Yoda Marley This Time

Kevin put one of his ThinkGeek sweatshirts on Marley this morning...his orange monkey one to be exact. It was quite a sight.
She looks like a punk here.
A good night you have.

Marley's Tail and Ed

Marley brought me a ponytail holder this morning. She kept trying to put it in, so I grabbed her comb and put her hair up. She kept it in for a while. My camera isn't working that well, but I managed to get these.
We also went down to Nana's today to practice Rory's bike riding. Rory did wonderfully. She fell down the hill, but other than that, she was good. She only got a little scrape on her shoulder. It wasn't anything. Nana still put Neosporin on it. We were driving up to Nana's afterward. I put Marley on my lap, since it's just up the hill into the parking lot. I let go of the wheel, and Marley drove us in.
Watch out world!

I Can Ride My Bike With No Handlebars

That's the name of a song by someone...Kevin and Kaelyn know who. Anyway, this is what Rory is singing in the following video where she learned something new today.



Whoops! Wrong video. That one wasn't bad. Let me find the right one though...where she's singing the song.



That's right, Rory learned how to ride a two wheeler today. She so proud of herself. But wait! There's more! She also lost a tooth today. When I was walking back up to the house to eat dinner, I heard her say to Kevin, "This is a glorious day. First the weather, then I lost my tooth, and I learned how to ride a two wheeler!" She's so cute. Here's her toothless picture. It was her tooth next to her front tooth. I don't remember what those are called.
I'm proud of Kaelyn as well today because she had a really hard decision to make, and I think she made the right one. She had her fist track meet today. She also had a confirmation dinner tonight at the church at 630p. Her track event was at 7p, and it was a relay. The coach tried to make her feel bad and tell her the other girls were relying on her and all that, but she stuck to her guns and went to confirmation. He says he's going to give her another chance, but one more strike and she's out. I think he was being mean, but it doesn't matter. I asked Kaelyn, "Would you rather God be disappointed in you or your track coach because that's what it comes down to?" She didn't answer, but it doesn't matter. It's her choice. So today was a really good day all around except for all the stress around getting Kaelyn to church on time because she ended up being late at the meet. We were 5 minutes late for the dinner. I saw other people going in after her, so I figured she was safe.

I'm going to bed now, so I don't freak out hearing the tooth fairy come. :)

Warm Fuzzies

To make up for my lack of blogging yesterday, I thought I would flood you with feel good pictures. No need to thank me yet. Wait until you see them. I even got some of Kaelyn!!!

Those top three are what Marley did when I grabbed my camera. She literally ran to the chair to pose. Then she got up and went to the books and posed with this smile. What a ham?!
Now you can thank me.

Not In Me

I don't have a blog in me. I would rather bow out gracefully than deliver a half-arsed blog. I respect you all that much. I went to the gym tonight for the first full on workout I've had since December. I'm tired...and eating a snack...and watching Dancing With The Stars. Hey...at least I admitted it. Anyway, I'll get back to you tomorrow. Thanks for checking in.

Rocky

So last night, Kevin and I were watching Angels and Demons. We were upstairs and all was quiet and dark. I heard noises on the back deck. The windows and sliding door were open. We paused the movie and slowly walked to the sliding door. I turned on the light and saw...

Rocky.

Kevin had taken out some pizza boxes for recycling and forgot there was still pizza in them. Rocky was after it. I wasn't scared because, in all honesty, I used to feed a raccoon out of my hand at my parents. (They're probably not going to be too happy reading that for the first time) Anyway, I fed it peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Kevin was freaked from it because of rabies, so he got me thinking differently about it. I was out on the porch trying to get a picture, and the coon came out from the other side of the grill. It could've ran right into our house, so yes, I freaked out a bit.

Anyway, we decided to turn off the light and see if it came back because my camera wasn't working that first time. A little later, I heard noises again. Sure enough we switched on the light and there was Rocky again. We tried to get pictures again, but we were using Kevin's iPhone, and it didn't work too well without a flash. Rocky had escaped again!

Finally, I set the boxes he had knocked over back up, and turned off the light, and returned to the movie for a third time. Rocky didn't wait too long this time before we were back at the door again. This time the camera was working and that's when I got the picture above. Kevin said that he was just hiding around the corner and waiting to come back, so he went to chase him. here's the picture he got.

This coon is huge. Make no mistake about it. I was out on the deck and Kevin decided to play a joke that he was coming. I freaked and he started laughing. It wasn't cool. Anyway, that was our exciting Saturday night. Peace out!

The Park!!!

It was a nice day, so we headed to the park this morning. We stayed for a whole hour and a half...and...I forgot my camera. But...I had my phone, so sorry for the quality, but here are some pics.
Marley discovered that she likes to slide backwards over and over again.
Somehow she found sand again. I hate sand. She kept putting it in her mouth too. It was awful.
Rory wrote her name in the same. See my arm, holding the phone, trying to take a picture without a shadow on it.
I couldn't even see this picture when I was taking it. I'm so glad it turned out so good. It was a good day. The kids had fun.

Ihop!

Sorry about the color. Happy St. Patty's Day!

Yesterday, I wasn't being a very patient mom, so I decided to get everyone out...including Nana. I brought her with me to watch the kids while I roamed around Michael's trying to find a craft for 30 little girls to do Thursday night. Fun. Afterward, I asked the kids if they wanted to go to Chick-Fil-A or Ihop. They screamed for Ihop. I don't think they knew what I was talking about because we walked in and they didn't seem so happy anymore. Plus, Logan kept asking to go see the cow. Maybe he didn't hear the question correctly.

Anyway, we went. We got breakfast. Marley was a crabby patty. She sat on my lap the whole time. Logan and Rory were more interested in the decorations of the pancakes rather than the pancakes themselves. And don't get me started on the Go-Gurt. It was the hit of the meal for all of them. We got our mission accomplished...to take Nana out to lunch to thank her for all the endless things she does for us on a regular basis. Thank you Nana!!!!

On the bench outside Ihop.

Poor Marley's Getting Better!

So my blog yesterday was remembering Marley in her better days. She had another trip to the docs today where she was diagnosed with Roseola. The doc told me with this tone as if I should know this and was wasting his time. By this evening she was doing remarkably better. Here's how she was though. (**DUE TO THE GRAPHIC NATURE OF THIS PICTURE CAUTION IS STRONGLY ADVISED**)
She was just laying there when Kevin took this picture with his phone. She laid there for a little bit. It was sad. It sucked. But now she's getting better, so this is a good thing. As gut-wrenching as it is, it's a good picture....for an iPhone.

Super Elephant Marley

If you read this blog, you know that Marley is sick. She has an ear infection and is NOT a happy little girl. I was cleaning out my email this evening, and I found a picture of Marley in her happy days. I thought I would post it with a silent prayer that she'll be a lot better tomorrow. As you know, Marley likes to dress up. Well, this day was no exception. We called it super elephant!
In other news, I told Kevin I was hungry tonight when I wasn't really. I just wanted food to comfort me because I turn to it like a warm blanket most times. Anyway, Kevin told me to play Nintendo because my hands will be busy and I'll be so into a game that I won't think about food. I took his advice and decided to play Brain Age on Logan's new DS. My old score was still on there where my brain age was 60. I played it over and took all the tests again. This time I broke all my previous records. My brain age was....30! The best age you can have is 20, and in case you didn't know...I'm going on 33 this year. So my brain is even younger than it actually is intellectually. I was so happy that I celebrated with a McDonald's Happy Meal. :)

Nintendo DS

One day last week, we lost one of the Nintendo DS consoles. We checked everywhere because Marley puts things she picks up anywhere and everything when she's done with them. After searching the whole house, our theory was that she threw it away. This is complete devastation in our house because all we do is let our kids play DS. ;) We decided that we were going to get Logan a DS for his birthday anyway, so we should just go get him one now. Then we were torn because Marley had thrown away Rory's DS and only Kaelyn's was left. Even though Kaelyn doesn't play it, she would probably want to if we gave it to Rory.

So we went to Walmart and bought two new DS's. Is that how you write that? Anyway, we decided these were their birthday presents. When Kaelyn got word of this she said, "so they're not going to get anything for their birthdays?" I reassured her that there were still grandparents and aunts and uncles who would get them something. As far as we're concerned, they have their gifts. Logan got a blue one and Rory got a red one.
After a little bit, they like top switch.
Check out how similar one picture is to the other. They don't even move. After everything, I was sitting at the kitchen table when Marley came in, went straight to her portable high chair that sits on a chair, and pulled the missing DS out from under it. Bugger! Anyway, this is what peace looks like at our house. Pax et Bonum

Sumo Kaelyn

As you all know, Kaelyn is an artist. She has proven this fact many times over and continues to amaze us. Prepare to be amazed again. Kaelyn received one of her projects back today from her Art teacher from last semester. Her teacher had kept it to use as an example for her next class. The assignment was to do a mug in the form of a person. You had to make the handle a part of that person. For instance, if you were to mold a mug as a golfer, the handle might be a golf club. Get the idea? Kaelyn did a sumo wrestler. Here's how it came out.
This is the face of the mug. Kaelyn's teacher commented that the nose was done exceptionally well.
This is the profile. Notice that the handle of the mug is the wrestler's pony tail. I thought that was ingenious.
This is the other side.
Here's a head shot. Get it!? A head shot?! I crack myself up. He's blue inside. Anyway, that's the talented Miss Kaelyn. Up next is her drawing final. She accidentally left it in Spanish class, but she's hoping to get it tomorrow. Wait until you guys see that! What a talented, lovely girl. Can you tell we're getting along today? :)

Green Juice

One of the staples of a raw diet is green juice. Green juice is a lifesaver when you don't like salad. It's basically juicing everything that would go into a salad. With all the vitamins broken down, it takes your body less time to process. I heard it's supposed to be like pure energy.

So...I got a juicer from Walmart. On my first run, I juiced kale, celery, lemon, apple, and parsley. It didn't taste very good, but I got it down.

Of course I shared with the family...
Nobody liked it...especially Rory.
This is how I had to drink it. It wasn't that bad if you plugged your nose and then ate a bite of banana afterward. Then I discovered putting spinach into a smoothie. Then things started going a lot smoother. Even Kevin is drinking smoothies with spinach in them. All the kids are too except for Kaelyn. She's claiming a fruit allergy.
Logan is a green smoothie junkie. I normally make a spinach, banana, strawberry, and mango. When Kevin tried it, he said it was so deceptive because you can't taste the spinach at all. Yesterday I made a spinach, banana, blueberry, and strawberry. Nana came over and I had her try some without telling her it had spinach in it. She thought it was very good. She didn't blink an eye when I told her it had spinach in it. These things are good. My next experiment is trying to juice my kale and stuff and then put that juice into my smoothies...to switch things up a bit. This is manageable. I can do this like I can't do salad. It's not easy being green. :)

Raw Food Update..HAPPY BIRTHDAY RENEE!!!

So I've been chugging along in this raw food experiment. I'm eating dinners, but I'm trying to be healthy about it. I still haven't found a salad dressing that I like, so I'm still blending my green stuff with fruit, and you really can't taste it. The other night Kaelyn and I got home late from a church gig, and we ended up ordering out. On the menu was a chinese chicken salad. It has asian greens, grilled teriyaki chicken breast, mandarin oranges, slivered almonds, and crispy wonton noodles. It came with a sesame/ginger dressing. I asked for the dressing on the side just in case I didn't like it.

Here's what I ended up with.
Pay no attention to the cheese sticks on the corner of the picture. I didn't have that many. Just the three you see sitting there. :)
This is probably the only picture in existence of me eating a salad. And yes, I did cut my salad before I ate it. I got a good bit in me, but it started to get boring. I didn't use any of the dressing because I liked the teriyaki sauce on the chicken, so I just used that for taste. I'm going to the store to get a raw soy sauce and hopefully be able to make a salad dressing that I like. And in case you're bored with my blogs about eating, here's a pic.

Crap. I just remembered again that it's Renee's birthday today. I saw her this morning and didn't say anything to her. Here I am blogging about food, and I didn't do a birthday post. I'm an awful person. Today was Nana's birthday. Here are five things you might not know about Nana.

1. She received a Nintendo DS for her birthday with the game Super Mario Brothers and was thrilled.

2. I've never seen her drink anything but lemonade, orange juice, water, and wine.

3. She takes care of EVERYONE even if she's only known you a minute...the only exception to this is if you like Kurt Busch. Even then, she'll take care of you by trying to convert you from your silly ways.

4. She exudes a Mrs. Doubtfire quality, but it's all a sham. She's a fiesty one.

5. Her family is her life, and every single one of us is grateful for her everyday.

Happy Birthday, Nana! Thank you so much...for everything...everyday. We love you!

Nighty-night.

Logan's Story

Once there was a little boy. His name was Logan. He had three sisters and was the only boy besides daddy in his family. Logan was a cute little boy.
Then Logan started growing up and wanting a big boy bed. His parents finally agreed and set him and his sister up with bunkbeds.
And Logan was happy. He also got to stick wall stickers in his new "crib." Get it!?! Anyway, Rory and Logan got to get these new wall stickers to decorate.
Rory got to decorate hers herself.
Daddy and mommy worked on Logan's. We also had no "boy" sheets, so Logan got to pick some out. He got Transformers. Here's the final product.
And they all lived happily ever after.

Yoda Logan

Poor Logan. Whenever he assumes this position, you must prepare for a diaper change. He was hanging out in this position playing Nintendo, and I asked him if he needed to be changed, and he said, "no." Later he fessed up and I told him to go to the changing table in his room. This is how he rolled there.



I'll put this one in the archives for that first serious girlfriend.

Rory - Son

Rory had her second karate class tonight. She was in the upper level since she's about to be seven. We're discussing signing her up because the price is a bit higher than we were expecting. She does love it, and she really looks like she belongs there. Here are some pics of her in her uniform.
You might be asking, "how did she earn her white belt?" Well...

She broke a piece of wood with her foot.

Onto other news, today was my second raw day. I tried to make a salad. Here it is.
I got two bites down. That was all I could do. Then I had eggs and toast. Money may be exchanged now for how long I would last. I'm going to still eat raw, but I'm going to eat dinner with my family. That's still a lot better than how I've been eating, so hopefully, I'll still see some improvements. Keeping up with the charade...here's today's pic.

Raw-Day 1

Long story short, I'm going raw for 2 weeks. It's been a day. I'm a little shaky and such, but I'm going to go to bed and hopefully that will go away. Here's what I've had to eat today.

2 apples
smoothie w/ mango, bananas, strawberries, almond milk, and agave nectar
15 almonds and 7 carrots
banana
green juice

The green juice was supposed to be mango and spinach, but I couldn't get the mango opened or the fruit out or whatever. So I got what I could and added frozen strawberries and a banana and 5 handfuls of spinach. It wasn't bad except that I don't really like banana strawberry taste, plus I had already had the smoothie. The good news is that I got it down and the kids got some too....oh and Kevin. Here's a pic and a clip. I'm going to post a pic of me everyday because they say once you go raw, your appearance changes. I challenge you to tell me if you notice anything.

Our Resident Techie

Sorry for the break, but I'm sure most of you understand. I knew it would be my kids being too cute to bring me back to you guys, so here it is. Marley got to Kevin's computer today. Here's what happened. Just hit play even though the screen is black.



This is quite a feat for Marley. She has to find the button, push it, and open the puter. She's so proud of herself. This amazed Kevin and immediately had him exclaiming her future following in her daddy's footsteps. That's better than him shopping for components to build out her first computer. Although, I'm sure that's right around the corner. Missed you guys.