Our graduate!

Okay, so this is a month late and long overdue. Aliya graduated from Preschool to Pre-K. I am totally going to miss her preschool. It was the BEST. Her teacher, Miss Neva, ROCKED. I know there is no way I am ever going to find such a fun preschool where the teachers love my kid as much as Neva did. Aliya learned a ton and had a blast (so did mom and Blake)!

For their year end program, they sang a couple songs. Our ever present drama queen was on par this evening. She is a riot to watch and really gets into the songs.

Then each child was given an award/diploma. Neva said how much she loved Aliya and was going to miss her.  

This is Miss Cadie, one of the classroom helpers. Cadie would always inform me of the funny things Aliya would say or do (like when a boy had been teasing her and so she pushed him only to reply "yea, well he was being annoying").

Aliya and Miss Neva

Aliya and Miss Ashley, the other classroom helper. I am not an emotional person at all but I was honestly fighting back tears this night. During the past year I have developed quite a friendship with these ladies and will really miss them. I feel as though Neva has become my AZ mom. They will be missed more than they'll ever know! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Taeya's bday party!

Crazy kid wanted to go eat at Sonic.
Tae has quite the frosting skills! She definitely did not get her patience from me!

Taeya's finished product. I swear she had almost as much fun eating all the sprinkles off the table as she did making the thing. Tony awarded her with the "Most Colorful" award! The bottom layer is a vanilla cake, middle strawberry and the top is chocolate. When it was cut into it was actually quite pretty. The middle layer is covered in fondant. The girls thought it was fun to 'paint' the fondant. 

Olivia with her cake.

Kate the decorator!
Riley was pretty meticulous in her decorating as well!
And Aliya ... she won the award for "Best use of Sprinkles". I swear she had a good couple pounds worth of sprinkles on that sucker!

Cinderfella

Yep, just call him Cinderfella. The kid will come mow your grass, mop and vacuum your floors etc. No guarantee's he'll get out of his jammies first or that you can tell a difference but he sure does like to LOOK like he's helping!

P-I-I

I hate pregnancy-induced-insomnia. I don't know why I get it but I do. In fact, that  is how we figured out I was prego w/ #3 and #4. So here it is, 2:30 and I am WIDE AWAKE. Doesn't my body know I need sleep? Nope! Ah well, time to get back on Unisom. I figured rather than lay there 'resting' like I should, I'd be somewhat productive and blog (I've been doing it in my head the past 30 minutes but that accomplishes squat). 

First, my girlfriend Sara has started a business in California. If you are in the LA area (hey, I sound like the Price is Right guy) check out her website: www.downtowncooking.com. She is a killer chef and as a bonus, if you link her blog w/ yours, she'll email you her KILLER German Chocolate Cake recipe. I love it because the girl is not afraid of butter or cream - YUM!

Second:  Aliya. Seriously, we are in such trouble with that child. Earlier today after swim lessons, we were stopped at an intersection when I hear her say "Look, Cowboys". There were two city workers wearing cowboy hats, bright orange vests and each had a wrapped up orange electric extension cord. I got a kick out of that but then when they started to walk near us, she rolled down her window and CAT CALLED "Hey Cowboys". I, of course, broke out laughing. She followed it up by asking "Where's your horse?" She is FOUR! Honestly, where on earth did this kid come from? 

Lastly, today/yesterday we had Tae's bday party. I am so not a big party person. I told her she could pick one or two friends (it turned into three but that was somewhat do-able) and we'd have a 'special' day. My girls are obsessed with FoodTV's Cake Challenges where professional cake decorators compete in designing/decorating the best cakes. That's what she wanted and dumb me was not smart enough to say NO. So we picked up her three friends and headed to lunch at Sonic (YUCK). Afterwards we came back here to decorate the SLEW of cakes I baked. Note to self, NEVER DO THIS AGAIN! They had  ton of fun and pictures are to follow another day but I thought one of their conversations was funny/annoying etc. The girls were going around the table talking about what they wanted to be when they grew up. One girl, who has a funny personality, said she wants to be somebody that "sits on the couch all day, eating and watching TV". Another little girl (who's Mom works full-time) immediately replied "Oh, so you want to be a stay at home Mom?". Really? I just made a zillion cakes and 70 pounds of butter cream frosting and you said that? GRRR!

Enough for my middle of the night ranting and ravings. Hopefully there will be more blog posts to come!

Laugh or cry?

So the past couple days (okay really weeks) have been pretty tense at our house. Each day something new comes up regarding the purchase of our Houston home -- and it seems that each problem needs to be dealt with ASAP. I've been feeling overwhelmed with all the house junk in addition to being a mom of three and all the chaos that goes along with that.  Perfect example: Tonight I am in the middle of trying to put together homemade chicken noodle soup (I've been cleaning out my freezer due to the move and had to use up a whole fryer chicken I've had in there) when Tony calls needing info for the lenders. Blake is screaming at my feet for attention and I can hear WWIII erupting upstairs. Unfortunately this happens way too often! I know Tony must be stressed because he is trying to figure out our loan stuff all the while trying to finish one job/company/career just to start a completely new job/company/career. 

Well, earlier tonight we had both had it with our kids, house stuff and everything. After putting the kids to bed Tony joined me in the office to try to 'translate' some of the stupid paperwork the lenders were asking for. While there, Aliya yelled out she needed to go potty (it happens each night). So I yelled back that she could go and to call me when she was done. I swear 10 minutes later she hollers out and I go upstairs to find her bawling. At first I figured it was because I had forgotten about her and she'd been calling for a while (that happens around here more than I care to admit) but nope! Little tyke had been playing with a tiny pink car (only about 2 inches) that 'SOMEHOW' fell into the toilet (of course AFTER she had already gone potty).  SuperMom to the rescue -- I fished that sucker out with a couple wooden skewers and firmly admonished her that toys do not belong anywhere near the toilet and she couldn't play with it until after I ran it through a cycle in the dishwasher (what else do you do?). That crisis was averted with no real frustration, just a little revulsion.

We finished finding the stuff needed for the house and were just settling down to watch some TV when I hear Tae yelling to me that she needs me. I come up stairs to find that she had had an accident -- IN MY BED! Yep, huge pee accident right in the middle of MY bed. [Two side notes: one, Tae and Blakers share a room and he goes down so much better if she is not in the room and two, Tae was essentially night dry from the first day of being potty trained. We can only remember her wetting the bed once and that was because someone didn't believe her when she said she needed to go potty after she was already in bed. Why at the age of almost 7 she decides to unload Niagara Falls in MY bed I'll never know.] 

Tony was a huge help. He got her in the shower and was reassuring her that its not that big of a deal. I began to strip the sheets off the bed and started to die laughing. Thank heavens that was my response. I don't know if I am just really tired, overwhelmed or what but luckily rather than snapping and getting angry, I thought it was hilarious to realize that here I am 32 years old and sleeping in a bed that just got pee'd in. I also kept giggling when I realized the only other set of sheets I had was flannel. So I am currently laying in my bed, in flannel sheets in the middle of Phoenix in June. Yep! 

I know many of you wont find this funny but thank heavens I did. Rather than going to bed upset, frustrated or overwhelmed, I am going to bed giggling that there is a puddle under the towel in the middle of our bed -- hey, I guess its one good way to keep Tony on his side of the bed! 

Messy eater!

At a GNO a while back, one of my girlfriends was telling me how her son that is two months younger than Blake does great at eating yogurt all by him self. I guess I wasn't thinking logically that day and figured if her kid could do it, so could mine. Right? WRONG!

Little dude had yogurt in every known crack, wrinkle and fold! Ah well, chalk it up to yet another lesson learned!

Springtime Fun

What do you do when its 95+ outside and you DON'T have  a pool? Here ya go! These pictures are a couple months old but sad to say, we are still doing the same thing! Luckily my kids are still young enough to be entertained by the simplest things. I so don't want this to change (but I know it will)!

Even Blakers likes it. For some reason my girls have started to call this water sprayer "Lasers". Each afternoon it is "Mom, can we play in the Lasers"
When all else fails, a simple hose is enough entertainment!