missing YOU!

SO...nothing totally awesome to report...it's feeling more like we live here...Mark and the other two guys (Mike and Greg) are getting praised left and right for the awesome job they are doing so awesome that the Navy wants CMS to bid out the remodel of the rest of this building!  YEAH! 
         We've done a few fun things...we took the family to a strawberry patch last weekend and we picked our own...their company there is called 'pik-yor-sef'  we'll be going back here lots!  They have tons of different fruits at decent priced!  The kids had a ball picking!  In fact our goal was to keep it under 10lbs. too bad we ended up with 17lbs!!  Our freezer is now officially full.  But they'll go pretty fast cause Mark and I use them in our shakes every lunch and the kids love'em frozen! 
                           We took another trip to Salinas to the Latino store - this time ALL WAS NORMAL!!  I'm glad to report nothing over the top happened.  Before we left Mark took our trash out and hit the jackpot!!  Some college guys must have cleaned out the apartment cause Mark came back to the van with 4 huge garbage bags filled with glass, cans, etc. we got $15 from that free-be!!  YEAH!
     We also used our free tickets and went to the word famous aquarium!  What a fun day!  The kids loved it...and so did Mark and I!  We got to touch tons of starfish, and other sick/scary looking shelly things!  We learned that the sea cucumber (the same one we watched Bear eat on one of his Man vs. Wild shows) that they poop from the same hole they breath out of.  You can ONLY imagine how that hit the kids...Keegan over the others.  He looked the lady square in the face and sad, "Woe, woe, woe...wait a minute...you mean to tell me he poops out of his bottom? And he breaths!"  I'm not sure he got the fact that the same end did both...but it was funny!  She about lost it.  We got to touch slimy bat rays and a few other fish.  We saw a huge beautiful octopus and learned that he changed color when his mood does!  He gets dark red when he's hungry, then we saw him turn white as he took a nap...neat.  We got to watch a scuba diver feed the fish in the 3 story high tank...that was amazing.  It makes you feel as if you are down IN the ocean!!  It was a really cool place.  The kids and I went back with Jackie (each free ticket lets 6 people in at once) and it was fun to see where the kids headed back to!  I was able to learn a lot more the second time.
   Otherwise things are quiet here.  We are sad and somber as we pray and wait for hope in finding more survivors from the Joplin tornado.  My Mom and Jamie were visiting my Aunt Debbie and Uncle Bob who just celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary (YEAH!!) anyway...they had a tornado too close with in 4 miles? Anyway, luckily they had a basement to be in!  Aaron and Lindsey Brockett (our preacher @ TPCC and his wife) are from Joplin and are leaving this Saturday with a crew from our church to help out.  His cousin's house was flattened and he said his grandmother's house had all the windows blown out...he's got huge ties there, so we are praying for him and the crew headed down there.
    We've had a few sunny days here which helps things tons, but I'm SO homesick for summer and my world.  I'm trying to think positive, but it's super hard somedays.  Don't get me wrong we are doing fine here.  But communication with all I love is really hard because I'm super busy with the kids (we are all always on top of each other here in the apartment) so to talk on the phone is super hard cause there's NO WHERE to hide!  The other problem is the time difference!  And just plan missing home.  It's funny cause we all seem to go in spurts with the home sickies...Keegan started with tears one day missing his whole flamily, then I cried with Carlie on the phone and a lil'more after just hearing her and how she's missing us, then Ella told me it felt like we would never go home...in fact we just finished The Great Wizard of Oz in school and so she told me, "Mom, if I had the magic slippers I'd hold all of us and click my heels and we'd be home!  I can also just tell the Mark's missing his family and our home as well.  So if you get a second just give us some prayer!  We are very close to finishing out our 2nd month!! 
 
           In fact we've got 6 more days (on our paper count down chain) until we pick Nauna up from the airport!  She's coming for a week!!  AND on top of that Paw-Paw is also flying into L.A. (which means we have to go there to pick him up) and if we are there we might as well head over to DISNEY LAND!!  YEAH!!  but SHHHH...the kids have NO clue!  We watched Tangled again and the kids noticed the Disney ad at the end of the movie and they asked me if they'd even be able to go there...I said maybe someday!!  I decided life would be MUCH easier IF we did the 6 hour drive before telling them...that is why it's a secret!

    It was super cute this morning while we sat eating breakfast Ella asked, "Mom, if we go to that place...you know the one we saw after the movie...is it true what they said would happen?"  I was a little confused so I said, "You mean if we go to Disney someday?"  "Yeah, Mom...they said ALL your dreams will come true if we go there...is that true?"  How sweet and cute!  I explained to her that they weren't talking about ALL her dreams, i.e. if she dreams for a bike it wont happen; but if she dreams to be like Rapunzel of Cinderella then yes, those dreams can come true by going there and meeting them or riding a ride with them in it type thing.  She just sat there and chewed on the thought then said, "Yeah, I'd like to go there when I'm a little older!"

So Memorial Day is the problem...no one cares about it here...at home we have all sorts of things; the race, parades, all sorts of fun!!  Here...nothing!  I think we are going to try to see if we can get one of the grills at the COLD pool to work and grill there!!  We'll see.  I never thought this journey in life would or could get harder then it was a few years ago...I don't think I'd say it's harder, but I guess I'm just ready for life to be easier!  I know...I know...welcome to reality...life's not easy...so life goes on.
Have a GREAT weekend - please know that we are missing you all and being home!!
Our prayers for are everyone effected by the storms and we are praying for continued safety!
 I'll throw out a few pictures when I get a chance!!

What? Room to move...YES!

So when we bought the blender to make our smoothies we got Kohl's cash...so me and the kids went to spend it tonight because daddy worked the day shift today (poor guy they keep going back and forth with that...next week he'll do ALL days then switch back to nights again!) Anyway, I needed something to do until bedtime so this was it!! 
                         My goal, spend no more then $5 of my own money...get something fun!
I managed to get to the dressing room with a handful of long (warmer) summer dresses.  I started trying on the first one (pause: Grissom's in his stroller and Ella is in charge of him...Keegan's in the cart with the dresses) and I hear Keegan relieving some air (not a burp) then immediately says, "Who cut the cheese!?!"  And once that was over I heard laughter from at least 3 other women in the dressing room. 
                                           Thank you Keegan! 
     The dress looked nice, but I could see the problem that lie ahead...how am I going to get through the other 4 with him acting like this and being SO loud and giggly about it?  So it came to me...brilliance: I said, "I am an animal...who lives in the forest...who am I?"  Then we gave the game a few rules: they had to ask me yes or no questions and could only guess at who I was after asking each question.  They took turns also so they had to listen to the other's question and my answer!  SWEET!  I jumped through the rest of the dresses and loved a few of them (unusual) and ended up spending $4.35 of my own $$  yeah, under the $5 I had!!  I know I'm a big spender!

                                  But the FUN part was when we got home Daddy was up in the apartment with tons of 2X4s building something...as we came closer we saw that he was building the kids' bunk-beds so they can have a little bit of floor space in their rooms!!  We were ALL so excited! 
               The funny thing was when we put them down to sleep they played and giggled forever.  Mark went in at one point and said, "Come on guys...quite down it's time to sleep..."  Keegan interrupts and says very serious, "But dad...I'm nocturnal...I don't sleep at night, I have to stay up like you dad!"  It was funny!

Ok...this weekend should be full of fun...we plan to see the Aquarium tomorrow then a few other fun things!
                                                             Write soon!!
p.s. IF you are following this and you haven't heard, Shane, my brother-n-law went to the ER again today for diverticulitis and is in major need of surgery because of it...please pray that this infection with heal up quickly and that they will be able to find someone to do the surgery before he gets another out break...then pray for a good surgery and a quick recovery...and every one's sanity in the Cope household!!
Love you!!

Joke Correction:

See...if you slap a monkey too many times adventually it WILL fall over...a.k.a. you can't beat a dead horse... 

You have YOUR way of saying things...and I have the STACIE way...

Mark JUST informed me that my joke about the Wind, Water, and Fire was WAY OFF...so let me correct this and allow you a good laugh...it WAS funny to me that way I put it...but the reason you might not have thought it funny was because you might say: 

EARTH, WIND, and FIRE...I had it ALL WRONG!!

There...laugh away Scott - Mark did!

Back to Tennis!

Today, MONDAY, we did laundry…and just so you know the tennis score is still I won.  But today I get Mark a lesson in serving and hitting the ball…and I saw a huge difference in his play after that.  It will only be a matter of time before he beats me in a full set of 3 games…today I won 2 out of 3…but good workout!

My back is feeling much better by the way.  I was literally ON THE FLOOR last Monday and crawling on Tuesday.  It's all muscular.  I called a chiropractor but never heard back and now it's ok...after much back and forth with the office ladies (who have actually become my friends) they got us a new nice and thick foam pad and anytime this week or next we will be receiving a new mattress!! Yeah! They've really been very accommodating here and we are SO grateful for that!  But THANK YOU for your prayers and encouragement!  Mark had a great time  rubbing (with ALL his strength) my upper back! 

Monster Truck Weekend part 2

Potty Time AGAIN!

Ok…we aren’t potty training, not really.  Grissom is just obsessed with wanting to go like Keegan does.  So I tried putting him on his potty seat (when the seat got stuck on his head it hadn’t been used) and said, “OK…go potty, tell that peeper to go.”  Grissom sucks in his tummy and says, “Go Peeper, go…do it!”  And low and behold he went!  I think he was more shocked then anyone!  So we cheered for him and he got a special treat for going – he was pumped!

We’ve been putting him on the potty when he wants to go, along with in the morning and before bed and he will go almost every time, but he’s still going in the diaper.  No complains just taking it real slow.  I do think he’s smart enough to go JUST to get his treat.  He’ll go and then say, “Ma…my ‘pecial freat!’”   

We went to the mall Saturday after dinner and on the way the boys got the “Giccups” (hiccups) Grissom calls them giccups…which is just too funny!

Saturday afternoon we just relaxed.  After lunch the kids were given assigned areas to just play in before bed time came.  You may laugh at assigning play areas, but we are living on top of each other here…so Keegan had his bed and cars, Grissom played in the closet with “Woody, Woody, Woody, Woody, and Hee-Haw, while Ella got the family room (we rotate BTW) where she played with Savannah (her doll) and Rosa belle (her horse).  Mark and I are on the couch reading (did you hear that…we CHOSE to READ!!) Everything was going wonderfully!!  Everyone was playing SO well.  Then we about wet ourselves listening to Ella scolding her play time friends.  She kept yelling at them to stop fighting so she’d have to give spanks, etc.  It got quiet for a moment and then we hear her gasp.  “Rosa belle…why would you do such a thing…Savannah, get up! Rosa belle you are done…I can’t believe you’d choose to hurt Savannah like that.”  We couldn’t help but glance her way to see what merited such scorning.  Rosa belle was getting ready to smash Savannah’s face in with her hoof.  But what made this funny was that Ella tossed Savannah to the side while she was getting something else and she just happened to land in this position!  We got a pic:

We headed out to the mall because they were having a Water Appreciation Day.  They were promoting water conservation and were going to have booths with information about gardening smart (my thing) and  turf grasses (Mark’s thing) and we both wanted just to see what it was going to be like but they’d ended it before we got there, oh well.  I told Mark I only wanted to go cause last weekend we hit the Wind Festival so this weekend would have been the Water…and we’d have to fine the FIRE whatever next weekend! Ha!!

 Get it…WIND, WATER, and RAIN!!  Ok…so I thought it was funny! 

So instead of the water thing we ended up getting me a blue tooth for my phone.  California has a hands free law here and I’ve been warned by a handful of people that I would get pulled over for talking on my phone in the car.  So now I get to be one of those people I’ve ALWAYS secretly laughed at because they look so dumb walking around the stores talking to themselves! Ha!! 

It reminds me of the guy who cares enough to say thank you with his pinkie!! Ha!! 

Anyway, after trying it out with Mark I feel like I can use it but I still feel dumb!  But the good news is now I can talk to myself without people looking at me strangely…cause they’ll just think I’m talking on my tooth thingy in my ear (cause EVERYONE looks like they are talking to themselves here)  in fact I have gotten strange looks for walking through the stores holding my phone while talking on it! 

Sunday was great!  Church was nice.  We finished the ‘There’s No Place Like Home’ series talking about marriage.  It was a good sermon!  We came home long enough to feed the kids and drink our smoothies then we took off for the MONSTER TRUCK show!  Everyone was super excited.  We pulled in and Mark said, “did you bring the camera?”  I felt terrible.  It wasn’t my thing so I’d thought nothing of bringing the camera.  I did get the thought but I figured Mark would grab it.  But no fear…we used my phone!!  The kids had their ear phones on and looked as cute as could be!  WE got up to our seats and saw that this area was all outdoors with a beautiful Mountain View right beside us.

  Mark also noticed that the Rodeo is coming for Keegan’s birthday which totally excited him.  Keegan seriously with ALL his cute little heart thinks the rodeo is only coming because of HIS birthday…so guess who’s going to see the rodeo in July! Ha!!  Anyway, we were all ready for these trucks to do their thing.  They came out and the first 20 minutes were amazing…awesome…cool…oh yeah…etc. everyone was loving it.  I thought it was neat to watch them but all they were doing was racing in a circle after jumping over a dirt but…it quickly turned into Keegan asking when it was going to be over.  It was just Keegan who had bits and pieces of discontentment.  The rest of us where having a ball…Keegan just wanted nonstop action and they had to switch out the trucks and stuff.  They also filled the space with a 4-wheeler race and then a little truck race which was super cool cause one truck flipped over and another lost his back wheel.  Then at the end each truck came out and showed off its stuff…THAT was the COOL PART!  All the kids cheered and loved it!  It was pretty cool to see.  Now that I’ve done it I can say that I have and check it off my list…it’s not something I feel needs to be done more than once a life time, BUT Because it’s Mark’s thing…it will become MY thing…this is my job as the wife!  So I will love watching Mark love watching these Trucks!  It was super cute to watch him…he was like a kid!

After this we hit Me&Ed’s Pizzeria again.  We talked to the owner who told us this was a CA franchise only, but he happened to be from Ft. Wayne IN!!

Just some thoughts...ha!

OK…moving right along…I have some great thoughts…

Why hippies wear the headbands.  See I’m liking the headbands, in fact I’ve even sported one here or there.  Why you ask? Well, not because I want to hug a tree but because the winds blow so hard here that wearing your hair down isn’t going to be pretty…tangles and knots are killers out here…SO they wear the head bands to help ‘tame’ the do! Ha!

Another NOT so great game idea…slug bug, NO hit backs!

So…Mark and I couldn’t help it, it was bound to happen at some point.  You see slug bugs everywhere out here even the old ones.  I took the opportunity to SLUG Mark yelling, “Slug Bug, Red, No hit backs!”  Ella the child who sees all yells, “Mom, why’d you hit him?” So began the conversation about this game, how it works, that there’s no real reason behind it, and what a ‘bug’ car looks like.  Keegan got super excited thinking this was his green light to hit all around him. 

We quickly saw our…MY mistake in even starting this game.  So we added a few rules:

 #1 if you are under 20 you cannot hit. 

 #2 If you are under 20 and see a bug car mom or dad  has to see it too (this protects all of us)

         and finally

 #3 if you are under 20 we will use a point system and at the end of every week whoever has the

        most points gets to slug mom and dad! 

Can you say…Ella’s driving me nuts, and Keeg gets mad cause he can’t find them when in reality he doesn’t really try! Ha!!  So be careful if you come for a visit…this is your warning!

On the same note as Slug Bugs I also thought of a super funny commercial for them, check it out:  Visualize 2 guys in a car driving around town (different takes and times) each time the passenger spots a bug car and totally punched the driver…every time screaming the color then No hit backs!  The driver is obviously hurting and irritated about this stupid game.  Then one day the driver gets an idea.  Right after the passenger slugs the driver he turns the corner into a Bug dealer’s lot and just starts pegging the passenger yelling the whole time constantly cause they are ALL OVER THE PLACE!! HAHAHAHA!  I know hilarious, right?  I think it’d be the funniest thing ever and if I saw it I’d cry from laughter!  Come on…laugh!  You KNOW it’s funny!! You’re just pouting cause you didn’t think of it first!

Monster Truck Pics and a few more!

Keegan's in LOVE with playing Pirates!

So...they look nice and cute, right? Well if this picture had sound you would hear my children, standing against the door all ready to go, SINGING one at a time...harmonizing or at least trying to, Ella starts: "I'm here..." then Keeg, "I'm here..." then Grissom, "I'm here!!"  It's SO cute!

Finger painting.  Just seconds after I took this Grissom rubbed all over his face and it was ALL green too!

"This is MY MONSTER TRUCK MOM!"

Keegan's favorite!

The Crazy Bull...Ella's Favortie!!

Monster Mutt...MOMMY'S Favorite!

Got our Ear-Gear...all ready for the show!

Mom & Ella watching the trucks...super fun!

Daddy and the kids...Grissom wouldn't take his eyes off the field as we waited for the show to start...and never stopped watching when it DID start!

The View from the right of our seats:

My Little Love!  He pushed through nap time cause he wasn't about to miss this!!  He's going to love it as much if not more then his daddy!

Go Keegan's Truck...

Ella's fav gave a fun show...

This one rocked fun-ness too!

ROAR!!!!!  BIG TRUCKS ROCK!!

Part 1 of our weekend adventure...Goal:Monster Truck Tickets!

So this weekend was a little lower key…we are feeling more settled but it’s been way too cold to even attempt to try the beach, but warm enough to hunt for other fun!  So we had originally planned to head up north a little to place on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, but when I checked it out on line I noticed a pretty penny will be lost by hanging here (they have rides, etc.) so we were brainstorming about what we should do (this was Thursday night) and all of a sudden before I could grab for the remote…we hear, “Monster Jam…coming to Salinas…Sunday is ½ price kids day…bla, bla, bla…”  I no longer had a vote for our weekend plans…now Friday’s plans involved getting tickets before they all sell out!!  I was so thrilled, yay…big loud trucks that go back and forth and smash cars…how much fun we are going to have here.  Now just because this doesn’t seem to float my boat doesn’t mean I wasn’t excited to go…I’d never been and I knew my kids would LOVE IT!  It’s in their blood.  We have been warned by more than 1 person not to go to Salinas, but we’ve also talked to others who have said go with Mark and during the day…so we went!

Salinas is only about 15 miles away, but it takes almost a ½ to drive to it.  We got there to the ticket office Keegan finally sees (all the trucks were parked out on the front lawn) and you hear him scream, “Oh, yeah, that’s what I’m talking about…mom, that’s MY MONSTER TRUCK!”  Then Ella puts 2 and 2 together and says, “We are going to this show, aren’t we guys?”  It was cute cause Grissom comes right in with his biggest growl ever! Ha!  While Mark and Grissom stood in line for tickets Ella, Keegan, and I went to check out these trucks…I’ll post the pictures.  But the kids were all super excited…and super upset that the show wasn’t right then and there!

So we headed to Subway…our family's FAV place to eat (we can get outta there healthy AND cheap!) Afterwards, we picked up our ear coverings at Harbor Freight, dropped off our recycling (we get charged the CA CRV tax on cans and such) and walked out $2.85 richer! YES!  Then we found that El Store…and we did it.  We had a little talk reminding the kids quickly that America is home to MANY different people and we want to be respectful of the Latinos. (a.k.a. let's not show off our spanish and stay as quiet as a mouse!)  So the plan was Mark would push the KID-mo-Cart while I got the food, hee…hee…hee!  This trip went much better and we were VERY impressed with the prices and the produce!  They had watermelon @ 99 cents for 8 lbs and we paid $2 for ours!!  We got TONS of produce – the kids LOVE frozen fruit!  We stayed FAR away from the meat counter so the only funny thing to report is Ella sitting in the main part of the cart singing at the top of her lungs…what was she singing? She made up a song (this is normal) about how she can count like the Latino people…then she counts to about 25 in Spanish…oh, yeah…what fun! 

                We’ve been having normal problems with Grissom.  2 year old problems.  I quickly remembered Dr. Lynda telling me when Keegan was this age that it was normal at this age for the kids not to want to eat.  Grissom’s always been my most picky child which is very frustrating anyway, and he’d been eating SO great before.

    He’s not been eating dinner and I’ve not been super concerned but after comparing the way I handled the other 2 verses him I found it was time for me to create a desire to eat in him!  SO with Mark’s help we got him to eat about 6 bites.  Mark would hold his head still while I held his hands and when he cried I shoved.  I know what you are thinking…what meanies we are…well, get a kid and get over it!  He only cried the first 2 times we did this, then when Mark held his head he'd open his mouth without struggle.  Plus, I didn’t shove huge bites in nor did I make him clear his plate, but I needed him to understand who was in charge and I wanted to make sure he had something in that tiny tummy of his!  It got super funny!  Mark stood up after about 4 bites to hold his head Grissom says, “No dad…I do it!!” And he throws his left hand on top of his head and held it himself…which in turned opened his mouth to take my bite without a fuss!!  YEAH!!  We ALL cheered for him.  He did that until his plate was empty!  Ha!

The Smoothie talk that started it all.

So I’m really enjoying Keegan’s gymnastics’…not that I don’t enjoy Ella’s but when she’s out there that means I have to work overtime to keep the boys entertained and NOT trying to escape out onto the floor to be with sis!  But when Keegan is out there Grissom and Ella sit quiet reading and playing together.  Which means I get to really watch him and talk with Jackie and this week we got to talking about Green Smoothies.  She was telling me how she lives off of them and loves them…they are healthy and huge out here.  She was also telling me about how much they spent on a great blender (holy TOO much!) anyway it was interesting cause this is something Mark’s been wanting to get into…me, I’m thinking I just like chewing food…and green, really?   Jackie told me she went to this Latino store and got tons of great prices on fruit and veggies, it was called El Store in Salinas.  All I could think about at this point was our last Latino store experience…hmmmm…not so sure!

This Past Tuesday while having school...

Tuesday at school our Bible lesson was talking about the Epileptic Boy (with demon) that Jesus healed (Matt 17:14-21, Mark 9:14-39, and Luke 9:37-43) Anyway we were talking about what it meant to be epileptic which lead to seizures and what they meant and looked like which then lead to a friend of ours from our Small Group and his name is Noah.  My kids like playing with him but he is a child that suffers from seizures.  This is the conversation that took place:

Mommy, “OK, a seizure is when your body jerks and shakes and you cannot control them.  Your buddy Noah from small group has this not fun struggle.  His brain has an ouches and causes this to happen to him, he’s had his brain worked on too…”

Ella, “Noah?  Really?  I love him, his brain looks great, but he shakes?  Is it like a dance?”

Mommy, “Oh, no…it’s not a dance at all, Keegan you with us? What are you thinking?”

Keegan is staring right over my head and after I said that his eyes got real big and he was very serious when he said, “Mom, are you talking about Noah…from the ark?”

“No Keeg, I said Noah from our small group…” I answered

He interrupted me with, “Oh…Noah…the…kid? I love that kid…we play.”

I just thought this was too funny NOT to tell!!  We do love Noah and pray for him often!!  In fact after that Ella got quiet and said, “I really miss him.”  Keegan agrees.  But as I looked over at him I about lost it.  He’s laying upside down on the couch with his feet up in the air and his head hanging off which again was a normal thing so I didn’t think much about it until I zoned into the pink color coming out of his nose a bit worried.  As I looked closer I saw he’d created a perfect ball out of his gum and he ‘closed’ his nose hole with it!  We all started laughing and it shot up in the air! It was SICK but funny!  So this gave us the wonderful opportunity to talk about what goes up our noses and what’s not allowed!  

Playground Fun.

So…our goal is to see every play set the Monterey area has to offer.  We want to make sure the people here know their tax $$ is being spent for good reason! 

Boy oh Boy, they do have some super fun places to play. 

                                               But we seem to have a problem: everyone we go to starts the same: 

The kids run screaming with excitement to the sets…they run from thing to thing as fast as they can to ‘play’ them first.  Then about 4 minutes after stepping out of the van they are all gathered around Mark and me. 

See this trip has been amazing, we are getting more family time then we’ve ever had and we are loving it…but just like on vacation there's no one here to babysit…so ALL our time together is family time…mommy and daddy don’t get much time just us.  So we also told the kids this was our time to have while they played on these playgrounds! 

But it never fails…they end up playing on us!!  Can you blame them…Mark and I ARE super fun! Ha!  Just was wondering if that was the norm…but I’m sure it is! 

They do here and there stay on the sets longer IF I start them out with a game/goal.  We’ve been watching a LOT of Disney Jr. (cause this is an amazing thing we’ve NEVER had before – HOW DID WE LIVE!?!). They have a show about Pirates; Jake and the Never land Pirates.  All we have to do is tell them to play that and they are super busy…and VERY entertaining for Mark and me!  Grissom's also started being 'The Beast'  He uses his SUPER scary monster growl and runs at the kids!  It's SUPER funny!

The Latino Store.

         We have tons of different ethnic grocery stores to shop at here.  So you can be picky on how much you spend because someone else always has it cheaper.  I’ve learned quickly right after we got married that just because it’s cheap doesn’t make it of good quality.  But Mark needed to learn this.  He wanted me to shop for our food in a Latino supermarket.  I have nothing against the letino market it had great prices, but a friend of mine told me to be careful to buy too much there at one time cause it goes bad pretty quick...and we are seeing this is true. 

I told him I’d go IF he went with (yes, I’m a baby that way…you ALL know that and I’m not going to hide behind that one) so…we went!  The produce was many and half of it I wasn’t sure what it was, but I bet it was good!  We came to the conclusion that everything was WAY over priced except the produce and the meat (a little scary, I know) so we got some. 

                        Mark got ALL excited about the watermelons…he brings this gigantic one over to me and says, “Look babe, they’ve got these cheap…99 cents for every 5 lbs!  I laughed and had him weight it in the produce scale…it was only 20 lbs!  I pretended it was a GREAT deal – I couldn’t tell him otherwise he was really thinking this was a huge savings!  How cute! 

              We then head over to the meat counter.  This is where things got REAL interesting!  I was pretty excited about the price of ground beef and pork…finally we found 80/20 for under $3.00 per lb.  So Mark and I were busy getting some of that when all of a sudden you hear BOTH Ella and Keegan, “Oh, SICK…Yuck!!  Oh, gross!!” etc...growing louder and louder as if feeding off each other in vloume!  Keegan runs over and yells, “Hey Mom and Dad, you gotta see this, Ella’s going to puke…cause it’s sick!”  Now this would have been just fine if I weren’t the person I am…but it wasn't...so naturally I melted with embarrassment.  Here we are “gringos” out of the normal customers and my kids are screaming about how sick they are to have what they had on sale. 

I told Mark, “get this meat and let’s get outta here!” and I quickly ran to see what they were yelling about! 

Now…before I continue I must tell you that I was also holding my breath as much as I could because this meat counter not only took up the entire length of the store (it was huge) but it stunk SO BAD!  I really felt the way the kids were screaming about…but I’d like to claim that I’m just old enough to be considerate and LIE about it! Ha! 

OK…so I’m headed to the kids…their point was made valid for lying in front of their eyes for the first time were things people really shouldn’t eat.  Not sure what to say to the kids I tried to make it seem normal and fun…yes, I said fun…even though I was about to beat Ella to the Puking Punch!

So I said, “Yea, Come here guys check this out…it’s not just chicken heads here…there’s a whole chicken with its head, aww…and look they laid his head in his wing so his nose wouldn’t get cold…”

Keeg smiles and says, “Mom…it’s a beak!” So we made a walk out of this.  Next we marveled at the chicken feet…the whole chicken’s without heads.  This to which Keegan says, “They must’a got in trouble when they gots killed!” “Yep…so I guess you’d better behave, huh!” I couldn’t resist adding.  We passed the pork…the pig feet/hooves, their snouts, their livers, their guts…which got an extra 'Ew' from Ella, especially after she told Keegan that Bear said it was ok to eat the guts but that didn’t make them yummy! Ha!  Onto the seafood which was easier on the eyes worse on the nose…

Luckily daddy had gotten our meat and we were outta there!  I’ve NEVER loved Wal-mart more than I did after that trip!  In the van I told Mark if he ever wanted meat from their again we’ll wait in the van! Ha!!

The Muffin Man Song.

 Grissom is gaining character each and every day. 

 It was almost as if the ride out here was all that boy needed to turn on his ‘talking like crazy’ switch!  He’s talking SO much and really quiet well (if you are used to it of course). 

On the way out here we were careful to stop all the movies and DVD’s to just sing songs…songs for little guys; songs like the B-I-B-L-E, Jesus Loves Me, This little Light of Mine, Deep and Wide, and lots others.  I also took this time to sing “Do you know the Muffin Man” song. 

And we discovered 2 things about this song:

#1 I TOTALLY had the muffin man’s address ALL wrong 

and

 #2 Grissom refused to label this man using the ‘lower’ form (MUFFIN) so he sang: The Cupcake Man! 

Now let me explain the first thing we learned.  The song actually goes (I know you know this but stay with me here):

Do you know the Muffin Man, the Muffin Man, and Muffin Man. 

Do you know the Muffin Man who lives on Drury Lane. 

                             Easy to remember, right? 

Well you’d think so…NOT as easy if you are ME!  I don’t understand why my brain works this way, but it just does…Mark was amazed at how screwed up I got it…and he said it must have been in High School and this was the way some guys sang it…but this is the way MY version goes: 

Do you know the Muffin Man, the Muffin Man, the Muffin Man. 

Do you know the Muffin Man who lives on Marlboro Lane! 

                                     Ha!  I never realized I had this man creating his muffins on a cigarette Road! Hahahahahaha!!  Anyway, no worries now…I got it straight!  Go ahead and laugh with me! 

Anyway, even now if I sing this child’s song with Grissom within ear shot I hear him yell,”No Mum…top it!  Cup-a-Cake Man!!” and he'll continue his version of "The Cupcake Man!!"

You gotta LOVE US!

More from Mother's Day Pictures

this was my Mother's Day: Mom with the kids Pic!

That's the Crown I was made...it's good being the Queen, right mom!?!  This was a 'grab Grissom on the way to the family' with the timer on the camera set Mother's Day Family Picture!

How sweet is he...he's REALLY changing so much out here!

My Mother's Day!

Laundry Day!

Playground with daddy!

Choo-Choo!!

Monarch Butterflies migrate to Pacific Grove (the next town over) but not until Oct-Mar...so we've missed it, but millions come thru here...we went to see when the season was in case we could see some but there were none...tear! But we did find this funny sign!

Cute!

Daddy's So proud of his castle in the sand!

Grissom got stuck between the wall and the couch...

Too cute NOT to share!

Playing Dr. Lynda

Griss coming at mommy saying, "SHOT YOU!"

The WIND Festival!

Couldn't resist taking a pretty little girl's picture in the midst of God's beautiful creation!  I have a picture similar when I was a little gal!  I LOVE this; only wish my Mamaw were around to paint this one!

So...it was a tug-a-war basketball game.  Don't let this picture fool you...this was the ONLY time Keeg touched the middle...El hung out there! ha!!

Cuties!!

THE WIND!  You can't see it...but you sure know it's there...hmmm...Just like God!

Go Keegan!

Griss got his face painted too!

Have you ever seen a tiger play Planko?!

Cool balloon Dude!

I feel like Jamie in this hat...but it's going to protect my face!

Bad Mitten baby...it's on!

Grissom is now obsessed with these 2 toys, he eats, breathes, and sleeps these guys...we are only missing our 3 legged "hee-haw" (horse)...Gris will run around the apartment and yell..."Ma...where Hee-Haw?? Bout...Cycle??...or how bout...Woody, Woody, Woody, Woody, Woody, Woody, Woody!?!"  It's SO funny!!  Especially when we are out and about and no one else knows what he's saying! ha!!

 Another favorite phrase of Grissoms is, "Oh, Yeah!!"

Who says "Go-Gerts" are easy to eat? hmmmmmm.

Keegan's Kite...look close he DID draw a little near the bottom!

Here's 'Toothless' El's Kite!

We really did have a ball at this festival...I wonder if they will be having a water festival soon...hmmmm...yep...it's happening THIS coming weekend! We are there baby!  This is getting silly!  But at least it's free entertainment!!  Bring it on!

Lover's Point Pictures

This was our hanging out at Lover's Point...it's really pretty:

Caption: "Where oh where is my love?"

See...pretty!!

Let's play...where's Waldo...I mean ME?

Mother's Day - I got an entire weekend!

What a SUPER fun fun fun weekend!! 

Because we skipped our usual laundry/tennis day this past Wednesday we did it this Friday.  Wednesday was TOO beautiful to do laundry and NOT the beach…it was finally a more fabulous day then one could ever hope for on an ocean vacation.  The wind was slim to none and the sun was awesome and our temp was about 77 degrees!  I got a nice layer of sun even with the sunscreen!  It got hot enough that I let my foot get covered in the ocean water!

               Friday we rented the tennis rackets drove our week and a half worth of laundry down to the laundry room and tennis courts and IT was on!  I’ve always known Mark to be a little on the competitive side…but holy cow he could hardly wait to get a 2^nd chance to win and beat me in tennis.  So we got the laundry started and headed to the courts.  They have 2 side by side and all fenced in so the kids take one (we bought them a bad mitten set to play around with) and Mark and I played our game…I felt bad for him…I’m not THAT good,  but I can play.  I won the first 3 games…then back to laundry.  I thought he’d had enough and I was pretty tired cause playing with him normally means LOTS of fun running! Ha!!  So I think he was mad cause he challenged me to another set of 3 games.  This time he got lucky and won or I got tired of his cry babiness!  So we left the courts with 3 wins each and the laundry was done!

                After the game Mark told me that we needed to go shopping.  I was fine with that but our apt had just exploded into pure chaos!  Ella’s singing Tangled on her bed at the top of her lungs while spinning, Keegan’s playing ninja boy (which is kicking, hi-ya ing, and throwing things) in the family room, meanwhile Mark’s in the kitchen putting stuff away from lunch and I’m in the bathroom putting away towels and freshening up before we leave.  I hear Grissom screaming and noticed him running in circles, I hear a loud bang, assumed he hit the ground, then I finally saw why and about exploded with laughter and gagging!  He’d gotten his potty seat over his head and it was stuck like a necklace and he was running around out of fear!  I called to Mark and we got it off…I washed that pour boys neck at least 3 times before we left! Ha!!  It WAS funny!!  Finally we are off to shop.

                 Earlier I’d downloaded a bunch of new fun games and other apps I’d found on my phone – free of course! And I downloaded one without thinking much about it.  It was a whoopee cushion app.  So I pulled it out on our way to shop.  It was pretty funny, but I’ve never had so much fun laughing over something as stupid as tootie noises!  But between Keegan and Grissom, and finally Ella (she kept thinking they were real!) between all their laughing hysteria Mark and I just couldn’t help it.  It was so cute to see them all SO tickled…but once their loud laughs turning into the ‘earthquake’ laugh I knew an end must come or someone was going to get sick! (The Earthquake laugh was invented from Carlie’s laugh, it’s when you get to laughing SO hard that your whole body shakes uncontrollably and your loudness turns into total quiet probably due to lack of breathing!)

                 I was tricked into shopping at Old Navy ALONE while dad took the kids to a nearby place to shop for mom…ME!  They must have known what they were after because I was in the dressing room checking out some yummy fun things I might ‘need’ when all of a sudden I hear them.  Yes…throughout the entire Old Navy we could ALL hear them…screaming, “MOM…where are our mom? Where are you?”  I had a brief moment of fear thinking if I stayed in here quiet they’d never find me.  But just then I heard Keegan running down the stales of the dressing room area opening each door that would open saying, “Ma…you in this one?”  I couldn’t help it, I giggled and he came sliding in on his tummy!  I was SO glad it was MY stale ha!  You’d a thought I’d been away from them for at least a week with all the cheers I got when they’d found me!  We left with NEW jeans for Mark to work in (again!), a fun sun hat for me, and Ella and Keegan each got their very own real live whoopee cushion!  Oh, how fun that made the trip to dinner!! 

We went out for pizza.  IF you come out to see us we are taking you here!!  It’s a place called Me & Ed’s and it was fabulous…the food at least!  Pour Ella almost starved though.  They had a full house of new guys and our sausage pizza got lost…and Ella refused to eat our BBQ Hawaiian pizza. But no worries her pizza ended up being FREE!  Way to take one for the team, El! Anyway, we had a great day just being together!

                           Saturday was super fun too.  Do get tired of me saying that about every day? Ha!  So we found a free festival in Marina which is like the next town over from us here in Seaside.  This was the 13^th Annual WIND Festival and seeing that our weekend started off with tons of breaking wind we thought it the most appropriate place ever!  We got there and it was fabulous!  It was a nice large plot of park with a few baseball fields all open.  And on the short end was a good 3-4 huge jumpy air toys, the middle was open for anyone who wanted to enjoy the wind by flying a kite!  They had a few giant one ones up and flying nice and high!  Down the outside of this field were tents of all kinds, some vendors selling things and food, but a huge kids' craft tent, and MY Museum was there with a bunch of fun play things for the kids! We were there all day!  We took our picnic lunch and pretty much stayed there until late afternoon!  The kids got their faces painted; they created their own kites, and jumped and ran, and ran, and ran.  IT was great!  We picnicked by the live stage listening and dancing to the live music and then the kids went back for more jumping!

                  Then I got Mom-napped and taken to P.F.Changs as my surprise dinner!! WOW!  But on the way, the air got spoiled…Mark was chatting with me about my phone and my kindle app on my cell phone (I do not have a kendle...this was his big mistake!).  He was asking me questions about downloading books.  And the kids overheard, from the back seat we hear Ella say, “Dad…you just told mom!?!”  Mark tried to ignore and acted like he didn’t hear her but Keegan made it worse by yelling, “Yeah, mom…it’s a Kendle for you mom!”  I just laughed and said, “Sweet!  I can’t wait…sorry honey, but Keegan always spoils it!”  I could see Mark was starting to take it personally and I quickly reminded him about Christmas.  Me and the kids went out and bought Mark a last minute gift, one of those toy helicopters.  We got home right before Mark did and so Keegan’s job was to quickly run it up to my closet and close the door.  Little did I think it through cause Mark and Keegan met up and Keeg runs to my closet throwing his little body up against the door and says, “Dad!  It’s not a helicopter!!” And so now we know that not telling Keegan is just the way to go! Ha!!  We HAD to laugh cause now it seemed we were even! 

We got to P.F.Changs and Grissom was out cold!  So cold that I carried him all the way in and sat down with him…he didn’t even wake up until his food was on the table and when he did wake up he was SO happy and ready to eat it was so cute!  I’ve never had such a great time with my family as I did this day and night!

Sunday was hard…real hard!  I missed all our family.  We knew my mom was going to be planting flowers like traditionally we do every year with her and we figured Roxanne was out and about giving love to Scott’s Mom, Grandma Wortley!  I also knew that both my mom's were without the earthly reminders of their own mothers and my mom's mother-n-law!  So...it was hard!

                   But let me tell you about MY mother’s day!  I started by getting woken up by Ella in my face whispering, “Mommy…oh mommy…we have a surprise for you!” And sure enough she led me to the table where the kids and daddy had made pancakes!  Mine was a heart shaped pancake!  I got teary eyed because this was the first year my kids were truely old enugh to create their own things for me...and I got a kindle and the most beautiful cards and Ella colored me a fabulous picture! Ella wrote me a story.  It shadowed our Bible story from the last week when Jesus brought the widow's son back to life as they were carring his dead body to the barial.  We talked about how that mom must have flet and what it meant for her to be a widow.  And how the Bible said that Jesus felt sorry for this woman and so he raised her son. Mark t old me later about their conversation prior to her wirting: Daddy, "Ella, do you want to write mom a poem or a little story?" Ella says, "Yes, I've got it all planned out dad.  The story I'm going to write her is pretty sad, but it gets amazing! I'm going to write about a mom who's crying cause her son died, but then the son comes to her and says, 'Hy mom, why are you crying, I'm not dead any more!'" Mark then smiles and says, "Are you sure you don't want to write something about mom for mothers day?" Ella says, "No dad, this is an Acredible story about God's healing and she'll love it!"

 We went to church where the theme for the sermon series was “There’s No Place Like Home” so I sat there trying not to cry cause on Mother’s day that couldn’t have felt more true! But it was a good sermon!  There IS no place like Heaven home!!  And it was cool cause we are in the midst of reading the Great Wizard of Oz with the kids in school!  After church we were headed to the beach and silly us had to pass by the Wind festival still in progress…SO we stopped again!  And again the kids jumped away and then Ella had a nice Snowman painted on her face again, then we ended by making little windmills!  The kids tried to fly kites on the beach afterwards but the wind was way too windy and way too cold so they took me back home.  I got to rest and read my Kindle while Ella and Keegan picked up the apartment and Daddy and Grissom fixed dinner!  It was fabulous!  We ate chicken nuggets cut-up over fettuccine Alfredo (Ms. Dana Style!)  with a side of peas and yummy watermelon!  It was delish!  Then we all cuddled and watched a movie with yummy peanut butter cookies blessed with M&M’s!

                                                   What a fabulous weekend! 

The bad news is that I had SO much fun over the weekend that I woke up with a spaz out back.  The bed we’ve been sleeping on his given both Mark and I major back pain anyway…but this morning I couldn’t sit up let alone stand up!  Mark rubbed and elbowed and pushed SO much but nothing helped.  So I crawled to the family room floor and lay on a heating pad and Mark bought me ibuprofen which helped.  We’ve been talking back and forth about what our options are with the office ladies.  Last week they gave us a nice little egg crate cover to try sleeping on, but it didn’t work…so now we are looking into getting a huge queen sized air mattress instead of the bed.  Meanwhile I’m praying that this pain will pass.  I’m stretching as much as I can right now.  I called a chiropractor but never heard back so I’ll probably try somewhere else tomorrow if I wake up like this.  I’ve NEVER felt such pain!  The kids were great tonight helping me.  They made dinner, Peanut butter and honey sandwiches with strawberries and cherry tomatoes with milk too!  It was SO cute watching them make sandwiches by themselves.  Ella bossing Keegan, Keegan telling Grissom not to worry cause he was making his sandwich.  Then Ella said, “Hey Mom, remember when we were at Ms. Lauren’s and she let us make our own sandwiches for the first time ever?” I said, “Yes.” And she added, “Cause I think it’s cause of that time that we are SO good at this!”  Ha!!

I'll throw out pics tomorrow evening!!
Much love...and hope ALL you moms had the BEST MOTHER'S DAY EVER!!