Someone's Been Into my Camera

You just can't leave your camera unattended these days. You never know what will end up on there!

Seasons of Love

Valentine's Day is tomorrow. Just in case all the red, pink, hearts, balloons and candy spilling out in all the store aisles didn't tip you off. I have a couple ideas up my sleeve for Patrick and the kids, but I'm still working them. We did however finish homemade Valentines for Ella's class party. Strangely, neither Jackson or Kaley's classes were having a party. Kaley did make some valentines to pass out though cause what we did for Ella was so cute.

I found this valentine idea out there on the internet. Booted up the old InDesign program and designed up a flower pattern and leaf pattern, printed them out and we were good to go. I already had the candy left over from Halloween. Don't worry, it's been stored in a cool, dry place!

I also found a couple neat Valentine's Day hairdos that I showed Ella and she was very excited to try it out. 

Behold, the double heart.

And a couple wimpy hearts for Kaley. Shh...just tell her yes they do look like hearts. She can't wait for long, long hair but I'm not sure that will ever happen. 4 1/2 years and this is all she's got.

Have a great Valentine's Day and eat a couple pieces of chocolate just for me!

Star of the Week

Ella is "Star of the Week" for her Spanish classes this week. Not to be confused with "Star of the Week" in the English classes, as she's already had her week for that. She needed a photo for her poster, so we decided to have a little photo shoot.

And then I had a little fun in Photoshop. I only wanted her eyes, dress and lips to stand out and I think I achieved that although I think the eyes may need a little more brightening up.

What's that you say? You want to see the other photos I decided not to use?

I know her hair is not looking it's best, but at least this is a true representation of Ella. Her hair never really looks it's best since she doesn't like combing it!

Shine bright my little Star of the Week! Or since it is Spanish class, 'Mi pequeña Estrella de la Semana'

This....is American Idol!

It is at this time of year that I am glad we decided to go ahead and get Dish network so we could have American tv programming.

American Idol and Dancing with the Stars are both gearing up for their 8th seasons and I'm excited for Tuesday and Wednesday nights! 

I am glad that the audition episodes for American Idol are over though. Although it seems like this year they featured more of the better singers and way fewer of the people just out there trying to get on tv (and otherwise horrible singers). There seems to be some good talent this year and since I am a supernerd and read spoiler sites to find out all the latest spoiler news I already know who will be making the top 36 semi-final round. 

That's right. This year there are not 12 guys and 12 girls vying to make the big stage, there will be 36. They will do the format kind of like in the early days of Idol and instead of people getting kicked off each week the top male and female, plus the next highest vote getter will advance (3 rounds of 6 men and 6 women) and then the judges will round out the top 12 with 3 of their own "wildcard" choices.

I'll reserve my right to change my favorites, but right now, of the people I've seen (listened to) I like Danny Gokey, the music teacher from Milwaukee who lost his wife a month before the auditions. I like his voice, it reminds me of Elliott Yamin from season 5. There are a lot of promising voices though and AI hasn't shown them all, so like I said, I reserve my right to change my favorite.

Like Seacrest. I'm out.

It's okay, you can say it. I'm a super-big dork. I know.

And I'm okay with that.

Who will you be cheering for?

'Cause We're Groovy Like That

Just look at these groovy little babies we're chowing down on tonight. Aw ya, rainbow cake baby.

Like, whoa dude. They're killer.

I can't take credit for the tie-dyelicious idea though. I got it from here. So easy. So fun. So delicious. And so (almost) good for you.

Peace out. Let the love flow man.

p.s. Since we're talking about cake here I thought I'd share a funny blog with everyone about cakes. It's called Cake Wrecks. Check it out. I laughed out loud at some of the commentary.

¡Vamos Equipo Rojo!

This morning Ella participated in her school's Mini-Olympics. The purpose of the Mini-Olympics (according to the flyer the school sent home) is: "to teach that sport is an entertaining and healthy activity and participating in our school community is more important than winning."

The way it worked was that each class (1st-6th grade) was divided into 3 colors. Each class participated in the 6 events as a class, but the scores of each color in each grade were added together to find a winning team at the end of the day.

Ella was on Equipo (team) Rojo (red). First up was the beanbag shotput, but I didn't get a photo of that. I think her team got the highest score for that one though. There were lots of chants of Ro-jo! Ro-jo! and A-zu-les! A-zu-les! and Blan-co! Blan-co!

Next up was the hoop shoot. Ella had only 2 boys on her class team and no one made a basket except one boy. The basket was standard size, so it was hard for the 1st grade!

After the hoop shoot was a hurdles relay. It was pretty funny and lots of kids knocked down the hurdles. Ella looks like a pro - and she didn't knock any hurdles over!

After hurdles was a sack race and a 50 yard dash and then came the tire roll. She did fairly well at the tire roll. At least she stayed in her lane, which was hard for some of the other kids!

At the closing ceremony the red team came in second, but everyone got medals, so that made it all about fun, not winning. 

As they were handing out medals and taking team photos they were playing "We Are the Champions" over the loudspeaker.

It was a pretty fun morning and it was nice to see Ella compete in something athletic since she is normally not too into that.

¡Viva Equipo Rojo!

Bits and Blahs

I haven't blogged in a week. I have had plenty of ideas to write about, but nothing really substantial, so I think I will just do a Friday round-up of some of my random thoughts this week.

Crazy House

Lest any of you think differently, I don't, in fact have it all together.

Many times people say to me, "I don't know how you do it with 3 kids." What they don't know is that I'm not "doing" anything. Our house is crazy and unorganized. I yell a lot. The kids forget homework assignments, there is nothing in the cupboard for lunches except craisins and cheetos, the dog poops in the house right before we are leaving (late) for school, one kid looks like Valentines Day in a pink shirt and red shorts, one looks like Christmas in her sister's Christmas dress and one wore the same outfit he has worn every Friday for the past month, no one has brushed their teeth or hair...and that was just this morning.

I guess we just need to get into a routine...

Visitors

We have had a constant stream of visitors since December 23. (Actually we had my mom and Dad at the end of November, so I'll count them in there too). For Christmas we had Patrick's brother and sister for a week. Then we had about a week with no one, then on January 4th my brother and his girlfriend came and stayed 10 days. Then another week off and our friends from Oklahoma came for a few days. They just left on Wednesday and next Friday (13th) Patrick's dad will be flying in. I'm not complaining about visitors, I love having visitors. I love being with family since everyone we know is so far away. Plus, it's nice to be around English-speaking people and show them around and do all the fun Cancun stuff.

But...

It will be nice to get back to a routine that is accountable to no one but myself. Like taking a nap in the middle of the day or grocery shopping at 3 different places without worrying that I am dragging people all over town on a boring household excursion.

Happy Birthday to Me

I turned 31 this week. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes. It was a pretty uneventful day, but we did go out for a nice dinner with friends without the kids. And when I told my trainer it was my birthday she stretched me out extra long and gave my muscles a massage. Oh, and I got diamond earrings. They are real purty.

I'm not stressing out over being 31, but as my friend Sara reminded me, it's been 10 years since I celebrated my 21st birthday. 10 years people. And that is when I started feeling a little old.

New tutor

Ella started working with a new Spanish tutor this week. Her old tutor got a job outside of the house and didn't have time to tutor anymore. Which is also too bad for me since she was tutoring me in the daytime.

Anyway, the new tutor is a high school girl. Ella loves this fact. It is now cool to go to the tutor. Yesterday they finished up homework early so they made brownies. Reading the directions in Spanish of course. How did she know the way to my baby's heart was through brownie mix??

The verdict from the tutor after the first week? Ella is very good at pronunciation and very smart. They think she'll be speaking Spanish in no time.

Maybe with the new attitude towards the tutor (and therefore Spanish) she will!

Kind of a boring post I realize, and sadly no photos. I'll do better next time!