Fun at the Science Museum

Yesterday we went on a little outing to the Tellus Science Museum. It's right off of I-75 in a town about 50 minutes north of us called Cartersville. Yup, Carter was super excited to go to Cartersville! And the museum was fantastic! I love the Fernbank in Atlanta, but this was even better!


In the lobby we had fun watching the Foucault pendulum. Would it knock over any blocks?? We were on the edges of our seats (if we had seats)...


The first thing you see as you enter the main hall is a ginormous Apatosaurus skeleton. So cool! I love this photo of Carter looking up at the head!


In the fossil gallery we also found a big and scary T-Rex!! Named Stan. HA!


A great area for younger kids was the "Big Backyard" - lots of interesting hands-on science stuff, including this fun magnet exhibit...


There was a large exhibit about Science in Motion - lots of cool cars, airplanes, rockets, etc. Loved seeing Carter the astronaut!


Courtney's favorite things were the fossil dig...


And panning for gems!


Their geeky mom loved this awesome periodic table display!


Another highlight was the kids' very first planetarium visit! Super duper cool.


Tonight before bed Courtney asked if we could go to "the museum in Cartersville with the gems" again tomorrow. Sorry sweetie, not tomorrow, but maybe another time soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

Carter's Fun Run!!

Hi everyone! This week Carter participated in his first organized fun run! It was a fundraiser for his elementary - Carter did a great job raising money that will go toward building a new STEM lab for his school. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering & Math - he has already said "Mom is there STEM today?? Science is my favorite!" Aaaah, he's truly the son of two enginerds. :-) Here are some photos from the day...

Getting ready to introduce the teams...


And here comes Carter and the Hummingbirds!! (The name of his kindergarten class is Mrs. Hinz's Hummingbirds) :-)


Getting the kids warmed up and ready... this is all of the kindergarten & 1st graders in the school. The other grades ran after them.


Go Carter Go!!!


Turns out my boy is a tongue-sticker-outer when he runs!


I had him stop mid-stream for a photo - seconds later another kid crashed into him - good move, mom!


Little sister cheering for big brother...


All done!! Very sweaty after running so hard! He did great, ran hard the entire time (with a few water breaks!) and got done before many of the kids.


Showing off his completed tshirt - they marked off the laps as he ran around. He did the maximum 35 for pledges, and then threw in a few more on top of it...


Great job Carter!! And a huge thanks to those who pledged!! Carter's class is in first place out of the entire school!!!

Farmers Market Fun!

Wow I've completely fallen off the wagon when it comes to sharing family photos! Oops! I'll try to get back on schedule with it this weekend, but today I thought I'd share what we did today to "kick off" our Memorial Day weekend - a trip to the farmers market!


I asked Courtney this morning if she wanted braids in her hair. I meant two braids. She said "Yes, five braids! If Rapunzel saw me with five braids, she'd say 'Courtney that's so cool!'" So, alas, my sweet girl was sportin' the Bo Derek look at the market...

We were only a few stalls into the market when we came upon a sweet little petting zoo! The kids loooooved it. They got to pet ducklings...


And sweet little bunnies...


Courtney wasn't quite sure what to make of this painted dragon.


Ok, he was a nice lizard afterall.


Here Courtney has a turtle, and Carter has a CHINCHILLA! Very cool.


Once the petting was done, Mommy got to have her veggie fix. Oh how I love farmers markets! I can't help it, I have to show you a few gratuitous vegetable photos...


Carrots, "Yellow Taxi" tomatoes, and beets. Just lovely. I ended up buying lettuce, cucumbers and a couple of those yellow tomatoes to make a salad for dinner tonight. Plus two stalks of gorgeous green garlic - I'll be making a tasty stir fry tomorrow!

After the market, we went to the mall for a fun Lego store visit, then had a picnic with some cheese we bought at the market, among other things. Daddy and Carter kicked the soccer ball around a bit before heading home. A good start to the weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

Week in Review - April 24, 2011

Happy Easter if you celebrate Easter! We've had another fun week, with a few things going on - but I'm going to focus on our weekend with this post. We decided to take a little weekend trip to the Gulf - to say goodbye before we leave Texas. We spent the weekend in Corpus Christi, enjoying the ocean, the sea birds, the fish & chips...

We made the ~3.5hr drive over to Corpus after the kids got out of preschool on Friday. We didn't have time to do a whole lot once we got there that night, but we did go out for dinner - even at the restaurant, Courtney was ready to swim!


Next door to the restaurant we spied a comic book store - right away Carter noticed the neon signs and wondered what it was!


Carter couldn't believe there was so much superhero stuff all in one place!


After dinner we settled into the hotel, where the kids shared the sofa bed. They goofed around for quite a while, but in the end they settled down & slept - yay!


We began Saturday with a view of the USS Lexington, which is now a museum. We didn't visit but Carter thought it was pretty cool!


We did visit the aquarium, though!


At the aquarium, the kids enjoyed a dolphin show...


Touching stingrays...


And getting up close & personal with a sea turtle!


The aquarium was fun, but even better was the beach!!


Thankfully we avoided sharks. Mostly...


And before leaving, we hit the beach again in the early morning hours, this time combing the beach for shells...


Hurray for a fun weekend by the sea!

Two Weeks in Review - April 17, 2011

Today's family update post is lonnnnggggg. I didn't get a chance to do one last week, so this one includes two weeks of photos. I apologize to those of you on dial-up. ;-) Here we go...

First and foremost - our house is FINALLY officially for sale!


Now that we are DONE getting ready, there is more time for fun things! Plus, I am trying to keep the kids out of the house as much as possible, to reduce the amount of cleaning required for each showing. :-)

A favorite place to spend our time is the community pool. It's nice that we can go to the pool in April - but it's still a bit chilly when we get out!


This isn't Courtney heading to the pool - this is Courtney heading home from Target! We decided we needed some goggles, arm floaties and kickboards, and Courtney was so excited she had to put them on in the car!


We've spent time at the library, where we had a bit of a milestone - Carter is now checking out chapter books, and we're reading one or two chapters each night. My baby is growing up!


(And yes, he's totally stylin' in his orange socks and soccer sandals!) :-)

Carter and I like to watch Dancing with the Stars together. Can't you tell he loves it from his enthusiastic face?


One issue with letting your five year old watch DWTS with you - "Mommy what does sexy mean?"

Courtney is such a big helper at the grocery store! She wanted to push the big cart, even though she could barely reach it.


Carter and I got to have a morning together, just the two of us! We went to the garden center and bought a couple veggies to plant...


Looked at some books at Barnes & Noble...


And had lunch at Kerbey Lane, where Carter ate nearly ALL of these pancakes!! Wow.


Visiting Petsmart can be dangerous... we came close to adopting this sweet kitty! Wonder what Daddy would have thought of that...


We had a fun time last week visiting a new-to-us bouncy place!


One relatively mess-free thing to do at home is coloring - here they were making cards! Sigh. My babies, making mama proud!


One afternoon I found Courtney reading books in her room. Sitting in the bin that normally holds her dress-up clothes. Silly girl!


And finally - more warming up after a dip in the pool. :-)


Until next time...