First Boat Trip of the Year

Last Sunday our friends invited us to go boating with them. The day started out cold and choppy on the water. As each hour went by the weather got better and better. It turned out to be a beautiful afternoon. The relaxation of being on the boat was something we all needed and enjoyed. The days are always too short when we are out on the water.

Life has been very hectic and stressful this month. I believe January 2010 has been more stressful than the entire year of 2009. I hope it tapers off soon (PLEASE!). I am welcoming February with open arms, as long as 'she' promises to be nice to me.

Tomorrow we head to Disney to celebrate Avery's 5th birthday. I finally got a point and shoot camera, so this time I will be taking Disney pics. We have decided to go bagless to the themeparks during our last few trips, so I have had any pictures to share. Booo.

Avery is super excited for tomorrow and I need to get packing - we leave VERY early in the morning.

I added a few pictures to the Photo A Day link to the right. I've been slacking again on the daily picture taking.

Here are some pictures from last Sunday's boat trip:


Napping on the boat. Scott was napping, Avery was faking it.


Heading back in after a lovely day.



Beautiful ending to the day.

I love cold!

I might be one of the only people I know that absolutely LOVES this cold weather.
I'm not sure why - maybe it's because I grew up in an area that had moderately cold weather. Something about it is just nostalgic to me. I love having hot drinks, wearing sweaters and curling up under blankets by the fire (wish we had working fireplaces). Most of all, I love not sweating or ever being hot. I think I live in the wrong state because soon enough it will be blazing hot.

This weekend we are packing up the Christmas decorations. We have so much Christmas stuff, it is exhausting. It's been a great day though, it feels good to be productive.

Tonight we are going out to dinner (yay!) and to see the Princess and the Frog again (well, again for Avery, but a first for us).

Here are a few recent pics.


This is Fergus (Fergie) outside the kitchen window. He wants to come in because it was 32* outside. I've been keeping them in the bathroom on cold nights and turning a heating pad on for them outside during the day.


In a nutshell....these are two nuts.


Avery poses with citrus (I have no idea what this particular citrus is, we have at least 10 different varieties in the yard).


We are in the "I can dress myself" stage. Luckily, we didn't leave the house until the outfit changed!

Merry Christmas & Happy 2010!

It's been awhile and a lot has happened. Too much to blog about, but we have been super busy (as Avery would say). The holiday "break" started back on December 18th. Avery had her Winter Program at school that morning. She did a really great job singing all the songs. She takes it so seriously - it's quite comical. Afterwards we had lunch with Nanny (Scott's mom) and Nanny took Avery for the night so we could enjoy our company holiday party. What a crazy fun night we had! It's a good thing it only happens once a year! Unfortunately, work was more demanding than I thought it would be that week, so thankfully Nanny was able to help us out again.

The week after Christmas Grandad and DD came to visit (I don't have ANY pictures?!). We had a great visit with them. Hopefully DD will send some pictures from her camera.

We have spent most of the last week hanging around the house doing little projects. On NYE we were in bed by 9PM (besides waking up all night from the fireworks). The next day, we took our annual traditional trip to Cross Creek to eat dinner at The Yearling Restaurant and listen to Willie Green play the blues. We tried to stay up and watch the Gators tromp over Cincy, but we had to get to bed somewhat early because we had a big day planned at Dinsey on the 2nd. We did a 7am-7pm full day at 2 parks. We spent the morning at Hollywood Studios and then headed over to Epcot for a late lunch and a few hours at the park. Avery had been asking to get her face painted, so when we found a place she was excited. Without hesitation she chose the kitty princess option. I thought for sure it would be sleeping beauty, but nope, she was set of the kitty princess. The weather was very chilly that day, but we wore lots of layers and hung out in the sun as much as we could when we were outside. What a great day for us all!

The Kitty Princess at Epcot :-) We are waiting for our table at England - mmmmmm Shepherd's Pie.

Here is part of the class during the Winter Program with her school. Avery is in the middle row fourth from the left.

Christmas Eve

Santa's Key to get in the front door - we thought we'd spare him the trouble of having to figure out which chimney to come down - not to mention, our chimney's are kind of old.

Avery puts the key on the door for Santa

Looking for Santa one last time before heading to bed.

Mommy Juice on Christmas Eve

Santa ate the cookies and the reindeer at the carrots!

He left presents under the tree too!

Stockings - Tinkerbell bubble bath

She got a purple guitar

Mommy got a gift from Edward (Twilight).

Riding her new bike

And scooter

We thought the bike/scooter weres her favorite presents until she received the Cool School program.

Gator / FSU Gameday

Where's Tebow?

We had planned to watch the game at home, but wanted to get into the rivalry mood by walking up to campus to partake in some pre-game festivities.
We walked around campus and had lunch before heading over to the Gator Walk Saturday.

Gooooo Gators! Now do the same thing to BAMA, please!


Heading to Steamers for lunch (it's a Scott thing).


Avery HAD to have eye blacks. She loved them.


Avery wearing James' Gator hat looking for Tebow while being held by Youssouf.


Sea of Gators


Some guys from the team

Gameday Crew

We got to see lots of crazy characters!

Big Hulk arm beer holder

A kid in the trash can!

Super Tebow plays BEER PONG!

Dusting off the camera

I have been so uninspired lately when it comes to taking pictures. I am usually a one-project-at-a-time person, so when I am busy with something else (which lately has been reading) I tend to put everything else on the back burner. This week I dusted off the camera and I took a few pictures with Avery. The first one was her own natural pose and it just worked out nicely - maybe because she was still for a second. The other two were a little more posed. I hope the change in weather inspires me to pick up my camera a little more often. I desparately need to update the photo a day link. Hopefully there will be more to come soon...

True Blood Party

I had some friends over to watch the season finale of HBO's True Blood show. Every now and then I love to do a themed party. I spent the entire day in the kitchen preparing food and it didn't even seem like a chore, it was a lot of fun. I didn't get near as many pictures as I wanted, especially of everyone hanging out. Below are some pictures of the day.

The menu:

Blood Orange Salad (picture taken from http://prouditaliancook.blogspot.com/2009/01/sicilian-blood-orange-salad.html )

I used that recipe and it was super simple and VERY good.


Spaghetti Bolognese

Baked brie with a cranberry orange topping - sorry no picture. :-(

Red Velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing and a 'blood' drizzle.

The table. We also made blood orange/pomagranite wine spritzers. No recipe, we just made it up.

It was such a fun evening and I can't believe we have to wait until June 2010 for season 3!!!

Pooh

Please try reading this book to your child without you or your child cracking up!
I think this book was a baby gift from my sister when she was born.
Avery loves it and asks us to read it over and over and we do.

Kool-Aid Playdoh Recipe

Materials:

1 package Kool-Aid
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 cup salt
2 cups boiling water
2-3 cups flour

How to:

(Do youself a favor and use a stand mixer)

1. Mix the first four ingredients together.
2. Slowly stir in the flour until dough is a smooth consistancy.
3. Store in a self-sealing bag.

Note: I added extra food color to each batch of dough to get a brighter color.

Silly Putty Recipe

SILLY PUTTY

What you will need:
1 cup white glue
Various food colors (if you make multiple batches)
1/2 cup to 1 cup liquid (not spray) laundry starch (I could only find a big bottle of it at Wal-Mart).

What to do:
Measure 1 cup of white glue and pour into stain proof mixing bowl.
Drop in food coloring until you get desired color.
Mix well.
Measure 1 cup of liquid starch, slowly pour a little at a time into glue/coloring mixture and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Stir thoroughly. (You may not need to use all the liquid starch.) Let rest 5 minutes. Knead it with your hands, until it comes together. It will be like spaghetti, don't worry keeping folding it and kneading it in your hands. Just when you think it is ruined, it suddenly turns into a wonderful long-stranded glob!
If it seems sticky onces it is formed into the blob add more liquid starch until it goes back to a rubbery consistancy. It shouldn't be sticky if you use enough liquid starch.

Store in an air tight container. Enjoy cutting, stretching and molding.

Silly Putty & Playdoh

Avery's teacher asked if we could make some playdoh for the class and of course we were happy to help out. I asked her teacher if she had ever made the silly putty before and she had not, but wanted to try it out.

We were excited to make the silly putty again, it had been over a year since we made it before.
So Sunday we set off to try to make homemade playdoh for the first time and a new round of silly putty. Avery helped me with the playdoh by pouring in the salt and kool-aid mix in the bowl. We made it in the stand mixer - which I think was what made it so easy to make. I think had we stirred it by hand we would have been miserable.

School seems to be going well so far. This year I am getting a little more feedback from Avery than I did last year. Sounds like she is enjoying school and adjusting very nicely.

First step in silly putty making - mix the food color with the glue.

End result of the first batch. Usually the first batch of anything you make is a dud, this time it was the best one.

This was my second batch and it didn't turn out as well. It took FOREVER to get the materials to mix properly. You just have to keep working it forever to get it to incorporate. I think I used too much liquid starch at one time.

Final batches of silly putty


Happy girl playing with the 'off' batch of silly putty.

PLAYDOH!