Sidney's 10!

Happy Birthday, Sidney!

We celebrated Sidney's tenth birthday this weekend.

On Saturday, she invited her BFFs from next door and from her class over for a little party. Sidney is a big fan of iCarly, so we used the show as inspiration for the day.

We started out with a little activity. As anyone who watches the show knows, Carly's older brother Spencer is a crazy and creative sculptor. We broke the kids up into two teams of four. The ultimate goal was for each team to work together and create a sculpture. The had to "find" the hidden building materials first, though.

Both teams were given an envelope. Inside was a riddle. The answer to each riddle was a location either inside the house or out in the yard. The teams had to solve the riddle and retrieve the bag of building materials from that location. Here's an example:

I'm never, ever lonely, you see

My branches are visited by birds and bees

We're a living fence, not bound but free,

Me and three trees just like me!

Where am I?

(Answer: The bag was hidden under one of the four Crepe Myrtle trees bordering our back yard.)

Here's another:

Don't look for me outside the house,

For inside's where I stay

I'm rather like a giant box

Between a lamp and a fireplace!

Where am I?

(Answer: Inside the antique wicker hamper in the living room.)

When they brought each bag of materials to me, I gave them the next riddle. The kids had a great time with this and recovered all four bags I'd hidden for each team.

Next, each team member was given one of the bags of materials. Inside they found any combination of the following: Ribbed paper cylinders, colored Popsicle sticks, puff balls, plastic beads, various shaped buttons, crepe paper, pipe cleaners, foam number stickers, and colored feathers. It wasn't a race or contest of any kind, but each team worked together to create a sculpture with the contents of their bags.

~Team A at work~

~Team B, building away~

And, here are their final products:

Sidney helped me make the flowers for this cake. She's getting very good at twisting her wrist as she pipes the royal icing, giving the flowers their petals and shapes.

I cut the stars from fondant and attached them to bamboo skewers with royal icing. In hindsight, I wish I'd tinted all the skewers with purple food coloring instead of just the three longest ones. But, there was a last minute design change...

The kids beat the tail off a fish-shaped piñata and took home loot bags stuffed to the gills with candy. I'm sure their parents were happy about that!

It was a fun day and everyone had a great time!

We finished out the day with our wonderful neighbors from next door, who spent the evening with us grilling out and chatting.

We love you, Sidney!

Still Unwell...

Though she was feeling better, Sidney was a tiny bit optimistic in yesterday's post. Turns out, she has more ailing her than a passing fever. The throat culture came back positive. Yes, Big Sid has Strep:(

A round of antibiotics will do the trick, along with lots of rest and relaxation.

Keep her in your thoughts and prayers!

~Have a wonderful day~

Feeling Better and Bubbly

Hey, so earlier my big brother posted that I was sick. True I was, but my family took care of me, and now I'm better! I want to thank Codeman for taking care of me when we were the only people up.

Now I want to talk about a different subject... Bubbles! If you saw my page, you know that I LOVE bubbles. Bubbles are cool; they're like soap but round and floaty. Popping them is fun too. When you touch them, your finger gets sticky and I like the feeling of it. Their shadows are colorful. What I mean is when you look on concrete, just under the bubble, it's colorful.

That is all I have to say about bubbles! Peace out.

Who is sick?

We have breaking news in the Duke household. Sidney is SICK. Currently she has a fever of 101.5°F. We hope if you read this post you will leave us a comment sending good will and health.She also has a monster head-ache.

Easter 2010

Easter weekend, Christian and I took the kids to one of our family's favorite spots in the area. The Botanical Gardens in Athens, Georgia is an oasis of gardens and nature trails. Every time we visit, we discover something new.

We began the day in our preferred picnic area, a shady spot under the canopy of an enormous white oak. No one else was there, so we had our pick of a pair of tables directly under the tree. The air was warm, and the sweet-smelling promise of summer wafted on the breeze. If the day had ended after our meal al fresco, it would have been a success. But we had more fun planned.

We decided to explore the Orange Trail. This was the only nature trail we hadn't tried yet; usually we wander along sections of the White Trail. To our surprise, the Orange Trail took us along the Oconee River bank. The unusual amount of rainfall we had this winter led to area flooding a few weeks ago. Now, it's easy to see from the dried silt on the trees that the water level rose twelve to fifteen feet. We were amazed that the sandy path we walked along was underwater not long ago.

The Orange Trail eventually loops back around to the main part of the gardens, where the atrium is located. We stopped in on the pretense that everyone wanted to use the restrooms, but really we never can resist admiring the beauty of the enormous leaves and over-sized flowers of the rain forest plants housed inside.

Cooled and rested from the air-conditioning, we headed out again to finish the trail and arrive back at the car.

Back home, Christian baked a leg of lamb on a bed of new potatoes. We wiped the dusting of pollen from the patio table and enjoyed our first outdoor dinner of the year. The kids clinked glasses of Sprite Zero against our glasses of Bordeaux, and we toasted a wonderful day, fan-tabulous family, and we wished each other a very Happy Easter.

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What's up with the question mark?

Hello people of the blogosphere!!! I heard from the grapevine that my mom talked to you about the exclamation point. Well I want to talk to you about the question mark... (?) I mean why not use the ^ for questions? I know when ever you think of a question you think of this... ? how come this thingy ^ doesn't comes to mind?? I know you say "But that's all I know for question marks..." Could you imagine a world with this ^ as the question mark? Well if you can, good for you because I can't. :D This my random question for you. Can you guess what this is <(")? If you can please leave me a comment right here. There where the star is * you can see it. Kidding, but send me a comment.

Spring Break Updates

The week went faster than we thought it would, though sometimes it seemed to be creeping by. That's the way it goes, right? The kids spent a lot of time playing with friends -- thank goodness the weather has been gorgeous.

Sidney had Jessica over for a sleepover. Cody's friends were busy with family in for the week, so in lieu of a sleepover for him, we let him choose an "outing." He picked a matinée showing of How To Tame a Dragon. It was in 3-D and fan-tastic!!

One day when Sidney was bored, we decided to make homemade brownies. I promise you, they came out as good -- better, even -- than brownies from a box. And you know how good those are! Here are a couple pics of the kids:

When you don't have a bar of baker's chocolate, it's time to improvise! Three tablespoons cocoa plus one tablespoon oil for each square of chocolate the recipe calls for.

Part of homemade brownies includes melting baker's chocolate with butter. Looks good, tastes bitter!

Add sugar, flour, salt, eggs, and vanilla and mix well. The kids are getting really good at figuring out how much of each ingredient we need and measuring carefully. These brownies came out perfect!

The only way they could have been better was if we'd had scoops of vanilla ice cream, drizzled with chocolate sauce and topped with fresh whipped cream. Yum!

On Friday, Christian had the day off. We got up early and drove to Atlanta. Rush hour traffic was mercifully light, probably a lot of people had Good Friday off. We went to the French Embassy in Buckhead and picked up Christian, Cody and Sidney's French passports. All three needed to be renewed for our upcoming trip to France in June.

After a late breakfast at Denny's, we were home by eleven. Christian and the kids went to a gardening center and bought a truckload of organic topsoil, while I stayed home and wrote a quick blog post on my professional blog.

Once they got home, some serious gardening took place!

First, we put in a new herb garden. In a couple months, we'll have thyme, rosemary, basil, chives, tarragon, and parsley.

Next, we planted various flowers in a new bed between our property and the Lowry's. That way we'll both enjoy them!

We're looking forward to the Easter weekend. Then, it's back to school with the kids, and back to more serious writing on my novel!

Hope your Easter is magical :)