You know your kid has had a long day when.....

You are sitting at the dining room table online on your laptop, and he is lying down on the couch playing his hand held v-tech game....and suddenly, you hear the same thing repeating over and over on the game, decide to get up and check to see what the deal is....and this is what you see...

Yes, that's right......James....PASSED RIGHT OUT with game in hand, in the middle of a game no less.....PRICELESS!!

Happy Birthday....To Me!! :)

Friday January 16th was my birthday! I turned 38 (doesnt feel like I could possibly be 38....so I guess that's the good part of it right?) :)

On Friday, one of my good friends at work (Robin) baked me a box of TO DIE FOR cupcakes.....oh my god...each of these is like a little piece of heaven, seriously....they are almost gone as James and Freddy love them as much as me thank goodness...no offense to Robin but I need these out of my house fast! HA!

Then I went to lunch with Robin, Jen, Paul and Linda from work........good times and lots of laughs (for like 2 hours straight with that bunch.......never a dull moment lunching with them!)

Went out to eat with my guys that night......then had dinner with the entire Salinas clan (and Jen) on Saturday nite at Las Rosas in Pearland....fabulous mexican food, a margarita and lots of great conversation! Thank you to everyone that came....made my birthday weekend that much more special!

Got a couple gift cards to Joann Fabrics, as well as some cash in my birthday cards...so I went today and decided I want to try my hand at making quilts...so I got a beginners book that has you make 24 different squares (each one a different pattern) that make up the quilt,and takes you step by step thru the process....got the fabric I need for the whole thing, a couple important gadgets and such...and I am off and running! Wish me luck! never had the patience before to try quilting, but with all the sewing I have done the last few years especially....Im feeling pretty good about it! Will be sure to post pics along the way, as well as the finished product.

Anyway, so again...to all my family and friends that celebrated with me in person, that called and wished me a happy birthday, emailed me or posted on facebook/myspace to me.....thank you so much.......I had a wonderful birthday and ready to tackle the big 38 and make this year a great one! :)

Works of Art...

Freddy had to run over to his mom's house last nite real quick, so after I bathed James, he wanted to "make a train and color and cut it out". So we broke out the markers, paper and scissors and got to work.....

We drew circles, rectangles, a triangle etc...James cut all of them out and used a glue stick to put them on another piece of paper, then he wanted me to draw smoke out of the smokestack, people in the blue car and animals in the red one (if you cant tell, that's a giraffe and a zebra in the red one...hee hee!

Then we both signed our names to our creation and drew happy faces....here is the final masterpiece!!!

Then Freddy got home and he wanted us both to draw some more.......Freddy drew different animals at James' request (good job Daddy!) and I decided to draw a portrait of George the Monkey, James' new best friend......

So much fun! we had a great evening with our little man creating our works of art!

HURRY MOMMY!! WE GOTTA WIN!!!!

Tuesday morning on the way to daycare, this is what james exclaimed to me as we approached the corner where we turn to get there.
A little background info first......there is a lady who drops off her daughter in the mornings right at 6 AM when we get there....we are ALWAYS the first two moms there dropping off every single morning. And there is a covered drop off area that you can pull under to get the kiddos out and inside, and not get rained on, etc.
Well this lady drives a big ole white Ford truck, and it is a DIESEL...sorry to any of you reading this that own a diesel, but I HATE DIESEL vehicles, they are STINKY!!!
One morning I made the comment of oh great, she beat us again...the stinky diesel...as she parked under the covered area. My gripe with her doing this is that when she leaves...she starts her engine..sits there doing who knows what for a minute or so, all the while her stinky diesel exhaust accumulates there under the covered area...then I walk out and it smacks me in the face and I choke...BLECH!!!
I did not realize that when I said this a while back that James apparently heard me and remembered it!
Fast forward now to Tuesday morning..turning the corner on to the street where the daycare is.....that white truck has just turned the corner in front of us.
James sees it..and yells GO MOMMY!! HURRY MOMMY!! WE GOTTA WIN!! BEAT THE STINKY TRUCK!
Well anyone that knows me, knows that I never back down from a race.....so I assessed the situation in that split second, and this is what I came up with.
There are three driveways to the daycare, as it is at a church/private christian school with the daycare attached to it. The stinky white truck always turns in the last driveway nearest the entrance to the daycare.
So James and I quickly turn into the FIRST driveway, and I am hauling BUTT across the parking lot, in the dark, at a church! Im sure Iwill get struck down for this....but hey,like I said, throw me a racing challenge and I am your girl...so here we are, doing like 30-35 in the empty parking lot......and guess what! WE BEAT THE STINKY TRUCK!!! YES!!! all the while I have James watching the truck on the main street still , yelling to me GO MOMMY! GO MOMMY!!!
Well as we approached the covered area well in the lead, I slow down to not make it look like I was racing her to the entrance, in case she was wondering what the heck my deal was....I pull up under the cover and James leaps out of his seat, grabs his backpack and throws open the van door....scrambles up the steps and yells HOORAY!!! WE WON MOMMY!!! Oh great.........right as the lady and her kid pull up and start to get out..I shush James and loudly say (hoping they hear me and not him)...come on James, lets go in, Mommy cant be late today.......while inside I am DYING LAUGHING at the entire thing...and James Hi-Fives me as we walk down the hallway inside..........
I dropped him off inside and immediately called Freddy who was on his way to the vanpool...and told him the story and had him dying laughing too!
Can say without a doubt, that racing is in James' blood thank GOD!!! The boy may look like his daddy (as EVERYONE is quick to point out constantly) but he obviously has his momma's racing blood in him.....THAT'S MY BOY!!!!!!!! :)

Kitty Blankie Love

My friend Robin asked me if I would make one of the blankets that I made a ton of recently for her kitty named Blanca.......and of course I said YES!!! I had made one for Robin for Christmas and Blanca loved it and was on top of Robin whenever she had it out and covered up in it.

We took a trip to Joann Fabrics on a lunch break last week and got some CUTE fabric with kitties and mice on it, and a pretty blue for the backside.

Well as you can see below, Miss Blanca kitty LOVES her new blankie!!! Doesnt she have the most content look on her face? :)

You are welcome Miss Blanca........hee hee......

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY HONEY!!!! :)

Today is our 6th anniversary for me and Freddy.......I cannot believe it has been 6 years already since we got married....and that I have been in Houston for 6 and a half years....where the HECK does the time go?

My life changed in a big big way and has just gotten better and better since I met you honey.....getting married, starting a family together, buying our first home together a year ago.....I could not ask for anything more and I love you and our life together more and more every day.

You and James are my life....the center of my world, and I would not change a minute of the 7 years that I have known you for anything....the good or the bad times.......because they have made us who we are today.

I love you!!! Here's to many many more great years together and growing old together. :)

John Deere

A friend of mine from San Diego (known her since heck......high school I think? maybe longer?)...actually she went to school with my sister...anyway HER daughter (who by the way I cannot BELIEVE is old enough...seems like just yesterday I was babysitting her when SHE was a baby!) is having a baby of her own next month....and asked me if I would make a boppy pillow cover in the John Deere fabric that the nursery will be decorated in.

So, I made that today, and also had picked up a cute john deere onesie shirt a couple weeks back, and decided to make some custom short overalls to go along with it, to send to her daughter as my present for the baby.....this stuff turned out SO CUTE...I had to share! :)

Grandma weekend

Most of you know that Freddy's mom is 87....and that he and his other siblings take turns staying one night a week with her Sun thru Thurs nite.........then we also rotate every seven weeks having her at each of our houses from Fri nite thru Sunday afternoon. This weekend was a "grandma weekend" for us....and here are some ADORABLE pics of James and Grandma........

James and George

So if you caught up on my OLD blog towards the end of all the 2008 stuff.....you will see that James got this stuffed monkey during our trip up to Dallas/Ft. Worth over the holidays.....and that the two are inseparable.....seriously! George goes wherever James goes.......well here are two pics to back that up....George and James.....passed out cold! SO CUTE!! :)

Back to work......

So, James and I were off from school/work since Friday December 19th, and Freddy was off from Christmas day on thru last week until this Monday.......and man was it great! Slept in a couple extra hours every day, stayed up a little later each night, had lots of fun here celebrating Christmas with the Salinas family...then up in DFW area with Mom, Berta and family......was a nice two week break.

Unfortunately we got thrown back into the swing of things on Monday when the alarm went off like usual at 4:30........ouch! Was tough getting up and moving and back to it again.

Today was even harder to get up and get going......we are trying and we are getting there.......then I get off work today, get about 10 minutes under my belt on the commute...and come to a complete stop on the freeway......and barely moved for almost 45 minutes! UUGGHHHH!!!! Anyone that knows me knows I do NOT do stuck in traffic well at ALL!
Come to find out when I called Freddy (who's vanpool was just ahead of me maybe a quarter mile on the same freeway) that there was an eight car pile up just ahead and they had the 4 lane freeway down to one lane! Sheesh! No wonder.......
So again....left work at 4 PM like usual, and am either home or at the gym by 5 at latest.....today it was 5:30 by the time I got home.

Gotta love Houston traffic......not fun...and I am wiped out! Is it the weekend yet? :)

New Year.....New Blog Site

So, ive decided to switch my blog from wordpress.com over to blogger.com. Just like the look and feel and options on this site better than those available on wordpress.....so I figured no time like a brand new year to make the switch!

Only downfall to this site (from what I can tell anyway) is I dont think/know if there is any way to subscribe to updates I do like the other site had.....but no worries, I figure I will just send an email out when I do updates, with a link to the blog...one more step for me, but not a big one, I dont mind!

Anyway, hope y'all enjoy this new blog as much or MORE than the old one, and I will be changing the look of it from time to time, with the seasons, holidays etc. FUN!!!

Hope everyone has a great 2009!

Love, Renee (and Freddy and James too!!) :)