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!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
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!
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
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!!
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!
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
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 2nd 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 13th 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!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)