Five years. Wow. My precious boy is turning 5. This is the front of his birthday party invitation. Kind of. He was so excited about it, he watched me working on the invitation for a long time. I finally asked him to go play because he kept moving the recliner I was sitting in (Photoshop and track pads are bad enough without someone moving your work area constantly). I can't believe an almost-5-year-old could stay interested in Photoshop that long. But you'll understand when you get your invitation. The back was a lot of fun, and I can honestly say he helped.

I was not trying to go all-out on this invitation, but it turned out nicely. David got me an Easy button when I was working on the M&M one. Keep it simple... I'm trying. But since we're doing this party with Abbey, I don't want to put on too shabby a show. The party part should be easy, but I haven't figured out favors yet.

David has been uncharacteristically involved in the preparation for this one. He's been shopping on eBay, looking for the few Cars diecast characters (cars) that we don't have yet. And he made labels to go inside a new case so that all of the treasured cars have their own place.

See, the case Gabe got for his birthday last year had spaces for 16 cars, and each space had a sticker in it. Mattel was thinking ahead, kind of. Only it turns out they underestimated how many cars people would buy--by a long shot!

Last year, each individually packaged car had a picture on the back of all of the collectible cars. But soon, those pictures were changing and new ones were being added all of the time.

Gabe currently has 31 cars (he got some for his birthday last year, some for Christmas, etc.).

Now he'll be getting several more. David let Carmen "shop" at the "Gabe store" tonight. She picked "Leakless" and the Ferrari. Then, after asking if I thought Paloma would understand the concept, he sneaked Paloma into the "Gabe store". She picked out two "Mones" for him: yellow and hydraulic red.

(I knew she'd get it; this morning she repeated, "Socks for Mason" as we went to get shin guards & socks for him for soccer camp. She told this to the greeter at Walmart and the cashier at Target. Yes, I had to go to both places because I forgot that WALMART only restocks things when they feel like it. They had the shin guards, but not ANY soccer socks, for children or adults. Why, why, why do I EVER go there when I'm in a hurry?)

A couple of months ago, I found two sets of "Movie Moments" cars: the Italian Luigi & Guido as Ferrari fans, and the Mike & Sully set. Gabe was with me at Walmart on this trip, but there was no way I was leaving without them because they were so rare, I didn't dare try to come back later. So I tried to hide them in the cart. Of course, one glimpse of the red packaging gave it away when he poked his nose near the cart. He was giddy. But I told him, try to forget about these so I can give them to you for your birthday. A few weeks later, he said, Mom, I'm still trying to forget about those movie Cars cars.

That's my boy.

I'll be back-blogging for a bit, so read on below if you have time or care to.

One's from an evening concert we went to.
And here's one about the recent storm damage & cleanup.

BTW, does anyone notice that my blog takes a long time to load? One of my friends said she reads mine last because it takes forever. If you've noticed this problem, too, would you please leave a comment (anonymous is fine) and let me know?

Thanks!

Carmen's trash sculpture

These are all my former students. I saw them at Gabe's graduation. They're expecting baby girls this summer. I found this out when I asked the one in black, what are you doing next year? And she said, "I'm going to be a stay-at-home mom!"

Which reminds me, I haven't written here about the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

I talk about it with students any chance I get (when it comes up in the news, in literature, etc.), but usually it comes up on the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy which happens each May.

I really wish living in the Bible belt didn't mean failing to tell kids the truth. Now that it's been proven that abstinence-only programs don't work, I hope there will be better information available.

David & I went to a class in the fall entitled Shaping Your Child's Sexual Character. I admit, I was taken aback when I first saw a flier for the class at a PTA meeting. The school counselors from three elementary schools got together to offer this class. However, of a possible 2000+ parents (figuring 2 parents for 700 students at each school) that this was offered to, the turnout consisted of about 30-40 parents. That's unfortunate, because the guest speaker, Mary Flo Ridley, was really good. It got us talking and thinking about how to address this topic with our kids.

And the award for best costume goes to ? ? ?

For Alphabet day, we asked Gabriel what he wanted to be. (Carmen was Carmen Cotton Candy two years ago.) "What starts with G?", he said to himself. "I know! Grapes!"
So here is the result of that short brainstorm:

Green Grapes Galore


Also, Carmen needed 4 costumes within a week. They did something special at school for Cinco de Mayo (no picture, sorry), she went to a friend's birthday tea party (and here she is as a princess),


her school's annual sock hop (where all three of them dressed up),

and my favorite (of her!),


Pirate Carmen!

Carmen's classmate Seth had a great pirate party and invited everyone to dress up. We had fun gathering all of the accessories I had used to be Captain Feathersword a few years ago.

Gabriel thoroughly enjoyed graduation exercises at school last week!

Paloma's sentences




The first few sentences she uttered, I thought she had just memorized.

At the top of the stairs: "I carry you."

In the highchair: What happened, Paloma? "I dropped it."

Jackie said she says, "I pretty" to the mirror, and "I run fast!" in the yard.

But I've been noticing more and more of them.

Last night, the kids were playing in the dark in the bunkbed with a glow-in-the-dark circus toy. As I walked in the room, I heard her say to Carmen & Gabriel, "I turn, pees (please)!" "Give it!"

This morning before I was fully awake, she said, "I climb you!" (And she was crawling on top of my back.)

And this isn't a sentence, but it was funny. A few nights ago, actually early in the morning, she called from her crib: "Angi! . . . Ang! . . . Mommy! . . . Mom! . . . Angi . . ." and so on. She didn't get mad or upset. She just kept calling, standing up in her crib in the dark until I went to get her.

Last night she didn't fall asleep nursing. It's one of the first times. (She's been hurting me lately, so sometimes I tell her it's all gone or change the subject when she asks, "Milk, please?" or "Much!"--her earlier word for milk.) Instead, she requested song after song, wanting David and me to sing to her. "Spider", "ABCs", "Star", "Horse" (a.k.a. "Giddyup") "Woods" (Little Cabin in the) and the Barney song (we don't know where she learned it--she doesn't see Barney at home--but it's still cute). She especially enjoys songs with motions. We did "There was a little turtle/ who lived in a box/ he swam in a puddle/ he climbed on the rocks" (etc.) many, many times last night.



Here she is doing the Chicken Dance or the Hokey Pokey at Carmen's Sock Hop last week--very cute. She STUDIED the moves on the dance floor and tried to do them all. She is musically inclined like Carmen was; she pretends to play the piano on any surface, sings to herself, loves to dance.

If a tree falls in the neighborhood . . . we'll all be there to watch.

A tree in front of our next-door neighbors' house was hit by lightning (or winds--a tornado was rumored to be in the area) on April 13, and when it split, it fell towards their house and did quite a bit of damage. (We had five broken windows ourselves and we'll both be getting new roofs.)

They spent part of Saturday chopping down and cleaning up after the tree (I thought it would take the whole day--knowing how long it takes David & me when we do this kind of tree trimming, but they correctly estimated 2 hours once they'd cut the tree down--but they had at least 5 teens/ adults working). David videotaped the whole thing for posterity. Carmen & Gabriel were very interested and wanted to be involved. They helped with the sweeping up later.

Here's the "BEFORE" pile of limbs!


Paloma just wanted to see their cat, Boots, as usual.




Freddy took a few whacks at the trunk and found out how hard the wood was.
Then Paul went after it with the chain saw. TIMBER!!!




Katie tried surfing on the felled tree, so of course Carmen wanted to try it, too.