Mari singing

Mari wanted to sing a song and record it and I thought she did such a good job that I decided to post it here. After she was finished singing, we watched it back and she giggled to herself the whole time. She was so proud of herself (and so am I).



In case you can't understand her, here are the lyrics....

I am a child of God and He has sent me here,
Has given me an earthly home with parents kind and dear.
Lead me, guide me, walk beside me, help me find the way.
Teach me all that I must do to live with Him some day.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Since we were up after midnight last night (this morning) Keith was the first to tell me Happy Birthday today. Then when I woke Elena up for school, the first thing she said to me was Happy Birthday. She's normally a little grumpy in the mornings and I hadn't thought she'd remember, so I said "Elena, you remembered!!" And she said "Of course I remembered your birthday, Mom. I would be bad if I didn't remember your birthday". (Of course I assured her she wouldn't be, and then thanked her for remembering!) Then when Mari, Téa, and Amya woke up, they all came into our room and sang Happy Birthday to me with Keith. Then Keith took them to the kitchen to make me some breakfast - yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Probably not the most nutritious breakfast, but very yummy. Mari keeps walking up to me and singing Happy Birthday - it's very cute.

And the mail just came and it was ALL for me! A birthday card from Memmie (to which Amya said "She always sends pretty cards"), one from Sally&Ben (to which Amya said "They always send cute cards...usually with dogs" (and this one was no exception)) and one from my mom (to which Amya said "Is my money in there?" (long story, but it was)). Oh and I got a card from Ceci on Monday...the first one to arrive. After I opened the card from my mom and pulled out the 3 gift cards to Target, Bath&Body Works and Old Navy, plus a little cash (THANKS Mom), Keith had something to say - "Hey, is she trying to outdo me or what?" :) Thanks for the cards guys!! Love ya!

So far this is shaping up to be a pretty good birthday. And since it's my last one (I don't plan on getting older than 29), that's a very good thing.

Here's Mari singing to me....


And this is totally unrelated, but we think it's hilarious so I'm including it. We like to play a game we call "Who Says? Who Says?" (Amya made up the name when she was 2). We say a quote from a movie and the first person to correctly name the movie it's from or the character who says it, gets the next turn. Last night Téa came up to me with this gem....

I didn't think to have her say it again and tape it last night, but we got it this morning. I think it's SO funny how she changes her voice for the different parts. In case you can't figure it out, she's singing a line from the "A Whole New World" song in the movie Aladdin. She says "Don't you dare close your eyes (Aladdin's part) and then "A whole new world" (Jasmine's part). Oh and that's chocolate frosting from the cupcakes all over their mouths.

findings

About 15 minutes ago (literally) I was on the phone with my sister when Maricela came up to talk to me. I noticed something funny in her nose (thought it was a weird booger) and told her to lift up her head. As soon as I realized what I was looking at, I told Kara I had to call her back and hung up the phone. I plugged Mari's other nostril and told her to blow. She sniffed. "No, BLOW" I shouted. She figured it out, blew really hard, and out shot a flower bead. She then opened her mouth to show me what she had in there - a pretty marble. I called Keith over to show him, and he said he thinks the bead has been in her nose since yesterday. He said she went to him and was talking about something in her nose and he checked it, but didn't see anything. We're wondering if it was up there even further and had somehow worked its way out enough for me to see it. Really, it was barely showing and I was afraid it wouldn't come out with just blowing and I'd have to break out the tweezers. We told her "Mari, don't EVER put things in your nose again". And she replied "That's what my friends do". Lately she's been telling us about her "friends", who usually do things we wouldn't want her to be doing. The other night, we had her in our bed because she was talking too much and keeping the other girls from going to sleep. Keith and I were in the living room watching tv, and could still hear her talking and giggling in our bed. Keith went to check on her and asked her who she was talking to. She said "my friends" and Keith said she was looking at something behind him and smiling. I don't know if we're dealing with imaginary friends (none of the other girls had any) or if it's just a phrase she heard and is using. Either way, these "friends" better straighten out their act before I straighten it out for them.

Here are the bead and marble, in case you were wondering. I think this will have to be the picture of the day for today.

Why?

Why would she do this?

Maricela cut her own hair on Saturday night. Keith found her in the bathroom, with hair all over the place. He asked her who cut her hair and she said that she cut it herself. He didn't believe her and said something about her not knowing how to use scissors. To which she said, "Yes, Dad, look", picked up the scissors, carefully put her fingers through the holes, put them up to her head, and proceeded to cut off another chunk right in front of him. ARGH!!!!! I guess she thought it would make her look pretty, but she doesn't look like my little girl anymore! It is SO short - in places it feels like a buzzcut. In fact, it looks like we shaved the top of her head and it's now growing back in. Keith asked if this means we can shave her whole head and I said no. I don't know what to do! Should I cut the hair in back shorter so it matches a little?

My little girl has a mullet!!!! And here's a picture of her from today...this is what she did while I was in the shower. Such a booger!

I found a giveaway on a blog called Angela's Accessories that would be perfect for us....she's giving away this adorable hat:
All you have to do to enter the drawing is leave a comment on her blog. Mari totally needs this when we go out in public so people will still know she's a girl!

So far, Téa is the only one who hasn't' cut her own hair (or anyone else's, for that matter). Elena did cut Téa's hair for her, but I'm not counting that against Téa. And the haircuts get worse with each girl!! Maybe this will be something to look forward to with the boy....has anyone had their boys cut their own hair? Please tell me this is just a girl thing. (Of course, with a boy it probably wouldn't be as upsetting, seeing as how their hair is usually kept short anyway.)

so frustrating

I AM SO ANNOYED WITH BLOGGER! I have tried to get this posted three times now and it keeps messing up my post. So I decided to split the update into two posts and hopefully it won't mess up again. ARGH!!!!


So to finish up with Maricela, she gave us a scare yesterday also. She already had a doctor’s appt scheduled to have a wart removed from her finger. About 20 minutes before we had to leave, she was running around in the backyard and ran right into a pitchfork. She got a nice little puncture wound on her leg right where her leg meets her foot. We cleaned it out and figured the doctor could look at it too. So he did and said it should be fine and put some steri-strips on it to help it stay together while it healed. Well after she woke up from her nap, she was crying and saying her “footy” hurt. I thought it had just fallen asleep and tried to calm her down. But about 10 minutes later she was still crying and when I sat her down she cried even more. We quickly figured out that it was her puncture wound hurting her. She couldn’t put any weight on her foot at all and started to cry if it even looked like someone was going to touch it. I was afraid it was infected and we’d have to go back to the doctor’s.
But after some Tylenol she started limping around on it and by the end of the night she was running around like normal.
Keith was joking that it was more like a stab wound and now she can say she’s a true Mexican. Okay. Maricela is also a huge copycat! If anything is said in this house, it’s said twice because you can always hear her little echo. She ADORES her older sisters and follows them around all the time, trying to be just like them. So if Téa’s out doing bike tricks, you better believe Maricela is trying to do them as well.








We went to a demolition derby two weeks ago and had a blast! I was not too keen on going, but once we got there I had a lot of fun.






It was cool to see cars crash into and knock over the cement barriers and one even landed on top of a barrier! Keith and the girls really enjoyed themselves and we all had a good time together.

Last week we went to a ward luau and that was really fun as well. Amya kept calling it a lu-how. Anyway, Amya entered the watermelon eating contest for kids. It was a race to see who could eat the most slices in 20 seconds. While Amya didn’t win (she ate 3), she did go on to eat 7 more that night. I love the little bit of watermelon dripping off her chin in the picture. And Maricela had so much fun playing that she zonked right out as soon as soon as we got home. She loves this little chair.

Whew! I hope that was a good catch-up for anyone who cares and I’m really going to try to not get this behind again.

buckle up, it's gonna be a long ride

I realized the other day that I have not been updating like I used to. I've posted scrapbook pages and a few tidbits here and there, but I'm not keeping track of what the girls are up to... and that's what the original plan for this ole blog was. So I'm gonna try to stay more on track with keeping all y'all up to date with the goings on of our household. Here goes.......

Amya got her ears pierced this month! Or to quote her, she got her "earrings pierced". I think it sounds cute when she says it like that and Keith keeps trying to correct her. She was so brave. She sat right down, let the lady clean and mark her ears, and then counted down for her to pierce. It hurt a little bit, you could tell she was kinda cringing for the second one, but she was a trooper. Didn't complain at all, cause she knew it would scare the other girls.
We plan on getting theirs done too, but we're waiting to find a time when there are 2 girls working so that they can do both ears at the same time. That way it won't be as bad for the younger girls. Keith has said since before Amya was born that his girls couldn't get their ears pierced till they were 18. I fought him on this, as that was a rule for me and I HATED it, but he wouldn't give in. Then while we were in Hawaii, he saw some pretty flower earrings and said "Wouldn't those look pretty on my girls?" and that was that. He is such a softie! :)










Amya also started 3rd grade! I can't believe how old she's getting. We braided her hair the night before so it would be curly and she was very pleased. I think Spanish will be a little harder for her this year, as the Spanish teacher is pretty demanding, but she should be able to do it. We'll just have to practice speaking it more at home because that's where she's the most behind.











Elena continues to be our reigning dance queen. She dances all over the house. And it doesn't matter what type of music she's listening to - rap, classical, hispanic, jazz, reggae, etc. - she's got a special dance for everything. She goes right along with the beat and makes up moves that totally go with the music. We seriously need to put her in dance classes. In this picture, she's trying to do the chicken dance. A lady on the other side of the railing was doing it, and Elena was copying her every move. She also loves to try and do gymnastic tricks. Cartwheels, somersaults, hanging upside down, she's way into that.

She wears dresses or skirts EVERY day, unless we make her wear shorts. Even while biking, she has to look her best. :) She's learned how to tuck her skirts under her b*m when she rides so they don't get caught in the chain. She gave me a little scare yesterday. She was upset about something she was coloring, so she started to throw a hissy fit. She threw her head back and hit it on the cement blocks we have lining our front garden. Obviously she started to cry and I told her "That's what you get for throwing a hissy fit". Not
a lot of sympathy from me.
She came over to me and leaned up against me, so I started rubbing her head where I thought she had bonked it. My hand got wet. I pulled it away and, sure enough, it was bloody. I ran her inside and Keith and I washed off her head and tried to see how bad it was. Keith didn't think it needed stitches, so we just put pressure on it till it stopped bleeding and then borrowed some super glue from our neighbors and glued it shut.

In Téa news, that girl is CRAZY!!! I think she is, by far, our biggest tomboy. She is SO into doing tricks on her bike, playing in the mud, wearing Spiderman, Diego, Transformers, etc. stuff, runs around without a shirt on, and LOVES bugs. She has about 10 different tricks she does on her bike like standing up, riding with no hands, no feet, one hand, one foot, feet over the handlebars, etc. She is such a little stunt devil!! I love this picture of her riding with one leg behind - it looks like she's been amputated at the knee....crazy kid.


She also LOVES to color. She literally colors every day and does SUCH a good job. She tries so hard to stay in the lines...she gets this intense look of concentration on her face while she's working.
It is SO cute.

On to Maricela.....I cut her bangs yesterday. They weren't long enough to put back, but they kept getting in her eyes, so I decided to cut them. We think she looks pretty darn cute with bangs. Also, Keith decided it was time to potty train her. So she's been wearing und*es this week and doing pretty good with them. She doesn't tell us she has to go, we just make her go all the time. She's had a few accidents when we've forgotten to take her though. So I'm not too sure SHE'S ready to potty train, but Keith is. He thinks if we keep taking her, she'll eventually get the hang of it. We'll see how that goes.

new scrapbook pages

So I've been a pretty busy scrapper this past week, but I couldn't post any of the pages till this past Friday. Then things got busy, and I didn't make it here to post them on the blog till now. I made three pages for Sya's Blueprints, as she had a grab bag that came out with the re-opening of the Scrap Matters store. We couldn't post our pages until the grab bag was available for purchase. Then last week, I was accepted onto another CT, this time for Jeni Hopewell, who also sells at Scrap Matters. She also has a grab bag out in the store, so I created a page using things from her grab bag. (In case you don't know, a grab bag is kind of a mystery. They're usually around $3-4, but you don't know what's in them till after you've purchased them. But they're always worth way more than what you pay for them.) So without further ado, here are the pages (the first three are using templates from Sya's grab bag and the fourth uses a template from Sya and stuff from Jeni's grab bag).....

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Last, but not least, there was a speed scrap over at Scrap Matters this morning and this is the page I made for it.

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Happy Birthday, Maricela

Okay, this post is over a week late, but better late than never, right?

Maricela turned 2 on July 21. I can't believe my baby is 2!! I guess that means I can't call her my baby anymore. :( She rang in her birthday in style though, with an Oscar worthy hissy fit performance. She has continued to bless us with the joys of hissy-fitting every day since. Honestly, that girl had probably only thrown a hissy fit a few times before, but it's like she thought "I'm gonna show them what the 'terrible twos' are really like, and what better day to start than on my 2nd birthday?" Today she literally threw herself off my bed during a hissy fit because I hadn't put her shoe on the way she wanted it. Luckily she was okay, but falling off the bed only made the fit worse. Argh. Hopefully this will pass quickly. :)

Since my camera died right after I took the picture of her holding her birthday money from Noel, I have no other pictures of her birthday. :( So I've decided to share lots of other pictures to help describe what she's been up to lately.

She loves playing in water, whether it's stomping in puddles, getting Daddy wet with the hose, shooting water guns, or playing in the little pool at the farm.

She LOVES jewelry. She has this pink necklace that she wears EVERYWHERE. She loves to put 'pretties' in her hair (that's what we call ponytails) and she gets into my makeup.

Maricela loves to draw. She scribbles on everything with anything she can get her hands on. We've had to pay for marked up library books, there's a new art gallery on my wall, she colors on herself and her clothes, etc.

She is definitely an eater. She takes after her daddy. Here's she's eating a bean tapatía. Apparently she was more interested in the beans than the tortilla.

She loves to wear pretty dresses and skirts and is always willing to put on a cheesy grin for a picture.

She loves to be outside. Whenever she hears the door open (we have squeaky doors) she starts yelling "Ah-siy" (outside) over and over, while running towards the door.

She's a goofy little girl who loves to make us laugh. We definitely have another Keith Jr. on our hands in that department.

She loves anything that has to do with Princesses. She has this funny way of saying princess, something like "lellellellella". I'll have to get video of her saying it and post it.

Maricela also loves babies. She has to have her baby with her when she goes to sleep and she carries it around with her all day long.

She's also into bugs. She loves to go out with Téa and hunt for roly-polys. She calls them po-wees, and any other bug she sees is a pi-der (spider).

We love our little Maricela and are so glad she is a part of our family! Happy Birthday Mari!!!

p.s. Mom, these photos are big enough to print and should still look good, not all pixelated.

Memmie Dresses

These are dresses that my grandma, Memmie, got for the girls. They were originally for Amya, Elena, and Téa. But now the girls have grown and they fit Elena, Téa, and Maricela. Cute girls in cute dresses.

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lil' mermaid

I did this page for a speedscrap tonight. It was a little hectic...I got home after it started, I was trying to watch So You Think You Can Dance, I was cooking a pizza, and I had to leave to go get another pizza halfway through. So while it's not my best work, I'm pretty pleased with how it came out, considering the amount of time I had to do it in.

For credits, click here

A Dad and his Girls

I made this page for another templage challenge, this time at a different site. Dani Mogstad is a designer I love (I've bought tons of her stuff) and she has a blog that I visit. There are challenges every now and then, including a template challenge every month. I usually get the template, but don't bother to enter the challenge since I never win anything. Since I just won that last challenge, I figured why not enter this one as well? So here's my entry. And even if I don't win, I'm really happy with how this page turned out.

For credits, click here.

Happy Father's Day!

These girls sure do love their daddy! And does he ever spoil them! Keith picked out these dresses for them in Hawaii and was excited to see his girls wear their new dresses. Keith is such a great father. I'm really grateful to have him in our lives. I couldn't have been a teacher this past year without his help. I love you Keith!

And Happy Father's Day to my dad as well. I love him. And my girls love their Papa. They love for him to "shake" them and "check their teeth" and all the other things he would do to me and my sisters when we were young. He's a great dad and a great papa and we all love him a lot.

take a guess...

as to where we are right now.....