Here are our friends Dan & Tracie--this picture came with their Christmas card--and here they are with their newest addition, Samantha.

It came to us via email with the caption, eight IS enough!

Dan & Tracie are our oldest "couple" friends. I dated Dan's stepbrother in high school, worked with Tracie in college (and suggested Dan get a job where we worked), went to their wedding. David worked for Dan for a couple of years between the newsroom video career and the PR business doing mortgages and editing videos on the side. We've attended the baptisms of most of each other's children.

So we're looking forward to visiting and bringing dinner as soon as everyone here is well again!

Congratulations, guys! We love you!

I can't keep these pictures from piling on top of each other. Sorry! You can click on them if you want to see them individually.

Gigi's home from her cruise!

I wanted to go and see Mom when she got home; she'd been gone for one week, but we hadn't seen her in two.

Paloma wanted to make up for lost time and immediately demanded that Gigi read her a book. Later, she & Maya went to the reading corner to read silently together.



It was supposed to be a quick stop on our way home after dinner, but after we'd already been there a half hour, she remembered that she wanted to give the kids their souvenirs!




This last picture shows the cute purses Mom got on board the ship. We couldn't choose, so we're keeping them at Mom's til we have an occasion to use one! If I'd been thinking, I could've used one for the Valentine Dance or the DSO... maybe next time!

We started the day at one of my favorite events of the year: the Book Swap! Free books!

Next, we ate at Jason's Jelly, remarking on our way out at what a BEAUTIFUL day it was--the sky so blue.

After lunch, I suggested to David (in code) that I wanted to look into the possibility of going to see a show.

I got home and looked on eBay and Ticketmaster to see if we could get tickets to see Elmo Makes Music/ Sesame Street Live.

See, the thing was, a few weeks ago, the kids heard an advertisement (during the news--they usually don't see commercials otherwise) for Elmo Makes Music-- and the commercial said, Enter to win tickets! Their interest piqued, I looked it up and there was a color-to-win (in a drawing) contest. I printed out 5 of the entry forms and the kids colored theirs very carefully, Carmen believing the contest would be won by the person who colored the best. David, the overachiever, colored his in Photoshop.

I filled out the envelopes and got stamps the same day the kids colored theirs. But I think that was on Presidents' Day. So the mail wasn't going out. So I put them in the napkin holder on the kitchen table. Where they stayed until past the contest drawing date.

Meanwhile, the kids would occasionally mention something about the Elmo show.

Speak Up: Responding to Everyday Bigotry

I read this book on the day of the TAKS even though there was a big deal made about "Active Monitoring" this year. I was a very active monitor this year, but this book has 1 or 2 page chapters, so it was easy to read between trips around the room. In the past, apparently some people didn't do a very good job proctoring the exam, so now we all have to act like security guards during the test.

I want to write more about this book, but it is going to take me a while and I'm power blogging today, finishing a LOT of drafts I'd saved over the past month. I'm not letting myself slow down more than 5 minutes or so per post. (Most of them had pictures waiting for me to write something to go with them. Posting pictures only takes a finger or two, which I can do still when Paloma nurses, but I cannot type when she is awake, period: she is too interested in the computer and pushing ANY kind of buttons on ANY kind of electronics.)

Anyway, if you're interested, you can download the book at the link above.

Here Carmen shows off the rainbow an artist painted on her face for Mardi Gras.

This year, Mardi Gras was also the day of the ELA TAKS test, so I wanted to celebrate that being finished for the year! We went to Pappadeaux, my favorite for the past 10 years. There was already a wait when we got there at about 5:15, but the weather was beautiful, so we sat outside on the patio and ordered appetizers.


An employee asked if she could take a polaroid to commemorate the occasion, which was great because I didn't bring a camera, but it's hard to imagine a picture much worse than this!

Gabe's preschool had a parade for Presidents' Day. Here he is with his best (school) friend, Ollantay. Isn't she adorable?

Meet the Beetles
Baby You Can Drive My Car
Money Can't Buy Me Love, but it gets my attention!

Pillow Talk

They never seem to get tired of each other. It's so sweet, it melts me every time.

I just love this picture of Paloma... and I can't get her valentine to post (it was an InDesign doc... and I made a pdf of it, but even through that and saving it as a jpeg, I get a blue, weird-looking thing when I try to post it).... see?

Abuelito's birthday & karaoke

We went to a place called Taqueria Arandas for Abuelo's birthday. Arandas is the name of the town that Abuelo is from, and on the cover of the menu, they have a photo of the cathedral from the town, so that was an appropriate choice.

Apparently this is a chain of 30+ restaurants; this one looked like it used to be a Denny's. We were there for several hours. It didn't seem like the small place was used to groups of our size! The kids sat at a booth at the beginning of the night, but then got too active to stay there and behave.

Lety made a delicious Flan Cake that we all enjoyed after singing Las Mañanitas.

After dinner, a guy came in carrying sound equipment. I thought there was going to be a live band, but it was karaoke equipment. I don't know if this was planned, but it was kind of like us going bowling after Mom's birthday dinner to have karaoke singing (in Spanish!) after dinner for Abuelo's birthday. What fun!

Here is Luis singing with his niece, Rocio, who was in town from Miami (with the exciting news that she is engaged!).



At the end of the night, my kids enjoyed playing with the candy/ gumball/ trinket machines, and when it was time to go, we had to practically drag all the kids out of the bar (which even though it was late, was otherwise empty!)



Happy birthday, Abuelito! We love you!

Carmen's valentine

We personalized these valentines for each of her classmates with their names instead of "Para ti" in each corner. I had a picture of each classmate from the Christmas party, so it was a good chance to give those to the kids, too.

Thanks to Abuelo & Abuela for the Spanish help when I was Photoshopping! David was too busy working on the "RAICES" DVD; we gave ourselves the deadline of Valentine's day since Carmen's friend Serena was moving away to San Antonio. David spent many, many hours working on the DVD project and it turned out very nicely.

Our valentines on Valentine's night.

I had the pleasure to participate in Carmen's class's Valentine's party. I was in charge of the crafts (crazy as that sounds, since I am NOT crafty at all!). We made pencil toppers and homemade curvy envelopes. Here are her friends Tori, Carolyn & Brionna showing off their projects.



It was fun to be there with the kids for an hour or so. (I had to go back to work after that because it was the last week of the trimester and my final exams weren't finished!)

Here is Carmen & her friend Avery working on their crafts.



This is her teacher & the little girl who was moving the next day, Serena. After the crafts and a lot of sweets, Ms. Z led the kids in several songs and had everyone say something they would miss about Serena.



This is Carmen with Serena.

This is Ms. Z's aide, Ms. Martha.