Little Bear...

Today Shaine, Lucas and I were sitting on the love seat. Lucas started saying, "Momma Lukey's baby". Since he was little (like he isn't now...LOL!), I've called him Lukey. He loves his knick name, too. I told him, "No, momma isn't Lukey's baby. Lukey is momma's baby".

Shaine likes to give Lucas a hard time about his knick name. Lucas likes to be called Lukey. If he says that Lukey is the baby and you say back, "Lucas is the baby" he won't have it. "No. Lukey the baby." Shaine will say, "Lucas is daddy's baby". "No, Lukey daddy's baby". This could really go on all night. Well, I do like to make sure that Lucas knows that his name really is Lucas. So, I said, "What is your name?". He didn't say anything, so I said, "Is your name Riley?". Riley is his middle name. Typically he will say, "My name is Lucas Riley Carson". Today, however, when I said, "What is your name?", he sat for a moment and thought about it. "My name is Little Bear".

Yes, yes. I think I see the similarities!

Blast From the Past...

Before I started this blog, I would post things on my Myspace blog. I no longer post there, so thought I would move some old Logan funnies here. I'll include the date they were originally posted in parenthesis. Enjoy!

--(July 10th, 2006) Well, it would be a long story to post why we are at a hotel, but we are (D.C. area flooded...including our apt.). Shaine and Logan were in the whirlpool and I was holding Lucas. He was getting tired and cranky...wanting to eat and go to bed. Shaine said, "Lucas is so intense". To which Logan replied, "I am in tennis, too!!".

--(July 17th, 2006) Today Logan was getting into trouble for something (can't remember what). He said to me that he "could do whatever he wants". I said, "Oh yeah. Why is that?". "Cause I'm the Logan".

LOL....we have told him that he can't do something and when he asks why we say "Because I'm the Momma/Daddy". He sure does crack me up!!

--(July 22, 2006) Logan has a hard time saying his l's. So, Logan, comes out Wogan. Lucas Riley comes out Wucas Riwee....you get the picture. Well, I have taken to calling Lucas, Wucas Riwee when he is fussing. We were in the van and he began to fuss, "Wucas Riwee", I said. Logan sits for a minute and says, "Mom, I call him Lucas." I said, "Oh yeah, then what is your name?". "Wogan".

--(Sept. 20, 2006) The other day, Logan said something and I had no clue what it meant. Well, a couple of days ago I went to pick Shaine up from work. Logan said a funny and Shaine filled me in with the background.

Shaine told Logan that his life was like a paradise...all he had to do was play...his meals were made for him, etc...

You wanna know what Logan's reply was?????

"This paradise is killing me!!"

Oh my, where does he come up with this stuff??

--(Dec. 12, 2006) Mommy what does that sign say?



While running errands today, Logan spotted a sign like the one above and asked what it said. Now, you and I both know it means no left turn. I told him that and he begged to differ. According to Logan, it means "Do not bend over". He went on to say that it said not to bend over with your feet on the ground because it is dangerous!

I love seeing his little imagination at work!


--(April 27, 2007) I remember visiting my mom when I was a kid and her friends making fun of my Texan accent. They asked me to say "ice" and "bench" because they thought I was using foul language. Well.......I had a dose of that myself last weekend.

We had tried to go to the DC zoo, but by the time we got there, the parking lots were full. We headed out of DC and stopped in Arlington to eat lunch. It was a gorgeous day out! We were walking along and Logan felt of a bench. It was metal, so it was warmed from the sun shining on it. We went inside a restaurant and ate our lunch. Near the end, Logan said something about benches. Well, I knew he didn't say the "b-word", but it really sounded like it. He then went on to talk about how they were "hot benches" really loudly. I couldn't help it. I had to laugh. I was trying to make him talk quietly because I knew if I thought he was saying hot b****es others would as well. Somehow it was just too funny for me!!

Homeschooling Cabinet.....

I had said a while back that I spent 6 hours on a Saturday cleaning out and organizing the homeschooling cabinet.

Well a friend posted about her new book shelf, so I was inspired to finally pull out my camera and take pictures of my organized cabinet. After going through it, I discovered that I had purchased a few books twice and that I have enough school supplies for this year from my stock pile for last year. Um. I might have gone slightly overboard!! It is just so hard for me to pass up a good deal. Because of this, I have not gone to any of the back to school sales this year.

The cabinet is currently in Logan's room turned against one end of his bunkbed. The room is pretty narrow and long, so I had to stand in the hallway to take the picture of the whole cabinet and in the closet to take the pictures of the inside....LOL!


The top shelf on the left holds our new curriculum and other various things I plan to use this year. The plastic bin holds workbooks and such that we have been working on through the summer. The bag on top is the canvas book bag that my sister made me. It says, "Home School....There is no substitute". I love it! The little white basket has shaving cream, salt, and a silicone baking pan for Logan to use with the salt and shaving cream to practice letters in (we used that last year). On the far right is our kindergarten curriculum, a notebook of games I used last year, and Logan's school work from last year.

The next shelf holds our construction paper, crayons, markers, and colored pencils. The bin in the middle holds more books and notebooks that I purchased to use this school year. They are either ones that came with the curriculum or ones that I will use to supplement it, my Bible and our devotionals. There are also flash cards, glue sticks, rubber bands, paper clips, highlighters, pencils, watercolors, finger paints, and more.
The bottom portion of the cabinet holds crafts, an ant farm, lots of manipulatives, letter bingo, and other various games. There are also a few things that I will use for preschool with Lucas next year. He is 3.5 this year, so I won't be doing anything too structured with him. On the far right is a Master Disaster kit that I picked up at a book sale. It has some great stuff about teaching kids what to do in disasters that I thought I could use.

The very bottom has books that are too large for the bookshelves, Logan's Pixter, Leapster, Gameboy and all the games that go with them. The plastic bins that are stacked on the right have wooden toys like lacing beads, small puzzle, and wooden clock. Under that is some Color Wonder stuff and the bottom one is all coloring books.

Before I organized the cabinet, the bottom portion was filled with all of our board games. I moved those to the top of Logan's closet.


I also keep all of the books in Logan's room. The book shelves are cheapy ones from Target and if you look closely in the picture, you can see that the shelves are starting to bow. I'm on the lookout for nicer bookshelves, but I want them to be similar in size to these. The shelf on the left has various books, while the shelf on the right are books that I can incorporate with our curriculum. I purchased a great set of books before I even knew I was going to homeschool.

Eventually, I hope to have our basement room finished and move the homeschooling cabinet and books down there. However, I don't know if I'll be able to convince my husband to move that cabinet again. The thing is massive (and HEAVY!!) and was NOT fun to get up the stairs. It would have to go down two sets of stairs to get to the basement. I'm trying to convince him that going down the stairs would be easier than going up! So far, he isn't buying it.

Menu Plan Monday...

It has been a long while since I've done Menu Plan Monday. I actually have a plan this week, so I thought I would post it. Nothing too exciting, but easy enough that I will stick to it!


************I've edited my post to include a link to the chili recipe that I made up. We went to the farmer's market and my husband picked up a whole bag of various peppers, so I decided to come up with a way to use them.


Monday--
kale salad

Tuesday--leftover fajitas

Wednesday--homemade chili, Fritos, cheese

Thursday--chicken salad (Cape Cod chicken salad from Costco) sandwiches on croissants and cole slaw (also from Costco in the deli area)

Friday--leftovers

Saturday--leftovers

Lunch choices (all served with a side of fruit)--

• cheese, pepperoni, crackers
• hummus and pita bread or pretzels
  
• chicken salad sandwich
• cheese rollup
• pot pie (Marie Callender's)
• English muffin pizzas
  

I don't want these....

Today while eating lunch, I noticed Lucas rubbing my arm. I didn't think much of it until I heard him say, "Here. I don't want these." I turned and looked at him and he was sticking a finger up each nostril and then rubbing those fingers on my arm. Oh. Thanks, Lucas. That was JUST what Momma wanted.

Quick and Easy.....

Saturday we packed up a lunch and headed to the park for a picnic. Before leaving, I threw dinner in the crockpot. It had been a long time since I had made this and I forgot just how much I loved it. I thought I would share with you!

Super Easy Garlic Lime Crockpot Chicken

5 chicken breasts or 10-14 thighs(skin removed)
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup lime juice
1T worcestershire sauce
2 garlic cloves-minced or 1t garlic powder
1/2t dry mustard
1/2t ground pepper

Place chicken in slow cooker. Combine other ingredients and pour over chicken. Cover and cook on high for 4-6 hours or low 6-8 hours.


Lots of my spices and such are still packed and I don't want to buy more, so I opted to leave out the mustard and worcestershire sauce and it was still ultra yummy. We served this over jasmine rice and with a side of green beans. Typically I prefer breasts, but I used boneless, skinless thighs in this and it is soooo good! I made this a lot when Logan was a baby. We were super poor then and I had no other choice but use thighs. I decided to use thighs to save a little money and I think this might be one that I always use thighs with! YUM!

Since I have no picture of the meal, I offer you this picture instead. Lucas took this picture of Logan and me and I thought it turned out pretty good. I offered a little help with aiming the camera....LOL!

So Delicious........

The other night we were picking up a few things at my new favorite grocery store and I saw something I wanted to try.

I almost didn't get it. I mean, $2.09 for 6 ounces of yogurt.....CRAZY! I decided to splurge, though. Oh my, it really is so delicious!!

Independence Day!! (WW....almost!)

We went into DC for the fireworks, as we have for the last several years. As always, the boys enjoyed themselves. It was fun to see Lucas clap his hands in excitement along with everyone else when the fireworks were over! We sit between the Washington Monument and the WWII memorial, which puts the fireworks almost directly overhead.

Waiting patiently....

Some of my favorite shots.....

This year we also went to Mt. Vernon. They had a few "day time fireworks" and we got there just in time to see them. I've never seen Mt. Vernon so busy. Lucky for us, we have annual passes and avoided the ridiculously long line!

Daytime fireworks....

Other favorites from the day...

This little piggy!

This week the theme of the MckLinky Blog Hop is favorite photo. Man, it is hard to pick just one!! I decided to go with a favorite that I haven't already posted on my blog. This is Lucas on August 15, 2006! He was such a sweet baby!

"This little piggy went to market......"

Chondromalacia Patella

I did end up going to a specialist for my knee and he told me I most likely have chondromalacia patella. He also told me that the fact that I have a 3 level house is most likely why I am still having issues with my knee and to make each trip up or down the stairs count. The best part.....he suspects it will be at LEAST another month or two until my knee is feeling better. I am at least happy to hear that it is nothing major.

That is, if I can keep from hurting it more. I was squating down to take a picture on July 4th and lost my balance and fell forward onto my knee. Granted, I was low to the ground and the impact wasn't as bad as my fall in June, but it hurt sooooo bad!!

Since I went to a specialist, I was given my x-rays on cd, so thought I would share it. It is a normal knee x-ray, so nothing really to look at, but the boys were with me and Logan loved getting to see "pictures of my bones"!

OUCH!!

I went to get a few groceries and hubby stayed home with the boys. When I got home, Logan said something about Lucas doing something bad while I was gone. My husband brought me my blood sugar monitor and told me that Lucas got into it while I was gone. I made the mistake of giving him an empty test strip vial and I guess he wanted another one. Anyway, hubby told me that he had to toss several of the test strips because they were folded in half.

I didn't think too much about it and tested my blood sugar. OUCH!!! I rotate my testing sites and if I happen to prick a spot that I haven't done in a while without turning the dial down on my lancet, it really hurts! I looked at my finger and realized that I pricked a spot I use often and it should not have hurt. I checked the dial. I keep it on 2 and Lucas had turned it up to 9!!!! OH MY! I guess that is what I get for leaving it out!

Need Lasik Eye Surgery?

Well, head on out to your local mall!! Last night we were at the mall. My husband seems to have worn his black dress shoes a few too many times and needed new ones. He knew exactly what he wanted, so two malls later we had them in hand. It helped that he already owns the shoes in brown to know his size and that they are comfortable.

Anyway, we decided to eat at the mall. As we were walking to the food court, I heard my husband say to Logan, "What? That isn't Lasik eye surgery!". We had just walked past a kiosk similar to this one.

Have you seen them? They do eyebrow threading. It seems to be the new rage here because they have a kiosk in every mall.

Anyway, Logan saw the picture of the giant eye and figured it must be Lasik eye surgery! Can you imagine?? The guy sitting on the bench eating his dinner got a good laugh, too!