Wordle:my new addiction

I saw on Tib and Mindi's blogs the other day(I always steal ideas from these gals-they rock!) this thing called Wordle. You type in a bunch of words and then Wordle configures them into this cool mazy collection of the words. Maybe thats not a good way to describe it, but its the only way I can think of! Anyways, its lots of fun! Here are a couple I made today. . .not too shabby:)

Six Flags Surprise

On Saturday, we decided to surprise the kids with a trip to the nearby Six Flags amusement park. I am a season passholder and it was "bring a friend for free" weekend, so Joey was my "friend." And then my sister Tara hooked us up with discount tickets for the kids so we got in for so cheap! (Thanks Tara!) The kids thought we were going furniture shopping and weren't too thrilled about the idea of spending Saturday walking around furniture stores. When they realized where we were, they were so surprised! Aubrey eyes got so wide and she said, "Thank you Mom & Dad!!!"and gave us each a big hug. Ella's response was a little different. She said with a frown and a little fear in her eyes, "I don't want to go to Six Flags!" Go figure. She remembered not liking a roller coaster from when we went last year:) We had to remind her of how much fun she had on the other rides and then she got excited. So, here are pictures from our Six Flags Surprise day!

Aubrey was a good driver

Ella was too!

Cali loved being a big girl and getting to go on a few rides this time

Smile for Dad!

I was surprised Ella went on this one! Its one of those rides that takes you straight up and down a few times(the kid version). She ended up not loving it, she was smiling on the way up each time, but not on the way down:)

Cali LOVED the horsies and didn't want to get off. I had to pry her legs off.

Our Olympic champs

Cali loved her snack

Roller coaster time!

Ella was brave and did it! Go Ella! She did better this time around too. (It was a different coaster)

Aubrey wanted her picture taken on a rock. She is getting a photographic eye for pictures and always points out places that would make a great photo(just like her Daddy!)

It all ended with sleepyheads in the car. A sign of a good time I say! Now Aubrey, get to sleep! :)

"I don't need training wheels!"

Last week, we decided to take the kids to a nearby park and let them play and ride their bikes. Ella proclaimed, "I don't need training wheels! I want to ride my bike like Aubrey." So, we thought we'd let her try to ride without them. She was totally pumped and doing a little booty shakin dance beforehand.But as soon as she started riding, she freaked out. She was not happy and decided she wanted them back on. She can't say we didn't let her try! At least she's brave and has confidence in herself:) We were very proud of her for trying. We'll try again soon Ella! Practice makes perfect!

Heres a couple of other pictures from that day. Cali made sure to wear a helmet while driving her car.

Aubrey enjoyed riding around the basketball court.
It was a beautiful afternoon. I wish that nice weather would come back!

Cali is 18 months old!

I can't believe my baby is a year and a half today! We love our Cali girl SO much! She is growing into such a beautiful little little lady, just look at those big brown eyes! She has such a cute and spunky personality that is really starting to shine more and more with each passing day. She is also a very sweet girl, very cuddly, and very loving. She is learning so many new things. Lately, her vocabulary has really picked up. I would say it seriously tripled in the span of two weeks. She wasn't talking very much and then all of the sudden, she decided to! I can't believe how much she is trying to communicate with us now. Its so adorable! She loves to say "More!" when she runs out of food, "Nuh"(for "no", which she has started saying a lot this week, along with a head shake), "nana"(for banana) and "caca" for cracker. Those are her favorite words. She also loves to imitate the things her sisters say. The other day the kids said, "Buckled!" in the car after they had buckled their seatbelt and then Cali said it too:) It was so cute! Her favorite foods are bananas(her absolute favorite!), cheese, mandarin oranges, macaroni and pizza. Oh, and anything chocolate of course:) She loves dancing when music comes on, especially spinning around in circles until she gets dizzy and falls on the ground. She LOVES being outside and will stand by the back door when she wants to play in the backyard. Its so cute, its hard to say no ever. She loves books and being read to. She also loves to turn the pages and point to pictures. She loves to point to different parts of the face when you ask her to. She loves her white blankie and its a must at naptime. She can fall asleep without it but she sure loves to cuddle with it, whether in bed or chillin in the living room. Those are just a few of the things she is doing at this stage and I thought I'd write it all down. I know if I don't, sadly I will forget so much of it. Happy 18 months Cali! We love you so much and feel so blessed to have you in our family! Now its nursery time at church(yea!). Wish us luck with that. . .

Yesssss.

I now hold the coveted Brillante Weblog-Premio 2008 Award:) Thanks Aubrey & Mom for passing it along to me!

Here are the rules: I have to answer the following questions with one word answers and one word only! Then I must pass it on to seven others.

Here are the questions:
1. Where is your cell phone? purse

2. Where is your significant other? work
3. Your hair color? mixed

4. Your mother? Patty
5. Your father? Rick
6. Your favorite thing? family
7. Your dream last night? dunno
8. Your dream/goal? create
9. The room you're in? office
10. Your hobby? tennis

11. Your fear? loss
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? happy
13. Where were you last night? asleep
14. What you're not? stupid
15. One of your wish-list items? tile

16. Where you grew up? Corpus
17. The last thing you did? ate

18. What are you wearing? clothes

19. Your TV? plasma

20. Your pet? dasher
21. Your computer? Joeys
22. Your mood? bien
23. Missing someone? Mom
24. Your car? Expedition
25. Something you're not wearing? shoes
26. Favorite store? Halfprice
27. Your summer? awesome

28. Love someone? everyone!
29. Your favorite color? green
30. When is the last time you laughed? yesterday
31. Last time you cried? Wednesday

I pass the award to....

Laura

Lura

Sarah

Erica

Duchess

Anayansi

Suzie

Follow me! Perdy please.

Blogger has this new way-cool widget called "Followers." It basically allows you to see who checks out your blog. I know not everyone that looks at my blog makes a comment. There are lots of blurkers out there and I'd like them to come out of the non-commenter closet and just at least admit to following this blog! : ) Please! I just added it to the top of my sidebar, so click "Follow This Blog" and become a My Kids Say I'm Silly follower. If you follow me, it will make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. . .

Thanks Mindi and Tib for the heads up on this new widget! Its one sweet doohickey.

Reunited....and it feels so good!

My dear friend, Cindy, from the good ole Singles/Institute days just started blogging.(Yea! everyone in the whole world needs a blog I say!) I just came to realize she only lives 30 minutes away from me! I hadn't seen her since she was married like 7 years ago! So, I emailed her and our other friend from back in the day, Anayansi, and planned a little brunch/get-together for this morning. It was SO GREAT to hang out with my old buds! Anayansi and I have kept in contact over the years and get together every so often, but I hadn't seen Cindy in sooo long. It was awesome to see her again! She was as cute and sweet as ever. It was also really cool to get to meet her adorable little boys, Braden and Spencer. Ella, Braden and Anayansi's daughter, Jenna, had a great time playing. And us girls all had a great time gossiping, er, I mean chatting:)

Anayansi, Cindy and me, back in 2000 (Hey Tara! I see you in the back there too:)

Here we are today! We look even hotter than we did before !)Thanks Ella for taking the picture for us! You are a great photographer:)

A few of our kiddos: Braden, Jenna & Ella. Its weird how between the three of us, we now have 7 kids! The time sure has flown by fast. I still can't believe its been that long since we've all gotten married-its crazy. So much has happened since then.

Thanks guys for coming over! Hope to see you again soon!

Ella's First Field Trip

When Ella found out that her preschool would be doing field trips this year, she was just THRILLED! She has been asking for weeks, "Is my field trip tomorrow?"and finally yesterday the answer was "Yes!" Her class went to the firestation downtown and she had the best time!When she came home, she told me alllll about it. Her favorite part was when the firefighters slid down the pole. Actually, I think that was all the kids favorite part! She felt so grown-up today getting to go on a big-kid field trip. Here is a picture of her class and her teacher Ms. Stephanie with a couple of the firefighters at the station. Thanks Melissa for emailing me this picture! Its so cute!

Out of 12 kids in her class-only 3 are girls! Ella doesn't seem to mind though:)

They even gave the kids these schnazzy hats. Check out Fire Chief Ella.

Thank you firefighters for all you do to protect us! We appreciate all you do!

Happy Fall!

My favorite season is here! Okay, so its like 85 degrees outside, but still- its fall, which means cooler weather is around the corner! Cool brisk air, hot chocolate time, fall festivals, orange and red leaves, candy corns, Halloween and Thanksgiving, wearing blue jeans and long sleeves, caramel apples, pumpkin patches, I just love it! We busted out the fall/Halloween decor yesterday and had fun decorating the house. I've got my Bath & Body wallflowers plugged in and a pumpkin candle on the candle warmer. It smells so good in here:)Our house is totally ready for the season to come, so come on cooler weather, we're waiting for ya! Here's to a wonderful fall 2008!

Aubrey cut this out last night and taped it to a drawer in the kitchen. I thought it was so sweet of her to add her own fall decor to the house and wish everyone a Happy Fall!

Plano Balloon Festival 2008

This weekend we headed out to the Plano Balloon Festival. Since we have moved here, we haven't missed it! Its a beautiful sight! This year my Aunt Cindy came along and we had lots of fun together. The really neat thing about this year was that we actually got to walk onto the balloon launch field this year. Normally they have that area blocked off to the public. Because the weather was so good(barely a breeze)we were able to walk up close to the air balloons. It was so magical! I actually ran and twirled around like a nut. There was magical music playing(the Jurassic Park theme I have playing on the playlist right now) and the balloons were lit up and glowing all around us-it was just so cool! Anyways, it was a great night. Check out the slideshow below. Joey got some awesome shots of the balloons!

Menu on the wall: The best thing EVER

I purchased this chalkboard at IKEA a few months back, for just $15, to put in the kitchen/breakfast area. (Thanks to my friend Janet for the idea!) Can I just say it is the best thing ever? I write down the meals for the upcoming week on it and it is so awesome to have! Heres why I love it:

1. It helps me to plan.
2.It inspires me to try and make a better variety of foods.
3. It inspires me to try and make new foods that have fancy sounding names:)
4. I think it looks cute.
5. It saves me time. I am forgetful sometimes. In the past, I remember forgetting what meals I had planned and would have to dig through my pantry and figure it out from the ingredients I had bought days before.
6. I cook more often! My family really benefits from it. I made a goal when we moved here about 2 years ago, to cook more. I no longer wanted my family eating fast food and frozen dinners so often. The only things I actually cooked were things like spaghetti, hot dogs, tacos-the basics. Now I'm venturing out and trying new things and its fun. Its become a new hobby for me(and Joey doesn't mind that at all!) Its just not healthy to eat out all the time and it doesn't teach the kids good eating habits. Instead of saying, "I don't know what to make for dinner" I already have it written down and planned. Of course, this requires planning beforehand. I sit down for about 30 minutes and plan a menu for the upcoming week. I really try to only go to the grocery store once a week. I use the cooking blog, This Mama Loves To Cook, for a lot of great new ideas. Check it out if you haven't already! I also have other great recipe blogs I've found on my sidebar.
7. The kids love it-Aubrey will read it in the morning to see what we are having for dinner that night. Sometimes she'll look and see that we had the wrong meal the wrong night and call me on it. Sometimes you have to adjust to your schedule, geesh! :)

I would recommend this to anyone that needs a little help in the cooking department. It really helps to have a visual somewhere where you have everything written down for the week. Before, I would write it down on a piece of paper and sometimes I would lose it. Its great to have it nice and big and where you can see it. If you don't have space on your wall, then one of those magnet dry erase boards on the fridge would work well too(my friend, Sarah, does that). So, anyways, just a tip from lil ole me. And I'm not saying we don't eat out or eat fast food-yeah right. I love eating out! But this has really helped me to limit how often we do.

So, happy cooking!

A tool belt!

Ella came home from school yesterday with her very own handmade toolbelt. She was so excited about it! She told me she wants to wear it everyday when she gets home from school so she "can work on stuff." Here she is sportin her new gear.

She even shared a hammer with Cali. She told her, "Cali, when you need more food, just hammer on on the tray and Mom will bring you more. Be careful though not to smash your fingers. Hammers are dangerous."

Owen Samuel Danger Kawecki

We have a new nephew! Owen Samuel Danger Kawecki(is that middle name not the best?) was born September 11, weighing in at 6 lbs 13 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. He is beautiful! He and his mommy are doing well. We were SO happy to hear the news! Congratulations Christine, Watson and big sis Lucy:) We love you!

You wanna piece of me?

This past weekend my family came to visit. They had to run away from Ike! Thankfully their city was spared, but I'm glad they came to see us! On Saturday night, we took everyone to Strikz to go bowling for Aubrey's birthday. Well, the wait for a lane was close to two hours, so we decided to do laser tag instead. Neither of the girls had ever done it before and were excited(and nervous) to do it. They both ended up LOVING it! We were worried Ella would be scared since the room is kinda dark, but she was smiling so big as she was running around shooting everyone. It was lots of fun! It was my mom's first time too. It was fun all playing together as a family. The results were Joey-1st place, Mark-2nd place, Tara-3rd place. Good job guys! Maybe next time I'll actually rank. . .

Go check out Aubrey's blog for more pics from our visit with my family!

Happy Birthday Joe!

I just wanted to wish you a Happy Birthday Joe! You are the best father-in-law in the world! I love you very much. Hope you have a great day!

If I was throwing your party, these are the plates I would buy:)

Aubrey's birthday celebration

For Aubrey's birthday, we had dinner at a restaurant of her choice and a family party at home. We have decided to alternate years with kid parties/family parties to alleviate stress and save money. Also, its what my family did and I remember loving the kid parties just as much as our more intimate family parties. Lots of memories from both! And I'm really glad this year was a family party year since the timing of the surgery and everything. So, Aubrey picked Chili's(we all love Chili's!) and we told the staff it was her birthday so they sang to her and brought her a milkshake. She was a teensy embarassed to have the whole restaurant looking at her and clapping while the staff busted out a birthday song, but she didn't mind once they gave her the free shake:) Heres the fam at Chili's that night...

At home, we had decorated the kitchen with "Camp Rock" stuff and surprised her with it. She really liked that. We even played some rockin Camp Rock tunes. Joey had picked up a cookies n cream icecream cake and it was delish!

Aubrey walking into the kitchen

Heres Ella jammin to the music

Happy Birthday to you!

Time to blow out the candles! She blew out all 7 at once. Hope your wish comes true, Aubrey!

Ella digging in

Cali dug way inTime for presents. She opened her presents from Ella, her Grandma & Grandpa, her Nana & Tata, and me and Joey.

Ella had made her a beautiful card

Thanks Ella!

A Diamond Castle Barbie!

Hullabaloo!

A groovy girls doll and pony!

Joey and I bought her a digital camera. At first, we bought her a kids camera, but it was junk(super slow and took cruddy pics), so we went back to the store and got her a real camera that was actually the same price as the kid camera and its even pink! She loves it.

I think this was her favorite present-and it didn't cost us a dime! Her very own blog! (perfect to go with her new camera) I set up a blog for her that day and told her she could do it all herself. She has posted one post so far, but has many more up her sleeve:)I've sent a lot of invites out(its a private blog) but if I haven't sent you one and you'd like to be a reader, let me know and give me your email address.

This was her face when she realized what was on the computer screen...priceless:)

A very happy blogger
I hope you enjoyed your birthday Aubrey! We still plan on taking you guys somewhere fun this week, so don't worry! Bowling, skating, whatever you want!