July that has flown by.....

Have you ever felt like you wanted to grab a lawn chair, sink down into it only to sit and stare off in space or at a tree, a wall or whatever you might find yourself in front of....having nothing in particular to think about or nothing pressing to do.... OH if only...... :)

Life has been flying by lately, don't get me wrong I love it, but come on it is already July 16th!!!  That is crazy. In the past 2 weeks we have celebrated 4th of July twice ( on the 3rd and 4th :), I went to a NKOB BSB concert ( talk about blast from the past), had a beach play day, t-ball, camping for 3 days, picked up my father in law from the airport, Discovery Kingdom twice... and tomorrow my main man is celebrating his birthday by going to our cousins farm and then deep sea fishing Monday.... shhh... it is his last year in his 20's, he doesn't like when I bring that point up :)

Want to know how to keep your days packed.... come talk to us :)

Needless to say this is why the blog has been neglected.. I have many photos to share so I may have to do a part 2 to this post we shall see... So I will post pictures in the order they transpired......

 NKOB BSB Concert with my BFF ( had to keep the flow of letters going ) Jennie :)

 What we would have done to go to a concert when we were 15. 

Now 12 years later.. 

Married with children we finally went....

And if you were wondering yes it was fun to be 15 again for a moment :)

 Had a fun time riding with Mike and Ellen... 

Dinner at Outback was delicious

Oh and thanks Mike for enduring our endless chatter there and back!

On our 1 stay home day it was time to catch up on cleaning. Zack was assigned to put all of Kaitlyn clothes on hangers.... I walk in to check in his progress to find this...

 and then this...

 Oh yes I did get this on video

Can't wait to show this at his wedding :)

 We finally had a day to work on our summer bucket list

So a water balloon fight it was. Wow it has been a really long time since I had done that..

and boy is filling the balloons a lot of work for just a few minutes of fun. 

But the smiles on my boys faces when they got to attack mommy with the balloons was worth the painful finger from tying them

 Flower from my front yard

 We celebrated the 4th of July on the 3rd with my fam by having a bbq, taking a snooze, water fight on the trampoline and watching fireworks at Silverado CC

 Kaitlyn trying to get mommy wet

 Uncle Jay Jay joining in the fun

The group

 Ummm Yeah... Jas and Mat.. 

when they are together there are no words to explain what can happen :)

 My Beautiful Cousin Trinity

 Going on a walk with "TT" and Jay Jay

 See I told you.. No Words.. This was a grape stuffing contest I guess

 Kaitlyn not too sure about her CRAZY uncle

 The 4th of July we met our friends for lunch at Applebees and were pleasantly surprised when our bill came and we found out kids ate free that day! So we went and got an amazing frozen yogurt. Next stop was the park. Our goal was to tire the kiddos out before the fireworks....

 But us parents ended up having more fun at the park than the kids I think :)

 Our group at the driving range in Yountville watching fireworks. This was the best fireworks yet. We will be back there for sure next year

 The Cheerleaders :)

Ok so the following photo has nothing to do with me..... This was daddy's work completely.. 

 I never would have thought....

Next it was camping... See following post



 

MIA

I just wanted to write a quick note to say sorry I have been MIA lately. Summer is supposed to be a time of relaxing but not in the Petit household this summer. I have so many photos to post and memories to write about... So please stay tuned as I hope to do this in the next few days. Right now I am off with the kids to pickup my father in law at the airport....

Last week of June 2011

And live it up we did :).....  Last Saturday Mat and I made the decision to turn off cable for a week... it has been 6 days and we have survived... 6 days in the Petit household without cable television.. Wow people this is a monumentous event :) Like one of those things that only happen once in your lifetime :) Well actually now that we know we can survive we are considering calling and canceling... Wow!!! Now that is serious :) Why would we do such a thing you ask... Well we have been convicted lately about how we miss manage and waste our time on watching TV. Not to mention wasting our money... We still have netflix and for those shows we can't live without ( So you think you can Dance for me and Cops for Mat) we can watch them online... Even though I don't watch much TV during the day I have been having the kids watch it... so this will be good for all of us :) Now lets just see if I actually get the courage to call the cable company to make the cancellation official.......

Last week after being asked what good books I am currently reading I was ashamed to say none really... Wow I realized that since school ended almost a month ago I hadn't been reading much beside my bible.. So after organizing my closets last week I found and have now started...

The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges
Helper by Design by Elyse Fitzpatrick

Wow God know just what I need to read... Can't wait to see what He is going to teach me through these... And now that we aren't watching tv at night I should finish these at least before summer is over :)

Mat worked 76 hrs this week! Needless to say we were so excited for his day off Tuesday. T ball was canceled because of the RAIN.. yes RAIN at the end of JUNE.. Crazy I tell ya!!! So we had a nice evening just relaxing.... Wednesday Mat took the boys fishing for the first time.. I am sad I didn't get pictures but that is because I wasn't there :) They didn't catch anything but weeds but still had a great time.

Wednesday while the boys were fishing we did some shopping.. my baby girl likes to shop..... she was so excited to get some sun glasses ( they paid me $3.00 for them :) and then I took her to pick out a big girl bed....... The past few months she had been waking up anywhere from 12am to 3am crying for me... So I would go in and get her and bring her to bed with us. Can you tell she is the 3rd child and all we care about is sleep at this point? It is nothing like with our 1st when we said he would NEVER sleep with us :) Well the sleeping in our bed was ok when Mat was gone but last week Daddy said enough was enough.... So this past week I have felt like I had a new born again... waking up every few hrs.... I go in give her a hug and a kiss and then tell her to stay in her bed and go back to sleep like a big girl. The first few nights were rough but now I am so happy to say... SHE IS SLEEPING IN HER BED!!!!! She is so excited to sleep in her big girl Dora bed.. When someone comes to the house that is the 1st thing she wants to show them....

 

Thursday we took my mom, sister, cousin Trinity and friend Tessera to Discovery Kingdom....

 Nana liked the swings :)

 Zack asked me to take this photo of him :)

 I was so proud of Zack... he went on rides today that he has been too scared to in the past.. Like the balloons and the water raft ride

My mom and I were sitting sharing a giant snow cone while the kids played in the water. We noticed Kaitlyn staring at the ground trying to pick something up.. after about 5 minutes of this we went over to investigate... she was trying to rescue a poor little lady bug who was stuck in the water... She was so happy when Nana came and picked it up and put it in a near by bush :) I have noticed lately that she isn't scared to pick up bugs.. If there is one in the house she will go get a napkin, pick it up and the throw it either in the trash or the toliet... Actually a few days ago she came to me with a fly she was holding by the wing and it wasn't even dead. How she managed to pick it up is beyond me :)She must not of inherited her mother's extreme dislike for bug picking up :)

 Following Discovery Kingdom was a quick run to get dinner and then we were off to the boys 1st official tball game... Jayden got 2 really good hits!!!

Kaitlyn got a hold of the camera this morning :)

We had a wonderful stay home day today... 

I finally conquered the basket of laundry that had been sitting there since Monday haunting me!! House got cleaned. I even had time to let the kids pick something off the Summer To- do list ... and they picked..... 

Water Balloon fight... so water balloon fight is what we did, even mommy :)

Now we are looking forward to a fun filled July!!!

*This was written on Friday... and now it is Monday July 4th already!!

Happy 4th of July everyone!!

Coupon Deals I got this week :)

Well this week was a serious coupon shopping week for me... :) I ended up going to Target and Rite Aid twice and I might even try again tomorrow.. So here is what I scored......

Rite Aid

Total before coupons... 83.32... after Coupons, Card and previous store rewards..... .08 cents but with tax... $2.21 out of pocket!!!!!!  I got back $11 dollars in store rewards to use on next purchase and also I am going to be getting back 4.99 in rebates so actually I  made money :) About $10 :) Oh note I did return the body wash because it didn't ring up as free so I didn't include that in the total.

CVS

 Total before Coupons and card.... $57.95... Total out of pocket w/tax... $8.96

Target

 Total before coupons....43.58... after coupons..... $8.89!!! All the revlon beauty tools were completely free and I have coupons for 6 more that I am going to try and use tomorrow!!!

Safeway

Total before sales, and coupons- 127.23... after sales and coupons 38.32... I saved $88.91 dollars which is 71% :)

Since my mission this week was to organize closets I was able to free up 1/2 of a hall closet to store this stuff.. Looks like we might need to make room in the garage soon though :)

Yummy New Recipes

 It only took a week but I am finally going to post the recipes I have recently tried :) Thank to my Cooking Light Magazine.....
It is Low Carb cooking again so I was so excited to make these for Mat.....

                        Grilled Stuffed Jalapenos and Bell Peppers

Ingredients

• 2 slices center-cut bacon
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) fat-free cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup (1 ounce) shredded extra-sharp cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup minced green onions
• 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 small garlic clove, minced
• 14 jalapeño peppers, halved lengthwise and seeded
• Cooking spray
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 tablespoons chopped seeded tomato

Preparation

• 1. Preheat grill to medium-high heat.
• 2. Cook the bacon in a skillet over medium heat until crisp. Remove bacon from pan, and drain on paper towels. Crumble bacon. Combine crumbled bacon, cheeses, and next 4 ingredients (through garlic) in a bowl, stirring to combine. Divide cheese evenly and fill the pepper halves. Place peppers, cheese side up, on grill rack or grill grate coated with cooking spray. Cover and grill peppers 8 minutes or until bottoms of peppers are charred and cheese mixture is lightly browned. Place the peppers on a serving platter. Sprinkle with cilantro and tomato.

I am happy to say that Mat loved these... the kids and I had sauteed BBQ shrimp because we aren't spicy food fans.. but Mat had plenty to take for lunch the following day.. I also made a 

Lemony Cucumber Salad 

Ingredients

• 1 cup thinly sliced radishes
• 1/2 cup finely chopped orange bell pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 2 English cucumbers, thinly sliced (about 6 cups)
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

• 1. Combine first 4 ingredients in a large bowl.
• 2. Combine lemon rind and remaining ingredients in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Pour over cucumber mixture; toss well to coat. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

Maureen Callahan, Cooking Light
JULY 2011

So this was good and even my picky kids enjoyed it!! Mat just said that he would have enjoyed it more without the grated lemon rind. I however thought that made it really good :) So if you try this let me know what you think!

Now my favorite thing I tried last week was a Grilled Romaine Salad.. 

Yes grilled salad! It was soo good. I took a romaine heart and cut it in half . Then I sprayed it with Pam and seasoned it with S&P and garlic powder...... All I am say is YUMMM!!! Mat even digged it :) He put Thousand Island dressing and I have a Raspberry Vinaigrette. I say step outside of the box and give it a try... I bet you will be pleasantly surprised!