Atlanta Botanical Gardens

To celebrate Earth Day, the kids and I joined some other homeschool friends for a field trip to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and the flowers were all in bloom.

We were a little late getting there due to traffic, so we missed out on the family tour, but we did make it there for the ladybug release. We all expected there to be tons of ladybugs, but really they just had little tupperware tubs of a few ladybugs, they would squirt water on some flowers and the ladybugs would scatter towrads the water droplets. We got a pic of the one ladybug we were able to find.

After the ladybug release we were able to find our friends and we all made some flower art at one of the kiddie station set ups. We quickly headed over to the amphibian talk and were able to see this HUGE toad as well as learn that Georgia ranks number one in the most number of salamanders (who knew?).

We ate our picnic lunch in Piedmont Park and then headed back to the gardens to see the Children's Garden. I am glad I was prepared with extra clothes, since there were fountains for the kids to run through. Personally I thought the water was freezing, but Lydia and Catherine seemed fine with it. They LOVED the fountains and I am looking forward to visiting the Suwanee Fountains many times this summer!

By the time we left everyone was quite exhausted (myself included since I forgot the stroller), but I think we had a great time. Enjoy the pics!
The mom.
(PS- I thought the pic of all the girls hovered around the caterpillar is hilarious. The boys seemed uninterested but the girls stopped right in the tracks in order to look at it!!)

Catherine's 1st Race at the Chickamauga Chase

This past weekend Scott and the kids participated in the Chickamauga Chase held at the Battlefield in Chickamauga, GA. Catherine was so excited because this was her first real race!! She got a new pair of tennis shoes and everything!

Harbin and Catherine both ran in the Kiddie-K which was about 0.63miles. In every other race that Harbin has done, I have been able to run along side of him, but in this one they went on their own. I thought Catherine might back out since it was her first race, but as you can see in the pics, she just ran along and did great! At some point she tripped and fell and skinned her knees (apparently brother was helping her by holding her hand and she can't run as fast as him quite yet). One of the volunteers helped her up and said she just took her hand and they kept running. She finished the race and was proud of her "bloody knees".

Scott ran in the 15K (9.3 miles) and this was his longest running race yet. He finished in (what I think) an incredible 1 hour and 7 minutes and ranked 6th in his age division.

I am sure this is just the start to race results for this upcoming summer season, so stay tuned for more incredible running results!

The mom.

Easter

Ok, so as promised I am finally getting around to posting the Easter pics. We spent Easter in Chattanooga with the Tinney Family and the kids enjoyed dying eggs, hunting eggs and spending time with family.

On Easter, we attended a sunrise service and Harbin enjoyed learning about the symbolism of the sun rising and Jesus rising from the dead to give us all new life. He was very concerned we wouldn't make it to the church before sunrise and we'd miss it, but we assured him that we'd see the sunrise whether at the church or not :)

After the sunrise service and a brief breakfast we headed back to the Tinney's to dye Easter eggs. The kids enjoyed coloring them and I managed to un-dye them. We had this glitter egg kit where you were supposed to dip your dyed egg into the adhesive and then into the glitter shaker. Well, I stuck the first egg into that adhesive and it came out white again!!! I guess next year we can save money and only buy 4 eggs (one for each kid) and they can dye them while I undye them so they can do it again!

Because we had woken up so early, the kids went down for a nap (so did I) and the Easter Bunny hid our eggs and delivered our baskets. After waking up and finding the goodies we headed up to Lookout Mountain to spend a lunch with some of Scott's extended family. The kids enjoyed yet another egg hunt and had fun playing with their distant cousins.

We were fortunate to snap a few good family shots as well as pics of all the kids together. I am rather proud of the matching dresses I made for the girls and although not my best work, I made my skirt to match. Hopefully soon I will take time to do ao short post of all the crafting and sewing I have been doing, but for now, you can see my handiwork on the dresses!

I hope everyone else had a great Easter too! Enjoy the pics!
The mom.

Egg Hunts and Easter Parties

Over the last week, we have been to an Easter party and an egg hunt both of which the children enjoyed a lot. Harbin says that Easter is his favorite holiday and he was so excited when he awoke on April 1st and I told him it was indeed April- in fact, I have never seen a 5 year old so excited about it becoming a new month!

Last Monday we attended the 2nd Annual Easter Party hosted by some ladies in our Sunday School class. The kids got to play with 15-20 other kids and participate in an Easter craft, an Easter story, and making the Resurrection Rolls. I love the Resurrection Rolls because they are such a neat example to show the children (and us adults) how Jesus rose from the dead on Easter morning! (I'll leave the recipe at the bottom for those of you who want to try it). Last year Harbin loved the Resurrection Rolls and was super excited each time we did it. This year, after he put one and one together and asked me "mom- don't marshmallows just melt when they got hot?" we had the discussion about how this is just symbolic of Easter and how we use it as an example to show the empty tomb. He was fine with that.

We travelled to Chattanooga for Easter and on Saturday the kids attended an Egg Hunt at Scott's parent's church. The weather was overcast (even sprinkling at times) and very cold. My poor girls froze to hunt eggs until we were able to get their jackets from the car. They seemed to enjoy hunting for the eggs, but were also happy when we could get them back to the warm car. Lydia was hilarious on the way back to the van. She was walking with me and her Uncle Alex and out of nowhere just stopped, bent down, and picked a dandelion. I guess she just needed a flower!! (I should probably get used to this now that I am having my third girl).

Scott is off work for Spring Break this week, which means I should have plenty of time to update the blog as the week progresses. I promise to have Easter pics up in the next few days, but for the time being, our new family picture up top can give you a preview of our Easter (and the dresses I made for the girls this year)!

Until then...
The mom.

Resurrection Rolls-
Make a square with two crescent rolls (these are the linens they wrapped Jesus' body in). Use a marshamallow (this is Jesus' body) and roll him in oils (melted butter) and spices (a mixture of cinnamon and sugar). Place the marshmallow into the linens and completely wrap it with the crescent roll (try to seal all edges). Put the whole thing into the tomb (toaster oven preheated to the 375). Bake according to the instructions on the crescent roll package. Remove, let cool and then open the linens- now you can see that Jesus' body is gone and HE IS RISEN! (Now you can eat the crescent rolls and it tastes wonderful)