This Is It

it's hal-lo-ween time

 

yesterday we had class parties.
(pictures to come)
and last night, the kids and i
made hot dog mummies
while dad fried us some tots.

today...

i got up early and hit the gym.
no school, so we then got ready
and went to get some groceries.
we just finished lunch.
mackenzie's watching twitches II, the movie
madison and max are in my bed watching max & ruby.
(both could really use a nap.)
when i'm done with this post,
i'll go put together a couple pasta salads
and a spinach dip for tonight.
around three, i'll start getting the kiddos
dressed up in their costumes
and maybe go outside for some pictures.
then when dad gets home,
we're off to have some halloween night fun.

. . . . . . . . . .

pumpkin update:
this is what $2.80 pumpkins look like
a couple days after you carve them.
(the ones in the back are fake)

  

October 29, 2008

his legs aren't crossed.
no.
he put his boots on this morning.

lunch with the boy

he was so happy when i told him i made lunch. it's not like i never make lunch. he said i was the best mom in the whole world. and that he loved me.

he always sits at his little table¹ to eat lunch. i joined him today. he had a peanut butter & jelly sandwich²and pretzels. i had an amy's microwaveable lasagna. his new tag-along friend, the "swimming caterpillar"³ joined him too.

 
 
 
we talked a little bit. he fed his caterpillar pretzels. and he peeked his head over the couch to watch some of little bill. little bill was camping with his dad in their backyard and he was telling a scary story about a scary marshmallow. we both thought that was funny. and we both finished all of our food. for a treat, we had a hershey's kiss. straight from the freezer.

¹i can not remember when or why we bought this little table. i tried to figure it out by looking through some old photos. in the little amount of time i was looking, i found one picture of madison, she was about two, and the chairs were sitting behind her. they were bright yellow, not all faded from the sun. this table is just one of those things i can't get rid of. it has a crack in one of the corners and doesn't ever look clean and there are times i wished a cute little wooden one was in it's place.

² max used to call peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, jelly and sandwich.

³this fluorescent colored fuzzy thing was given to the girls by darian and jayce. it had a string attached to it, so you could magically bring it to life. well, the string broke off and the girls gave it to max. and now he brings it everywhere. he calls it "swimming caterpillar".

ten on tuesday

1. max has a special request now when i get him food. for example... i ask him if he wants a cheese roll-up from taco bell and he says "yeah, with no pickles" - do you want cereal this morning? "yeah... no pickles."

2. somewhere in this house there is a whole sheet of brand new bobby pins. one of these days we'll find it. but for now, to try and keep the ones we have all in one place we're doing this...

 
idea found in the real simple magazine

3. darric and i watched baby mama the other night. (with amy poehler, tina fey) it wasn't as bad as i thought it would be.

4. if you've been around max lately, you would know he has a new frequently used phrase... 
       "what the heck!?"
this weekend he woke up, in our bed, and said
       "what the heck... it's morning? but it was just dark outside."

5. madison's class took a little field trip to UNLV to see the performance of james and the giant peach. before they left yesterday morning, and while i was at the grocery store, she called me. she wanted me to bring her a cold lunch. the lunch she would have to order is really gross (her teacher even got on the phone to tell me that). so i picked out a lunchable, complete with capri sun and dessert, checked out and ran her cold lunch over to the school. she came up to the office to get it and gave me a hug. that made it all worth it.
she enjoyed the performance.

6. mackenzie started a cheerleading group with some of her other friends during recess. she was the team captain for awhile and now some other girl is. she practices cheers at home. in the front room. they used to call themselves the chipmunks and now it's the kisses. they were going to have a cheer-off, but for some reason it got canceled.

7. i ordered a catalog from kraftmaid. and i've been dreaming of beautiful kitchens. here's one that i'm lovin'...

8. this sunday, while the girls were out enjoying a buffet and making cookies with grandma & grandpa carter, i was at home cleaning out the junk drawers in the kitchen. that's right... more than one. after the junk drawers, i moved on to a couple cupboards too. one of these weekends i'll get to the kid's rooms. ughh.

9. i had plans of drinking slim-fast shakes for breakfast and lunch this week. along with sensible dinners. :) but that plan flew right out the window yesterday when i met with jodie and mandi and little ones at town square. i just can't NOT order a white pizza from CPK. i did only eat half of it while i was there. but the rest of it disappeared shortly after i got home. 

10. the girls both have class parties on thursday. (i get to help in madi's class.) then they are off friday, go back to school on monday and track break starts on tuesday. what? madison told me monday was optional, but she wanted to go, even if she was going to be the only one there.

pumpkin carving party

jen + dave's house
saturday night
bread bowls + three different soups
+ dips (for the extra bread)
gummy worm ice cubes
pumpkin carving 
pumpkin guts 
which made quincy gag
and max refused to touch.
after madison finally finished
scooping her pumpkin clean
she talked jennifer
into carving her a
three-pumpkin-difficult monster.
max wanted batman
i carved a bat.
which made him happy
which made me happy.
mackenzie cleaned out her pumpkin,
sketched her design
and carved it all out.
then she lit all of the votives
when pumpkins were ready for them.
we had sugar cookies, snickerdoodles,
chocolate chip cookies,
chocolate covered pretzels,
candy necklace crafts
and goodie bags with lots of goodies
(thanks to sandy, calie + cade)
we all had a great time
as usual. :)

 
 
 
(max sat and beaded all of those candies onto the string, then i picked it up and dropped them all. i felt so bad, especially after he kept telling me "it's ok mom", i beaded them all back on)
  
 

from patch to porch

i thought the title was cute. saw it on a scrapbook page somewhere. only problem... we got our pumpkins from wal-mart. for $2.80 each.

   

and here they are on the porch. from left to right: madison's monster (done by aunt jennifer), max's batman (done by me), mackenzie's hand drawn face (done by her).

my name is jamie carter and i approve this message

sometimes it is hard to admit that you don't like the direction of something that you have always supported. i have come to the realization that i am horrified by the direction of the republican party. prosperity has obviously masked many of the problems that have been developing for a long time. we have seen everything blow up in a spectacular fashion, but big business has been plugging the "leaks" of trickle down economics for a long time. the middle class is shrinking and struggling, but we continue to shore up the top. americans that are doing well seem to forget that not all americans are born with the same advantages that they were lucky enough to be BORN with. these advantages can be as simple as being born in the right neighborhood, having two parents, and being born white in a country that STILL does not provide the same opportunities for all. i don't think that i can take another "christian" giving their opinion on why all americans should be exactly like them. christians should spend more time learning about different kinds of people, and less time explaining why their religion in not only better than other religions, but how they are MORE christian than other christians. they should make a nike commercial with the slogan: "my jesus is better than your jesus". i know it's politics, but only one candidate is even willing to say that he wants to create opportunities for as many people as possible, not just for the people that are doing well.

ps. i liked the old john mccain. sarah palin is a moron.

10 reasons to smile today :)

1. it's friday. and a week from today is HALLOWEEN!!

2. our disneyland countdown is now in the low 20's!! every morning i ask madi "how many more days until disneyland?"

3. two more houses on our street have "boo'd" signs hanging on their doors!!

4. gas prices are going down!! the station darric was at this morning was at $2.84.

5. i have a craft to sell at the craft show.

6. this picture of max's "cool awesome spaceship" he made last night. me and the girls all rode on it and received capri suns from the space captain.

 

7. this necklace. i got a compliment from max this morning as he was getting into the car "what a beautiful necklace" then that lead to a compliment on my shirt "oh, that's a nice sweater too". (it's not a sweater)

 

8. i got the stuff to make jambalaya tonight and bum rolls. yum. this means we will have lunch and dinner set for the entire weekend. :) oh. and don't forget dessert. i got stuff for the girls to make dessert too.

9. super wal-mart early in the morning. it reminds me of when we lived over off russell and the 2-15. i shopped at that super wal-mart all the time.

10. the candy corn song on noggin. except, we do like candy corn. and max just dumped another bag of them in our pumpkin jar. so we never forget the words to the song...

I DON'T LIKE CANDY CORN
i don't like candy corn.
no, i don't like candy corn.
i like lots of other things.
but i don't like candy corn.
give it to my brother.
give it to my sister.
i hope i get something else to eat
when i dress up to trick-or-treat.
i would even eat my own feet.
i bet they taste much better! 
i don't like candy corn.
no, i don't like candy corn.
i really love halloween
but, i don't like candy corn.

button, button, who's got the button?

i'm assuming max does.

the little white button did come to the edge of his right nostril yesterday, but as i went to go grab for it, he sniffed hard and i haven't seen it since.

he found it under the couch and came in to tell me, it's ok if i have a button in my nose. you what??

darric and i tried the force method... once... but it made us feel awful. max tried blowing a couple times. but nothing. i even got the puppy flashlight out of the garage to see if i could see it up there. nope.

the puppy flashlight did come in handy for some late night reading though...

 

ps. can i just say how happy i was at the super wal-mart this morning (note: i was there at 8am). i have not been in this place since i went christmas shopping at midnight 2 years ago. (remember that jodie? it started snowing on us when we came out?)  i found all of the accessories i needed for max's costume and some shoes for madi's costume. score. 

ten on tuesday

1. i had one of jodie's tupperware dishes from a couple weeks ago when she sent me home with her sugar cookies. i decided to start a new little tradition and filled it up with peanut butter blossoms when i returned it to her. it was her turn to bring me some cookies... but, she's kind of slacking. ;) so yesterday i had to find another tupperware dish to take her over some chocolate chip pumpkin cookies (we made them this weekend).

2. we had some leftover candy from our boo buckets. of course, the snickers and kit kats were the first to go, but now we've moved on to eating the hot tamales. max tried some and i asked him how they were. he said, "they're so hot, they burned my brain." now this is his new saying for when the sun is too bright... it's burning his brain.

3. i finally finished reading breaking dawn this weekend. i took my time getting done, because i didn't want it to be over. it was so good.

4. mackenzie has a new name for the neighborhood grocery stores... expired and easy. she's says it's kind of like the episode of spongebob... where they built a bunch of these kelp shake restaurants all over the place and the kelp shakes ended up making everyone sick so they had to close all of them. hmm.

5. one of the houses down the street has a "we've been boo'd" sheet hanging on their door. and it's not a neighbor we boo'd. that made us very happy. hopefully it doesn't stop there.

6. breakfast. for me.

7. the costumes are finished. now we just have to go find a few accessories and we're all set.

8. madi has a new job. getting the mail for me after school. i know she looks forward to this, so i save it for her. everyday i tell her to look for cars and everyday she tells me "i know, you tell me that everyday!"

9. this morning... as soon as max gets up... he walks in to the closet, where i'm ironing the clothes. he says "can i get a little sip of milk? no more... no less." as he holds up his pointy finger and thumb showing me how much he wants.

10. at this very moment, there is a button stuck inside of a little boy's nose. i'm not naming any names. but he just might have to wait for his dad to get home and get it out. (he's not really happy with me when i sit on him and try to make him blow it out.)