Helping a friend

Sammie's preschool friend, Brooke, and 2 of her siblings have been diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis. This is a horrible genetic disease of the lungs and it is life-shortening. I just heard of this news and am saddened by it. Paulette, the mother, is particpating in a walk this weekend to help find a cure for CF. Here is the link if you would like to help support her in her efforts. They have 5 children ( 2 sets of twins) and 3 of the 5 kids have CF, 1 child in each set of births. We met in dance class 2 years ago and they were in preschool together last year. I can't even imagine how she can deal with this devastating situation.

http://www.cff.org/great_strides/dsp_donationPage.cfm?registeringwalkid=5833&idUser=318218

Happy Memorial Day!

Thank you to all of our brave soldiers who have fought for our country to protect our freedom! We honor you on this day.
Here is my favorite "Uncle Sam"!
Just checking in with a weekend recap. We went to Las Vegas for the weekend and had a fun time. The weather was great, we had fun hanging with my parents, and I came home $600 richer!!! YAHOO! I won playing poker on my favorite machines .05 deuces. They are a lot of fun but can also be evil!! The funniest part is that Sammie found a pony playset she wanted and begged me to get it. I told her if I won I would get it for her. When we were walking through the casino after dinner, I asked her which machine I should play from the bank of the deuce machines. She pointed to the "one" and I said okay. I went back to play that machine and sure enough, it hit within the first few minutes of me playing it. It was quite exciting. I took a few pics with my cell phone but I am not sure how to upload it to the computer yet so I guess you'll have to imagine it. :) She got her horsey toy and was just as happy as I was for winning!

We went to the pool everyday and the first day we were there Samantha taught herself how to swim. It was just the way she does everything. ON HER TERMS!! The first half hour in the pool was "mommy, don't let go of me" and the second half hour was "mommy don't touch me!".. LOL! She still has some work to do, but she gets the basic idea of how to paddle, kick and put her face in the water. I think after some swim lessons this summer she'll be great!!! It has been since last year that she was in the pool and so she needs a "refresher".. no pun intended!! Ha ha ha!

Teeth and Teacups!!

Sammie had a wiggly tooth until yesterday, no MORE! She woke up and put her hand under her mouth and pushed it with her tongue and poof, it fell out right into her hand. She was so excited. She had to tell everyone she encountered, including Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. ( we went there yesterday for fun, no, not because she lost her tooth. ) She put it under her pillow last night and got a golden dollar from the tooth fairy. We made a tooth fariy book and wrote her a letter. Sammie named the tooth fairy "Alyssa" and said that she is the special fairy that comes to her house. Everyone gets a different fairy but Alyssa will be the fairy who visits again. She sprinkled pixie dust on Sammie's pillow, her bed, nightstand and even the window ledge where she came into Sammie's room.

Here she is with her new smile. She looks so different!! Gosh, it seems like she just got those teeth, hard to believe she is losing them already!

She also finished her princess dance class and they celebrated with a tea party. It was adorable. The table was set with real china teapots and cups. The girls had apple juice and frosted cookies. It was really special. After we headed to Disneyland for the afternoon. It was a fun day.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of you mommies out there! I hope you enjoyed your special day! I had a nice weekend. :)

I am so happy to be a mommy! Thanks to Sammie for giving me the best job I have ever had!

NSD and other fun things!

For those of you who are not

scrapbookers, NSD, stands for National Scrapbook Day and it was Saturday, May 2nd. Christine and I took a trip to Ever After and had a lot of fun. It is a great store and everyone is so nice and friendly. Coincidentally, both of our kids went camping with their daddies and so it was a nice little get away from home for us.

Here are some of the pages I did. I am happy with all of them. My favorite company right now is My Little Shoe box. I love love love the bright happy colors and patterns.

We got Sammie a new bike so she can learn to ride with training wheels and then eventually without!! Our little girl is growing up! She has had a tricycle because we didn't want to keep buying bikes when she gets taller. We waited until now and although she preferred the little 12" bike, we convinced her to get the 16" kindergarten bike. It is so funny because the kid rides gigantic horses but is afraid of a "bigger bike"??? She is having fun with it though. It is cute, purple, pink, princess and super girly!!

I can't believe her preschool year is coming to a close. I had a conference with her teachers and she is doing well. She has a good academic foundation with letters, numbers, patterns, counting, etc. She needs to work a bit on her fine motor skills which is also developmental. She likes to draw but doesn't have a strong pencil grip yet. She has a little bit of work to do on her name as well. The "a" looks like a "q" and her final "e" is upside down and backwards. I am proud of her development! Here is some of her recent art work. The first pic is a house and butterfly and the second pic is the Easter Bunny riding on a unicorn. ( her next favorite thing besides horses) I just love her little drawings and the stories she tells to go with them. Too cute!

When it comes to Earth Day, I am not the classic "green" person but this year I did do a few things to take part. I worked that day so I made my class do something kind for the Earth, whether it was recycling from their lunch or picking up trash, then we shared about it. I came home and planted some seeds with Sammie and talked about Earth Day. She knew a lot from TV and school She said "Green is Clean" and also told me that we have to save the "EARF". (that's Sammie speak) I also recycled a container from her "lunchable" and brought it to school to use as a desk caddy. I put post it notes and paper clips in it. My students were very impressed. I do think it is important to try to reduce the amount of things we use, buy, etc. I am such a "consumer" and love to buy, but it makes me more aware and I do try to stop and think if I can use something again. Speaking of Earth, I was surprised by the earthquakes we had. During the first one I was driving and stopped at a light near my house. I felt the car shake and move forward a bit but I thought that I accidentally took my foot off the brake for a second. When I got home, my neighbor asked if I felt the earthquake and I said, "What earthquake?" and realized that the jumping car was the earthquake. The aftershocks I felt at work in my classroom. It was really shaking and rumbling. It was sort of scary because I was in my file cabinets thinking they were going to fall over on me. It was all okay and over quickly but it is such a weird feeling. I never realize it is an earthquake until it is almost done. I guess I am so used to shaking from the train nearby that I am just immune to it.

We have been celebrating lots of birthday parties. One was for Donna's son Jacob at Scooter's Jungle, one was for Sammie's preschool friend Tori at the Freckled Frog, and also one for my niece Emily who turned 6. Sammie takes her princess dance class at the Freckled Frog. All of the kids dressed up in High School Musical clothes an danced around. It was adorable. ( Sammie isn't really into High School Musical but she had fun with the microphone and getting eyeshadow on and of course, dressing up like a prom queen! )

Well, as you can see, I have been keeping pretty busy and having fun too. I hope you are having fun! Bye for now!

Hello again

I'm back with another long update. As much as I intend to keep up with this blog and update regularly, it always ends up as a long summary post but I guess that's okay too.....at least I will have a record of all that we do. :)

So, here's what's been going on lately...

We finished up Spring Break with a trip to the beach. Sammie LOVES the beach. She could stay there for hours playing in the sand, jumping in the waves and collecting shells. She did all of those things on our recent trip there. It was a cold day for the beach when we went. It was sunnny but there was a cool breeze off the water and I was cold. I wrapped up in my towel. It would have been perfect if i had a sweatshirt to throw on but I didn't so I was freezing. We had a picnic there and she went in water with daddy. It was a great day. We went to Balboa island after and walked around.

I went scrapbooking by myself the next day at the Oasis. It was nice to have a little time to myself and get a few things done. I met Stephanie Ackerman there getting kits ready for their upcoming Reflections event. She was very sweet and we had a lot of fun joking around!! I'll post some pics next time of some of the pages I made.

** okay.. I had to edit this post becauser blogger wouldn't let me upload all the pics I wanted to so I got frustrated and stopped.. Now I am back to start a new post with pictures. Bye for now.

Hello April!

So... April just snuck up on me and now it is the middle of April and here I am with my first post of the month! EEK! Where does time go? I am always so busy and so this is one of the things that gets squeezed out when I run short on time. I do enjoy blogging. It helps me keep track of the things I do, and remember the good times I have with family and friends. It is fun to look back and see what we were doing a year ago. I have always been sentimental like that. That is why I love to scrapbook so much, to record memories. I have always done it, even when I was a kid. I loved to look back and see what I did the year before or the birthday before, etc. I also love to write, so this is a combination of both. So that's just me in a nutshell. I get so busy living life that sometimes I don't have a chance to record it, so here I am now catching up in one long post!

How are you?? I hope you didn't give up on me, those of you who do read my blog. I hope you will stay with me because eventually I will always be back to update.

So here's what's been going on...

Sammie finished up her ballet and tap class with Ms. Tina and started a new one called Princess Dance at the Freckled Frog. The ballet photos are from her last class mini recital. They did a little show for the parents and then each child got called up to get a goodie bag and award certificate. This is her preschool friend named Hayley. They have fun together. Sammie takes horseback riding lessons from Hayley's aunt, Victoria. Hayley likes horses too.

The princess dance class is cute. The girls wear a princess dress each week, dance with ribbons and wands, do a craft and listen to a story. It is a lot of things in 45 minutes but very well organized and well-paced. She is enjoying it. ( she is in the pink dress)

Speaking of princesses, here are some cute Disney pics. We went right after her princess class one day.

Here is something unusual.. We were out in the front yard and some ducks flew by and landed in the street right in front of our house. Not something you see everyday. They must have been heading to the nearby lake but stopped to say hello and eat some bread at our house.
We finally got to see Jennifer and Julia after a few rescheduled plans. We went to Color Me Mine and the kids painted pottery. ( it was very expensive) Sammie made a unicorn and Julia made a birthday cake.

I finally got to scrapbook at Christine's crop to benefit Autism Speaks. It was a successful event and many wonderful prizes were donated by popular manufacturers. Here are some of my recent pages.

It was a fun day and I got to spend time with my friends Christine, Donna and Jennifer. Christine raised about $600 for Autism Speaks. WHOOO HOO!! I am getting ready to join her in the walk for Autism on April 25th. This is the 3rd year I am walking with her. If you would like to sponsor me I would appreciate it. You can click this link and go to "support a walker" and type my name to find my page. All donations are for a wonderful cause and are tax deductible.

I finally got to go on Sammie's preschool fieldtrip. They went to Tanaka Farms to pick stawberries. It was a lot of fun and the kids got to taste fresh veggies from the garden. ( romaine, carrots, radishes, cilantro, sugar snap peas,) and of course all the stawberries you could eat!! They do the tours year round and change it seasonally. I want to go back in the summer and do the watermelon tour! YUM!!

In other news, I have had a bad pain in my neck for a few weeks. I tried EVERYTHING I could think of to help ease the pain, ( tylenol, motrin, muscle relaxers, heating pad, ice, jacuzzi tub, even a massage) and nothing worked. When the muscle relaxers and tylenol, etc. did nothing, I knew there was something going on. After talking to a few people and getting suggestions, I went to a chiropractor. I was pretty skeptical but figured I should give it a chance since nothing else was working. In 2 visits after having electro-therapy, ultrasound, and spinal manipulation, I began to feel better. He took x-rays of my neck and determined that I have a reverse curvature of my neck which is the beginning of spinal degeneration. ( sounds terrible but it is treatable) One of those "turn 40 things"... It was sort of shocking to hear that though. Anyway.. I have been going several times a week and it is helping tremendously. I still have the pain but it is not like it was. I started to realize that my hip was hurting on that same side and that because I sleep on my stomach with my leg pulled up ( like a frog) it puts a lot of strain on my neck, back, etc. I have been trying to sleep on my side but still wake up on my stomach every day. uggghhh Anyway... it all makes sense now and I am glad that it isn't as painful. I couldn't even turn my head when backing up the car or changing lanes. Now I am able to turn quite a bit before I feel the pain. The doctor may send me for an MRI if it still doesn't improve soon. He thinks it could be a pinched nerve.

Well I have more to ramble about as always but this is getting long so I will stop for now and hope to be back soon. Meanwhile, say hello and come back again because I will try to write again soon!