Experimenting with Food Coloring

I found a couple cute, easy food coloring activities for Emmery to do. It turned out to be even cooler than I expected!

All we needed was a plate, milk, food coloring, a toothpick, and some dish soap. I love finding stuff that I can do without running to the store for supplies! We poured some milk on the plate and then dripped all different colors of food coloring on it.

Next Emmery took the toothpick (which had a drop of dish soap on the end) and touched the spots of color. 

When the toothpick touches the color it explodes in size! So cool! I don't know who liked this one better, me or Emmery.

The colors start to swirl and mix, so pretty!

The next one we did used baking soda, vinegar, and food coloring. I put some baking soda on the plate. Then put a few drops of food coloring in some cups of vinegar. 

She used an eye dropper to drip the vinegar onto the baking soda. 

When the vinegar hits the baking soda it bubbles up.

4th of July

Summerwood has a 4th of July parade every year so I thought it would be fun to try it with everyone. Marc and Mikey decorated the kids bikes and we dressed the kids in their red, white, and blue!

We were hanging out getting ready for the parade to start. They were going to pick winners from several categories, including dogs! So cute!!

And off we go!!

Emmery was so cute she kept saying, "This is the best parade ever mommy!" I guess I didn't realize she had done so many parades before! :-)

The parade ended back at the pool where they were having a pool party. We stuck around long enough to munch on some juicy watermelon, then we headed home.

Emmery loved her watermelon so much she had to go up and ask for more.

It doesn't take much to make these two happy! A little bit of watermelon + a little bit of music = LET'S DANCE!!

The Boston Nantels in Texas

I'm way behind on posting because we've had lots of company lately. At the end of June Marc, Kathy, Marco, Stacy, Michel, and Max came for a visit. The kids hit it off right away, they were so cute together. It was neat to see Marc interact with his older cousins. And as the only girl in the crowd, Emmery fell right into step with all those boys!
At night the kids loved to read stories. Max was too cute, he would look at the pictures and just make up words. Michel is an awesome reader, I told him he sounds better than many of the 6th grade students I have taught in the past!

The kids had fun playing on the front porch. Marc decided to take handfuls of mulch and shower himself with them.  Emmery even pitched in.

Bath time!!!

Mikey went to get the mail and the three little ones just HAD to go with him :-)

Of course we spent lots of time at the neighborhood pool. Didn't take many pictures though!

One night we did a "blackout party." Mikey bought a couple black lights and we got some glow-in-the-dark novelties and partied it up. The kids had a blast! The pictures didn't turn out great but you can still kinda see what's going on...

Mikey is on the left and he is holding Marc.

Emmery is on the left and Marc is on the right. You can see my bright orange toes behind them!

We went to dinner one night and dressed all the kids in RedSox gear. They looked so cute!

The Paci Fairy

It is with a heavy heart that I write this post. At the moment Marc is crying himself to sleep, begging for his pacifier. Emmery is happily playing with her new Barbies. Not really how I envisioned it all to go down, but like so many other parenting moments, it never is...


Before Emmery was born we decided that we were going to give her a pacifier. We knew the day would come that we would have to take it away, and we knew it would be tough. We were right. We never thought she would be 3 and almost a HALF when we did it. But that's just how it worked out for us. We didn't feel that she was ready when we moved to Houston, and we didn't feel that she was ready when Marc came along. To be honest, I don't think she is even "ready" now. But we were ready. It was time.

These are the last couple of pictures taken of the two of them with their pacis. Just want to remember them this little forever....

We decided that our plan of action was to have the "Paci Fairy" come to our house to bring them something special in place of the pacifiers. I really wanted to keep the pacis, I know, kinda weird but for some reason I am really sentimental about them. So I grabbed a mason jar and let them decorate it with tissue paper, glitter, and Mod Podge. They had fun, although Emmery was pretty resistant at first because she knew what the jar was for.

PACI JAR

Last night we got them ready for bed and brought the jar upstairs. The moment Emmery saw it her hand went straight to her mouth and she just kept saying, "No I don't want to get rid of my paci... no!!" 

So we gave her a moment and asked Marc to put his paci in the jar. It was obvious he didn't really understand what was going on. He took all his blue pacifiers and put them right in the jar like daddy asked.

I actually had to take it out of her mouth to put it in the jar. She was heartbroken.

We walked downstairs and put the jar on the front porch and told them there would be a special surprise for them in the morning. It didn't really cheer Emmery up though.


So Mikey took Marc into his room to put him to bed and he went down without a peep! I told Emmery that she could come downstairs with me and watch TV for a while. She wanted a snack so I got her some crackers and cheese and she finally calmed down. At about 10:30 she fell asleep on the couch so I brought her upstairs and put her in bed. We were really preparing ourselves to be up and down the stairs all night long, but both kids slept through the night! Crazy!


At about 6:45 we were woken up by Emmery crying that she wanted her paci. So I went up to console her while Mikey set up the Paci Fairy gifts outside. I was able to calm her down by telling her I thought I saw something pink sitting out on the front porch. So we went and got Marc Man and headed downstairs. When I went into Marc's room he just popped his little head up and said, "I want yogurt!"

That's the happy face we were hoping for! She kept saying, "I like it mommy, I like it!!"

So the Paci Fairy brought Emmery a Barbie house, a car, and two Barbies (Ken and Barbie). Marc got some awesome new power tools that make LOTS of noise! :-)


Today has gone pretty well. Emmery has only asked for her paci once or twice, each time we've told her they are all gone. Marc has asked more, crying and whining about it a bit. He finally did fall asleep for his nap but it only lasted less than an hour so he's been pretty fussy this afternoon. We are really hoping we are over the worst of it but we shall see tonight.


This whole experience is so bittersweet. I know that I am really saying goodbye to the baby phase. Seeing either of them suck away on that paci just instantly takes me back to seeing them as a newborn. It wasn't that long ago but it's gone. Already. Man, this parenting thing is tough. Best time of my life though....