The Weekend

I think today I am going to borrow my friend's "Mind Management Monday" theme to try to recall our weekend!

Friday night we always have pizza, sometimes we eat at home with a movie on a picnic blanket in the living room, sometimes we go out. This Friday we took the kidlets to Dion's. Dion's is always good and the kids have fun watching the pizza being made, and everyone gets what they want! The kids get their cheese pizza, Tom can have a yummy sandwich and I get my salad and a slice with turkey and green chili! Yum!

Saturday morning Harrison and I were up and out the door extra early. The Pinewood Derby district races started at 8am and Harrison thought we should have McDonald's for breakfast, clearly the breakfast of champions? So, we left at 7, ran to McD's and then backtracked to the Mid High for the races. We got there at 7:35 and just in time before the check in line got long! We waited about 15 minutes to get all checked in, then waited another hour and a half for everyone else to get checked in! Finally the racing started around 9:45! Harrison came in 5Th place for the Tigers, out of 15 racers, so not too shabby! He was disappointed to not get a trophy but we were still proud of him! Secretly I was glad that he didn't place in the top four or we would have had to wait around a lot longer for the next round of championship races for the passing out of the trophies, four hours was long enough!

Tom showed up at the races right before the racing started, so after we were done there, we took the kids out to lunch and then I parted company and headed out to do some grocery shopping. I stopped in at my friends children's resale store, My Cedar Chest, and helped her by watching the store for a half hour while she ran to pick up her son from karate. Then I hit Smith's, the bread store and Walmart for diaper wipes. Ran home, unloaded groceries, put them all away, and cooked dinner for the starving family. I made a baked parmesan fish, which actually turned out very well but I used a fish that I wasn't familiar with, next time I'll use a tilapia or something a bit milder than the "whiting" that I picked up on sale at the store.

Sunday morning I woke up around 7:30, layed in bed with Millie until about 8:30. I started my morning the usual way, with breakfast and coffee while checking my email and piddling around online, then I realized I forgot to set the clocks back so it was really almost 10am at that point, so we were not going to make it to church. Upon that realization, I kicked into high gear and started to get some stuff done around the house. I picked up the kids rooms, changed their sheets, vacuumed and then cleaned the carpets in the kids rooms (Millie poured milk in the twins room and then stripped and peed in Harrison's room ) Then picked up the living room, worked on laundry, cleaned the carpet in the living room since I had the cleaner out anyway, cleaned the playroom and computer/craft room, cleaned the carpets in those two rooms. By this time it was time to start working on dinner. Harrison picked our dinner for the night so we had a build your own nachos night and it turned out well! I melted some Velveeta in the fondue pot, cooked up some pinto beans, pulled out the salsa and chips, made up some taco meat and some salads and everyone got to dig in. It was fun and the kids got to have dinner just the way they like it!

As the evening came to a close, I discovered a new addictive game online so Harrison and I played that for a while before sending him off to bed and getting Millie down for the night. The game is Peggle at popcap.com. Very addictive and fun for the kids too!

So, there you have it! Monday morning is starting out to be a Monday. I was lazy and didn't do the dishes from dinner last night, so those are screaming at me, laundry was slow yesterday so I have a bunch of that to finish, the twins have preschool today and each need to bring a potato (already in my purse so I don't forget!) Harrison had a fundraiser due today (Art to Remember) and I forgot to get that all filled out and did that at the last minute this morning, I need to mail my mom's Direct TV dvr back as it is riding around in my car since her car was out of commission last week, Tom called and I have his debit card in my purse, so I need to run that to him while the twins are at school, which eats up my afternoon when I was going to run home and get dinner thrown together, Harrison has computer class after school so we wont get home until about 4:30. Busy day!

A few pictures:

The Tigers watching their races

Harrison and his fellow Tiger, Jotham, showing off their medals

Millie pondering the beverage machines at the mid high during the races

Harrison's car is in lane two....

Our Weekend

Nothing overly exciting happened this weekend. We had one major milestone, a day long of play, Millie's first movie on Sunday and first aid in the desert Sunday evening.

Let me start with the major milestone. Harrison, our oldest, is 7 1/2 years old. Perhaps we are a bit over protective, but he has not had an overnight at some one's house yet. He did sleep over at Nana's house once, and then last summer went to Virginia with Nana to visit Aunt Alix and Uncle Mark, but that was all family, so not the same! This Friday night he crossed the bridge! The year before I had Millie I was babysitting my friend's two kidlets when she returned to work. Her oldest is two months older than Harrison and they are pretty good buddies. Well, lately I have been watching her kids again on Saturdays and the boys started scheming. We decided to let them have an overnight, at their house, and she would just bring Harrison home when she dropped her two off the next morning. The report was good, everyone made it through the night and the boys were tired but not too bad the next day. Wow, I almost think it was harder on Mommy and Daddy than on Harrison!

Saturday I had my friend's kids all day. Her boy, as I just said, is the same age as Harrison and her little girl is 9 months younger than Nick and Abby. Abby loves having Alex over, gives her a girly playmate for the day! Nick gets a bit lost in the shuffle though. The big boys push him away and he really doesn't want to play with the girls, at least not when the big boys are around because they might make fun of him, any other time and he would be fine with the girls! Saturday night, after those two went home, we took the kids to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner, yum!

Sunday Tom needed some study time and some rest time since he has a cold. My mom and I took the kids with us to run some errands. I needed to head to Trader Joe's to get some coffee and then we stopped at Dion's for some lunch. We took in a movie at the dollar theater: Bolt, very cute! The pigeon's were the best! Millie did alright, I was a bit surprised actually at how well she did. Mom and I basically book ended the kids into the row of seats, with about 6 seats between us. Millie just went back and forth between her Nana and Mommy, snacking on cookies, drinking water, talking about the "Buppy!" on the big screen! On the drive home, Nick and Abby fought over who would get the DVD for Christmas, they mutually agreed that Nick would give one to Abby and Abby would give one to Nick. I guess we'll just have two copies of the same movie, as long as they both get what they want! :)

After returning home, I decided to get some fresh air and exercise and take Elbert for a romp in the desert behind our house. He is our only dog that I trust off leash and he loves to run around and sniff, comes racing back every time I call him back. So, Abby ended up tagging along. We followed a trail out to the dirt road behind our house and decided instead of following the dirt road or heading back, we would be adventurous and just make our way through the desert. Well, Elbert caught a scent and followed it right into a big cholla cactus! Those things drop clusters of thorns, long thorns, all around on the ground. Poor Elbert had thorns in all four paws, up his legs and on other parts of his body from brushing up against the cactus. Abby and I helped him get most out, as many as we could. She was quite a trooper actually, they HURT as I pulled them out, because being clusters of prickers, the puller gets pricked as well, but Abby didn't seem to mind that she was getting hurt, she just wanted to fix poor Elbert. He hobbled home with a few single prickers in the pads of his feet. He *hates* to have his feet touched, it is the only time he has a negative opinion about anything! I tried to get the rest out and to feel around for any stragglers. He is still pulling when I try to feel the last foot, but I think the others are cleaned out. Poor dog! Next time we'll follow the dirt road or just drive to the dog park!