Art from Natalie

I'm happy to see that Natalie has branched out from just drawing cockroaches. Here is here latest. It's Daddy in the middle (check out all his hair!), James is on the right and I'm on the left. I'm so impressed by the people! Joanna was never interested in drawing like this. I love it!

Food

I haven’t been taking pictures of everything I eat, mainly because it’s hard to stop and try to take decent pictures of food with three or four hungry beasts nipping at my ankles.

Last week I was nauseous most of the time, so I struggled to find things that even sounded good to eat.  This week I feel pretty normal, but I’m definitely craving food I can’t have.  And I’ve lost the will to live.

Not really, but I do love food a lot, and I look forward to it.  I don’t have a ton of things that are actually on the detox that I look forward to eating.  So I’m not really having fun. But I’m sticking it out and hoping next week won’t be quite so hard.  And then I’m going to try to ease back in to eating sugar and carbs, but in fewer quantities than before.  She says.

So these are things I’ve eaten the past week or so at times I actually pulled out the camera.

I ate my version of this before Matt reminded me to take a picture, so this is his plate.  Mine looked the same minus tomatoes.  I don’t like tomatoes.

It’s a leaf of Romaine filled with “grilled” (on the griddle) chicken and onions, cheese, and avocado.  It probably has bacon in it too.  I actually really like this; it’s filling and has lots of flavor.

I’ve been indulging in steaks on the detox which are quite a treat.  Matt grills ‘em up for me – yum!

I actually didn’t like this dish, but Matt did so it worked out.  Normally I really like summer squash but they just haven’t been speaking to me lately.  I think they were sprinkled with parmesan cheese, garlic, and I can’t remember what else.

I bought an artichoke for myself the other night but I don’t think they’re quite in season yet (or anymore?).  It was just “eh.”  I do love ripping off those leaves and dipping them in butter though.  Yummo! 

Matt’s been grilling a lot for us; we’ve been eating more meat than usual.  I’ve had to up the grocery budget a bit for these (interminably long) three weeks, but it’s okay.  And the meat has been tasty!

My favorite “treat” is a sliced up green apple.  The program allows for either one green apple or one green tipped banana each day.  I’ve been usually having an apple – half at the kids’ rest time and half after they go to bed.  I really didn’t like green apples before, but as my only fruit in the day, these taste AMAZING.

One evening I made some taco meat and served it up in a romaine leaf for me and as a salad for the rest of the family.

Here’s my boat – I didn’t end up with a very good shot.  It was tasty though!

This is Joanna’s plate:

For the kids I chopped up the lettuce very fine (so it would stick to the other ingredients and be easy to accidentally eat) and spooned some taco meat over it.  Then I added cheese, avocado, and tomato.  The “dressing” is picante sauce mixed with plain Greek yogurt.  Then I broke up some tostadas we had leftover into “chips” so they could use them to scoop up the salad.  The girls DEVOURED theirs – yay!  I’ve attempted things similar to this, but they never loved it quite so much.  We will definitely do this one again! I’m pretty sure James just ate the chips, but you can’t have it all.  :)

Anybody Seen Marty McFly?

I saw on Facebook that yesterday was the date that Marty came forward to in Back to the Future.  I just think that’s cool.  :)

I feel a little like I’ve lost an appendage without a computer to blog with!  I had David’s, but then it stopped working (though it may be okay after all).  I haven’t even tried to turn it on in days, and I asked my mom if I could borrow hers for a bit.  She dropped it off and took David’s back home, where it appears to be working normally.  So maybe it was a subconscious ploy to use this computer.  Mwa ha ha ha ha!

Not really.

I remember I put a bunch of pictures together on David’s to blog, but I obviously didn’t publish; I’m not even sure I started composing.

Anywho… Without a working computer, my desire to take millions of pictures constantly all day long has diminished a bit.  And also I’ve become quite hooked on a television program that has like six seasons I can catch up on.  Wahoo!  And also…not.  :)

These first few are from last week, when I felt mostly dead; it’s kind of foggy.

James would make a very pretty lady, don’t you think?

Matt took this one evening when I’d gone to my room to hibernate.  I love that James loves me so much… most of the time anyway.

I think this was one day at rest time – probably Saturday because Matt took this one also.  He had the settings off, but you can get the drift.  The girls put their nightlight on the floor, darkened the window blinds, and had a “campout.”

A friend passed along these Scooby Doo PJs for James to dress up in.  Of course the big sisters have to check out all things intended for their little brother.  She makes a cute puppy though!

I have felt SO MUCH better this week – I’ve been able to catch up around the house.  It’s glorious.  I was super tired today, but that’s totally normal for me and Thursdays.  I’m sticking it out with my sugar detox, but I am sooooooooooo craving everything I cannot have.  I especially want ice cream and French fries.  That will likely be lunch on the day I finish this thing.  :)  I have a few food pics gathered for a post on what I’ve been eating.  I should get it up later.  Though now that the children are in bed I want to watch TV.  And the kitchen is in bad shape.  So we’ll see.

This is from today.  He is TOO CUTE in his t-shirt and boots – best outfit!

It’s been raining all week (NOT complaining!) which makes it a bit dark for good pics.  And it makes me not want to leave the house.  The children are going a bit stir-crazy.  I should come up with something fun for tomorrow.  Maybe the grocery store.  If I add a few exclamation points that will help – maybe the grocery store!!!

James has been pretty Mommy-needy lately and his sleep’s a little funky.  My guess is that he’s teething.  Hopefully that passes quickly!

Today Martha brought Laura to pick up Ray from my house so I got to meet her for the first time!  I was sick last week, but I feel back to normal now.  I got to snuggle her for a long time, and she slept and slept and slept then finally woke up.  She is so pretty!

This week was our first round of Musikgarten preview classes.  I taught a toddler class on Monday and brought James with me.  I co-led with Kendra, and I think it went really well.  I sure had fun and I think James did too.  He was pretty miffed I made him take his shoes off, but I’m still impressed with how well he cooperated with me helping teach the class.  I’m so excited for this program.  I love the material and I’m having such fun teaching it!

The 4th

I woke up Wednesday not feeling too awful, so I decided we should do the parade.  Matt was at work, but Gran said she’d come with us!

Joanna hasn’t been to the 4th of July parade since she was a toddler, and I was telling her we needed to pick out red, white, and/or blue clothes to wear.  When she found out Gran was coming she asked, “Does she know what color to wear?”  I thought that was cute. :)

Before leaving I took pics of the kids on the driveway.

We got there probably by 9:30, but the shady spots had already been snatched.  My mom had this big ol’ beach umbrella so we thought we’d be okay in the full sun.

At first we had it kind of set up behind us for a little shady spot for the kids before the parade started.

This girl looks chilled out!

These kids are sooooo cute!

James gets sooooo hot.

I think we should move the 4th of July parade to January.  Anybody with me?  :)

David came by on his bicycle to watch the parade with us.  He rigged the big umbrella to stand up over us using the stroller so we could sit/stand under it and watch the parade.  Yay!!

We would not have made it through whole parade without that umbrella.  I might not have lasted five minutes.  I don’t mix well with heat.

These guys played “Oh When the Saints…”  I love live music!

James LOVED waving his American flag – he did it the whole parade!

My sweet Joanna…

We drank lots of water, and the kids enjoyed those ice pops they passed out in the parade.

Yum!

I even let James have a sucker when he got antsy later – he sucked that thing until it was totally gone.  :)

More live music – a bagpipe!  I find bagpipes to be amazing.  They look really hard to play.

Joanna is cute.

Somehow she ended up with this sign from I’m assuming Ted Cruz’ people in the parade.  She’s hilarious.

This man dressed as Uncle Sam lives around the corner form us.  We always wondered why he wore his hair and beard like that.  Now we know.

Our loot! 

It was kind of hard to completely pass on the candy.  There were a couple of favorites in there.  But I didn’t eat any!

I was definitely feeling the heat and some grodiness when we left, but I’m glad we went.  The kids had a great time, and it’s so fun to see so many people out all enjoying the parade.  Mom stopped on the way home to get the kids Happy Meals, and I’m so glad she did.  I ended up feeling really awful later on, and I was glad all the “cooking” I had to do for lunch was put stuff on plates.  The children really enjoyed the treat as well!  I’m very thankful that James took a good nap and Matt was able to get home a few minutes early.  I just can’t shake this icky feeling!

We didn’t do anything festive for the evening of the 4th.  It’s was still so stinkin’ hot of course, but beyond that it’s hard to keep the kids up late.  It won’t be too many years before we head out to watch fireworks though!  The children got to sleep about the normal time and slept through what we can hear of the big display and miscellaneous other fireworks.  Much later, I had just fallen asleep when the neighbors started shooting off fireworks in the cul-du-sac.  I admit, I did go out and ask them to stop {which they did}.  I need sleep!  And it was after 11; that seems late to me.  Not to mention you aren’t supposed to shoot off fireworks in Kingwood.  I still feel a little like an Independence Day Scrooge though.  :)

I have no good title for this

I am back up and running in the computer department due to the kindness of David – thank you!!  He had an old Dell in the closet that wasn’t being used, so he offered it to me.  Even though it’s from 2005, it’s still so much better than no computer at all!

I’m getting reacquainted with Windows XP, which I remember liking okay, and I’m learning patience when it comes to surfing or multitasking. 

I also discovered David has Photoshop loaded on this machine, so I’m going to try and learn how to use it while also not getting too attached.  :)

In other news, I have felt like total crap the last four or so days with the worst being yesterday and this morning.  At some point the fog lifted this afternoon and I feel human again!  It was a tummy thing that really felt a lot like all-day morning sickness {which is was not as I am 100% sure I am NOT pregnant.}  Now I just have what feels like some kind of cold coming on, but I will sooooooo take that instead.  Though it means I have no volume in my voice, and that makes it hard to holler at my children.

In the midst of this I started a 21 day sugar detox on Monday, and I’m very excited about it.  It’s pretty limiting, and I’m sure I’ll have this caffeine/sugar withdrawal headache for a while, but I’m looking forward to the results.  I’m so addicted to sugar and processed carbs, and I need to cut the addiction!  My plan is to kind of blog the journey and include pics of my meals, but I haven’t really done that the past couple of days.  I also want to weigh myself soon to see if I lose any weight.  That isn’t the point of this exercise but would sure be a fun benefit.

And now, because they’re the only pictures I took yesterday and today and also because they’re so stinking cute, here are my “J’s.”

Joanna fashioned herself a head covering and became a shepherd yesterday.

And James put on pink glasses and a pink hat and fashioned himself extremely cute today.

And that’s all I’ve got. 

I’m not sure yet whether we’re going to do anything festive tomorrow to celebrate the holiday.  Matt will be working, but my mom said she might want to go to the parade with us.  I haven’t actually been since Joanna was an only, but I kind of want to go tomorrow.  We’ll see!

James and Pop

James just started doing this with Pop this afternoon at Uncle Mark’s.  He knows he is so funny, and he was getting lots of laughter and applause.  I LOVE him!  I’ve cut it a bit as well as uploaded it as a smaller file since I don’t have 495 minutes to wait for upload.  :)

Boots… and also, Family

Yesterday James came to me with a blanket so I put it on him as a cape.  But then I decided he looked more like a hobbit than a super hero.  :)

It’s really too bad my kids aren’t photogenic at ALL.  :)

Couldn’t he be a baby model?!!

This beautiful girl wanted in on the photo session too.  I could look at her all day long.

Natalie asked me to get her boots out since she saw James’ yesterday.  So I did.

Love ‘em!

I just need a pair for Joanna and we’ll be set! 

I guess I could use a pair too.  Wouldn’t we be so cute?!

This afternoon we went over to Uncle Mark’s house for dinner and some family time.  Baby Brooke was there for a little while – she is so cute!  (I think my aperture was set to like 2.0 which is why the back of Joanna’s head is in focus but everything else is nice and blurred.  I fixed it after this.)

I got to hold her for about seven seconds.  There was lots of competition.

I love this girl’s drama faces!

Natalie sure was lovin’ on sweet Brooke.

We got to meet cousin Kurt’s girlfriend Alyssa today – she is so sweet!  She was wonderful with my kiddos and even let Natalie style her hair.

I could just snuggle my Jamesie boy all day long.

It never lasts though.  :)

I got the word this afternoon that Ray’s baby sister was born this morning.  We’re so excited to meet baby Laura!  Congratulations Martha and Josh and Ray – can’t wait to see your new family of FOUR!!