Photos

Luke and some classmates at Field Day Friday

My birthday roses

We went to Cheesecake Factory for my birthday... many silly photos were taken!

Mia will not keep her eyes open when getting her photo taken!

Don't know what happened here, but had to add this photo to show that it wasn't all relaxing at dinner that night! I think she was trying to rip out my earring here.

Cinco de Mayo - Luke's class came and made pinatas in my room - he's paired up with Tabitha, his teacher's daughter

And here's the first tiny quail that hatched in Luke's classroom. We went Saturday night with Mrs. Gonder to our friend Mandy's ranch to release the 16 quail.

This week in review

I posted before the week started about my busy week, so thought I'd update on how it went. And I do have tons of photos to add, but it's not going to happen tonight. So enjoy just my words, and photos will come later this weekend.

School - had a pretty good week, and we're one week closer to the end! field day today - this year it was called kid karnival instead, and was one of the more enjoyable ones. i even went down the inflatable slide with the kids. the only downside was the 94 degrees and the fact that i was fighting off a fever and aches still

Birthday - had a good birthday! got some great gifts from the fam, and luke picked out most of my gifts, including several great pieces of jewelry. he shops with me so much, he knows what i love! also got a heart necklace from james avery. love it. was surprised with a dozen yellow roses delivered to school, and then we all went to austin wednesday night to eat at cheesecake factory. good times. thanks for all the cards, gifts, and messages! 

Kids - they are doing well. mia never ended up sick after having a fever sunday thankfully. luke seemed to enjoy his kid karnival day a lot today too!

Sick - last night was rough. i started to feel bad, then ended up with a fever and severe chills. marc wasn't around (in san antonio) to help with the kids, so i was thankful that they went to bed early for me! i went to bed with 3 covers and a heating pad, still shaking. then woke up an hour later sweating so badly and couldn't stop for an hour! today i was surprised to feel ok most of the day. it helped i was outside in fresh air and kept busy. tonight the fever is back, but not nearly as bad as last night. needs to just go away and not come back!

Rain - the skin care place i'd been going to had a one year anniversary open house tonight. i went with luke at 4 and got a great deal on 2 packages - well, it still cost a lot, but i got a whole package free so that is a good deal! they were doing door prizes all night. as i was paying, the lady next to me won a giant starbucks gift basket- coffee, mugs, chocolate espresso beans, truffles, a starbucks cd -and she asked if i wanted everything but the mugs because she doesn't like coffee! that made my day. about an hour later i got a call from Rain, and i had won the diamond hoop earrings they had as their "grand prize"! i couldn't believe it -they are gorgeous, and looked really great with my dirty trimmier t shirt, sunburned face, and pig tails from today. i loaded the kids up in their pjs just to go back and pick them up tonight. everyone was envious and it was quite a production when i got them. will be sure to post a photo. someone commented on my facebook just now that maybe i should go play the lotto with my luck today!

brenda - unfortunately, her swine flu days ended early. we were so disappointed she wasn't coming but in the end, i had a staff meeting until after 4:30, another meeting at school at 6:00, then was sick, so probably good they couldn't make it as i may not have even seen them!

tomorrow if the book warehouse sale, and looking forward to meeting up with friends there. my aide/friend michelle offered to keep the kids, and they scored a trip to the zoo out of this deal with her, so everyone comes out happy (well, except for maybe michelle , at the zoo with 4 kids!)

sorry so long - it's been a long, eventful week. if anyone is still reading this, check back this weekend for photos. 

Gearing up for a busy week

It's not quite seven, and everyone has showered, lunches are packed, clothes set out for tomorrow... and it's a good thing I'm feeling prepared to start my week, because it's going to be a busy one!

Monday - regular day, decorate room for tomorrow, work out, relax. 

Tuesday - Cinco de Mayo! I have the classroom decorated  in red, white, and green, put out confetti and maracas, and we spend the day learning about the holiday (it is actually one of my TEKS I'm supposed to teach, so I'm not just having a fun day!) - video, books, math word problems based on the holiday for the morning. In the afternoon, I've invited Luke's class in to make pinatas with us, and eat chips and salsa. After school, we have a baby shower, then workout, then home.

Wednesday - birthday day for me! not sure what's going on, but we're headed to eat somewhere that night.

Thursday - Marc leaves for san antonio for 3 days for a clinic. Thanks  to the swine flu and their extra days off, as soon as school is out, brenda and the girls will be at my house to hang out and spend the night. 

Friday - kid karnival day at school, complete with bouncy things and water balloons. then out to eat with friends from school, then hopefully going to an open house at the skin care place i'd been going to. 

Saturday - every year in may go to waco to their scholastic warehouse, where everything is half off. usually some friends from school go along, and this year i think i've managed to spread the outing to about 10 people. if you love books, this is an awesome outing!!! the only problem is that it's hot (no air conditioning), but we can hope for a mild day saturday. Marc comes home - hopefully in time that i can leave the kids home and not take them along!

Sunday - mother's day! early church, probably out to lunch. 

it's a super busy week, but everything seems enjoyable!! hope everyone is doing well. oh, and any ohio readers... brenda and i plan to leave TX July 5 and be there 7-10 days, so hope everyone will be around. also hope we all survive this road trip! :)

Finally...

I haven't been able to find my cable to download photos, so that's why I'm just getting these on here! So here goes...

Fort Worth Zoo

Ft Worth Zoo - went a few weekends ago and met Brenda and the family there

feeding the birds... Luke had a very cooperative bird who sat there forever

more zoo photos

Dying eggs seemed very fast this year... why do I recall spending forever to dye them as a kid?

Good Friday

Ringling Bros. Circus - Easter Weekend

Luke trying to jump with the circus folk... he missed the first time, got defeated, and quit

Front row seats and sno cones... courtesy of Nonno and Nonni

And cotton candy at the circus, also thanks to Nonno!

Easter Sunday, showing off new treats and some awesome bed head for Mia

Luke's First Lost Tooth

Finally, Luke lost his first little tooth last Sunday night! That tooth seemed to be loose forever, and I was wanting it out soon since his permanent tooth was halfway in behind it already. Saturday night he let me try to pull it, but I couldn't get it. On Sunday we knew it had to come out, but he got scared and didn't want me pulling it, so he went to bed. While I was in the shower, Luke was eating some string cheese and he started crying and said to Marc "Half my tooth fell out!" Since it was so tiny, he thought it broke and only part of it came out! He was a little scared by it, but after he calmed down he was excited to get his tooth pillow out and tuck it under his pillow for the tooth fairy. He barely has a hole where the tooth was since the new one is in its place already.

The before photo... not sure if you can tell, but you can see the big tooth in behind it.


It's so tiny!!


Tucked away carefully in the tooth pillow... thanks Grandma for making it!


Night night... time for sleep so the tooth fairy can come

Home again

For the second Wednesday in a row, Luke woke up throwing up, so I stayed home with him again. He's been fine ever since 6:00 though thankfully! Just wanted to check in and say hi since I haven't posted in a while.
A few random happenings:
1)We got our TAKS reading scores back, and all my kids passed and 16 out of 21 got commended, meaning they missed 3 or less out of 36 questions. I am so happy!!
2) We booked our Philly trip -June 9-15! Very excited, and we got a great deal on flights which is good since we have to buy 4 tickets now!
3) Had photos taken of the kids in Salado and am very happy with how they turned out. Now I just have to decide which ones to order!
4) I won a weigh-in Sunday at Jazzercise - out of everyone who weighed, I lost the most weight (I think by percentages). I got a prize pack - a backpack, water bottle, 2 stretchy bands, a tshirt, and a towel.

Here are two photos I found from when I took Luke to putt putt over spring break - the one of us both is when we were driving the go carts. Wanted to see pictures of him happy and healthy, not sick and sleepy like he is today!

photo session

Thursday I met a girl in Salado and she took Mia's 2 year photos, as well as some of Luke and both kids also. She is a friend of a friend, and reminded me so much of Amy and her style of taking photos. Click on the right under "Blogs I Visit - Melody" if you want to see a sampling of what she took.

Landscaping Day

the day had finally come for us to do some type of landscaping to our yard. when we moved in, there were only 3 bushes, and they were ugly, so we pulled them out. since then, we've mostly had dead grass and weeds to bring out the beauty of our yard. today marc's parents came up to help. nonno and i did the shopping, and i had found a great nursery in town where i got most of the bushes. we ended up putting in 9 bushes - 6 to hide the slab and pipes on the front of the house, and 3 to try to hide the big green poles/boxes that i guess are for electricity?? marc dug up the grass for the flower bed and we were fortunate enough to have white rock left from the house that we used to edge the bed. we hoped to add a big magnolia tree, but the one i wanted was already sold to someone. we ran into a few issues along the way. we live right across the road from an area called "white rock estates" and it's called that for a reason. as soon as you start digging holes, you hit plenty of white rock. we're not even sure if we could have dug a 2 foot hole for the giant tree i wanted, so glad i didn't spend $219 on it if it can't even be planted! the other issue came in planting bushes by the front of the house. nonno was digging and very quickly water came spraying out everywhere- so because of the rock, the water line is not very deep!!! luckily he had experience with this and was able to fix it. so here's our improved front yard. things will grow and cover up slabs, boxes, etc soon, and we have to add some new sod since ours died before we bought it, but it's an improvement!
PS (added Sunday morning) Last night after midnight Marc woke me up. We were running the sprinklers through all 9 or 10 stations, which takes a while. Well, it came time for the area in front of the windows to water, and guess what?? another broken pipe! water was spraying everywhere. luckily this time it is the sprinkler pipe, not the main water line, so we just shut it off and tried to go back to sleep. now we are on our own fixing it today. 

before shot... nothing but dead grass

getting some help

after... no regular bushes here - 2 rose bushes, 2 blue plumbago, and 2 of something else i can't remember right now, but one has pink flowers and one yellow. plus, a lantana in the middle. i love that the white rock is the same as what the house is made of!

these are red tipped bushes... they will eventually hide the slab more. there are also 3 little ones to the left of the tree. on the far right is where we busted the water line!

you can still see all the pretty utility cases, but when the bushes grow it should help hide them! the house to the right is for sale, and currently has 2 foot weeds everywhere, so just know those aren't OUR weeds!

birthday girl

i love this girl. happy birthday miss mia!

birthday dinner at jason's deli

eating ice cream from the bottom of the cone... this was all good until it started to drip out the bottom!

her final present... radio flyer tricycle, complete with a horn, radio, and light up/noise making turn signals

Mia's Elmo Party

I'll let the photos speak for themselves...

Couldn't get a good photo of Mia smiling with her presents - she wasn't into waiting and smiling at the camera that day!

Had to put this one on... what is Carsyn thinking at this moment??



I knew I had to have a pinata... if you've seen my house, I have the perfect spot to hang it inside my front door!

Feeding Abby at the end of the day

...and daddy just couldn't keep up with the rest of us and had to check out for a little while.

Go Chargers!

Luke's soccer season officially ended last Saturday. He really showed a lot of improvement from last year, and almost kicked a goal at one of his last games. The problem this year was that the weather would be great all week, but every Saturday it seemed to end up 40-50 degrees and super windy. Thankfully his last day of games was much warmer for us all to enjoy.

Pretty Piggies

Mia loves having her nails painted, so Monday night I painted both her toes and fingers orange. She sits so still, blows on them, and knows to keep her fingers apart until they dry. Too cute. Last night Mia was missing and way too quiet for a few minutes, so I sent Luke off to hunt her down and see what she was up to. He came back to me with the OPEN bottle of orange nail polish and said Mia was painting herself! I had visions of an orange face and it spilled all over her new Elmo jammies and my bathroom floor, but when I went in to check on her, she was seated on my ottoman in the bathroom, neater than expected! She had been repainting her nails - guess she knew it had chipped off a bit and needed a touch up?? - and she did surprisingly well! Just a few orange toes and fingers (not all nails!). She is way too silly and definitely my little girlie girl.

What did YOU do today?

Today I took a personal day and skipped work, knowing I had a lot to get done before tomorrow... and now that's it's almost 10:00pm I am realizing why I am so exhausted!

Today I...

*started my day with an hour work out

*got haircut and hilights

*returned a few things at the mall and bought several more things

*bought plants and soil at Lowes

*went searching 3 stores for red sandals for Mia, but with no luck... but managed to buy a few other things at Kohls

*spent some time on facebook and emailing friends

*picked up Luke from school and ran home to empty out the car

*drove to Cove to pick up Mia's cake (which is once again adorable, and worth the hour it took to drive to get it and back!)

*got Mia from daycare then went to Target and picked up dinner

*cleaned the kids' rooms, study, living room, bathroom, and cleaned off the patio

*put away laundry

*filled an Elmo pinata

*made goodie bags for the party

*read half a novel

*wrapped Mia's presents 

And finally I'm sitting down, while Marc is mopping and finishing up the kitchen... glad he didn't get home too late tonight so he could help out! 

Check back soon for photos from Luke's last games and Mia's party!! 

Done.

The reading TAKS test is done. My kids worked hard, and whether or not they passed, I'm just glad it's over for now! It was a long day... I got very little sleep because Luke was up sick. He ended up staying home with Marc - so much for the Minatreas staying healthy!