New Background For A New Start

Hello world,

So, how ya been? Me? I've been just peachy. Not that you'd know that, I've sorta fallen off the face of the planet as far as this blog is concerned. BUT, I've just wasted more time than I'll admit trying to get a new background up so I'm recommitted! I'm not very savvy at digital scrapbooking or html so now that I've got a pretty good headache from scrolling through 25 pages of backgrounds at cutestblogontheblock and finally did the whole eeny meeny miney moe to pick one, I'm sitting down to type up my first post in, oh I don't know, 9 months.

Yes, NINE freaking months! Long enough to grow a baby. No, I didn't grow a baby in the months since my last post, just in case you were curious. Would have been nice though to have that as a handy excuse for why I still haven't lost the weight I want to. Sigh. Or an acceptable reason for why I haven't blogged since June. Instead I can only offer the reason that I discovered Facebook and felt satisfied at leaving little snippets of my life on my status update. It was easier than the blog, but ultimately not as satisfying. What finally convinced me to start again was going through all the posts on here and seeing the pictures of my kids and reading the stories that I hadn't thought of in so long. I need this, to document for me and my kids the life we enjoy. So here we go...

I'll spare you a long, boring recap of the last nine months, just rest assured that the kids made messes, threw tantrums, discovered new things, grew several inches, wore out of most of their clothes, and made my life generally wonderful.

We are nearing the end of this school year and CJ and Lexi's last year of preschool. And with that end we will be embarking on a new chapter for our entire family - homeschooling. Yes, you read that correctly. I just might be nuts, I'll let you know for sure in a couple of months. Lunacy aside, I'm really excited about this decision. I didn't always look so favorably on homeschooling but I'll just leave the explanation short and simple, we've been led to this decision by Someone who knows a whole lot more about a whole lot more things ;-) Who am I to argue?

I've been researching curriculum and reading blogs, books, websites, forums, pretty much anything I can find on homeschooling and it just feels right. So, if you think I'm crazy and going to screw up my kids just be grateful they're my kids and not yours. Oh and remember that just because I'm choosing this for my family does not make it a judgement on what you choose for yours. A little reciprocating can go a long way. Wow, haven't even started homeschooling yet and I'm already defensive. I've just come across some rather negative and judgemental attitudes about it when, frankly, I can't for the life of me figure out how it affects the other person.

Okay, sudden topic change, I'm finding this writing thing a little difficult. I feel out of rhythm and choppy. Sorry about that, I guess it'll take me a while to get comfortable again. This place feels a little foreign, or like a childhood home you're visiting again after 20 years. I'll get the hang of it again, bear with me. So with that I'll end it here. I've missed this, and the comments people used to leave. Dang, that's another thing, I'll have to get my readers back. Baby come back, you can blame it all on me!! (I'm thinking of the Swiffer Wet Jet commercials, lol).

Translation Please...

Hangaburr

Hotgod (this one sounds a little blasphemous or irreverent)

Libble litt

Back cack

Scabetti

Any clues? No? Okay, since I have superior lingual skills I'll translate for you...

Hamburger

Hot dog

Little bit

Back pack

Spaghetti

All words that I regularly hear from my kids. Well, except for libble lit. CJ no longer says it that way, he now says it the right way and it made me so sad the first time he said it correctly.

And now for a musical bonus. What song is this?

"Harry had a little man, little man, little man"

That's right folks, Mary had a Little Lamb with a twist sung by none other Lexi!!!

Grainy eyeballs...

It is 2:30am. That means the whole world (or my world at least) is sound asleep and here I sit, staring into a computer screen until my eyes feel as if they are filled with sand. Why am I up so late you ask? Oh that's easy, because after a pretty darn wonderful stake conference in which we were privileged to hear Elder Richard G. Scott talk to us about temples, and rearing children in the gospel, how important the scriptures are, and best of all his burning testimony of Christ, we went to my in-law's home in Queen Creek. There we proceeded to eat my mother-in-law's delicious food. Rice, beans, and some dish with chicken, red chile sauce, potatoes, and nopales (it's cactus!!). With a tummy full of food and a heart filled with the spirit I retired to the master bedroom where I lay down on the bed fully intending to just watch a little tv. And then I woke up 5 hours later. So, that is why I'm up at this unholy hour of the night.

I keep telling myself "Go to bed, the morning is coming quickly enough" but I just can't get my mind to quiet down or my feet to quit twitching. And if I were to go to bed in this state it would drive Carlos crazy! He hates my twitchiness. We went camping Memorial weekend and this experience was so much better than our last camping trip, no tent set up on a hillside, no monsoon storms, no sleeping on rocks because we invested in some cots! Anyway, one morning after a somewhat cold but comfortable night Carlos complained of me keeping him up because I was either fiddling with my sleeping bag zipper (it's true I was, that dang zipper would not stay up and my hiney was cold!) or I was rhythmically moving my feet and apparently the noise was enough to keep him on the wrong side of sleep. I don't know why I twitch, it's like the babies that grow up in orphanages that you see rocking themselves to sleep (a coping mechanism?), well, I rub one foot on the other kind of like ringing your hands but with your feet and it is oddly relaxing to me.

So as I sit here coping (with what, I don't know, the price of rice in China?) writing this post was just the thing I needed because my eyes are beginning to be heavy. The Sandman has come out victorious, or will shortly anyway. I'm off to slumber and hopefully sweet dreams.

Spittle...

So I was having this very vivid dream that I was brushing my teeth. Like I seriously didn't know I was dreaming, it felt so real. Then when it came to the part where I was spitting out the toothpaste into the sink I woke up...And I was really spitting. I had slobbery spittle dripping down my chin and on my blanket at 5 am this morning. Nice one Stace. Hey, at least it wasn't a peeing dream. Gotta find the silver lining somewhere.

Please don't adjust your monitors...

No, you are not imagining things. Yes, I have finally updated my blog. I'll wait while you pick your eyeballs up off the floor...Okay, nice to see you again. A lot has happened since my last post and rather than blog in detail about all of it (can you say overwhelming?!) I'll do a quick summary:

~Elli had her first birthday, there was cake, family, food, and fun
(Yeah, she's pretty cute. And she knows it. Oh man does she know it.)



~Thanksgiving, again more food, really really yummy food
(Look it's John Smith and Pocohontas!!)


~Zoo Lights, fun at the zoo at night, with lights, duh, that's why it's called Zoo Lights
(If you look really hard in the background you can see Carlos' dad and Becky buying cotton candy and a Coke for a ridiculous amount of money)

(Lexi riding the carousel at the Zoo, oh and that is CJ and I in the background too)


~CJ and Lexi turned 4 years old, again more cake, food, family, and fun
(These are their cheesy smiles)


~Christmas, more food, family, and gifts
(Our Christmas spread. Carlos and his dad made that kitchen set for the kids, it is awesome!)

(CJ and Lexi wearing the aprons my mom and I made for them with my Christmas present, a new sewing machine!)

(Trying on their Christmas church outfits)


~I turned 27, more food, but NO cake! what a ripoff (Ha, no pics)

~Happy New Year's!!! (Again, you'll have to imagine this one in your mind)

~Carlos turned 28, yesterday actually, more food (I'm starting to see a pattern, hmm), cake (I learned how to make marshmallow fondant icing!), family and fun. I actually wish I had some pictures for this one because Carlos' coworkers got him pretty good yesterday. When he arrived at work, in his office there were life size Marachi posters and mariachi music playing,

the office was covered with hay

And there were two LIVE chickens running loose in his office!!

Yes, they did crap everywhere but thankfully the masterminds of this plot had put a tarp down under everything. I don't know how Carlos is going to top this when someone's birthday in the office comes up but he's got to. Anyone have any ideas?

And there you have it, you are all caught up :)

With Election Day Only 4 Days Away, You Should Vote For...

PEDRO!!!


They were so funny as Napoleon Dynamite and Pedro. Yeah, I dressed my little girl up as a boy, so what, she made a darn good Pedro. Oh and when we went trick or treating tonight a nice little old lady told her that she was going to make a very handsome man someday. I didn't have the heart to correct her and Lexi didn't even notice that the lady thought she was a boy, she was more concerned about the mini Snickers bar the lady had just dropped into her bag.

Then later after the kids went to bed we adults had some fun with the wigs and some pretty funny pictures resulted. I've been contemplating whether I should post them or not and decided to chance it. Carlos may kill me when he finds out but I'm sure you all will agree it is worth it. Oh and none of us are smiling because Hello! Have you seen the movie? I don't think Napoleon or Pedro smile once which makes it even funnier! It was VERY hard to get pics of us straight faced because we were laughing so hard in between pics.

(Here is Carlos as Pedro and me as Napoleon)


(Carlos' dad as Pedro and his mom as Napoleon. Aren't they such good sports for playing along!)


(The funniest picture of all! Carlos as Napoleon and Becky, my sis-in-law as Pedro although she looks more like a cross between Satan and the Red Baron dontcha think?)


(Carlos and I trying on the bug-eye glasses the kids brought home from school)


(And we'll end it on a cute pic with Elli trying on the glasses)

She's back in the saddle again...

Okay, blah. I know it's been like 5 years since I last posted. Whatever. I didn't know that it would be as hard to start blogging again as it would be to get back on a horse that's bucked you off but strangely it is. And now time for the excuses. Things got busy, blah blah blah, and as more time went on the more guilty I felt for not posting, and then more time went by and there's another helping of guilt thank you very much. And oddly enough with the guilt that I felt about not blogging (I know, it's just a blog, I'm not running the nation or anything, but forgive my dramatic nature for a moment) I felt even more guilt if I read other people's blogs because they were a reminder of what I wasn't doing so I stopped reading too. Man, I've missed you guys. So I guess that brings me to one of the reasons I've climbed back in the saddle again. I miss reading everyone's blogs and so I'm writing a rather boring catch up post so I can start reading again without the guilt gnawing at me.

Let's see where to begin? Well, August came and CJ and Lexi started preschool. We also enrolled them in a dance class once a week which has been great. They really enjoy it and do pretty darn well for uncoordinated 3 year olds.

Then we had September and not much exciting happened there. That or I can't remember anything, which is probably more likely. Oh but our ward's womens volleyball team won the stake tournament!! Yeah, I know it's just stake volleyball but man were we pumped when we beat last years winners. We were the underdogs and incidently the stake's redheaded stepchild or at least we are treated that way so it was very satisfying to win those yummy cookies and bragging rights.

And now we are in October. I love the fall and this month will be busy. The kids are starting soccer tomorrow which should be fun to watch. At least I think it will be funny to watch 12 three year olds running around chasing a ball or more likely chasing each other. Hopefully it will use up some of CJ and Lexi's unboundless energy. Wishful thinking right? Carlos and I will have our anniversary on the 23rd and then Elli will turn 1 on the 28th. Holy crap, I just missed a whole year :( I know every mom says it but I can't believe my baby is almost one. Sigh.

Oh and how could I forget Halloween?! I'm going to try really hard to get Carlos to dress up this year but I fear my efforts will be futile. He can be pretty stubborn and Halloween isn't really his thing. Oh but can you guys imagine the pictures!?! Any suggestions for us as far as costumes?

And on a sad note, my sister Whitney and her husband Bryce left yesterday to move to Idaho. I know it's not the saddest news but she was one of my best friends and I'll miss her dearly. I hope she freezes her nose hairs off up there!

Anyway, so I guess that first dreaded post back is over with and I can resume posting with some consistency. Maybe I should start taking fiber to help with my regularity.