This Is It

dashboard photos

 
me and max sitting in the car.
waiting for the girls to get out of school.
watching the glowing gas light
warn us that we only had 24 miles left until empty.
we took some pictures.
straight from the dashboard.
cute faces, silly faces, serious faces too.
and then the gate guy came and unlocked the gate.
and we walked up to the playground.
and max played with his little friend until the bell rang at 2:11 pm.
then, with the girls, we walked out to a hot car.
turned up the ac and headed for the gas station.
and since we were right there,
we drove through mcdonalds for three vanilla ice-cream cones.

tonight i blanched

   

i've been trying a lot of new recipes lately. especially since we started vegetarian tuesdays and thursdays. which happen to be going very well.

tonight, i blanched some asparagus for the first time ever. kenzie helped. and max helped me make the dessert. too bad he didn't get any because he refused to eat his dinner.

here's what we've been eating for the past three weeks:

week one
monday: grilled chicken, asparagus w/lemon and mashed potatoes
tuesday: mushroom pizza and salad
wednesday: chicken kabobs (chicken, onions and red & green peppers with bbq sauce brushed on them and then grilled) and baked potatoes
thursday: tomato cheese ravioli soup
friday: spaghetti

week two
sunday: tacos
monday: mediterranean chicken and pasta
tuesday: california grilled veggie sandwiches (darric's new favorite)
wednesday: grilled chicken and tortellini with veggies (i think we ended up eating something else this night)
thursday: grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup (kenzie's favorite)
friday: chicken flautas (and a side of spinach dip - i know they don't go together)
saturday: rosati's pizza

week three
sunday: bbq at the ausman's
monday: bbq at our house
tuesday: portabella burgers with avocado spread and leftover potato salad and macaroni salad
wednesday: sizzling beef and vegetable kabobs, salad, mashed potatoes, rolls and for dessert... bananarama wafer puddin'
thursday: my aunt wendy's vegetarian tacos
friday: pork chops with dijon cream sauce and red potatoes
saturday: probably the grilled chicken and tortellini with veggies we were supposed to make last week

what the carters did

what did the carters do over the three day weekend?

• jamie attended a girl's get-together with her friend crystal.
• jamie and the kiddos had spinach dip and chicken flautas for dinner while darric worked late. (the spinach dip was supposed to be for the girl's get-together.)
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• mackenzie baked pancakes pampered chef style. they were enjoyed by all (except darric, he didn't have any).
• everyone called and wished grandma becky a happy birthday!!
• darric went golfing with bill and dave in the perfect weather.
• jamie and dani went running around the gym's track while the kids played in the gym's playroom. and then they enjoyed smoothies and conversation after.
• they went to the dayton's for subs, spinach dip, swimming and the *second ipod-off. (which ended in a four way tie)
• they came home and ordered rosati's pizza.
• darric and jamie watched the ufc fights.
• and somewhere in there, jamie took a drive to mcdonalds for dessert.
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• jamie, kenzie and max made fruit kabobs and froze some grape kabobs as well.
• they all attended brooklynn ausman's first birthday party.
• max and madi swam with the other kids, while kenzie held the birthday girl.
• darric wanted to see if max could climb a tree. he climbed to the spot brian said the girls usually climb to. darric wanted to see if max could climb higher. he went a little higher and did a slow motion fall right out of that tree onto the ground.
• max got his first good "man scratch"
• they enjoyed yummy bbq and conversation.
• they came home. 
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• they took a ride to darric's office. (he had to pick up something that he needed to load over night)
• the kids said hi to the office cat.
• jamie stole the payday candy bar out of the tech room.
• they made a phone call to cafe rio and picked it up on their way home. (darric was a little upset jamie didn't let him bbq)
• they enjoyed their lunch, complete with chips and queso.
• jamie started to clean up the garage.
• the kids filled up the pool with clean water and went swimming sat in it.
• jamie took the kids, including brianna from down the street, to mcdonalds for ice-cream cones.
• darric got a mcflurry.
• jamie and kenzie went to wal-mart to get the week's groceries.
• jamie decided to get stuff to bbq.
• darric took the other two kiddos to get propane.
• jamie and kenzie came home to unload groceries and realized they forgot hamburger.
• so, they ran to albertsons for hamburger and picked up a steak for darric too (and drinks). darric got to have his memorial day bbq. :)
• it was all very good. steak, hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, macaroni salad, baked chips and chocolate cream pie (that was still a little frozen).
• the kids went to bed while darric and jamie watched their monday night shows. they were reruns, but ones they had not seen before.
• they had a good weekend.

*second ipod-off...

darric's playlist:
1. you're all i need by method man & mary j blige
2. i can't sleep baby by r. kelly
3. we trying to stay alive by wyclef jean
4. paul revere by beastie boys
5. don't know why by norah jones

jamie's playlist:
1. damn, i wish i was your lover by sophie b hawkins
2. total eclipse of the heart by bonnie tyler
3. we belong by pat benatar
4. doin' time by sublime
5. nothing compares 2 u by sinead o'connor

sprinkler park #2

thursday was such a nice day out. the sun was covered with clouds most of the time. jodie and i took the kids out to a different sprinkler park. we had been to this one a couples times before. but max was always leaving the water part to go over to the park, so i wasn't a big fan of it. but now they have a fence around the entire water section. very nice.

we had to force the kids to get wet at first. they were so excited when they got the big spray things all to themselves. max would watch for someone to come up behind him and whip the thing around to spray them. we ate lunch. pb&j sandwiches. jodie brought sonic drinks for us and the kids had their juice boxes.

 
  
  

they all got pretty brave and ran through these hoop things that sprayed water. jodie helped beckam through once with a little push, but he stopped right in the middle and didn't know where to go. he looked pretty handsome with his hair all slicked down after that.

 
 
 

we had been there for awhile and so had this one boy that was probably 10-12 years old. he was with the group of special needs kids. for at least a half an hour, he had been sitting on one of these concrete things just watching everybody. he decided to stand up on the thing to stretch and maybe get a better view of someone, i don't know. jodie and i were watching him, using our mom powers to keep him from falling off. he was a big kid. he turned around a little bit towards us and i waved, he waved back. then jodie waved and he waved back to her too. he turned back away from us. and then he started to dance. waving his arms around in the air and shaking his butt back and forth. before jodie could get her camera out to video tape it, one of his leaders came over and told him to stop (and ruined all the fun). it was too funny.

Mr. Bug Man

monday night there was a knock at the door. (knocks on our door are either from the girls down the street or dave) max raced madi to the door and opened it up. darric was then called to the door. i laughed at him, because he usually makes me answer the door to deal with salesmen. tonight it was a guy from a pest service company trying to get our business. well, he got lucky because that morning i saw a little cockroach in the bathroom and told darric we needed a bug guy, i can't handle cockroaches. so we scheduled them to come out the next morning at 8am.

next morning comes and i get a phone call that they accidentally scheduled two people at the same time, can we move it to 10am? yes. all morning max, is asking me, "when is mr. bug man coming?" "is mr. bug man here?" 10:30 comes and still no bug man, so i nicely call and reschedule again because we have somewhere to be at 11:00. the park. we made plans to meet crystal there. jodie happened to have plans to meet 2 of her friends there too. so anyways, on our way to the park max asks me where mr. bug man lives. i don't know. then he asks, "in mr. bug man world?" maybe.

we get to the park. it's packed. someone was having a party there. we still have a good time. max brings up mr. bug man a few more times throughout the day.

this morning, around 8:30, the bug man finally shows up to spray. max follows him around the inside of the house but keeps a safe distance. when he goes back outside, max asks me "is that mr. bug man?" yes. it is.

later, i asked max a couple questions. and come to find out, he thought the bug man was going to be an actual bug (male, of course). he said he was glad mr. bug man was just a regular guy.

  
[in his room with his orange balloon from trader joe's]

seven on [whatever today is]

1. vegetarian tuesdays and thursdays are going great. tuesday night, i made california grilled veggie sandwiches and darric was surprised at how good they tasted. and he wasn't just saying that to make me feel good. they really were good. last night we had grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. mackenzie was very excited. 

2. after dinner, i took the girls to their school for a concert they were both in. mackenzie's in the choir and madi's second grade class was singing a couple songs. it was a cute little show. after... i took them to get vanilla cones at mcdonalds.

3. darric didn't think this should be posted on the blog... but i thought it was hilarious. the other day max was laying in my room and i think he says "i wanna be naked." i tell him no. then he says "but dad has a big naked." it takes a second for me to realize what he had really said at first.

4. max has been sleeping in his bed all night for 2 weeks now. it might have had something to do with the bribe of a *toy after 5 nights. but it could also be that he's just ready to stay in his own bed. when he does come in our room now, i take him in to use the restroom and back to his bed.  the first five mornings, when he came out of his room, i would tell him "good job, you stayed in your bed all night!" now when he comes out, he tells me, "i stayed in my room a long time ago." (*we went to target and got him a six pack of bubbles)

5. now that it's hot outside and max is wearing shorts everyday, the cowboy boots have made their way out of the closet again. i think in just the last few weeks, he has worn his boots more than he did all winter long.

6. somewhere in our house, there is a library book called "goodnight max". we got a final notice in the mail the other day for it. i've looked through all of the kids books and i have no idea where it would be. it's a board book, so the library can't look on a shelf to see if it's there now, but they told me i can come in and look for it. i'll probably end up paying the $11.99 to replace it.

7. i usually buy quilted northern toilet paper. because it's cheap and good. at target, they had charmin on sale, so i decided to pick some up. after max used it for the first time, he tells me... "i like your toilet paper. it has stripes."

the summer's first official ipod off + swim party

the weekend started off with darric getting up early to go mountain biking on saturday. he shaved 10 minutes off his time up the big hill. the kids and i took our time getting the house picked up and getting ourselves ready.

at 1:30, we headed over to the dayton's house for the first official swim party of the summer. the party consisted of... squirt gun shootings, everyone wanting to wear the swim caps (almost everyone), yummy steaks on the bbq (i was being adventurous and tried mine with a little pink in the middle), fruit and salad, fudgesicles, jumps off the waterfall - one that resulted in a head on crash when billy jumped in the pool to mackenzie... she was going to catch him, cute kids in goggles and our first ever ipod-off. dani and bill picked ten of their favorite songs and darric and i picked ten of ours. i threw my list together the morning of the party, so i didn't have much time to plan. here's our list...

darric's five songs:
amazing by kanye west
imagine by john lennon
bridge over troubled water by simon and garfunkel
7 by prince
will you be there by michael jackson
(ps... these are the songs on his ipod that he works out to)

my five songs:
starstruck by lady gaga
i'll be there by jackson 5
down by 311
swing ya rag by ti
hate it or love it by 50 cent

i've already put together my list for next week and i promise it'll be much better. :)

we had a great time and didn't end up leaving until 8:00 or so. and that was only because someone mentioned "mcdonalds kiddie cones".
we stopped at mcdonalds on our way home. kenzie and madi got vanilla cones, max was asleep and the adults all got hamburgers. and we ate them while we watched rob & big reruns.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

the carnival

 we pre-paid for our tickets, so we picked them up in the front of the school when we arrived around 5:00. we headed right outside to get started in on the fun. it was pretty warm out, but the sun eventually made it's way behind the school and provided us with some shade.

our first event, throwing the balls at the target. while we were standing in line darric was prepping max. "make sure you step forward with this leg" he got up and made his dad proud. the girls' p.e. coach was pretty impressed too. after he made the first couple shots, he had him move back further and further again, until he missed. kenzie stuck one ball on the target. i don't think her head was in the game.

our second event, the wiggle racers. the man counted down and they were off. this was madison's event. she took first place. max came in second. the man kept saying "look at him". he knew exactly what to do even when it came to getting around the curve. he wasn't as fast as madi, but he had mackenzie to stay back and keep the other girl from beating him. teamwork.

 
 
 

the third event, the football throw. they asked if max needed to stand closer, darric told them no. he threw the first ball... made it. second ball... made it. third ball... missed. madi did the same. kenzie... nothing. i think she had boys on her mind.

moving on to the fourth event, dunk the principal. only the principal got down and one of the teachers got up by the time we got in line. none of our kids dunked her. and me and darric were both hoping they would have.

we went and did a few more events after this and then got in the super long line to get snow cones for the kids. we went and checked out the multipurpose room, did one more event and then headed out. it was way past dinner time and we (me and darric) were pretty hungry.

next stop was el pollo loco, then home for the night.

this week...

monday: i woke up with a mild pain in my lower back that has managed to stick around all week long. max had swim class this morning. his teacher told them that on wednesday they were going to have a party and get rice krispy treats. he was excited.
dinner: grilled chicken, asparagus and mashed potatoes - kenzie cooked all of the veggies.

tuesday: max's last pre-karate class (at least until summer's over). met crystal at red robin for her birthday lunch. did the shred, since i haven't been to the gym in awhile.
dinner: mushroom pizza and salad (it was vegetarian tuesday)

wednesday: max's last swim class. no party. no rice krispy treats. instead, they got granola bars and a certificate for finishing level one. he thinks he'll know how to swim this summer now that he took the class. i don't know about actual swimming, but he is more comfortable in the water now. as soon as we left the rec center, we headed to cafe rio to have lunch with my mom and jen. (no jodie today, she decided to go to disneyland) went to the gym after the girls got out of school. ran/walked for 40 minutes.
photo: i took the picture while driving on the freeway, with one hand held towards the backseat. max had to bring his cowboy hat along for the ride. it went great with his swim outfit.
dinner: chicken kabobs (that surprisingly turned out), baked potatoes and salad 

thursday: max and i went to get the oil changed at nissan. it only took a little over an hour this time. max had fun playing with some lady's dog and rolling gumballs around with a little girl. after rolling the gumball all over the place, he stuck it in his mouth. then he spit it back out when he couldn't figure out how to blow a bubble. the girls had their field day today. i wanted to go watch them, but i already had the oil change scheduled. and sitting inside a cool waiting room did sound better than standing out in the heat all day with a three year old. they did all of the same events as last year and both girls agreed that singing in the shower was the most fun. (because they get really wet) that night (after the shred and dinner) i drove over to jen's house with jodie to watch the grey's anatomy season finale. jen rose joined us too. while the dvr recorded an hour and a half of the show, we sat and chatted. i think i've watched a total of 2.5 grey's episodes since the show started and i still really enjoyed it tonight.
dinner: tomato-cheese ravioli soup with crackers (it was vegetarian thursday)

friday: cleaned up the house, paid the bills (including the lovely armada registration), made a grocery list and headed over to albertsons. i was doing pretty good keeping track of how much i was spending, until i got too close to my budgeted amount. then i turned off the calculator and hoped that the coupons i clipped would even things out. i didn't do too bad, but i still need to take a trip to target. we got home just in time to put the groceries away and have a quick bite for lunch before it was time to go get the girls.
tonight: as soon as darric gets home and gets ready... we're off to the school carnival.
dinner: maybe carnival hot dogs. maybe not. 

let me show you something

when dave got to our house last night to pick darric up for the gym,
max tells him he has something to show him.

so off they go.

a couple minutes later, they walk back out and now max wants to show me.
dave tells him, "you probably shouldn't show your mom that."

i'm thinking there's something nasty hidden in a corner of his room.

darric's thinking max is going to jump off his bedrail (not just the bed, the bedrail - because he's tried it before).

we follow him into the hall where he stops and places his feet up on one side and his hands over on the other side and begins to climb up the wall.

darric's pretty impressed.

the guys leave for the gym.

and i bring max back in the hall for some pictures.
he is more than willing to do it again.

 

he starts to climb.
i take a picture,
he climbs some more.
i'm checking out my camera settings
and go to snap another picture
when i realize how high he is now...

 

he's more than half way up the wall.

then i tell him,
"ok, that's enough. now don't do ever do this again."