The Naptime Blog

Sleepover!

2012-02-04T22:14:00.002-05:00

Back in December, there was a sleepover party for our neighbor Henry's birthday. It apparently was the coolest thing ever. Since then, James and Andy have been asking, when can THEY have a sleepover party. Everything worked out for this weekend and Friday night was their first (planned) sleepover. We had the traditional pizza for dinner:

James has actually decided he doesn't like pizza, so he had crazy bread. We had star wars cookies for dessert.

After food, we headed outside for a glow-in-the-dark scavenger hunt.

I bought some flashlights and glow in the dark night creatures from the dollar store for the boys to find.

I am guessing that since they were from the dollar store, that is why they didn't really glow in the dark?

The post hunt picture:

Then they got jammies on and laid in their sleeping bags to watch Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. Mark and I only caught the end, but man, we need to see the whole thing!

We let them stay up past bedtime, and man, my kids were DONE by 8:30. They got all settled in Andy's room to sleep.

Apparently Gilbert had some thoughts on joining the party. That was weird.

They took about 20 minutes to settle down and go to sleep. It turns out James is super serious about sleeping and actually ended up going to his room to sleep. I don't blame you James. I would totally rather sleep in my bed instead of on the floor!

Then Mommy had her own little sleepover party with a good friend:

They were up probably around 6:30 the next morning. They watched a little tv, had some pancakes, played some wii and I kicked them out/returned them to their fathers at 9:30.

I think everyone had fun, but I am glad to have a quiet night tonight!

"FUN"-DO!

2012-02-01T22:00:00.002-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking to do something fun and different for a Friday night dinner. I decided to try a cheese fondue. I believe I called it Friday Fondue and the kids were interested. I think we had bread, pretzels, apples, can't remember what else, James was trying it, but Andy not so much. He ended up eating some bread. James seemed to like it, but at the end up dinner he declared he did NOT like it. I informed these kids that not only was their a cheese fondue, but a chocolate one as well. That blew their minds!!! This past Sunday, I made it happen. We had chocolate fondue for dessert. When they saw the set up, they were so excited!

James is so excited!

YUM!

Strawberry overboard!

Here is Andy!

Wait...Andy did you put any chocolate on that? No, well, should I force him to dip it in chocolate? What is wrong with you stubborn child?!?!?

Well, James like it, and so did mommy and daddy!

The Trek

2012-01-29T21:59:00.003-05:00

Since we are on a theme of boring blog posts, here is a good one: the weekend chores. For me, the main one is shopping, as in grocery. I am not a big shopper and the thing with the grocery shopping, it has to be done every week, or else we run out of milk. At certain times, the local stores just don't do and I have to make the trek to Greenville. The main stores I go to are Costco and Trader Joe's. These treks were started with my neighborhood commune. We would all go together, sometimes with kids, sometimes without. Now, I have to go by myself. :( It was Juliet, actually Juliet's mom who had the Costco card and first introduced me to the store. Really, I can't remember why I agreed to go that first time, but it turned out to be a good thing and I am now a proud Costco member.

The thing with Costco, you may think that by buying in bulk you save money. That might be true, but I don't think that is why I save money. By buying in bulk at Costco I end up saving money because I don't have to go to WalMart and Target. Here are my Top Five Costco finds:

1. Real Maple Syrup. I buy two of these at a time. You simply can't find it for a better price anywhere. I think it is $8 a bottle.

2. Nuts. The ones I get are almonds and pecans. Being Semi-Vegan, we go through a lot of nuts. Costco is a great place to get a lot of them for a pretty good price. I also can get dates there for my Kerri bars.

3. Finish Tabs. I think this is discussed in other blogs, but we run the dishwasher a lot. Like everyday. Sometimes two times a day. Sometimes less, but not often. I like the tabs because the way that my detergent holder is on my dishwasher. The last box I got was like 200 of them for $15. Last for more than 6 months!

4. Oats. This is actually one of those things that may actually be too big. It is a lot of oats. However, inasmuch I make and eat homemade granola every morning, it is good to have a super big box.

5. My skin care products, mainly oil of olay and cetaphil. I had been using the target brand, but this is bigger for the same price. Again, don't have to go to Target.

After Costco, I drive down the street to Trader Joe's. I was not impressed with TJ the first time I went there. I just didn't get it. But now, there are several staples that make the trip there necessary. Here are my Trader Joe's top five:

1. Olive Oil. Good quality olive oil. Low price. 'Nuff said.

2. Raw Cashews. TJ's is the only place I can find raw cashews. In my semi-vegan diet, I use raw cashews to make "cream" sauces. Delish.

3. Organic Cereals. File me with all those other crazy mom's who only allow their kids to eat organic cereals because it makes them feel better. I know it is probably not any better, but Andy does love the low sugar/whole grain puffins. Again, they are cheap here.

4. Salsa, tortillas, chips. I have given up buying these at the regular grocery store. Simply not good. I'll buy a bunch at TJ's and am usually a lot happier with him. They have a great roasted salsa, blue tortilla chips, and handmade toritillas.

5. Veggie broth. Good broth. Low sodium. 'Nuff said.

**Bonus. TJ's used to be the only place you could find organic yogurt for kids that was fruit flavored. As opposed to Dora's cotton candy flavored. However, you can now find organic yogurt at Ingles.

Am I forgetting something????

Yikes, I am...the wine! I do like their "three buck chuck" and they also have one of my favorites Vihno Verde for cheap. YUM!

What are you favorite Costco/Trader Joe's finds?

Three jobs and three blogs

2012-01-21T22:35:00.004-05:00

So, it turns out I can't do everything.

I can't work full time, take my children to and from school, teach a weekly aerobics class, prepare for said aerobics class, prep and teach a 1 hour college class, make homemade meals and snacks that are whole food and vegan, and be nice to my children, AND keep up with 3 blogs.

I just can't.

I really wanted to quit my blogs, but my sister talked me out of it. I think I would have time to update but I don't neceassily have time to do fun things with the kids and take pictures to put on the blog.

And again, sister does not accept blog posts with no pictures!

So here I am to blog about the cold.

I know, me blogging about the cold in January is kind of like reporting on a big snow storm in Alaska, or reporting that it is hot in Texas in the summer, or that there are wildfires in California. I mean, DUH. But it was cold outside our house and inside.

It actually wasn't cold (yet) but we had a burning smell and the diagnosis was a cracked heat exchanger. I am not sure what it is, but it turns out it is very expensive. We ended up getting a new unit. However, then the new unit blew out the old thermastat and we (I) was cold again. We build a fire.

Really this post is just an excuse to put this picture of Andy up. He doesn't have his typical "duh" face on.

And then there was wrestling. Hey whatever keeps you warm!

And then we got it fixed and everyone (me) was happy.

Worst post ever? Post a comment and let me know!

Riverbanks Zoo

2012-01-06T22:18:00.002-05:00

So, I have a job now. This makes things difficult when Mark and I have to work and the kids don't have school. This happened right before Christmas, but luckily Mr. Tony did NOT have to work so he took James, Andy, and his kid John to the Riverbanks Zoo. Why? Its complicated. I believe there was Qdoba involved. Well, aparently, James and Andy had such a good time and were so taken back by the rattlesnakes, they really wanted to go back. This past Monday I had to work, but James, Andy, AND Mark were off. Turns out, many really fun local kids places are closed on Mondays, so, Mark allowed himself to be talked into going to the Riverbanks Zoo. There was no Qdoba.

From what I understand, the Riverbanks Zoo is a lot bigger than our local zoo. They have different animals, such as penguins.

And Kangaroos

And gorillas

Lots of statues:

But of course they had Elephants, which is Andy's favorite animal!

This picture was not at the zoo, but still cute. They are star wars hats! How did I not know these hats exist and why didn't everyone get these hats for our kids?

King Creek Falls

2011-12-30T21:54:00.002-05:00

Lots of activity with Christmas and all. Wanted to share some pictures from Mark's new favorite waterfall, King Creek Falls. This hike to a waterfall is now a tradition every time the Texas cousins come to town. Why? We aren't sure. We started thinking about it and talking about it and every little hike is a disaster. This one was no different. That is the tease line.

The hike started off well. Everyone was ready to go:

AM looked great in her new hat a gloves!

Here is Grandma in THE JACKET THAT I WORE IN MIDDLE SCHOOL!!! Time for another? Maybe a Christmas present next year!

The first part of the hike was fine. The trail was wide and downhill. James brought one of his sticker books and stopped occationally to pass out stickers:

All the Texans:

AC. Doesn't she look happy? It doesn't last.

Here is a picture of Andy showing a waterfall. He took several good pictures on this hike so there will be some more.

The trail cut off from the first section to a more narrow and more difficult section. The boys had a great time.

When we got to the waterfall, Mark had brought rubber boots to carry the kids across a pool to the beach. He stayed dry. Foreshadowing: not everybody did.

Everybody means Brian. Ooops!

Cedar stayed dry. Smart dog!

The meltdowns started on the way back. Who knows what happened to AC?

AM stayed pretty calm during the whole ordeal:

And Andy still was happy!

The Blue Screen of Death

2011-12-24T09:19:00.003-05:00

I know I have totally been MIA lately; however, it wasn't totally my fault. My computer crapped out. Turns out those Window updates ARE important. Maybe that is true, but they are also annoying...am I right? So here is a recap of what we have been doing.

Clemson won the ACC championship. Here is a picture of Mark listening to the game on the radio he bought at halftime. Good thing the camera has a flash or else the picture would be dark due to lack of power.

James was in the local Christmas parade with his school class!

Andy was not. Maybe next year.

I homebrewed my own kombucha!

James played the bells in his school's Christmas program. That is totally why I signed him up for this class:

Andy had a great time singing. He really projects:

We visited Santa, but not pictures. Andy wanted :a bike, a bike, and a Mega Brachiasaus. James wanted: a mega TREX, Harry Potter Legos, and a lego game.

Merry Christmas to all!

Thanksgiving weekend

2011-11-29T22:48:00.002-05:00

So, it just worked out this way. For Thanksgiving, we got a condo at the beach! It ended up being really fun and we hope to do it again. Since it was november, it isn't like we could spend all day at the beach, so we did fun things in the area, like touring a aircraft carrier!

Look at that big boat! The kids were excited. But tired, they were tired too. They don't sleep well when we travel. Andy liked pretending to fly the planes:

James had to turn every "steering wheel" he came across...and there were a lot!

There were also a lot of very narrow, very steep stairs. Andy loved em, Mark did not.

James liked following the arrows for the different tours:

The flight deck had lots of planes. James and Andy were so overwhelmed, they took a nap under one of them:

And in front of the "new bridge"

We also spend some time at the beach. James loved it, got right in with the other yankees. Ms. Becky would be so proud!

He was really cold afterwards and kind of regretted it. We went over the cost benefit analysis for the fun:cold ratio. It is a life lesson! Andy just cried. He took a nap. He is crankier after he takes a nap. He need to drop that nap!

We had a great time!

Stone Soup

2011-11-19T15:04:00.002-05:00

Every year before Thanksgiving, the kid's school reads Stone Soup to all the classes. You know, the story where some guys says he is going to make a soup out of a stone and cons the village into donating all their food for the soup? All the kids bring in some sort of vegetable and throw it in the pot at the correct time. Then a lot of work takes place taking all these vegtables and turning them into soup. From there it turns into a Thanksgiving like celebration and all the kids made hats and centerpieces and prepare a song. The highlight was this past Friday for the Stone Soup Celebration. Here is my little Indian, er, Native American, and Pilgrim. Sometimes they get along, and sometimes not.

Then everyone eats the soup. It is ok. You will definitely need more for lunch if you know what I mean. James liked it.

Andy, not so much.

And then all the kids help read a Thanksgiving story and sing a song:

In a totally unrelated and inapropiate topic, here is James sitting at a bar playing video poker.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Most Exciting 25 Seconds?

2011-11-12T22:02:00.002-05:00

I have blogged before that we sometimes go to Tiger Band practice. I like to go the Friday before home games because they should (emphasize SHOULD) only be running through the show. We went once or twice at the beginning of the season, but haven't been since. Too busy! Well, the last one was this past Friday and we were free and even though it was technical colder than I would have liked, we went. Everyone had a great time. I know this pictures aren't very good. I forgot my camera and had to use my ipod. Hey Mark, I think I am going to need the 4S when you get me the iphone!

This kids would just run whenever the music played, and stopped when it did not:

Like I said, SHOULD be doing just run throughs. James asked, "Why do they keep stopping?"

Eventually there was rolling down the hill. This was not always on purpose:

Sometimes there was conducting:

And then the highlight, when the band practices the pregame, the let the kids play the part of the football players running through. It does bring tears to my eyes. Here is the set up:

(I think some adults might also want to run). And the other end. The band director high fives them. Not a good pictures I know:

See you next season!

We've been published!

2011-11-09T22:25:00.000-05:00

This blog is really my baby book. I record things here that I haven't written down anywhere else. There are times I take hours, just looking at pictures, seeing how the boys have grown. Turns out, you could make a book out of your blog. I have look at a few programs, but, well, you see, I got this groupon. A groupon for shutterfly for a photobook. Everything seemed great, so I signed up for it. Turns out, it expired end of October. Surely, I must have know I would still be working my three jobs then. Can't believe I had to force a blog book in there too! At any rate, I kind of threw it together. It was such a pain. I got better and faster as time went on, but still what a pain. After 3 evenings and one lunch break, I got through the first 6 months of my blog. I got it ordered and swore I would not do that again. Next time I would use one of those professional blog services that would do it for me. Well, this week, wouldn't you know, Shutterfly sent me an email saying they thing they overcharged me (like $4). To compensate, they have given me a $25 dollar credit. Yes, it is a good thing, but now I have to go through this whole process again. Grrr..... At any rate, here is Volume I

Soccer 2011

2011-11-07T22:13:00.000-05:00

The kids played soccer this year! It was actually Andy who was interested, and James just went along with it. I also went a long with it because thought that James and Andy could be on the same team in the 3-4s division. Since James did not turn 5, until after Sept 5th, he was still technically 4, right? Imagine my surprise when I was told that since James was actually 5, he had to play with the 5 year olds. That is so weird! Turned out to be a good thing. James had a great team! What an experience for him! He team was awesome, his coaches were awesome, and he had a great time. There there is Andy:

Andy is 3. They really shouldn't let them play until they are least 4. I knew that going in, but I guess I didn't listen. I spent most of the season trying to keep Andy on the field. Here is a picture of the warm up. Now, it might appear that since the coaches both appear to be texting during practice, that they were always texting. That is simply not so. You could also say that since they were wearing shoes, that they were always wearing shoes. (also not necessarily true)

More warming up:

Now, the game. And Andy really wasn't all bad. Keep in mind that midway through the season, I started working full time so he was at school all day every day. It was a transition time. He played sometimes:

Oh, and sometimes he didn't:

James LOVED playing:

He hated being taken out:

Andy loved the post game snack:

Sometimes the loved each other:

We were trying to get a picture of their numbers here. James was "eight is great" and Andy was "five is alive" We wanted to have them in the other order, as in 85, as in ocho cinco for Ms Becky. Just didn't happen!

Halloween - It's an AB pattern!

2011-11-05T22:01:00.002-04:00

So, funny thing, I actually had to teach on Halloween night (and did you know that I was the ONLY instructor to have classes on Halloween?!?!? I am so mean!) I assured my students that the kids have plenty of opportunities to dress up and get candy. It is not really Halloween night, it is a whole season. It kind of beats me down. At any rate, we started 2 days before with the Heritage Festival. The kids got to Trick R Treat all the vendors. We took no pictures. For this outing, the kids wore their primary Halloween costume: they were both skeletons. They really got into the spooky aspect of Halloween this year. The next night was the trunk or treat at our church. Suddenly, and I mean, suddenly, James decided he was going to dress as a pirate. And Andy wanted to be a bat. Luckily, we have both costumes in reserve:

Wait, did I say pirate? I mean storm trooper. James actually had a pirate costume in the car, and once we park he changed his mind. Good thing I brought a spare. Since I didn't pack a jacket, the storm trooper was really the way to go.

Wait, did I say storm trooper? I meant clone trooper. Hmmm, I am actually not sure, I will have to ask James. And look at Andy in the bat costume. That has a lot of miles on it.

The next night was Halloween and Mark took the kids around the neighborhood. The kids were skeletons again:

Look at this fall picture:

And with more kids:

When talking about his costume switching, James assure me that everything was ok. It was just an A-B pattern. Oh, is that all?

Big City Fun

2011-10-29T20:17:00.002-04:00

Last weekend we travel to Charlotte to visit Uncle Jeff and Aunt Lori. They also had free tickets in the box for the local minor league hockey team. We rode the train downtown, ate dinner there, and went to the game. How cool is all that for these kids? Needless to say, the kids were excited:

Andy in particular loved the train ride:

After a few stops, James turned teenager on us:

And look how excited these kids were about watching the hockey game.

To be honest, while the rest of the stadium was cheering the team, Andy and James were cheering the cotton candy.

They let kids ride the zamboni? How do we sign up? Is it cooler than a tractor?

And apparently the blue collar tour is coming to Charlotte Nov 11th? To bad we have Clemson football tickets the next day.

We all had a great time. The favorite thing for the kids was to find all of Scrabble's toys and throw them hoping he might chase a few. Scrabble really just ran away from the kids!

More guilt - gymnastics

2011-10-15T21:41:00.003-04:00

Another sad thing with me starting my new job is that Andy does not get to be in gymnastics anymore...and he LOVES gymnastics. And I LOVE gymnastics. The teachers are great, the activities are so good for Andy, and Andy, well, he loves the two other people in his class. They start off with stretches:

Somewhere during stretches, they make "yucky tacos", you know with things like dirt and eyeballs, etc. I will have you know that Andy is always the only one to eat his yucky taco. Can't get him to eat a peanut butter sandwich, but a yucky taco for Ms. Kip, no problem.

From there, they go to different stations and they do very specific things at these stations. Somewhere in going to the first station, Ms Kip might have said that Andy had to learn a lot since it was his last day. Oops, I actually had not told Andy it was his last day, but he didn't seem to notice. WHEW! Here is Andy at the first station.

Yep, his last day was backwards day...the hardest day! Here he is going backwards on the balance beam. Hopefully he doesn't try to walk the "balance beam" in front of his school backwards.

Another station, this was right in front of me...yikes!

The rope swing at another station:

And finally, the end circle song. How weird is this? Andy would always improvise and just sing "every body hums in a circle". Ms Kip loved it!

And the "hands on your head for stamps" That is how I roll!

And this is still the naptime blog!

Mommy's guilt

2011-10-11T21:04:00.002-04:00

You may or may not have heard, but I got a job. I got a real big girl, no not teaching job. I am really excited and I think this is a good opportunity for me. However, even though I have wanted this job and know that it is the best thing for me and my family, it is still hard to make the switch from being a mainly full time stay at home mom (AND a pretty much full time technical college instructor) to a full time working mom (AND still a pretty much full time technical college instructor - yikes!) A big part of that is that the kids will have to be in school all day every day. No more lazy mornings and afternoons, mo more getting out early to beat the crowds. This past Friday was going to be our last free afternoon. I picked the kids up from school at 2pm and then we walked downtown to get ice cream. We went to spill the beans which you can see from the back of their school. The pictures aren't so good because I was talking them on my ipod, but you get the idea that they really like ice cream!

Next week went shopping so I could get a new visor. Let's face it. Pink and orange just don't match. I bought visors all around. Again, mommy guilt.

Then we went to Bowman field to check out the homecomings floats. It was pretty impressive to watch these go up all week as we drove to school everyday. It was even more impressive for the kids to see them up close.

Look at this guy and his visor. Like a little Spurrier.

Also impressive was the habitat for humanity house. The "construction zone" as Andy would call it every day

Driving by this week it was just as impressive to see them all broken down on Monday!

Sky Top Apples

2011-09-30T15:03:00.002-04:00

We went apple picking at Sky Top Orchard this past weekend! We had gone to a place last year that was nice, but I was really happy about this new place. They had a lot of additional activities for the kids to do because apple picking...well, it is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel. It doesn't really take a long time and then what? This place had cool cut outs:

Playground structures:

An apple house:

And a pumpkin house:

We got there at about 9:30 after it had rained. We let the kids play a bit and had a round of freshly made apple cider donuts - YUM! Then we headed out to pick:

Again, fish. Barrel.

Ok, the majority of these pictures were actually taken after a quick venture into the orchard. It started raining and we were trying to make it back to shelter before getting soaked.

Didn't quite work.

However, like most mountain storms, it passed quickly, and the kids were just as excited to head out again:

The kids were really interested in picking a golden apple...as in golden delicious. Here is a picture of Andy actually eating an apple. I know, I was shocked too. He only took a few bites before he decided he was done:

The kids also fed ducks and goats:

And they played hide and seek in a bamboo forest:

There was a sign that said to not hurt the bamboo. Seriously? This stuff is like kudzoo! Here is a picture of Christopher on a tractor. I realized while we were there that Christopher is the same age that James was when Andy was born. It make me throw up a little bit in my mouth.

We ended the day with a picnic lunch and might have had another round of apple cider donuts.

Happy Fall to All!

First day of school!! 2011! (finally)

2011-09-16T22:17:00.002-04:00

The boys finally started preschool this past week. Things were a little different this year because Andy started at James's school. No, that isn't quite right. Andy does NOT like that. Andy wants to go to Andy's school and NOT James's school. From now on it will just be referred to as the "Day School".

Here they are out of the car and ready to run in. They are excited now, but again, it took awhile to get to this point. Andy has adjusted, but you never really know. Here they ran into James's buddy PC. So cute!

Once the kids were inside, THEN they decided they wanted to carry their backpacks and lunches. Nice.

James is in the kindergarten class. I was so excited that my 5 year old may not be the oldest in his class! However, there were no red shirts this year, so James is still the oldest in his class. I am super impressed with the projects he has been bringing home and I know this was the right decision to put him in this class. Had to crop all the names out of this picture. Also, it is a little bit blurry. I think my camera is on its last legs. Hint. Hint.

I have been lucky with Andy so far. He walks into his class without a second look. He immediately dumps things out and makes a mess. Oh well, not my problem!

FIVE

2011-09-09T22:21:00.003-04:00

James is five now. What does that mean? He apparently can do all sorts of things, "now that I'm five". Watch Star Wars III, watch Harry Potter, roll out pizza dough without a stool, READ. Ok, still working on that one. But it is a big day and we celebrated it with, wait for it, I know you are on the edge of your seats, you will never guess this, a STAR WARS party! Oh wait, you figured that, well, ok.

We actually had Jedi Training for James's party. This party was pretty much a copy of John's 5 year old birthday party. James really wanted to have it at his Daddy's work, or as a backup, Mr. Tony's work, but we settled on the digging park. The first thing the younglings received at the party was a Jedi robe.

I made these. With my own two hands. And Ms Becky's and Ms Juliet's hands. And their sewing machines. I used this pattern. I had too. James kept wanting to wear a sweatshirt with a hood. They worked out pretty well, but they got too hot to keep them on eventually.

The first thing we did was lightsaber moves. I demonstrated some of the basic moves of attack and defense. The younglings followed my lead and thankfully, never hit each other.

Here is James finishing up the "slash/force" move with The Force.

Then we had a Jedi obstacle course. I had promoted then to Padawan at this point, but I don't think any one noticed. The highlight of the course was Mr. Mark acting like Sand People and shooting them with a spray bottle. The padawan deflected with lightsabers. Here is John on the way to the Sand People:

The last thing we did was a Jedi Scavenger Hunt. They were looking for Darth Vader. What they were looking for was this "Darth Vader Fiesta"

That is what James's kept calling it. I am personally against pinatas. It seems like they never work. I let them hack at it a bit with their lightsabers. Turns out, that was all it needed. Everyone had one turn and with one slash, Andy dealt the death blow:

I filled it with some pop-pops, Star Wars fruit snacks, and goldfish.

Finally we moved onto the birthday stuff. Lightsaber cupcakes!

Everyone loved them!

Andy's a juice head!

Just a few extra pictures. For James's actual birthday we went to Chuck E Cheese. That is actually a great little place. We had so much fun!

Family pictures

2011-09-02T22:33:00.002-04:00

For a long time I have seen other family pictures with "real" backgrounds, the fake laughing picture, the candid shots and have wondered, why not me? Why, because I am lazy and cheap. Why go out of my way to do something when Olin Mills was able to do it with with the church for the same price and not as good? However, my sister came into town, my grandmother was here, and it was decided to get some of these family pictures.

Our photographer was Jacob Dean Photography. His wife works with my mom and they actually live down the street (hill) from us. It's a small town. I was excited, but a little frantic and we were trying to get everyone ready to meet at the botanical gardens at 9AM. We got there, everyone looked great, we started setting up, and Andy said..."NO!" What? Andy, come sit by me. "NO!"

Fortunately, Jacob also has small kids and although there are several pictures where Andy does look put out, there are some where you don't notice as much. Here was the first one:

We had just gotten there and no one had told Andy to do anything yet.

The fake laugh family picture. I real laugh just thinking about it.

Look at this guy, he could be a model, right?

Except for the spiky hair. And this was a professional hair cut. Ms Becky - we need you!

James also had a tendency of wanting to raise his arms in every picture. Do professional models do that?

Eventually everyone just went along:

Other brother pictures...ie dude get your hands OFF ME!

And running, another favorite:

And finally our family picture. You might see this on a Christmas card in the future. I may have already ordered them:

A NEW CAR!!

2011-08-22T22:37:00.002-04:00

We got a new car. First of all, let me explain to you that when we bought our previous new car, we were really hoping this would last for awhile. We spent a little extra money, got some of the options that we (I) really wanted and hope to drive this one for awhile. Turns out that car was cursed. That first week we had it, had to drive it in 2nd gear for 30 minuets back to the dealer, then apparently some truck backed into it in the parking lot and dented the bumper on its two week bday, then I accident dumped 10 gallons of water in the front seat, the front wind sheild got cracked, was almost totaled in a freeway accident, smashed again on the freeway, and finally dented upon the move to SC. Maybe it isn't the best idea to try to keep a car around. Cheaper is how we are going now! Before:

And after:

Some kid related things. My PSA. It is called "Clip It" Found it at Target. It is like an activity book with scissors. So cool:

And some dress up. Andy gives a whole new meaning to "turning to the dark side"

Beach! 2011

2011-08-12T22:23:00.003-04:00

So, last year we were suppose to go to the beach in Pensacola, FL. We didn't because of that little oil spill they had. When telling people we were going there this year, some did seem concerned. Let me assure you, the beach is fine. There seemed to be some black smudges here are there, but nothing you would notice if you weren't looking for it. Everyone was really excited about going...especially James, but he is always excited:

There were really excited to get in the sand and see the water:

Buried Daddy in the sand:

Buried James in the sand:

Had snack of course:

More snack:

Now, to be honest. A week before we left, the kids were so excited, they packed. They kept asking about the beach, wanting to go. We get there and they wanted nothing to do with the beach, but they really loved the pool. Did you know we have a pool? We do.

I do have to say this pool was a lot warmer than our pool. James put on his little googles and swam away.

After a few days the cousins from Texas joined us for fun and one of the best things we did was visit the nearby naval museum.

They had planes you could climb in!

And a kids play area!

As we were walking around, James totally walked into a planes wing. Yes, people laughed as James cried, but he perked up when he got a Diego band aid on his face!

Tour de La France

2011-07-31T21:26:00.002-04:00

This year we celebrated the second annual Tour de La France. The number of riders increase due to the fact that I made it a mom's club event. Also, the weather was hot and muggy, just like any epic event should be. And yet, everyone still had a great time!

James was still wearing his sweatshirt. He said it was to protect him if he fell, but I think he was trying to maintain his jedi force.

Andy is almost ready for his big boy bike. Almost. We will ask Santa this year!

As co-race director, James help to get everyone to the starting line:

Andy, well, he was playing bubbles:

The only time everyone started together:

And they are off:

James attempting the mountain stage:

Popsicle break!

Everyone received ribbons of their choice. Some received more than one!

A good time was had by all. See you next year!

Star Wars Six Party

2011-07-25T20:42:00.003-04:00

Remember when I let James have a Star Wars party?

Yeah, you can already see where this is going, right? Well, a few weeks ago, James got it into his head that he was having a "Star Wars Six Party". He had it all planned out and it was going to be on a Friday. Excuse me? A Friday? I don't do Fridays. I am pretty fried by then so I talked him into postponing it until the next Movie Time Monday. I can deal with Monday, especially when I have already committed to having kids then. We invited one extra, but had the usual MTM crew. To those of you who were born before the year 2000, Star Wars Six means Return of the Jedi. I know, it is confusing.

So, James was immediately in costume:

And the light sabers were out and ready:

James had prepared a special treat for everyone. No, I am not talking about the Star Wars cookies, I am talking about James's "frescious cold water." James took little cups and put ice in them in the fridge and allowed it to melt. I think the term "frescious" is a combination "precious" and "refreshing". He is so proud of his water.

I was pretty embarrassed when he gave some to Henry. Henry didn't think it tasted like anything, but was impressed by the changing of the solid state to the liquid state.

Other activities, here are the boys in their speeder bikes:

And here is everyone in their X-wing fighters. I believe Henry at the point had determined that the couch was the Death Star.

One last thing, and Juliet may have to help me with the correct phrasing. I didn't understand why James was so insistant that he wear a sweatshirt through this whole thing, but he said later that is was a jedi because, he had "my sweatshirt with a hood". I guess it kind of does look like the jedi hooded cloak...

May the force be with you!

Play Nation

2011-07-15T22:26:00.003-04:00

So, I joined Groupon.

If you know me, and if you REALLY know me, this is probably a surprise cause you probably know that I hate receiving emails. Especially emails from people I don't know. But one day, after a few glasses of wine, it sounded like a good idea, and I signed up. The only thing I have bought so far is for a place called Play Nation. Play Nation? Never heard of it. Never heard of anyone I know talking about it...and I know a lot of people. I carefully read over the rules and regulations, the fine print, and finally threw all caution to the wind and bought 6 admissions for $15. Well, put this down on the success column. Definately money well spent! Need to remember this when I buy a 60 min massage for $5. The main business of Play Nation is to sell their play sets. They have set them up in a warehouse and charge admission until they get sold. At $3/per child, totally worth it for playing in the AC, even with the drive to Greenville. We have gone twice. Once with friends. We met Mattie and Elaina there. Walking the the kids were very excited!

Mattie is sliding:

Elaina is swinging:

James is climbing:

Andy is also climbing:

Elaina is still swinging. So, apparently Elaina can swing ALL. BY. HERSELF. Poor James kept trying to pump. He kinda of got the hang of it. But not.

Oliver, not so much. He did what he had to:

But look at the proud big sister!

Just as an aside, look at this rules list. No running? How can you have a playground with no running?

We went back later with the rest of our groupon. Definately a nice option to have in the hot summer! James was still climbing:

Well, Mark had a ball!

So much fun he actually debated in puchasing one of these $5000 structures!

There was basketball:

And James was still trying to swing. No luck though.

They are suppose to have something in living social at the end of the month. I won't get it. I hate getting emails!

4th of July parade

2011-07-05T21:41:00.002-04:00

We had a parade last year, but again, the kids have been planning another one ever since. Now that it has been done twice, it is a tradition, right? I did hesitate this year because I didn't want to make a commitment, ie, get locked into July 4 plans before I knew what I really wanted to do. We ended up at my parents house and came out marching of their house into the street:

My mom was smart enough to call some of her neighbors to cheer for us. She is waving at some here:

And some more up the road here:

We are so going to get called to return the favor for grandkids in the future! I think the boys will be cool with it. Andy started off with the cymbals from his parade party:

But then switched with his brother. Good sharing team!

We then marched down to the dock. How Americana is this picture?

and then back up to the house:

And a video. If you are good, you can hear Papa completely ignoring the parade to discuss Nikki Hayley's (the governor, not the stripper) recent overturned veto. Government waste...all of it...especially all those people who are out of a job and competing with ME for jobs. AWESOME!

The Iron Bridge

2011-06-28T22:40:00.002-04:00

So this weekend we found out at the last minute that my cousin Anne and her kids were going to be in Highlands! Sometimes when things happen at the last minute they are easier to put together then planning for weeks in advance, am I right? At any rate, the plan was to meet them in Highlands and the drive to some iron bridge place for a picnic. All James wanted to do was climb the big rocks, so he did:

He also found some tadpoles.

I think Andy was confused between Grandma's lake and the river. He just wanted to do a "big jump" It was hard finding a safe place, but we did find one.

Aunt K (we decided to call her Ra-Ra from now on. Less confusing) brought fried chicken. Andy was given a leg and didn't know what to do with it. Ya know, we don't eat meat at home any more! He figured it out.

Here is Cousin Anne with her girls. You tell them to "strike a pose" and they do.

A nice family picture:

See ya next year, cuz!

Swim Lessons 2011

2011-06-24T22:37:00.003-04:00

Lots of stuff happened last week, but the only took pictures of one thing. Swim lessons! Again, Ms. Kip, who James, Andy, AND I LOVE came to our pool to give swim lessons. I had Andy and Mattie go for 30 minutes, then James and John for 30 minutes. This seemed to go pretty well, except that our pool in June is really too cold. I knew it was too cold for me, but I really expected Ms. Kip and the kids to hang. Ms. Kip did ok, but the kids turned kind of blue and their teeth kept chattering. The way Ms. Kip decided to solve that problem was to have each kid have a 15 minute private lesson. When they started shaking, it was time for the next kid. This worked well.

Andy had his first swim lessons this year! He was so excited Ms. Kip came to his pool. Andy is still a little young to really swim so Ms. Kip focused on safety. Things like being able to fall off the steps and get back on. Unbeknownst to Ms. Kip, we had actually accidentally practiced this move the day before and Andy did great. Oh well. Usually they would start on the steps:

Then they would practice "strong arms"

Then some kicking. Look at that form!

If they are good, they get to jump in. You might be able to detect the chill here...

When James's turn came he was ready!

Oh, maybe not!

James did well on his tummy:

Or his back!

More parade

2011-06-12T22:40:00.002-04:00

My mom requested a video. You can clearly see the difference between Andy and the other party goers. The cymbals were requested by the birthday boy when learning of his parade party.

Everyone loves a parade (party).

2011-06-11T22:42:00.002-04:00

So, Andy, my second child, turned three yesterday. And again, I know most people sob and say, has it already been three years, but trust me, I know it has been THREE years!

At any rate, last year, I really did try to have a party for him. But with two kids so close in age, it is really difficult to determine what James likes and what Andy likes. James just really likes EVERYTHING. Especially birthdays. Andy, is less...obvious. I mean, he is pretty obvious what he does NOT like, but we are not always sure what he likes. So, in thinking for a party, we did want to do something special for Andy. We thought and thought and thought about this. And then one night, all of a sudden it came to me, we should have a parade! And we did. Again, don't get me wrong. James likes music, marching, and parades, but in all fairness, so does Andy. So we threw him a parade party.

We had it at a local park and although it did not rain during the party, it rained a lot the night before. We got there early to dry everything off. Here is James doing his part. Look how smart he is! I am totally sending this in with our multiage classroom application next year!

Andy dried things off for awhile, but I guess decided that now that he is three, he is old enough to "do the pool". So, it is ok with us Ms. Jenny if they "do the pool".

Since this was Andy's party, we served all of his favorite foods: juice boxes, yogurt raisens, watermelon, and BBQ chips. Actually he doesn't care for watermelon, but Jamed LOVES it and so Andy said he did. Oops!

Since this was a parade party, I had all the kids made flags to wave. Here is James:

And Andy.

And now for the actual parade. We had some music, the flags, some musical instruments and marched up and down the road. Now, this was the first parade party I have ever host, and might be the first EVER, but for future reference, we should have praticed or had lessons. Apparently not everyone constantly marches around their house like we do!

Andy's favorite part was the cake. Not sure if it was everyone singing to him, or the actual cupcakes, but he did like both.

Then we did our traditional gift exchange.

And then all the kids played with their gifts. It is like another activity...I am really not sure why the gift exchange hasn't caught on!

Andy had a great time and he is ready for his party again. Um, it might be awhile!

Red Neck Baby(ies) 2011

2011-05-29T22:13:00.002-04:00

Can you see James's crack?

For memorial day, we planned to go to my parents house. This was a all day affair this time, but it was fun. We got there and the first thing the boys wanted to do was go fishing. We had been to the fishing pier at the waterfront park and someone was just pulling fish in left and right. The boys were convinced that they could do the same. Unfortuately, that was not the case.

We did have fun digging up worms for bait, so it wasn't a total loss. After lunch and quiettime, we hit the lake. It was a little cold for me, but the kids said they were fine though there chattering teeth.

Then of course, a boat ride! Look at this guy. Remember when he hated boat rides. At least he still loves snacks:

The boys took turns driving:

And then the grand finale, BBQ ribs for dinner:

The kids loved the ribs!

They were literally fall off the bone tender:

Greenville Drive

2011-05-18T21:13:00.003-04:00

A group from our church went to a Greenville Drive game this past weekend. Those of you who know me know that I am not a fan of baseball. This is because in theory, it could last forever. That makes me nervous. I have stuff to do. At any rate, it sounded like a fun thing to try with the kids so we went. First we needed proper attire. We had walked from church to Moe's that morning and both kids complained about the brightness. So, I found hats and sunglasses.

James actually wore his at the game:

One of the good things about this particular stadium is that it is very family friendly. There is a playground INSIDE the park. How cool is that?

They had facepainting for donations.

Here are the painted faces at our seats (in the shade!):

Andy's is an elephant. James's is a teenage mutant ninja turtle. The game from our seats...we had some great seats!

The game only lasted for three hours. Perhaps even more shocking than that is that we actually made it until the end of the game. But the best part of the game was when it started, they played "ya'll ready for this" and Andy, yes, Andy, just busted out dancing. So cute!

Eat your heart out zombie nation!

In Shape With Sharon Mann...and James and Andy!

2011-05-08T15:12:00.002-04:00

Perhaps you remember this post last year about how James would come join me for some aerobics. While Andy would nap and James would have quiet time, I would play a previously DVR'ed episode of In Shape With Sharon Mann for a workout. This went pretty well, but had started doing other workouts other than aerobics (ie running, lots of running). Well, decided to try something other than running for awhile and fired up the ole DVR again. Only this time, Andy is also not really napping so they both come down just intime to finish up my workout. Here they come down the stairs!

Perhaps you have noticed they aren't wearing shirts. Well, that is because I don't wear a shirt when I workout either. Much cooler! Getting ready:

Starting their first 32 count:

James doing squats:

Andy was taking a break at this point. Yeah, Andy, they make me sore too!

James's favorite part is the cool down cause "it is easier for me!"

Andy decided to jump back in for this part:

I have joined "the gym" so there may not be much more of this!

Some Fountain Time

2011-05-02T22:03:00.003-04:00

We went to the lowcountry for Easter Weekend. We knew it was going to be crowded, we knew we would be short on time, but this time, we (I) decided to take the kids To Charleston. We have been to some places in Charleston, but hadn't gone yet to the main downtown area. Our plan was simple. Start with a nice lunch of peel 'n eat 'em shrimp (kids had hot dogs) then walk to the fountain by the waterfront park. For our trip I did not pack any swim suits, but I had brought along a change of clothes. The boys were really excited when they saw the fountain. They gleefully stripped off their shirts and shoes, but then they hesitated.

I know. Can't really tell where the shorts end and the white body begins. They gradually got wet.

But once they were in, they were in, especially James. Got right there in the center and started screaming baby talk. Very wierd.

Andy stayed to the outside, but still got plenty wet.

The kids had a great time, but we definately paid for the off schedule lunch, no nap, high energy activity.

Gymnastics 2011

2011-04-22T19:35:00.003-04:00

So one of the regular things that Andy and I do is gymnastics. They have a mom and tot class Monday mornings. He actually did this class last year, but a year made a lot of difference. He did always like it, but now he LOVES it. Here he is awaiting the start of class:

When Ms. Kip opens the gate all the kids WALK to go do their warm up. Andy has excelled at the butterfly this year:

After the warm up the tots and the mom travel to different staions. Really, they have just set up regular gym equipment to do fun things. There was a bean bag throwing station:

A bar station:

Ring station:

Rope swing:

Weee!!!!

Of course, the trampoline/running staion:

This day was actually spring break so we had James with us. That is James and another boy playing video games and E, a sweet little girl, looking on with distain. She was reading books. Books!

At the end of class, they do "music" On this day, they marched to "We are the dinosaurs". James was allowed:

If they are good, they get their hand stamped!

Some Top Fives.

2011-04-18T22:17:00.003-04:00

These have been bouncing around in my head for awhile.

Top five food products I can't have in my house. Cause I would eat them. All of them!

1. White Cheddar Cheese Its
2. Stacy's Pita Chips
3. Tagalongs aka peanut butter patties
4. Oreos
5. Honey roasted peanuts

Top five food products I miss about being vegan

1. Sour Cream
2. Blue Cheese
3. Feta/Goat Cheese
4. Parmesean Cheese
5. Steak

Top five things I don't care about

1. The Royal Wedding
2. Yoga
3. Baseball
4. Most celebreties
5. How many microbes are on my grocery store cart

Split Creek Farms

2011-04-01T22:06:00.003-04:00

During the week, James goes to preschool 5 days a week. Andy only goes Tuesdays and Thursdays. Don't even get me started on how pointless two day a week school is, but you gotta do what you gotta do! At any rate, I have quality time with Andy three days a week. We get to do a lot of fun things, but poor guy, we do a lot of errands also. Today the mom's club was having an event at split creek farm, a local goat farm. I have often gushed about their goat cheese on this blog and my cooking blog, but I have never been to the actual farm. I was very happy it worked out this time.

It took me about 15 minutes to get there from my house. It is a narrow one lane road that takes you to the farm itself. There was a small muddy parking lot, and some small buildings here and there, and lots of....different animals! The only ones that were contained were the goats, but we also saw ducks, chickens and roosters:

Andy actually got to feed the chickens:

There were cats:

They dranky out of this. Andy gave a 15 minute dissertation speech on this water fountatin. Cats take baths, cats drink water, lots of water!

There was a sleeping pigs. He snored:

Oh, and hunnies!

Oh, yeah, and goats! Here are the baby goats. They are 6 weeks old:

And mommy and daddy goats:

What a great time! Can't wait to go back.

Incidently, when I met my new vegan friends, I think I mentioned that I couldn't be vegan cause I couldn't give up goat cheese. Well, came home with a nice log of fresh cheese. YUM!

The Last Day

2011-03-26T21:21:00.002-04:00

So, even though WE were on spring break, the Texans were not. My sister was willing to not go to work and keep her kids out of school so we could play one more day. Yay! The result was one really fun, really busy, lots of fun last day. FIRST, we went for pony rides. The big thing was the outfits. Since the cousins lived it Texas, they had appropiate attire, like hats and boots. My kids felt very inferior that they did not. Luckily, the cousins shared.

Unfortuately, (fortuately) it was required to wear helmets.

Now, it was windy. We had 5 kids. It took a long time to get the pony ready. There were lose animals. Parts of pony riding were not all successful, but everyone did get to ride.

And ride Playdough the pony:

We got free bandanas!

After the ride, we were trying to decide if we should picnic or go to chickfila when C says he wants to go to Chuck E Cheese. Well, there wasn't really a reason to NOT go, so we went. Turns out, Tuesday during NOT spring break is the perfect time to go to CEC. I am pretty sure this was my kids favorite thing we did. James couldn't decide what to do:

Andy and AC just rode this bus over and over. They would still be there if we hadn't run out of money:

With all the tickets, all the kids got vampire teeth. Very scary!

Sometime during this day, the kids realized they could wrestle.

Mark and I decided we couldn't stay at the house, cause they would wrestle and get hurt, so we went to another park. (breeders!)

This one was really cool. Had a mix of older and younger kid stuff. Think I remember this one in the mud run:

AC would just hang.

Funny story. While AC was doing this, I was on the phone with her mom discussing dinner when AC let go with her right hand. She swund around and starting going down the pole (and startd crying). I abruptly said, "gotta go!" and hung up. She was ok, when back to hanging, and when I called back, Aunt K just said, "NOT COOL!".

At any rate, the boys went back to wrestling. So we went home.

Had a yummy dinner, bed, then drove back the next day. I love Houston in March, but I think it gives me a misrepresentation to the weather there. It was a great trip!

NASA

2011-03-26T09:13:00.002-04:00

This trip was a little different from others because the SC and TX spring breaks did not line up. Spring Break in TX was actually the week before, so Monday found our family with nothing to do while everyone had to go to school. Thanks to Andrea, I had a plan. We went to the Johnson Space Center. James was SO excited. This is him being excited in the parking lot.

Most of the pictures are of James, because he was really into it.

The Space Center was unbelievably cool, but I don't think we had as good of a time as Andrea did. It is hard for me to believe, but we had Poor Time Managament. The Space Center is set up with lots of different shows. These shows are at certain time according to a schedule. With two small boys, it is hard to be on a schedule and we lost an hour waiting for the tram tour. (We thought we were going to be on the 10:30 tour, but we didn't leave until 11, so I guess we didn't make it.) Thank goodness for my ipod touch...Best Gift Ever. The boys watched Backyardagains while we waited and waited. They were into it once we left:

The tour took us around NASA. You got to see everyone who worked there just going about their lives. Can you imagine the jokes if you worked there? One of the driers in the bathroom didn't work, and if I worked there I would say, "man, we are freaking NASA. We can put a man on the moon, but we can't fix the drier?" I think I would have really enjoyed the tour if it wasn't for the kids, but really, they weren't that bad. Here is the building were the Saturn Rocket lives:

Rockets out front:

And the HUGE rocket inside. Yes, I know that Andrea's pictures are better!

The kids tolerated the tour, they tolerated the picnic lunch outside, but once we walked it, they saw this, and that was all they could talk about:

This was a huge 4 story play structue. It was really cool. It was so big, they had cameras outside so maybe you could see your kids playing. This is James and Andy on the 4th floor shooting something:

I think this is James, again on the 4th floor:

They also had lots of hands on exhibits, like a children's museum. Mark asked me to put shoes on the kids feet and he would see if a flight simulator was open. Um, sure.

Other exhbits:

James said his favorite part was when he got to try helmets on. This kid does love to dress up:

The Space Center really got me thinking, and like a lot of things this time in my life, I can't help but thing How Much These Things Must Cost. And to use a term coined by others, Is This A Waste Of Taxpayer Money? I don't really know the answer to that, not sure how I feel, but all of the conviences we enjoy now, my running watch, GSP, cell phones, these things are really not Very Expensive, but it all is related to satillites and space. How many millions of dollars did it take to put the satillite up in the sky so you don't get lost? Is it worth it? Is it not? Should we cut the program? Should we go to Mars?

Eating Out

2011-03-26T07:32:00.002-04:00

I am sorry I gave the impression that there was only going to be one post about our trip to Houston. I actually uploaded 45 pictures, so there will be a few more! The post is about what we ate. What we ate was NOT VEGAN, but most of it was very good. Sunday for lunch Aunt K and Uncle B were nice enough to agree to stay home and feed all the kids lunch so Mark and I could go to our favorite place - Pei Wei! Pei Wei is the little brother restaurant of PF Changs and we miss it sooooo much. We got our old stand bys there: My favorite Pad Thai

I used to get it with chicken, but this one is vegatarian style. Wish I had stuck with the chicked just cause that is what I was used to. Mark got the Mongolian Beef:

I am not sure why I never get this cause it is delicious delicious! Unlike the Pad Thai, they go make this at the PF Changs in Greenville.

We also got brave enough to take all the kids out for dinner one night. Aunt K suggested Rainforest Cafe. Now personally, I am against rainforest cafe and everything they stand for. I had been there once or twice, but I really did want to take my kids there. They had a great time! They kept looking around at all the trees and animals and just STUFF! Aunt K got the kids sweet souveneir cups!

And I was trying to be nice by getting "VOLCANOS!" for everyone, but Aunt K was mad I showed her up.

Here is the whole table:

And just the kids outside:

Now, this is probably really good that we did something like this in Texas on a visit, or else the kids would nag me about going all the time!

5 under 6 - 2011 edition

2011-03-24T22:18:00.004-04:00

No cute name this year. I guess that is my fault, but it ain't gonna happen!

It is March and that means spring break. Spring Break means that we go to Houston for a visit. Usually, we fly. However, this year, Andy is over 2. That means, we would have to pay for him. Also, we wanted to bring Mark. We would also have to pay for him. Now we are going from 2 seats to 4...you can say that would double our airplane costs. So, we decided to drive. Mapquest put it at about a 15 hour drive, but we were up to the task. We had a few new DVDs, WaterWow, sticker charts, Trio Blocks, snacks, activity and coloring books, reading books, sticker books, tag books, leapster explorer, ipod apps. We were well prepared. The drive there and back wasn't all that bad.

And now matter what is looks like in that picture, we really didn't watch that many shows.

We left SC at 5:15 in the morning. Did hit some Atlanta rush hour, but made it to Houston at 7pm local time. Yep, made it in time for dinner. Here is dinner:

The kids were really excited to see each other and got along pretty much the whole time. Now, last year, was pretty much the Worse Trip Ever. By Worst Trip Ever, for those of you too lazy to click the link, I mean that James developed a fever as soon as we got there and kept it, Andy got pink eye and was cranky and then, AND THEN, Andy totally threw up on me on the flight home. It was awesome. This year, was really the best trip ever. There are probably several reasons: better sleep, no fevers, and less allergies all I need to keep in mind for next year. At any rate, the kids got along GREAT. Andy loved his girl cousins! Playing light sabers with AC...

and AM...

Don't get me wrong, they also played barbie jeep, and cooking, and house. Andy loves that stuff!

C and James played boy stuff: Wii and watched Power Rangers.

Ok, James also played Barbie Jeep.

Within 24 hours of arrive, Mark and I found ourselves in charge of all 5 kids. Here is how they fit in the car:

We took everyone to the park so Aunt K and Uncle B could get some stuff done. I am sure that all the other people at the park just thought we were breeders!

At the park, the tallest butt on top is Mark's!

Vegan Power!

2011-03-15T21:57:00.003-04:00

Perhaps you are wondering where I am with the whole vegan thing. Perhaps not. I feel like I am addressed a lot of the issues here and am ready to move on. I still eat vegan at home. I like it, I will continue it, but the main reason is that it is a lot cheaper. We will continue to eat vegan at home. However, when I go out, I am a "flexitarian". I eat meat and dairy, and I am ok with that. I probably won't go into the vegan thing on this blog any more, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

One last thing I wanted to post were my vegan power bars. These are similar to a Lara Bar. The inspiration was from this recipe and then some changes inspired by this site.

Here is how I do it:

Process 1 cup of almonds in the food processor until "resembles wet sand" ie when it starts to clump up. Dump into bowl.

Process 1 cup dates, a pinch of salt and a splash of vanilla. Process until it all clumps on one side of the processor and is finely choppped.

Add almonds back in with a handful of chocolate chips and a spoonful of peanut butter. Process.

Line a toaster oven pan with cling wrap and press mixture into pan. Refrigerate for at least an hour and cut into bars. YUM! I have eaten these before a race with good results. Vegan Power!

The Big Race 2011

2011-03-04T21:49:00.003-05:00

I know I went into this last year, but James, like many young boys, loves to run. Like many young boys, James loves to race, and like many young boys (ok, all people all ages) James loves to win. Because of this love of running/racing/winning, I signed James up for his first race a year ago. He had a great time, and, I kid you not, has been talking about his race since then. As in a year ago. Every so often he would ask, "mommy, is my race coming up?" We would explain to him, "after Halloween, after Christmas, after winter is your race." Then it would be "after new years, after valentine's day, after June's birthday is your race". Then it was, "your race is in two weeks" then "five days", "four days", "tomorrow" and finally, "James, your race is after quiet time/nap time".

I guess you could say he was excited.

Last night he started asking, "mom, do you think I can win?" and "mom, do you think I will win?" Turns out, those are two totally different questions. Again, we just tried to emphasize that winning would be nice, but as long as he did his best and had fun, that was all that really mattered. This race was affiliated with the Reedy River Run in Greenville and was a 400m fun run for kids 3-6. It was suppose to start about 5:45, but it actually started about 5:40. We got there about 5:30. There was a big rush to check in and get shirts/numbers on. Before I post this first picture, let me say again that this race was for kids 3-6. Andy is 2.5, but we figured he would not want to be left out this year. We were so right. Ms. Juliet let us borrow John's race shirt from last year and I pinned on James's old bib number and he was happy:

The blue shirts were this years shirts and they were tech shirts, super cool, unfortuately they only had size XL for the adult races, but whatever. When the boys put on their shirts and their numbers they were pumped. This was my favorite part of the evening:

Then we made our way to the starting line. Do some of these kids look older than 6 to you? That is James with his hands on his hips moving his way to the front:

Looks like he made it to the front:

James was ready to go:

And again unlike last year, the kids were just pumped, not nervous at all. The organizer was great. He counted down from 10 to 1 and said go, and they went!

The plan was to have Ms. Juliet at the finish, have me float between James and John, and Mark stayed with Andy. This worked out pretty well. Here is John making the first turn:

Sorry it is blurry, you will just have to trust that is John. At this point, John said, "I'm tired, I want to walk." True to Coach Kerri fashion I said, "John, we will walk until that second balloon, but then we are going to run!" and we did.

At this point I was to apologize for being one of those parents who takes pictures like this during an event. I know it is annoying, and I know I am getting in peoples way, but it is just so cute I have to take a record of it!

This is James leaving us in his dust. I am pretty sure he ran the whole way:

John and I finished about 2:50, so James probably finished 2:20-2:30. James didn't win, but he says he did and we will go with that. Here is James with his medal:

Right after this picture was taken, James said, "Mom, I want to run another race!" Um, ok.

As for Andy, I don't think we have any pictures while he was running, but Mark said he did great. He ran the whole time, may have come in last, as James and John said "we won, but Andy did NOT win!", but his time was about 4 min. Look at this guy with his stolen medal:

We did bring a back up medal, but well, they just gave him one, so we will go with it. Here are all three of our champions:

And finally our celebratory dinner also with Ms. Mattie, who I believe was chip timed:

This dinner was not necessarily a raging success, nor was it vegan, but it was still a good time.

See you next year!

Mulch-day

2011-02-26T22:10:00.002-05:00

Mulch is a big deal here. Probably because we have lots of bed so need a lot of mulch. We order our mulch and have it delivered. It is actually quite awesome. They back a big ole dump truck into our driveway and dump it out. I wish I had gotten a picture of that, but I just got a picture of the aftermath. It is funny, they knew just what they were suppose to do with the mulch! Shovel-wheelbarrow-dump!

Then they switched rolls:

Somehow, I got in charge of the raking step:

Eventually they dropped the shovel and wheerbarrow, and started using trucks:

And then there was jumping:

By the time they were done playing, they went directly into the bath.

This was a real bummer, because we had gotten a babysitter this night, and really part of the reason we get a babysitter is so we don't have to do things like give them baths...oh well!

Vegan Day 21: Got Milk?

2011-02-19T14:13:00.002-05:00

When I was mulling over my vegan conversion, the milk issue was one of the biggest things to deal with. I have two growing boys and the milk they drink (a cup and a half in the morning and a cup and a half in the evening) in a week equals about about two gallons. If Mark drinks any or if I use any for cooking, now we are up to three gallons a week. Wasn't other types a milk expensive? How could I get my kids to switch when they obviously really liked cow's milk? I finally decided to try some in a baking recipe. Soy milk just sounded really gross, so I decided to start with almond milk. There were so many choices! Regular, regular unsweetened, vanilla, chocolate...yikes! I think I started out with unsweetened and it was fine. I have since branched out (see picture above). Almond milk is pretty mild, but does taste like almonds. Soy milk isn't bad. It is actually thicker and richer than almond milk, but it does have a distinct taste. The problem is if you use soy milk in coffee, and oatmeal, and corn bread, etc, etc I tend to get soy-ed out. What I figured out is that I like to have different kinds. I get chocolate soy milk for the boys. For me, I get unsweetened almond to use in baking and vanilla sweetened almond to use in coffee and smoothies. If you are wondering is this milk expensive, the answer is, well, yes. A gallon of regular milk is around $3.39 ish and a half gallon of the non-dairy is about $2.50. The good thing is that you do tend to use less, it goes on sale, and there are coupons.

Vegan Day 16: Kids adapting

2011-02-13T22:05:00.003-05:00

I really feel the need to address everyone and say that my kids are NOT vegan.

If you don't know me, food has been very important in my life. However, growing up I was a VERY picky eater. I know my mom is about to come on here and back me up on this. At lot of foods that I did not like, it was a texture issue, not a taste issue, and I had this issues even when I was in college. Somehow after I graduated, I realized that I finally had grown out of these issues, but I still do remember what is was like when I didn't like a lot of foods. Because of this, how I would feed my kids is the one of the only things that I decided how we were going to deal with before we had them and we still deal with it the same way. For eating, I use "Child of Mine" (There is a book, "child of mine" we follow what is says in regards to eating. I have it if you would like to borrow it). What it says is, your kids eat what the parents eat, make sure there is one thing you know they like, and if they don't eat, they don't eat. We were really lucky with James. Andy is less Open Minded, but still, he eats. But these are the rules we follow. Eating in our house is a Non Issue.

When I say I am a vegan, what that means for the rest of the family, is that dinners are vegan. The kids, gulp, still have some sugary cerals, but Saturday morning breakfasts are vegan waffles or vegan pancakes. Lunches (gulp) are PBJ for James, and dinosaur soup (Chef BoyRDee) for Andy. Snacks are fruit snacks, pretzels, and pink smoothies. Dinners are whatever I make. James LOVE vegtables. Eats the up. He is going through a grown spurt right now and I know he isn't getting enough calories with just veggies. He won't eat beans. Andy eats beans and no veggies. He misses the meat. A lot of times I will give them an apple sauce or yogurt with their meal. They sometimes drink chocolate soy milk, and had regular soy milk last night. They liked it, but still drink regalar cow milk every day.

I have gone into a lot about this, mostly to say that I have tried with Andy. Andy loves to cook, he helps me make dinner. Won't eat it. I put dinner on fun fish plates. Won't eat it. I set the table with chopsticks. Nothing. I made banana soft serve which looks just like ice cream, and Andy takes one bite. He falls for it for that one bite, and he knows.

Banana soft serve is like banana ice cream. I loathe bananas so I wouldn't touch it, the rest of my boys were all over it.

Featuring banana soft serve.

All it is, is frozen bananas blended in a food processor for about 5 minutes. I recommend peeling the bananas before you freeze them, but don't they turn brown? Again, I loathe bananas, I don't know. I ended up adding a bit of vanilla almond milk.

Andy was so excited about his first bite:

Then he just played with it the rest of the time:

James was all into it:

He is my Good Eater:

Mark liked it too, but said it reminded him more of pudding. He liked pineapple whip better:

Vegan Day 14: "A Vegan Thing I Like!"

2011-02-11T22:27:00.002-05:00

The title of this post was actually said by Mark when I served the following for dinner:

Ignore the pizza part, Mark didn't touch it (but it is featured on my cooking blog). Look at that little cup of yellow stuff. That, my friends, is pineapple whip. I probably should have saved it for a dessert, but I served it as a side. I got the inspiration from this recipe, but here is how I made mine:
- 4 cups frozen pineapple
- about 1 1/2 cups sweetened almond milk
- about 1 tsp honey
Put all ingredients in blender and blend. This will take some doing. There will be breaks with mixing and Andy shouting from the other room "it is wh-oud! Are you don yet mommy?" Next time I will probably use my food processor. Blend until ice cream like consistancy. I topped mine with top unsweetened cocount. Really. Tasted like light pineappley ice cream. De. Lis. Cisous.

Day 12: Double or nothing

2011-02-09T14:11:00.002-05:00

As you read this keep in mind that this morning I had a bagel with cream cheese and coffee with half and half. Oh, saturated fat! It took awhile for my stomach to adjust...

At any rate, I want to enter phase two of this crazy vegan thing. What that means is going from a super strict vegan diet to an eventual "flexatarian" one. I want my finished diet to still be plant based, but allow some animal protein. How much? Not sure, that is why I am doing a phase two. Starting now, for the next 10 days, I am going to keep with my vegan rules at home. When going to a restaurant I am going to try to order the vegan option, or at least the vegetarian one. If going to someone's house for a meal, I will eat whatever they give me. ;) Ms Becky - Kringle please!

Vegan Day 10: How it went and how I am feeling

2011-02-07T22:23:00.002-05:00

Prepare to be underwhelmed.

At many big events in my life, I was expecting something big, only to be disappointed. Before running my first marathon, I was told "when you cross that finish line, you will feel such a feeling of acomplishment!" When I finished, I felt tired. And I needed to go to the bathroom. Before having my first child, I was told I would be immediately overwhelmed by this unconditional love. Instead I felt tired. And hungry. And an overwhelming sense of Responsibility. I was told after eating vegan, I would feel so much better, I wouldn't want to go back. I feel tired and pretty much the same. To be fair, I don't always sleep very well...not due to the vegan thing. What I do feel, well, I do feel pretty cool. In the past 10 days I have not consumed one thing from an animal (not on purpose). I have eaten a lot of vegtables, and I feel really good about what I have put in my mouth. Going through this process really wasn't as hard as you might think. Granted, I had made several small changes and had thought about what else needed to be done, but there still were a few surprises. The first few days I was surprised how hungry I was all the time. After that, I was extremely not hungry, and have normalized at this point. I think I may have lost a few pounds initially, but it also seemed to level off.

I am going to keep it up, but with some modifications. I will try to update with my plan tomorrow. But now I am tired and going to bed!

Day 9: I think I cheated and the SUPER BOWL

2011-02-06T21:50:00.002-05:00

As I have mentioned before, after church we go out to lunch. Last week, we went to Moe's. This week, we were having some issues figuring out a place to go that would have something vegan for me to eat. After much debate (pretty much all through communion) we decided to go to Briosa. Briosa is awesome. You pick your fresh pasta and then you pick your fresh sauce. It is the only place that we have here that they don't have in Dallas. So suck it, Dallas, you and your big city Pei Wei, Berryhill, Cafe Express, and Tin Star, we do have Briosa. Its awesome. At any rate, I do know that most recipes call for eggs in fresh pasta, but Briosa has whole wheat pasta, and by reading the ingredients of my whole wheat pasta, it list "whole wheat, water, salt." I figured I was safe. I ordered the whole wheat fettucini and arribiata sauce. I turn my nose up at the bread which obviously had dried milk. I didn't take any tastes of the kids free gelato, but I ate all of my whole wheat pasta. Then I got to thinking, I did some googling, and am pretty sure eggs are a key ingredient in fresh whole wheat pasta. Oh well.

Then there is the super bowl. I really tried to plan this challenge against any major cullinary obsticles like this. Ms Becky loves the super bowl, throws a great party, and had been planning the menu from the moment that the two teams were announced. Last thing I wanted to do is show up and bring my own dinner. But I did. I brought:
grilled portabella mushrooms
sauteed red peppers and onions
guacamole
homemade whole wheat tortillas
chocolate chip cookie dough balls
shiner bock

I did have one tiny cheesey curd. I mean, I had probably already cheated, and I wanted to taste a cheese curd. I'll be honest, I didn't get it, but I am glad I tried. And it was a good party.

Tomorrow is Day 10!

Vegan Day 7 and 8. Same old, same old and MONEY!

2011-02-06T13:42:00.003-05:00

I did intend to post the last couple of days, but as this diet has become routine, I am not sure if anyone really wants to see what I eat everyday. Boring! My cousin did ask me to talk about the money aspect of going vegan and I thought that is what I would do today. I actually asked my friend Shannon the same question and she thought it was more expensive initially because of the learning curve. You tend to buy more than you will need and it takes awhile to figure things out. I did make a trip to whole foods in which I bought a lot of the things I couldn't buy anywhere else:

I spent $60 and this also includes cookies for me and the kids. Picture here is:
vegan stick margarine
vegan tub margarine
vegan cheddar cheese
vegan mozzerella cheese
silken tofu
dates
unsweetened coconut
brown rice syrup
vegan cream cheese
vegan sour cream
coconut milk yogurt
strawberry soy yogurt
vital wheat gluten
avacado oil
vegan chocolate chips
one lara bar

Of the above, the only things that are gone are the lara bar and the coconut yogurt. The vegan chocolate chips and silken tofu are almost gone. Of the above I have not even opened the cheddar cheese, dates, cream cheese, and sour cream. With these staples, I seem to spend a little less than normal at the regular grocery store. Normal for my family is about $120/week, but the last two weeks have been under $100 (yipee!). On these trips I get a lot of produce, grains, nuts, milks, and beans. Even though you aren't buying meat, it still can get expensive. I have been trying to buy a blend of "premium" items like red and yellow bell peppers, pinapples, pisachios, and "non-premium items" like potatoes, oranges, dried beans, oatmeals. I'm not going to lie, the premium items almost make it easy. If you got to eat an avacado everyday, who wouldn't want to be vegan? But that isn't always practical, so it important to use both.

I will say that through this diet, it isn't my intention to replace meat or dairy. My intention is to starting eating a plant based diet. I haven't eaten any meat subsitutes, and only used cheese and milks in small amounts. I think much of the expense of a vegan diet would come by using your same old recipes, but with processed vegan replacements. By trying to find new recipes that feature lots of veggies, grains, and legumes, it really isn't that bad.

Vegan Day 5 and 6. Going out and how I am doing this

2011-02-03T20:18:00.002-05:00

The last couple of days were normal in my household. By normal, I mean super crazy busy! Last night I went out with a bunch of local moms. We are a totally hot group:

We went to a sushi/bar type place, met around 7:30, talked and talked until 9 when we finally at dinner. Were kicked out about 10:30 because of a mixer. I guess we were too old. I had a 9:30 class the next day, so I took my butt home. However, some of these crazy ladies went to TTT. I am pretty sure they were the oldest there.

Everyone was interested in my new vegan diet. Ordering was pretty simple. I got a veggie roll and edadame (pictured) and an avacado roll later.

The reason for this gathering was as a send of for a friend who is moving to da north. Her name is Jennie and she went to my church and was in my playgroup. Ahhh, so hard to use past tense! After they get to where they are moving to, Jennie says she is going vegan. Seems like the perfect time to start since they will have to buy all new groceries anyways.

Really what started this whole thing for many of these moms, or who, was Shannon. Shannon joined our playgroup and after a couple of weeks offhand mentioned that they were vegan. My first thought, horror. After they had a new baby, I was suppose to bring them a meal and off course James comes down with strep throat. My solution: Pizza hut gift card. Horror for me in more ways then one. But I was very interested, really more in a culinary way, in a challenge way, but not for me. Time past and I just starting thinking more and more about it. I read The China Study and so did many of the other moms in the playgroup. We all peppered poor Shannon with question after question. Finally, she graciously offered to host a vegan lunch for us a couple of weeks ago. She had us over, we looked through her pantry, her cookbooks, she answered questions, we had a vegan lunch (bread, hummus, veggies, pita, vegan cookies), and then made vegan wontons to freeze and take home. By this point, I felt that I had bugged her this much, I might as well do it. Shannon has really been great about this whole thing. She says she is doing this to be able to talk to other people about food and get new recipes. I have tried to pay her back with that. ;)

Shannon's meals are simpler than mine: some roasted veggies, some rice in the rice cooker, and some cooked greens. She has also given us a few of her staples and I can't wait to try them. I just wanted to give credit where credit is due. I am not sure what I will do at the end of this challenge, but so far, it has been fun.

Vegan Day Four - Left Out and Oprah Did It!

2011-02-01T21:24:00.002-05:00

Tuesdays and Thursdays, I work. Or, you can think of it as I do, as my break. I teach pretty much all day. Because of this my kids are in school and my mom is nice enough to pick them up. On Tuesdays she takes them back to her house and generally, we all meet up there for dinner. Tonight's dinner was my dad's chicken and dumplings. I love his chicken and dumplings, but they aren't on my diet. Luckily, it is what we had last Tuesday, so I will just think about that. My dad was gracious enough to offer to let me chew on some twigs and grass, but I decided to stay home and grade test. Exhbit A, my war room:

Since I was on my own for dinner, during my lunch break, I came home and started some butternut squash soup and some homemade bread. I know, I hate me too. However, the butternut squash soup is really easy. I made it for one of my monthly challenges and loved it. Took me about 15 minutes to get it going. As for the homemade bread, this didn't go so well:

I do usually put both butter and powdered milk in my bread machine bread. This recipe was a little different with almond milk and gluten. In all fairness, I assembled this early, then used the timer. Maybe as things sat there, they didn't work as well. Crust ended up...um...crusty, but the inside was ok.

I got soup, bread, and a tasty beverage to watch the most recent thing on the DVR.

That is right...Oprah! I never watch Oprah. Never Ever. Not that there is anything wrong with Oprah, I just prefer some Grey's Anatomy. But my mom told me about the people at the Oprah Studios did a 7 day vegan challenge. Well, let me tell you, I had never heard about this until after I started my challenge. Man, now everyone is going to want to to a vegan challenge. It was an interesting episode. It did talk about a meat processing plants and what vegan means. They had Michael Pollen on there (In Defense of Food) and he just made the point that it is important to realize where food comes from. And I think that is why I am doing this, to be mindful about where my food does come from.

Now Oprah, she always put the silver lining on everything and talked about how much better everyone was feeling, how they were losing weight, and pooping better. Let me assure you that I will be honest. Right now, to be honest, I am a little cranky. Although I am not craving meat and cheese as much. We will see how the rest of the challenge goes.

Day 3: Movie Time Monday

2011-01-31T20:27:00.002-05:00

Today started another week and we are desperately trying to get back into our routine. I instituted a "movie time monday" for my kids and some of the neighborhood boys. What this means is that I will be happy to watch your kids if you don't mind me putting on a movie and then going to work on dinner. I was a little tired before the boys came over and in the afternoon, there is only one way to fight it. My new favorite vegan snack, a green smoothie:

Mark says it looks gross, but it is actually quite delicious. In a blender I put a handful of ice, half of an avacado, 2 oranges, a handful of spinach, a teaspoon of honey, a splash of vanilla, some cold water then blend, blend, blend. After drinking I have definately noticed an increase of energy and had some great long distance runs after consuming one. Back to the boys:

The movie I got was 101 Dalmations, or as James calls it, Dalmation Dogs. When the movie first started, the boys insisted on all sitting on the same chair, including "no-nap Andy". Sigh:

After a round of fruit snacks (see I am not always "that mom"), I passed out popcorn popped in coconut oil.

Then they decided they wanted their own smoothie. I promised them a "pink smoothie". This is what was in it:

One orange, frozen strawberries, a handful of spinach, a bit of honey, a good bit of vanilla almond milk, and blend blend blend. And here are your boys drinking their spinach:

Henry had 2 cups! John did not have any, and I didn't push him because I was out of cups with lids.

This was a was succesful Movie Time Monday and they watch the movie for about an hour until they didn't.

It was ok because by then I had finished preping dinner (and checking email and facebook). Here was the result, Chickpea Cutlets with roasted veggies.

The cutlets were actually really good. Reminded me of an italian meatball almost. The roasted veggies were just cut, added olive oil, salt, and pepper, then in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes. James took one look at them and said, "I love cauliflower!" He ate all of it and asked for more until we ran out. Love that kid.

Vegan Day 2: Going to lunch and Sunday dinner

2011-01-30T21:00:00.003-05:00

I have to admit, it still hurt a little bit this morning when I got up and still no hazelnut creamer in my coffee. This is going to be harder than I thought.

At any rate, it was Sunday, a church day, and after church we go to lunch. Mark loves lunch. Loves going out to lunch. When I tell him about my crazy diet ideas he is always concerned with what we will eat when we go out. Today we went to Moe's because I was pretty sure I could eat something there. I ordered the Art Vandalay. That is probably someone famous, but for me, it was just their vegetarian burrito. I had stopped ordering the burrito because the calories are high, but decided to try it today. Ordering at Moe's is a bit tricky because there are 4 people in my family and we all get something different. My burrito had moved to the "toppings station" and my helper was saying "cheese, lettuce, and salsa?" as he started to grab the cheese and put it on. "NO!" I barked at him. Everyone looked at me. "sorryiamdoinga10dayveganchallengesonocheese. Can I have guacamole please?" The burrito tasted...pretty much the same as one with the meat, cheese, and sour cream, but I just checked the nutional value and the vegan option brings it from a almost 800 calorie lunch to a much more reasonable 575 calories. Sweet.

I made a pretty big dinner tonight. That doesn't always happen believe it or not, but it was a casserole. That is right, a spicy tortilla casserole with roasted poblanos. I had a ton of corn tortillas to use up and this seemed like a good way to do so. It took some doing, I actually cooked all the potatoes yesterday (for the pizza too) and roasted the peppers then since the oven was hot. Today I made the salsa and the "cream" and put it all today.

Mark sat down and asked "what is this?" pointing to the top crust. I told him I would tell him when he was done eating. (it is a blend of silken tofu). It was a pretty good. I think it would be great when you could use fresh tomatoes for the sauce.

The thing about vegan cooking, and maybe I am an idoit for just realizing this, there just isn't a lot of fat. I was really craving a decadent dessert. So, I made some vegan brownies. I just did a quick search and found this recipe. Unfortuately, it is actually a low fat vegan brownie recipe. I wasn't so sure how they would come out...but they are delicious. Just what I needed.

I might have another one. It is ok, I'm vegan.

Vegan day 1: rude awakening and pizza night!

2011-01-29T20:43:00.004-05:00

This morning I was walking downstairs ready to face my first day in this new diet when I got my first surprise:

I knew my beloved hazelnut creamer was non-dairy, so I thought it would be ok. But no, animal products are on the label. I used some vanilla soy milk instead, but was sad. To be fair, the hazelnut creamer was on its way out because I had apparently never read the label, but I wasn't quite ready to give it up.

The other surprise is that I realize that superbowl sunday is about day 8 of my 10 day challenge. Man, why couldn't it be two hippie teams playing like San Diego and Seattle? Ms. Becky - are you going to have vegan brats at your party?

A Saturday morning tradition is to make some breakfast item with the boys and we usually alternate between pancakes and waffles. I had been experimenting with different (whole food) recipes, but I never had done a vegan one. The boys were up for the challenge:

But the results were surprising:

The taste was very good, but aparently vegan baking is going to take some getting used to.

The day went by with no problems until the afternoon. I was a little hungry and was planning on making a smoothie and have some granola. Then it dawned on me, the only granola I had on hand had butter in it. Not vegan. I started to get a little down at this point. Then Mark came home hungry. He only had TWO hot dogs at the basketball game and had a leftover hamburger for a snack. I really started missing meat and cheese, but tricuits and hummus satisfied me for that moment.

We also have a traditional pizza night at our house. Usually it is Friday, but I was going to have pizza on Saturday. Again, this is a tough non-vegan meal. Earlier this week I came across a four cheese pizza recipe. It is really good. If you aren't vegan you should try it. However, that wasn't an option for me. Ideas started coming into my head and once I started thinking, I couldn't stop. I made a vegan white pizza. First of all I used a different recipe for pizza dough, one with beer. My normal dough recipe has butter and milk so I was trying something different. (ie, where it is ok for my kids to have pizza dough with beer, it is NOT ok for me to have dough with milk and butter). After rolling my dough out, I baked it for 5 min at 425. I then spread some olive oil on it then spread some boiled potatoes that had been mased with garlic, salt, and peper. Then I sprinkled some northern white beans over the potatoes. Another sprinkle of nutritional yeast (which is like a cheesy spice), then some non-diary cheese (which really wasn't all that bad), and some green onions. I baked for about 10 more minutes.

Results were...not bad. Not bad at all. I was feeling much less sorry for myself after dinner and lets face it, some things are easy to fix:

Starting tomorrow

2011-01-28T22:52:00.002-05:00

Starting Saturday, I will be eating vegan.

I went to whole foods today to stock up on my vegan food products:

I had my last burger at BGR in Clemson. A real burger. It was delicious, but tomorrow I will be vegan.

Why? Well, my motto is everyone is a little bit crazy, so I might as well be a little vegan crazy.

In the fall, I had to put my foot down. Put my foot down to non-processed foods and get on the real foods kick. I still am, I try to eat as many real foods as I can. I read all the real food books and the real food blogs...and they were ok.

My doctor is also my friend. Well, his wife is my friend. It is a small town. This happens a lot. But they are vegan for health reasons. They are vegan because of a book called The China Study.

I read "In Defense of Food" and it was ok. This book is very anti-processed foods. It makes some good points and everyone should definately read it.

I read "The China Study" and it blew my mind.

The China Study lists the experiments that have been done on the correlation of animal protein and diseases. As the amount of animal protein has increased, the incidence of many diseases has increased. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking "there they go with those western diseases: heart disease, diabetes, obesety." But they found other correlations: liver cancer, breast cancer, other cancers.

At first this did not affect me. I am not scared of hospitals. I am not scared of cancer. But I couldn't stop thinking about it. I started thinking about the changes I could make.

So I decided to become vegan. Not forever. I am doing a 10 day vegan challenge. After 10 days, I hope to find a certain amount of moderation that I am comfortable with.

Vegan means no animal protein. No meat. No milk. No eggs. No yogurt. The China Study found it was actually more proteins found in dairy (caesin) that led to cancers. There can be no cheating on this. The results were very clear. Once they were apparent to me, how can I not tell this to everyone I love?

Are you listening?

I am putting this on my blog to make me do this. I had been putting this off for one reason or another (we got a box of Omaha Steaks...pretty good reason) but now it is time. The one rule is that I will not be eating animal protein for at least 10 days. Mark is not vegan. The kids are not vegan. Just me. However, by me making that choice, this does reduce the amount of animal proteins they will be consuming.

I know you are thinking this is crazy and it is, but look at it this way. I am moving from an animal based diet to a plant based diet. Who can argue with that?

I am starting tomorrow.

What is wrong with this picture?

2011-01-23T20:33:00.003-05:00

Hey, sometimes you just need a blog post.

Incase you haven't noticed, we got a new tv. By new tv, I mean my dad upgraded to a 3D tv and we got his old cast off. It is pretty nice, don't get me wrong, but as free tvs go, this one is pretty expensive with the new stand and HD fee. In the process of moving things around, we uncovered some old gaming systems and had them laying around. James saw the controllers and games and KNEW THIS WAS SOMETHING HE LIKED. He knew right away what they were for and couldn't wait to play. For those of you born in the 90s or later, the gaming systems featured in this blog post is the atari and the Sony Playstation.

I am not into video games. At all. Not at all. But I did play some atari in my day. On Friday I set it up (which in itself is a miracle) and let James go to town:

Turns out all/most atari games involve shooting something or someone dying. It is pretty difficult for today's youth with the CGI to understand what is going on.

"hey, I think this is a racing game James. Want to play?"
"That is not a car"
"Yes, it is!"

We did have more luck with the PS. I have never played these games so we waited for Mark. Graffics were a little better, but not much. The first game was the robot war game, which Mark and James played a "head to head" match up where they just walked around and flew.

I think the computer was most confused that no one was trying to kill anyone.

At any rate, I think we might be getting a Wii for Easter...we will see!

The Snowy Day

2011-01-10T21:32:00.002-05:00

Last night, I had a dream that it snowed, and then in my dream the sun came out and melted all the snow. When I woke up, snow was still everywhere. New snow was falling!

This was a true snow day for us. School for James was canceled. Mark didn't have to go to work. (He still had to work, but he didn't have to GO to work - ahhh, the internet age!) We started off our snowy day with snow pumpkin waffles:

We also had a fire:

The kids lasted until 9am when we finally ventured out. James was so excited!

Andy was excited when he was inside. In the snow, not so much:

He didn't last long. We stuck him in front of Bob the Builder and went back outside:

James had a list. Snowman, snowball fight, snow angels, sleding, ice skating... This was very powdery snow, so the only one we had luck with was snow angels. We tried sledding, but it didn't go well. We may need to get a sled one of these snow days:

Ms. Juliet and Christopher had the right idea though:

A view down the street:

Afterwards, there was hot chocolate!

We got somewhere around 6". Ms. Becky, who is from "the north", said that she was impressed by it! The amount of snow is really unbelievable and amazing...but I hope it melts soon. Today went ok, but I am not looking forward to spending the next week stuck at home!

Year in pictures

2011-01-06T10:08:00.002-05:00

This might be a really lame post.

On the corner of our house, we have a little deck that is really more like a walkway. It overlooks this ravine and I have always said that it would be cool if we could expand the deck there cause it would be a great place to sit. The view is really nice and what is really neat is how it changes over the year. In the summer it is filled in with trees and leaves, but in the winter, hey, there are houses over there. Last year I had a little project to take a picture every month from that spot. I orginally thought that I would take a picture on the first day of the month, but that didn't happen. Now, I am not a great photographer, did not take them at the same time of day, nor do I have a great camera, but here is the result:

Taken January 31, 2010

March 4, 2010

April 2, 2010

April 16, 2010. I took more than one this month so you could see the leaves coming in.

May 19, 2010

June 6, 2010

July 6, 2010

August 31, 2010

September 27, 2010

October 23, 2010

November 14, 2010

November 25, 2010. Again more than one so you can see the change.

November 30, 2010.

December 26, 2010. Just cause it was cool.

January 1, 2011

Christmas Cookies...and more!

2010-12-30T20:40:00.002-05:00

I didn't take many pictures during Christmas. Sometimes you want to enjoy the moment rather than take pictures of it I guess. One thing I did take pictures of is the decorating of Christmas cookies. We had made a lot of cookies in the past couple of weeks, but these were the last ones. The ones we made especially for Santa. I used the recipe for Susie's Super Cut Out Cookies that I have posted on my Monthly Challenge blog. Here are the boys cutting out their shapes:

Aunt K doing the icing. She did a great job!

Here are the kids decorating. This year we used M&Ms, chocolate chips, gum drops, and crushed up candy canes. Next year I would lose the gum drops and do mini chocolate chips and M&Ms.

What you can't tell from that last picture is that Andy isn't wearing any pants. Guess who potty trained himself over the holiday? Merry Christmas to mommy!

That Aunt K, she talks tough, but then authorized that the kids could eat one of their cookies. I was going to wait until after lunch.

Here is a look into the future. The boys and their video games:

We had a great Christmas! Just a few pics of the presents. Mainly, look at that size of that ATAT! James loves it!

And Andy got a scooter:

Star Wars Party

2010-12-21T15:36:00.004-05:00

So, James loves Star Wars. He has talked often about having a Star Wars party for his birthday. Unfortuately, he has a LONG time until his next birthday. Turns out you don't need a birthday, you can just have a party! So we did. The kids were out of school so I threw a Star Wars party for something to do on a cold winter's morning. I even made it a "drop off" party to give the other moms a break. I really didn't do much.

Here is everyone gathering. There were costumes, there were props. For this party I just put on "one" as in "episode I: the phantom menace" and let them play.

There was also snacks, as in popcorn, juice boxes, and star wars fruit snacks from publix's!

Against my better judgement, there were also girls. Who played quietly with toys why the boys were star warsing it up:

Even the baby was into Star Wars!

The big thing of Star Wars is the pod race. All the kids had pods and watched much of the movie in them:

There was also light saber battles!

It was a great party! But I don't know if I would do it again!

Basketball game

2010-12-21T15:09:00.002-05:00

Clemson had a "black friday" sale on men's basketball tickets. We decided to take advantage since when else are we going to get to go to a game as a family. I had taken the kids to a women's game, sure, but not a men's game. We even let Andy skip his nap. (I was thinking he might be ready to drop it. I thought wrong) One difference between the men's and women's game is the stuff. You get good stuff at the women's games. Men's - ehh, it was ok. Here is Andy with his poster:

And James with his 3 pt sign.

Everybody in their seats...this was not a well attended game...just like we like it!

The view from our seats.

We even saw some friends nearby:

Andy had a great time! As soon as we sat down he shouted "go, go, go!" I mean, it was only warm ups but still. He loved it when they dimmed the lights and put on the "show". Then there was James. He did well, but still asked to leave with 5 minutes left in the first half. We walked around a bit, saw santa and the tigers at half time and scored a tootsie roll:

I did tell James that if he cheered and danced, he could get onto the tv. Here is one of his attempts:

And the result when he didn't get onto the tv:

We almost made it to the end of the game. Hopefully the team will continue to not be good so we can go again!

Coldest Night of the YEAR!

2010-12-12T13:40:00.002-05:00

I cannot begin to explain how much I hate the cold. The winter here, although mild to some, hovers at about 35 degrees with rain. Even those from the north admidt this is a very unplesant way to spend 4 months. Usually, this cold starts in January, but this year, we have already had our first really cold snap. Another one is headed here now. (the high tomorrow - 29) All on his own, James asked about the Christmas parade. Like fools, we told him and of course, that ended up being The Coldest Night of the YEAR. Here is how I prepared the kids for the weather:

Layer of jammies (this proved to be brillant because when we came home, we took their outer layers off and off to bed!):

Their clothes:

Their heavy jackets:

Hats and gloves, and no, these did not stay on for long:

And finally Santa hats!

The parade was fine. Andy true to form refused to wear hats and gloves and got really cranky and cold. He actually asked for his hat and gloves, which at this time helped, but really he was too far gone. Thank goodness for the hot chocolate!

James had a great time. The cold never seemed to bother him, but the second it was over, he broke down. He took a long time to warm back up:

I didn't take many pictures of the actual parade, but here is the grand finale - Santa on the fire engine.

My book club

2010-12-09T13:33:00.003-05:00

Last year I joined a book club that was affiliated with the local Mom's club. Love my book club. We read a book a month, meet, discuss the book and other things. Oh, and there is wine. ;) Love, love my book club. We are meeting tonight and are bringing suggestions for books to read next year. We are suppose to bring our favorite books as suggestions. The moment that someone said this, I scoffed. I read a lot and don't even remember what I have read. But they insisted, so I have prepared a list. I have been giving this a lot of thought over the past month, but these are the books that came to mind. Most of these are not "book club" books, but good reads none the less.

1. Time Travelers Wife. When someone ask me what my favorite book is, this is what I say. This is a book club book. I like it because is jumps all over in time, but does so in a way that makes sense. It is one of those books that you don't really know what is happening until the end and you knew all along.

2. Pat Conroy. Oh, some of these are authors, not books. If I had to pick one, I would pick Lords of Disapline, but Prince of Tides is good too. Most of his books are set in the low country and he does it in a great way. Oh, and my aunt totally knows him!

3. The Shaaras (father and son). Dad wrote The Killer Angels and had a certain style that covered the battle of Gettysburg. After the died, son wrote books before and after that battle, and then covered other battles as well. I finally understand what started WWI! Of course, I can't remember now...

4. Saints at the River. This was written by Ron Rash, a local author. My mom used to work with him. But this was a very great novel. He also writes short stories, but I prefer the novels.

5. Gone With The Wind. When I was in 8th grade, I remember reading this until 10pm and telling my dad I couldn't talk anymore, the Yankees were in Atlanta! One of thos great big thick books!

6. Into Thin Air. It was between this and Into The Wild by the same author. Both are non fiction. Really good non fiction is one of my favorite things to read and both of these are great.

Branching Out

2010-12-07T16:39:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone. I am trying some guest blogging. Check it out at Screamin John's - Big Night Out!

A little family reading (part 2)

2010-11-30T19:29:00.002-05:00

If anyone has any tips for potty training Andy in the next month, let me know! We are desperate! We had some success today. Yay!

Part 1

Hagood Mill

2010-11-20T20:49:00.003-05:00

A friend of ours has been telling us about Hagood Mill for awhile now. Every third Saturday of the month they have a little festival. Inasmuch as today was the third Saturday, the weather was great, and we didn't have anything else to do, we decided to go. I took my camera and honestly said, "mommy needs a blog post!"

Here is the actually mill:

Today they had the following fresh grains for sale: white grits, yellow grits, white cornmeal, yellow cornmeal, whole wheat flour. I bought a bag of whole wheat flour. I would have bought grits, but I still have a bag from timm's mill in my freezer.

James liked to dance to the milling:

They had lots of arts and crafts vendors, including HONEY with honeysticks!

Also demonstrations such as WEAPONS:

Andy just liked playing with the rocks:

The boys climbed over the old mill rocks:

We bought hot dogs there. Not exactly a "real food". We will bring a picnic lunch next time. Man, I wish I had a cool picnic basket!

They had some animals including horses. James and Andy met all three they had there:

The green and red smudges are from my kids:

James did a native american "candy dance".

Finished up with a little 3/4 mile hike around a little trail there. Not all that well marked, but fine.

We had a great time. Can't wait to go back!

My new thing

2010-11-16T11:02:00.002-05:00

I have told many of my friends (and also readers of this blog) about my new thing...which is real foods. Real foods mean foods in their natural state. The inspiration for this was surprisingly Mark. He told me about a blog that some Clemson alumni had started and thought I would like it. This is a family that decided to eat only real foods for 100 days and blog about it. Here is the link to their blog:

http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/

This blog is based on the book "In Defense of Food" by Michael Polland. They completed their 100 day goal and have to admit that eating all these "real foods" is expensive. Now they are trying "100 days of real food on a budget" and giving themselves $125 week to spend.

This really hit home with me. I used to be really good about not eating process foods before kids. Lately we have gotten out of the habit, I let the kids eat sugary cereals and I LOVE me some white cheddar cheeze-its! Mark did suggest trying the 100 days, which seems extreme. The rules that they followed are very strict: no white flour, no white sugar, only organic dairy and produce, only local meats. They do have a 10 day challenge which I have seriously considered. I have the following concerns:

1. It is pretty close to the holidays...maybe I should wait until January.
2. I really like my coffee, and can't imagine using honey or maple syrup instead of my beloved hazelnut creamer.
3. If the boys stay in bed until their light is green (their alarm clock) they get chocolate milk. They won't like giving that up.
4. I wouldn't be able to have my kids eat snack or meals outside of the home because the food won't be real (sorry mom!)
5. It will be really hard to eat out. This is really Mark's concern. He cannot fathom not going out to lunch for 10 days.

I have tried to implement the following changes:
1. Taking the whole wheat or at least the wheat option where possible.
2. Using honey and maple syrup in place of white sugar where possible. Reducing the amount of sugar we eat.
3. Stopped buying and providing processed snacks. We have been eating more tricuits, cheese, smoothies, fruit, homemade baked goods, granola, and popcorn.
4. Feeling guilty when cooking processed convenience foods, but they have been from Trader Joe's...that is ok, right?
5. Feeling smug and superior when I provide a real foods meal. Again, for dinners, I do this a lot, but it makes me happy.

I wouldn't want to do this long term. I have the following issues with this diet:
1. Really? No white flour or sugar?
2. Organic dairy. I love organic milk, but we go through 2 gallons a week.
3. Organic produce. I understand the issue here, and I love my CSA and my farmers markets, but in the winter it is just tough. I am not really sure I buy the organic produce movement.
4. Local meats. Again, I do get it. We live in a small town, and there are local meats available, they really are not convenient, and I really don't have a problem with store bought meats.
5. The idea behind this way of eating is that we should go back to how people where eating before processed foods. It is great in theory, but in this time of growth of our population (I am totally sounding like my dad here) many of these changes have been made in order to feed more people in different areas. There are many bad things that have come out of current food era, but many good as well. It is hard to pick and choose which are ok and which are not.

This purpose of this post was really just to share the link with everyone I have told about that blog. This ended up being way more than I intended, but I haven't posted in awhile.

Fall Tour - Stop 2

2010-11-06T13:40:00.002-04:00

This will probably be our final stop on this year's tour. We were to busy and missed the peak. Oh well, we had a great time on this stop. For this trip we went to Cashiers, NC. We have family in Highlands and have never been to Cashiers. From our house it took right around an hour. We actually stopped on the way in for a little hike to Silver Run Falls. The hike was about 1/4 mile. Perfect for our age group.

There was a little bridge on the way.

The waterfall itself was super cool. It would be a great swimming hole in the summer.

The kids were way impressed:

Next, we made it all the way to Cashiers and went to the Village Green where they had a great little park.

It was good that the kids had some free play time:

Around the park they had some art to enjoy. I love art!

Perhaps the inspiration to this trip was not the waterfall, or the leaves, or the park, but the Carolina Smokehouse BBQ that Mark just happened to come across.

We had a great time. Looking forward to the spring tour!

A long time coming

2010-10-31T21:28:00.004-04:00

I like to do my Halloween post on Halloween.

If you have not met James, this guy LOVES to dress up. I mean, LOVES IT. We started talking about Halloween back in August when we got our first "costume magazine" of the season. James went through a couple of costume choices, but settled on his choice of Darth Vadar early on. I was a little concerned about Andy. He is old enough to have his own opinions, but not really old enough to care. Lucky for us, Andy seemed perfectly willing and happy to dress up in James's monkey costume from two year ago. However, like I mentioned, James LOVES to dress up, so we have several backup choices.

Our first Halloween festivity was at our church. James was beside himself too finally be Darth Vadar. Andy was excited also. It was time to get ready...here are our cute kids. First Darth James:

And our cute little monkey.....Oh, Andy! What a buzzkill!

Andy went through the whole evening completely oblivious that he was the only kid not in costume. Here he is in the costume parade:

James was busy battling the light side of the force:

We made James earn his light saber light any good padawan with a sticker chart.

Well, that was a bust, although Andy love the other aspect of Halloween ie the trunk of treating with CANDY. Lucky for us, we have many other chances to wear costumes. I asked Andy if he would like to be an elephant. He loves elephants, loves the "elephant song" from The Jungle Book, got him a little grey sweatsuit, some ears on a headband, a nose, a tail, off we go to the downtown trick or treat.

Ooo, buzz kill again.

Now we come to the 31st. The Day. Mark and I debated if he should be allowed to trick or treat if he won't wear a costume. Dinner is over, the choice is made, there is a little whining when we put the sweatsuit on, grab the ears, the tail, and nose, and...

success!

I believe it was the idea of CANDY that opened his mind more than anything else. Trick or treating was a huge success. We met up with neighbors, and James, Henry, and John just ran from house to house.

After all this planning, you would think that James would have been upset that Christopher was also Darth Vadar, but it turns out it was Christopher who was bothered by it:

Andy, although he had to explain what he was at every house, didn't miss anything.

James was a little taken aback when I mentioned that Halloween was OVER. Luckily, the toy magazines have arrived and he is moving onto the next thing.

Star Wars Light Show 1997

2010-10-28T16:10:00.003-04:00

I had James watch this a few weeks ago, and he has just watched it again over and over. I decided to share.

I am at the top left, 4 from the end.

The light show was one of our traditions. They tried to do it every other year, if possible. Requirements include: had to be a night game (duh), not on tv, no visiting band, past the time change.

The light in the light show are glow sticks that were stuck in the "shako" hats where the plume would go. The flags, twirlers, and drum majors all had light sticks as well. The feature twirlers twirled fire.

The flashes at the end were from an old-timey flash cube with 4 flashes that was taped to our instruments somewhere. We would wear a paper clip on a string around our neck. At the end of the show...instruments down...find paper clip...feel cube...push thru one slot...and second slot...third...forth...giving the flashes. They would take a slow exposured picture of this and it was always a cool picture.

I think this particular show is actually our tradition Western Show, just done to Star Wars music. However, the ending Double T really should have been our traditional T-E-C-H drill.

Light Shows are not done any more. I think they have a hard time finding the flash cubes, most games are on tv with a visiting band, the time change is later, and I think it is a major safety hazard to turn off all the lights these days. Too bad, it was super cool!

Denver Downs 2010

2010-10-23T11:51:00.003-04:00

We have been pretty busy this fall and we weren't really sure when we were going to get to go to our beloved pumpkin patch. We had to squeeze it in on a Sunday afternoon. It is funny, every year, the kids want to do different things. This year, all James wanted to do was play hide and seek in the mazes:

The waterpumps for the duck races were working. Well, only 2 out of 4:

Andy was super excited by two things: the farm animals and the cow train. He rode the cow train several times.

James was really excited to see The Tiger there. Andy only waved at him from a distance:

Last year, James did the big slide, but only after thinking on it for a LONG time. This year, he went right down:

So did Andy:

They both rode the horsey swing:

The boys had a great time in the corn box...although I keep finding corn everywhere!

This year was the first year we attempted the corn maze. We didn't get far:

We left after about 2 hours...didn't even get a pumpkin! They need to have season passes!

2009
2008
2007

Tailgating

2010-10-19T13:50:00.003-04:00

We live in a college town. That means, on football days, we have 80,000 guests who come into our little city. Mark and I would love to be able to get season tickets and go to all of the games, but it just hasn't worked out so far. We do try to at least go to campus and join in the festivities with the kids and everyone has a good time. We went this past saturday for the Maryland game and invited John et al. Mark was excited because he got to have a ham biscuit from Hardee's.

As with any good tailgate, there is lots of drinking and eating:

We got a good spot by the P&A. James and John had a great time running around and climbing trees:

We always try to go to the "90 min before kickoff concert". The boys decided this would be a "bad guy walk" with light sabers.

They liked the band once we got there.

The light sabers turned into instruments.

We plan on tailgating this weekend sans kids if anyone wants to meet up!

Fall Tour - stop 1

2010-10-12T11:50:00.003-04:00

It is fall and that means it is time to skip church for our fall tour. Mark and I were recovering from strep throat, so heading up to the mountains really didn't sound all that fun, but we are busy the next 2 weeks, the weather was beautiful, so we went.

Unfortuately, we didn't have the energy to put any thought in it, so we just went to Whitewater Falls. Again. What a dump! ;)

In hopes of getting some different shots, Andy found this rock to climb on:

Then he wanted to pick it up:

So, Andy asked James for help:

James decided to try a different rock:

The boys were very impressed with the falls:

Mark and I both have our own cameras...which is a little much:

James did really great! He ran all the way up to the falls, walked down the stairs to the viewing platform, walked back up, ran all the way down. He wanted me to take a picture of him running SO FAST!

So did Andy:

Afterwards, we had a nice little picnic. Andy, of course, couldn't stand to sit down and eat.

Before we went home, we had a rousing game of frisbee. Good times!

The Spotted Jaguar Hippos

2010-09-28T21:59:00.002-04:00

Isn't that a cute picture? Doesn't James look just like a soccer player? Awwwwww!

So, incase you haven't figured it out, we signed James up for soccer this season. Actually, James told me repeatedly this summer that he was going to play, so I made it happen. How it works here is you meet Tuesdays and Thursday evenings, sometimes you have practices and sometimes you have games. We had practices the past two weeks, and the first game was tonight. James was super excited! He had a jersey (he is number 2...THE DUECE!), soccer shorts, shin guards, soccer socks, he was ready to go.

Here is us warming up before the big game:

The big spotted jaguar hippo team cheer "roar!":

The start of the game. Um, James didn't start. :(

James coming in!

The mass of players chasing the ball:

Soooooo, right after this picture was taken, James realized that it wasn't going to be as easy to score as he thought it would be. Not only that, he also realized that the other team was also going to try to score (and might). That can only mean one thing. Meltdown. James did well, very enthusiastic, went for the ball, but I don't know, maybe he is just a little competitive. Here is the result:

For all intents and purposes, the game was over for James. Here is a picture of the post game handshake:

Don't get me wrong, there was another meltdown at this point when James realized he wasn't going to get to play anymore. (?)

Oh well, hopefully the next game will go better.

First Day of School (Finally)

2010-09-16T22:12:00.002-04:00

James finally started his preschool recently! I thought this day would never come. Here he is running in.

This year he is a yellow bird!

Andy wants to stay...

...but he has his own school.

Andy finally has his own friends. In this picture he is literally saying, "where are my friends?"

Only 2, and 3 (maybe 4) more years until real school!

Apple Picking

2010-09-09T11:40:00.003-04:00

For labor day, Ms. Juliet and I found both our husbands working on this holiay. We decided to take the kids apple picking. We went to Bryson's in Mountain Rest. It took like an hour to get there, but it was a nice drive.

Here are the kids gearing up (ie putting on hats). My kids only wore their hat for this picture.

They gave us big buckets and a very vague description of what we were suppose to do. With the kids, it probably wouldn't have mattered. They were going to do whatever they wanted to anyway:

Turns out, apple picking is not like blueberry picking. Apple picking is like shooting fish in a barrel for these kids. Our buckets were full in about 15 minutes. Now what?

We spent most of our time at the outhouse. You know about these boys...

And James liked to put rocks on his head:

We will probably go back later in the season!

It's game day!

2010-09-04T20:57:00.002-04:00

The football games early in the season are not always the best to go to. It's hot, the time usually is inconvienent, and the game isn't always interesting. I think Clemson, knowing this and knowing that their first game was going to be on TV, wanted to make sure the stands were filled. They offered really cheap tickets. Cheap like $16 for adults and $10 for the kids. For our family of four it would cost only slightly more that for one adult to go to a different game. Since this is probably the one and only time we will ever go together, we decided to give it a try. James had been to a game last year, but he was still excited. Andy had never been and to be honest, I still do consider him to be too young, but again, cheap tickets.

We left our house about an hour and a half before kickoff. We still go primo spots by the P&A. We still bribed the kids into the stroller with a pop pop.

We kicked the stroller outside of Bracket and walked the rest of the way. Andy. Andy who does not sleep in the car. Andy who we would not have taken last year cause he needed the nap, but could do without it this year...fell asleep while we were walking up to the stadium, stayed asleep all the way to our seats, and dozed until pregame. Unbelievable.

I walked up this carrying a 34 pound dead weight two year old:

Good view once we got to the top. We were about 5 rows down.

It was hot, we did try to stay hydrated.

James kicked over 3 drinks in the stands. Two of them were ours.

They liked the band, they liked the clapping, Andy was a little horrified they just let all those balloons go, but before long, it was just hot. I took them to the top to walk around a bit. There was a breaze there.

We left not long after this picture was taken.

It was fun, but I am glad we didn't pay full price. We left the stands right after the first quarter. Oh well. There is always next year!

Bagels!

2010-08-31T13:19:00.002-04:00

Beth, Jenny, and I used to regularly run together and then afterwards we would go get bagels. Now, bagels do just about completely defeat the purpose of running, but it is still fun. It was nice girl time without the kids. When school ended, we weren't able to run together as much, but we still met for bagels. I know....even worse than bagels after running! And, and, AND we would bring our kids. This really defeats the purpose of bagel girl time, but again, it still was fun. Sort of. Today we met with my two kids and Beth's sweet little girl. Jenny left Mattie at home. Good thing I brought a spare!

We always sit outside. We figure we disrupt the regular customes less that way.

I send my boys running to keep them occupied. It took Elaina and Mattie awhile to catch on.

We bring toys! Today it was cars. Again, Elaina was such a trooper.

Jenny was late (as usual). Here she is with her iced coffee. They make the BEST iced coffee (with half and half and splenda).

Summer Fun

2010-08-21T08:45:00.002-04:00

Oh my gosh, I really got behind this past week. We had a impromtu swim afternoon at in the kiddie pool last week. It was really cute so I took pictures:

One of my water toy investments for this year is squirt bottles. They hold more water than waterguns!

We had a passive observer. Good thing!

Baby Christopher wasn't really into it. Neither was Mr. Tony.

Eventually, everyone took a break to water the plants and play in the sand:

And then, there was wrasseling:

When everyone is "done" and getting cranky. We tell them to get back in the pool and take their suits off. We generally get another 5 minutes of play this way. John and James put their suits on their head because they thought they looked like pirates! Please note that this picture is only from the waist up. ;)

Bubble snob

2010-08-07T21:11:00.002-04:00

I have said this before, I will say it again, this blog is the only place where I write things down to remember things. For next year: gazillion bubbles - good, miracle bubbles - CRAP!. You can only get gazillion bubbles (this year) at Target.

Earlier this year, for a gift exchange, we went to Target and picked out a $10 present...a pooh giant bubble maker. Wouldn't you know, we took it to the birthday party to exchange and James picked this present knowing what it was and was so happy to unwrap it. We are now the proud owners of a pooh giant bubble maker. I have to say, this is a pretty cool thing and we have used it a lot. Most recently, we brought it out in the carport during a rainstorm. Kept the kids entertained for about half an hour.

Just thought this was a cute picture:

I think Andy would fit into this bubble:

There is goes!

Even Andy can do it!

Setting it free so James can't pop it:

Whose line is it anyways?

2010-08-02T09:35:00.003-04:00

We have had a few post about James. Time to even the score. There are a couple of phrases Andy is known for. Here they are now:

"Dinner's ready!"

"Wake up Mommy!"

Vive Le Tour

2010-07-23T13:56:00.001-04:00

So, sometimes I do things just because I think it will be a good blog post.

Some background info. This is about the Tour de France. We were living in Dallas during Lance Armstrong's run. We are sports fans and we would follow it. Maybe have the replay on at night while reading the paper. After Lance retired the first time, we would forget about it, but remember sometime in the last week and again, have it on to see who ended up winning. Forward to 2008. Andy was born on June 10th, so that means at the beginning of July he enter his super cranky baby phase. In the evenings there were hours of crying which mean we spend hours walking and bouncing and nursing and rocking until he finally went to sleep. Thank God for the tour. We caught it at the beginning for the first time and had it on during the walking and bouncing and nursing and rocking and somehow it made it bearable. Instead of completely dreading the "witching hour" it was our excuse to watch the tour.

I think Carlos Sastre won that year, but I could be wrong. For the longest time, I didn't really get it. I liked watching it for the scenery and the exciting finishes (watching Mark Cavendish getting ready to bring in another one now). I did try to figure out what was going on and would read about it on the internet, but this year is the first year I think I really understood why this were happening. It has been very exciting. We had it on in the afternoon and James was entranced by the bike race. And of course he wanted to have a bike race. So then I had an idea.

Here is coverage of the first annual Tour de La France held at La France Elementary School this morning. Of course, this was like the hottest day of July, but it is suppose to be the most epic race ever. Any ride on toy was allowed:

Here is Andy trying one out. I have never scene a superman cap on a rider in the real tour. I have seen them on the spectators, so I allowed it:

Mattie liked to push instead of ride:

Here are James and John warming up:

We had encourageing/heckling messages on the course:

GC hopeful Henry had the biggest bike (16 inch tires!)

Mattie and Andy both had their eyes on the white jersey, oh, I mean ribbon:

We had several races (stages). Sometimes they all went in the same direction, sometimes not:

We had 2 popsicle breaks between stages:

Poor Becky was a trooper! She made it through the whole race.

Juliet was so smart and brought a spray bottle to keep cool!

They were racing for ribbon: yellow, white, green, and poka dot. The poka dot was in the most demand. These ribbons were tied to the bikes:

See you next year!

The Ms. Kip Fan Club

2010-07-17T07:10:00.003-04:00

If the name Ms. Kip sounds familar, it is because you read it on this post about gymnastics. It turns out that Ms. Kip teaches swim lessons...all you need is a pool. Um, check! However, because I waited until our pool was not green, I couldn't get in until this past week. The lessons went for 4 days, but we didn't watch or take pictures until the last day.

Here is Ms. Kip instructing James and John:

They usually took turns as Ms. Kip would work with one:

and then the other:

James did really well. He learned to swim a little bit underwater and then flip over onto his back.

Ms. Kip had all these things to help them do things. One thing she did in order to get them to go underwater is she would ask them "do you want to eat ice cream or read a book?" James picked read a book. (?) Here is his transformer book:

and here he is reading the book:

If you were good, at the end you got the jump in!

Here are some videos of James swimming:

Blueberry Pickin'

2010-07-10T21:36:00.002-04:00

I can't believe this is my first blog post about blueberry picking. We have gone as a family for the past couple of years, and in fact, it was something that Mark and I did before kids. I don't know if we would have started this on our own, but our good friend, Kendra, her grandparents had a pick your own blueberry farm called DeZavala Vineyards. It is between Dallas, Houston, and Austin. Once a year, she would have a blueberry picking weekend where she invited her friends to pick blueberries. If you went, you not only got blueberries, but you got to stay for a yummy lunch, and had some relaxing porch time. It was awesome. We usually ended up with 2 gallon freezer bags of blueberries, sometimes blackberries and raspberries, and these would last for about a year. After moving to SC, we wanted to go, but wasn't sure where. Well, one night we were watching Good Eats with Alton Brown and he was picking blueberries at Happy Berry Farm in Six Mile, SC. That has been our berry farm of choice ever since.

James was really excited. He remembered picking (and eating) last year. Andy was just happy to be walking this year.

Weather was good. We got there a little after 9:30. A lot of times it is really crowded. Like tour bus parking only crowded, but look how pretty it is!

Oh, and there is a bear:

After getting baskets and our picking assigments, we were off:

James did great! Although, he only had four berries for the longest time.

Andy did really well. He stayed a picked at one spot for like 5 minutes. James was a little destressed that Andy got a lot of green ones, but what can you do.

Turns out, Andy was a bucket dumper. The boys had to start over a few times.

It didn't take long before Andy lost interest and found a stick:

Andy and I headed back to the house, but I took this picture of Mark still picking.

Another bear picture. At least I am in this one!

A picture of our haul. We ended up with a little over 3 pounds. That is good with our 2 kids!

My life as a refugee

2010-07-05T21:21:00.000-04:00

Some of you may know this, some of you may not, but there has been an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This has been hard to deal with for several reasons. One reason is that growing up, Pensacola was where we went for vacations. There was awhile there during elementary school thru middle school, I think we went every year. We met lots of family there and always had a great time. In college and later, we would hear news of hurricanes hitting the area and one actually destroyed the condo we would stay in. News of oil washing up on the beach makes me very sad. It also caused a big problem because we had actually booked a place to stay for the end of June that was big enough for my family, my sister's family, and my parents. Unfortuately, we were about 3 weeks too late. A few weeks ago we canceled our reservations and scrambled to find a new play to go. We decided on Edisto.

Here are the kids on the way to the beach the first day:

They were very excited. Here is a picture of the placed we stayed:

It was very big. When you have to book at the last minute like we did, well, you either get a really expensive place, or a place that isn't as nice. Guess which one we picked. ;) More pictures of the kids on the beach. Man, that first day is great, isn't it?

Oh, there is baby AC again. Just sitting in her chair.

James found a shell! Last year, in St. Simons, there were no shells. Edisto, of course, has tons. No sharks teeth though.

Andy had a great time, although, snack time still was his favorite!

In non-beach time, C taught James how to play Wii! Not really, but James liked to pretend he was playing...and then die, or crash, or whatever

We took another little hike and my mom got the kids matching shirts. The front says "Five out Five" and their number. James and Andy are #2 and #4.

The back says "refugees from the oil spill"

The hike was half of mile, flat, and stroller and boot brace friendly:

There was lots of running:

And some melting down:

We had dinner at The Old Post Office. I got the Pecan Crusted Veal. YUM!

On a rainy day, we went to the local serpentarium. I expected a tourist trap, but it was actually pretty neat. AND they have a AAA discount!

I kept wondering how Beth would feel about all these snakes!

We were really close to the crocadiles! Or is that an Alligator? I should have paid more attention!

To be honest, the kids liked the gift shop the best.

It was a great vacation!

Safari

2010-07-04T21:10:00.000-04:00

Whenever C comes to visit, we have a tradition of taking a little hike to a waterfall. This time we went to Chau Ram park again. You might remember we went here literally days before Andy was born. Again, they have a very nice waterfall that you can drive up to, but a great suspension bridge with hiking trails on the other side. We weren't really planning on going hiking, but James got it into his head that this trip was actually a safari. Apparently, on a safari, you got to hike! We headed down one of the trails, carefully following trail markers and when we came to a big rock off the river, I shouted "yea! we made it!" To celebrate our safari, we let the kids play in the water some.

Oh, and grandma too. When needed, they took a break:

C was the only one to get really wet!

A view of the "waterfall" we "hiked" to:

I know, looks fun, right?

We took a picture of the kids (and grandma) on a big rock. In desperation to get a good picture, I shouted "hands on your head". Imagine my surprise when they all did it!

Lake time!

2010-07-03T20:57:00.002-04:00

This will be the first in a 3 part series on the 5 under 5 gang together again. That is right, my sister, BIL and her 3 kids drove out here to visit. The fun started at my parents house. I took the kids out to swim while everybody else was watching the US in the world cup. This was the game where there was no scoring until the 91st minute. I don't feel like we missed much.

AM and C had no troubles getting into action:

James never does:

Even Andy almost made it in. He is getting lots better:

AM liked playing in the sand. Those of you with girls, I know you get a little miffed when I say how sweet and docile girls are. It is because of this one. She is such a sweetie:

Oh, James. In the past two weeks I don't think he ever made it an hour without having some sort of costume on.

The visit was fun, would have be longer and more fun if my sister had not broken her foot. Lucky, she is not one to let something like a broken foot slow her down:

James still loves to drive the boat:

C and AM were enjoying the sites:

Finally, baby AC. Again, girl. Again, would just sit there and watch all that was around her. AMAZING!

Since things were always crazy during the visit. I took my pictures in spurts. Hey, at least I took some.

Ten years!

2010-06-18T21:49:00.002-04:00

No, I don't mean that I have been married for 10 years. That isn't until September.

I am talking about my 10 years of Cooking Light!

More like 10 and a half years ago, my very good friend Craig got me a subscription to Cooking Light. I enjoyed reading the magazine and by reading it, I found out that this magazine had a WEBSITE, and on that website they had a message board. This was in the year 2000 and the internet had just been invented. I was at my job, which is where everyone had to do their websurfing those days, and I discovered the Cooking Light message board. In June of 2000, I became a member.

In those days, there was little thought about identity theft. My username is....my name in real life....I really wish I could change it, but then I would lose my 10 year status. Anyways, this was a brand new experiment in a community and I found a wonderful place to be a part of. Back in the early days, we mainly talked about food. We reviewed recipes that we had made, and asked other food related questions. There was a big uproar a few years later, where they actually broke the board up into three separate boards: Good Food, Healthy Living, and Other Stuff. It turned out to be a good thing. Good Food focused on food. In the early days, we did "cook light" and were probably very annoying about it. These days many are full fat bakers, but most members follow the local eating/no processed food phase. Under the Healthy Living board, I was a frequent poster of a running thread. Also there were threads to join when I was trying to get pregnant, trying to get pregnant and couldn't, and then when I did get pregnant, when I had a baby, a toddler, until now. The Other Stuff board covers everything else. We have had book discussions, I have asked restaurant questions, and of course, political debates. I really do try to avoid those.

In 10 years, I have only acquired between 1,000-2,000 posts. There are people who have posted between 10,000-15,000 times. I guess I am more of a lurker. These people are really smart and great writers. I just don't seem to have the time to formulate intelligent responses. I have met a few people on this message board, some on purpose, some not ;).

I have learned so much from this message board. A lot of it is about cooking, but much of it is not. I always wish I could give back as much as I have received. I try, but I know it is not enough.

Things have slowed down on the message board. It is blocked by many workplaces, and a lot of the members joined a facebook group, but I hope this board never goes away!

It's only been two years?

2010-06-12T08:18:00.002-04:00

Andy's birthday was this past week! He is now two. I think most people say "wow, it seems like just yesterday that he was one." Not me. It has been a long year! At any rate, we keep things small this year. It is really hard to determine what Andy likes as opposed to what James likes. (It is NOT hard, however, to determine what Andy does NOT like) We met a few people for dinner at the chickfila then went back to our house for some cupcakes. Andy was really into the presents this year!

So were the rest of the kids:

Isn't this little cart the cutest?

James also got a present from Gramma and Papa.

In some ways it was hard to figure out who was more excited about Andy's birthday: Andy or James. Wait, no, it wasn't really. James was way more excited!

First Boat Ride

2010-06-06T22:03:00.003-04:00

Ok, that is not quite correct. It was not the first boat ride of the season...it was just the first one that I had a camera on. Here is everyone as we were getting ready to go:

(ie Papa had to try to start the engine 20 times before it finally caught) We brought John and gang. It is always fun for James when his best buddy is around:

Last year, Andy was not into the boat ride. He didn't like the life jackets. I think there is something about them having to build up the muscle tone to wear one. He still wasn't all that into it this year. But of course, everything is better as long as he had something to eat!

Here are Mr. Tony and Baby Christopher. It is really cute how Tony dotes on this baby.

So, then James drove us to an island. He hates waiting to leave the cover before he can go FAST!

Once we got to an island, James jumped right in and swam out in the lake.

Andy stayed on the beach:

John ended up in the middle:

That is the end of the pictures. I was actually trying to get my camera from the boat when Andy followed me and then went under water. Maybe next time!

Redneck Baby 2010

2010-06-01T14:06:00.002-04:00

This past weekend, we went to my parents house for some lake time and some BBQ. Andy loved the ribs. This kid is all about the meat! He is not big on the water, but likes playing in the sand.

James had a great time jumping off the dock! He must have jumped off like 20 times.

Andy wanted to jump off also, but not...you know how that goes...

Don't you wish you were here? Also, my mom wanted me to take pictures of her Hygrangas. I don't even know how to spell that apparently.