Archy and the 80's

What would Archer love about living in the 1980's?


Walking around with a boombox on his shoulder. (Back in the 80's young men would put boomboxes on their shoulders and walk around while listening to music.)  I don't think Archy has ever seen it but it must be a natural thing to do when you want to be able to walk around and still enjoy your tunes while not letting your arm get too tired.  Luckily for Archer kindles are much lighter than boomboxes.

You can often find Archy walking around the house listening to one of five songs:
Gangnam Style by Psy (he even dances to this one
What Does the Fox Say by Ylvis
Everything is Awesome by Tegan and Sara (from The Lego Movie)
Eye of the Tiger by Survivor (Yes that song from Rocky movie) Thanks to Amazon Prime music lyrics McCoy can sing all the words to Eye of the Tiger
This is my Biome by Brad Knaube

Archy will pick his favorite song for the moment and play it endlessly. It's on permanent replay. It really drives me a bit crazy at times but when you see him be bopping around the house it's pretty cute.

Archy with his boombox

Although, I guess if a president does it must be cool!

Abraham says, "Rock on Archer, rock on!"

Dental Fun Anyone?

The wheels have fallen off the dental wagon. We have rolled along pretty well with a random cavity here and there when suddenly we slammed into a parked semi-truck.  Lets just say there are more cavities among the Carltons than there are Carltons. I am not sure how it happened we didn't change our routine that I know of anyway, yet we have quite a few dental appointments lined up. The first round of dental visits went well. McCoy and Archer had the pleasure of spending time in the dental chair.  McCoy had a tooth pulled since he has funky teeth that don't line up and so the baby teeth never fall out and the adult teeth just grow behind at weird angles. I can see braces in his future. Luckily, Quinton doesn't need braces so that saves me a pretty penny. Eddy and I both have straight teeth without having had braces.  

I have a bit of a dental phobia thanks to a series of terrible childhood dentist as does my sister. We both dread going to our cleanings but dutifully go every six months. What a relief it is to get it over with until the next six month visit. Thankfully my phobia /anxiety doesn't extend to my children's dental appointments or I would be a ball of anxiousness for the next few weeks.  As per the dental hygienist suggestion I have bought them all electric toothbrushes and mouthwash with fluoride.  Since I couldn't find kid electric toothbrushes with a timer I bought a small timer and mounted it in my cupboard with velcro. 

No excuses now kids  . . . brush, brush, brush.

Declan with new toothbrushes

(I use a hardware organizer to hold all my makeup it fits perfectly in my cupboard)

McCoy, with pulled tooth and numb cheek, smiles while Archy looks on 

New room in McCoy's mouth

Smile Archy, ok, smile with one side.

On the way home from the dentist Archy told McCoy, 

"Coy, I have a big cheek now the dentist gave it to me."

Gotta love the numb tingles!

The girl who could smile with both cheeks

She was with me at store and picked a Dora toothbrush for herself. Lets hope she uses it or she will end up in the same boat as her brothers and rack up all kinds of dental frequent flier miles!

Happy Brushing (2 minutes, Twice a Day) and Flossing (Every Day)!

August Favorites!

Another month has just flown by.  The nights are getting cooler though the monsoon is still continuing, we currently have lots of poppies and sunflowers. I'm very excited for fall On to my current obessions:

First up is the Brooks essential V neck shirt. Its a technical fabric that has a nice cozy feel, and thumb-holes. I love shirts with thumb-holes. Its ideally made for cool mornings. I took one on my Camino and wore it both when it was hot and when it was cold. It was awesome and saved me from having to put on sunscreen. I now have 3.

Dates! I love medjool dates. I would always wax poetic to them to Rhi, but the ones from Walmart ( I think they were sunsweet brand in a bag) were always bland and honestly a little dry. Our local health food store has them though I was delighted to discover.  Nice and fresh and great energy for hiking. They are nature's candy.

While I love this song to run to, I'm a bit hesitant to link the video. I find the leads bieberish hair a bit distracting, and it bugs me when people are jumping around holding glasses that are clearly empty. though it did make me wonder about POP chips. It first came to my attention on the 2012 NOW that what I call music #44.  They came out with the video fairly recently and I guess may finally be getting around to release an album. "Give me Ur hand" by the Ready Set.

Dr Who Party (part 2)

Ashlee and I were doing a million things getting ready for the party.  A few weeks before I had found Ashlee a Dr. Who t-shirt at the thrift store so she had something to wear to the party but alas I didn't. Pinterest to the rescue, I found a picture of a tardis poodle skirt and decided that is what I would make to wear. In my mind it only took fifteen minutes to make but in reality it was more like over an hour.  I just cut a tardis out of blue fleece and stitched it on with one of my sewing machines in black thread trying to replicate the basic tardis features. The skirt I already had and then I added rickrack and sewed it on free hand without pins on a sewing machine. I added a wee bit of white felt for the sign and St. John Ambulance symbol. With a wave of the screwdriver, ta da a Dr. Who skirt. I would say I am at a amature level of sewing skill so this was really easy.

Here is my Dr. Who outfit, I am sporting a bowtie I cut out of felt and sewed on my shirt 

For dinner, we went pretty simple and had Cassandra Lasagna, Bowtie Pasta , Sontaran Salad and Dalek Cake.

Dr. Who dinner party

S"ood"a and Dalek Cake 

Ashlee and I decorated the dalek cake and as Ashlee so aptly put it, "The dalek cake was much more impressive in my mind, it may be a bit amature hour." (Darn Cake Boss makes it look easy.) Ah, well the children didn't complain. It wouldn't be a party if there wasn't a mess. Thanks to Ashlee helping out with that as she knocked the cocoa out of the upper cupboard it was in and cocoa went everywhere. I suspect I will be finding bits of cocoa for days.

Ashlee getting up to some cocoa mischief

Before we knew it we were on to our next activity turning pretzel rods into sonic screwdrivers. Ashlee came up with this great idea and had dipping chocolate, various candies to decorate them with that were edible. There even was edible spray paint.

Making sonic screwdrivers

Nona carefully wraps her pretzel

Once everyone had there sonic screwdriver it was time for a photo-op against our homemade tardis door background. 

We had a sign to hold with the new doctor on it that said,

 "Here's my screwdriver where is yours?" So we all showed off our screwdrivers.

Each of the boys represented a Time Lord Archy=Ninth Doctor, Quinton=Tenth Doctor, Declan=Eleventh Doctor and McCoy=Twelfth Doctor

Our mantle decor was really easy. I had Q, D, & M color a Dr. Who pictures and used two of them to wrap around pringle chip cans. I took the label off a Lay's Stax chip container and made it look like a tardis.  I picked up the Dr. Who letters at Wal-mart (1.47 each) and had eddy spray paint them and attach ribbon. We had Clara's crunch as well. Ashlee put various candy in a jar and had a sign that read "(Dr) Who knows how many candies are in the jar?" Everyone put in a guess on paper about how many there were and the winner got the candy jar at the first commercial break.

Dr. Who viewing party mantle with treats

Guess who got the number of candies exactly right? 

Archy, he won the candy jar

He happily shared his winnings with all, wouldn't Dr. Who be proud!

DR WHO Party! (Part 1)

Finally the day has arrived that we get to meet the Twelfth Doctor! We decided to have a theme party to welcome him and gather to view the show. I began watching Dr Who during the 10th's time in the tardis and the Carlton clan joined in when the 11th began his run. So this was the first regeneration for them. Parties are always a bit chaotic but we auctually did most of what we planned! Normally we have really big ambitions, but as Rhiannon says, when you have a party for a time lord there is no need hurry. It was a late night for all!

Look who just stepped off the Tardis, Archy as the tenth doctor. He refused to wear his Sunday clothes for the the party and wondered why any Doctor would chose to wear a suit.  He did deign to don a bathrobe as an ode to his trench coat.

Our first activity was too make "Adipose" out of marshmallows, icing and toothpicks.

McCoy designing an appropriate adipose facial expression.

Archy shows his newly crafted creature

Ashlee tenderly holding a Adipose 

Rhi working on the table decor,  bow-tie napkins.

Bow-tie Napkins for Dr Who Party

Sorry to say many Adipose were harmed in the making of this party.

Some members of our clan, while willing to sport Dr Whoish shirts were not willing to give up preseason AZ Cardinal football. Though they did eat some Adipose.

S"ood"a Bottles

We love a good play on words to make normal party items' extra special. Here is our 2 liter soda's as the friendly Oods.

What They Wore-Bowties

Another whirlwind Sunday came and went. Archy had a "sick nose" and so he stayed home and slept the whole time the other guys were at church. I stayed home with him and Eddy took the others to church.  We have a deal, Eddy and I, that whoever stays home with sick kids cleans and makes lunch. He usually likes to go to church and I usually like to stay home and clean. By the time the kiddos got home they were so tired that they could only flop on the couch. I didn't fight it and just took a photo anyway.

Declan, Coy, Quint 

Looks like they are about to go to sleep

Eddy and Zany were a bit slow to get out of the car so I just caught them as they came in to house.

Eddy and Zany

We did have quite a bit of fun ahead though so those boys are going to need their rest. Here is a clue as to what we were going to be doing.

Sick Archy with ????

Trickery and Punk Food

 Shock face!!!!!

So I downloaded the pictures off my camera and I was shocked to find a picture of buttocks taken by some child. We try to limit buttock exposure around here to the quick dash from the shower to bedroom to get pajamas. Once one kid realized that if I dry off in the bathroom and run to my room naked as a jaybird then I don't have to walk back through the house to hang up my towel. Didn't that start a trend. Although it has cut down on the number of towels found on the floor in bedrooms. Small blessings? Anyway let's hope time will lend them some small modesty and then they will be teenagers who don't want you to even see them in underwear.  You'll be glad to know that it above picture isn't a unnamed individual's bum but rather a clever child who took a picture to make it look like a derriere. 

They didn't quite have the angle right. There were several photos of this elbow as they attempted to get the angles right. Just got to match the freckle and I will have the culprit or culprits as I think it was probably two involved in the trickery.

I know you all have been wanting and waiting for me to do a who wore it better post and at last I can. I picked up a couple of shirts at target on clearance for Declan and McCoy. They say PUNK FOOD. There was some debate between them about whether they should wear them on different days or the same day. I for one am glad they wore them on the same day so I can ask you who wore it better Declan on left or Coy on right? Comment below.

To me it looks like Archy is casting a spell making Declan and McCoy have the same shirt on.

My awesome ride is there in the background a 2004 Buick Century, I just love old people cars, no, really I do. This is my third Buick that I have owned. Old people cars are very spacious, smooth riders, huge trunks, very comfortable, and great gas mileage. Whenever I see the twins of this car driving around it is ALWAYS old people who are driving it. Old people have lived a while they know what you need in a car. I started driving old people cars when I was in high school my first car was 1967 Impala. The Impala didn't have great gas mileage (what did in the sixties) but it was huge. So is my buick, I can fit all five of my children buckled in this Buick so that is quite nice. If you saw me in this you might think I was taking it out to get some gas for my granny, nope, it is all mine in its large silver bullet like glory.

Archy jumps in for a picture too bad they didn't have this shirt in his size.

I may point the finger at those two punk food wearers for orchestrating the buttock photo. Just a hunch, the freckle will tell me all I need to know.  Put out your elbows boys!

Carlton Command Center-keepin' a hold of the crazy

 Things are pretty hectic around here just now with so many practices and activities. It prompted me to finally make a command center (pinterest has lots of ideas) for the kids so they know what they need to be doing and when. I have almost no free wall space but decided to cram in as much as possible on a small section of wall in the dining room.  I would have liked to put my calendar there too but there just wasn't enough room.  I had to edit the space to just the bare minimum. I used just stuff I had around the house and a bit of silver spray paint that I already had so the cost for this project was zero.

Before a bit of empty wall

Presenting The Carlton Command Center

I have done several different menu postings in the past. For a long time I typed up a weekly menu and printed it and hung it on the microwave but then I got this little dry erase board and I write the weekly menu on there now.  I try to not let Zaynzley see me erasing or writing on it because that gives her ideas of imitating me and thats how the cork board part got all written on one time.

White board Menu (bought it a Wal-mart couple of years ago)

I felt like my kids weren't having good (read any) personal scripture reading and yet they played their kindles or other things so I came up with some various things they could do for personal scripture time.  In order to even get their kindles/tv/video game time they first have to get all checks on their to do chart and do one scripture choice.  Can you hear the groans?

I printed it on scrapbook paper and framed it (easier to read one below)

I typed up the morning schedule, printed it on scrapbook paper and framed it

Evenings are very busy around here with all four boys playing football and daily practices mixed with scouts and piano I really needed to think through the timeline to make sure my kindergartener was getting to bed early enough. Since we aren't able to eat dinner together we have a daily dessert time where we can gather at the table and talk about our day. I use the term dessert liberally as it isn't always a sweet treat.  It can be grapes or cheese and crackers or anything since we eat dinner so early the boys are usually hungry after practice so it is more of a pre bedtime snack. 

I have a couple of cork boards to hang up things they make/color at school. I used to tape them up on the door but this will be better.

McCoy colored these Minions in school

Another new thing is the clipboard of chores and to dos. I fill it out with their chores and after school snack (I wanted to make sure they knew things like the pears are now perfectly ripe and need to be eaten. Too many bags of grapes were going to waste in the drawer of the fridge so this way I can manage the food better) and I have a place to write notes on their daily appointments and whatnot. They have a place to write what scripture choice they did. 

Clipboard Chart

  Declan was a bit put out that I was changing to clipboard system from our old popsicle stick in a jar system but as I told him we are always trying to find new things that work. Here's hoping this does!

SE Arizona wildflowers- August edition

The title of our new banner photo is "The Alien and the Turtle" You can decided which is which.

Now on to the proper post. Since we have had lots of rain, we have quite a few plants in bloom. I love finding all the different ones I can while out and about. If I happen to know the name I will post it. Though if you notice it is not what I say or a name of one that isn't marked please let us know. There are not as numerous as in the spring, but still a quite a variety.  Most of these were more in the country, a bit harder to see unlike Spring when the road is lined with gorgeous plants. 

I believe this is the aptly named Fairy Duster. I think whoever named it had quite the imagination.

Water is still hanging about. I'mnot too sure about this one.  It maybe some sort of firecracker plant.

Silverleaf Nightshade.  Coincidentally, also the name of my imaginary magical steed.

the so called "Common" Sunflower.  its a bit ahead of its mates, I think there are going to be quite a few of these in bloom soon.

Scarlet Spiderling. These are so cute but so tiny. That cluster is made up of several flowers.

I'm going with Jimsonweed on this one.

A picture of the mighty Gila River. The water is actually moving at a pretty good clip now. It  is very turbid due to all the recent storms.

A Mexican bird of Paradise. Can you see who else loves wildflowers?