The Tomlinsons: August 2013

Friday, August 30, 2013

Missing Mayo

In real life, it's been quite a few days since these days should have been written, so I'm glad I have pictures to jog my memory, but I may not remember as much as I would like. So nice to hear clicking computer keys again, it drives Doug nuts because I hit the keys really hard, I like to think I'm just very emphatic with my work.

Day 143 (Wednesday):

I only remember this day because of the pictures. My mom made a banana humming bird/mocking bird/mocking jay cake. I think it was actually called humming bird cake, but Doug likes to tease me about the Hunger Games, so he called it the Mocking Jay cake.

Doug smashing bananas.

My mom has a lot of terrible/wonderful things at her house. Not sure which category these kid paint markers fall into. Kora used it as lipstick...leaning towards terrible.

Ipad in the floor...why not?

You'd think we don't feed her and pantry food sneaking has become necessary. I promise you that's not the case.

Kristee, my sister, and her daughter Deanna came over for the day since we were planning both planning to head out of town the next week and we'd only seen them once since we got back from Thailand....if that's not right, Doug will let you know. He's the official fact checker, I usually just go with what sounds right and hope for the best. The kids had a great time, of course. Deanna, who is terrrified of bugs, has absolutely no problem with wormy things. She was very interested in them. And this was the day, Kees was so brave, he actually walked all the way around to the back of the house with Grampa and Mommy was no where in sight. Huge progress, HUGE!

Girly nail painting. I painted ONE of Kora's big toes.

Deanna couldn't choose and painter her toes several different colors.

All the girls! (And me, I'm taking the picture, and Kora's little head is visible if you look for it.

Back porch, Popsicle!

2 pools, because one just isn't enough. The one in front is really shallow, so I guess it's sort of justified.

Kees thought squeezing this duck and making it "use the bathroom" was so funny. Not sure the nicest way to say "use the bathroom", pretty sure no matter how I say it, my mother will be offended.

Kora stole Grampa's chair and got it nice and wet for him. She's sitting between Gramee and Aunt Kristee.

A sucker!!!

Grampa let her do this.

Thanks a lot Grampa...add sarcastic tone if you're using my voice and genuine appreciation if you're using Kora's.

Why would God give this boy these eye lashes...doesn't seem fair.

They found some type of critter, but I forgot what.

Kora is keeping a safe distance.

There's is a tiny, tiny worm, somewhere on her hand.

They followed it for a while.

Grampa had a tiny pinwheel in his yard, it was from their cousin's birthday party that they missed (back when we were in Thailand).

Worms, worms, and more worms.

Shot from the ground looking up.

Pinwheel.

They enjoyed this thing.

Putting his flag up or something.

Kora is helping.

Saying bye bye, Kora loves going places, I think she wanted Aunt Kristee to take her along.

Kees went with Grampa to pick cucumbers to send with Aunt Kristee.

After church, getting ready to go to Grandma Sheryl's place. Grampa is sharing his glow bracelets.

The princess being carried by one of her subjects.

This is how she kept them from falling off...she's such a girl.

Kees really loved having these bracelets for the car ride.

Day 144 (Thursday):

We headed back to Doug's mom house after church Wednesday. Then I got to go shopping at Crest with my cousin, Randee (she's a girl, thought I should clarify). So, every single thing I've ever wanted at the grocery store, I've found easily since coming back. But not the fancy mayo. Apparently Crest doesn't carry that. I've become so entitled and began expecting the heavens to open for me every time I go shopping. It was a rude awakening when I couldn't find garlic mayo, I'm still trying to understand why bad things happen to good people. But there were plenty of other interesting things at the store for my friends to see, near and far. So I'll include those pictures and do my best to remember why I took them in the first place. Here goes....

New cart, it had two baskets!

These other carts were tall and had a place to fit two kids, now I need to go back and see if my kids would love or hate this set up. It might be survival of the fittest.

This cracked me up: "enchilado". When we were younger, our grandma, Moma T. would always say, "enchilado, taca, and burrita" apparently it caught on.

Some type of new fangled mixture of olive oil and butter with fancy flavors.

I really wanted to try the peach yogurt with pistachios because it sounded like an interesting combination, but I was too cheap to buy it.

Okay, there are a few things in America that feel overwhelming, the choices available in frozen pizzas is one of them. I'm terrible at making decisions and this was way too many options.

Cool whip has frosting now, thought you should know.

I don't know what this is, but I'm fighting the urge to buy them all and hoard the bottles for an unknown art project down the road. Not having a house helps in times like these.

Honey Mustard and Spicy Buffalo Wheat Thins. I don't like Wheat Thins, this isn't winning me over.

For Amanda! You cook meat in one flavor packet, then top it with the second one. Layering flavors...so interesting. (Here is a link if you're interested in seeing what all the flavors are).

At the end of the day, I realized I love food more than my children, so I took this picture.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

American Malt Ball

Day 141 (Monday):

I finally it a turning point with the strep plague of death, and we redeemed the movie day! Yay! We left a little before everyone else so we could shop at Wal-mart. Not sure why we ever decided to take both of our kids to a store. It was crazy. Doug had Kora and I had Kees. Kees kept asking me where Kora was and telling me to hurry up. I could hear Kora jabbering from pretty far away. It was getting close to what should have been nap time, so I took her with us. She didn't want to go in the cart, so I had to hold her and push a cart. NOT. FUN. (Despite our shopping challenges, I did get some pictures of random stuff, mostly for my friends back in Thailand...Janna, Amanda...enjoy!)

Two babies in a laundry basket, and a while back my mother bought Kora her own fly swatter. Not sure why she thought we should give Kora a weapon.

Eating a sucker Gramee gave her.

$15 for any cup is excessive if you ask me.

Who remembers the jean diapers, now they have jeanjamas, but they didn't use the cool made up name I came up with, the went for "Pajama Jeans"....so un-original.

hot buns, let me introduce you to the sock bun from 2 years ago...you make it out of a sock, so you have about $9.50....how do they sell this stuff???!!!

I think my dad needs one of these.

Kees wants this for Christmas. I posted it because it's one of the characters from the movie we watched.

OKLAHOMA!

I've seen these around lately, those soda stream machines. They have a knock of Dr. Pepper...if I ever live overseas again, I'm looking into this.

Stand N Stuff SOFT flour tortillas...how do you make a soft flour tortilla stand...is this a magic trick?

Hmmmm....

WHAT? A giant pack of tic tacs!

This cracks me up. Just eat bacon or jerky, why must we combine the two. I feel like this is pandering into the doggie treat realm. That being said, I'd be more than willing to try the stuff.

We finally got out of there and headed to the movies to meet my parents and Mamaw. We went to see the new movie "Planes", like "Cars", but with with planes. Yep. The movie was great. Kora was high energy and never did take her nap...maybe we've outgrown movies too. Guess the only place in public we can take Kora is the park. She jabbered, danced, sang, greeted the other movie goers DURING the movie, ate candy off the floor, climbed up and down onto Kees's vacated booster seat because he ended up in my lap, and sat in popcorn butter and stained her cute white shorts...why did I think those were a good idea anyway?

MOVIES!

;)

Me and the boy

Kora was all over the snacks

After the movie, we walked around the mall for a little while. The kids enjoyed looking at stuff and they got to get inside a Kubota, so that was cool. My parents and Mamaw went to Wal-mart. Those grandparents sure know how to spoil. They came back home with a whale slide/wading pool & a blow up swimming pool. My mom also got Kees one of the planes from the movie. He's been carrying it with him every where ever since. They blew up the whale slide and the kids had a great time playing. Gramee also bought oats so there could be a Malt Ball Miracle. Kees and Kora helped her make American Malt Ball. It's so funny how much the honey in the recipe affects the taste. We are used to Lomyai honey in Thailand, it's thinner and has a completely different taste to the honey we get here in the states. So when we at the stuff my mom made, it was surprisingly different tasting, but equally as good. I don't think Kees noticed or cared, and if he had, he'd have said something. (The recipe again, AMANDA is: 1 cup honey, plus 1 cup peanut butter...stir...add 3 cups oats and 1/2 cup chocolate chips....stir....ta da...malt ball...which I would also like to re-iterates is actually oatmeal power balls, but Kees called it malt ball when he was little and the name stuck).

Kees is more than happy to drive, but please do not ruin the experience by making it actually move.

This is so fun!

We practically had to drag them out of this shoe store, they loved this little play area.

Kora is the newest Kubota rep. She's handing out business cards and a smile! (Is this a Kubota? I'm not even sure anymore...)

Their expressions are priceless.

I forgot to mention the bubble gun.

Kora loves helping.

Peanut butter!

Yum, tasty.

Stirring. (My mom bought some of that coconut water for us to try...not even half as good as the real deal)

They took Mamaw to KFC for dinner and accidentally got the spicy popcorn chicken instead of regular. Doug and Kora ate it. Kora dipped it in BBQ sauce, she also dipped her malt ball in BBQ sauce and ate it.

It's almost ready.

The first bite of American malt ball, he approves!!!

I think bananas go great with malt ball.

When I was folding laundry Kees wanted to put Doug's shirt on.

So then I had to put one of mine on Kora.

Whale slide.

As I was going to bed, I saw this posted on FB, this is on our tall tree road. Made me so homesick.

Day 142 (Tuesday):

In the morning, the kids did some "school work"....coloring. Then, in the afternoon I decided to take Kees to Dollar General with me to look around since I'd forgotten all sorts of stuff at Wal-mart the previous day when Kora was needing to be carried. The plan was that we'd take our time and Kora could get a nice long nap. Wouldn't you know, Kora barely fell asleep before we got back and only took a 30 minute nap. Kees, the 4 year old, who technically shouldn't need a nap, fell asleep on the way home. My dad came out and carried him inside for me. We laid him on the couch and he slept for 4 hours!!! So Kora got a lot of attention, which she loved. So as you look through the pictures and start to think that Kora is the favorite, just remember, Kees was asleep the WHOLE time. When we came inside, Kora kept trying to feed Kees while he was asleep on the couch, it was so funny.