What Color Rose Are You?

From a bunny trail after reading this post from Laura.

You Are a White Rose

You represent youthfulness and purity. Your vibe: Sweet and heavenly Falling in love with you: is like falling in love for the first time

What Color Rose Are You?

Are you Uptown or Downtown?

You Are Uptown

You are classy, cultured, and well educated. You are an expert on the finer things in live. Your city girl persona loves all of the opportunities a city offers. But only in the best neighborhoods.

Are You Uptown or Downtown?

Who's There?

I am totally LOVIN' my Blogroll being back on here. I can tell when my friends are HOME and not waste time clicking around to see if anybody's posted anything and having to go after a few clicks. Now I just click on the ones who've updated, see how they are doing, hopefully leave an encouraging word, and I'm on my way. As Girl would say I'm rockin' it :) !

Weekend Review

Saturday the boys and I attended the Chinese New Year Celebration at the Asian American Cultural Center. There was different Chinese dances, an Indian dance, several Hawaiian dances and a true dragon puppet, the highlight of the show! There was free food - potstickers, sesame balls, egg rolls, noodles, scallion cakes, and free cans of soda and bottles of water. Can't beat that way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Later that day Hubby took us down to a river by Spicewood Springs where the water was flowing to create quite a waterfall from the previous nights rain. The kids and us explored all up and down the sides of the river and the kids picked their sites to build their homes right on the edge of the river. We drove around and explored the neighboring roads and B (Hubby) started to drive through a flooded, flowing portion and scared me to death.

We headed back up to the house intending to get skates and join our young marrieds class for a night at Skateworld but got so comfortable we just stayed and had a nice quiet evening at home.

Sunday we went to church. B ended up staying with LG because he's not yet comfortable in his class. BG of course takes off for his right away, but he had difficulties at first as well. My sister went with him quite a few times until he was comfortable. I sat with my sister at church and then afterwards she and her boys came over to our house for pannini's.

We watched Flightplan and had to leave ten minutes before it ended for our first night of small group. It worked out because she wanted to stay to watch the end so she and her boys hung out with our boys while B and I went kid free to our small group.

Our small group was AMAZING! We had had trouble with arranging kid care and so had grown wary about even attending at all. The hosts said just these last few days they have an extra room the kids would be fine in and we intended to bring them and a movie and see how it went.

With my sister here in the afternoon though we came up with the brilliant idea of my nephew coming along. His older brother is 16 but has prior commitments Sunday night. But the 13 year old is completely willing to come and plays well with them. With my sister wanting to stay the first night it worked out even better as we didn't have any distraction as to really determine whether this is something we could and would want to do.

Last night's discussion was housekeeping of setting up the foundation of the group and then communication. B and I had just had a big discussion on communication before we got there and it brought tears to my eyes to realize how helpful and supportive and encouraging to our marriage this group might be. The girls and guys split up for prayer time and I felt like I got to know the girls on a deeper level as they shared their prayer requests and that they got to know me on a deeper level as well as I shared mine. B shared some things during the group that I didn't know, positive things that he appreciates, and helped me to see him in a new light and also to see a way I support him that I can fine tune even more.

B had an equally amazing time and really enjoyed the support. He told me all about the men's prayer requests and how a lot of them had attributed to their work, including his. That must be the biggest responsibility weighing on htem.

We came home to finish our movie which had a very happy ending.

This morning the kids and I are doing some school and making things messy. There was a park day with our homeschool group but Justin has a slight cough and the rest of our week is so scheduled I really just want to take this day to be home.

Yahoooo!

Customization.

Ahhhh.

Only took me an hour and a half to figure out.

That's a random image from Google in the banner and our very own Texas sunset in the background.

A Photo Meme

Our homeschooling group's celebration of the Chinese New Year, with BG leading the dragon.


A sweet note from my hubby. He wrote one the day before too that I was going to take a picture of. I didn't think he'd erase it to write a new one so soon!


The Austin skyline... and the view from the place where I'm taking my art class.


Happy soon to be Valentine's Day! There are five of these hanging above my kitchen island for Valentine's decoration.

Back on the Roll

I have decided to go back to blogroll for my links. That way I can see who's updated and not have to click around a million times before I get to a new post. I'm still working out the kinks so if you're wondering why the top three are in bold I don't know. I did stick three of my favorites up there for now because I couldn't figure out how to fix it. That will change once I figure it out. If for some reason your links not on there when it was, let me know. I still need to transfer my old links from WordPress.

Work

Well it does take work to have friends. It always seems so easy, but then one or the other ends up doing all the work and that's just no way to have friends. I don't mind doing work but I don't want to feel like I'm doing all of it. So maybe I'll just sit back for a bit and see what happens.

Retrospect

This is something I wrote in a notebook when we first moved here. I'm not sure if I ever made a post out of it, but it deserves to be.

"It's been a few weeks that we've been here now. Time has gone by so fast yet painfully slow. The first few weeks I cried. It felt like the tears would never stop coming. Then I dried my tears and wrote out the pain - the good, the bad, and the ugly. I was able to sit back and look at it objectively. To say look, yes, here's what I'm crying over now, but look what I had to cry over then. Somehow it eased the pain and the near panic attacks left me. I still feel a slightness of them occasionally in my chest and wonder if they'll come back full blown, but for the most part they're gone.

So here I sit with my feet in the water, my boys playing fort with the pool chiars in the water, and I'm being bitten alive by mosquitoes and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I wonder if they'd bite me if I was dead? Morbid thought.

Yes I still miss my family and yes I'm sure I'll still shed tears over not being near them, but I am content. Finally content.

My boys wanting to be home is pricelss, their inseperable bond is priceless, and being able to argue with my husband without feeling like I don't care or that I want a divorce is immeasurable in joy.

Here there is pain. Helathy pain. The kind you can grow from. California has the kind you can masque or cover up. I prefer the growing."

And as I finish typing that into here I am wowed at the immediacy of it. I could've written that yesterday.

Popsicle

Little Guy opens the refrigerator and says, "I am hot, Mom. I need some coldness."

I Hate Crafts

I am SOOO not a crafty person. I just can't stand the darn things. Why make a stupid little thing nobody will care about and you're going to throw away any way?

Well of course kids love them. They still get thrown away but they still love them. So BG and I made a kite. Then he made another. And another. And now he's like on his bajillion one. I am so proud of him for his ingenuity and creativity in engineering these things, but I am so sick of tying little darn knots and cutting pieces of wood and melting ends of string I want to scream. Have you ever tried to figure out a Prussik Knot? It looked soooo easy when the guy at the kite shop showed me, but when I attempt it? Yeah, right. What's with that little loop? Is that supposed to be the string I'm tying it to or am I supposed to make another little loop besides the two strings I'm already attempting to meld together in some kind of recognizable shape? ARGH! Did I mention I'm PMSing? Oh yeah.

Oh and LG is giving everything haircuts, including himself, paper, and the carpet. Cute, I know, but I just cannot bring myself to think of it that way right now.

It's a Grind

Over at Stacy's she was reporting Starbucks being out of her favorite items and it reminded me of our new favorite hangout. No hate mail please! I still love you if you love Starbucks. I'll put it in words It's a Grind had on their little dry erase board said the other day, "We love Starbucks. They send us all their customers!"

If you have one near you and haven't been, check it out. They're coffee is really good and not super sweet good, just coffee good. The people who work there are really fun and they'll bring your coffee to you. At our location they have books to read. So far I've looked through a commemoration on surfers and browsed through a few pages of Gilead which looks interesting enough to get from the library and finish up. They also have games to play with the little ones or even big ones. BG loves playing Chess there. Oh and free wi-fi, none of the hot spot crap, Hubby uses it all the time. If you have the money you can invest in one. I would if I could. Wouldn't that be fun!

The best part is the ambiance. They light candles on each table in the evening and on cold days have the fireplace going. Not to mention the overload of comfy chairs next to the fireplace at ours. Perfect place for a night out with friends, an office for my hubby, a date with my hubby, quality times with my kiddo, or just a place to curl up and read a good book.

Social Hiatus

Which is exactly what I have been on the last week and a half. I was going out, doing, doing, doing, and never stopping that I just had to stop cold turkey. Notice how my writing has been so extensive lately? Hehe.

Yesterday I was missing people and must've called four different friends who either didn't answer or weren't home. BG had an appointment at 12:15pm so I wanted to get together afterwards with SOMEone, anyone.

Turns out as Hubby is working most of this weekend with open houses he was took yesterday off early so it was a good thing nobody was available. Kind of put things in perspective who the most important people to spend time with are and how God knew that and nudged me in that direction to show me what I'm doing is a really good thing for us right now.

So we went kite flying at a nearby soccer field. The perfect windy day for kite flying. Daddy and BG flew kites and BG learned to fly the trick kite REALLY well! And LG lead me around to conquer the rocks and on the way back we marked each one with his "letters".

The Story of Ping

So our book we are studying this week showed up on Commander in Chief, one of Hubby's and my favorite shows. The show had a lot to do with China and it had the President's oldest sibling reading the beginning of The Story of Ping to the youngest sibling and at the end the President finished off the end of the book to her youngest. They painted China in quite a good light, wonder if it had some way in commemorating the Chinese as their New Year celebration is next week. Any way, that was fun to see especially since we happen to be studying it!

Mr. Nige the Puppy

Nigel

Hubby Sweetness

So tonight. Our worst. date. ever.

And in the middle of it all, Hubby says, "I think it's amazing that you're taking the time to work so hard on those things. To learn how to sing it, to learn how to do so much. You're putting so much effort into being able to teach it that all the other girls yeah they're all doing stuff, but hello it's so painfully simple." I'd expressed concern over the things I've come up with for our homeschool group not being good enough and he hasn't said much, except that he thinks they're all the same until this. In the middle of our argument. That meant so much more to me than any other time he could've picked to say it.

Success!

Is it sad to think of singing success when your children don't tell you to stop singing? Though in my defense I have heard Mom's who do have beautiful voices that their kids do this any way, or some version of it, i.e. the eye roll, Mom so and so sings better than you (that one would break me!), that kind of stuff : ) .

Learning this song for the kiddos at our next homeschool group, Gung Fat Hay Choy . We're doing a Chinese New Year Party!

Did I mention I cannot STAND to sing in front of other people? Yeah I committed to doing this song with temporary forgetfulness of that fact. So that is why I am working so hard on it : ) . It's only this last year or two I've started to sing in church... where nobody can hear me. I've recently confided in one friend how hard that area is for me and she is going to try to teach me. Her voice is beautiful and I had no idea until a few years ago. I would love to sing with that confidence.

Testing

Thinking about coming back here from weblogs.us. Anybody know how to uninstall Haloscan?

Home-Schooling

This was our plan for the week, as well as BG's phonics and math program:

Day 1) Float different objects in water, help them understand buouncy and density of air and wood how it’s lighter than water, guess which will float, Read The Story of Ping

Day 2) Reflect sunlight off a small mirror onto the wall, notice different reflections, go to the duck pond and feed the ducks, notice reflections of trees, sun, selves, Read Mirror
Review AA Milne reflections artwork

Day 3) Make duck paper plate craft, imitate ducks, make a clay duck, Read a duck book

Day 4) Locate China on Map and color the flag of China, eat at Panda Express and use chopsticks, Read Tikki Tikki Tembo or Day of the Dragon King

And this is what we actually did:

Day 1) Read The Story of Ping. Filled a bowl with water and noticed which objects float and which sink. Guessed which ones would float. Ducky guessed correctly each time, Mommy and Monkey did not!

Day 2) Made ducks out of playdough, imitated ducks eating, swimming, diving, read about geese, ducks and duckbilled platypuses from animal books, and read Mrs. Jemima Puddle Duck. Traced our silhouettes on paper. Made fireman silhouettes on paper (nothing to do with FIAR, but something we did out of our phonics program). Ate chinese food and used chopsticks for dinner. Mommy discovered her treasured family habit of only using chopsticks for chinese dinner has gone by the wayside.

Day 3) Went to the library : ) . Four different ones to be exact. Studied AA Milne’s illustration of a swan on water. Noticed our reflection in the mirror and the reflection of our fingers dancing on the surface. Noticed how we could make the sun dance on the ceiling and make silhouettes of our hands. Went to the duck pond and noticed the reflections of the geese, ducks, and the trees in the pond. Noticed that a piece of wood bark floats. Read Day of the Dragon King and Magic School Bus Ups and Downs about floating and sinking. LG was fascinated with the Magic School Bus Ups and Downs.

Day 4) Made Chinese pinwheels out of straws and paper and a Chinese kite out of flame fabric and wooden dowels and read about different things the Chinese use kites for. One legend was that one was used with noisemakers on it to scare off enemies, the other was a kite released on Qing Ming (a celebration of passed away ancestors) that took the evil spirits and bad luck with it. BG made two of his very own creations of Chinese kites. LG made little balls. Read Who Eats What? and learned about food chains.

Day 5) Made a trick kite out of flame fabric with Daddy and flew kites in our nearby soccer field. BG even learned to fly Daddy and his trick kite we got at the kite store! LG and I conquered the rocks and on the way back marked each one cave man like with his "letters".

WordPress vs. Blogger

I've been contemplating a return to Blogger. I enjoy the extensive help files that enable me to customize my blog to just how I want it to look. What I don't enjoy is the non instant changes and the looong process of posting and the publishing and republishing. WordPress offers instant gratification, whether it be loading up the post page or saving a new post, however I have yet to change the design since I first created it and that is grating on my nerves. If there was some kind of index to be able to go in and change just specific things, just the background and header for example. As well as insert some things in the sidebar and organize my sidelinks where I desire, I'd be just peachy where I am.

The other weird thing I'm noticing is that Blogger seems to be more of a community. When I was on Blogger I freely met others and in turn they meet me. I don't think I've started reading one new blog on a regular basis since I've been on here and in turn that makes my readership low. ha! I think every single person on my blogroll is on blogger, except for IslandGirl who has her Xanga community as well as her faithful Blogger readers. It's funny because I write more freely knowing not so many people are checking in, only the ones that truly care, but on the other hand it makes me wonder if I'll be entertaining enough for myself down the road : ) .

Puppy Days

We've been babysitting the neighbors puppy, Nigel aka Mr. Nigel, Nigey, and Nige, for the weekend. He's very odd looking at first until you get used to him and then he's absolutely adorable. He's about the size of a small poodle and has legs that seem a little too long for his small size, one blue eye and one brown eye and an L shaped tail, he's white all over and just looks like the softest cotton ball. His Mommy left on Friday and BG walked him at least once or twice. Saturday we fed him, took him to the park, brought him over to our verandah to play, and went over to his house and played.

Yesterday BG took him #1 and #2 and we brought him in here to play. He had such a blast running around and discovering all the nooks and crannies in our house and vacuuming our kitchen. We brought his toys over for him to play with before we took him home.

His Mommy is coming home today but we had him over for a good two hours this morning, playing and running around. He sat underneath our kitchen barstools while the kids and I did school. It was so cute. Makes me want a puppy... with his own house next door : ) . I'm still very glad we dont' have a puppy though, in between all the very much fun they are a LOT of work!

Grrrr

I have lost three things on this move. One is a book I was learning to draw from and it went with my sketchbook that I drew my very first pictures in. That was when we moved here. I'm 99% sure it came here to Texas, because I distinctly remember putting it in a "safe" place. Ha.

Just recently when we packed to go to my Grandma's I purposefully did not take my fabulous book I have been reading because I DIDN'T WANT TO LOSE IT. So I come home all excited to get back into my book and I CAN'T FIND THE DARN THING!!!!!!!!!! WAH!!! This is REALLY irritating me. I just want to scream, find the things, and then I'll be happy. Hehe. Because that's the way it works : ) .


The Forget Me Not Fairy

Comparitive

Google image search on Austin, Texas, and Google image search on Santa Cruz, California. Ahhh, the beauty. If nothing else (and family is a lot of nothing else), why we want to be able to afford to live back there.


First real photo search result for Austin


First search result for Santa Cruz

Days In the Year

At this time last year Hubby (I have got to come up with a better name for these loved ones of mine) and I were at a Customer Appreciation dinner that my parents threw. This year they are throwing one again and we are not there. They have a 30 person orchestra for dancing. My Grandma will be attending, as well as Hubby's Mom, my sister and her boyfriend.

Here we are 2000 miles away from what is going on there and I am so lucky to have a husband that gives me the rest of his Chipotle burrito because he knows my stomach is too queasy to eat anything else. To have a hubby who if nothing else will stay up to play video games while I sit quietly nearby or play with til' the wee hours of the morning. With my sweet family kites at Zilker Park. Little Guy with his bat kite, Hubby and BG with their trick kite, and the lone space shuttle that Mommy ended up flying.


Zilker Park, Austin, Texas

Being Kids

We are having a sleepover! Close friends of ours came over for dinner and the girl and I looked at each other and said, "Why don't you guys spend the night?" Her eyes lit up and we got the hubbies excited about movies and online games and they were just peachy. She and I went out for movies and breakfast menu ingredients and came back for Lava Cake, Hennessey and Grand Mariner, and Trader Joe's Moka Jova Coffee, and settled in with Guess Who. After four times of watching it I still laugh so hard I cry at the race car scene. Now they are tucked into their super comfy air mattress bed, the kids are tucked in their beds, and Hubby is out next to me on my bed. It's been a fun night and hopefully will be a fun morning!

Busy Girl

I cannot believe how busy I am lately. It seems like I'm so used to NOT having the opportunity to do things I actually WANT to do, that when the opportunity arises I grab onto it. But there a LOT more opportunities than I ever intended or ever imagined. Monday I ran a few errands, had a homeschool group, then dashed straight to an art class, Tuesday I had an appointment for Big Guy, met Hubby for lunch, got new tires on the car, then dashed to dinner with a friend. Those two days are pretty much an example of my entire last few weeks and it's weighing. Last week I was out three nights in a row!! Poor Little Guy said after just the first night, "I don't like it when it gets dark because then you go." And last night before I left BG asks, "Why do you always go out and you aren't with us?" I told him this would be the last time for at least two weeks. I had been needing a solid reason to slow down, and I am so glad they are able to communicate how it affects them. Sometimes I can see that it affects them, but if it doesn't seem directly related it's easier to ignore, but I can't ignore those words.

It's been amazing the things I have had the opportunity to do though. New Year's was a party a couple at our church hosted - the first New Year's party Hubby and I have ever been together and the kids were welcome which was really nice, and our Christmas Party was the same only Hubby''s Mom was here so she had a night in with the kids and we were able to go by ourselves. Our young marrieds class at the church is amazing. We try to make the early service at 9:15am, but usually end up just getting there at 11am and doing the class which is good for now. They've been moving around things and changing up a lot of what they do so we've been able to see a lot of intricacies of the class and not have so much 'Sunday school' which is really nice for feeling in the know and being able to be involved if we want to. The same couple who invited us to the New Year's party is leading a small group which is an intrical part of our class : ) ! That starts on the 31st and sounds intriguing and intimate, which is awesome. We'll need to find a babysitter so that's my next project.

BG is working with his lady who did speech with him, only they're working on reading now. That's twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays which takes up a big part of my day. He is doing incredible though and is at a point where he is reading books to himself!! It is so awesome and I am so excited for HIM!! Yesterday we were driving and i hear him sounding out the words to a BRAND NEW BOOK. We've been paying him $1 to read a book to us, and I've told him I'll pay him $2 when he reads a book he hasn't read before. Money is a BIG motivator for him, but at the same time he's loving what he's doing for it and it makes it easier for him the more he does.

Fridays he has soccer at 4pm, which is great because not a lot of people go then and it's a very small class. But it's a really BAD time to be out in Austin traffic so it takes up a good half hour before and after to get there and back.

Saturdays Hubby usually works which makes anytime he's not working packed full with things to do, and the rest of the day is normally just a school day.

Sundays is church and starting the end of this month every other week, which isn't too bad, will be small group.

The second Monday of every month is our homeschool group the kids and I go to, which is a lot of fun and I really enjoy the moms. Plus we do two or three field trips during the month. Tomorrow is date with hubby night as my nephew is babysitting.

Not to mention all the WONDERFUL new people I am meeting. I never would've thought there would be so many wonderful new people to meet in such a short time. I've gone to coffee and/or dinner at least five different times with five different people and as much as I WANT to meet new people and want to have the opportunity to talk without my kids, I just can't do the evenings without them anymore. Then it's hard to get to know someone because you don't have the opportunity to talk without interruptions. There is one girl that I went with that I've invited over sometime during the day as her schedule allows, but since we've already met and had the opportunity to chat away I feel comfortable with that, and I think she'd be great with the kids.

That is me lately in a nutshell. There's a lot more, but pretty much just more of that. Fabulous, wonderful people that I just never imagined the world was so full of, and thanking the Lord for it. Now I just have to develop that self-discipline and not do everything that's out there to do!

Mommy Style

Okay I know this is a bit impersonal but I've been running dry on ideas lately but somehow I've managed to type out a few lengthy emails of things I WANT to write here but just can't seem to find the words to. This first one is just a random going off after hearing a comment when somebody said they thought I was stylish.

You are too cute, I love hearing that my boys are adorable and I love that you think I'm stylish. Sometimes it feels so hard just because I CAN'T go shopping (ha, I wrote that as dropping the first time) at the drop of a hat. Even if I wanted to I'd have to figure out, well do my boys need socks and underwear or long pants possibly, more than I need that shirt. But I DO try and when I shop I try to make it sensible - I keep up to date with my InStyle, LOVE that magazine, and my I am Fashion Blog, those girls are cute.

For Christmas Brandon got me this beautiful gorgeous silky pajama outfit from VS. Pink silk and soft brown lace. Positively gorgeous, but I need SUPPORT and the pants were too long. VS doesn't make my size in most things any way. He said he bought something expensive enough to return and get something else if I wanted, so I did (yes I did feel bad and I feel bad even writing it down). I got a pair of adorable pants at Express, black with pinstripes, "work" pants. I've been wanting that kind forever and they have the cutest ones. I also got a cute shirt that is absolutely adorable that goes with it but makes me all black, so I may take it back to get something that I'll actually WEAR with it. That's my one thing these days, I try not to buy something unless I buy what I will need to wear with it as well whether it be just a shirt or shoes, otherwise it just sits in my closet and never gets worn.

It used to be easy, I had all my prepregnancy clothes that were in style and still fit but as the styles have changed so have my taste in fit and in that style so it's become harder and harder as I've had to rotate everything I had pre-first and now pre-second pregnancy. My fit I've wanted smaller so I don't have anything floating around and my style has become more classy with a few of the trendier things, if I can afford them when they're still in style!!

My Son Has Figured Out How to Make a Baby

Which is exactly what BG says to us as he's sitting on the couch. Brandon and I turn to each other, this ought to be interesting.

So he folds his right leg up into his lap and cradles it like a baby and says, "See?"

Brandon's response?"That's the best way to make babies."

And if you want a way to make another baby? Hold the leg on the other side. He can even hold both of them at once as was Daddy's inquiry!

I Love the Beach

Reading back on posts from January of last year. I realized they weren't with the people in California, they were with my sister out here, who was visiting. Those were glorious wonderful days. I just emailed her and told her her family and ours needs to live near the beach near by each other one day.