"Look, Mama, look: a heart!!"

look what Mallory found in her cereal:

(And yes, that is my cutting mat that she's using as a placemat. Those are the breaks when I'm in the middle of 12 different projects! Poor kid.)

Love of Reading.....and crafting

I made the girls some bookmarks!

Embroidered them, sewed them, voila.

I asked each girl what exactly they wanted on theirs.

Mariah's answer:

"have a nice book"

Mallory's:

"Mama loves Mallory"

Arissa's:

are still under construction. I finished it, even added a rainbow which took me forever, but the color combo I picked looked really really awful so I tossed it and am starting over.

But it's not like she went away empty-handed...

While I was working on hers, she made this:

And then I also have been working on these every night:

Some little "thank you"s for people who donated to the recent Car-wash-a-thon that her drill team hosted.

I was going to make one for everyone, but eventually I had to decide to only do it for $10+ donations because these things are killing my hands!

:o)

A Thursday night and our street was full of action!

As we were about to leave the house to do some shopping, Arissa came in and told me that our neighbors were calling 911 for our sweet Mr. Mendoza who lives directly across from us (Arissa saved him once before when she heard his cries for help after he had fallen & Jesse helped him up).

He didn't look very good as they took him away, put we're praying he'll be home soon. We're going to set right to work on some "Welcome Home, Mr Mendoza!" signs.

It was quite a commotion for Arissa & Mallory (Mariah spent the night @ Nana's). The girls all love Mr. Mendoza. They've never had a conversation with him, and they're too shy to waive to him when they see him, but they know he's old and they know he's sweet and so they care about him. They all sing a song about him every time they see him drive away:

"Mr. Mendoza, Mr. Mendoza, Mr. Mendoza.....left!"

and when he comes home:

"Mr. Mendoza, Mr. Mendoza, Mr. Mendoza's....home!"

:o)

They also love police cars and firetrucks and ambulances:

We're all hoping that our sweet neighbor is home soon.

A whole new mouth

Thursday we spent our morning at the "Super Dentist's"!

For some, it was fun:

For other's (Arissa), not so much:

Arissa was scheduled to have her "palatal expander" removed. She's had the thing in for like a year and a half now, and the dentist thought her overbite was improved and her teeth were aligned to allow for the new teeth that'll be coming in.

Arissa was scared out of her mind. For weeks before the appt, she was dreading it. It wasn't good enough that Nana be there; she requested I be there too. That ought to tell you something!

So I was there, doing a lot of this:

Mariah got to sit in the waiting-room w/ Nana and do some of this:

While poor Arissa spent the hour going thru this:

She cried a little, and at one point said she was NOT going to do it. But the nurse who did it was very nice and honest with her, and made her feel comfortable.

The palatal expander is basically a permanent retainer on the roof of her mouth, cemented in to teeth on both sides, opening up the bones in the roof of her mouth to allow the teeth to spread out and to fix her bite (cause her lower teeth used to come up in front of her uppers when she bit down). So putting the device in was pretty labor intensive...but taking it out was just basically a big yank. Not fun for Arissa, I'm sure.

Before we started, the nurse took me aside and said "Now, I wanted to just let you know....sometimes when we remove the device, some teeth come out with it."

To which I responded with a look of shock and big gag. Then she continued:

"It's only baby teeth that were ready to come out anyways, but I wanted to give you a heads-up because it can be quite shocking to parents if they don't know about it beforehand".

Which I appreciated and thanked her for, but I also told her that if the thing comes out with teeth attached to it, Arissa is going to FREAK OUT for sure.

Luckily though, that didn't happen. A yank here, a pull there, and it was out.

Here's her "before" pics, taken a year and a half ago:

Here's her, right after the removal (can you tell she was in a little bit of pain??):

Rinsing the yuck out:

Then trying to smile for Mama:

So all in all, it was a success. I felt so bad for Arissa, but she was so brave and strong....and now she's so happy that it's done with!

Mariah was just happy to spend time at the "Super Dentist's". They even have their own "Super Dentist" water:

And their own "Super Dentist" car:

And of course, a "Super Dentist" license plate (this cracks me up for some reason):

So no more dental work or appliances for us for awhile!

Although Mariah, Mallory, Jesse & I all have appointments in September....and the dentist I took Mariah to a few years ago said she might have the same bite problem as Arissa.....

:o(

Des choses que j'ai fait

For the 2 weeks that Nana was in Utah, we were without a babysitter. Unfortunately, Jesse & I were also without vacation/sick time to use at work. So we had to find someone and find them fast. Either that or we'd have to pay $75/day per child to send them to Mallory's preschool for the full 10 days.

Luckily, Jesse has 4 teenage cousins who live nearby, and who graciously agreed to watch them. Hallelujah.

Now there's many a weekend when Sunday evening comes around and I feel a small pit of relief in my stomach, knowing that come Monday morning I'll be safely at my desk at work....lots of quiet and no kids. I love my kids fiercely, but sometimes they stress me out!!! So when Jesse's cousins agreed to watch them...10 hours a day, 5 days a week, I was so appreciative I couldn't find words to express it.

So instead, I expressed it with food.

On friday, the last day they were watching the girls, we dropped off one of these for each of them:

It's just brownies w/ frosting in some little jars topped w/ oilcloth and ribbon. Not much, but I hope that as they ate it, Jesse's cousins knew how much they were appreciated and loved!

My friend from my old office in South Bay had a birthday last week. Even though we don't talk anymore since we're in different offices, I have each of their birthday's in my calendar and I haven't missed sending a small gift yet.

This is what I made for my friend w/ the august birthday (who also happened to be my Supervisor in South Bay):

This woman is a purse fanatic. She loves them, she spends beaucoup du Dollars on them, she changes them daily to match her outfit. So I thought my newest sewing obsession would be perfect for her!

Then this weekend I realized our resuable-grocery-bag dispenser had lost the stretch in it's elastic, so I made a new one:

Then I made this one (looks a little weird here cause it's not stuffed w/ grocery bags) for a friend:

And I made another for our next-door neighbor. :o) They aren't the most glamorous things, but they sure do make a kitchen seem brighter.

Un week-end vraiment fantastique!

I have been looking forward to this past weekend for a whole year! And "enfin", it came and went....and it was absolutely perfect!


My friend from France, and her family came to the US on "holiday" and spent the weekend in San Diego. After about 2 years of writing back and forth, we were finally able to meet! I was so excited beforehand...and so nervous. Would they be the typical Parisian stereo-types? Would we come off as typical Americans...loud and un-refined? Would we not be able to understand eachother at all? Would they be impressed at all by San Diego? Etc etc. But we had a great time together. I got to practice my French (and realized exactly how much I need to improve!), and we learned so much (even in just 3 short days) about France and the people there and how different but very similar we all are.


To start with, I put a gift-basket together which we took down to their hotel the day before they arrived, so it would be waiting when they checked in:

Just some simple stuff...some snacks, a magazine for Sylvain, a bottle of wine, a book about San Diego, and of course a hydrangea to brighten the whole thing up. :O)

The book was really neat, and I thought it would be nice for them to be able to look back on it and recall some of the places we showed them during our time together. I wrote a little note on the inside cover:

Saturday we picked them up and took them around town. We started South at...

Then we headed north to Point Loma & saw Rosecrans Nat'l Cemetary, and the lighthouse:

It was about that time that Mallory took a strong liking to Sylvain, as you can see:








From there we went North still to the city that makes me especially proud to say I live in San Diego!...





We saw this sweet guy (who was quite active and fun to watch):

And even this guy...how many times do you see one of these walking the streets in La Jolla, or anywhere for that matter??:

The kids checking him out:

That night for dinner we went to Alcapulco Restuarant, which was convenient since they were staying at the hotel connected to it in Old Town. Francoise had gifts for us all!:

And a bottle of Lancome's Tresor, straight from Paris, for me! It was so very nice and thoughtful. I will treasure it forever!

M&M, making themselves right at home:

Sunday afternoon we picked them up again and showed them around the parts of San Diego that aren't as picturesque as La Jolla but that we call "home"....Lemon Grove.

We also spent some time at our house, where the girls showed off their various stuffed animals and scrapbooks. I showed Francoise my hydrangeas (which of course she had heard much about from me...she has several "hortencias" also. We were meant to be friends!). Then we met some family & friends at the most popular eatery in town:

We had pizza & salads & antipasto & wine. We all chatted...you couldn't even tell that there was a language gap. It was as if we'd been friends for many years. So much fun!

(Not pictured is the Stidum Family who also ate with us but left before we took this picture. It was so nice of them to come and I was so glad they did.)

From there we went back to Nana's for some ice-cream and conversation. Once again, maybe I'm just simple-minded and naive, but it really amazed me how not only did we understand eachother, but we chatted just like old friends. We asked questions and learned all about the differences between life in France and life in the US, and also of the many similarities. I just loved it.

Monday night we again went out to eat, at the Chicken Pie Shop in Hillcrest. I figured we'd had mexican, we'd had italian, might as well go for the all-american meal (without it including a burger and fries). It was another lovely evening.

We did a little more sight-seeing, and then dropped them back off at the hotel, and they left for France on Tuesday. I miss them very much, it was such a great weekend and I am so glad that Francoise and I found eachother when we searched google for a penpal 2 years ago!