Like, Totally Radical Girls Night Out!

So, like, I haven't written a blog in about a decade or two, so I figured I'd just go right back to where I left off... THE EIGHTIES!!

That's right, the girls and I spent an evening at the roller rink in our finest 80's attire (and hair...and legwarmers...and braces!). Here's a nice photo taken with Jennifer's camera (thanks for sharing these pics Jennifer!):
L-R: That's Jennifer, Liz, Alicia, me, Myja, Holly, Burma, Amelia, and Sarah and Beth in the bottom row.

We're, like, totally hot, huh?!

We then took a second picture and ended up with three little kids in the shot:
You know, like, whatever works, huh?

Hoping to get caught up soon, because, OMG do I have a lot to share!
~kerrie

A Little Summertime Fun!

Sure, it's around 40 degrees outside, raining/snowing, and gloomy, but I've been dreaming about beaches and sunshine! So as I sllllooowwwly catch up the blog, I'll take us all back to a time when it WAS sunny and warm and we could wear shorts! August!

Back in August my company held our summer picnic "On the Patio" at the Isotopes Park (or "The Lab", as we call it). Carter talked about Orbit, the mascot, for weeks afterward, so let's start with a picture of us with my co-worker, Marie (in yellow) and her granddaughter, Destiny (right) [and that's Destiny's friend - can't ever remember her name...]:
Although it was still summer, the winds were fierce up on the third floor of The Lab and there was a little rain in the distance. Check out this pretty rainbow over the Sandia Mountains behind us:

I said wind? Check out Carter's hair (and yes, he's sporting a KC Royals jersey!):
I haven't a clue if the 'Topes won, but I do remember the teams fighting. Carter even said they deserved "time out"...:
And I'll end with a great shot of my boys watching the game:
Ah, summer. Boy how I miss you!

And now, I think I'll go put on a sweater now... it's getting even chillier!
~Kerrie

P.S. Photo credits go to Jennifer - thanks for always letting my show off your photo skills!

Oooooklahoma!

Matt and I made our [seemingly] annual trip to Oklahoma to hang out with some friends and family. We left after we both put in a full day of work and after all of my whining at 1:30AM, I made Matt stop at a hotel in Erick, OK, so I could stretch my legs. You see, Carter's so tall, his little legs dangle off the end of the carseat and therefore, I can't recline in the passenger seat. Add to that the fact that he kept waking up because he couldn't flip over due to the seat buckles, well, unhappy campers were what we were!

Despite the loooong car ride (about 13 hours total), we finally made it to the far eastern side of Oklahoma to Becky's (Matt's sister) house. It was 100+ degrees in the shade, so we were more than content to hang out inside and watch the horses and cows - just like Carter and Becky are here:
I've blogged about these crazy "attack" cows before, so you bet I was a little nervous that they were LICKING my car...
Yeah, LICKING my car. Apparently they like the taste of dust. Okay... Let's just move on, shall we?

We traveled a couple hours away to visit Matt's mom, Sally. She fought off a horrible bout of pneumonia earlier this year and has lost a lot of weight. However, I'm happy to report that she's regaining her strength and is still as feisty as ever! Here's a family shot:
From there, we visited Matt's good buddy, Wes, and had lunch with him and his girlfriend, Laurie. Here's a shot at the restaurant:
Couldn't resist stopping in to see another buddy of Matt's, Clay, and his wife, Jill, and their beautiful daughter, Charlotte (just LOOK at those eyes!!!). The kiddos played nicely together and enjoyed the indoor pool (ha!)!
All the travel wore Carter out and by nightfall, he crashed in the froggie position on his little aerobed:
The next morning Carter and Becky had some play time and a little breakfast while I packed up our gear:
Looks like the two of them had a very meaningful conversation and hopefully he was telling Becky what a wonderful time we had! I also hope he expressed his gratefulness for letting us crash at her place for the weekend!
[And for some reason, I didn't take any photos when Jamie came over for dinner... I MAY have deleted some photos from the memory card recently, because I'm lacking a significant number of photos from June and July. Whoops... Next time!))]

We decided to stay the night in Oklahoma City for the Fourth (and cut our trip home shorter!). We stayed in Bricktown, which is a quaint little area downtown with a lot of hotels, stadiums, restaurants, and even a riverwalk. Too bad it was like 105 degrees or we would have taken more photos of the riverwalk (and maybe actually spent some time ALONG the riverwalk...).

We did visit the Bass Pro Shops and let Carter "drive" the boats for about an hour. He even got a new snazzy life jacket and splashed and splashed and splashed in the pool! I swear, that kid is fearless! He'll get out and jump back in with no qualms about where he'll land. Lucky for him, we're waiting to catch him and won't just let him splat on the concrete!

Fortunately for us, our best pals (Chris and Renae) live just a few miles away from Bricktown and therefore, met us for lunch by our hotel. After snarfing some tasty pizza, we came back and let the kids (Hannah, Micah, and Carter) run amok inside our room. The closet was a HUGE hit with the gang and Hannah and Carter took turns shutting each other in:
The adults had some catching up to do, so we all just lounged and took it easy:
More closet fun:
Hannah surprises me every time with her adorableness:
And yes, we kept Carter locked in the cabinet under the sink when we stayed at the Marriott (I kid, I kid):
On the night of the Fourth, we walked along the riverwalk and stopped to feed the ducks some of our leftover bread from our BBQ dinner. Carter LOVED it and had a blast when one of the ducks jumped right up beside him (scary!):
Matt tried to snap a photo from the other bank, but it was pretty hard to see:
From there, we headed back toward our hotel and set up our lawnchairs right along the bank. They shot fireworks off right in front of our hotel, so we couldn't have asked for a better view! Carter's STILL talking about the fireworks and how they looked like "stars!"

Hope you, too, had a wonderful Independence Day and I hope you didn't melt in the 100+ degree temps!
~kerrie

2011 Making Strides Against Breast Cancer

Fun little post about my BIG support of the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer event that is sponsored by the American Cancer Society here in New Mexico. This year's walk was held on one of the windiest days ever here in Albuquerque and it was cold, cold, cold. But the Greenies didn't let that stop 'em! We braved the cold and bundled, bundled up!

Happy to report that I was the TOP FUNDRAISER (!!!!) in New Mexico (up until the day before, when someone very, very generous made a giant donation to someone other than me and knocked me off my top pedestal)! I turned in almost $3000 this year and I think I deserve a huge pat on the back, as do all of my sponsors! *blushes

A few shots from the walk with my family and co-workers:

L-R (back row): Steve, Matt, Danita, Matt, Matthew, Jakob
L-R (front row): Carter, Kerrie, Heidi, Lauren, Elizabeth, Sarah, Jakob's cousin (I have forgotten his name...Cameron?)

And just so you know, Carter was wearing PINK socks to show his support for breast cancer research!
Tyler and his daughter walked separately:
And here's a shot of our FABULOUS t-shirts that my work generously sponsors. Just a tad too big for Carter:
Carter says "THANKS FOR MAKING STRIDES AGAINST BREAST CANCER!"
...and so do I! Thank you! Now...let's find a cure, eh?
~kerrie

Fancy Pants

The Greenie's spent a much-needed night out with the adults a week or so back when we attended the annual Albuquerque Mayor's Charity Ball. The Mayor's wife (I guess that would be the "First Lady" right?) hosts the Ball to support ~5 local charities. It's a really great cause and I'm always happy that my company supports it.

Carter stayed home with Hannah (co-worker's kid who is raising money to attend a vet program at Cornell this summer). We were only happy to help support her education and didn't mind that Carter was able to hang out with a young, blond gal (of which he talked about CONSTANTLY the day after...)!

Anywho, I tend to attend several of theses types of events each year with my work and I have a rule about NOT wearing black... Mainly because A) I already own 15 black dresses and B) it's easier to find me if I'm wearing something brightly colored (right Matt?).

So here's a shot of the gang in all of our fancy pants (click to enlarge) and me in my yellow dress:

L-R (back): Heidi, Steve, Laura, Tom
L-R (front): Eileen, Paul, Kerrie, Matt, Danita

Hope you have many opportunities to wear your fancy pants too!
~kerrie

Catchin' My Breath

So the Greenies have been busy. VERY busy. Lots of work, a little bit of travel, and some fun to go with it (and loads of photos to accompany the past few weeks).

As I finally get caught up on the laundry (been away for 2 weeks), I'll have some time tomorrow to post. So watch for all sorts of excitement here on the Greenie Times.

Stay tuned...
~kerrie

Great Greenie Garage Sale

After my trek to Farmington for work, Matt and I started prepping for the Great Greenie Garage Sale! It's been AGES since we did some purging around the house, so we really went through our stuff. We had a TON of "treasures" and decided to try our hand at a garage sale instead of our usual just-donate-it-to-Goodwill approach.

I won't lie, it's a LOT of work to have a garage sale, but in the end, it was nice to have more room in the house, garage, and shed, and it really was nice to have a small stack of cash in hand at the end of the day.

Kristin came over to watch Carter and our pals Jennifer and Brett came by and kept us company during the entire sale. THANKS to all of them! It's nice having such good friends, eh?

Here are a few photos (and I hit something funky on the camera settings, so they're in black and white) at the beginning of the sale:
TONS of clothes (just as many on the other side of the ladder too):
More "treasures" inside the garage too:
All in all, we got rid of the majority of our stuff. Everything left was loaded up this morning and trucked over to Goodwill. And it only took one trip, so BONUS!

After the garage sale, we hot-footed it over to the park for Carter's school picnic. This is the second year in a row that we've participated and the weather was just as nice as last year. We chowed on some hotdogs, some chips, and even got a grape snowcone (which Carter loved sticking his hands into...). It was nice, too, to see all of his teachers outside the school (they just LOVE Carter) and it's great that the school puts on a picnic for all of the families each year!

Few photos from the picnic:

We were right behind the bouncy things, so Carter was more interested in watching the kids jump than he was in smiling for the camera:
After the picnic, the Greenies all took a much needed nap and then went out for some Thai food for dinner (just HAD to spend that hard-earned money we just made!). All in all, a wonderful weekend, a wonderful week, and tomorrow, well, we all head back in to work... Fun time is over!

Hope you had a safe and fabulous Independence Day and got some R&R in the sun too!
~kerrie

Work, Work, Work

Been a while since I had time to sit down and type in a few blogs. I've been a busy worker bee, Matt's been a busy worker bee, and Carter, well, he just been a big help!

If I bring home stacks of paper, he is very proficient at filing:
Sorting:
And even running out to make copies:

I kid, I kid... :)

He is getting pretty good with his OWN work and has brought home some pretty cute schoolwork. Here's a good coloring of a ball (and I might add that he's a BIG FAN of crayons and we think he might have consumed an entire blue crayon...or so the contents of his diaper alluded to...):
One of my favorites from last week - this is Carter's "hair" (which I recently tried to cut all on my own...let's just say that from now on we'll be paying the salon for each trim...):

Carter has been quite the good student at school (on the days when he isn't the class "biter"...*eyeroll* Guess pretty much ALL of the one-year-olds are biting, hitting, or kicking their classmates. Fun times!). Anyway, he's a good eater, a good napper, and plays well with others. They've even started having "pool time" (as in the aquatic type, not the ball and cue type...) on Mondays. And his teachers are fantastic and we're still VERY happy with our daycare! Yay!

His school is very accommodating, as recently we had to switch to soy milk. It seems our boy is allergic to cow's milk. Luckily, soy milk is just as readily available as cow's milk, so it's really not a hassle to buy. It's also curbed the super-toxic-butt-burning poo situation, so pheww, thankfully we found the culprit! And trust me, when Carter is screaming bloody murder during a diaper change,we'll try ANYTHING to help him feel better. Luckily all it took was a switch to soy milk!

Moving on to something less, er, gross...

Previous post mentioned how helpful Carter was with housework and mopping. Well, he's also QUITE the laundry helper. Anytime I need a fresh hanger, he's on it:Might be a tad tangled, but it's an easy fix to separate them:
He'll even help ball up the socks (MY least favorite laundry chore..):
Although we typically take the laundry upstairs, it can also be done right in the kitchen (and the uber paleness is due to the slathering of sunscreen on his face...that stuff is THICK!):
And a couple of my favorite photos - our little laundry helper carting off the t-shirts to be hung up:
For some reason, he's taken to piling everything up on his walker so he can transport EVERYTHING all at once (toys, cup of water, you name it...):
I told Matt that he sort of looks like a bag lady, er, bag boy. Hehehe!

Anywho, that's it for tonight. Before I sign off, I did want to say HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to the most amazing father ever - Matt! We couldn't ask for a better Daddy around this place and it'd take me all day to type up just how wonderful he is. We love you, honey, more than this silly 'ol blog can say!

And an extra big HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to my father (the infamous "Grandpa C"), too! I can't even begin to express how wonderful it is to have him in our lives! We love you and can't wait to see you in October!

Hope you're all having a great week and keeping cool! It's the beginning of monsoon season here, so the evenings are cooling off and we're getting some sprinkles in the late afternoon. Yay!!!
~kerrie