Something To Make You Smile

So our little Madalyn has recently found a new favorite movie. She watches this movie OVER and OVER and OVER. She would watch it all day, and while in her sleep if I let her. I actually love seeing how much she loves this movie because it was MY all time favorite while growing up. And I have to say...I think I still love it the same as I did when I was younger :) I mean who could't love that curly,red headed little girl named Annie?...Have you seen that movie?...If you havn't you should. Below is a link to one of our favorite songs she sings on the video, I say "our" because not only do I love it but my girls love it too...especially our little Madalyn. Click Here to watch. So the other morning as we started to get ready for the day we had Annie playing in the backgroud on our TV and our Madalyn always sings the "Tomorrow" song at the top of her lungs around the house. So I decided to record her on my phone while she sang Annie's "Tomorrow" song. I just can't get enough of this video so I had to share. It definitly started my day with a smile :)



A proud Mommy I am

This past week I had one of my very first parent/teacher conferences with Savannah's preschool teachers. Yes you may be saying,"Really a parent/teacher conference for a preschooler?" Okay well..that's kind of what I was thinking when I first heard it. But actually it's kind of nice as a first time mother whose first child is going into kindergarten next fall to be able to see where she is with her learning skills. Since it's my first experiance with a child in school I have no clue where she should be...I always wonder, is she behind?...Is she ahead of the game? Am I challenging her enough? Am I challenging her too much?..Is she right on track? Anways, so the bottom line is it was nice having a parent/teacher conference for our preschooler. All my worries disappered after the conference, I walked out of the room feeling so proud of our little girl. The hard work that she put into this past year and I as her Mother had put into teaching her the past couple years while she was still at home during the day. Savannah's I guess you can say "report card" was a total of 101/104-this included her reading skills,writting skills, particiaption, recognizing shapes,numbers, the sounds of letters, the difference between a capital letter and lower case letter, ryming,ect. Her score for a kindergarten reading level was in the 90 percentile. Savannah loves to learn. She is much like her Daddy when it comes to that :) I know this is just the beginning of a super journey of schooling/learning ahead of us...but I definintly feel we are off to a great start.

When The Table Dances The Food Sings

This past saturday evening we had an "Adult Dinner" at my parents house. My Mom has started a tradition that we all love. Every few months she will have whats called and "Adult Dinner" at her home for her children and their spouses only...that means NO KIDS ALLOWED!! Now do you see why we all love it?..We get to spend our evening just talking as couples with no interuptions and enjoy amazing food cooked by my Mom. She loves entertaining with food...she is an amazing cook and makes the food look just as good as it tastes. She is the next Paula Deene. I have added a few pics from this past Adult Dinner and then a couple from the one before. My Mom not only makes a yummy 3 course meal but she decorates a beautiful table. Thanks Mom for this wonderful tradition that we all love.



Warning: Your mouth may start to water as you see this yummy food before your eyes

Appetizers/drinks

Salad

Aren't the colors in this salad AMAZING

Main meal

We all got served a whole baby chicken along with beautiful vegetables. Yes by this time we were extremely full

Dessert

I never got a photo of the dessert but it was an olive oil/rosemary cake. I know it sounds yucky but it is delicious.

Thanks again to the amazing chef who made it all happen

I thought I would add a few pics from our last adult dinner and also a couple of pics from last summer from our "Corn Bust" that I meant to put up. You may be asking what is a corn bust? I had no idea either. Apparently when my Mom was growing up her grandma would gather all the cousins, aunts, uncles,etc and gather tons and tons of corn and put out different types of toppings to put on the corn such as onions,cheese,salsa,etc and they would eat their tummys full of corn. It was actually alot of fun! The kids had a blast. Once again all these ideas and decor are ideas of my wonderful Mom.

The Last adult dinner-Chipino Feed

And....The Corn Bust

And to top that evening off...the ice-cream man came and Papa got all the grandkids an ice-cream! Love this picture. I know this is late getting these photos up but I just had to brag how amazing of a chef my Mom is.



I Love Sundays

I always love sundays. Sometimes I don't really care for the "getting ready" part of it in the mornings because I am left to do it alone due to Mike having early morning church meetings, and of course usually the girls are the crankiest on sunday mornings. But I love the fact that we all get dressed in our sunday best. I love how beautiful our girls are. And I always tell Mike that my favorite outfit from the day I met him is and will always be him in his church suit and tie. There is just something about him in a suit and tie that makes my heart pitter patter  (I never got a pic of him in his suit and tie to put up on the blog due to him at morning meetings on sunday) But like Grama always tells my girls an outfit is not complete without a "SMILE"

My Little Girl Is Growing Up

So they other week I found myself shopping for my oldest in the "Little Girl" section at the store for clothing. I realized I will no longer be shopping in the toddler section for her anymore. It kind of made me sad. I have been shopping in the toddler section for her the past 5 years and it just seems crazy to be shopping for her in the little girl section now. Everything in that section seems so grown up. I can't believe in 3 months she will be turning 5 years old! Where's the time gone..seriously? Thank goodness I still have one left to shop for in the toddler section.

Papas Birthday "Heart-Attack"

This morning most of the grandkids decided we would go to my Dads work and give his car a "heart-attack" for his birthday. It ended up being a very very windy day so most of the hearts started to blow off before we could even finish putting them on. So with that said instead of waiting for Papa to see this beautiful artwork the grandkids made on his car when he left for lunch we decided to have one of the employees who was out in the parking lot go inside and tell Papa he had visitors outside. He was very surprised!!!

Thank goodness Papa has long arms to hug all those grandkids ...because as soon as he came out they all went charging toward him to give him a BIG Papa bear hug!!! We love you Papa. Happy Birthday!!

I can see clearly now the rain...I mean, the tree is gone

So we started off with a great week last week. Our neighbors who live behind us FINALLY after 2 years of us calling and begging them to have their enormous tree cut down it finally came down at the begining of last week!!! I had a very happy husband. It meant he didn't have to rake up piles of leafs everyday during the autumn months, and it meant large branches weren't breaking off and landing in our backyard and on our roof ( kind of scary when you have kids playing in the backyard and a large large branch falls from the tree) and it means we can FINALLY grow the rest of our grass in the backyard since we couldn't before because there was too much shade from the over grown tree that covered our whole backyard and half our house. We have even possibly considered putting a pool in the backyard instead of growing more grass. Some of you may say.."well, why would you do that?..You don't have a very big back yard..and a pool would take up most of your yard"...right? Well...if you live in california you are pretty much looking for a pool to jump into and try to cool off half of the year anyway so why not have a pool right in your backyard? If we do end up putting a pool, that's a big IF.. what are your thoughts on where it  should go?..We are having troubles deciding for sure. Would you put it here(photo below) this is looking out from the kitchen and family room area. This is where I think it should go just because I would be able to see the kids in the pool.

Or would you put it here?**photo below**..Mike and Savannah like it here. Mike says, "so it doesn't look like the whole backyard is taken up by a pool." Savannah says "so we don't mess up the pretty grass." :)

Whatever we decide to do with this backyard,now that we can do something to it without it getting sooo messy from the tree...we are thrilled to do it and finally have a backyard!!! :)