age 3
Avery age 5 1/2








The crazy shot!


We told him to do a cool pose. This is what he came up with : )

Alia's birthday take 3

We've had a great week spending time with Scott's family. Everyone came to Georgia to celebrate Alia and Aunt Laura's birthdays.


We enjoyed the weather and went for a walk and geo cache hunt.


Grandma Davis made Laura her favorite cake, German Chocolate and Scott and I made Alia a chocolate Tinker Bell cake.




Helping Daddy make homemade ice cream. We have tried to make a good mint based ice cream for awhile and have found that putting creme de menthe in the mix makes a great mint base.


Avery is showing Tony his mad boxing skills on the Xbox kinect.


Sweet moves Tony and Scott! They are dancing to Dance Central on the Xbox.


Alia and Avery love when Grandma, Grandpa, Laura and Tony come to visit because they have constant attention. Here Alia was baking different types of "cookies" with Grandma.


Here Avery is playing air hockey. When I showed him this picture he said, "I was too good for Grandpa and he didn't get any points."


They love playing with you silly Grandpa!


Avery is reading to Grandma.


One of their favorite games this time was when they played hide and seek. Grandpa and Tony would hide and then jump out and scare Avery and Alia.


Alia is hiding in the pantry.


On Sunday we packed up and headed to Callaway to enjoy the outdoors. When we got there it was wet out so we had our picnic in the Discovery Center.


This was a neat carving outside of the butterfly center.


There were a lot of butterflies flying around.


We were even able to see butterflies that had just come out of chrysalises.






For Alia and Laura's birthday we went to The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. Avery's favorite was the clowns.


I thought these tight rope walkers were impressive.


Alia's favorite act was the elephants.