Food Stuffs

I think they need to make much bigger fruit/veggie drawers:

A few days ago my friends and I bottled 40 lbs. of chicken and 20 bottles of black beans.  I love to bottle food!  It makes me feel like I am doing SOMETHING to ensure my families health in time of crisis.  It also feels like going back to my "roots" a bit, makes me feel like an old-fashioned mom. I used to really thrive off that but my life has just been too busy lately.  AND it's really nice to be able to just pop open a bottle when things don't go as planned for dinner.

 That night I opened an older bottle of chicken, heated it in a pan for a minute.  Threw in some of the leftover beans and some taco seasoning, added veggies and salsa, wrapped it in tortillas (or lettuce),and ta-da.  Dinner.  5 minutes or less.

 

Avenger's B-Day!

If you ever on Facebook, you probably know this by now.  I messed up the date on Mr. M's b-day.  He came home from school one day and said his b-day fell on a Tuesday.   I ran with that.  I had in my mind it was on a Tuesday and I never thought about it again (he says his teacher is the one who told him that).

Sunday night we are sitting at the dinner table and this is the conversation:

Mr. M: "Dad, my b-day is in 2 days."  

 C: "No, M, your birthday is tomorrow." 

Me:  No, it's on Tuesday.

C: No, today is the 17th.  His b-day falls on the 18th.  That is tomorrow.

 

My b-day falls on the 16th.  How did I not compute this?!! Haha.  After that realization all the other ones hit too.  Balloons?  Ordered for Tuesday.  Cake?  Ordered for Tuesday.   Class treat?  Haven't even thought about it and we are out of almost everything. 

Excellent.

 

Mr. M decided he was fine with celebrating on Tuesday, that sweet lil' guy.  However, I did make his favorite treat for his class - chocolate chip cookies.  We frosted them so they could represent the Avengers.  Not my best decorating, but I had about two minutes to prepare so I give myself a break.

I went to lunch with him on Tuesday.  He was really happy D and I were there but he pretty much ignored us for the cute kiddo sitting next to him.  They chatted and had a blast and I was entertained by D.  Then we headed to the class where they got straight back to work.  However, I had to go back in for something I forgot.  As I was waiting to go back in one of the kids said, "Hey, can I go to M's party?"  Without thinking, (probably something that happens all too often) I said, "Nope.  He's not having a party."  That got those kids all up in arms!  They lamented, they mourned for him, they wondered what he possibly could have done wrong to not get a party.

 

I should have said we were having a family party.  Something.  Anything.  All I know is I completely disrupted her well-behaved, quiet class, and I'm pretty sure that is illegal in La.  We made it out of there fairly unscathed though. 

 

 We had an un-birthday celebration on Tuesday.  We had this awesome Avenger's cake.  It was A HUGE HIT! 

The pics of the décor are not all that great.  He loved them though. 

The missionaries came to celebrate with us too.  The Elder on the right is Elder Lopez.  The kids ADORE Elder Lopez.  He spent nine months trying to get Miss L to talk to him and actually succeeded a few times. 

Happy Birthday to my Big Boy.  We love you, Mr. M!

Missing L

The other day Miss L went missing.  We were somewhat frantically looking for her for a good five minutes.  The coaches have been filled with clean laundry since we got back from our vacation two weeks ago.  That is where I found her.  Pretty sad when you loose kids among your piles of laundry.

Battleship Alabama. Mobile, Alabama

We drove by this battleship on our way to Florida.  I knew I wanted to go back.  I love stuff like this.  I like to picture the people and their lives and how things were for them.  My grandpa, who just passed away, served on a ship like this, so it helped me picture what life might have been like for him.

It was a wee bit chilly out.  We couldn't find Miss L's jacket so we had to pack the stupid blanket.  I about threw it overboard a couple of times.  The stairs (or ladders as they called them - and rightly so) were extremely steep and there were hundreds of them.  When we got back in the car her jacket was easy to spot.  Weird how things work like that sometimes.

This sign was in the gift shop.  I want it.  I may have to make it. 

I am always amazed by God-made and Man-made things that are so vast.  This thing was huge.  The amount of time and work that goes into creating something like this is mind-boggling to me. 

The sleeping barracks. 

The on-board store....well a likeness of it. 

I look way too happy to be potentially destroying people.  M's pose is much more appropriate.  I love the Lil' Guys hands popping up over the edge.

 

This was inside of one of the huge guns.  Again, the workmanship is astounding to me. 

An array of aircraft. 

Submarine.  To live for months or YEARS on something like this would be so difficult. 

I realize the pic of the family is ridiculous but I had to post because of all the apparatus behind them. 

Still ridiculous, but cute!  Look at the Lil' Guy popping up at the bottom. 

I so badly wish I could have called my Grandpa after visiting this.  He's a history buff and even more so when it is something like this.  I will miss our history talks.  He was always so full of information.  He's just always been there.  It's crazy to me that he is no longer with us.  I look forward to visiting with him again in Heaven.

Geocaching in Alabama

Cool bird.

Crazy froggy imprint. 

Some silly dancing. 

Fake alligators. 

A few minutes out of the car?  Priceless.

Daytona Beach

Daytona beach was awesome.

You park right on the beach so everything is right there.

Miss L LOVED the beach.  She never wanted to leave.  She didn't love the water but sat right here in the sand hunting seashells and building a wall to protect her from the waves.

The weather was fantastic.  It wasn't super busy.  We stayed just the right amount of time (a couple of hours).  It was so needed after the rushing crowds of Disney.   

Epcot Center

 Mr. M LOVES roller coasters.  The more terrifying, the better.  Which is good because I like them too.  However, he also loves spinning rides and those make me barf in my old age, so they are not quite as fun for me. 

Miss L is just more entertained by dirt, sticks, and bugs.  We had her ride one roller coaster with Daddy.  We chose the wrong one.  Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom.  In that ride, you ride in a seat by yourself.  For a girl who hung on for dear life in the slowest of rides, this terrified her.  She cried through most of it.  Lesson learned. 

After that we left one parent with both D and L.  I think those were their true favorite times.  They loved digging in the dirt, or playing with the bugs, or building little nests.  Disney is heaven on earth for Mr. M but not so much for our little girl.

There's D again.  Always there but never looking.

Little Miss was a daddy's girl on the trip.  So sweet.

These little jumping water holes were a blast for Mr. M.  Look at his cute face!  He was so excited waiting for the water to squirt him.

The other Littles cautiously enjoyed it too.

Dad got a hold of the camera later.  It never ceases to amaze me how different we are in our picture taking.  Not better or worse, we just see things differently.  He got some cute shots of the munchkins being themselves, that's for sure.  

 

Catching water!

 

This is my, "My feet might fall off," face.  I wore sensible shoes, yet not sensible enough. 

See here they are, playing with nature.  They found leaves and made flower shapes out of them while we rested.   

I have no idea where I was when Daddy took these, but they are pretty darn cute.  And look, he can look at the camera!

We only spent two days at Disney.  We had the opportunity to spend a third, but chose the beach instead.  So many people think we are crazy for that.  But honestly, we really enjoy the outdoors, and really love to get away from crowds.  We LOVED Disney, but two days was perfect for this family.   I could see spending more if we had brought some help.  My back is still recovering from hauling Lil' Guy.  We would like to go back one more time before we move from the South though.  Hopefully next time we can bring a grandpa or grandma or two.

Princesses Meet Princesses and Other Park Fun

I tried to prep Miss L for meeting the princesses.  She really wanted to meet Rapunzel.  I asked if she would talk to them and she gave a vehement, "NO!"  but wanted to meet them anyway.

 

You would have thought I was torturing her.  At one point I was sure she was going to cry. I looked like some crazy mom forcing her child to meet the princesses.  I promise, she wanted to be there.  She cracks me up.  She said later that this was her favorite part of the Disney World.

The conversation with Aurora was cute.  She was excited that Flora and Fauna were getting along well enough to be together on a shoe.   

I kept this picture for one reason and one reason only.  My arm looks freakin' awesome!  My arms are my nemesis.  They are still huge!  They have a ton of excess skin and still a layer of chunk too.  I work out my arms a lot and I know there are muscles under there! I would love to have toned looking arms.  I am enjoying the illusion here. 

By the time we got to her favorite princess, she was done.  She was ready to bolt. Or at least she seemed to be.  Again, she claimed it was her favorite part.  Look at that face! 

Later we had a blast on the Buzz Light Year ride. 

I love this picture.  Look how intense we look.  Haha. 

For the record, I kicked Cabe's butt.  He took a picture of his score and I did not, so I have no proof, but I beat him by over 50,000 points. 

Cutie boys:

 

This trip was a birthday trip for me, M and L.  Our birthdays all fall within three weeks of each other.  Because of that we allowed them to pick out one toy in Disney World.  Mr. D got a smaller toy just so he wasn't left out.  He loved the Mickey.  He and Mr. M have a tendency to intently hug anything they love.  It's really cute.  Lil' Guy spent the rest of the night chewing on Mickey like crazy.  It entertained those in line around us. 

 See...take away the talking adults and she's a happy camper.

We had a blast at the Magic Kingdom.  We spent 13 hours there and didn't even ride half of the rides, but we felt fulfilled.  Actually we felt exhausted.  Happy.  But exhausted.