Austin was playing the Wii Super Mario Bros game and was getting frustrated. I told him, "Austin, you're playing that game too much. Please turn it off." And his response to me was, "Mom, I like playing that game too much!"
They are so cute.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was such an easy read and a touching story about several different people in a small town. One of the people was a young woman who was engaged to be married but found out two days prior to the wedding that she had cervical cancer. She is faced with a decision that changed her and her fiance's lives forever. Another person in the story is an older lady in her late 50's that has grown apart from her once loving husband and is looking for a way to get his love back. And another person is a elderly lady in her 70's that has Alzheimers and is currently taking care of her 8 year old grandson.
All their paths cross and makes for a wonderful Christmas story. I really enjoyed it.
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Yesterday had such a beautiful snow come down and with it were the hugest snowflakes I have ever seen. They were Texas-size! One of my friends referred to them as giant cotton balls because that's what they looked like falling from the sky.
Kamal decided to keep the kids from school that day, worried about Austin riding home on the bus and worried about the temperature dropping and freezing the roads when we would try to pick up Danny. Granted, we only live a quarter mile from the school but I didn't want Kamal worrying all day. I agreed to keep them home. I had a book club meeting a mile up the street so I went to that for an hour and a half, enjoying our discussion on "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Housseini. The whole time, while we were enjoying our discussion and eating a wonderful breakfast by Cyndi, we were watching the snow fall outside. I felt I was in a snowglobe or a Christmas card by Currier and Ives.
When I got home, Kamal suggested that while it was snowing, we should go outside and take lots of pictures, since we hardly get snow. We bundled up and walked down to our favorite spot, the little fish bridge, woods and fountain by our house. It was gorgeous and we had so much fun. Kamal took pictures with our Nikon D90 and I took pictures with my little Kodak Z650. We got beautiful results! While we were at the fountain, there was a hill and I only wished that I had a sled so the kids could have rode down the hill. As it were, they ended up riding down the hill on their behinds! It was so slippery. Fun day and I'm so glad we got pictures to commit it to memory.
The kids had a great time at Zachary's 6th birthday party on Saturday. It was a camo party and a lot of the kids and parents were wearing camoflauge. Pizza was served, which is always my kids' favorite part of the party.
The kids played "Toss the Bean Bag Gernade" and "Throw the Gernade in the Hole" games. It was really fun. Then, Mr. Puppet made an appearance and boy was he ever funny! We were all laughing until we cried and I got a kick out of watching Austin laugh at the jokes. He was laughing so hard and catching all the punchlines. Danny, on the other hand, had his hands over his ears and kept telling me it was too loud. But he still laughed too.
After the puppet show, it was time for Zachary's cake and once everyone was served and had eaten, it was then time for Zachary to open presents. It was an awesome birthday party. Thanks so much Zachary, Melissa and Bob for inviting us to be a PFC for a day. The boys loved it and wanted to stay and play with all the cool toys. Happy 6th Birthday Zachary!
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| Zachary's 6th Birthday Party |
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
What a well written, great book! Very powerful. The story was wonderful and kept me interested the whole way through. Some of the things that Amir (the narrator) did as a kid just left me with my mouth wide opened! It was a great tale of past regrets and future redemptions. I would recommend it to everyone.
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The kids received a box from Grandma with little Valentine surprises for them. They were so happy to receive Grandma's box and right after these photos, they called Grandma to let her know how special she made them feel. Thanks so much Mom!
Our friend Christopher turned 6 and celebrated by having his party at the YMCA. It was the first time we had ever been to that facility and it was awesome!
First, we got to the party and the kids played on the amazing treehouse playscape. Then, we were led to the basketball courts so all the kids could play soccer. After they played for a while, then we were led back to the playscape room so that we could sing "Happy Birthday" and eat cake. Next, it was free play time and the kids went wild climbing up and down and running all around. It was so much fun.
Thank you so much Christopher, Karen and Kyle for inviting us to a wonderfully fun birthday party. Happy 6th Birthday Christopher!
Yesterday, we had class parties at the school and boy what a day! First, Austin's party was at 9:45 and the teacher brought in a treasure chest of boys and girls dress up clothes. Austin dressed like Superman and then it was time to do the chicken dance and other dances. The little pre-k kids had such a fun time and then it was time to pass out Valentines cards. The teacher had all of the kids make the Valentines' in class, which was awesome. On little paper hearts, each kid had wrote their name and dropped a heart in each paper sack for each child.
After the Valentines' were passed out, it was time for eating sweets. The kids were really good and finished with their plates, took off their dress up clothes, got their backpacks and were ready to go. It was really fun.
After I took Austin home, around 10:30, I went back to the school to have lunch with Danny at the cafeteria, because I promised I would. He really enjoyed having me come in and sit with him. Then, around 12:30pm, I went back to the school for Danny's Valentines' party. They brought all the kids in and had them do "Musical Hearts" (kind of like a cake walk but with hearts instead of numbers). The kids who got out, there was usually two at a time, would go and start their ice cream sundae with all the toppings. Danny never gave up and in the end, it was between him and Sierra who were trying to make it to the last heart. When the music stopped, I hate to say, there was some pushing from both Danny and Sierra to be on that heart but in the end, they both gave up and went to make their sundaes as well.
The kids went to their work tables and their Valentine's boxes were waiting for them. Once they were done with their ice cream sundaes, they got to open their Valentines. It was so neat to see all the little smiling faces. Danny didn't want to leave at the end but I told him that I couldn't leave him for an hour and come back as I had been at the school all day long and I know it was selfish, but I just couldn't do it. In the end he agreed and him and Austin had a fun time sharing their Valentines with each other. It was a nice day.
We have been going with our friends to the library for their "Explorer's Club" after school on Thursdays. The kids have so much fun listening to a story, seeing a short film, watching puppet shows and doing a craft. This particular day, it was a puppet show about a spider who keeps stealing food from the other animals until a turtle figures out her trick and gets all the food back to the right animals. The craft was an elephant figure with a hole for a straw and then a paper peanut that you are able to suck up with the straw and pick it up like an elephant with a trunk. It was fun for them and nice for me to laugh with the girls for 45 minutes. Can't wait til next time!
This afternoon, the kids had a playdate in the neighborhood to make Valentine's boxes and then pass out Valentine's to all their friends. The boys had such a great time playing and passing out Valentines. Since Danny had made a box already for kindergarten, we wasn't really in the mood to make another so I didn't push him to make one but Austin LOVED making his box. He took his time and put on TONS of tiny little hearts all over his box and then he made a Valentine's card for the children's hospital that Kim provided.
At home, when they opened each Valentine, Danny took all the candy and seperated it from the cards. Then, he put all the candy in a bowl and told Austin he could only have ONE PIECE and then he put the bowl up high (behind the sink) so that Austin couldn't reach it. He told me that too much sugar isn't good and he didn't want Austin getting bad teeth.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I believe that one of my friends said it best when she described this book as being "a rollercoaster of emotions". I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and couldn't put it down. The grief this family went through and the ways they coped seemed all too real to me. The first couple of chapters were the hardest in that they described the murder and raw emotions attached to that action but because the author explained it as more "matter of fact", it was easy to continue reading.
Great book and very well written... I was torn between a 4 or 5 star rating.
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Danny had to make a Valentine box and some Valentine cards for his kindergarten class' Valentines party that's coming up. It was suggested by the room mom that each child write out 5 Valentines a night so that they wouldn't over do it. I set the valentine cards on the dining room table so that he could see them and the list of student's names when he got home from school but I never mentioned to Danny that he needed to work on them. When he got home from school, he sat down by himself and filled out each child's name in the TO section and his name in the FROM section without me ever having to tell him to do it. And he completed them all! I can't tell you what a help it was to have him do it on his own without having to be told. He even helped me tape the suckers to the backs of the cards.
Then, we worked on his box. I cut the hole in the box and glued the paper on but he took care of the decorating and did such an awesome job! I loved the way his box turned out and I was so super proud of him. Great job Danny!
Today was an interesting day. I slept in since Saturdays are my only day off, got up, took a bath and started my day. After breakfast, the kids were going through their loot bags from one of the birthday parties and found some tattoos. So we put those on and then the kids were playing under the dining table. I asked them if they wanted to build a playhouse and of course they said yes, so we covered the table with blankets and added the Spiderman pop up tent as their door. They decorated it with pillows and stuffed toys like The Hulk and Spiderman and had such a great time.
A little later on, they were playing outside on the swings and then they came running inside screaming "A rat, a rat, there's a rat in the pool!" Kamal and I ran outside and sure enough, a rat had drown in their kiddie pool. We keep the kiddie pool underneath one of the gutters so it doesn't leave a hole in the yard when it rains and then we can use the water to water our trees. But not this time! Gross! I took care of the rat and Kamal took care of the water. Yuck.
I walked around the corner to head to bed and found the boys on the couch like this. I had to run back and get the camera so that I could share how cute they were without me asking them to.
My friend and cousin Marcel has been doing really cool images with the website imikimi.com and I decided to try it. So here is my first kimi:
I also have the image in a high quality jpg for prints. I really enjoy this website and I will probably create a few designs (or kimis) to share in the future when I have time.
Today, we went to the Austin Children's Museum with some friends and the kids had such a great time. They played as much as they could on everything for two and a half hours and then when it was time to go, Danny cried and cried... he couldn't believe his fun time was over. We promised him that we would take him back sometime in the near future.
On the way home, we stopped by Phoenicia and grabbed some sharwarma sandwiches and then hit up Lakeline mall for a little bit. By the time we got home, the kids were extremely tired. We had dessert at home, some cherry cheesecake that I had made the night before, and after a few games on the Wii, they went right to bed at 8pm. It was a great day.
Yesterday, we had a crafting session at home since the kids are home from school for three days. I got some Valentine door hangers that I knew the kids would just love and they enjoyed so much putting them together. After we were done with those, they got out construction paper and made some pictures of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Austin) and some creative paper projects (Danny). Then, Danny decided to make a little box for the Valentine's he made. With my help, he constructed a cute little red box and put Valentine stickers all over it. When he was done, I was quite impressed. My little boy is growing up so fast.
