our house . . . finally

After months and months of going over to look at our lot and seeing only this . .




I am very, very happy to report that there is finally lots of progress going on in our home. Yay!



Be happy for me. I can hardly wait! You can see the pictures I have so far by clicking here. By the way, don't you just love the sky here? On the other side (looking out our house) are the mountains. Doesn't it make you want to move to Arizona here with me?

feeling: super excited
listening to: Incubus (Pendulous Threads)

post oscar

Ah, yesterday was my Superbowl. My "I can sit here and watch tv all day long" day. Every year, Rodrigo and I fill in Oscar ballots and try to predict the winners. The prize for the winner? Bragging rights, of course. What could be more important? Anyway, Rodrigo honestly doesn't really care. He plays along because of me. Each year I end up getting more correct answers but he ends up getting the biggest award right. Last year he said "Crash" would win for best picture and I said "Munich". Suck. This year he predicted "The Departed" and I predicted "Babel". ARGH! I got 14 categories right this year and he only got 10, but he'll brag about the movie one all year. I think from now on I'll just pick the movie I want to win instead of the one I think is going to win.
Did you watch? Didn't it seem especially long this year? I think it was all those montages. How many were there? Like 75? Ok, so what I really watch for is to see how everyone looks. My favorites were Penelope Cruz and Gwyneth Paltrow. My least favorites was Jennifer Hudson and Jennifer Lopez. About Ms. Lopez, I think I'm probably biased. Since I don't like her, I don't like anything she ever wears. Ok, well, I'm going to look at more pictures and read more of last night's highlights now.

feeling: warm already
listening to: Muse (Starlight)

downer post

I like to keep things light on my page and if that's what you're looking for today, click out. Yesterday was such a weird day here in my city. You see, Rodeo is apparently a huge deal here. The kids got two days off of school for Rodeo and there is a big parade. At that parade yesterday, a five year old little girl was thrown off a horse and trampled to death. When I first read the news, I was shocked! I could believe or understand how something like that could happen. Immediately, I was furious at the parents. I mean, how could they allow their FIVE year old daughter to ride a horse in a parade by herself. Was it just really, really bad judgement? Now I feel horrible for them. I think they made a very stupid mistake and can't even begin to imagine how they feel now. As you can imagine, this has been all over the news here. Everyone seems to have an opinion. Besides the fact that this is such a horrible thing to have happened, there were a lot of families there just watching the parade. I mean, kids were watching this happen there in front of them. As you can imagine, the parade organizers were being questioned over and over. It turns out that the rules state that you have to be a certain age to ride alone. The family or the group that the little girl was in broke the rules. You know, this story is tragic for just so many reasons.
Yesterday I also found out that a school that Brianna had attended in Texas is also under scrutiny. Apparently one or two 10 or 11 year olds sexually asaulted a boy in kindergarten and are all still in school. It seems that it didn't happen on school grounds or something. When I read it, all I could think was "It was only a matter of time". I HATED this school. I wrote a post about it once. When I thought about this school yesterday and all the stuff that went on there, I feel so grateful that it isn't that time anymore. You can't imagine how frustrated I was during that time. Again, I have to agree that my then co-workers got to hear me whining about it sooooo much. They helped me so much in support and school recommendations. The people that work at that school are so imcompitent I get mad just remembering.
-sigh- Now that I brought you guys down, uh, have a good day. I'll post later or tomorrow with our Oscar predictions. I don't have Rodrigo's picks yet, so I can't post that yet. I love this little bloggy of mine. I feel better "talking" about crap things once in a while. Thanks for putting up.

feeling: better
listening to: Silversun Pickups (Lazy Eye)

top design

I'm trying. I'm trying really hard to love Top Design. So far, I don't love it. When I first heard about the show, I thought "Of course! Fashion, food and now of course design". It made sense. I was really looking forward to it and was sort of disappointed. From the very first episode I thought Goil was the best. Now I wonder . . are they editing the show to make it look like Goil is the only one with any chance of winning? I mean, who else does anyone like? I'm going to watch it again tonight and give the show another change to make me love it. So far, it doesn't have me. I'm sure it doesn't make much of a difference since I'm watching anyway.
Since I am on the tv subject, did you watch American Idol last night? Snore. I was quite bored. The only one I liked was the guy that sang that Keane song. I like the guy that looks like Jack Osborne because he's funny, but I didn't care too much for him last night. What did you think?

feeling: blah
listening to: Pixies (Debaser)

my cursing son

This past weekend, we went to watch "Bitch to Terabithia". That's right. According to Alec, that's what we saw. Neither Rodrigo nor I are big cursers. At least not around the kids. The only time I let go of the profanities is when I'm driving. Even then, they're not really curse words and mostly in Spanish (it sounds so much more dramatic that way).
Anyway, I first noticed that Alec couldn't pronounce "bridge" once when we were playing. We were being Dora and Diego and he said "Ok, now you be the bitch". I was shocked because I didn't know what he meant. Then he added, "You be the bitch and I be the troll".
Some other things that he's said are . . . .

- "Check out my fucky tires". -Being Lightning McQueen. The word should be "funky".
- "I like that red eyed tree fuck". -Talking about a frog.
- "Mama, you're not a fuck". - Again, a frog. I was saying "ribbit, ribbit".
- "Look at the cock". - A clock in a store.

So, we've just been trying to help him pronounce the words rather than laugh or make a big deal. I do find it funny, but if I laugh, he'll think it's cute and say it more. Seriously, I think people are going to think that we cuss up a storm at home and our poor kid has no choice.

feeling: tired
watching: The Tonight Show

valentine's day recap and links

We had agreed that we would have a really low key Valentine's Day. I was concerned because I didn't want Rodrigo to spend too much money. We'd just bought Brianna's bedroom furniture last month, he bought my iPod shuffle earlier this month and we bought Alec's bedroom furniture this past weekend. I told him that my shuffle could be my gift so I wasn't expecting anything. When he left to work yesterday he'd given me a giant chocolate bar which I thought was really cute. In the evening I received some pink, green and orange roses. My eyes teared up immediately. When I was working on a new blog template and trying to make a banner, I'd told Rodrigo about how I loved the combination of pink, green and orange. I was touched that he'd been listening, remembered and actually thought of it. He loves me.
As for the kids, well, they loved yesterday too. They think Valentine's day is a holiday for them too. Not like a lovey dovey holiday but a holiday when they can get goodies. Kind of like Halloween but sans costumes and with different color combos. Anyway, Brianna got a whole bunch of lip glosses (because I "never buy her any lip gloss". "Never" meaning I only buy her 3-4 lip glosses every month or so), a "fat cat" and several cards. She also received pencil, stickers, cups, erasers and about a million Valenines at school. Alec got cards, of course, a Milo and Otis movie which he loves but had never owned and a Lightning McQueen big cookie.



















I also wanted to share some links that I've come across today . . .

- I think I'm going to print out a few pages of this article and just pass them out whenever another person asks me "So, when's the wedding?"

- I only have the rest of today to make some Chinese New Year crafts for 23 kids. Any simple ideas?

- I don't know how many of you have tried this new cereal but it is LOVED at my house. Rodrigo and the kids have already gone through three boxes in less than two weeks. I've only tasted about one spoonfull but it's pretty good.

- I received the new Red Envelope catalog yesterday and there are lots of nice St. Patrick's Day gifts.

That's all for today!

feeling: super busy making 12 hairbows and other crafts BY TONIGHT
listening to: Semisonic ? (Closing Time) <-- I think that's the name of the band. I hadn't heard this song in years

Valentine's Day