Make Sense of this Spence

Doggy Park

2012-01-30T14:46:00.000-06:00

This weekend was pretty mellow. Madeline had a friend's birthday to attend at a bowling alley in San Marcos. So I thought while she was bowling it was a good opportunity to take Penny Lane to the doggy park right down the road by Texas State University. The kids love going to the doggy parks too and running around with all the dogs. James was the only little kid there (lots of college folk go there to take their dogs and socialize) so all the dogs were curious of this little human. But James loved it and ran around with Penny and the other dogs. Both kids have a special bond with Penny. I love this shot of James and Penny, he was "checking on her" to make sure she was okay. :)

After the doggy park we headed back to the bowling alley to catch the end of the party. Madeline has always been one of the tallest in her classes. It was funny to look at this photo and see she's taller than most of the boys and girls. All the kids had a fun time bowling!

This afternoon I've been working on my lesson plan for CCD tonight. Often when I do this James will watch something on TV. He asked me if he could use my hand weights. I look up to find him mousekercising with Goofy. I thought it was too cute not to capture!

Clearance!

2012-01-27T17:38:00.000-06:00

I've never been the gal that likes to shop high end stuff. I've never wanted a Louie Vuitton purse. I've never wanted a pair of heels from Manolo Blahnik. In fact I'm OK with no name brand stuff. Don't get me wrong I can appreciate the value of something made with high quality or craftsmanship. What I don't appreciate are the high price tags. We've gotten by just fine with our generic brands and saved on money. I do love to shop the clearance racks, and it's always nice to find a brand named or high priced item for really cheap. Today James and I went shopping for some birthday gifts. I had no intention of buying anything else. We went to the Disney outlet store. And I had forgotten that they have a pretty good clearance section in a corner of the store. So I picked up these cool new Phineas & Ferb kicks for James for when he starts Kindergarten this August. Yup these are James' first school purchase. The past 3 years have been fun shopping for Madeline's new shoes, clothes and backpacks for school. And now we get to start this for James too! On clearance we scored these shoes for $5! I also got him some pajamas for $4. I have to remember to shop here for the kid's Disney World souvenirs for our Orlando trip...yup I rather pick up a Disney autograph book and stuffed animal from this outlet store than pay the over priced tags at the stores over there! I'm smart like that. ;)

This adorable piggy bank was also a clearance score that "Santa" picked up at Target. It was only a couple of dollars. For the past few days James has been dumping his change out (several times a day) to count to see if he has saved more money. He's been checking all the couch cushions for change as well as keeping an eye out for when we go out and about for change on the ground (he found a dime on the floor in the Disney store). Cause he's smart like that. ;)

Disney World tips!

2012-01-23T20:01:00.000-06:00

My brothers and I, Disney World Orlando 1982

So early this week on Facebook I posted about enjoying all of our cousin, Michaela's Disney World trip posts. I have some family down in Florida and we've been saying for awhile that in the next few years we need to make a Florida trip to visit my family and of course to take the kids to Disney World and all the theme and water parks. My parents took my brothers and I when we were kids. I remember it being a blast! Well Michaela's posts prompted me to look into package deals and this is when I realized that children's tickets to all those places are ages 3-9! Madeline turns 9 this year! So that means we need to plan our Florida trip to happen sometime between now and the end of 2013! Yikes!

Luckily my buddy Bill recalled my Facebook post and sent me a text today about this free e-book, Disney World Cash Hacks, on Amazon today all about how you can save money going to Disney World! So I have to share with all of you. It says it's a Kindle version download, but Amazon has a free Kindle reading apps so you don't need a Kindle to read it, but you can read it on your PC, MAC or smartphone. I've already browsed through the book and the author gives some fantastic tips. So if you ever plan on doing this crazy trip with your family, check out this free e-book!

Snow and Cake

2012-01-22T18:49:00.000-06:00

Our poor kids, they don't get to experience snow and the beach often like we did growing up in So Cal. We had the mountains close enough to go sledding each winter, and the beach only a few miles from our home. Well when they are older they will understand the compromises we made and why we moved to central Texas. So for them playing in the snow or on the beach is a BIG deal, they love it! So when I heard that our home builder, KBHome, was having a grand opening of their home models in a neighborhood near by and kicking it off by having a "snow day"...I knew we had to bring the kids by there and check it out. It was a nice 60 degree sunny day, but they came through with their promise - there was snow! They even had hot chocolate and cookies. I checked out the beautiful model home while Stephen and the kids ran around throwing snowballs at each other.

The kids tried to make snow angels but the snow was pretty packed.

Madeline did make 2 mini snowmen. She was pretty disgusted that soon after she made them, some other boys playing in the snow knocked them down.

James excited he nailed daddy with a snowball!

Later that day our next door neighbors were celebrating their daughter's 3rd birthday. They had a jumpy house, bbq'd hot dogs and the adults played Washers. It was a fun time and we stayed all afternoon.

Here is Madeline with the birthday girl, Cheyenne. She's super sweet.

So James was pretty stoked he got to play in the snow and have cake in the same day - if we made a trip to the beach, it would've been a perfect day.

Losing My Melanin!

2012-01-20T19:32:00.001-06:00

Ever since I was little I could remember my mom putting on these plastic gloves and putting this black gunk in her hair. She did this about every 2 months or so. And now my time has come. I will be 34 this March. I remember finding 1 or 2 gray hairs over the past year or so, but now they are multiplying and popping up all over the place! What is going on! I actually Googled why does hair turn gray. So quick lesson...basically we have pigment cells with melanin (the same chemical that darker skinned people have to make their skin darker) that are found in each hair follicle, or hair root. Well as we age those cells die! And mine are obviously dying off! I don't do much with my hair. When it's shorter I try to leave it down and styled. But it never fails, as it grows longer I am constantly putting it in a ponytail. Well I've been freaking out the past few months because I am sprouting a ton of gray hairs around the crown of my head and they show more when my hair is in a ponytail. And tonight after my shower I decided to blow dry my hair, which is rare. And as I was hanging my head upside down, brushing and blowing my hair down...I see these super long full length gray hairs! Ah!

I did buy Hair Dye for your roots a couple of weeks ago but am waiting to apply it until I get a haircut which hopefully will be soon. I'm afraid if I don't start dying my hair I will be going salt and pepper like this. It actually doesn't look so bad on Angelina Jolie...

but then again I'm not Angelina.

In my research that I read about gray hair it is said that once you start spotting gray hairs, it could take up to 10 years before all your hair turns gray. I've only seen a hand full of woman in my life who look good, like this woman in my opinion, sporting a head full of silver. Again, I don't think I could pull it off. Do you? Sounds like Madeline will start seeing me do the ritual of putting on those plastic gloves and putting black gunk in my hair!

From small-to big-to bigger-to biggest

2012-01-19T17:40:00.000-06:00

We have a lot of fun changes ahead for our ohana. I will post more about the other changes soon. This one is about James' mini room makeover! James was my dream baby sleeper. As a second child I couldn't have asked for a better sleeper. He was easy-breezy for putting down for naps and at night when he was a baby and a toddler. And even when we transitioned him to his first big boy bed, he did awesome. Well once we move into our current home 2.5 years ago that all changed. I think it was a mixture of things...moving into a new home, his bedroom now being upstairs, being scared of the dark, potty training...and the list goes on. We just became accustomed to him crawling into our bed almost every night and due to Stephen working nights we just let it continue. Well we want to get James back on track, back to sleeping in his bed, all night. I knew I had to do something fun to entice him to stay and sleep in there. My idea for my all-boy/love to play/climb/jump/and have fun son...a bunkbed. :)

Taking a stroll down memory lane. James started out his life (September 2006) sleeping in a cozy bassinet the first 4 months. After that he spent the next 2.25 years in his crib.

In April 2009 we got him a twin sized big boy bed and he loved it! When we moved to our new home in August 2009 we gave him Madeline's fullsize bed since she took the guest room queensize bed (we no longer had a guest room but I wanted to keep the bigger beds for when we had guests).

And now....he has a twin over full bunkbed! I found the bedframe on Craigslist. I was able to haggle the guy down to $20 for it since he lost the hardware bolts & nuts for it. Spent $10 at Home Depot for the hardware. And another $20 for the twin mattress to go on top (we already had the fullsize mattress). I already had bedding for both beds. So this mini-makeover cost us $50. Not bad. It's a very sturdy bunkbed. And as you can see James is happy about it. And guess who has slept in their bed the last 3 nights...yup this boy!

For Christmas James got this cool Hot Wheels Wall Track from Nana & Poppi. It goes perfect with his mini-makeover. How fun is this sleeping space, tell me you wouldn't want to sleep here. :)

And now the kids have a favorite new reading spot. They love being up high and climbing up and down the bed. I'm glad James has this new space, it was a good change.

First Reconciliation

2012-01-17T19:51:00.001-06:00

This past Saturday Madeline received the Sacrament of First Reconciliation. Here she is after giving her confession to Father Ed and praying with her Reconciliation candle by the tabernacle. She was a little nervous, many of the kids were. But she said she felt at ease when talking with Father Ed, that he was super nice! She said the sins she confessed and the penance (outward action like a prayer or good act that reflects an inward feeling - being sorry for your sins) were between her and God. And that's all she had to say about receiving this Sacrament. Our baby girl is growing up...growing to an understanding of our God, our Faith and what it means to be a Christian.

We are so thankful.

ramblings

2012-01-10T18:31:00.000-06:00

I'm super excited because this month we will be signing James up for his first team sport experience: soccer! Madeline being the oldest child has already done swimming lessons, gymnastics, dance classes, and cheerleading. And she started all this when she was 2! James is 5 now and hasn't done anything. I feel bad. If we didn't live in a neighborhood with a pool, I think I would've already signed him up for swim lessons - but we just taught him ourselves. Stephen being a boy who did really well in sports growing up thought it wasn't worth signing James up too young to play, because he afterall didn't start playing until he was 7. But we've talked about it and feel soccer at James' age would be good for him. So we're finally going to have a season of focusing on Jimmy-James. :) Now his sissy will have to go to all his practices and games and be the one sitting and waiting. Eventually I'm sure we will get to the point where both kids will be doing an extra-curricular activity at the same time...but for now I just want to take turns each season to focus on one of them. I think James will do pretty well in soccer. He loves to run, and he's fast. He loves to kick a soccer ball around. What will be new for him is listening and learning from a coach, following game rules and playing with other kids on a team. I'm excited for him. So beware, lots of syrupy soccer photo posts are expected for this blog this Spring!

Have I ever mentioned my hubby is terrible about keeping gifts or surprises secret? Well he is. Apparently him and my best friend have been coordinating a weekend for her to come out for a visit in February. The other day he just broke down and told me. LOL I'm super excited!!! Back in 2005 when we moved away from California it was super hard to leave our family and friends behind, but it was terribly, super hard to move away from my best friend Robyn. Thank goodness for unlimited talk time minutes and texting, and emails. When we moved to Oregon in 2005 she was able to come up for a visit (photo above). And we've seen each other each year we go back to visit California. But since living here in Texas since 2007 she hasn't been able to come out and see where we live. Well she finally is (such an awesome surprise!) and I cannot wait to show her our home and our stomping grounds now.

eGo our babies

2012-01-08T22:46:00.001-06:00

It's been awhile since I've posted some eGo photos and made a trip down memory lane. One things for sure,

our kiddos were beautiful babies. :)

was dead, and is alive again

2012-01-07T19:48:00.004-06:00

It's been awhile since I've done a post about my Catholic Faith. I've been thinking about some things I've been wanting to post about. So since my hubby is napping on the couch next to me, I have some quiet time to write my thoughts down.

I had an embarrassing and somewhat sad thing happen to me recently about my Catholic Faith. I was having a conversation with a loved one. This person seemed to have forgot that I was a Catholic Christian. But we were deep in conversation when this person was telling me of someone in their life who was returning back to their Catholic roots. As the conversation unfolded, I quietly listened as that is what I felt this loved one needed...someone to listen to them. But then the conversation went where I wasn't expecting - some Catholic bashing in a belittling sort of tone. How embarrassed I felt for this loved one. And saddened. And shocked. I stayed silent and listened. It wasn't like I hadn't heard any of this before..."Catholics aren't really even Christians. They don't even read from the right Bible! They worship Mary and Saints and Statues." I was saddened because I knew this person probably learned these false, ignorant accusations and misunderstandings from their church or pastor. This person attends a non-denominational church. I've heard from many Protestants whom have shared that Catholic bashing comes up in their pastor's sermons. So. Incredibly. Sad. Never once in my entire life have I heard a priest ever bash any Protestants. In fact numerous times, too many to recall, do our priests ask all the parishioners to pray for the well being of others with different beliefs than ours. The conversation with this person went on to other topics. I felt like it wasn't the time or place to correct this loved one. I wonder if this person ever realized after the conversation that they said all they did to a Catholic? The ironic thing about it all is that this person has come to me in the past with their troubles and has said to me they felt like my Faith with God was strong and that I could help spiritually lift them up. I've been keeping this person in my prayers and asking God for His grace to help me in approaching this person in the future about all that was said.

Another topic about my Catholic Faith that I've been wanting to post about is how I am teaching and helping prepare Madeline and my other CCD students for their First Reconciliation, also known as their First Confession. It is at their age that the Church believes they are old enough to understand their sins and the importance of repenting. Today I took Madeline to a Reconciliation workshop at our parish. It's final preparations given to the students and their parents before they make their First Confession next week.

I always like to show the Scriptural basis for the Church's Holy Sacraments. This being one of them, here are some scriptures that show how Jesus gave authority to His Apostles and their successors to hear our confessions and forgive us of our sins.

John 20:21 - before He grants them the authority to forgive sins, Jesus says to the apostles, "as the Father sent me, so I send you." As Christ was sent by the Father to forgive sins, so Christ sends the apostles and their successors forgive sins.

John 20:22 - the Lord "breathes" on the apostles, and then gives them the power to forgive and retain sins. The only other moment in Scripture where God breathes on man is in Gen. 2:7, when the Lord "breathes" divine life into man. When this happens, a significant transformation takes place.

John 20:23 - Jesus says, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained." In order for the apostles to exercise this gift of forgiving sins, the penitents must orally confess their sins to them because the apostles are not mind readers. The text makes this very clear.

Non-Catholics might view these passages to contend that Jesus was simply speaking about believers forgiving those who have wronged them. The Catholic Church teaches such a view is impossible. If we look closer to understand Jesus' statement "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you." It raises the question, in what manner was Jesus sent to forgive? Mark 2:5-12 gives us the answer. Jesus said, "But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins..". So when Jesus said to His Apostles, "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you." He was giving them authority here on earth. That authority, that gift, lives on through the Apostles successors. The second reason that John 20:21-23 does not refer to believers forgiving others who have wronged them, is that we are not given the option of retaining anyone's sins. In fact, our own forgiveness is dependent on our forgiving others. Jesus tells us this very thing in Matthew 6:14-15: "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

Today at the workshop it was really stressed that when we confess to the priest, we aren't confessing and asking a man for forgiveness, it is God. The presence of Christ is working through the priest, "in persona Christi".

We also studied the parable of the Prodigal Son (Gospel of Luke (Luke 15:11-32) today as it is a great example to show us that we are all like the lost son, dead in our sins, but that our Father will always welcome us home, that He is "rich in mercy" and always ready to forgive. I had a lightbulb moment today that I think the famous painter Rembrandt had about this parable too. Even though the story is about the Lost Son...it's really more about our loving and merciful God, our Heavenly Father. One of Rembrandt's famous masterpieces is of the Return of the Prodigal Son, pictured above (bottom). In Rembrandt's earlier sketches of this piece (above top) he wants to show us the son's face of despair, and how desperately poor he looks. But in his final painting of this piece Rembrandt wants to depict what this parable is really about...a Father who is full of compassionate love and mercy. God who is love. The focus is no longer on how the lost son appears, we don't even see his face anymore. Instead the focus is on the embrace of a forgiving father. I am so very thankful that God gave His Church the gift of Reconciliation. I agree with St. Augustine when he said, "The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works."

Avocado Salsa

2012-01-05T14:49:00.002-06:00

Did I mention my hubby got me a fancy, dandy new blender for Christmas? So of course I made a Blender Recipes pinboard on my Pinterest right away. Been finding some yummy things to make and blend including fruit smoothies, chocolate & peanut butter smoothies and malt shakes. We've always had a mediocre blender to blend our weekly salsa batches (yes my hubby loves to eat salsa that much), but they were never powerful enough to make a good smoothie, shake or slushie. This new blender even has a specialized mode to make those, so I'm happy about that. For a few months now we've been really liking and making the Pioneer Woman salsa recipe. But I've been wanting to find a yummy avocado salsa recipe, and I think I've found it... key ingredients are fresh tomatillos and avocado.

1 lb. tomatillos

1 jalepeno pepper

1 habenero pepper (if you like it hot)

1 avocado

1/2 bunch of cilantro

1 thick slice of a whole red onion

1 Tbsp minced garlic

1 Tsp. salt

1 Tsp, cumin

Cut the tomatillos into quarters and place at bottom of the blender (they will liquify first and make the rest easier to blend). Slice up the peppers and throw them in. Chop up the onion and throw it in. Remove the avocado pit and scoop in the avocado. Chop up the cilantro and throw it on top. Add the garlic, salt and cumin. Start off blending by pulsing a few times to get the tomatillos blended. Then blend on medium speed until it's all blended. I stopped the blender 1-2 times and mixed all the ingredients around with a spoon and then proceeded to blend until it was done!

Hubby liked it a lot! And I think it tastes pretty close to the avocado salsa I love at Chacho's. We'll definitely be making this again. If you make it, let me know what you think!

"Welcome!"

2012-01-03T17:49:00.003-06:00

This Christmas I was so thrilled to receive a voucher from work to pick out any art piece I wanted as a thank you for a year's worth of hard work. So I took this opportunity to have something made from 3 ideas: "this family was established...", the birth and anniversary dates idea from Pinterest, and a pineapple symbol for our home that represents the Hawaiian symbolism of hospitality, warmth and friendliness. So I found this pineapple in our awesome inventory of art and I customized it.

So I added our birth dates,

and then the date this family was "established"

(our wedding anniversary highlighted in green).

The Hawaiian pineapple motif says to the world: "Welcome!".
So I hung this right by our front door so all of our guests could feel the warmth & friendliness & know they are always welcome in our home.

I had it printed on canvas, gallery wrapped and set in a floater frame.
I love how it turned out!

2011 in photos

2012-01-01T14:16:00.001-06:00

January 2011 (James looks so little! He's grown a lot this year.)

February 2011 (No more hospital stays please.)

March 2011 (Ash Wednesday)

April 2011 (Easter Sunday)

May 2011 (Madeline stars on TV!)

June 2011 (Spence Reunion Round Up)

July 2011 (Cousin Mandi's wedding in Iowa)

August 2011 (1st day of school, 2nd grade.)

September 2011 (1st day of Religious Ed CCD school)

October 2011 (All Hallow's Eve!)

November 2011 (portraits by San Marcos river.)

December 2011 (Christmastime in New Orleans with cousin Hoang)

Happy New Year 2012 to all my blog readers!

Some advice to ponder in the new year...

Look what I made

2011-12-30T14:07:00.000-06:00

All my Pinster buddies may recognize this quote from a pin on Pinterest. Well I recreated it with my own design and printed and framed it here at my work. I talk about it in a blog post I wrote for my work's blog here, New Year = Feel Good Art. Please stop by to read it, leave a comment, FB "like" or tweet the post.

Pinterest & TinyPrints

2011-12-28T11:45:00.002-06:00

So who is still NOT on Pinterest? Really!? You should be. I love being able to pin ideas from the web onto my virtual pin boards. And I love that when I click on them, they take me right back to the website I found them on! Awesomeness. So over Christmas we received tons of really cute photo cards from family and friends that used TinyPrints. I loved the quality of these cards, and the layout graphics were what I liked too. So I got to thinking, I couldn't possibly order our Christmas cards through them. With our 105+ mailing list it would just be too expensive. But I could possibly use them for Madeline's First Holy Communion invitations/announcements coming up in a few months. I'm not planning on mailing them out to everyone, just people who are local and could possibly attend and then immediate family. I already started a pin board for Communion dress ideas, so I've added to it with TinyPrints invites too!

So many cute invites!

These are my 2 favorite dresses I've found. I'm going to let Madeline look at all the dresses I've pinned and then pick her favorite. I want something simple, modest and not too many embellishments since she will be wearing my mom's vintage chapel mantilla veil

(don't want it to clash).

So all you Pinsters (a.k.a. A pinning gangster), which one of your boards do you seem to add pins to the most?

Outings with Oma & Opa

2011-12-27T20:05:00.001-06:00

When we returned home from New Orleans with my parents, we took them on a couple of fun outings. When we went to the Natural Bridge Caverns this summer for the Spence Round Up Reunion we thought this would really be a place my parents would enjoy seeing. So we headed down to the caverns.

When we went this summer, I forgot my camera. When we went again this time, I forgot my camera. LOL So these pics were actually taken by my mom. The caverns are really a spectacular sight to see. It's amazing how all this stone and rock formed through the years.

At first you feel like you are walking through a Disneyland ride and that everything is fake. But it's real. These historical caverns were discovered in 1960 by 4 college students. Because of a cool draft felt in a small crawlway, these students went further to explore the passageways to the caverns.

The kids enjoyed it just as much as the first time. Madeline had questions for our tour guide this time. And Oma & Opa were snapping away with pictures.

Many of the formations were given names (kind of like naming figures/things you see in clouds).

Madeline next to the "Fairy Castles".

I like this one of James looking up. We had a great tour. And worked up an appetite going down and up 200+ feet inside the caverns. So we brought Oma & Opa to Pluckers to eat.

Dad got his Blue Moon beer at Pluckers and was happy about that.

Another outing we did was to go and see the Buda Trail of Lights. It was our first time seeing them as well. We parked and then took a bus over to the historical Stagecoach Park. They had a beautiful setup and it was a great night to walk the trails. Coffee, hot cocoa and cookies in hand - everyone really enjoyed the sights.

Local businesses had displays set up.

This one was by the dance school that Madeline used to attend.

"Merry Christmas Y'all!"

Santa was also at the Trail of Lights. Was able to capture this great shot. We had a lot of fun with Oma & Opa visiting!

Christmas with the Spence Ohana

2011-12-25T16:56:00.001-06:00

Merry Christmas to all my blog readers! I hope and pray that y'all have a day filled with love and joy. So our kiddos decided to wake right at 7am. I told Madeline it was still dark out, she said she heard birds chirping so it's definitely morning. They were thrilled to see that Santa came and there were lots of presents under the tree!

Thanks to Pinterest I found this lovely letterhead for Santa notes. And since Madeline was questioning that Santa's writing looked a lot like mine, I thought printing these out might throw her off into "believing" in Santa at least for one more year. :)

Santa brought James and Madeline each their own Wiggle Car and a Piggy Bank. He left these notes on their gifts.

And as you can see,

they were very happy with what Santa gave them.

We got done with presents by 8am. Stephen had his morning coffee and bagel and I had my hot tea and my Kerstkrans specially from Holland. It's an almond paste filled puff pastry and my absolute favorite thing to eat on Christmas. The kids spent the rest of the morning playing in the wrapping paper with Penny. Checking out all their new toys. And playing out in front of our home with one of the neighbor boys.

After I had a (much needed) nice morning nap, we took the kids to our neighborhood park so they had more room to ride their Wiggle Cars. It was pretty cold out, but they had fun.

Last night on Christmas Eve we went to St. Anthony's Catholic Church for the Children's Mass. James slept the entire Mass, but Madeline really enjoyed watching the other kids act out the story about the birth of Jesus. She played the part of an Angel last year, but this year we couldn't make it to the practices so she wasn't able to participate. It was a wonderful service. And the priest gave a wonderful homily, expressing what the greatest gift of all is...when Jesus gave us all eternal life, and that their is a seat available for all the Faithful in Heaven.

After Mass we had some tacos for Christmas dinner. Then the kids took a nice hot bubble bath and left some cookies and milk out for Santa. We had a wonderful Christmas and hope you did too.

8 years! Time to Celebrate!

2011-12-24T10:51:00.000-06:00

It's tough having your birthday around Christmas or in the summer time when everyone is on vacation or busy with plans. Instead of doing a party for Madeline this year we got tickets for the Disney Phineas & Ferb Live Show. Oma & Opa were in town so we just went as a family. We had 1 extra ticket so Madeline brought her friend, Ashleigh, along. One stop before the show though...Chuck E. Cheese for lunch! Requested by the birthday girl herself.

Everyone loves pizza!

The kids had so much fun playing all the games there. Opa even joined in on the fun, but James came out winning the game! :)

Madeline & Ashleigh playing some guitar hero.

Madeline was trying to decide between a Hannah Montana or a Justin Bieber cake. And then she ended up picking this one! :) I love Sam's Club cakes.

Our beautiful birthday girl.

Yummy!

The girls loved getting their photo sketched.

Present time! Thanks to all who sent her birthday presents!

Happy about her gifts from Nana and Poppi.

Next we headed over to the Frank Erwin Center. We had pretty good seats and the kids were real excited about the show. James was eyeing the cotton candy man...

And they got their cotton candy and Phineas hats. :)

It was a really cute show, a lot of great dance routines. Lots of interaction with the audience including shooting marshmallows out to us, having gigantic golf balls for the audience to toss around (think 25 times the size of beach balls) and lots of confetti at the end of the show. Madeline really enjoyed her special day.

I posted this then and now photo of her on my Facebook. I can't believe how much she's grown!

Oh and even though our home is all decked out in Christmas decor, we still made sure to do the traditional Spence birthday decorations for her the eve before her birthday. Put a smile on her face birthday morning.

"N'awlins" during Christmastime

2011-12-21T16:44:00.001-06:00

We just got back from N'awlins (how the locals pronounce New Orleans). We drove out there to meet my parents who flew in. We stayed pretty close to the French Quarter and had a great time sightseeing.

The kids were all about finding the perfect mask. My mom joined in on the fun. :)

The first night we were there we walked the French Quarter to find a place to eat. We walked behind the Cathedral-Basilica St. Louis where a light on a statue of Jesus Christ casts a shadow.

Stephen took this photo of my parents walking down the street.

The next day we hopped onto one of the St. Charles street cars and saw all the beautiful homes (mansions really) along St. Charles.

We got off the street car at Audubon Park. It's like New Orleans "central park". Very pretty. I found the growth on these trees interesting.

My parents by a lake at Audubon Park.

James found a beautiful fountain there, he was busy throwing pennies in.

Here are the kids in front of the famous Lafayette Cemetery in the Garden District. I was so bummed because it was closed on Sundays.

I really wanted to walk around and see these interesting tombs.

We waited an hour and a half to see the annual famous Christmas Concert at the Cathedral-Basilica St. Louis. The entire Church was packed with people standing on the sides and in the rear.

We had great seats and the orchestra and choir sounded so beautiful. They also had a boys choir, their voices sounded so angelic. And lastly there were 3 famous opera singers. It was a powerful concert.

On our last night there we were able to leave our kids back at the hotel with mom and dad and meet up with Stephen's cousin who lives there. Huang (he likes to go by "Spence") is the son of one of Stephen's dad's brothers. We haven't seen him for about 7 years since a family wedding. We met him at Igors, the bar and restaurant he works at and also lives above.

After some drinks he took us upstairs to see his place and meet his dog, Brutus. Perfect name for him huh!? His apartment was very nice, I love the architecture in New Orleans. It feels very European to me.

Stephen was a bit bummed because he didn't eat any Gumbo while we were there. He had Jambalaya but was really craving Gumbo. Well his cousins neighbor whom we met in the bar downstairs and bought us a round of drinks, is a retired chef. He happened to have a batch of Gumbo he just made. So he gave us some! So nice. Stephen was stoked! Overall we had a fun weekend in N'awlins!

We made a pit stop driving home and stayed a night at my Oom Folly and Tante Patty's in Humble, Texas (near Houston). They had a wonderful Christmas party with LOTS of yummy food! We were also able to go out and watch MNF with my cousin Whitney and his wife Pamela at a local bar and grill. Before we headed home the next day we stopped by my Oom & Tante's 2nd home by the lake. The kids had fun playing fetch with their tenant's dog, he even fetched some sticks out of the lake!

Here is Madeline following the dog on the dock (see him swimming in the lake below the dock?). Their tenant also does a lot of fishing, and caught some catfish while we were there.

This is my mom with her brother, my Oom Folly. So glad we got to see them on our trip home.

Work Blog Posts

2011-12-14T11:07:00.000-06:00

Hello my faithful blog readers. I've posted again over at my work blog, please hop on by and don't forget to Facebook "like", tweet or comment on the posts!

The first post shows a glimpse of what I do here at work:

Screencast: Color Correcting

The second post I wrote is about a new artist and his work we just launched:

New Artist: Andreas Langley

Weekend Recap

2011-12-12T20:53:00.001-06:00

Wanted to post some pics from over the weekend. But first here is one of the kids with "Saint Nicholas" (4th century Bishop of Myra) at Church tonight. He came to visit the CCD students at our parish to bring them gifts. I had someone take a group shot of my class but it came out blurry :(

I did make these Christmas goodie bags for my students.I put special prayer pocket cards in them, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you". On the back is the Act of Contrition

(perfect since they will be making their First Reconciliation in January.)

My God,

I am sorry for my sins with all my heart.

In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good,

I have sinned against you

whom I should love above all things.

I firmly intend, with your help,

to do penance, to sin no more,

and to avoid whatever leads me to sin.

Our Saviour Jesus Christ suffered and died for us.

In His Name, my God, have mercy.

Amen.

On Saturday night we took the kids to a "Night in Bethlehem"...a light and character display in our town put on by a local church. They guide you through scenes from Christ's birth. It was really neat. At the end they gave out hot cocoa and cookies and had a candle making station, something to remember Jesus is the

"light of the world".

Madeline is holding the candle that her, James and I made.

One of the scenes they take us through is all the animals the Shepherds took care of. James loved this "petting zoo" part. They had donkeys, a baby calf, young horses, some goats and maybe sheep. James was hoping to see a camel! (One of the 3 kings in our nativity scene at home sits on a camel). You could pet and touch all the animals.

And James made sure to feed everyone of them some hay. :)

You could tell many kids, teens and young adults from this church played many of the parts in the different scenes. It was really neat.

Over the weekend we had some house guests. Including these 2 cuties, our neighbor's dachshunds Molly & Bruiser. The kids were elated they could pick them up and hold them, they can't do that with our 50lb. Boxer/Basset Hound.

Madeline also had her friend Mia sleepover. So the doggies got a lot of attention. :)

Polar Express

2011-12-08T21:11:00.000-06:00

Madeline's elementary school puts on a themed family night probably 3 times a year. The teachers and all the volunteers always put a lot of effort into them and make them really special for the kids. Tonight was a special Polar Express night and the kids were told to come dressed in their pajamas.

A very special guest was there. Another good looking Santa. And this one gave the kids special bells after their visit. I also like the work they put into the back drop, really does look like the caboose of a train.

The kids excitedly reading the note that came with their bells.

"Keep the spirit of giving in your heart all year round!"

James couldn't wait to get some hot chocolate with marshmallows.

We got some yummy cookies too!

They had a pillowcase chase. James showing off his speed. Madeline said,

"Wow James is really fast, I can't believe he won!"

They had musical chairs, which the kids really liked playing. Of course they had Bieber's Mistletoe playing. :) Have you heard it? I actually think it's a sweet song.

The kids really wanted to make an art craft so we stopped at the reindeer workshop. They did great making these reindeers out of their hand prints. Oh and they insisted on getting one more hot chocolate before we went home.

Jimmy's Scarf

2011-12-07T14:23:00.000-06:00

I finished crocheting Jimmy-James' scarf. His didn't need to be too wide since he has such a small neck. Can you tell he likes it? :)

I crocheted the two ends together to make it an infinity scarf. Now I need to finish Madeline's. I haven't even gotten started on mine.

Christmas & Dulce de Leche

2011-12-04T10:21:00.000-06:00

The nice thing about living in a city that has a "small town feel" (but actually is growing rapidly in population) is all the fun "town traditions". This past year our town restored it's historic town square building. So this year instead of having our town's gigantic tree near the railroad depot they put it in the town square. So on November 30th Santa came to town to help light our tree and listen to all the kids wish lists.

I like this shot because of how Santa is looking at James. The kids were excited about telling him what they wanted. In the past few years Madeline has questioned why some Santas look fake. So I told her that since Santa can't make his visits before Christmas to all over, that he has helpers that come and dress up like him. Well after we left this one she said, "This might have been the real Santa mom!"

Here you can see the tree next to the building and light pole in the distance. A lot of people showed up for this event, we waited nearly 1.5 hours in line to see Santa.

On the other corner of the town square is this gigantic lit up sign that counts down the days until Christmas. I love it! Gets everyone so excited.

This past week I tried another recipe I found on Pinterest. Making Dulce de Leche! If you haven't tried this thick,creamy, caramel-like milk-based sauce...you're missing out! The recipe is so simple. Take the label off of a can of sweetened condensed milk, place in a large pot submerged under water (this is important, it must always be fully under water otherwise the change in pressure can make it explode), bring to a boil and simmer for 2 hours. I checked on it about every 30 minutes refilling with a couple cups of water to make sure the level never got too low. Once done remove from heat and let it cool. Pop open the lid and this is what you get!

The kids and I used it to dip apple slices in. We also topped it on ice cream

So good!!!!

Another Gallery Direct Post

2011-11-30T11:19:00.001-06:00

It's that time again...I need my blog readers to hop on over to my work's blog and help me out with my latest post! Last month I earned the most reward points and got a pretty awesome gift card.

I posted about a new artist that joined our "family". Love her stuff!

So please visit my blog post, "New Artist: Stella Alesi" today!

I can earn reward points if you Facebook "Like" the post. And also if you "Tweet" about my post. So don't be shy!

Lastly leave a reply! Comments help me earn lots of reward points!

Thanks for your help, and I hope you enjoy my blog post about this amazing artist!

Rest of our weekend

2011-11-27T15:11:00.000-06:00

We broke out the Christmas decor, hung up our house lights and decorated our tree. After we were done I found James lying on the couch like this. With his feet tucked into a giant stocking and his Santa hat on. So cute!

I finished sewing another scarf this week.

Made this one for Madeline. I love these infinity scarfs. Still working on the ones we are crocheting.

The kids picked up some Christmas crafts to paint from the dollar store.

They really loved painting!

Hope y'all had a great holiday weekend! Back to work tomorrow!

Thanksgiving

2011-11-25T20:01:00.002-06:00

Despite the fact that we were miles away from most of our family, and that Stephen had to work all day - we still had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner and much to be thankful for. Uncle Steve graciously offered to treat our family out to dinner, so sweet! His friend was visiting from Iowa, she's super nice. We met them at the Golden Corral. Our first time eating there. Oh my gosh they had SO much food to choose from, it was a feast! And the turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, the sweet potato casserole....mmmmmmm. And then the assortment of desserts. Uncle Steve wanted to go to this new location because they had the chocolate drip fountain and he thought the kids would love it. He was right. I'm not sure how many plates they got of chocolate dipped food. The kids can't wait to go back there!

Thanks again Uncle Steve!

In my previous post I mention how Madeline and I are working on scarves over Thanksgiving break. I finished sewing one of them, I really like how it turned out. I'm going to sew another for Madeline.

So Madeline learned how to make a simple chain stitch. She crocheted 2 yards in length of a chain stitch. It was when she had to connect the 2nd row that it became difficult. She got really discouraged. So I've been helping her with the rest of the rows. I'm also working on a scarf for James. We're probably half way done with both scarves. Man are my finger muscles sore this week! :)

So how many of you went shopping today!? I've been browsing the ads the last few weeks and wanted to pick up some toys, clothes and kitchen items. So I woke up early and left the house at 6am this morning. Surprisingly it wasn't too crowded, I think all the crazies went out at midnight. I hit up all these stores, probably spent about $100 today and got A LOT of stuff. So I'm pretty pleased. We spent the rest of today getting our Christmas boxes out of the attic and hanging Christmas lights on the house. Looking forward to the last 2 days of this weekend.

Thanksgiving Break: Infinity Scarf projects

2011-11-21T15:27:00.000-06:00

Madeline has this whole week off from school. And we've been inspired by our neighbor friend, Kristen, to learn to crochet. I thought back that I was probably around Madeline's age when I learned to knit from my Oma and Tante during a visit to Holland. I also learned how to crochet from my girlfriend, Kelly, while we were in college. And now with You Tube and using video tutorials as a tool....I thought this would be something to try during school break. I started pinning crochet ideas to my fabrics and sewing Pinterest board.

I really love those infinity scarfs that are becoming popular like this one I pinned. I figure Madeline and I could learn an easy stitch and make ourselves some infinity scarves.

So we went to Hobby Lobby and picked out some yarn (James wants me to make him a scarf too). Can you guess who picked which color? We're going to attempt these by following this video:

I'm also finding easy tutorials on how to make infinity scarves out of fabric as well. I found this one on Pinterest too. They seem super easy to sew.

I'm going to try to make one for myself and one for Madeline. Picked up some jersey knit fabric and some lace. Can't wait to see how these turn out.

You'll get a happy meal

2011-11-19T20:27:00.001-06:00

Today we took the kids on a little photo shoot. I wanted to get a pic of them that I could send out with my Christmas letter. Of course the photo shoot didn't go without any whining, grumbling and bribing. I told them if they were good, they could get a happy meal. Fortunately I think I came away with a few good shots I can use to mail out.

There is a railroad bar-b-q about 3 miles from our house.

We headed down to a park on the San Marcos river.

Stephen took this pic with his phone.

More by the railroad bar-b-q.

The train happened to just be going by the railroad bar-b-q...I like this shot...very Texan I thought. :) Oh and yes, Madeline likes to pose a lot putting her arm around her brother. :)

These Make Me Smile

2011-11-17T14:23:00.000-06:00

I downloaded Michael Bublé's new Christmas album so I've been listening to it on my way to work this week. I have to say it's an awesome album, I love his voice. Every time his new Jingle Bells song comes on I can't help but smile, sing along, move to the beat and snap my fingers. Seriously you will too.

This song makes me smile too. I couldn't figure out who was singing the duet with him. Turns out it is Shania! I've always liked Shania Twain. Her voice sounds so unique and fun in this song.

Lastly had to share this video that makes me smile. My sis in-law posted it on my Facebook. We're a BIG Vikings fan family. But lets be honest, the Vikes stink this year. We didn't even pay for the football package to see all the games on TV (thank goodness, would have been a waste of $). It's pretty pathetic this year, sigh. So this past Monday night when we went up against our big rival, the Packers, we had no high hopes of winning. But don't get me wrong, Stephen did really feel this sad inside.

Crock-pot Lasagna

2011-11-16T18:27:00.000-06:00

I've been finding some really yummy crock-pot recipes on Pinterest. So I decided to try this one. Growing up my mom always made homemade lasagna. But I remember it taking awhile to prepare and then bake time in the oven. This way using the crock-pot seemed less time consuming. I modified the recipe a little so I'll post my version here. You'll need:

1lb. ground beef

1 jar of your favorite pasta sauce

1 can of tomato sauce, Italian herb flavor

1 small tub of Ricotta cheese

1 cup of shredded Italian mixed cheese

1 box of oven ready lasagna noodles

salt

onion flakes

non-stick cook spray

crock-pot

First you brown your ground beef, season with salt and onion flakes to liking. Drain ground beef. Mix can of tomato sauce with ground beef. Next spray the bottom of your crock-pot with non-stick spray. Put one layer of pasta noodles on the bottom (I broke mine in half to make them fit better in the crock-pot). Then put a layer of the ground beef mixture. Then some dollops of ricotta over the layer. Next press down another layer of pasta noodles. Pour your pasta sauce all over the pasta noodles. Sprinkle with shredded Italian cheese. Repeat layering again starting with the ground beef mixture layer. End with the shredded Italian cheese layer. Put your crock-pot on low and cover for 4 hours.

It's that easy. Took less than 20 minutes to prep. And it was cooked perfectly (just like my mom's lasagna) in the crock-pot. I toasted some garlic bread in my toaster oven and served it along with salad. It was such an easy dinner to make. And the kids loved it!

One More Road Trip

2011-11-15T11:25:00.000-06:00

I am super excited because we have one more road trip planned before the end of the year. Thankfully this will be a shorter roadtrip than our ones to Iowa and California. Before Christmas we are meeting my parents in New Orleans! They were going to fly out here for a visit, so we suggested hey why not meet us in New Orleans for a weekend first and then drive home with us. Fortunately my parents have great retirement flight benefits, so they can hop on any flight to anywhere. My Mom just booked our hotel suite and I'm researching on things to do while we are there. We only spent 1 day there last summer so we didn't get to see everything. And we really couldn't wait to go back and visit the Big Easy!

2 free events going on while we are there that I am excited about are the annual Christmas concert at the Cathedral-Basilica Saint Louis. It is the oldest Catholic Cathedral in continual use in the U.S.

And also the Caroling by candle light in the famous Jackson Square (which happens to be just in front of the Cathedral). I think my parents and the kids will really enjoy these events. We also want to take a ride on the old street cars and see all the neat mansion homes. I'd like to visit one of the famous cemeteries too and see the old tombs. And of course looking forward to all the yummy food there!

Gratitude

2011-11-14T14:11:00.001-06:00

First off...I got a pair of new shoes! I rarely buy new clothes or shoes for myself. Also I have a hard time finding comfortable shoes. Like my mom I have bunions, you know that bony bump and the base of the big toe. She had surgery to remove hers, I probably need the same but until then a cheaper fix is wearing comfortable shoes that don't put pressure on it and cause me pain (I can't handle wearing heals for long periods of time, like longer than 10 minutes). Anyways so I usually stick with sandals and flip flops...but it's getting a little cold to wear those to work. So I was super happy to find these cute suede flat slip ons at Kohl's this weekend. They had them in various colors but only in blue and brown in my size. Stephen said go with the blue. I really like them, they are comfy. And better yet, they were on sale and I had a 30% off coupon.

So now onto the more serious part of this post. Lately I've been meditating a lot on topics of appreciation, thankfulness and gratitude. And not because it's near Thanksgiving but because of things going on in our lives, job related and such. So sometimes I struggle with these. I work for an awesome small company where the owners show great appreciation to their workers. Stephen made an observation that I always tend to work for these types of companies. It's nice to be appreciated, recognized for your hard work. It makes you want to strive to do more and be better at your job. Unfortunately Stephen has worked for the opposite type of companies, you know those huge, giant corporate companies where the "little guys" are unappreciated and forgotten. I really commend Stephen because he's always had such a strong work ethic. He always puts in 110% and goes the extra mile. And that's hard to do when you're never shown appreciation, even a simple "great job!". So what's the solution? Find another job until you find one for a company like I work for? I mean do you ask the big wigs in your interview, "do you show appreciation to your employees?". Wish the solution could be this simple. But of course it's not. The only solution that seems right is to not dwell on being unappreciated or recognized - but to be grateful and thankful. And it's only through Faith, in my opinion that you could turn around and change your feelings about it all.

I did a search on "Gratitude" on Pinterest. And the above photo came up. It was like perfect timing and a perfect reminder to all that is going on in our family's lives lately. Makes me appreciate the jobs that gave us money to buy my new pair of shoes. Reminds me there are millions that are far off worse than us - that don't even have jobs or an opportunity to squabble about work.

My Pinterest search also came up with these. Love it, a whole site about simple things to appreciate. I felt like this one pertained to us right now too. Stephen has been putting in 10-12 hour work days, sometimes 6 days a week. 4 of those days he doesn't get to really see me or Madeline because of the shift he works - and he's doing it all to persevere in his career so we can pay for the roof over our heads and food on our table. It's challenging and straining. But instead of dwelling on it, we can appreciate taking off our shoes and socks after a long day.

Veteran's Parade San Marcos

2011-11-12T14:10:00.000-06:00

The town of San Marcos (about 10 min South of us) had their Veteran's Day parade today so more people could attend, since many still had work or school yesterday.

So we picked up some donuts and headed down.

There were many vets in the parade, it was nice to be able to wave at them and say thank you. A lot of local businesses and schools participated in the parade too.

The kids were happy when people in the parade gave them candy.

We saw a lot of cool old cars and also some loud motorcycles.

We noticed we were sitting right by a historic park near the river. We walked around and I staked out some good spots that I want to come back to to take Christmas portraits.

Rock on

2011-11-10T18:54:00.001-06:00

When ever we're in the car for a long time, Stephen usually gets a vehicle from work that has a built in DVD player. He'll also get those cheap disposable earphones from the airport for the kids to use. Well we went into Ross last week to look for work shoes for Stephen and the kids spotted these really cool headphones. James had some birthday money left over and Madeline got straight A's again on her second report card so I decided to let the kids get them. They were around $10 each. And I liked how they covered their ears and were padded. I think James looks like one of those airport guys out on the tarmac that directs planes with his Spongebob headphones. He likes to plug them in our computer or Stephen's phone while he's playing games or watching Netflix.

Madeline has some music on our home cell phone, so I downloaded more free music with the nifty torrent site my cuz showed me. So what's on Madeline's playlist: Hannah Montana / Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Zac Brown Band, Sugarland, and Michael Bublé's new Christmas album. :) She's rocking out and lovin' it!

Christmas Letter

2011-11-08T18:42:00.001-06:00

Wow the holidays are approaching quickly! Anyone else feel like that? I need to really start writing my annual Christmas letter. Found this cute letter idea on Pinterest:

I also need to get cracking on taking a portrait of the kids to send out with my letter. Instead of having it done in a studio this year I am trying to find a great outdoor location to take one of them. Maybe I'll get it done this weekend. :) I wish Michaela or Kelly lived close by so they could take the photos, they both take such awesome photos! Oh and this year I'm sticking with printing my photos at our local Sam's Club...not using ArtsCow and having them arrive several days before Christmas. LOL

I did just get my awesome custom return address label stamp from Expressionery. Can't wait to stamp those on my Christmas letter envelopes! And then there is getting ready for gift shopping. Anyone see any good Black Friday ads yet? In past years we've been looking to buy a TV or computer. This year we really don't need anything, so I'm just keeping my eyes peeled for good deals on gifts for the kids. I already told Stephen what I want, the very cool and sleek looking toaster convection oven from Sam's Club. I know, boring right. But it's really what I want (besides an all expense paid trip to the islands somewhere).

Pepperoni Pizza Puffs

2011-11-06T22:08:00.000-06:00

These were too yummy and too good not to post about and share. I pinned these on Pinterest and baked them tonight for dinner. These are photos I took of the ones I made and also my recipe (altered a little from the one I used).

1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoon Italian seasoning
couple shakes of salt
couple shakes of red pepper flakes
1 1/2 cup milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 bag (8oz./2 cups) of Italian blend shredded cheese
1 small bag (5oz) mini pepperoni
1/2 cup store-bought pizza sauce
ranch dressing

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 18 cup muffin pan. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, Italian seasoning, salt and red pepper flakes (if using) ; whisk in the milk and egg. Stir in the cheese and pepperoni; let stand for 10 minutes.

2. Stir the batter and divide among the muffin cups (filling each 3/4 full). Bake until puffed and golden, 20 to 25 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, microwave the pizza sauce until warmed through. Serve the puffs with the pizza sauce or ranch for dipping.

Mmmmm they smelled SO good baking in the oven.

I served them with a salad for dinner. They would also be an awesome party appetizer. I will definitely be making these again!

moth balls keep the snakes away

2011-11-06T21:22:00.000-06:00

So I believe the count is up to 5+ rattlesnakes seen/killed on our cul-de-sac. YIKES! 4 of our neighbors have found them in their yards. This is not comforting. I sat the kids down and we looked at you tube videos of rattlesnakes, the sounds they make and how they strike and bite you. Our pest control rep came out last week and I spoke to him about snake repellents. He said they used to offer for a $25 charge putting down "Snake Away" granules. But he said you could purchase it yourself for less at Home Depot. He did give me a tip though. He said with the Snake Away you have to keep reapplying as the scent fades away quickly (within a couple of days, especially if it rains or you water the lawn a lot). He said moth balls last longer (several weeks or so). The scent disrupts the snake's sensory reception. This disorientation causes the snake to slither away unharmed, in search of fresh air. But since moth balls can be poisonous to kids and pets if ingested he said you could put them in canning jars with air holes on top and place those around your yard. He suggested getting them at Walmart for cheap. I bought a $4 box of moth balls, and a 12-pack of Better Homes canning jars for $6 at Walmart.

I placed about 6-8 moth balls in each jar. After screwing on the lid I drilled about 8 holes on top.

I placed a jar by my front and back doors. In my front planter. And all along our fence line in our front and backyard. I am really hoping and praying these help repel these snakes....

Newbie on the block

2011-11-03T21:23:00.001-05:00

Our friends that live across the street and have a boy James' age (James' best bud Aaron) have been wonderful neighbors and friends. Kate has helped us out this year watching James on days Stephen needed to go in early to work. It was a blessing. So I wanted to do the same for her as she was nearing the end of her pregnancy expecting their 4th boy (they also have 1 year old twins). I was able to watch Aaron and the twins for her when she had her weekly doc appointments. And I was able to help out along with their other friend the day she went into labor. Meet baby Lance, he's the newbie on our block.

I asked Kate if I could come over and take some pics of Lance so I could practice photo editing with my new CS5. I thought the photos turned out pretty good considering I only have a point and shoot digital camera. I used the manual settings and tried my best with the natural lighting.

He's only 9 days old - what a cutie huh!?

He just wanted to sleep and have his binky the whole time, so I think he was a little annoyed we were moving him. But he did great! So fun to be around a newborn.

Blogging Pays Off

2011-11-02T20:53:00.000-05:00

I devote a lot of time to blogging, it's something I enjoy doing. So I was super thrilled when my work asked me to be on a team of bloggers for my work's blog. I've been e-interviewing the artists whose work we publish and then posting about it. I asked for help both here on my personal blog and on my Facebook to visit, like and comment on my posts. Well it paid off, I earned the most points in October for blogging! I was able to pick from several rewards and choose a gift card to the Alamo Drafthouse. It's one of our favorite date night spots, dinner & a movie all there for you. Can't wait to use it. What good movies are out now?

Some of you may follow my 365 daily photo blog, Shutterbug Ma'am. Or maybe not. But I've reached a milestone on there, I've taken over 265 daily photos and I've got less than 100 to go! Can't believe it. It's been fun and challenging - can't wait to put my 365 photos into a coffee table photobook when I'm done.

Saints = Explanations of the Gospel

2011-11-01T20:53:00.000-05:00

The kids and I went to Mass this evening (Stephen is working) as today is the feast day for All Saints. In the priest's homily he said something that makes perfect sense, "Saints are Explanations of the Gospel". Not only the inspiring words they may have said or written, but their exemplary model lives lived out for Christ: give love & charity to the poor, meek & humble, hunger & thirst after righteousness. If the Saints were asked: "Why are you in Heaven?" they would answer: "For having listened to the Holy Spirit." - St. John Vianney.

Yesterday we had CCD class and I was throwing an All Hallows Eve party for my students and teaching them about the Communion of Saints. Hallow is the same word for "holy" that we find in the Lord's Prayer (Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.), and e'en is a contraction of "evening." The word Halloween itself is a shortened form of "All Hallows Eve," the day before All Saints Day. I taught the students about our belief in the Communion of Saints. There are over 10,000 named Saints. The Catholic Church teaches that it does not, in fact, make or create anyone a saint. Rather, it recognizes a saint. Of course there are many unknown to us and the Church. "A saint is always someone through whom we catch a glimpse of what God is like -- and of what we are called to be. Only God 'makes' saints, of course. The Church merely identifies from time to time a few of these for emulation. The church then tells the story."

click on photo to enlarge

So in class before we ate our party food the students made this Heavenly Family poster (I made the example above using 20 Saints from Happy Saints). I asked my students if any of them have ever been asked by their parents or someone close to them if they could pray for someone sick or hurt. They all rose their hands. :) I explained that is great, because we can all intercede for one another in prayer: For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.” Matthew 18:20. Next I reminded them what they all learned several weeks ago about when we say the Hail Mary, what are we asking Mary to do for us? The students all answered, "pray for us sinners!" :) I have such great students! So I asked them, if these Saints that the Church has named are in Heaven like Mary and with God, do you think we could ask them to pray for us too? They all agreed, "yes, of course!".

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Hebrews 12:1.

While they ate their party food, I read them stories about 4 different Saints. They were all "wowed" and inspired. I could see the wheels turning in their precious little heads, and several of them told me the lesson or encouragement learned about what these Saints went through and did. It was awesome.

Spooky :)

2011-10-31T22:44:00.000-05:00

Jimmy-James our spooky ghost, and Madeline our Spider Queen.

Daddy took a break from work and drove all the way home to see his spooky kids on All Hallows Eve. The kids love to scare their daddy.

Trick or treating around our neighborhood with James' best bud, Pirate Aaron.

I love this shot. James did spook some of the little ones we walked by - and he was super happy that he convinced some people handing out candy that he was a real spooky ghost.

And I'm not sure how, but James seem to have gotten almost double the candy of Madeline. He must have been taking more than one at the houses who left out buckets of candy. LOL

The kids had a great day!

Editing

2011-10-29T18:46:00.000-05:00

Lovin' my Photoshop CS5. Practicing editing photos and "boosting" them. Can you tell which one I gave a boost? :) And I must say, I have the prettiest daughter and the prettiest best friend.

That's What Family is For

2011-10-28T20:38:00.000-05:00

I am so ecstatic and we have been blessed. The end of this summer we started noticing our almost 3 year old laptop was acting up. In the past when I've had computer problems that I couldn't figure out I would either call my dad or my cuz in Hawaii, Quinten. He's like a computer wiz. Right now Quinten is doing contract work in the middle East (keep him in your prayers that he stays safe and protected)...but thanks to technology I was able to contact him for help. He did some trouble shooting with me...turns out the hard drive is nearly fried. So bummed - looks like we had to wait until Black Friday for any good computer deals. I asked him if he knew of any now. He told me that he is constantly refurbishing computers and he had one he could send us. I asked how much he wanted for it, right away he said "come on, we're family". What a generous guy. I have the best Ohana.

The laptop arrived this week. It's practically a brand new computer. It's a Dell Latitude E6420. Super nice, and best of all it's super fast. No wait...best of all...

...We now have Adobe Photoshop CS5! You don't understand. On our old laptop I had the 1998 Photoshop 5.0 version. Yes, I used that dinosaur software to edit every photo I've ever posted. It did the job but didn't have all the fancy upgrade tools and actions like the newer versions I've used in college and at work. But now, on our new laptop, we have the latest version CS5 (actually the entire Master Collection including InDesign too). Awesomeness. Now I can download those fun photo actions like from Pioneer Woman and others. Have I said it yet, I am so ecstatic. One thing I love about this version is the content aware tool. I use it almost daily at work and wish I had it to use on my personal photos at home. Check out this quick video on what it does, it's like magic!

So thrilled, it's like Christmas. So thank you cuz. Quinten you've been a blessing to us with your thoughtfulness and willingness to help us (especially at 2 and 4:30am, waking up and driving to your work on base just to walk me through setting things up!). You're amazing, may God bless you.

3 Years of School Pictures

2011-10-26T16:25:00.001-05:00

Madeline brought home her school pictures today, I'm so pleased with how they turned out. There is a comment box on the photo order slip for any tips for the photographer - I told him to say to Madeline, "Princess Smile! :) "....um ya she thought that was a little embarrassing. LOL I can't believe how much older she looks compared to her last 2 years...must be all the adult teeth she has now. :)

P.S. And just for fun, Madeline brought this baby picture to school this week - her teacher is having them do a show and tell about where and when they were born and to share a baby photo. Madeline was 6 months here.

Perfect Ending...

2011-10-25T22:34:00.000-05:00

...to my long past 2 days. Fresh baked white chocolate macadamia nut cookies with a glass of cold milk.

Just a recap...yesterday I woke up at 6:30am, got myself ready for work, got Madeline ready for school in workout clothes (the red ribbon week theme day) and got out of the door at 7:15am to drop her off at school. We got to drive to school and work in this cute little Fiat...

Got home from work at 12:30 and kissed hubby goodbye as he went off to work. Cut my son's filthy finger and toe nails because we were heading to the doctors, can't let the doctors see my child with filthy finger and toe nails. Got to the doctors at 1:15 for my physical appointment. Found that I weighed 5lbs less than I thought, but realized I still need to drop about 30lbs. Had a fun conversation with Dr. S. 1:35pm got 2 viles of blood drawn for biometric screening. Went back to the doctors waiting room. 1:50pm James was called for his well check up.

This kid is growing fast! And he's got great metabolism and speed. He now weighs 39lbs. and is almost 45" tall. He's right on track for his growth curve, even though he hates eating fruits and veggies. Doctor was pleased with him being right on track for his age. 2:45pm got home just in time for Madeline's school bus to drop her off. 3:45pm left for Church. 4:30-5:30 taught my 2nd grade CCD class about Forgiveness. Love my students. Got home at 6pm, watched the kids ride bikes out front while I watered our lawn and flowerbeds. Did the dinner and bedtime routine and crashed on the couch somewhere between 10:48 and 11:35pm.

This morning woke up at 6:30am. Got Madeline ready for school, made sure she had a canned good to bring for the Red Ribbon week theme day to donate to local food bank. 7:15am drove her to school. Headed back home, hopped in the shower. Got James up, brushed and flossed his teeth and then we headed to the pediatric dentist. 9:30am they gave him his sedation meds. Waiting for about 30 minutes for it to take affect. 10am watched and prayed as they laid my son down, gave him laughing gas and several shots of Novocaine. He needed 2 fillings. He did awesome! Didn't even flinch the entire time. He was really sleepy the whole time, said it didn't hurt but that the dentist kept waking him up. :) After the procedure he wobbled out of the office happy about getting a toy. 11:30am got a call from my doc, all my blood work came back...cholesterol levels and everything else he checked for were good. Came home, ate lunch with hubby before he went to work. Got a call from our neighbor, she was at the hospital having a baby today!

So I headed across the street and watched their 3 boys for 5 hours. 6:30pm their other friend came to relieve me. Headed home so our other neighbor could come over and watch Madeline and James so I could head to Madeline's school for the 7pm parents meeting for Gifted/Talented Student Program her teacher referred us too. Wow, our daughter is smart. :) All A's and excelling in some areas above her grade level. 7:30pm meeting was over, headed home. Thankful for great neighbor friends. Helped Madeline with her homework and tucked her into bed at 8:25pm. Got a call from our neighbor - she had the baby at 7:11pm!

So now I'm sitting here blogging about my very tiring past 2 days after devouring my milk and cookies.

Glory to God, all is well.

Homecoming

2011-10-24T17:30:00.002-05:00

Okay...it's just crazy that we have a nephew who is old enough to go to homecoming. Seems like yesterday (actually it was 16 years ago!) that Stephen and I went to our high school homecoming dance. Seeing pics on Facebook of friend's kids and our nephew going to homecoming over the weekend just brought flashbacks. I had to dig up our homecoming pics. Don't Stephen and I look so young and in love? :)

I loved my dress, wish I could still fit into it. I'm pretty sure I saved it for Madeline. We doubled with the girl in the middle and her date. And the girl on the left was driving by to pick up her date so she stopped for a photo op. I'm still in touch with both these ladies on Facebook. We're all married and mommies now. :)

And here is our nephew Wyatt (Mike's oldest) with his girlfriend Jenna going to homecoming this past weekend. Don't they look so cute!?

I thought this was such a beautiful pic of them. I love her dress and shoes. I hope they had a fun time!

Our Weekend in pics

2011-10-23T17:53:00.001-05:00

We had a really fun weekend. We decided to attend our first Friday Night Lights (I love that TV series) Texas high school football game since living here for almost 5 years. Our town's local high school, the one the kids would attend if we remain here, was playing their last regular season game. And if they were to win this game they would make it to their first playoff game in the school's history (it's a fairly new school). They were playing a team in San Antonio a few miles from one of our favorite Mexican restaurants down there so we headed there for dinner before the game.

The kids really enjoyed the atmosphere. They loved hearing the band play and get involved in the game. Madeline liked watching the cheerleaders and even knew some of the cheers because one of the guy varsity cheerleaders helped coach her old cheer squad.

Their team mascot is a Lobos, which is a wolf. James bumped into him when we went to the snack bar. Unfortunately the Lobos lost and didn't make the playoffs. It was still fun to go watch.

This weekend we had more Spence cousins stopping by for a visit. These were cousins we haven't met before. The kids are always happy when family comes to visit. It was Stephen's 1st cousin Heidi (daughter of Stephen's dad's sister Kate). They are a military family and are moving from Georgia to Washington. So they're driving across State. We were happy to put them up for a night. Heidi and Ben had 3 of their kids with them and they were such sweet kids. Here is James with Dawson.

Here is Madeline with their daughter Olivia. She had the prettiest curly red hair. The girls got along really well.

Here are Liv and Madeline sitting on our trampoline and writing out a song. :)

And here is cousin Heidi with their other son Jordan. Sweet kid, he's in 8th grade. Next they were going to visit their grandparents (Ben's side) in El Paso, Texas. So Heidi wanted Jordan to get his haircut. They took him to a place near our home before they hit the road to El Paso...

Doesn't Jordan look handsome? :) Madeline was of course sad when they left, she always gets teary eyed when family leaves. But we are glad that we always have so many family coming into town.

Stylish Blogger

2011-10-19T11:33:00.000-05:00

Mahalo to my friend, Esther, over on A Catholic Mom in Hawaii Blog for giving my blog the Stylish Blogger Award. I need to share 7 things about me with you. The nice thing about this award is that I get to share the honor with five other bloggers.

-1-

Ha ha I just repinned this on Pinterest today. One thing I will reveal and share about myself and my family is is that we have our moments of not being nice (yes I do have my moments where I yell at my kids...gasp). We have our disagreements and little squabbles. And "normal" well how is that defined? Drama-free, Mess-free...um ya then we aren't normal. :)

-2-

My favorite color is purple. And I would love to have this purple home as my vacation home!

-3-

Even though my house is never perfectly cleaned (except when guests visit) I actually have OCD tendencies. Seriously. If the kids leave their shoes on the floor instead of putting them on our shoe rack...it won't bother me as much if they are paired together on the floor instead of one under the coffee table and the other on the kitchen floor. Also when I put a stamp on an envelope, it needs to be equi-distant from the top and right sides of the envelope.

-4-

Even though I have no problem flying in a plane, I have this big anxiety and fear when I drive up high on a freeway overpass. I usually envision going over the side. :( But through prayer I've been conquering this inner battle.

-5-

My favorite music genres to listen to our Hawaiian and Country. I know, opposite ends of the spectrum. My husband still can't believe I like Country (don't let him fool you though, he's warmed up to some Country music artists). I just love music that is "feel good" and both these genres do that for me.

-6-

I definitely could learn a thing or two from Penny Lane. I need to work on being more joyful.

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I won't lie, sometimes I'll day dream what it would be like not to worry about money and how nice it would be to go out and buy Stephen, myself and the kids cowboy boots. (Do you realize how expensive these type of boots can be!). But then I snap out of the day dream and back to my faith, working on always being thankful...

I'd like to present this Stylish Blogger Award to:

Mickie over at Spence Family Blog

Kelly over at You and Me Plus Three Blog

Michaela over at Spence {JaM} Blog

Sarah over at Sassy Sarah's Space Blog

Kelly over at Nate & Kelly...but mostly Tanner, Dallin & Ashlyn Blog

Can't wait to read your posts and learn more about y'all!

Our lil rockstar!

2011-10-18T15:59:00.000-05:00

I took James to get his 5 year portraits yesterday at the Picture People. He had a great photo shoot session (with the bribe of McDonald's fries afterwards :) but I am so bummed because they no longer email you the entire session. So I can't share with you all the other cute shots. But these 2 were my favorites.

It's hard to believe he is 5. I took Madeline to get her portraits taken up until she started school. Next year James will start school. My baby will start school.

This Spring we plan on signing James up to play a sport. Most likely soccer, but we'll see!

Oh Poppi! :)

2011-10-17T20:14:00.000-05:00

Today is Stephen's Dad's birthday. Happy Birthday Dad! Happy Birthday Poppi! Thought I'd post some fun pics. Handsome dad in his younger years!

I love this family shot. I think it was for Stephen's birthday which is only a couple of weeks before his Dad's.

This is a favorite too.

Mom and Dad used to watch Madeline twice a week when we still lived in California. He loved taking Madeline on walks. It was their thing to do. Here they are coming back from a walk and you can see Poppi picked some flowers for Madeline. :)

One of my favs of Dad with Madeline.

And a new fav of mine of Dad with James.

Hope you had a wonderful birthday!

Clean Cut Kiddos

2011-10-16T15:50:00.000-05:00

I hope James never likes that shaggy haircut look when he's older and actually has an opinion about his hair. I love little boys haircuts, they look so clean cut and handsome. Taking this little stud muffin to have his 5 year old portraits taken tomorrow.

The kids have been enjoying our Google TV setup. They have this very cool app called MeeGenius. It's a site that has eBooks for kids and the application has a ton of free books for our bookshelf. You can either read the books yourself (which Madeline has been doing for her reading log) or you can read along as it is read to you and the words are highlighted. I love technology like this.

Posted this pic on Facebook earlier this week and got lots of sweet compliments. Madeline will be wearing my mom's chapel mantilla veil and Stephen's mom's communion bracelet when she makes her First Holy Communion the end of this school year. My mom sent it home with us from California and Madeline was trying it on.

My Work's Blog

2011-10-12T11:24:00.001-05:00

I've posted again on my work's blog. I interviewed another artist. Please stop by there and leave a comment - I can earn rewards for both!

New Era Artist Feature: Volume 2

Seventy!

2011-10-10T00:01:00.002-05:00

Today, this very special man, my dad, turns 70!

I have to blog a little bit about him...

He worked hard and accomplished the American dream his parents dreamed of for him.

He's an honorable man. One who volunteers his time to help others.

He is a wonderful husband to my mom. He can be grouchy and stubborn sometimes (just ask my mom) but she loves him anyway. :)

He was the one I always wanted to swim with growing up.

No matter what, he is always by my side and supportive.

He is a cool dad. One who takes up a hobby like fixing up a motorcycle and taking riding lessons.

He is a hard worker and dedicated to any task you throw his way.

He loves family history and sharing it with me.

(pointing out one of the apartments he lived in Holland as a child)

He's a great father in-law and mentors my hubby with fixing things and house projects. :)

He's a silly Opa. :)

An Opa that takes interest in his kleinkinderen (grandchildren).

And I can't believe he's 70 years old! I am so thankful God has given him 70 years of good health so he can be around for my family. I pray that God gives him many more birthdays to celebrate. We love you Dad! Hugs and kisses for Opa from Madeline and James! Happy Birthday!

Rainy Weekend Out

2011-10-09T14:05:00.000-05:00

It finally rained this weekend!!! Central Texas desperately needs rain. So we were happy when the storms arrived this weekend. We had to run a few errands and headed out to the mall. We used a gift card and ate lunch at California Pizza Kitchen. Their cobb salad is super yummy! Afterwards the kids noticed PBS kids Maya & Miguel were greeting kids in the mall. So we went over to say hello.

James got some birthday money so we took him to Build-a-Bear workshop and he picked out a Longhorn to make.

James happy about his new friend whom he named Buster Douglas.

My work treated all the employees and a guest to a dinner boat cruise on Lady Bird Lake to do some bat watching of the bats under Congress bridge. So Stephen and I got a date night out. It was a fun evening. This is us after the dinner cruise at the Hyatt hotel on Lady Bird Lake.

7 Quick Takes Friday (volume 9)

2011-10-07T10:48:00.000-05:00

-1-

I love Fall and Spring weather here in Central Texas. The temps are always mild and it's beautiful to be outside! When we returned home from our California trip this week it was so nice to come home to mild 80 degree weather. We had a record breaking summer and it was pretty much in the high 90's low 100's from May to September. So when we got home I felt like saying "Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh."

-2-

James and Madeline received money from Oma and Opa to buy their Halloween costumes. We were looking at some while shopping in California. When Oma went back to the store to buy them, they didn't have them anymore! So when we got home we went to the store and Madeline found the Spiderella costume she wanted to get. James kept switching between spiderman, batman, transformer, pirate and a ghost. But he really wanted to be something spooky (he loves pretending to scare/spook his sissy and me, makes him laugh and giggle). So we have a spooky ghost. Kids can't wait for Halloween.

-3-

Does your family celebrate the secular holiday of Halloween?

A few years back I did a post about All Hallows Eve (a.k.a Halloween) and how our family as Catholics views the holiday and the meaning behind everything. Click below to read my post:

All Hallows Eve

-4-

So when Madeline went back to school she received her first report card for the 1st session of this school year. All A's baby!!! Woo hoo! So proud of her. This week at school she also had the school book fair. I always let her buy a book each year. She picked "Interrupting Chicken". And today is school picture day. This year she really wanted to be involved with picking out her outfit and jewelry, as well as deciding how to have her hair. When I dropped her off at school the principle opened our car door in the drop off line and said to Madeline, "Wow you look so pretty!". Hopefully that will help her have a good smile for her picture. Here is the blog post with her past school pics.

-5-

Being in the Fall mood this week I decided to break in the new cupcake pans my mom sent home with us and bake the kids some pumpkin bread cupcakes. I used this favorite Pumpkin Bread recipe (it was a hit last year with my neighbors) and just put them in the cupcake pan and only baked them for 20 minutes (they bake a lot quicker than in a loaf pan so keep an eye on them!). Topped them with some vanilla icing (not that they need any more sugar after the 3 cups the recipe calls for, but who cares right?) and let the kids decorate with sprinkles. Yummy!

-6-

So I taught my first class as the Catechist teacher on Monday. The curriculum topic was Mary and praying the Rosary. I have to say I have an awesome class of CCD students. They are all eager to learn and such great listeners! This coming Monday I am teaching them about Forgiveness.

-7-

Now that I am a bonafide CCD teacher :) I've been researching for activities that my students can work on and came across this awesome blog called The Catholic Toolbox. They have some great encouragement, ideas, examples and activities on there. Can't wait to share them with my class.

Hope y'all have a nice weekend!

Mucho Syrup-o - Cali Roadtrip

2011-10-04T00:20:00.000-05:00

Wow first off let me just wish our baby boy a Happy 5th Birthday! James turned 5 on the 30th while we were out of town. Is he not the most handsome boy in the world. So my laptop has been on the fritz. Started the week before we left. So I didn't get a lot of internet time while on our road trip out to Cali. I'm so behind on my blogging and updates, lots to catch up on. But I thought I'd give a run down of our trip.

So we went to Cali for 2 main reasons, one of which was a celebration we threw at my parents home for these 3 important guys...my Dad who turns 70 (can you believe it!?), my hubby who turned 34 and my son who turned 5. It was a great party - saw lots of family and friends faces who are all so dear to us.

The 2nd reason we made the trip out was because Stephen's 1st cousin, John, on his mom's side (her brother's son) was getting married. Stephen's brother, Mark, performed the ceremony at a beautiful location in wine country Temecula.

Mike also came down for the wedding so I was able to capture a photo of the 4 amigos.

Loved seeing Mark's wife, Laura, and Mike's girlfriend, Jacki.

So we drove about 40 hours roundtrip (that's like a whole work week!). 20 hours in 2.5 days going, and 20 hours (plus 4 extra hours for when we got stuck in Indio cause the 10fwy was shut down due to a bad accident) in 2.5 days coming home. Thank you God for Stephen's job with Hertz and being able to drive in a brand new Yukon XL, with double DVD players and unlimited fill up of free gas in a 30 gallon tank. Made the road trip much smoother. Madeline played the driver's license state game. I think she got about 20...one as far as Maine. She was hoping to see a Hawaii license plate, but we told her that was probably a slim chance.

Driving to CA we stayed with Stephen's cousin Angie and her family in AZ for one night. Angie and Sam are due with baby #2 any day now. And their daughter Kendall is so sweet.

Kids had a blast swimming at their home. We had such a nice visit.

We have some really close friends in CA who are like Ohana. One of them are the Fanoga's. Here is Madeline with their kids Delaney and Isaac - both very close in age with our kids. They are half Samoan but doesn't it look like all our kids could be related?

We got to spend a special day with my brother, David's family. His wife Armilyn also celebrated a birthday while we were there, so we went to San Clemente beach with them for a birthday lunch and to play in the sand. Here are the kids with our nephew Alex.

My parents also came along that day, here they are with all their grandchildren.

We also did a belated birthday dinner for my best friend, Robyn, at our favorite Mexican restaurant.

She finally got her professional wedding pics from her wedding a year and a half ago. I was so excited to visit with her and finally look through them. I was able to copy them all. :)

My other brother, Tason, joined us that evening. The kids love their Oom Tason!

We spent a couple days out in Corona with Mark's family and Stephen's parents. We went to see the Angels play the Texas Rangers, go figure. We're die hard Boston Red Sox fans, but Stephen's 2nd favorite MLB team is the Angels. Uncle Bryce got Madeline and James Angels sweatshirts. Love this pic of James with his Poppi.

We had fun seats in the outfield. Rangers killed the Angels, it was still fun!

Our kids with all of Mark and Laura's kids after the game.

We also made a day trip out to Crystal Cove State Beach Park. We had a lot of Spence cousins in our Yukon XL.

The kids had so much fun at the tide pools there. They caught a ton of crabs!

Here is James holding a crab on a shovel.

On our trip back home we stayed with Stephen's best friend, Tim's family in AZ. Tim's wife Kacey was so sweet and made it a special time for James since it was his actual birthday. She baked and made him a birthday cake and they gave him his first real football for a birthday gift.

Still can't believe he's 5! This is their adorable daughter, Elizabeth.

James opened his new CARS scooter and pad gear from my parents and us while we were there. So him and Elizabeth had fun riding their scooters in the cul-de-sac.

To our surprise 2 equestrian riders came through the neighborhood. The kids were so excited about seeing horses. The gal asked if they wanted to pet her horse.

So cool!

Going and coming we also stayed one night in El Paso in a hotel. The kids are really good travelers. Overall we had a fantastic time. Now it's back to the daily grind!

CCD

2011-09-19T20:13:00.001-05:00

Today was the first day of CCD religious ed classes at Church this school year. It's also James' first time going to school. James has never gone to any preschool, daycare or taken any sports lessons where he's had to listen to a teacher or coach. I was a little worried how he would do, I even had a bad dream last night that he got put into the wrong class and that he was scared. Can't help it, he's my baby and I worry. He even had a few tears in the parking lot before we went into class because he was worried about me not being in class with him. But he did GREAT! He enjoyed the class and likes his teacher. Phew!

We feel really blessed and fortunate to belong to an awesome parish that has a wonderful private Catholic school as well as a great CCD Religious Ed program. It's so important our children learn and understand our Faith. Excited to see them go through their spiritual journey.

(click on image to view larger)

Madeline started CCD at the age of 4 (3 months before her 5th birthday) and James started today at the age of 4 (2 weeks before his 5th birthday). Gosh the kids are growing so fast! And they really do look like siblings.

(click on image to view larger)

This is Madeline's 4th year of CCD. And this year she will be receiving her Sacraments of Reconciliation and First Holy Communion. And I am her class Catechist/Teacher! I am super excited to be teaching her and the other students about these Sacraments. I have 4 boys and 8 girls in my class and they all seem like great kids so far! It's going to be an exciting year!

Grandparents Day Lunch at School

2011-09-19T11:05:00.000-05:00

It's days like this that make it a downer we don't live near extended family. Last Sunday on September 11th it was National Grandparents Day so Madeline's school hosted a Grandparents Day lunch this past Friday. All the students were to invite their grandparents. Madeline emailed Oma (my mom) to see if they could fly out for it (they have free flight benefits). My mom planned on coming out. But as the date got closer all the flights started getting overbooked, there was no way she would make it on stand-by. We figured out why the flights were so full...Austin City Limits Music Festival was starting. Bummer. Madeline understood but she was still super sad. Her teacher said parents are welcome to come for the special lunch. So Stephen filled in for Oma & Opa and Nana & Poppi.

Instead of the chicken and baked potato the school was specially serving, Madeline and Stephen opted for pizza, carrots, apple and chocolate milk.

Madeline was very happy to have her daddy there. They just chit chat the whole lunch.

Stephen said one of Madeline's classmates had a conversation with him, went like this:

"Hi Madeline's Dad"

"Hi Madeline's classmate"

"You know I play football for the Invaders"

"Oh really, let me guess...quarterback?" (the kid looked like a linebacker)

"(Chuckling) No, offensive line."

"Ah yes, I should've known."

"Bye Madeline's Dad."

"Bye Madeline's classmate."

7 Quick Takes Friday (volume 9)

2011-09-15T19:21:00.000-05:00

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Easy to make shower party favors. Prayer candles so the guests can prayer for the guest of honor. In this case it was for our neighbor and friend who is due mid October. I bought these cute little white favor boxes from the Dollar Tree. Printed the little labels myself. Stuck in a simple candle. And tied it with some ribbon.

-2-

Working Your Way to Heaven

Came across this well explained blog post this week over at Aggie Catholics blog.

-3-

I was so excited when Kristin posted this on her blog this week. I'm going to print it out for my kids to play on our roadtrip to California next week.

-4-

Speaking of California...we're going out there next week. Stephen's cousin is getting married and we'll also be celebrating my father, my husband and my son's birthdays. Can't wait!

-5-

Some favorite pins from this week...

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Madeline is making all A's on her latest progress report. :)

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I love my son. He is ALL boy. :)

King's Hawaiian Rewards

2011-09-14T16:18:00.001-05:00

As one of King's Hawaiian VIP Bloggers I'm excited to announce

King's Hawaiian Rewards program!

Share recipes and find fun activities...

King’s Hawaiian also created a wide array of new, custom downloadable assets

and prizes such as Hawaiian themed calendars, recipe cards, coloring books, tropical evites, e-mail signatures and party accessories available only through the Rewards program.

One lucky winner will also win FREE King’s Hawaiian bread for a year*!

*Prize consists of fifty-two (52) $4.99 coupons for King’s Hawaiian Bread.

Kings Hawaiian Rewards Sweepstakes. No purchase required.

Why Blog?

2011-09-13T11:47:00.003-05:00

The company I work for, New Era Portfolio (also known as Gallery Direct) is really focusing on social networking to increase sales and make them the most positively talked about art companies on and off line. Our company has a blog and hopes it will help show we are experts in all things art, give a personality of our company, gain loyal readers and help deliver traffic to our sites. They have chosen people from our staff to be on the blogging team, and I am one of them! :) We are encouraged to write about our passion for our work, host contests and giveaways, interview someone, make a video or screencast, give lists of trends, and the latest news in the art industry. And for fun and encouragement we've also been given a point system for the social activity we contribute and can redeem points for rewards and incentives.

So it would REALLY mean A LOT to me if you spread the word about my posts on the Gallery Direct blog, visit the post and leave a comment (because I earn points for all of that too). Also feel free to share this with your family and friends, the more that stop by and read my post, the better.

My very first blog post is up!

New Era Artist Feature: Volume 1

(click on blog post title for link)

Weekend Baby Shower

2011-09-11T21:54:00.001-05:00

Our neighbor friend, Kate, has been such a blessing to our family. She's watched James many days this year when Stephen needed to work an earlier shift and I was still at work in the morning. Kate and her husband are expecting their 4th child this mid October so I wanted to do something special for her and throw her a baby shower.

My friend Kelly posted about attending a baby shower and getting these candle party favors to light when the mom-to-be goes in labor, to think good thoughts and prayers. I loved the idea. So I bought some small candles and put them in these little white bags. I thought they turned out cute.

I was going to slave in the kitchen and make some cake ball pops but then I thought it would be easier to just get some cupcakes from Sam's Club.

Here is Kate opening her gifts.

Her baby shower theme was Diaper Bonanza and Pampering Mom. I got her some diapers and wipes but also sewed her some burp cloths.

I tried a whole bunch of new recipes for the shower and I think they all tasted pretty yummy. I made these chocolate pretzels, cucumber cream cheese sandwiches, artichoke stuffed mushrooms, strawberry spinach salad, and a yummy punch - click on each of them to get the recipes.

Oh and after the shower Stephen came home from work (working a 12 hour shift, 4:30am -4:30pm) and brought home this Italian Fiat so I could test drive it. I'm always telling him I want to test drive a mini Cooper or a Honda Fit, something small and compact. It was fun and sporty looking inside.

I heart this girl

2011-09-11T01:51:00.000-05:00

Rolling in the Deep - Adele Acoustic Cover (Jorge and Alexa Narvaez)

Love, love her passion when she sings.

joy and peace in believing

2011-09-07T16:42:00.001-05:00

The Catholicism Project

I am so excited about this TV series that will be coming out this Fall. Like Father Barron says in this trailer clip, "We need to tell our own story"...I feel like I am apart of this Catholicism Project as I volunteer as a Catechist this new school year for our Religious Education CCD once again. The thing in my life that brings me most joy and peace is my God of hope (Romans 15:13). I want everyone to have that joy and peace, especially my family. We can all know this God of hope by learning from His teachings.

Evelyn's childhood bracelet from when she received her First Holy Communion. Madeline will wear it this year at her First Holy Communion.

Joyfully, I will be a Catechist this year for Madeline's 2nd grade First Holy Communion class. I am so incredibly excited Madeline will be receiving this Sacrament of Grace this year. I can't wait to help teach these children about God's divinity and how He is so giving towards us. Also excited James will start his first year of Religious Education CCD this year. Bless his little heart, with all the big, complex topics he's talked about of late including God, I know he is ready and eager to learn and understand more about God.

Remember Caboodles!?

2011-09-06T20:10:00.000-05:00

I was in an organizing sort of mood this afternoon. And tired of having all my nail stuff and Madeline's hair stuff in sporadic places in our house: side table next to our family room chair, the kids bathroom drawers, my master bathroom drawers, among some other odd places. Then I remembered that my dusty 25+/- year old Caboodles was sitting under my bathroom sink. I got it in the mid 1980's and loved it! It held all my nail polishes and I would give myself manicures all the time. When I finished college, got married and moved away - it remained in the cabinet of my childhood bathroom until my parents finally gave me the remainder of my stuff. I'm glad I still have it, cause now I can pass it onto my daughter to use.

I remember buying this pink Caboodles-like case for Madeline a few Christmas' ago to store all her hair stuff. It needed to be reorganized so I made a hair accessories Caboodles and a nail accessories Caboodles for Madeline.

It feels so good to have everything organized again.

Everything in it's place.

Madeline very happy about her new Caboodles.

James didn't know what all the fuss was about, he just knew he wanted his picture taken next to the Caboodles too. :)

And she's off.... painted her nails tonight alternating between 3 colors creating a pattern. Oh and she already dropped one Q-tip in the nail polish remover bottle. :)

Six Flags

2011-09-05T15:35:00.000-05:00

Madeline's best friend from school, Ashleigh, and her family invited her to go to Six Flags with them this weekend. It was Madeline's first time - and she had a BLAST. They went from opening to closing. And Ashleigh's family treated her to a really good time.

Visits, Swimming, Tubing

2011-09-03T17:07:00.002-05:00

We love when family comes to visit. Jordan (Stephen's cousin) & Michaela's family came and stayed with us for 3 nights. It was our first time meeting Michaela and their adorable kids. They are all so sweet! They arrived on their son, Calin's 2nd birthday. We had pizza and a yummy ice cream cake to celebrate.

Their daughter, Capri, is almost 2 months. She is so beautiful. I loved getting to snuggle with a little baby, miss those days with my kids.

Did you hear central Texas broke the record from the 1930's for the hottest summer, 70+ consecutive days of 100+ degree temps? Ugh, I can't wait for Fall weather. But the kids are still enjoying the pool.

Can't you tell. :)

Stephen and I had a date day today. Madeline went to Six Flags with her friend Ashleigh's family. So we asked our friends across the street if they could watch James so we could use our FB groupons for the Tube Haus at Canyon Lake on the Guadalupe river.

Surprisingly this river was ice cold!

Our butts and hands got numb it was that cold.

It was a pretty river.

Lots of beautiful river side estate homes lined both sides.

We saw quite a few ducks and geese on the river, made us think of the kids and how they would like to see them.

I loved all the beautiful trees there.

And this large rock/cliff was pretty cool.

The river was super low and slow due to the drought this summer. So we had to get up and walk in a few spots, but overall we had fun.

It was a nice little getaway together.

When we got back from tubing, we took James out to lunch at Waterloo's Ice House. We had a discount card buy 1 burger entree get 1 free. All James wanted was to go some where they had french fries and a menu he could color (he's really into coloring now). It was a plus they gave out balloons! The host gave James Texas Orange - go Longhorns!

Hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend!

My Wiggly Fish

2011-09-02T10:23:00.001-05:00

I'm so proud of James. He learned to swim this summer at the age of 4. I still have him wear his arm floaties or his life jacket if we are swimming at rivers or swimming holes, or if we won't be near him at all times in the pool. Otherwise though I'm getting pretty confident in him being able to swim to the edge and not just sink and gulp a mouth full of water. Let's just say his form isn't there yet, he does a doggy paddle or this move where he wiggles his whole body - but it gets the job done. And he's actually pretty fast!

The mask and snorkels the kids got for Easter this year really helped James learn to swim because he didn't have to worry about breathing or coming up for air. The above video clip is of him chasing me in the shallow end.

I challenged him to swim the entire length of the pool (see pic below) with me without stopping. I borrowed a mask and swam along side him so I could video it. He did awesome and made it across the entire pool! Way to go James!!!

My Oma

2011-08-31T11:09:00.000-05:00

My mom got a new photo slide scanner, so she has been on this kick on making digital files of all her old photo slides. She said she will have a memory stick full of them for me when we go out to Cali. She also scanned some old photos she wanted restored. I've taught my mom how to resize images in Photoshop. She called yesterday and said she had a couple of photos she needed my help on in touching up. She tried to use the tools in Photoshop but couldn't figure it out. This photograph is of my Oma, my mom's mom. It was taken some time in the 1930's when she was in her 20's. I think it's such a beautiful portrait of her.

I love Photoshop. Within an hour this was how much I was able to clean it up. CS5 has this cool "content-aware" tool when you marquee (highlight) a certain area, it fixes it like a magic wand. So cool! I still can see a few spots I'd like to fix. And then onto the other photos! :)

Weekend Highlights

2011-08-29T09:49:00.001-05:00

This weekend we went to a Baby-Q, a BBQ party for Stephen's co-manager and his wife who are expecting a baby boy in October. It was a pool party too and the kids had fun spending all afternoon and evening swimming in the pool. They had a black lab who loved to swim and cool off too. The kids thought she was so fun! She would play fetch in the pool with anything, even a paddle board! :)

I don't know how many times she went in to fetch that board,

probably 20-30 times!

James would get out of the pool with her, and then make it a race. He would throw the board into the pool and then jump in with the dog and race to the board to see who could get it first. The dog won most of the time, but James is pretty quick himself and got it a few times.

Madeline loved looking underwater as the dog would swim by her.

The kids had a blast at the Baby-Q. I sewed some burp cloths for the baby gift, they turned out super cute but I forgot to take a pic of them.

This weekend Madeline also reluctantly cheered at her first home football game (she's still getting over her summer cold she caught the end of last week). There was a problem with the girls cheer uniforms and last minute the league had to order them from a new company, but not all the right sizes came in. So Madeline didn't get all of her uniform yet. Here she is with one of her best friends Ashleigh. Their game was at 9am, but the sun was already blazing and it was in the 90's already. Poor kids were sweating it out!

We took James' buddy, Aaron along with us. He's really into sports now and memorizing the scores. They had fun and enjoyed the game and their slurpees. :)

Our nephew, Elias (Mike's youngest) had his first game of the season this weekend too. One of my old Medford Mom's Club friends contacted me and told me her son was playing on the same team as Eli. She said she would let me know about any pics posted to their team's FB page that had Eli in them. He's #44 and the tallest one in the line here. Go Elias!

Lastly with all that research I was doing last week on the Roku, we ended up buying the Revue with Google TV. The sales rep at Best Buy talked us into it. It was only $20 more than the Roku, had all the same applications and more. It comes with a Keyboard controller with integrated keyboard, remote control and touchpad and you can use it to go on the internet too! The kids love it, now they don't need to ask us to go on the laptop to play their PBS games, they can do it on the TV! We're happy with it so far. Check out the video to see what it's capable of, pretty cool!

7 Quick Takes Friday (volume 8)

2011-08-26T11:25:00.001-05:00

-1-

Big news this week, I posted my 1000th blog post! If you missed reading it,
click here.

-2-

click on image to make larger

More big news, we have a 2nd grader who started school this week. She also had her first sick day from school yesterday. She's come down with a summer cold. :( Picking up school work from her teacher today so we can work on it this weekend. Fun, fun!

-3-

Can I just say, my son is handsome. :) I gave him a little boy's haircut. We played pretend and he said we were at the Barbie shop. :)

-4-

Have you checked out all the photos from World Youth Day??? Amazing, 1.5 million youth and young adults gathering together for Christ's Church!

-5-

I love fonts. I received my BA in Graphic Design so I'm geeky like that. If you're ever looking for cute FREE fonts you must visit Fonts for Peas.

-6-

So our Samsung Blu-ray player in our family room bit the dust last night. We use this thing daily to watch Netflix. Have had it for almost 2 years. After Googling the problem and seeing many have the same problem with this player and to get it fixed by Samsung would cost $100+, I think it's inevitable we need to purchase a new player. But paying $150 for a new player is not in the budget right now. We got a free blu-ray that streams Netflix with our TV earlier this year, but put that up in the loft for the kids to use. And they use it daily too. We'll move that one downstairs. They will be bummed. So I started looking into the Roku for upstairs in the loft. It's half the price of a blu-ray and then the kids would be able to stream again. Any of you have a Roku? Pros? Cons?

-7-

If you didn't read my VIP blogger post for King's Hawaiian, click here.

Have a happy weekend! :)

Announcing King's Hawaiian Rewards

2011-08-25T09:35:00.000-05:00

As a VIP Blogger for King's Hawaiian I am excited to announce their first time ever King's Hawaiian online Rewards program! If you're not already one of the 66,000+ fans of King's Hawaiian on Facebook, click here to "like" their fan page and start receiving updates.

King's Hawaiian Rewards will allow their fans to be rewarded for doing what they already love doing — finding new ways to enjoy King's Hawaiian products and sharing the enthusiasm with their ohana. Fans will experience fun and interactive activities for the whole family while getting rewarded with collectable points, badges, and downloadable prizes! So don't miss out!

The official launch of the rewards program will be in early September, so in the next few weeks I will post more details about it. Until then I must share one of their Ono ono (Hawaiian for absolutely delicious) recipes...

Chocolate Paradise Panini

1 (13 oz.) jar of hazelnut chocolate spread (you know how our Spence Ohana loves this stuff!)

1 jar chunky peanut butter (I don't like chunky, so I would use smooth)

Mini-marshmallows

1 (16 oz.) round loaf, King's Hawaiian Sweet Bread

Preheat your panini sandwich press.

Cut 1/2-inch thick vertical slices into the King's Hawaiian round loaf and cut each slice in half (symmetrically).

Evenly layer peanut butter on one slice and the chocolate hazelnut spread on the other.

Distribute an even layer of marshmallows on one half and place the halves together.

Place sandwich into the press and, depending on the heat, remove after 2-4 minutes.

Serve immediately. Makes 8-10 dessert sandwiches.

Makes 8-10 servings