tagged by Mary Jo :)

That darn Mary Jo. Just kidding! I have to list 7 random things about me. I have really been thinking about this so here goes:

1.) It really bothers me that my sister in law doesn't like me. I can't stand the fact that it bothers me, she has done some pretty hurtful things, and yet...

2.) I'm not the shopper I used to be. I used to love to shop, but trying on 20 pairs of jeans to find one that fits is a joy kill.

3.) I was messy as a kid and I still am. I really thought it would get better, but no.

4.) I didn't take my first airplane flight till I was 27. After that, I regularly flew across the country by myself for the job I had. The thought of flying now causes panic.

5.) When I worked at a bank while in college I was robbed. The robber slid the note to me, and it was so surreal I didn't give him all of the money I had. I left the hundreds! No wonder he lingered. I was shocked. He was never caught.

6.) I have never broken any bones. Knock wood.

7.) I could eat White Cheddar popcorn from Trader Joes all day long.

I am not going to tag anyone, so feel free to do this. :) It's Friday!

weekend recap

I got sidetracked by the tooth incident. :) All is well, the tooth fairy made an appearance last night and left a dollar, much to the joy and surprise of Harrison.

We had a busy, busy weekend. We finally got around to some family celebrations that were long overdue, starting with my sister's anniversary. Her and Mark celebrated 15 years in March. We also had a couple of birthdays thrown in too, my mom's which you may remember was Easter, and Marks was the middle of April. We all headed out to the Woodranch BBQ restaurant in Cerritos for a late lunch on Saturday. Robert and the boys and I got home just in time to turn around and head out to Mass at 5:30. After that, I was pooped.

Sunday we went out to the Belmont Shores Railroad club open house.

My dad has gone before and invited us to go this time. It was super fun, the weather was beautiful. The clubhouse is in Fort MacArthur, in an old barrack. It was neat to walk around there, I kept imagining what it must have been like in it's heyday.
my mom and I were laughing though, because it is now an artist's community and honestly, I wouldn't want to be there at night. No offense to the artists, but at night I think that place would be spooky. The boys were beside themselves in the hall. All I kept hearing is, "Papa needs one of those/these". My dad has a N scale layout of his own, and it is a work of art. Every week, that is the first stop the boys want to make. They can usually spot anything new my dad might have added. There was so much to look at at the club. I know I missed a lot. Here are some favorites:

What you can't see at the accident scene is that the emergency vehicle lights were flashing on and off.


After the clubhouse we literally went down the street to see the Korean Friendship Bell. What a sight. I thought it looked familiar, and it turns out, it was part of a scene from the movie, The Usual Suspects. We could see Catalina Island, it was so clear.


After we walked around a bit, we drove along the coast and tried to find a place to eat. We ended up at El Torito, where I swear the chef must have been in a spicy mood. My eyes and nose were watering, not a pretty site.
And that is our weekend in a nutshell. How was yours?

breaking news...

Harrison's tooth fell out over breakfast. Well, not over breakfast, in fact it almost fell in his breakfast. He pulled it before that could happen. All is well, no blood. He was concerned about that. As for me, I am struck by how different he looks without that little tooth.

look who is sewing...

The two photos have nothing to do with each other. The first photo is of the patterns I picked up yesterday. Joann's Fabric had a 99 cent sale on McCalls patterns, and 40% off Simplicity. The long tunic is a little long, I will probably make it shorter. The pattern in the front is from Built by Wendy. I am going to use it for the shirt. I have been wanting to get this book at Amazon for a while now, looks like it's time. Now I just need to find some cute fabric. I'm not anticipating any problems in that area.;) Mom, are you surprised? I say this knowing full well that she will undoubtedly be helping me. Remember the skirt incident mom? I got an "easy" (yeah right) pattern of a skirt and thought, I can do this. Well, it was so not the case. My first problem, (one of many) was when I cut out the pattern I neglected to cut out the tabs that show where you line up the fabric. I won't be doing that again! Mom rescued me and the skirt turned out beautifully. I'll have to take a pic.
The second photo is of some fabric that I couldn't pass up, especially with my little helper telling me I had to get it for his quilt. (That would be Harrison.) His is pretty fond of both of the dog fabrics.
I hope to get busy on these soon. Wish me luck. They could turn out super cute and fab, or go horribly wrong. We'll see!

I am also patiently waiting (not) for this little gem to come out. Pretty Little Pincushions

sick..........AGAIN

Yep, I'm sick. I have Robert to thank this time. He got sick before Easter, and I really thought it skipped over me, but no such luck. I don't want to gross you out with the details, but let's just say that I had no idea that one person could produce this much gunk. I am seriously blowing my nose every ten minutes or less. I hope that the boys don't get it.

Besides that, we are doing fine. Robert is working, Harrison is finishing up kindergarten soon, and I am starting to plan next year. I have the most fun with this aspect of our schooling. It is hard to narrow down things, there are so many great options out there. If I bought everything I wanted we would, 1.) be in school from 9-5, and 2.) I would be broke. Thankfully my budget doesn't allow these things to happen. The nice thing is that for some subjects I will just have to buy the student workbooks for Charlie when it's time for him to start. Speaking of Charlie, we have decided to have him attend preschool one more year. I firmly believe that he is too young for kindergarten just yet.

As our school year winds down, I have been thinking a lot of our successes and failures. (Well, we haven't failed anything, that is probably the wrong word.) There are things that we could have done differently. I also think back to the beginning of our year and how I thought I was prepared and ready to go. I was, for the most part! Harrison surprised me in a lot of ways. We had our bad days where I thought, "what am I doing?" And we also had excellent days. The majority were good days. Homeschooling for us works right now. I don't know that it always will, but for now it suits us. Just looking at samples of his work from Sept. and now, blows me away. I am looking forward to next year, now if I could only narrow down my options. ;)

**this just in, I read the funniest book to the boys about teeth. Harrison has his first loose tooth and is quite nervous about it. Anyways, I highly recommend this book. It gets a lot of laughter, especially if you do all the different voices, like yours truly. :) The book is,
Open Wide, Tooth School Inside.

so you want to be an M&M?

I interrupt your regularly scheduled Saturday to tell you about M&Ms. Who doesn't like M&Ms? That's what I thought. I stumbled upon this site which lets you build an M&M to your liking. Don't you think she looks like me? What? Even a little? You can go here to make one yourself. Click on the Character Creator to begin and have fun.

I am loving the new M&M commercials. Any company that uses a song from TheThe for their theme is cool in my book.

Beaster recap

No, that's not a typo there. Beaster is birthday/Easter. ;) (See the comments to the post below) What a day! It never really warmed up, in fact it stayed kind of cloudy. I was a little nervous as we drove down to Long Beach after Mass, I thought for sure that it would be much cooler there but it wasn't bad at all. The Queen Mary is a beautiful place to have brunch. We were in the grand ball room and even though it was super crowded, it was a lot of fun. There was so much food too. I didn't even make it to maybe half of what was available, there was so much. My favorite part? The dessert bar. I had a crepe with vanilla ice-cream inside, topped off with strawberries and a touch of caramel sauce. Oh yeaaahhhh. Can you say f-u-l-l? This picture cracks me up. Doesn't everyone have one like this? I don't know what Robert was thinking when he took it, look at all of us. Not one of us is looking. I don't know where Charlie is going. My mom is talking to me, I look like I am nodding off.

After we recovered, we all walked up to the Promenade deck and strolled around.

Harrison was pretty impressed with the Carnival Cruise ship that was heading out to sea. We had to watch everyone practice the safety drills before they took off. Who leaves for a cruise on Easter?
We then headed home. Robert went straight in to take a nap. I went straight to work building a new Lego set that the Easter Bunny dropped off for the boys.
Here is my beautiful Amaryllis that normally blooms in Dec/Jan, but finally decided to bloom now. Isn't it pretty?