Peanut Butter

It's back to school time and that means packing lunches. My kids get soooooooooo sick of routine or repetitive foods, so I have to vary things up. Thanks to a great sale at Kroger, James brought home 2 CASES of peanut butter. PB&J everyday will NEVER fly in my house, but the kids do love peanut. I have several variations, some tried and true, some new ones to try out on them. So here's a list of things to do with peanut butter. If you have any great suggestions to add, please to so!

1. Traditional peanut butter and jelly
2. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches
3. Peanut butter and diced apple sandwiches
4. Peanut butter, banana, and chocolate chip rollups
5. Peanut butter, strawberry preserves, crushed peanuts, banana and strawberry rollups
6. Fluffer Nutters - peanut butter and marshmallow creme sandwichs
7. Peanut butter and honey sandwichs, or on toast for breakfast
8. Peanut butter cup sandwichs - peanut butter with chocolate (especially good grilled)
9. Straight peanut butter toast (a fast breakfast fav)
10. Peanut butter balls.... okay, so not really a great lunch option, but an awesome sweet treat!

So, that's my top 10 ideas for using peanut butter this school year. Do you have any to add??

Gearing up for School to Start

It's the time again. We should fine out tomorrow who the kids' teachers will be this year. Please please please let Bethany be in Ms. Neal's class - we'll NEVER hear the end of it if she's not!!!! Anyway, washing up fall/winter clothes and going through summer stuff to see what still fits and what they've outgrown. Overall we've had to buy very little for this year! Yeah for that! So far they're looking pretty good. School supplies are bought, and food menu for the next month complete. Now, if I can just finish cleaning the house and sorting through laundry we'll be set! Only 4 more days to pull it all together as we're off to the lake this weekend!

Newest family members

We welcome the crabs.... all 18 hermit crabs, to our family! Tonight we went out and got a tank, sand, air filter, rocks, and salt water to set a new home for our new family. The kids helped pick out everything at the store and we had the best family time we've had in awhile putting it all together. The kids took turns pouring water into the tank. They learned how to test the water and add the salt to the proper levels. They poured in the sand and set up the rocks, then named and added each crab. It wasn't a big project, but we all just had the best time putting it together. Definitely a great memory for us all!

Bon Voyage Sammons

They've been dropped off at the airport. Hope you have a great trip home to Austin. We miss you tons already!!!

We've been so very fortunate to have not one, but two awesome vacation with them this year. 2009 has definitely been a great year!

Cape Hatteras, NC with the Sammons

What an AWESOME vacation!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow, talk about picture perfect. I can't think of anything that could have made last week any better! The house had a major upgrade since our last trip. Added 3 new rooms, an elevator, and a hottub - as if it wasn't big enough before! At first arrival our beloved hammock was MIA, but we located it and put it back up and enjoyed the complete relaxation and peace of lying in the hammock listening to the waves crash upon the shore. Sheer bliss! We spend many many hours at the beach this year. Katy was such a trooper. She napped easily on the beach, enjoyed eating the sand, and halfway enjoyed the water itself.... got a little freaked out when some of the bigger waves would come up and knock her over, but overall she was content sitting in the surf. Josh, Roman, Madison, Hope, and Bethany have grown up tremedously since our last time there with them in 2006. Amazing the changes in 3 years! They spent most of their time IN the water instead of on the beach. They did a lot of boogie boarding and even went out passed the breaks to swim around. We took several walks down the beach and had a perfect bonfire experience. I love beach bonfires. Everything in the world seems perfectly aligned and the stress just melts away. Add some flashlight tag with the ghost crabs and a few s'mores and life was just perfect! We had a few storms while there, but the little bit of weather we experienced certainly didn't hinder our trip in anyway. We spent a good chunk of two days playing in the sound. The kids collected 18 hermit crabs to bring home. We found several clams, saw lots of fish, and Jason caught a blue crab... with his hands.... I doubt he'll ever try that again! LOL We discovered the BEST hotwings ever at the Froggie Dog. Ate great seafood... heck we ate great food all week, even if we did cook it ourselves! The hottub was great for winding down the day, or to hide in during a storm. LOL Honestly when we vacation with the Sammons it doesn't matter where we go or what we do, we know we're going to have a great time, but this trip was just too perfect for words!!!

Katy-bug - 7 1/2 months old

Since I'm updating today I might as well finish off with the Bug. Kathryn is now 7 1/2 months old. She is doing fantastic. Milestones: crawling, sitting, crawl to sit, sit to crawl, mimicking, pull to stand, starting to cruise. She's been sleeping through the night since about 5weeks old and now sleeps a good 10-12 hour stretch. She's laughing and smiling and babbling. She eats solids, but isn't a huge fan of food.... yeah, we're sure she's one of ours!.... she prefers her "bah". She's just starting to get the slightest resemblence of hair. She's still completely toothless, but I've been swearing for months she was cutting teeth and someday I WILL be right! She has busy busy little hands right now and is exploring everything. She loves to play with her feet, still takes a binkie but also sucks on her toes, thumb, fingers, or generally anything within mouth's reach. She's probably about 15-16 lbs now, still petite, but def no longer failure to thrive! Her eyes are still blue and her hair is coming in quite light so far. She has an infectious giggle and a heartwarming smile. She has NO stranger anxiety or attachment issues. She is very friendly, loves people, especially her big sisters and brother. She often full belly laughs when seeing them walk in the room. She is very happy, laid back and easy going with a slight temper when provoked. Overall we honestly could not have asked for a more perfect baby. She is AMAZING!

Sears Checkout Lady

Last night Angie and I went bathing suit shopping. I needed one or two for our beach trip next week as my old ones don't fit well post-pregnancy. It was a late last minute trip. I tried on about half a dozen and settled on 2 that were decent. While I was finishing up in the dressing room the store closed. By the time we got out of the dressing room the door was locked and half the lights were out. So basically NO ONE was left in the store but us. We walk up to the check out counter where the cashier is finishing up with another customer and aside from us only employees are anywhere within sight. We are standing behind the lady checking out and the cashier says, "Ma'ams please stand in line over there by the ropes." Angie and I just looked at each other and moved to the "line" on the other side of the counter. The cashier then goes on to tell the customer "next thing you know I'll have 3 different lines going and everyone rushing to check out." There's NO ONE left in the store! Angie and I are barely containing ourselves by this point. So, if that isn't bad enough, the cashier finishes up with the customer, turns toward the "line" and starts looking around, not AT us, but AROUND us and says loudly, "Who's next in line?" Of course we're DYING by this point trying not to look at each other. The cashier never makes contact with either of us. She carefully folds the first bathing suit, then can't find the tag on the second. I commented that it was in the armpit cause I had just tried it on and it was poking me. To which she removes the security tag grabs up the suits with one turned inside out, wads them up and stuffs them into a bag. It was just the oddest thing ever and Angie and I walked away shaking our heads and giggling the whole way back to the car. The only that would have made the scene any better is if the checkout lady had again asked who was next in line after we left, cause there was NO ONE else in the store but us! LOL Maybe it's one of those, ya just had to be there, moments, but seriously that's about the funniest thing that's happened to me since Jeni got the one armed man to move her couch!

Summer 2009 - time continues to fly by

What a crazy summer it's been. We kicked it off with me in the hospital with a MRSA outbreak. Swim team was a lot of fun. The kids did good and had a great time. Roman didn't have the season he imagined and was a little disappointed not to make Champs again this year, but he bumped up to midgets this year and swimming 50m is a tough adjustment from 25m. He was back to competing by end of season and I look forward to watching him kick some butt in this division next summer! Hope and Bethany also swam this summer and did great and improved tremendously throughout the season. It was INSANE how big our team grew this year. Kari and the girls were home for the summer. We had a lot of sick in the house with me especially due to a weakened immune system from all the antibiotics fighting the MRSA. Finally getting back to my normal self now. We were able to finally catch up with them and spend their last 2 days in the states with them before putting them on a plane back to Texas. It was much too short of a visit but we are thrilled we got that much at least! In July we had a Cunningham family reunion. It was great to see everyone. The kids didn't want to leave at the end of the day, even Roman who is notorious for getting bored with my side of the family and "all those girls!" He found there are a few boy cousins floating around afterall and loved riding the tractor and playing all day. Got a hotel that night and learned very quickly that we are definitely not a 1 hotel room family anymore! It's all suites or 2 rooms from here on out. LOL Roman got to spend an incredible week in Myrtle Beach with grandma and Aunt Bonnie. Kari and the girls were there too, so he got to spend some great time with them even if the rest of us didn't. He went to the aquarium, Medieval Times, the beach, fireworks, and on and on. It was a great week for him. Bethany landed a case of MRSA to round out July. 12 spots across her stomach and chest. Fortunately she responded amazingly to Bactrim and was such a trooper. Almost can't even tell they were there now! Otherwise it has been a fast, crazy, yet boring summer! LOL

The Sammons are now in town visiting and we're all off to the beach for a week tomorrow morning!

Cinna Lee?

Post by James
So we finally bit the bullet and purchased a new van so our family wouldn't be cramped up everytime we hit the road. This past Sunday while on a Father's Day drive Roman mentions that he likes Cinna Lee. Julie and I of course are thinking girl from school, swim team or something so we start asking questions. Well, Roman starts looking real confused, so now Julie and I share that "huh" look and we arn't sure what he's talking about. When we pull in to the parking lot Roman jumps out, runs to the back of the van and shows us. Yeah, you guessed it...

Toyota Sienna LE

So of course while I think naming a car is silly, our van is now named Cinna Lee.

Itsy Bitsy Spider in Real Life

Roman is studying tornadoes in school right now. While driving in the car recently we had a discussion on tornadoes, something that fascinates both James and I. At one point he asked is we had ever seen one and we both admitted we had not... not for lacking of trying in our younger days! I then mentioned that the closest either of us has seen were out over the ocean at the beach - water spouts. To which Bethany pipes in from the backseat.... "Were there lots of spiders too??" After a moments hesitation and thought we all busted out laughing.

The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the WATER SPOUT!!!!!


This type of comment is generally expected from Hope Elizabeth, so coming from the B made it all the funnier. Her first Hopey-ism!

Happy Mother's Day

Okay, so Katy-bug just deleted my entire entry.... so here goes round 2 with the short version.

Breakfast in bed, lots of homemade gifts, church, picnic lunch by the river, hiking with the fam, Lowes, HomeDepot, Mexico for dinner, all was good, great family day, exactly what I wanted... minus the part about them cleaning my house for me! One can dream big, right?? :)

Happy Mother's Day to my mom, my godmother, my mil's, sisters, and all my great mommy friends! Hope yours was just as great!

Kathryn's First Fortune

In celebration of Mother's Day a little early, we took Barbara out for Chinese. Now we've been out for Chinese a few times since Katy's arrival - especially since I could stomach it all throughout the 9m i carried her! - but this time upon completion of the meal the fortune cookies were handed out. After we read them and were finishing up the waiter came back over and handed me another and said we could leaves the little one out of a fortune. While i don't remember the exact wording, honestly I'm not sure I read past the 1st 2 words from laughing so hard, Kathryn's 1st Chinese fortune cookie read something like this..... "German Proverb:......" LOL

By-doh Speak

Driving in the car Bethany says, "A pokey-pine spindle bit my pinkie toe." Translation.... she stepped on one of those spikey gumballs in the yard and it cut her little toe. James and I couldn't help but giggle over her terminology!

Happy Birthday to ME!

Whew, what a weekend! James has a April 23rd birthday while mine falls just 3 days later on the 26th. It always seems to be such a whirlwind with them so close together.

What is it with my kids and puke??

We're sitting at Chili's having a nice family dinner. Hope is done and playing with the baby sitting in her infant seat. She goes in for a kiss as she often does and what does Katy do?? She throws up in her face! Literally, Hope starts yelling, "ew ew ewwwwwwwwww!" Stands up and puke is dripping from her nose to her chin! Seriously?? Why do my kids find it hysterical to puke on each other and how the heck is Katy picking up this little family trait so quickly?? Must come from James's side! hehe See Evil Karma for past puking experiences. These are some sick sick kids I'm raising!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

This year we kicked off the evening of daddy's birthday with a surprise "party" I pulled together for the kids on my way home from work complete with presents, cake, and balloons. We had discussed taking the kids to the movies earlier in the week as a special treat and it had fallen through so he decided to go ahead and take us all to see Hannah Montana the movie for his birthday. We got our 50 cent popcorn.... still holding tight to our Indiana Jones bucket for those 50 cent refills!.... and candy and drinks and headed in to get out seats just as the movie was starting. As luck would have it we were the ONLY ones there! What do you expect on a beautiful spring Thursday?? It was great, perfect really. Everyone enjoyed the movie much more than we expected too. Kathryn did fantastic at her very first movie. And the girls were so cute running down front and jumping around screaming during the concert scenes. Heck we enjoyed just watching them! It was really a great evening! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMES!!! You're the best dad in the whole world!!!

Kathryn's 4m Stats

Katy had her 4m checkup with Dr. Grossberg this morning. And drum roll please...........................................................................................................................

Weight: 11lbs even - that's the 10% percentile!!!!!
Length: 24 1/2 inches - 55%
Head Circumferance: 39cm - 10%

This is the first time Katy has made it ON the growth chart and she did so in a big way with a 4 week growth of 2 lbs!! Way to go Katy!!!!! She is meeting all her milestones and doing just beautifully right now.

On a funny note.... when the doctor went to check her length she stretches her out on the table and draws a line at her feet and at her head then measures that. Well, the original measurement was 24 3/4 inches and while that little quarter inch may seem insignificant it actually means the difference between the 70th percentile and the 55th. She was only in the 25% at her 2m checkup so that was an incredible jump! Determined to verify that the doc remeasured her about half a dozen times.... she was wiggling a lot, and doc got confused on which lines were which. That was cracking me up enough, but then on the last measurement she was flustered and went to measure at the top of her head and marked ON her head instead!!! LOL She felt awful and kept apologizing and swore she'd never done that in all her years of practice. Of course, being the reserved person that I am I laughed till I had tears in my eyes! LOL I can see where a lot of moms, especially first timers would be appalled by this, but me.... I just found it hysterical! LOL And Kathryn, well she didn't make a peep, just gave her this look like, "Aw man, seriously? You wrote on my head!" which made it all the worse for me! LOL

Day 2 in Texas

Well this morning we were supposed to sleep in and take our sweet time heading to Austin. James gave strict orders for no one to wake him up. So why is that Katy and I woke up around 6:30am and by 7 James was up, showered, dressed, suitcases waiting by the front door and waking up the kids to go! LOL Who's more excited to see those Sammons??? I'm not real sure today!

We did stick around long enough to head down to the hotel lobby and enjoy some breakfast. Over practice I pretended we should do something on our trip other than going to Austin. "So, who thinks we should head back to the beach today?" no takers "hmmm..... how about we go to Dallas instead?" home of the Cowboys?? NO WAY! "Who wants to go back to JSC today?" no one "How about the aquarium you all wanted to go to?" nope, nada For awhile I wasn't sure there was anything they'd rather do than go see Josh and Madison, but finally I began to crack them all with their weaknesses...... "Hope, how about we go shopping today? No limit, buy anything you want as much as you want. An unlimited shopping spree!" that was met with an almost violent heading nodding till the boy roped her back to team Austin and B reminded her they could shop anytime. The boy's a tough one seeing as how Josh is his best friend and all, but after awhile I got him to falter too.... "Why don't we head south and go into Mexico for the day?" oh you could see the struggle on his face then finally a "I guess Josh could wait another day, okay, but then straight to Austin!" Bethany fussed at him and he too changed his mind. "Bethany, how about we take advantage of Texas and spend the day horseback riding!" no hesitation at all... forget Austin we're off to see the horses! Sorry Josh and Madison horses beat all! hahaha Of course daddy stepped in and whined that he wanted to see Mr. Jason so we all agreed to stick to our plans and after breakfast we loaded up the van and headed for Austin. Roman took a bezillion pics in route!

Once we got to Austin we found the Sammons house with relatively no issues..... Angie sucks at directions! LOL Since Josh and Mad were still in school we met there and sprung them. Having been 2 years since we last saw them it was cute and downright hysterical at moments watching the dynamics our children with the Sammons. As Josh walked out with a huge cheesy grin on his face he stiffened up a bit and sorta looked around as the girls ran and hugged him and he sorta patted them on the back. Then he ran full force to Roman and for a second we thought they were gonna jump in the air and chest bump or just grab each other in an obnoxious frat boy style hug, but no at the last second they both stopped and just looked at each other with this sudden flash of 'oh crap, it's not cool to hug another guy in public'. LOL For a second there I thought they might even shake hands, but no they just stood and grinned at each other, then started talking and as usual it was as if they had never been parted. Madison was different too. She ran up and hugged the girls without hesitation, but got a little shy and backed off with a cute little smirk when she came face to face with my boy. Wow are these kids growing up, all 5 of them! Of course, once off school property and in their home, all bets were off and it was just 5 little goof balls loving every second of being together with the occasion, Bethany did this, and Madison did that, and Get out of my room girls!

Everyone in life should be blessed with at least one true friend they can be 100% themselves around and despite distance, or time lapse, or life changes, that friendship holds tight and as if you just saw them yesterday, as if picking up in mid sentence even, life rewinds and erases all obstacles. I have been truly blessed in my life with 4 absolute friends... or 2 friends then Angie and Jeni, my sisters of the heart. It warms me to the core watching Roman and Hope and even Bethany to a slightly lesser degree (she's everyone's little sister!) develop and grow this type of lifelong friendship with Josh and Mad. It is an amazing thing to have in one's life. It is even more amazing to watch it develop in your children's lives! And I can not begin to put into words the enormity of having it come from just 1 single family! The Sammons will always be treasured by us Trettels and we are so happy to be able to spend this week with them!

The Honey Mustard Mystery

On our way back to the hotel we planned to stop for a nice family dinner at Cheddar's to see what exactly Kari and Kermit rave about. As we arrived I went to pick up the baby's seat and underneath it was a big blob of dark yellow mustard looking something. It actually looked like someone dumped honey mustard out of one of the little dip containers onto the seat. Roman went in for a closer looked, smelled it and said, "Yup, it's honey mustard alright!" The quick thought was I had sat the seat on a dip container.... Hope investigated the bottom of the seat and confirmed it was all over the bottom and that "Yup, it's definitely honey mustard!" Problem with this theory as I quickly pointed out..... we hadn't picked up any food since we got the van! Where did the honey mustard come from?? So James went in for a further peak. It wasn't honey mustard at all, it was POO! Kathryn pooed and it blew out her diaper so massively that it covered the bottom of her car seat and dripped through the seat belt loops plopping onto the seat below. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! I spent half the night cleaning her infant seat and we felt incredibly bad about the fact that she crapped more than her weight in poo and no one even noticed!

Day 1 in Texas

Today Katy awoke bright and early at her usually 5am, which means in Texas it was only 4am and being that we didn't get to bed till after 2:30 this morning, I was EXHAUSTED! Fortunately she ate and went back down. At the real 6am Bethany woke up ready to start the day.... remember they had all slept 3 hours on the plane, I had not! Somehow I convinced her to go back to sleep. At 7:30 Roman awoke and I gave up! Of course James slept through it all! Men!!! SHEESH!!!!

We waited around a bit to see if anyone else would get up and a little before 8 decided we'd sneak down for breakfast. The mere mention of the word and Hope shot out of bed quickly. LOL She woke Bethany who in turn woke Katy. And of course getting 4 excited kids out of the room quietly was impossible and soon daddy was up too. So at 8 we all headed down for breakfast. It was a nice buffet with make it yourself Belgium waffles, and hot foods like sausage, eggs, and fresh biscuits on top of the normal continental breakfast fare.

After breakfast we all got ready and headed out for Johnson Space Center. I thought ahead and bought tickets online at half price and printed out directions from our hotel to JSC. The roads and highway system was a little confusing at first, but once we made a U turn or two and got our barrings straight we found that the roads are layed out very logically and easy to follow.... not at all what we're used to back home in VA, hence why were we so confused at first! LOL We finally got off in the right direction, following the print out from MapQuest we get to a point where we can see the space center grounds and the directions tell us.... "Now make a U turn!" LOL Must have been to another gate we assume, but it still cracked me up. We found the visitor lot on our own without issue and walked right in with no wait for tickets and all.

JSC is nice, but tiny compared to Kennedy Space Center which we did last year. We took the tour of the original mission control center and sat in on one of the shows that did a video of actual takeoff and slight simulation (nothing compared to KSC) and then discussed in detail the current missions and what's going on in space. Roman enjoyed it but I was surprised at how much Hope Elizabeth got into it! Space Center Houston is definitely geared more towards kids, so that was nice. We had a lot of fun! There's an enormous 2 story playground that the kids loved. There was an entire section of hands on kid fun. Things like lunching a shuttle simulator by muscle power, lifting weights on various planets, scales to see what you would weigh on different planets, a wind tunnel, and there was a simulator seat to try and dock a shuttle at ISS but Hope and I couldn't get it to work.... yeah we felt like retards, but whatever! We found one section where they mined for gold, searched for items with little metal detectors and piloted a submarine camera, stuff like that. Roman and James flew full motion simulators. And everyone tried to land a shuttle with a video game simulator.... Roman actually did land successfully on his very first try! James did too, but the girls crashed and burned. They all tried an MMU trainer which is sorta like a hover craft that moves around in this contained area. You can maneuver it with hand controls to go up and back or spin around, and there's a board hanging over head with different tasks that you have to complete while on this moving chair of sorts like pressing buttons and cranking things in circles and whatnot. James got on and did pretty well - the chair kept pulling to one side and away from the board, Roman did great, then Bethany took a whack at it.... she was really too small and was hysterical to watch. She actually drew quite a crowd with her determination! Then Hope stepped up and must have taken notes from B cause she used some of her tricks and knocked it out faster than anyone I think! Overall everyone had a great time at Johnson Space Center and we were kicked out at 5:30 after being told they had closed at 5. LOL Oops!!

Being 5 o'clock, having eaten a late lunch at JSC, and having some warn out babies, we went for a drive and ended up in Galveston. Katy and Bethany were long gone and fast asleep. So we drove for awhile looking at the hurricane damage still painfully clear and in awe of the accomplishments that have clearly been made since last fall! Eventually we ran out of road and came to the beach. They have parking right up next to the beach so James parked there and stayed with the sleeping ones while Roman, Hope, and I went out on the beach and stuck our feet into the Gulf of Mexico for the first time (yup, even for me!). We collected a bunch of pretty shells for B, chased some birds and just enjoyed the beach. It was really pretty and relaxing. I think we could have spent the entire week there! But we had other things to do..... so back in the car and headed back to Houston. We were going to stop at Kari's favorite restaurant - Cheddar's - on the way back, but that didn't exactly work out and worth a full post of its own! So we picked up Jack in the Box through drive thru and headed back to the hotel for a picnic dinner, baths, and some silly family time before calling it an early night!

So far we're off to a great vacation!