Loss

Our family has experienced a great tragedy this week with the loss of our precious baby niece. In the midst of the sadness, I have had many email us kind words and offerings of prayer. We are thankful for that. I will pass along these emails to Joey's family as I know they will appreciate it as well. My friend, Shawna, sent me these comforting quotes and I wanted to share them with you....


"As we live on earth we must walk in faith, nothing doubting. When the journey becomes seemingly unbearable, we can take comfort in the words of the Lord: 'I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold I will heal thee' (2 Kings 20:5). Some of the healing may take place in another world. We may never know why some things happen in this life. The reason for some of our suffering is known only to the Lord."
James E. Faust


"I recognize that, on occasion, some of our most fervent prayers may seem to go unanswered. We wonder, 'Why?' I know that feeling! I know the fears and tears of such moments. But I also know that our prayers are never ignored. Our faith is never unappreciated. I know that an all-wise Heavenly Father's perspective is much broader than is ours. While we know of our mortal problems and pain, He knows of our immortal progress and potential. If we pray to know His will and submit ourselves to it with patience and courage, heavenly healing can take place in His own way and time."
Russell M. Nelson

Wish me luck

Tomorrow my first child starts her first day of Kindergarten. Every time I think about it and how little she once was, I get this huge lump in my throat and have to fight back tears. A chapter in my life closes today. As I reflect on the past 6 years at home with my precious little girl, I can only say that they have been wonderful. I am blessed to be able to be a stay-at-home mommy and blessed to have been there with her every step of the way as she has learned and grown. She is a special little girl who radiates a very special light. I love her so much and am proud to be her mother. Wish me luck (and Aubrey too!). I think I may need it more though:) She feels ready more than I do! I know you may think I've gone a little slideshow crazy lately, but I just had this urge to put together a little slideshow of my little girl. She has grown so fast!

Aubrey

Lookin Good!

Ella has once again pulled another classic outfit, along with some smooth moves and a song. I just had to post this video clip. She came downstairs yesterday singing, "Looking good!"and dancing. We were cracking up. This girls got it goin on...

Deep Thoughts for the Day

I have slacked on posting my favorite "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey." So, here is a double dose of laughs. Well, for me anyways....

"If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason."

"When I found the skull in the woods, the first thing I did was call the police, but then I got curious about it. I picked it up, and started wondering who this person was, and why he had deer horns."

Back To School Night

Its hard to believe I have a child starting kindergarten this year! I can't believe how fast the time has flown. It sounds cliche, but it really does seem like just yesterday Aubrey was born. Sniff sniff:) She is growing into such a beautiful and smart young lady. She is really excited to start school on Monday. Last night was Glen Oaks Elementary's Back To School Night and Icecream Bash. She was able to meet her teacher, Mrs. McCormack, and find out that two of her friends from church will be in her class-YEA! She is really happy. We forgot our camera(dang it!) but luckily Joey's phone takes decent pics. He only had enough memory left for 2 pictures while we were there and then we took a picture of her in her "spirit" shirt when we got home. We had a good time.

Aubrey & Ella HAD to pick the biggest, most messy popsicles(of course!). It was pretty funny watching them try to eat them as they dripped all over the place. Here's Ella attempting to finish hers. Go Tigers! Aubrey feels so grown up wearing this shirt:) She has seen older kids wearing them around.

The many styles of Miss Ella

Ella is in this phase where she loves to dress herself. I love the little styles she picks out and how much loves to play dress-up. Here are various pictures of this week's styles. She picked out every bit of these outfits and even did her own poses. She is such a cutie pie.

The stylish cowgirl

I love this pose of hers. Its like she's saying, "Check me out."
Ballerina with a surfing shirt over and shorts under. And the socks with the ballet slippers are quite the look these days.
She said she was cold the other day(which I can't understand, we keep our house no cooler than 78*) So, she layered a bunch of clothes on top of each other. I love how she finished it with a shiny belt to wrap it all up. When Joey came home yesterday, Ella was wearing her bridal gown. She said, "I'm getting married Daddy!" Then she told us she would be marrying Cali very soon.
Today's look: Cowgirl complete with the horse
One tired cowgirl. I think all of the giddying up wore her out!

The cure for laundry is right here! Yeah, thats right.

As I was folding one of many many loads of laundry the other day, I got to thinking(a dangerous pasttime, I know), "Is there any other way???!!??" I am so tired of laundry. It is one of those never-ending cycles in life. You wear, you wash, you fold, you put away. It never ends. For the rest of our lives we will be doing this- which is not a pleasant thought. Then the thought occured to me, if I didn't wear clothes, then there would be no laundry. Yes, I've got it! No more clothes, no more laundry!!!! Those nudist colonies hit the nail on the head. I always thought they were weird and a little too open for me, but they are truly genius!! So, I am leaving this week to join a nudist colony. I've heard Hippie Hollow in Austin is welcoming new people, so Austin here I come.....

For those of you who don't know me very well, I am kidding. Just wanted to make sure no one thinks I truly want to look at naked people or be one of those naked people. That would be scary. Moreso for others than for myself.

Rock Candy Lab

My best friend, Laura,(who has just started a blog, but has not given permission for me to release it to the world yet:) sent me this Rock Candy Lab years ago for part of a birthday present. We always love to send each other funny gifts and I thought this one was very cute and actually very cool. We had forgotten we had it(sorry Laura!) and we just came across it again the other day. So, we did it the other day with the kids and they loved it. Now that the kids are older, it was a great project to do with them. It was fun watching the crystals form all week long. So, thanks Laura! I know its like 3 or 4 years later, but it was fun!!! Sugar doesn't go bad, does it? :)

Cali-vocals, Joey-accompaniment

Aubrey and I caught this on video. Enjoy:)

So, what did YOU think?

Yes, this is another High School Musical 2 post.

Last night. We're all sitting in the living room while the countdown for High School Musical begins. There was literally a countdown on the upper right corner of the screen as if it was New Year's Eve-I agree with you Anayansi, quite comical. Then the movie began....15 minutes later it started to pour rain and our satellite went out. I'm not kidding. I imagined hundreds of homes full of little girls throughout town all yelling, "NOOOOOooooo!" We missed about 20 minutes of the movie which really stunk. I'm sure it will air again and again througout eternity on the Disney channel like part one does. But still, it stunk.

The part that we did see, we liked. There was a lot more dancing and some new catchy songs. I am partial to the original though-the storyline was better in that one. I mean, you can only fall in love once, and thats the magic of part 1, besides the music... the on-screen romance:)

When it started, Ella saw cheerleaders dancing, ran upstairs and brought down some pom poms. She then entertained was some of her moves. She is quite the dancer:) Aubrey sat on the couch the entire time with her eyes glued to the screen. She was so into it, so much that it was as if she was in a trance.

So, yeah, I think it was another winner. It was cute, upbeat, and clean-which is something hard to find these days. I appreciate the innocence of these movies. I'm really glad this movie is so popular. It shows that you can make a clean movie and people will watch it. Moviemakers don't need to dirty-up everything to get good ratings! Same with Napoleon Dynamite, another clean movie, and it was a MEGA HIT!

So, my fellow bloggers and blogstalkers, did you watch it? If so, what did YOU think about it?

High School Musical 2-Tonight!!

The girls(well, Aubrey really) are so excited for the premiere of High School Musical 2 tonight at 7 pm on the Disney Channel. We invited a couple of their friends over for a little movie night. They can't wait! I can't either, I admit I like this stuff:)

For Joe/Tata/Dad

You are loved by so many! I had fun putting this together. Looking through the pictures brought back so many great memories of you. Thank you for loving our children so dearly and for being a wonderful father. Hope you enjoy....

Times with Tata 2002-2007

Congratulations to a Wonderful Father & Tata

This year marks 40 years that my father-in-law, Joe, has served this country working for the United States Government. He served in the Army for years sacrificing of himself for his country. He also served our country in Vietnam, which I know was a difficult time that affects him still today. I just wanted to tell him thank you for everything he has done for our family. Anyone that has met him knows that he is a loving, genuine, honest, humble and hardworking man. I am privileged to be one of his "daughters" :). He is a wonderful dad and an AMAZING grandparent to our girls. We love him very much. Congratulations Joe! This is a HUGE accomplishment and I just wanted to tell you how much I respect and love you and appreciate your service to the United States as well as to all of us. We miss you and look forward to seeing you soon!! cOnGraTs!!!

Yep, I'm a whitey

Aubrey said this to Joey the other day with much concern, "I feel bad for mommy that she can't get a tan like the rest of us." I thought this was so sweet that she was concerned for me and my feelings. And at the same time I thought it was pretty funny and cute. I have said a few times to the girls, "You are so lucky to have such beautiful skin!" I get out in the sun and I just freckle. It is awful. Then my kids-they walk outside for 10 minutes and they come in with a golden tan. I feel so left out! :) I'm the whitey in the family. We'll see about Cali...too soon to really tell, but she does seem to be lighter. Aubrey said to her the other day, "You're our little whitey, aren't you Cali?" Its always interesting to see when you have one spouse thats got a little Chamorro flavor and one thats white as can be, how the kids' complexions turn out. I hope for all of their sakes, that they get a little more of Joey's skin tone!!!

Joey & the girls last summer sportin their summer tans. I won't post a picture of me from the same day-it may blind you:)

The Zone

We went with a group of friends to The Zone last night. This place has a bounce area, laser tag, pizza buffet & arcade. The kids had so much fun playing in the bounce area, especially going down the GINORMOUS slide! It is really big, you can't even see half of how big it is from these pictures. The pics turned out cruddy and every kid has "white-eye" in them, but they are still quite entertaining....these kids are brave!

Climbing high

Go Dax!
Aubrey helping little Jacob Christopher on his tummy(Jacob and Christopher are only 2! Brave boys.)
A look of terror...
An even better look of terror....leave it to my kids:) I'm just happy they did it and by the bottom they were smiling! They all did it over and over again until they were sweating and red in the face. They all slept well last night I'm sure.

Happy Birthday to my baby brother!

Hey Taylor! Happy 13th Birthday! I can't believe you are a teenager now-I remember when Mom had you. I was 14 and changed your diapers. Good times. No, really, I loved helping take care of you and Austin. You were my little sweeties:) I miss you and I miss going to your baseball games. I miss the Taylor laugh:), making movies and commercials with you, putt putt, bowling, watching you play air soft with the boys, taking you to the park(when you were little), scaring you with Joey's laser beam, the list could go on!

Ok, so this freaky picture to the upper right Joey played around with and made it even freakier. Do you remember this one from a couple of years ago? I had to post it because it is so dang hilarious and quite scary actually.

Taylor playing with Ella

Aubrey, Taylor, Ella & Austin 2005

Austin, Aubrey, Ella & Taylor July 2007

They are such great little uncles!

I've Been Tagged

I've been tagged by Erica
Fyi:I added the first section myself. It was in an email I had gotten and I just copied and pasted it into here.

4 things about me you may not have known:

1. I used to eat cupcake wrappers as a kid-swallowed them whole.
2. I love to proofread
3. I like to dip my fries in my Wendy's Frosty
4. I have a funky ugly birthmark on my upper right leg-I hate wearing a swimsuit because it shows

4 Jobs I've Had:
1. scooped icecream/made fruit cups at the Fruit Shack
2. sales associate at mall kiosk
3. manager at mall kiosk
4. 24/7 stay at home mommy
I know, I don't have much of a work history!

4 Movies I can watch over and over again:
1. Nacho Libre
2. A Little Princess
3. Napoleon Dynamite
4. The Man Who Knew Too Little

4 Favorite TV shows:
1. The Office
2. The King of Queens
3. Seinfeld
4. AFV

4 Favorite Hobbies:
1. Tennis
2. Blogging
3. Traveling
4. Cooking

4 Places I have lived:
1. Corpus Christi, TX
2. Austin, TX
3. Buda, TX
4. Where we are now

4 Favorite Foods:
1. fresh baked chocolate chip cookies
2. anything Mexican
3. anything Italian
4. Bluebell's Fudge Brownie Nut icecream

4 Places I would rather be right now:
1. Disneyworld!
2. On top of Mt. Rainier
3. On an island
4. Italy

4 Websites I check daily:
1. Blogger
2. Hotmail
3. Google Reader-this is the best aid in blog stalking:)
4. Netflix-gotta get my queue in order!

4 People I tag:
1. Joey
2. Melissa
3. Anayansi
4. Natalie

Roly poly Cali

Cali rolled over from her back to her tummy today!!! She was already a pro rolling from her tummy to her back, so this was a new thing we were excited about. The girls were clapping and cheering for her. It was really cute. Yea Cali!!!

Joey took these pictures this weekend-I love them!

Happy Birthday Kai!

We just wanted to wish our adorable nephew, Kaikoa, a Happy Birthday! Hope you had a great day! We miss you and wish we could be there to celebrate today!! Kai & Ella together-May 07

Day at the Museum

Today we ventured into Dallas to visit the Dallas Museum of Nature & Science. I have to say its one of the crappiest museums I've ever been to. The museum is in the middle of a remodel and there were a lot of exhibits being worked on, a lot of mess, and part of the place felt like the ac wasn't working. Lovely. But the kids really enjoyed exploring the place and had a blast. Thats all that matters! I'm sure the museum will be much better in a month or so when they are done with it. I hope so anyway! Aubrey was cracking us up the whole day. She is our worrier as you'll see from the pictures :) Anyways, here are a LOT of really cute pictures of the girls from today. We are a picture-taking family that is for sure. We made a lot of great memories!

When Aubrey saw this alligator, I don't think I've ever seen her run so fast:) She hightailed it right outta there. It was so funny. Ella didn't mind at all and even posed for a picture! Its so funny how different each child is.

Look at Aubrey's face in this one, not too sure about that snake

I saw them doing this and had to take a picture. How cute is that!?

In front of the"big dinosaur." Before we got to the dino exhibit, Aubrey asked me if any of the dinosaurs we would see would be alive:) She was serious.

Expedition dig

Cutie pie Cali Check out that bubble

We're scared!