Best Mother's Day Gift

My 3rd grader, Magoo (we gave him that name at a very early age it has kind of stuck) had a Mother's and Grandmother's luncheon yesterday in his classroom. It was the sweetest event ever! He has an AMAZING teacher!
The kids served us lunch, a croissant, a light salad, fruit, veggies and Perrier. YUM!
Of course I was crying as soon as I got to the classroom and he escorted me to my seat.

This was sitting at my place setting:

All about Me

Athletic Mathmatical Readaholic

Wishes to read 5 million pages by age 73, own a mansion, and walk on the moon
Dreams of being a scientist and inventing a jet pack
Wants to stop war and make the world peaceful
Who wonders why earth is being destroyed and why we are having wars for little reasons
Who is afraid of the dark, (sometimes) people breaking into my house, and kidnapping me
Who likes karate, reading Harry Potter books, school, math, sports, food, and desserts
Who believes in God and Jesus
Who loves reading, food, sports, math, animals, and more reading
Who loves sweets, candy, ice cream, waffles, and ham
Who loves my dad, my brother, my sister and my dogs
Who loves my mom’s homemade chocolate cake, my house, and my life
Who plans to have two kids that play in the MLB
Who plans to live in LA, live in the White House and have 50 cars
I’m letting you know all of these things now, but the thing you should know is that I LOVE YOU the most and I ALWAYS WILL FOREVER MOM!

Ok, my heart is in my stomach as I share these words that my 8 1/2 year old wrote! 8 1/2 years old and so much wiser than his years.
Wow!

I know it may be hard to believe but I don't think I even have words to describe how I feel... proud, blessed, thankful, lucky, loved... for sure!
I also have a lot to live up to. I want to be the woman he thinks I am!

He also wrote this little poem book about me! This is one of the best mother's day gifts I could ever have received.
I so completely love my Magoo!

Traveling with the fam

Is this the sweetest?

All 3 sound asleep... we went to my neice's graduation from Loyola Marymount University last weekend and we stayed in a hotel (my kids love staying in hotels). I just love that that they can still all sleep in the same bed, (no easy feat, the princess is a gymnast in her sleep).

The bunny has been with the princess since before she was born.

The princess with her nina (above) after the graduation ceremony.

In the car, all cozy!

Tornados in Southern California?

What a day... what a week.
Yesterday was a wild ride on the weather frontier. I had to go to Los Angeles for meetings and I felt as if I was driving through 4 different climates! Rain, sun, hail, idiots on the road... (on the 10 fwy that is a given).

I am so glad that I personally missed the tornados.. what is that? Yes, tornados! Am I really in Southern California? Born and raised-- we have earthquakes-- not hurricanes, not tsunamis, not locusts and certainly NOT tornados! What the hell do you do in a tornado?? And worse-- you KNOW it is coming.

Now I have dealt with earthquakes my entire life, as far back as I can remember, earthquakes have been a part of my life. They come, you shake, you deal, you move on.

TDH (hubby) said he heard advice on the radio that included, "moving your family and pets to your cellar" --ok, where in Southern California are there homes with cellars? Are you kidding? (take note new home builders) The next option given was to move to an interior room of your home- what??? I have seen those news reports- homes are flattened! Visions of bathtubs flying...

Additonal advice included: If you happen to be driving (TDH was relaying this to me while I was driving) find a ditch, get below ground level. oy!

I am not prepared to deal with tornados. I can see it now, the whole fwy attempts to drive into a ditch!

I can handle 3 kids, 2 dogs, a husband, a job, the PTO, extended family, church and friends. The whole tornado thing- not so much!

That is my rant for the day.

If this is global warming I need to start doing my part, taking steps to stop it.

I might become green after all.

A ho? A what?

The princess- our 3 year old daughter, recently started a new day care program.

She was with the most amazing grandmother and aunt (not related to us, but they could have been -- they treated her like she was their own), for almost 2 years. They had to move and that sent me scrambling!

In the desert, where we live there is a much greater need for day care than there are spots-- forget quality care-- just plain 'ol spots don't exist.

As soon as I found out that we were going to loose grandma, I started calling around. Not only were most places full, the ones with openings were RIDICULOUSLY expensive or they required potty training- uh oh!

I know that the princess will eventually potty train, but I am not one of those moms who obsesses over toileting-- after all I have 2 older boys who can not seem to aim at the appropriate opening in their bathroom. What's a few more months of diapers for the princess?

So... we found a brand new large family day care that was just opening, the owner is a former director of a pre-school and she came highly recommended.

The princess started there last week and she seems to love it.
Tall, dark and handsome (TDH) (my hubby) dropped the princess off last week on her first day.

Drop off went well. (Of course I called to see how it went!)

Have I mentioned that the princess also still uses a pacifier?
Well she does, especially when she is sleeping.

The director told me at nap time that the princess followed the other kids over to the cots and lay right down, then she whimpered a bit and began to ask for her "ho".

Something like:
Princess: "I need my ho"
Director: "Your what?"
Princess: "I need my ho!!"
(Now the director is trying to figure out what my daughter is saying...)
Princess: (Points to her mouth), insists, "I need my ho"
Director realizes that a "ho" is a pacifier.

I can explain... The princess' oldest brother called it a "paso", Princess changed it to "po" and while with grandma who only spoke spanish to her, she learned the word "chapon", naturally... it became a "ho".

We have decided while she is 3 she can have a "ho" at 15 we might have something else to say!

It did make for a pretty good laugh...