Dear Glennis,

Every time I turn around Ella is saying, "Look Mom!" I look and she is sticking her tongue out at me. Not exactly...for the past 3 days Ella has been wiggling her loose tooth with her tongue, so every time I look all I see is tongue. Well, tonight she said, "Mom, see how loose it is. Don't pull it!" So I check it out and it is ready to go. Of course as soon as I tell her to get me a tissue, she starts whining about "don't hurt me" or "it's going to hurt." Such the little drama queen. I grab a tissue and before she can even say don't, it is out. I hand it to her and she runs and puts it into the tooth fairy pillow that my grandmother made her. Then she writes Glennis (the tooth fairy) a letter and is off to bed. Sweet dreams till tomorrow when she will rush to the pillow to see if Glennis came.

Things like this make me love being a mom.

Hello, my name is Sara and ....

I am addicted to cookies! Yes, I have a problem. I will eat them if they are around the house. Even if they are not my favorites I still somehow eat them. I made peanut butter chip cookies...I don't even like peanut butter...and everyday I found myself sneaking one. Just imagine what it is like when they are something I actually LIKE!!!! Yes, I admit it! I need HELP! So, I baked some more cookies today...how you say will that help me. They are peanut butter cookies with peanut butter cream cheese frosting on them. There is so much peanut butter in them I can't possible eat them. I DO NOT like peanut butter!!!

#13 on my list

#13 go to the mission in Tucson.

I took the afternoon to go down to San Xavier De Blac Mission in Tucson last week. It was pretty easy since I was down in Tucson for a professional development course on SmartBoards. The mission is beautiful. They are in the process of restoring it. Parts of the outside still need to be done. You can see in the picture that half of it is a beautiful white and the other half is weathered. Either way it is beautiful. I can understand why it is called the White Dove of the Desert. It was both amazingly peaceful and dreadfully hot and stuffy inside. Definitely no air conditioning in a building built 100+ years ago. I was in awe of the craftsmanship of the alter. The people who built the mission definitely wanted to show their respect to God. Glad I took the afternoon to drive the 17 miles to see it.

A new puppy

On Monday we adopted a puppy. He is adorable and is something I have wanted for a very long time. Here is what Ella had to say about our new puppy. She wrote this out on paper and asked me to put it on the blog. Yes, I put the correct spellings in to make it a little easier to understand.

We found a puppy in the humance siady (Humane Society). His name was elves (Elvis). bu he was yun (young) anof (enough) so we could change his name to Tucker. He is 3 months old. He is brown with a white stripe on his face. He also has a black tail. We kind of tot (taught) him to go outside to go to the restroom. We have a box for him to sleep in. He resles (wrestles) with Bear my other dog. His birthday is March 13th. He has two toys. The first toy is a chew toy it is green and looks like a pasafire (pacifier). The secent (second) toy is a bone shapet (shaped) tug toy. He is learning how to yous (use) the doggy door by himself. He alredy (already) went throo (through) the doggy door. Tucker is very rambunchis (rambunctious). He likes to drink a lot of water.

So far things have been going very good with the new puppy. He has only had a couple of accidents in the house. He seems to know to go outside. Bear is okay with him too. He will play with Tucker and when he has had enough he walks away. He will growl at him to let him know to stop when they are playing. We are really lucky...both Bear and Tucker don't bark or whine.

More Vacation stories from Ella

The third day and it was all foggy. I heard something and it was a baby deer. After it went to the creek, daddy and I went down to see if it was still there. It was not there. It ran across the creek to the other side. Then we went to Herst Castle. I did not really like it. It was not like I thought it was going to be. I did not think it would take as long. We did not get to see the zebras. We learned about the castle. When we were done we drove to the elephant seals. There were some wrestling and some swimming. There was a bunch of elephant seals laying on the ground. I got really really cold. Then we took a long long windy road all the way to Monterrey. When we got to Monterrey we walked a little bit and went into some stores. Then we went and built a sand castle. Mommy took a picture. It was a really good castles. I was trying to stop the waves from wrecking the sand castle. Then we went to our hotel. After Rosine's restaurant we went to the hotel and I got to go swimming in the pool.

Westward Look Resort

I have been in Tucson, Arizona since Monday for a technology professional development course. So far I can't say I have learned anything new for my SmartBoard, but I have been reminded about some of the great tools which are available. I seem to be spending more of my time helping others, then working on anything of my own. One gal said I should be getting paid for all of my help...if someone wants to pay me, I won't fight it.

I have also had a lot of peace and quiet. In fact, right now I am sitting on a patio listening to birds chirping while I face the mountains. There is a slight breeze and it is a beautiful 78 degrees. It has been very nice to have some ME time to sit and think and re-energize! I even took the afternoon to drive down and see San Xavier Mission (the White Dove of the Desert) yesterday. I only missed the little side street turns twice...and that is with a GPS! I took pictures which I will post later. By Friday, my mind she be clear and I should be ready to head back to reality.

Pacific Coast Highway

Here is the video of our trip! Enjoy!

Pacific Coast Highway

Day 2 of Vacation...told by Ella

Today my mom went running. She ran to Pauline's Pancake house. She did not see us at Pauline's Pancake house so she kept running. Dad and me waited for mom to come. When she came we sat outside and ate. I ate french toast, dad ate the special. The special was pancakes. My mom ate eggs. Then we went to Grover's Beach and made a sand castle. All of us did. It was a good thing my mom stopped for coffee. We used the coffee cup to make the castle. We dug a moat around the castle. We put sea shells and pretty rocks. It was really pretty. My mom took a picture of it. Then we went to San Luis Obispo. We ate lunch and I had a peanut butter sandwich. We saw 2 blue jays. We threw crackers out for them, but the did not eat them. I think they ate them when we were gone. Then I went to the park. I went to the exercise park and did pull ups. There was a big weight and I could not move it. Then I did a leg exercise. Then we went on our bikes and we did a tour around the park and the city. We heard some music. When we came closer it was a Greek Festival. Me and my mom danced together with everyone else. My dad took pictures. We ate some pastries. When we were done we looked in the old church. We got on our bikes and went to our car. We heard on Nuvi that there was a street called Ella so we went to the street and took a picture. Then we drove to our new hotel. Our hotel was Creekside Cottage. It was really beautiful. We had a balcony. We heard music and singing. It was not the Greek Festival. We walked down to the town and had really good pasta. Mom and me had tortellini and spaghetti and dad had ravioli with mushrooms. I liked the spinach tortellinis the best. Then we went to our hotel and I went to bed.

Santa Barbara...told by Ella

At first we had a long long drive. I watched two new movies called the Princess and the Pauper and Strawberry Shortcake Fairy Berry Tales. Then we went to the park and ate lunch. Our lunch was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with chips, cheese, and turkey and ham. When I got done eating I went to play at the park. I played a game on the slide with the other kids. When the bottom person let go we all zipped down the slide together. Then when I was done playing at the park we drove to the beach. At the beach there was a lot of lady bugs and one crawled on me. It did not come off of me until I got of the sand. A kid at the beach said there was a jelly fish in the water, but I did not see one. Then we walked on the pier and saw someone who built two mermaids out of sand. We walked farther and then I was getting tired so we got some ice cream. I got rainbow and it was mint, orange, and strawberry. Mom got cherry. Then we walked back to the car and flapped our shoes and all the sand fell out. Then we started to drive to our hotel. We saw this big sign that said blueberries. We stopped and found out we could pick the blueberries. We had a lot of fun. We filled a whole bucket full of blueberries. The are good. Our hotel was on the second floor. Our hotel looked like a windmill. Then we went to Solvang and had dinner. We went to the Little Mermaid and I had meatballs with my mom. I did not want my green beans or cabbage so I took my dad's broccoli. The meatballs were really good. We went back to the hotel room and I jumped on the bed and then it was time to go to sleep.

Back from vacation

WE ARE BACK!!! Our trip up the Pacific Coast Highway was exciting. I took a ton of pictures and will get them uploaded into a video soon...promise. Ella is going to help me blog about the trip, so it might take us a few days!

What is better than Friday?

How about it being a summer Friday... a payday Friday...NATIONAL DOUGHNUT DAY Friday!!!

More summer projects

I have been keeping Ella busy with projects each day. Some have been multi-step, so it takes all day or even 2 days....yeah! I am amazed at how she sits and babbles to herself as she is creating. She has an amazing imagination.

Step 1--color entire paper with crayons.

Step 2--paint over crayon with black pain

Step 3--after paint dries use toothpick to scratch a design

Egg carton caterpillars

Mom's project was to organize the linen closet...not as much fun as Ella's projects.

Before and after

Memorial Day Weekend 2010

Summer is official here! The weather is getting warmer and the sun is out! Here are some pictures from this weekend. Enjoy.

Memorial Day Weekend 2010