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.

Summer is coming to a close.....

Tulah and I have had an awesome summer! We have went on 4 camping trips and had lots of quality time! Only 2 more weeks until I go to work and 3 more until Tulah goes to school...a big first grader! WOW, how time flies and we have had a crazy two years since she has been back with me full time. Divorce, adoption, paycut.....but we have made it through!!

This past Sunday we went to the Evergreen Aviation Museum and had lots of fun after the slight hiccup on getting in. You see, we have a OMSI membership and when you get a membership it lists free admission to other 250 museums nationwide and Evergreen was listed. Showed the card at the admission desk and they denied it...saying that they are in a lawsuit with OMSI and do not accept OMSI memberships. Well, I wasn't about ready to pay the admission, it is kind of spendy but my Mom really wanted to see the Spruce Goose, so we ended up paying the admission and going in! It was ok but, I don't have to go back for a while!

Summer is slippin away..but hoping for positive things!!

I am still alive.....

Hi All!! I know I haven't been on in ages but, I have been too busy having fun! Well actually I did try to post something a few weeks ago but, then my computer went screwy and well you never got to enjoy it! Tulah and I have been busy, busy enjoying our summer! We have been camping, doing karate (she has I have been watching), watching TV (love my DVR) I don't watch live television anymore and just making sure we have fun, fun, fun!!

Also last Saturday, Tulah got to have a visit with her brother Gavin who was adopted at birth! He lives in Medford with his adoptive parents and they are a very nice family! So the top pic in my bog for this post shows all of us--that will forever be connected by these 2 gorgeous children! Amy, Birth Mom is on the far left!

I am not ready to start work and I know I have a few weeks before I have to begin but, it will just come way to fast!

Oh yea and my other big project is, I have begun to sell Scentsy...it is amazing!! Check out my website if you won't know what it is: http://www.scentsy.com/livinglife

Sun, Bubbles, Tortoise, and Weeds

What more could I want? Okay maybe a million bucks...but, I am sure that will have to wait! Bailee got to hang outside for a couple of hours tonight and he loved it and well, at one point he got out of view and we had to go look for him!! My nieces are spending the night tonight and well, I put all the girls to work...picking weeds for me! I made it into a game for them and lots of my weeds got picked!! We had a picnic outside for dinner--hotdogs, watermelon and chips, YUMMY! The girls also had fun blowing bubbles or as you can tell in the pictures at times, they didn't have to blow at all the wind did the work for them! Ahhhh a sunny day, I love it!

Change is in the air..

Well it has been a day today! Moral at work is not so great since many people got told of new postions they will hold for the next school year. Yes, I know we should all be thankful we still have a job but, change at least for me is hard and I am losing some great friends who are going to different buildings. Plus, you know how we are we say we won't get out of touch and you do just because of well, life happens! I am still processing and there are no tears yet, but trust me there will be...it's still early!

Onto more positive things, Tulah gets to tst for a new karate belt on May 30th and she received her 3rd stripe on her belt today and she was the only one! She was really excited about being the only one! For Mother's Day we were down in Roseburg and we had lunch with multiple family members and my Mom and 97 year-old Grandma!! It is hard for me to see Grandma getting old. She is forgetting names and people and at times just has a confused look on her face. ): But, I did get some awesome pics of her and I and of all of us!! I love you Gram-Cracker (that's what I called her when I was younger)! LOL

What type of taster are you???

I love teaching so much and I love my students so much, you should see, well actually lucky you, you do get to see...what I got to do for one of my students!! She was doing her science presentation on taste buds and well I got to be a volunteer! My kids were quite excited that their teacher's mouth was blue! My teeth were blue, my spit was blue, lips and gums were blue, fun times!! If you want to find out what type of taster you are..put one drop of blue food coloring on your tongue and swallow. Then put a hole reinforcer around the front part of your tongue. Next get out a magnify glass and flashlight and have someone count all the little tasters (bumps) that are inside the whole reinforcer. You then fall into 3 categories: 15 bumps and under you are a Nontaster, 16-30 Average Taster and 31 and over is a super taster!! It's fun! I was an average taster I had 17 tasters!

Awana's Night

Well this Blog is going to be short and sweet. I actually had a great one typed out that was ready to be posted and well then my computer decided to freeze! Lovely computer! Tonight was Tulah's Awana's Award Night and she got 2 awards which she is quite proud of! She got one for Perfect Attendance (shouldn't I get that one??) LOL and one for partcipation!! She is so excited that she has recieved 3 awards in the last 5 days!! Woo hoo! Go Tulah! I am sad though that Awana's is now over until the Fall since I now miss out on my 2 hours of quiet! Oh well!

Having fun at Chuck E. Cheese

I love having a laptop and a internet card! While Tulah is playing and having quality time with Amy (birth Mom), I am just having fun on my computer! So much fun, that my battery is almost dead and there is not a power plug by my booth. ): I have found a fun new photo program..it's called photobucket...you can put a frame around the photo, put in text, animation and graphics! I did one of Tulah that has a frame and two animated glittery butterflies! Pretty! I must say it is a great time to come to Chuck E Cheese on a Tuesday night, not too busy!! Yippee! Well, I need to go round up the troops and get someone home to take a bath and go to bed!

Tortoise oh Tortoise

I know too many making a turtle house may not seem like that big of a deal....but I did it! I cut down the ice bucket from Great Wolf Lodge and made it a little home for Mr. Bailee. For his snack Tulah gave him a strawberry and he loves it!! When you watch the video it seems to me that his whole neck is going to come out! He is so cute!

Tulip Festival 2009

We were very lucky today with the weather! Tulah, My Mom and I went to see the tulips in Woodburn and they were gorgeous!! The sun was out for the entire day and it didn't start raining until we left!! We then drove to Albany to have dinner with family, since my Cousin Sarah is leaving for Europe on Tuesday and she will be gone for 3 weeks! Wish I could go with her but, I have to stay here and work.....I will be with her in spirit though! Tulah is currently helping her pack...I don't know how much help she is actually being, but she is having fun!

Busy..Busy and More Busy

Well Tulah and I are staying mighty busy! She is still loving karate and got her 2nd black stripe on her white belt! She told me after she got it that she only needed "one more" and I said, "What will you get after one more?" she said, "My third stripe!" She wasn't quite understanding what I was asking, but I laughed!

Today, Tulah was in her first fun run in Salem! She ran the Awesome 3000 and she was so excited cause she got a medal! I figured after the race she would be tired, oh no she was still moving full speed ahead!

I am coaching Jaycee Relays and our meet in next Saturday! I am coaching a second grade girl team and I think we are pretty good, but I could be a bit biased! After the race we will be zooming down to Roseburg for Maria's baby shower!!

Taxi driver...

Tulah and I have been very busy lately. Now you may ask what have we been doing, I don't know exactly!! She is involved in karate and Awana's and I am well...the taxi driver. I never thought I would have that title with a 6 year old but, I do! Oh well, I love it and Tulah keeps me out of trouble!! I am very excited because last week, I finally received Tulah's amended birth certificate!! My name is in the MOM spot...amazing!! I am still in shock even though I have had her for almost 2 years that I am in charge of her!! This is the first time I have ever done this blogging stuff...so hopefully I did it correctly!!