Riding the Polar Express

Tulah was very excited to ride the Polar Express on the Mt. Hood Railroad in Hood River, Oregon! The hobo from the movie was even on our train! We got to see Santa's village and see the elves hard at work! Santa then joined us on the train. It was even more magical after Tulah received her bell...she could hear it ring so as she said, "I believe!" It was snowing when we got off the train and so Tulah got to eat some flakes!

Thanksgiving Surprises!!!

Had a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving and had a couple of surprises as well!! When I got to my Aunt's house I did not relaize that both my Cousin Juan who lives in San Francisco and Cousin Nessa who lives in Maryland were going to be there!! It was a FANTASTIC surprise!! On Jenissa's facebook that morning she has written in her status preparing for thanksgiving so I had commented, wish you were here miss you!! Not knowing at all that she would be here in Oregon!!! We all ate too much and played BUNCO after we ate and in between dessert helpings! Tulah had 3 different helping of pies at 3 different times! Thank goodness she didn't get a belly ache!!

My Aunt Berta (in the middle of the bottom pic) bought her sister's bibs for Thanksgiving dinner!! It was sooooo funny! It worked though all of their shirts stayed clean!

It was a great day with family and friends!!

Hanging Out With Friends and First Grade Feast

Tulah and I went up to Wilsonville and had lunch with great friends!! Cynthia and I went to U of O together and actually I was her first friend in college!! Which has been a friendship that has lasted now for 15 years!! WOW!! We lived across the hall together in Caswell Dorm!!

Cynthia and her family had come down to Portland to have Thanksgiving with their families and we were glad to be able to see each other!! Tulah and Spencer get a long fabulously!!

On Tuesday, Tulah had her first grade feast!! Each classroom was repsonsible for making something and sharing it with the other classrooms! Tulah's room made cornbread. One classroom made vanilla pudding cups, another pumpkin cookies, they also made placemats and the adorable turkey hats!! Tulah's was a bit big so she took it off and Grandma decided to wear it!!

Gotcha Day

On Thursday was Tulah's one year adoption anniversary!! We went to Road House and her First Grade Teacher Mrs. Rodgers and Corina came!! We had lots of fun and I can't believe its been a year!! Love you Tulah!!
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Scentsy Booth at the Holiday Food and Gift Festival in PDX

Look at Jennifer and I we were with people who have had lots of experience and do this for a living!! We did it though our booth was a success and we made lots of contacts which is always great! Even with our inexperience, you could never tell!! It was a lot of fun and we were busy, busy, busy!! Hopefully, now the contacts we made will turn into some customers!! Fingers are crossed!

WOW! Where did the month go?

Last weekend my family got together and made tamales, tamales and more tamales!! It was great to give Tulah an experience with her culture and also have her help out in a family tradition! We went through about 10-12 bowls of mixing size bowls of masa! WOW! It was so much fun to hang out the family!

Parent Teacher Conferences!! Went to Tulah's parent teacher conferences and she is doing well!! She is understanding how to do simple adding and subtracting and on grade level for reading!! Yea!! I am so proud of her and her progress she has made! Keep up the hard work Tulah! She stayed with Grandma these last couple of days and got spoiled rotten! She got some new Skecher shoes and got to go and see Toy Story both of them!!!

Bailey our Tortoise is still missing, which bums both Tulah and I out! I am hoping he found a warm spot to hibernate and he will reappear next Spring! Bailey oh Bailey where are you??

This is a weekend of parties for Tulah's 7th birthday! Off to Chuck E Cheese, she wantted to go to a park but the weather is just too unpredictable! Maybe one year she will let us celebrate her birthday in the Summer so that we can have it at the park! Probably not, but thought I could offer!! LOL

Back in the Saddle at work that is!

Well, it has been a busy, busy couple of weeks! School is back in full swing and therefore I am back to having no time!! Plus, I beleive I have over extended myself, but I like staying busy! I have joined a bible study, still selling Scentsy so having parties, Tulah is still doing karate, working in the after school program on Thursdays and oh yes my full time job! Staying busy is better than being at home all the time!

Work has seen some changes which I am still getting used to. They have implemented a new policy that each child receives 120 minutes of reading a day! This has made is difficult to get to other things, so I am being very flexible and adding in those things in other ways!!

Tulah is loving first grade and her teacher Mrs. Rodgers!! The first official day she had homework you would have thought she had one the lottery!! She was soooooo excited! I am hoping this enthusiasim last for oh another 12-14 years!! We didn't realize that this homework was for the entire week, so Tulah and I did it all in one night! It didn't take us long, but now we know only do one part at a time!!

Did Race for the Cure last weekend with some girls from work! As usual it was a blast and I

laughed so much, my sides hurt!! We go up Saturday, have dinner with Karla's Family (she passed away in 2005 from breast cancer and was a counselor at Aumsville) and then spend the night at the Marriot in PDX and do the race Sunday, have lunch and then come home!

Not so positive news also happened this week: lost an Uncle--Wednesday Morning, Tulah's Birth Mom has went off her meds and had to go spend a few nights in the psych ward and my good friend LeAnn got diagnosed with Thyroid cancer.