Monday, August 30, 2010

Monday Menu Post 8/30

Things are falling in a routine (I hope)

Monday-Leftovers from Zach's party and the weekend food
Tuesday- Grilled Steaks (Angelfood)
Wednesday- Spaghetti with meatballs
Thursday- Seafood
Friday- Eating out or sandwiches depending on what Matt decides

We did excellent last week with sticking to our plan and we also did not eat out at all until Sunday! I hope this trend continues!

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Wordless Wednesday






From VBS the week Matt became unemployed. Both the girls LOVED IT!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Monday Menu Post 8/23 on Tuesday

Better late than never...Zach had an awful horrible night last night so I am just now post. So far so good this week!

Monday- Country Fried Steak, mashed potatoes
Tuesday- Steak em sandwiches and tator tots
Wednesday-Shake and Bake pork chops
Thursday- Pasta from Pizza Hut in freezer
Friday- Out to eat or left-overs or something quick from freezer because preparing for Zach's party on Saturday!

Friday, August 20, 2010

Aquarium Pictures






I want to get as many as these pictures as possible on my blog because our vacation was a much needed and much deserved break from reality. Blogger will only let me post 5 pictures a day so I am doing several days of pictures. On my regular camera I had 100 pictures and another 25 on the waterproof camera that I bought. I am also trying to figure out when blogging makes the most sense and at least post 5 days a week. So here are my favorite pictures from the aquarium!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Bowling at the Beach






One day at the beach last week, while the housekeeper was cleaning our room we decided to head upstairs and check out the bowling alley. You were responsible for renting shoes only. So for $8 Matt,Amanda,Haley and Lily got to bowl. Kendall, Zach and myself were the cheerleaders. Lily LOVED bowling and used both the gutter guards and a ball roller but she did score the highest! Enjoy the pictures.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Monday, August 16, 2010

Monday Menu Post 8/16

Matt is in charge of cooking, I get to do the planning since I am still the primary shopper in the house.

Monday- Steaks...broccoli...cheese bread
Tuesday- Chicken a la Matt (he is going to do something besides grill it)
Wednesday- Steak um sandwiches and tator tots
Thursday- Swedish meatballs
Friday- Eating out or seafood.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Random Beach Thoughts

Waiting on 3 small children to fall asleep twice a day at around 1.5 hours each time eats up an ENTIRE day at the beach over the week of vacation.

Said children are so tired by 5:30pm it is torture to keep them awake till 6:30 when the above torture begins..yes we have tried putting them straight to bed and that did not work either.

We have been able to "enjoy" the sunrise all 4 days of our vacation due to the above mention children and their sleeping habits.

Lily enjoyed her first ever game of bowling today with a "winning" score of 137 including 3 separate strikes. She did use both gutter guards and a ball ramp.

Amanda is the worsest bowler in the house only because I "took one for the team" and did not bowl. Haley came in second behind Lily with 3 strikes as well and Matt was third with only 1 strike and several gutter balls.

Zach and Kendall both enjoyed the aquarium this morning much more than I had hoped.

Kendall was afraid to touch anything (shoe crabs, string rays and the costume Shark).

Lily impressed us all and asked to go and visit with the costume Shark, she earned a tattoo for this request.

It is possible to entertain 4 children at the beach without any toys for almost 2 hours. In fact we have enjoyed this time for the past 2 days.

And to finish out the 10 random beach thoughts….I can say without a doubt the Krispy Kreme donuts are far better than Dunkin Dounuts!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Lily's Beach Adventure

Monday morning was really the first time that we had planned to spend time at the ocean. We did go out on Sunday evening after we arrived but only for about an hour. So Monday, I was very pleased with how smoothly things were going. I had packed a lunch for everyone, we remembered Zach’s pacifier and the plan was to spend ¾ of the day sitting on the beach. I asked Amanda and Haley to watch the little girls while Matt and I set up Zach’s little tent. They all headed to the ocean with out a second thought. About 3 minutes later Amanda and Kendall came back to get the sand toys. I didn’t give it a second thought because I assumed Lily was with Haley. After walking half way back to the beach, Amanda turned and asked where Lily was. I was still thinking with Haley until we spotted Haley in the water. Amanda and I both start looking for Lily as did Haley when I got her out. Amanda actually went to the lifeguard. Lily was no where to be found. I had walk between the 3 closest lifeguard stands without locating her. The lifeguard sent out a page down the beach including what suit she was wearing. Amanda was extremely panicked at this point. As I was walking down the beach looking for her I could barely scan ahead of me because of people asking if they could help look. The lifeguard told me that “in the case of small children they usually follow the current.” I disagreed but just kept walking. The lifeguard then sent a little cart so we could drive and look for her. As I got in the cart, the call came in that she had been found. Where? 4 lifeguard stands in the opposite direction from the current. So what happened?

According to Lily she was following Amanda but “she would not hold my hand.” I pieced together that Lily poor eyesight combined with the fact we had just gotten to the beach and she had not gotten familiar with it or with what everyone was wearing, Lily started following someone else down the beach by mistake. The whole ordeal lasted no longer than 10 minutes but was enough to scare us and for us to not let anyone out of sight again! The rest of the day was almost perfect, we spent 4 hours on the beach!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

My Birthday Post

If things work out, meaning that I am able to get a strong enough wireless signal in my hotel room, I will be posting this on my birthday from our family vacation in Myrtle Beach SC. I will admit that my Monday Menu post is absent this week and my intention is to blog about vacationing on a budget and enjoyment instead of Wordless Wednesday. I had planned to schedule both these post on Saturday and Sunday of last week but they were on the bottom of the short list that did not get accomplished. But now on to the fun stuff…how I spent my 38th birthday.

Our budget was that we were going to eat out one time a day while at the beach, however I really don’t like cold cereal and or pop tarts so I decided that I would eat out twice for my birthday. This morning, I was awake at 6am and so were the little ones. I did fall asleep around 8:40 last night so I was WIDE awake. Matt, myself and the little ones went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. It was an awesome meal. We came back and went to the beach. Today, spent about 15 minutes riding the waves ALONE. That was cool. Because of a shower, we came back to the room for lunch and nap. The little ones are having a really hard time going down to sleep it is taking around an hour before they all fall asleep, I consider this a TORTURE. I spent naptime using the slowest internet in the world……..

This afternoon, we (the entire family) went to Broadway on the Beach. Dinner at Hard Rock Café was an experience. The girls manage to embarrass me…. announcing to the entire restaurant my age. We spent an hour shopping around. Lily had a $25 gift card to Build a Bear where she bought a bathing suit and outfit including shoes and got a bag as well. I also used some of my birthday money to purchase a couple of necklaces. Tonight, I am hoping to get a couple of blog post up, read the first four chapters of John for quizzing and watch some mindless tv.

All in all an awesome birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Swim Lessons








This week has been usual, of course I am beginning to wonder if we will ever have a "normal" week again. The girls have had swimming lessons every night this week. On Thursday, there was a really bad storm that force lessons to be canceled and Friday lessons were cut short by another storm. I did remember to take my camera on Friday and got some awesome pictures! Lily has really started to swim, she goes off the diving board with only a noodle and can swim short distance without anything! Kendall is my little fish, she will jump off in the water with only a ring float from ANYWHERE. They worked with her on blowing bubbles and kicking!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

YUCK

When I originally thought about this post in my head it was going to be an upbeat but honest reflection of how difficulty the transition has been for me. Last week on Tuesday, I went from the stay at home mostly full time parent to working enough to support our household. But once again Life has a change in mind. About Midnight of Monday, I started feeling yucky which soon lead to a stomach virus. Matt followed shortly behind me and Lily an hour later. So this morning instead of having time to blog and tell about how it is working for us, I am waiting till Matt wakes up so I can lay back down. Kendall and Zach both have had some awful diapers already but Lily is better. I hope this is less than 24 hours

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Monday Menu Post 8/2

I know this is a day earlier but hey at least I got it posted! So even tho things are dramatically changing over here, I am still doing the menu planning for now with the rule that he can change if he feels like it! Last week we stuck to plan except for the cabbage rolls which were replaced by a trip to Applebee's and we had them at lunch on Sunday with friends. Next week the post will be about how we plan to eat on vacation at the beach :).

Monday: Chicken Fried Rice (double portion, one to be frozen to be consumed at the beach), egg rolls
Tuesday: Hamburger steaks (Angel Food) and corn on the cob
Wednesday: Seafood night (Angel Food)
Thursday: Lasagna (Angel Food)
Friday: Steaks and left over sides from the fridge to clean it out!
Saturday: Grilled chicken, pasta, and peanut butter desert with awesome friends from Africa
Sunday: MYRTLE BEACH, here we come!

A Dime

My intention was to place a picture of a dime at the top of this post, unfortunately I could not figure out how to do it so just pretend...


I had never really thought a lot about a dime or even find one until the Sunday after Remington's funeral. My parents (Granny and Paw paw) came over to see the little kids. They had been to the cemetery earlier and were excited upon returning to the car to find a dime in the front seat of the car. Why were they excited? Granny proceeded to tell all of us that she had been told by her mother as a young child that when someone died that if you found money in unexpected place that was a sign from them that first they were safe and happy then secondly that they loved you and wanted you to know this fact. I was kind of skeptic at first. Haley was the first to find her dime, Amanda also found one the next day. Lily found 2 which she happily says it was one for her and one for Kendall. As you can see, we believe that it is a dime that Remington chooses to leave for us. Matt found his first one in the washer. I have currently found 3. The first was on the end table in the living room, the second was at the foot of our bed on the covers and the third was by far the strangest and the most unexplained. I was working with a patient at the nursing home and she decide to remove her jacket. I had her clean out her pocket before folding it up. Her pocket contained 3 things.. a safety pin, a Kleenex and the dime. Patients do not usually have any money with them and a dime what are the odds. I personally don't believe in odds or fate so this was my sign. We all keep our eyes open for dimes and each one puts a smile on a face as well as a tear in some eyes. Small things help me remember and go on!