"The attachment to expectation is a root cause of human suffering."

My second lesson in expectation = suffering "not having expectations = happiness" happened at the Dollar Tree.

I love Dollar Tree, it's WAY better than the .99 store.  But, it's been my experience that if you go into either of those stores looking for something specific, you will not find it most of the time. 

If you are throwing a luau party in June, the Dollar Tree will NOT have tiki torches or grass skirts.  They'll either have random, junky stuff or nothing but Disney Princess stuff from wall to wall and you'll have to go somewhere else and pay a bunch more for stuff you'll never use again. 

BUT if you're throwing a Disney Princess party and you go in there, it'll be luau central with every imagineable luau-themed party supply item you could ever think of. 


HOWEVER, if you go in there assuming they will have nothing good, and figuring that you'll have to spend money on stuff at a real store where stuff costs way more than a dollar, you will find something perfectly suited for what you need......which, best of all, you didn't even know you were looking for.


The hunt for luau stuff happened to me, and then this weekend I was hunting for small/simple birthday gifts for a few friends, and teacher-appreciation gifts for the girls' teachers. 


I passed by the knick-knacks and saw this little guy:





 


Which looks like just an ugly, tacky, weird statue of an eagle with claws that are disproportionate to his body. 

But what it actually is, to me, is a perfect little gift for the girls' teachers since their school mascot is an eagle.  Obviously if that thing cost $5 or $10, there's no way I would have gotten it....but for $1, it was perfect.


Other things I picked up:





1) Mr. Eagle


2) Cute lil snowglobe, perfect for one of the bday gifts I need because it's for one of Mallory's friends' moms....not necessarily a friend of mine, but her bday is on the day of Mallory's party so I wanted to just give something as a gesture.


3) Pretty boxes to send cheesecake-stuffed strawberries in for the girls' teachers on "yummy treat day" of teacher appreciation week (Mr. Eagle is for "gift day" of teacher appreciation week).

4) Solar-powered dancing flower..I have one and it makes me happy when I see him dancing.  It's for another friend who I haven't worked with in 4 years and wasn't even super close with, but her bday is the same as Mallory's so I always remember it and like to send her something small....again, just as a gesture.


I like gestures.   :)




The girls' gestures to Nana & Grandma for mothers' day were from a pin I saw on Pinterest.

I almost feel bad for the recipients, because I feel like I give potted plants somehow incorporating photos a LOT as gifts.  I know my grandma has a least two or three from me.


If I see a craft involving a clay pot, I must do it.  :)


This is Nana's:





(Arissa's eyes look freaky there on the bottom center, but it's got to be the angle cause they look normal when you see it in person, I swear.)



For Grandma:




I ♥ that polka dotted ruffled ribbon.


Used it again for my sister-in-law's:













I was excited to do that one, because most of the pictures were ones I'd taken when we had been babysitting Abigail and I had never shown her.
I printed the pics on regular paper, cut 'em up, painted the pots white, mod-podged the photos on, then mod-podged over them to seal them.  Put some foam squares in, arranged the flowers & stuck 'em in, added moss on top and then glued my pretty ribbon.

Happy Mother's Day!

busy busy busy 3

It's now officially Spring, which means it's almost summer, which made me remember this stuff.  :)

Jesse & I went to a birthday dinner last summer and I like this picture because:

1) I like my shirt (haven't worn it since)

and

2) Mariah gave me that necklace before we left for the night and even though it did NOT go with my outfit at all, I promised her I would wear it the WHOLE night so I wanted to take a picture of us at the party and show her I kept my promise.














Too many pool parties in one weekend = ouch for Arissa.



I'm still working through the guilt about it.





It helps ease my guilt to know it'll never happen again, ever...not on my watch.  I ordered a bunch of SPF 100 sunscreen on amazon, and on auto ship!  I've already stock-piled a cupboard full of it.  No sunburns or tans for us this summer!



We hiked Cowles Mountain.

Our brilliant, fun idea was to hike up at 8pm, so we'd be hiking down in the dark, guided only by the light of the FULL moon expected for that night. 

Well a FULL moon doesn't give off as much light as you'd think...and we were hiking down, all by ourselves, in the pitch dark, with no flashlight.

It was funny, only when we were safely back to the car and had not broken any bones or been eaten alive by any animals.  Then, we did laugh about it.

We went to the drive-in to see Cars 2!













Arissa attended engineering/science camp for 3 weeks.







Jesse and I took advantage of Vacation Bible School to have date night every single night for one whole week!  Mmmm the dinners we had....







(These aren't all mine.....I swear.)









Ahhh I look forward to this most of all....











Can't wait for the rest of Spring and for Summer too.  As long as it stays under 80 degrees.

me & my nana

This picture is typical Nana.  Multi-tasking (paying bills, chatting on the phone, loving on children, probably just cleaned the house and sewed some clothes and did the dishes too) and doing everything faster & better than I would do each thing one at a time.

And good lord, my face was chubby.  :)

christmas randoms...

My goal was (always is) to have my Christmas cards in the mail by December 1st. 

The 15th at the very latest.

Well.....



These suckers went out like 4 days before Christmas, and it was a miracle they got into the mail at all.

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I love cards, sending and receiving, and I love writing them out, but this year for some reason they were just a thorn in my side (and clutter on my table) the WHOLE month.  Not next year.


Our lil Elf on the Shelf is named C Jr.  When you open him, you have to give him a name right away but of course all 3 of the girls picked different names, no one wanted to give in and agree on a unanimous name, so we took the first letter of each of the names they picked (I forget what they were, it's written in our Elf on the Shelf book) which happened to be C J R which turned into C Jr.  Like Carl's Jr.  And equally as tasty.

But C Jr. sure was a mischievious fellow. 

I'm pretty sure he hid my ipod from me for a good two weeks just to be funny,

and he may or may not have stolen $25 from us! 

He's very tricky:











He was so out of his element in San Diego, you could tell he missed the North Pole and snow at Christmastime:

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We walked through Christmas Circle this year.  Partly to walk off the big meal we'd just had, and partly because my check-engine light is on and I would never live it down if my car broke down and had to get towed out of Christmas Circle and backed up traffic for miles and miles.

I actually preferred walking it, although next year it'll be nice to plan on that and have the appropriate coats & scarves.

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Sweets for a little friend:

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These pretty wrapped packages were one of the highlights of the Christmas season for me.  They went to friends of Jesse & their girlfriends, who were SO not expecting anything from us, and had nothing for us in return which made it so much more fun, for some reason. 

The girls went with Jesse to give the gifts and I'm sure his friends felt awkward not having anything to give in return, but it took away the "chore" of gift-giving (the obligatory "exchanging of crap" that Christmas can turn into) and just made it fun to give.

The girls actually said, out of their own mouths, with no coaxing from me, that giving gifts IS a lot more fun than receiving them.  I was proud.  :)

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My favorite night of the Christmas season, except for Christmas Eve:

We watched Christmas movies with the heater on (our version of a fire in the fireplace), ate popcorn and drank hot cocoa.  By the end of the movie, everyone was cuddled and asleep....even Missy.  :)

TODAY:

Thinking, praying, and donating:

My American Girls - Part One

Arissa saw an ad in San Diego Family magazine for auditions for an American Girl Fashion Show for girls sizes 6 & 10 and begged me to let her do it. Since M&M are size 6s, I decided I'd try to sign them all up.


Note: I don't want my kids to be in anything like a "beauty pageant". Life is hard enough to get through with some self-esteem left in tact, I would never sign them up for anything where they would judged "good enough" or "not quite".

But first off, this fashion show is for charity.... to benefit the UCSD Medical Center Infant Special Care Unit. Also, these auditions were not based on who was "prettiest". The American Girl company sent the charity 50 dresses which the charity was not allowed to alter in any way, so they just have to find girls who will fit the clothes that they make and label as size 10 and size 6.

I called and the woman said they had filled up the auditions already.

Then she called me back and said she had three spots left.

Miracle #1. So I signed the girls up.



Saturday morning we googled the directions and drove up the 15 freeway and arrived thirty minutes early. I was so proud of us making such good time. We sat in the car for about 15 minutes since we were so early, but eventually I started thinking things weren't right because there were only 2 other cars in the parking lot, and no other girls seemed to be showing up....so we went inside to make sure we were at the right place.





Of course, we weren't. We needed to be at their other location, off the 5 freeway, in exactly 11 minutes. The receptionist told us we could probably make it there in 20.





So off we went, hurrying and praying.





We missed the freeway exit because the receptionist had only given us part of the name. I took the next exit and went north, which happened to be in La Jolla near where I used to work. I have no sense of direction and I get lost frequently in Lemon Grove but I took a side street that I thought I remembered heading towards a metro area, in hopes it might be somewhere near where we were headed. It was. Miracle #2.





We found the street we needed. But it stopped halfway in a dead-end because of construction.





We found a detour. After about a mile there were no more detour signs but we drove another 6 miles before we decided we were headed in the complete wrong direction. We turned back around, Jesse suggested we try a random street that he thought went in the direction we wanted to go.





It took us right to it. Miracle #3.





I told the girls that I was sure it was a lost cause, but we might as well just walk in and let them tell us for certain that we were too late.





The suite numbers weren't marked so we ran around the building a good 3 times before we found the right one.


BUT once we got in, they let us check in (as if we weren't 38 minutes late), the girls went RIGHT in for their auditions and we walked right out. Miracle #4.





















Miracle #5: All THREE of the girls made it. :)


I waited a whole week to tell them (it was killing me) because I wanted to build the anticipation and make it fun.


I printed out cards with the girls' faces transposed onto the specific American Girl doll that they most resembled, and decorated 'em a bit (w/ American Girl paper and stickers, of course):

I made a special addition as I set the table for dinner, to give them a clue of what my announcement was going to be about:

.....and then after lots of build-up, I handed out the cards and announced (Oprah-style...like when she's giving away cars) that:



ARISSA's gonna be an American Girl model....







MARIAH's gonna be an American Girl model.....



and MALLORY's gonna be an American Girl model!!!









It was SO much fun! I love suprises (when I'm not on the receiving end) and the "big reveal" and watching the girls so happy they can't even stand it:

Love Notes for All

I went to re-fill Missy's food dish and saw that someone had left her a sweet little love note. I guess Mallory didn't want Missy to be left out, just because she didn't have a mini mailbox like the rest of us. :)

So Simple

I bought two new "daily devotional" books, and I was so excited when they arrived in the mail but I was kind of bummed that they didn't have a ribbon to mark my place like my other similar books have.

Because with a year-long daily thing like that, January is cool but by the time you get to March or June or August you get real tired of flipping through the whole book to find the right day....everyday.



Then it hit me:



I'm "crafty", (so they say)!........I can make that!





So I got some coordinating ribbon, and my glue gun, and made myself my own page-marker.


















It was the simplest, quickest "craft" I've ever done in my life, yet it makes me so happy every morning when I go to read the "devotion" of the day and can flip right to it thanks to my "craftiness". :)

Seeing rain clouds rolling in,

or waking up to the sound of rain when there wasn't a cloud in the sky the night before,

or hearing a forecast that calls for any chance of rain or clouds.....

makes me happy.


And seeing the clouds part and the sun come out makes me....

less than happy.





But a big giant rainbow across the whole view of the sky from downtown makes it kind of okay:

And so....

A week long rain storm

+

my strep throat going away

+

my birthday

+

the start of winter break

=

reason to celebrate at somewhere yummy & fabulous like Lido's in Lemon Grove:

Right now...

I'm feeling sad for some friends who are going through hard times.

It's hard for me during times like these, because I never ever know what to say. But I always remember one time when I called the mom of a friend of mine who was going through something, and I told her I'd wanted to call my friend for a long time but had no idea what to say and didn't want to end up making things worse.

And she told me that no one does know what to say and that the call itself would be appreciated. So I bit my nails & fretted for 5 minutes and finally called..... and I felt much better and my friend didn't seem to mind that I wasn't quoting from a "how to say the right thing" book.

So now I try not to let myself get hung up on what the right/perfect response is, and just go, just call and the rest will fall into place.

I get chills every time I listen to this song, and when I've felt really sad & helpless for my friends, listening to it and has made me feel better:

(scroll to the very bottom of the page and turn off the music first so you can hear the loveliness of it)

Isn't it beautiful?

It's always been a favorite song of mine, but hearing it sung in that voice (as opposed to, say....mine) gives it a whole new dimension. I love it and I highly recommend listening to it during hard or sad times. :o)

at the moment.....

.....I am thanking the good Lord (and my Nana, who bought it for us) for this:

I am drinking (and bullying my family into drinking) tons & tons of this:

They prefer it sans (without) lemon....which, to me, is the very best part!

I am working on a knitting project....my first attempt at using 'double pointed needles'. It looks like this:

For the past 3 years it's stressed me out and made me tired just to look at stuff like that and to imagine myself trying to work a pattern while doing it. But it turns out it's not as impossible as I'd thought.

I'm listening to this:

and this:

in my car, over and over and over. Which is kinda funny cause they're pretty much polar opposites as far as music goes. But maybe that's why I haven't gotten sick of either of them yet.

I am in the process of scrapbooking photos like this of our trip to the park last weekend:

I am trying to catch up on missed episodes of this:

...and the epsidoes I've "missed" would be all but the very last 3 of them, cause I just got into it on Sunday and the show ended forever on Tuesday. :o( Plus it's one I can only watch when the girls are asleep or not around, which makes it hard.

I am loving these little guys:

Jesse picked me up some Coronas at the store the other day, and since he knows that I usually open them, take 3 sips, then leave them out for him to come along and finish off 3 days later (I know: ew! he does it with soda too), he got me these mini Coronas. They're like 1/2 or 3/4 of the size of normal ones...they're so cute.

And we just noticed yesterday, as we were eating dinner and looking at the bottle on the kitchen table which I had emptied out and used as a vase for a flower, that they say "Coronita" instead of "Corona". I do believe that "Coronita" would translate into "small Corona" in english. :o) And that made us laugh for some reason.

I am paging through this over and over again, loving all the pictures and making recipe lists for allllll the yummy stuff I want to make:

My only critique would be: why's it gotta have so many meat recipes. :o) How can you raise and care for cows & chickens (like the author's family does) and then cook 'em up for dinner? Gross. Plus each recipe shows step-by-step photos, and seeing the meat in the raw stages makes my stomach turn. But luckily the pictures of the finished products are enough to keep me reading and get me cooking!