Carribean Salad

I made this salad for lunch today and it was so good, I thought I'd share it with you. Here is my version of the recipe:

Layer romaine lettuce, chicken breast strips (I used Tyson's that comes already pre-cut. You find in the lunch meat section), black beans, tomato, and mango.

The dressing is really yummy and I think it would be a good marinade too:
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup lime juice
2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
pinch of cinnamon
pepper to taste
3 cloves of minced garlic

Shake well and chill for an hour. Here is what it looks like:



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On a different note, head over to my pregnancy blog and check out my new blog makeover. I am a blog making over fool the past two days. Fortunately, now I've got the instructions down and so it didn't take me near as long today as it did yesterday. The picture on my header is when I was pregnant with Carter (NOT this pregnancy)

Jumpin Jupiter

Thursday, Carter and I went to Jumpin Jupiter with some of his friends and their Mimi. For those of you who aren't local, Jumpin Jupiter is this indoor bouncy castle place. It is so cool and definitely a workout for the parents. This was Carter's third time to go and he had so much fun. We also went back on Saturday for a birthday party. Here are some of my favorite pics:









And my most favorite photo of Carter from that day....



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So what do you think about my blog makeover? I literally spent the entire morning working on this. The main backgrounds are from a free digital scrapbook kit from my most favorite scrapbook website Kevin and Amanda . I stumbled across this website probably over a year ago and fell in love with her scrapbook room. One day, when we finally build our dreamhouse, I want a scrapbook room just like hers :) The header design is something I created from a scrapbook program I got for Christmas. Let me know what you think. I am working on personalizing my pregnancy blog but am having trouble with the layout right now. So hopefully before baby comes, it'll be finished :)

Our Trip

Carter and I made it safely home from Mississippi and Alabama on Saturday evening. We had a good time and Carter was so well behaved in the car. In fact, on the 8 hour drive home, he didn't even require the portable DVD player! Can you believe it? I almost couldn't. He was pretty good at our friends houses other than some occasional whininess and dinnertime meltdowns. Here are some pics from our trip to Mississippi. Carter and Ethan got to play at a nearby park. I also have some cute bathtub pics but will save those for Ethan's mommy!








After Mississippi, we were off to Alabama. There we went to the Shakespeare park, State Department of Archives and History (where they had a great kids area) and then the zoo.







Our next stop: To Colorado to visit Aunt Meredith! Can't wait!

(Not so) Extreme Makeover

I wanted to post some pics of my new haircut before Carter and I hit the road for our trip to Mississippi/Alabama. I'm liking my new do and it's definitely the shortest my hair has ever been.

Please pray that we have a safe and non-whiny trip! I will not be blogging while we are away but will post some pictures once we return. I hope you all have a blessed week!

Face Painting?

The past few days have been yucky and rainy outside. We have managed to get out of the house the past two days but those were short trips. Carter just woke up from his nap and I decided to let him paint with watercolors in his favorite Diego book. Well, he got mad at me for something and started that whole "Don't talka me" thing so I walked into the living room. And in less than 30 seconds, this is what I saw when I looked back into the kitchen:











Not only did he paint his face with it, he ate it too! Thank the Lord for federally regulated safety standards and nontoxic paint or I might just be calling poison control right now.

No, I never leave my child unsupervised....not even for 30 seconds :)Now I'm blogging this in the bathroom and Carter is soaking in the tub. The water is beginning to turn green from the paint! Good thing daddy isn't home to see this :)

My new toy and other random things

My sweet husband bought me my own laptop this weekend! I'm not complaining about his motives but I know he was tired of me monopolizing his laptop so he just got me my own. We've been looking for a while but I insisted on not spending much money. All I need is Microsoft Word and the internet. Now I have both on a very nice new computer! Now I only need to get a new printer that prints on 12 x 12 paper for my scrapbooking....hmmm, I'll have to save some money for that :)



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I bought Carter a new "big brother" t-shirt a few weeks ago.



It was finally warm enough to wear out this weekend. I should have taken pictures of the whole outfit because the shorts are sooooo cute with the shirt. It was 80 degrees this weekend and yesterday. But this morning, we had to put on our winter coats to leave the house. Only in Louisiana. Good thing I didn't put away the winter clothes yet.
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Praise the Lord, Carter was his normal sweet, only occasionally whiny, self yesterday.



He was so whiny this weekend. Ask anyone who happened to talk on the phone to me the past few days and they witnessed how whiny he was and how annoyed I was! I finally got him some prescription cough medicine and he's done much better since then and sleeping much better through the night. I knew he was pushing our limits when even Theo (jokingly, he claims) said "Well, I guess after this baby, we won't be having any more kids!". He never says that. Quite the opposite, he wants a house full of children. I'm not totally convinced yet!

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I am finally going to get a haircut today. It's only been 6 months since I've had one. When you see me living in ponytails for several days straight, that's when you know it's time for me to get a haircut. I've been debating back and forth on letting it grow out. It grew so fast when I was pregnant with Carter that I was tempted to grow it out again. But I'm so sick of this mess right now that I want it short! I'll post pictures later.
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Carter and I are leaving this weekend to go visit some dear friends of ours in Mississippi and Alabama. I'm excited to see our friends but a little anxious about the car ride. The longest he has been in the car has been four hours to go visit my dad in Baton Rouge. But we have the portable dvd player and new diego movies, and prescription cough medicine that makes him sleepy, to help us along the way. But pray for us that we have a safe and enjoyable trip!

Not Me! Monday

I know I've been on Not Me Monday hiatus for a while, but I'm back....at least for this week. Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

This past week, I most certainly did not let my child run around a food court like a maniac while people looked on, just shaking their heads. That wasn't our son causing such havoc!

I definitely did not spend 20 minutes searching around the house for a big pile of poop that was MIA from Carter's diaper. I did not then realize he put it in his diaper champ under his diaper so when I flipped the thing, the poop smeared all over the outside of the diaper champ (you'd have to see his dirty diaper holder to really understand what I'm trying to say). Then when my dear mother came over that afternoon, she and I were most certainly not in the backyard hosing that son of a gun down. I would never expect my mom to help with such a disgusting task.

I surely did not want to pull my hair out today because Carter has been so incredibly whiny that I wanted to scream!

I did not almost bust out laughing when Carter got mad at me and then held his hand up and said "Mama, DON'T talka me" meaning Don't talk to me. Then I did not get angry that he actually did say that to me and wondered who he picked that phrase up from.

I have been searching for days for a missing bottle of Clorox spray. I most certainly did not find it when I was reaching for the Shout and accidentally sprayed some of my pants with bleach instead of Shout. Hmmmm, so that explains why Carter's little coat went from having spaghetti stain on it to a bleached out spot.

I have not cleaned up toddler vomit more the past few days than I have the past 2 1/2 years because Carter's terrible coughing fits cause him to vomit. Poor baby. Poor mommy :) And along those lines, I did not have every article of clothing I wore this week, including my socks, used as a tissue for Carter to wipe his snotty nose on. Gross. Oh the joys of motherhood....

Things that made me laugh

This is kind of a random post. I'm supposed to be working on some actual work but can't get motivated right now. So I thought I would share some things that made me laugh yesterday.

I was driving to Natchitoches for some student evaluations yesterday and this morning. I passed two separate old me driving down the interstate. They were probably at least in their 70s and they both had personalized license plates. I always have to read those. The first man was driving an old Camry and his plate said "VROOOOM". Uh, yeah, you go speed racer in your Camry. The second man was driving a Jeep Wrangler and his plate said "Coo Coo". Probably because he is crazy if he think he's going to go off-roading at his age!
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I hadn't watched any of this seasons "The Bachelor" until Monday night's show b/c it was the season finale. I only watched the last 30 minutes of the first show and then the "After the Final Rose" special. My poor husband was forced into watching it with me. No, he doesn't usually watch this kind of show with me just for the record. But I'm glad he did. We cracked up the whole time. We made up our own version of the bachelor....The Bachelor: Ghetto Version. We imagined the girl who ended up getting dump jumping across the stage and attacking that smug guy (I can't for the life of me remember his name right now). When they came back from commericial break, he'd have scratches all over, a bloody lip and black eye. And then they would have the two women on the show at the same time. THAT is when the real fighting would begin. I guess you'd have to see the show to appreciate our humor. But thanks Theo for making a ridiculous show quite hillarious!

Farewell to our Friends

This past week was an emotional week for me. Theo, Carter, and I said goodbye to some of our closest friends. They left Friday to move to the east coast. I know I have posted about Georgette before, but her and her husband are Carter's godparents and Theo and I are their daughter's godparents. They have been a huge part of our lives for a long time. We will miss them dearly but I know we'll see them again! These pictures are from Thursday night, the last night we will get to hang out togethere for a long time. We love you guys!