Jake's 1st Science Project

Jake's preschool teacher assigned the kids a science project for the month of January. She recommended we scan Pinterest, and I found a great, easy (and 4 ingredient) experiment to make Lava Lamps.

First, you fill a water bottle about 2/3 with oil.

Then, you fill the rest with a little water.

Once the water and oil separate, you add your choice of food coloring.


Once the water is fully colored, you then add pieces of alka-seltzer tablets. We first added 1/4 of a piece at a time and the bubbles rose very slowly. Then we learned if you add them quickly, the bubbles come super fast and it's very exciting. :-)





Of course, sweet Brooklyn did one, too.

Yay for a successful experiment!
Jake then wrote what we did and presented it to his class the next day.

He was so proud!

Thank you, Ms. Alex and Pinterest, for a fun family project!

Family Time

Saturday night, we were blessed to have a relaxing dinner with the family....steak, baked potatoes, salad, and chocolate pie. Yum!
The cousins have such a great time together!

Claire loved Mr. "Tato" head...


We noticed that Jake's scowly face has not changed in 5 years...
And I enjoyed a lovely head massage and lick from my favorite pooch.
Love this family time and wouldn't trade it for anything!

January Happenings

A few days ago, I realized I had taken very little pictures of our family in January. After all, after Uncle Eric and Aunt Caroline left, what was the point?
Just kidding...but really, my phone had a bunch of photos of meals that Chad and I had split and this:
The most horrible game ever for someone like me that has a fear of balloons....specifically balloons popping.

And then my life got crazy when these were delivered...
Cookie Season at work is both awesome and exhausting at the same time. While it's truly awesome to see the public talking about Girl Scouts and our cookies (and wearing yoga pants to work), it's also exhausting, physical work as we move thousands and thousands of cases a day.


But I love it!

Brooklyn's troop had their first cookie booth of the year on Saturday, the 24th, at Harris Teeter.
They did awesome, and it was great to see these business-women in action.


The kids went to a skating birthday party for "Little" Allie.

And Jake had his first playdate with friends. Where, unfortunately, we started trying to get in the trampoline park (which had an hour wait) but ended up at Krispy Kreme.

He ended up happy in the end.

By the way, the cookie booth, birthday party, and donut stop were all on Saturday.

I think my day in the cookie trailer was less exhausting. :-)

Hope everyone's January is going well!

Splitting it up in 2015!

Chad and I are splitting up in 2015....splitting up meals, that is.

We have decided that for this year (or as long as we can absolutely stand it without actually splitting up), we will be sharing our meal plates whenever we go out to dinner or order take out.

We're calling it....
#splitaplatelosesomeweight

Now, immeditately, I think of "Mean Girls" when they were trying to start a new, trendy word.

 

Really, I just want to use a hashtag for a few reasons...

1. I want to document this journey and see just how often we eat out and where we end up eating throughout the year.

2. I want to invite the rest of you to join us.

 

I will be posting the pics on Instagram as we eat them (except for the two below which I have not had a chance to do yet.) Please feel free to do the same whenever you are out and eating and want to share with me what you split and who you split it with. It's cutting calories in half, it's saving money, and basically, it's revolting against these extra large portions that America is giving us and making it so hard for us to lose and then maintain the weight.

 

On January 2, we got take out from Elizabeth's Pizza. I forgot to take a pic of our meal that night, but Chad and I split a turkey sub, he had a small bowl of soup and I had a side salad.

On Sunday, January 4, we went to Moe's. We split a chicken Wrong Doug (stack) and the side order of chips.

So, there you have it. Something new we are trying. Obviously, I am telling Blogger and Facebook and Instagram for mostly the accountability, but it could be fun, too.

Maybe. :-)

So, here's to #splitaplatelosesomeweight in 2015! Good luck, and happy splitting!

Fine Print:
*#splitaplatelosesomeweight does not apply on national holidays.
*Each month, we are giving ourselves a "free day."
*Buying additional food is acceptable (such as a salad), as long as only one entree is purchased during the meal.
*Beverages need not be split.

New Year's Week

If I can say anything good about 2014 is that it ended well. :-)

Last week, we were blessed to spend three nights at the beach with some of our best friends and their families. It was an awesome time with the "Carolina Cousins" and so fun to see them all playing and goofing around with each other.





9 kids in all. All different ages. But they played so well together and whenever I looked up they were playing with someone different.

We had two nice days where we squeezed in some "sand time."






For New Year's Eve, we had all sorts of yummy food...and my wonderful husband surprised me with some inpromptu crab legs to go with our appetizer feast.



I barely got any pictures of the adults, but we did actually have many moments where we were able to sit and enjoy each others' company. We just ignored the kid madness going on around us. :-)

A little karaoke on NYE...

...followed by a kitchen dance party...
...and glow sticks.

It was such a perfect way to end, what I hate to say was, a pretty crappy year. We toasted goodbye to 2014 and hello to 2015 with some of our dearest friends, and I have to say that night went down as one of my favorite NYE's ever.