Blasts from the Past

Stumbling upon "lost" pictures is like discovering $20 in the pocket of a jacket that has not been worn in a while. Now that I think of it, I have worn every single one of my jackets and have not even found a penny in any of the pockets. Any surprise $ sounds pretty good right about now. Yet another sign of the economic crisis. Has anyone found loose change under their sofa cushions? No? Neither have I.
Anyways, we found our other camera and were pleased to stumble upon blasts from the past...almost two years. Oh, come on, we are NOT the only family with pictures in the camera that cover several seasons of holidays and such. Anyhoo, here's what we found...

August 2008: Meeting Danity Kane at the San Jose DUB Show, courtesy of Herman and Jackie (thanks for the hook up!). Is that group still together? I guess it has been a while.

Ethan was not going to let her spell his name incorrectly. "E-T-H-A-N and you have to write a 4 because I'm 4 years old."

Did we just use the backside of a stranger as our backdrop?

Summer 2007: Melanie B.T. (Before Teeth)

May 2007: Melanie B.A. (Before Ankles). Just kidding. I'm not making fun of my baby. She was a healthy eater, or you could say she was well-nourished.

Pink, Piggy, Pirate

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything. I survived a winter class, went to Utah to give love to my aunt and her family and just started my spring semester. Many thanks to Irwin, Becky and their beautiful kids for my accommodations in Utah.
Lately, I've been on a cooking frenzy, making all kinds of stuff from ethic dishes to wannabe gourmet. I have a long to-do list that I rarely look at, including the possibility of putting hot pink highlights in my hair. Would that be considered a pre-midlife crisis? I am truly disliking the gray hair appearing all over my head. Scary business. It makes me sad. Upset. Freaking out here. I never thought that my hair color meant so much to me. Seriously, I went to the salon to add on the service to my hair appointment scheduled for later this week and realized that the steps to complete the process takes double the time (and $$) as a regular highlight procedure. Unfortunately, my appointment is before class and I can't be late for school. OK, I just went on and on about a hair appointment that has yet to take place. Whatever, I'd better get over it soon. Thank goodness for Miss Clairol!
The kids are doing great. Ethan recently had Pajama and Pirate Day at school. Melanie has figured out how to charm her way in and out of situations. Ya'll know she didn't get that from me. I am the opposite of charming.

Melanie can be very girly-girl.

Ethan brought his light saber to school to share his favorite toy from Santa. Yes, it lights up, makes sounds and yes, he demonstrated his moves for his Wee 5s homies.

For some reason, Melanie insists on wearing this pig costume on any random day. She has worn it to the store, Ethan's school, pretty much everywhere. Also note the size: 12 months. The girl is 2 1/4 years old.

Ethan dressed up for pirate day.

Walking the plank at school.

He's on a Roll!

My winter class is almost over, so hopefully I'll have more time after next week to include some pictures in the blog entries. Before I forget, Ethan had more funnies that were blog-worthy. Folks, I can't make this stuff up, I swear!

"Whoa. That blows up my mind." Ethan, January 2009

Mommy: When your teacher is finished with all of her Three Little Pigs activities, I'm going to read a different version of the story that is really cool (The True Story of the Three Little Pigs).
Ethan: What? A different kind of story? Like a remix? Jan. 2009

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Confession time: I have not documented or recorded quotes from the kids. Gasp! I know! Bad Mommy! *Slap on hand* Well out of order, here are some I can easily recall ...

"There's a mess in my foot sleeve!" Ethan, 1/10/09. He was referring to his pant-leg.

"No, I don't want a Happy Meal, I want a Sad Meal because I'm so sad!" Ethan, Feb. 2008. He was upset after a soccer game because he did not score the last goal.

"Today in school I looked at germs in a step-is-scope." Ethan 1/08/09.

Mommy: "Melanie, what color is your pink bowl?"
Melanie: While tapping her head with her finger, "Hmm. Tink, tink, tink. Oh! I know! Gween!" January 2009

Daddy: While watching football, "Ethan, do you know what direction is?"
Ethan: "Yeah, it's when you tell me to be quiet and I do it because I have to follow directions." September 2007

"Cummon, fah-woah me!" Melanie January 2009. Translation: Come on, follow me!

"Knock, knock. (Who's there?) Handy. (Handy who?) Handy Manny!" Ethan, Fall 2006

"Are you watching Food Neckwork?" Ethan, December, 2008

"At work, my Daddy beats up bad guys and takes their money." Ethan, November 2008. We were teaching him that Daddy watches the bad guys and earns money for doing it.

"Mommy, what do the letters SCA spell? Is that like the word, 'sacrifice?'" Ethan, Sept. 2008

"TV pweez." Melanie, December 2008

"Daddy. The Turkey flag outside is embarrassing. It's December, you know." Ethan, Dec. 2008

"I don't want any more baby brothers or baby sisters because they make things difficult." Ethan, August 2008

Mommy: "What's that smell?"
Ethan: "I think Daddy farted because it smells like garlic."

Happy 2009!

Yes! It's a new year and no more "F" starting titles. That was soooo 2008.
Christmas was quiet in our household, but exciting nonetheless. The season went by pretty quickly. Since Jeff had to work on Christmas and New Year's Eve/Day, we had alternate celebrations based around food, of course. From a prime rib feast, a huge ham and the plentiful leftover dishes from it and over 300 cookies, we are done with the culinary overindulgence for now. Haha, you know us, we're all about the food so the break won't last very long. But seriously, Jeff and I are still suffering from being bloated last week.
On Christmas morning, Jeff left for work and I heard Ethan jump out of bed and run to Santa's snack plate of cookies and milk. He ran to my room and exclaimed, "Oh my goodness, Santa came to our house and brought us presents. I cannot believe it!" So cute. Santa fulfilled Ethan and Melanie's wishes this Christmas. Ethan got a Star Wars light saber that lights up and makes noise. Melanie got a Disney princess tricycle, which I forgot to a picture of because I dropped everything to clean up the glass ornament that hit the floor. Santa also filled our stockings with DVDs and a Nintendo game. Hmmm. They sure are similar to the Black Friday specials from Target. I think I know where Santa does his bargain shopping during these hard economic times.
Also, the Saturday before Christmas, I coaxed the Martinez clan and my friend Bee with her niece and nephew to join me and the kids to be part of our church's live nativity scene. They were apprehensive, to say the least, but I guaranteed a fabulous slow cooker dinner awaited them afterward. Everyone got really into it.

Santa was here.

Ethan talking to Nana and Papa in Germany on Christmas morning.

12/20/08: Melanie and I were angels for the live Nativity scene.

Ethan sat still in his shepherd's costume for over 20 minutes. He was proud to participate.

That was all of us. See Auntie Kiki, Uncle Jay and JJ? We were the prime time shift of the night! Special thanks to our own nativity crew. Nice costume, Auntie Bee!

For the Love of Football

Our Christmas cards are sent out. Yippee! That's quite an accomplishment in our household because they are handmade. What's our secret? Football. That's right. Football. Now you're probably wondering the correlation between Christmas cards and football. Well, let me tell ya...
Every year, I make prototypes of possible Christmas cards. We vote, and usually, the one with the most intricate details wins. Then I am faced with school finals and the Christmas card mass production process. OK, this is where football comes in. I prep everything and wait for Jeff to sit down and watch a game. When he has his drink and snacks on the coffee table, I solicit his labor. "Since you'll be sitting there for a couple of hours, could you..." During one game, he attached all of the wires to the greetings for the front. Then he helped me secure them onto the cards. While watching another game, he glued the stars on the inside. Why do I share this? Because I can't take credit for all of the work. He doesn't know it, but he is a fellow crafter. Who do you think did the eyelets on last year's card? Jeff! He now knows that eyelets have different grades of quality and accused me of buying the "cheap ones." He was pretty upset when he learned about a new tool to squeeze them into place as opposed to his barbaric technique of hammering them in individually.

Here's a blooper from our photo shoot:

I know, another "F" title. I'll give myself until the end of the year to change it up.

Free Fun

Although Halloween and the kids' birthdays are events of the past, our household is living with someone's obsession with Star Wars. Good golly, Ethan has so many Star Wars items that he, in his 5-year-old way, has scheduled time with each toy for equal opportunity play. He even sang our dinner menu the other night to the Darth Vader theme song. Can someone say...Star Wars Musical? Oh, and it gets better. Melanie can recognize Star Wars stuff and exclaims, "stah wahs!" when she sees something. Um, yeah. When she sings the theme song with her big bro, I get to sit front row for the Star Wars Musical remix. Her other favorite phrases are, "Oh, cool!" "Yeah, sure!" and "Awwwwwww yaaaaah!" I know the Star Wars thing is just a phase and pretty soon he'll move on to the next trend, especially since Ethan informed us today that when he turns 12, he's going to Japan to be on Ninja Warriors. Great.

We truly take for granted that we live in a college town and we don't take advantage of it until the University offers free events...

11/6/08: Ethan at a free UOP basketball clinic put together exclusively for his school. Here he is showing his dunking skills.

The kids got to try on the players' gear. Free athlete's foot.

11/7/08: This is our cheerleader at a UOP Men's Basketball Game. It was community night and admission was free. Christi and I signed the kids up for the Tiger Cubs Club and they got free T-Shirts. We even won a goodie bag with a frisbee and free fast food coupons for having postage stamps in my wallet. Special thanks to Uncle Jay, who scrambled like Dash to be the first winner (and ended up being the first of only 2. Hehe!).

Has anyone noticed that all of the post titles start with F? That was not on purpose. I better mix it up before I get stuck in the pattern. Too late. I just sat here and strained the brain for an F-starting title. Maybe next time.