I Love Me

When is the last time you kissed yourself in the mirror?

When was the last time you were 100% happy to be who you are?
My new goal(I'd make it a New Year's resolution, but you know how well those turn out) is to be a good example to my children of a confident woman who loves herself exactly as she is every day. I am human(shocker!!) and I'm not perfect, of course, but I can embrace myself as I am. I want to teach my daughter by example to love every part of herself and not to struggle as I did for much of my life with a poor self-image.

Ok, so this picture doesn't go with my theme, but isn't she just too cute kissing the doll? I love how you can see her little lips puckered up...

Summertime...

There are so many beautiful things about summertime. Here is one of ours. We had a picnic in the park with some friends from the club and flew kites after. Here are some of the highlights:

A beautiful night in that state where we live, just enough wind to fly kites!

Son finally got over his fear of kites(no kidding.) He wasn't afraid of the actual kite itself, but he was afraid of his kite blowing away.

Daughter had tons of fun, as usual! She would hold on to the kite string and walk and walk! We could not get her to stand still to fly the kite, so L picked her up to help.
But then she let go! Just as I was snapping the picture, hence the nooooo coming from Daddy's mouth!

I was lookin' cute, as always, and forgot to get a picture of myself, as usual! I just want to say: cherish these little moments with your loved ones. It is millions of these little moments that make up our lives.

Saturday Brunch

Our little family travels a LOT!! Almost every weekend we are going out of town for something, it seems. So we started a tradition of a nice, healthy breakfast eaten together as a family on the Saturdays we are at home. We say a prayer of thanks for the week we have all come through safe, happy and healthy(more or less,) and a prayer for the week to come. I had to take the picture before everyone dug in and made a mess!

On the menu this morning was lo-cal from-scratch waffles with sugar-free syrup, fresh fruit and ff cool whip. We are following weight-watchers unofficially, hence the lo-cal and sugar-free. Our kids eat the same foods as us and we are all learning healthy eating habits for life(I hope.)
In case you wondered about my recipe for the waffles, I'll share...here it is:

3 cups flour(all purpose, or whole wheat if you like)

1 1/3 cups powdered milk

1 Tablespoon Baking Powder

1/2 teaspoon Baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 T granulated Splenda(you can substitute 1T sugar)

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup applesauce

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 1/2 cups warm water(more or less, depends on how thick you like it)

Mix ingredients together and make into waffles(or pancakes.) 1/4 cup of batter is 1 ww point, if you're counting. It takes 1/2 cup to make a waffle in my machine, so 1 waffle is 2 points. This recipe makes a ton of waffles, I freeze the extras for quick breakfasts for the kids. You can also add chopped fresh fruit to batter, such as bananas, apples, strawberries, etc.

Things we pulled out of my guitar...a mystery!

My guitar was making a funny rattling sound, and this is what we found:

Any guesses as to who is the culprit?

Hometown-ish Football Game

Last week we, as a family went to a football game for SD(close, but not our hometown.) My Mother-in-Law(R) and Sister-In Law(S) both work there, and my Brother-In-Law(R) was interpreting sign, so we went there instead of BUHS's game. We had such fun! It is so nice to get outside for some quality time with our family, see Grandma, Grandpa, and our favorite uncle and aunt. Here is Daughter, she's still so tiny, the bleachers make a good desk for her:

She made friends with a cute little baby boy:
She was so adorable, she kept hugging him and petting his head!

She was all over him...by the end of the night, he was crawling away from her!

Here is Son and Grandpa:

He was running around playing with all the other boys, I didn't get too many pics of him.

They have a tiger mascot walking around that he was scared of at first. S(his fav. aunt) knew whomever it was in the costume and they were joking around. The tiger gave her a hug and someone told Son that the tiger bit her. He was so scared, but he gave his best "Hulk" yell at the tiger to scare it away. He screamed so intensely he was shaking, then he turned and ran to daddy! He was brave enough to stand up for his tia, but not to stick around afterwards. Of course, by the end of the game he was giving the tiger high-fives, but it took him a while. I don't remember one thing about the game itself, only the fun we had!

Cinderelly

It seems like Daughter and I have a lot of time together these days while Son is in school. I had almost 50 pictures on my camera when I realized they were all of Daughter, sorry son! So this is what we do while Son is in school:
Clean the house...

look at the poor thing slave away! That vacuum has a handle that goes down to her size, she insists on having a turn!

Then here she is in her first princess dress up shoes:

She wore them around and walked as well as I do in heels! She is the mini jewelry lady in the making! She loves the jewelry! Every time I get some new pieces, she has to check them out and carry the gold boxes around with her. She has tons of bracelets that she constantly puts on and takes off, you know mommy loves that!
So you see, she is a real life Cinderella...slaves away during the day, all diva at night!!!
She is so sweet, with her crazy hair and diva attitude(maybe despite the attitude?) Her hair looks sooo cute when it is freshly done. I get so many compliments from mothers whose daughters have much less hair than she does, but I want to laugh because that hair never ever stays cute for long. A short nap or car ride later and it is MESSY! Luis says she looks like a treasure troll, remember those?

Goodbye August, Hello September!

August was such a busy month for our family, I must say I am glad to see it go. September promises to slow down a bit before October madness sets in!!

My sweet Son started preschool this year, which makes my life a bit more hectic, if that is possible, but at the same time gives me a bit of free time in the mornings 3 days a week. Son was on a waiting list for a YEAR to get into this school, and now I see why: small classes+challenging curriculum=my Son loves school! Within the first week, he learned a song of days of the week, his months, counting in Spanish, WOW! He is only going to end up with one year of preschool before starting the big K, he'll have full-day Kindergarten, so this should be a good transition for him. We'll see...

August was also Son's Birthday... YAY!! He could not decide which superhero he liked best for his party, so we just celebrated all of them! I made superhero capes for everyone and we played superhero games.

I had crafts and designed superhero masks to color, my

Dad got the biggest kick out of those(as he always does!)

Daughter took off last month...

This is what most of my pics

now look like:

She's always on the go!

Don't you love the curly pigtails?

Here is the front view:

Last, but not least, we spent WAY too much time in here in August:

'nough said?

So here's to September, only 3 family birthdays this month and ONE Doctor appointment scheduled(so far.)

(knock on wood, of course...) Happy September!!

Camping

We took a trip to Mount G. with some family this summer, and I just wanted to share.
We had such a relaxing and fun, dirty time, here are pictures of some of the highlights:

It was so gorgeous there!

Me, Son and Daughter(L is behind the camera)

my nephew, B

My Baby Brother, Oldest(but still younger) Brother and his lovely wife Y.
B, Son, and C
S, he was the happiest camper. My grandma always says the one who
got the dirtiest had the most fun. S definitely had the most fun!
I am grateful for my family and being able to spend quality time with them. Time spent in nature really focuses you on each other and away from all of the distractions of our daily lives.