Max's lego expo and a tasty recipe

One of Max's favorite activities is building with LEGO. He was picked, by lottery, to participate in Junior Future Lego League this year and his final expo was yesterday.

They built a "completely solar powered limousine" driving through a city. I'm not sure why I didn't get a close up. Their time won an award for being Most Enthusiastic. And here he is proudly wearing his medal.

I tried out a new recipe tonight. Chicken Chilaquiles from Cooking Light (July 2007). It got 5 thumbs up, everyone loved it except Luke. I will definitely be making it again. I also made the Lime Cilantro Slaw, shown in the picture on the plate. It complimented it perfectly. The recipe accompanies it in the magazine as follows, if you want to try it.

Lime-Cilantro Coleslaw

3 T fresh lime juice
1 T olive oil
2 tsp sugar
1/4 C chopped green onions
1/4 C chopped fresh cilantro
1 12-oz pkg coleslaw
Toss together in a large bowl and eat.
I doubled the dressing recipe and added a little honey and salt.

We have been making coleslaw (with a sweet vinagrette type dressing) a bit as a side lately. I've discovered that my family will actually eat it if I make it with Napa Cabbage . It is more tender like lettuce and a little less strong tasting. Anyway I used it in this recipe along with some red peppers thinly sliced. It was yummy.

Payment & Dad's music is EMBARRASSING!

Today the kids received their payment for weeks of daily chores. The Reward: Choose one parent to be in charge of for one hour, with a $5 spending limit. Jack went first, being the youngest. He chose Doug... they played rock band on drums together, ninja turtles, imaginext astronauts, and went to Ben & Jerry's for Ice cream. Max went next. He chose Doug, they played Rock Band, the SpiderMan game, kids sudoku, and went to Ben & Jerry's for Ice cream. Mer chose me. We played house with stuffed animals, a couple of songs on Rock Band, and hit 7-Eleven for Slurpee's. They were surprised how fast an hour flies by.

Luke joined Doug in his stomach workout this morning. Luke loves his "da da" .

I think today was the first time I heard Max use the word "embarrassing "
You may know that Doug likes to listen to music, loud music. When he takes the kids to school on his days off they always tell him to turn the music down when they get out of the car.

Today Doug jokingly asked, "who do you want to listen to when I drop you off today, guys?"
Max- I want to listen to air.
Doug- oh yeah, I have the band Air, we can listen to them.
Max- No, no, this is what it sounds like, shh everybody be quiet. See, Air!
a little later... Doug asks why don't you want anyone to hear the music when you get out.
Max- Well, Dad, because it's embarrassing!!

Fun times!!

Week in pictures

I can't believe it has already been a week since I posted last. Time is flying by. Here are some pictures from our week...

I hung up some of the kids beautiful artwork that has been begging for some face time.

We tried out a new recipe, Pear Almond Feta Salad.
Doug and I thought it was heavenly, the kids didn't.

Luke continues to be the favorite play thing. Here Mer put his towel on "daddy" style. He has started to sing along to all songs. Thanks to Rock Band, today in church he was singing a little "E Pro" by Beck. "na, na, na na na na naaaa."

We have been juicing the oranges off our orange tree. The weather being so cold has turned this year's crop into our sweetest yet.

Max received an outstanding reader award at school. We are so proud what a great little student he is.

We made cardboard box cars and drove them to our ward Drive in Movie Friday night for special viewing of Mary Poppins, and more candy, popcorn, and soda than we needed.

And finally, our whole family ran in our neighboring school's 5K yesterday. Jack and Luke were in strollers. Mer and Max ran there hearts out. They have been training by jumping out of the car and running home through our neighborhood every day after school.

Jack got his quarter mile in with the kid's race.

And Luke got his first trip inside a bouncy house. He couldn't really stand up but he had a ton of fun trying and flopping his body down.

And that was our week.

Boy Toy Heaven

These pictures were from a few days ago. I couldn't pass up posting them. I'm so glad I get to stay home with these little guys all day. The imaginext guys have ALL been out for the past week moved from one venue to another, they have finally made it out to the living room. Jack has been playing with all of the big fortresses lined up. He's in boy toy heaven with superheroes, knights, firefighter, pirates, and astronauts all acting out detailed story lines.

Here he is with Luke (I made him those flame pj pants last week)

I have to admit it is a little tedious to play with him this way but it is fun to listen to all the different parts of the story he comes up with. Thankfully Luke has stopped pushing everything over so there isn't too much fighting.

Luke peeled an orange all by himself this week. You can see how hard he was working. It was one of those little mandarin oranges that are so easy to peel.
I did it!!

One more thing. I have started up a new blog to show all the stuff I've been making. I felt a little wierd about putting it all up here, since I intend to print this blog for our family history. I probably will still show a few things here, but mostly you can see everything else I'm making at BlueSusan Makes. It is still a work in progress but feel free to check it out.

I don't want to forget

I'm thankful for my girl who likes throw surprise parties for her little brothers. Complete with games... pin the sword on the night, hot bomb (potato),and battle dominoes.

I'm thankful for little boys that love their baby.

Winter is upon us

I'm sure it made national news that it snowed in Florida yesterday. We didn't get snow but we did get some sleet and tiny hail. It was enough to get the kids excited. It was also enough to get them to realize that they like warmer weather better. We ventured out to see the 100 manatees that are all gathered into the Brevard canal trying to stay warm. It's about a twenty minute drive from our house. The news said the water here is 75 degrees. When we were there at mid day the temp was 36.

You can see the steam rising off the water.

We counted 29 of them in the little area where we were standing.

Luke has been rocking out on rock band. He begs to participate when we get it out, and he'll cry until someone lets him have a turn on guitar or drums. (picture courtesy of Jack)
I think I mentioned in the last post that he became a Daddy's boy while Doug was on vacation. It has seriously rocked his world having Doug go back to work and church responsibilities. He cried for him for about 5 minutes straight last night as I was putting him to bed last night and Doug was gone. He was still awake when Doug came home and you should have seen his face brighten up when he heard the door open. We were letting him cry himself to sleep finally last night and he had cried for a while and finally stopped. A few minutes later we heard loud crying in the hall. He had climbed out of his crib, opened the door and burst into tears when he found the hallway door to the living room closed. He is our first kid to figure out how to climb out of the crib on his own. I guess crying himself to sleep may not be an option. Now what??!!

The Anti-Sleeper a.k.a. The Dark Tag Champion of the night

Here is LUKE. He is learning to fold his arms during the prayers. While he doesn't usually close his eyes, he does tuck his fist right up tight under his chin and hold them there the whole time the prayer said. It is so cute. Max does a good job of modeling it.

I recall not so long ago posting about what an angel this little guy is at bed time. Well today I officially eat my words...He is a nut when it comes to going to sleep. 2 weeks of a cold + 1 week of travel= a seriously messed up sleeper. He will not go to sleep. He wants to watch a show or fall asleep on Doug's lap, and when he does, he'll wake up again at some point begging to be held again. This morning he greeted me at the door when I got home from my run (2 hours earlier than he normally wakes up) He then through a fit when Dad left for work. He has become such a daddy's boy. Its a good thing he's so cute.

JACK is into making silly faces. I'm glad I get to hang out with him all day.
He is such a fun little companion.

MEREDITH is loving her new haircut but admits it is a little cold for short hair.

She is currently working on her science fair project that is due Friday. It is about how the color of light effects the growth of a plant.

A new game was invented this week by Max and Mer. "Dark Tag". They turn off all of the lights in the hallway and shut all the doors so it is pitch black. Then the person who is it has to close their eyes and walk around trying to tag someone, while everyone else who can barely see tries to avoid them. It is incredible how much they love this game. Tonight they convinced Doug to join them. And interestingly enough Luke was named best player of the evening.

Creativity lives on in the Markos household.

Expedition Atlanta

On Monday we loaded up the car and headed north to Doug's parents house to meet up with the family for Christmas No. 2We got to visit with Mike & Sher and Wavey,

Liz's family and Grandma Bev was there too.Hi Georgie!

All the kids had a ton of fun tearing open their presents. The funnest thing was that they all played together and shared their toys.
T-shirts, lego, a space shuttle, a karaoke machine, cars, princesses, a castle to crawl in and color, and much more.

I don't think Waverly knew what to think of all of the commotion.

Mike and Sher gave us Rock Band and everyone was shortly jamming out with it. It wasn't just for the kids. When they went to bed, all the parents stayed up until midnight playing it. Liz unleashed her inner rock star and dominated on the vocals for the night. Sorry Grandmas and Grandpa, thanks for putting up with us. That was fun!!!!
We spent the next couple of days playing and hanging out. The kids went to a movie and out to lunch with the grandparents. Max got a chance to learn some football moves from Grandpa at somepoint.

Thursday morning we said our goodbyes to lovely Grandma Bev....

...and then we went with Liz and John's family to the Georgia Aquarium. Grace got to ride in our car. Everyone grabbed a comic magazine and read them quietly the whole way. So cute!!

There were lots of cool fish to see but I think the whale sharks might have been the coolest.
We drove home Friday morning. We made such good time that about a half an hour before we got home we stopped for a little DQ. Here's Luke enjoying his enormous cone.
We got home, unpacked, vacuumed the car, and set up Rock Band for a little New Year jam session before bed. (It wasn't the same with out you Liz) Thanks again, Mike and Sher.

What a great little Markos reunion.
It was so fun to all be together. We are sad to live so far from them all.

Today has been a nice semi lazy day. Doug ran his 12 miler, we cleaned the church, started putting away Christmas, and everybody got haircuts.

And that does it for our play by play of the week.
Happy New Year!!!