:: Kids Lava Lamp, Mentos/Coke Volcano, & 4th of July 2012 ::

 Hope everyone had a happy 4th of July.  We enjoyed the fun activities in our neighborhood.  We decorated Parrish's bike and he followed the fire truck around the town center with his friends (sans training wheels and very proud, I might add) in the town parade.

 Afterward we had yummy watermelon slices at the park (because it's not the 4th of July without watermelon) and met up with the grands.

 That night we headed to Spoonwood Lake for a cook-out and fireworks.  I love this picture of Parrish staring up into the sky in awe.

 As you can see, there was plenty of reason for awe inspired looks....the show was pretty spectacular.

 And because it's just no fun if you don't do some fireworks of your own, we headed to our back alley with our neighbors to do sparklers and every other cool looking firework they had for sale in a trailer off highway 280!

 I had to include this picture of our friend Gentry bc he was giving me a hard time about paint colors yesterday - I told him this was payback...he was dubbed the "Puerto Rican Statue of Liberty" that night.

So we had a fun day, but I marveled to Cannon that afternoon that it never ceases to amaze me how the most benign of holidays can knock us down.  I mean, it's the 4th of July, but all I could think about was the Chelsea fireworks 2 years ago with a 6 month old Livy wrapped in my arms and how she will forever be 9 months old in my head when I'm supposed to be able to see her as a 2 year old, bopping around in her frilly red, white and blue outfit.  I never see these episodes coming...I don't anticipate that all holidays will be hard...I certainly didn't think this one would be...but somehow they are.  Even the inconsequential ones.  This is our new reality.  But we just keep putting one foot in front of the other - not because we WANT to, but because we have no other choice.  One day I hope that doing the motions of life will become easier and that it won't always be this raw.  I hear from others that it gets better....I am waiting.

 And while I wait, I am blessed to be able to do fun things with my sweet boy to keep my mind from all the memories and should-have-beens.  I think all the time that I am so grateful that baby Knox will be here when Parrish goes to Kindergarten in the fall.  I just don't know what I would do without Parrish all day if I didn't have this baby to look forward to and take care of.  He is my constant companion and I am relishing our time together this summer.

So I saw this make your own lava lamp experiment on (where else?) Pinterest.  It seemed fairly simple and Parrish was game so we tried it out.  The only thing I had to buy that I didn't already have was Alka Seltzer tablets.  If you've got alka seltzer tabs, vegetable oil, water, food coloring and a clear empty bottle, you are good to go!

You basically tint the water with the color of your choice, top it with oil, then drop in a tablet and watch it go!  When the fizz from the tab runs out you add another one to keep it going or you can store it for more lava fun later.

I followed the instructions from here and here if you'd like the step-by-step info or the science behind it all.

Parrish wanted to take the experiment further by seeing if it would glow in the dark.  So we headed to my closet, turned out the lights and back lit it with his flashlight.  Turns out it glows very well indeed!

And because it was a long holiday weekend and we had nothing better to do, we decided to try out another experiment - the mentos and diet coke volcano!  As you'll see in the video the volcano got me!  It's a short-lived show, but Parrish still loved it.

To do this you'll need:

-1 roll mentos candy (any flavor is fine)
-1 2-liter diet coke (or regular, but I read regular is stickier than the diet)
-a rolled piece of paper to wrap around the mentos to (hopefully) get the whole roll in the 2 liter all at once (obviously I failed at this!)
-your running shoes on!!!

Place the 2 liter in grass or somewhere easy to hose down and open the top.
Wrap mentos candy in a roll of paper and use this to insert the whole roll of candy into the 2 liter at once
RUN!!!

The mentos/dc volcano will only erupt for a few seconds so don't blink!  :)

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