Party Animals

We love a good Quinceañera! Or, should I say, QuinceañerO? Our friend turned fifteen and we took the Littles to his party with us(the Biggies were seeing Beauty and the Beast 3D with Maga). Our Oso had a blast! He dances like his Daddy and is a Ladies' man. A "Tigre" his cousin Jeovanny calls him. Our Lady Giggles made the rounds on everyone's lap and managed to get a makeover too!

Mr. Popper's Penguins

I've tried to get Our Princess to write about the books she reads. I've even tried to get her to tell me about the story and I'D write it down, but she would lose interest... But she'll tell me about the story as she's making some project. And I'm not talking about drawing a picture, no, but she wants to do some artsy-crafty project. For Mr. Popper's Penguins, she made(WE made :0) thumbprint penguins. As she's placing all twelve on the ladder she drew, she's telling me about who it is and what they're doing...

Lady Giggles

2011 was a very busy year. Our newest addition, Our Lady Giggles was born in July. As soon as she began to smile, she started giggling. And she smiles and giggles all the time!

Reading goals

Our Princess got the Percy Jackson and Harry Potter box sets from Aunt Laura for Christmas, so our goal is to read them(and maybe have Our Princess do some solo reading, fingers crossed) this year. We've actually started reading Harry Potter from friend's books we've borrowed and are on the third one. The girls love it! I enjoy attempting to do all the voices...

** Did I mention that the library has all of these on CD?  Yep, so much easier to read in the car!!

A New Year!!

I have many New Year's resolutions this year. I believe I'm making up for past years when I never could be bothered to make any. So here goes:

1. I don't want to say lose weight, because I really don't care what the scale says. We're making plans to take our kids somewhere Magical in September and I want to fit comfortably on the rides, not live in fear that they won't be able to get the belt across or the harness down. So, in order to do that, I want to lose a few sizes. Three to be exact. If I can get to a size 16, that would be wonderful. However in order to do that, I have to have a plan:
A. Drink 1 gallon of water(at least) a day
B. Make an effort to either do Zumba or Bootcamp once a week
C. Play with my kids as much as I can
D. Begin to cook healthier meals for myself and my family
(Yeah, who'd have thought resolutions would have subsections? Beware the fine print!)Hopefully, I will be successful this year and it will become a habit!

2. I want to get back into blogging every day, even if it is only a picture or two. I think, like a scrapbook, this is something I can look back on and enjoy long after my children have grown up.

3. I'm going to begin to control the chaos that is my home. If you have chaos issues and have never visited the flylady, you don't know what you are missing! I've tried so many other methods in the past, because let's face it, who wants to have a chaotic home? and never had any success until I found her website. I'm not even sure how I found it one day, I just know that my house would be cataclysmically insane if I hadn't begun shining my sink before the third princess came along. So, off to shine my sink and swish and swipe!
Happy New Year!

Memories

10 years ago, I was helping out at a local hispanic church with the ESL classes. I was living on-campus at school and since it was Sunday night, the cafe closed early. I was starving and I wanted real food, not drive-thru, but I didn't want to go by myself(I don't see how people do that...just feels weird). There was a guy whom I had spoken with several times who seemed nice enough, so I asked him if he wanted to go get something to eat with me. He was happy to come along. I drove, since he rode with someone else to church. I figured it was just friends going out for dinner, but since he ended up paying, I guess that made it our first date. We went to Perkin's and sat in the back booth near the bathroom. We talked about his huge family(8 siblings) and his excellent english(he'd only been in the States for 6 months) and my ok spanish and schoolwork. It was a great evening, one we repeated many a Sunday night afterward. Ten years later, he's the best husband I could ask for, the best father of my children I could ask for, and I wouldn't change a thing!

American Girl Club

We've been reading American Girl Books for a while now, so when we heard that our new HSA had an American Girls Club, we had to sign up! Our Princess loves it! They read a book about a certain American girl before the meeting, do a scrapbook page, learn about that American Girl and her time, have a snack, play games, do a craft...

This month is Josefina, a New Mexican girl from the 1800s and we are in charge of craft and snack. So we made horchata, a cinnamon-rice drink, last evening and flan this morning. Our Princess and I decided we would teach our friends to make tissue paper flowers for our craft, a common decoration in Mexico. My best friend made thousands of them for her wedding, but she made them out of white toilet paper, so they were about the size of a real rose, and they decorated the black limousine with them...very pretty.