we love our uncle perry t.!!!

while my parents and brother were here the girls had a great time with their uncle perry t. here are a few fun pics. fixing the screen. as you can see gracie was busy supervising. playing world of warcraft!

eating popcorn with gracie in the pirate pants!

making savannah really tall!

savannah's party pics

after savannah's baptism we had her party at the house. it was a blast! we had lots of friends and family over. we ate lots of food, chatted, and the kids even swam! yes you people in cold places i said swam in february! (okay we did fire up the heater in the pool to make it nice and toasty!)

savannah got some great gifts! thanks to everyone! she especially LOVED the harry potter #5 movie! of course that was watched that same evening. and the next day at church her buddy gave her the 7th harry potter book! score! (thanks kleins! you rock!) needless to say she was in harry potter heaven!
the big girl bffs

savannah and her buddy from school. shayna!

apparently the real party was under the table.
happy birthday savannah! (again!)

savannah's baptism

we finally had savannah's baptism! she was so excited to get baptized! she asked her uncle perry and sarah to give the talks. it was a really nice day and we had a nice spirit at the baptism. her dad, however tried to baptize her as sarah, instead of savannah (you'll have to ask him about that one). and as tradition dictates she did have to go down twice! mauricio got a good teasing for that one and we decided that maybe by the time gracie is eight he will do it flawlessly. but then again, do we really want to mess with tradition? savannah looked so pretty in her white dress and we are so happy for her that she is baptized!

notice the nail polish color. grandma did them for her. too cute!a big hug for nono.

with her dad before she was dunked.
after the dunking! she was so cute in the bathroom afterwards. she was extremely excited telling me how happy she felt that she was baptized. she said "it was so cool mom!" "i loved going under the water!" "i feel so clean!" and then she added "i am extra clean since dad had to do it twice!"
with uncle perry

with grandma and grandpa uncle neal and aunt lisa
nona and nono hmm....i'm smelling christmas card picture. (check!)
the whole gang!

you CANNOT be serious!!! (a little president's day fun)

well, since president's day is around the corner i thought i would share this little tid-bit with you all.  enjoy!

okay so i was in target the other day and struck up a conversation with a young sales associate.  we got to talking about my kids (what a surprise) and how they always comment to me about things being "back in the day".   and this is what followed:

me:  "yeah, my favorite was when one of my girls (savannah, and yes i will name names!) asked me if i was alive when george washington was president."

girl:  (with a glazed over dumb look on her face)  "yeah, i guess that was a while ago wasn't it." (and she was NOT being silly,sarcastic or joking around!)

(what i thought)  "are you freaking kidding me?" "how old do i freaking look to you????" "do you think george washington was our 43rd president?"

girl:  "oh and you know we had a president named george bush right?"  (me thinking "well duh?")  "well, did you know that his dad was president also and his name was george bush too?"  "and that his brother was the governor of florida?"

(what i thought with my mouth agape) "are you freaking serious?"  before i actually said: "umm.. yes i did know that."  "what the heck are they teaching you in school?" "don't you learn about the presidents?"

i know the last part wasn't that nice but COME ON PEOPLE!!!!!!!!  she wasn't THAT young NOT to know about that.  seriously, MY kids who are 10 and 8 know that!!!!!!!  and they weren't even alive when the first george bush was in office!!!

ARE YOU FREAKING SERIOUS????????????????

funny phone call #2

okay this one will be shorter. i hope. i posted this separately only because i like this cool picture of THIS phone too. (and you think i'm kidding!)

so i am out and about on saturday doing my thing when the phone rings. seeing that it is not mauricio at home with all the kids (2 of them who are sick) calling me i decide to answer! hee! hee! lo and behold it is a call from the superintendent of the palm beach county school system. (well, a recorded message anyway. i'm not that cool to get a direct call from him.) the first thing i think is DANG! it's saturday and the kids don't have to be in school why are you sending me another message? (see previous post about call #1.) then i think wow! they really must be cracking down on people who don't send their kids to school and now my delinquency has been forwarded to the head honcho himself! but, as i listen to the message it is,in fact, a recording about how important it is for our kids in palm beach county to be at school this upcoming week because this is the week they figure out the funding issues! are you kidding me? (read this next part in a deep man's voice) "make sure your kids are in class this week so we can get the most funding as possible." that makes me laugh! i guess it's okay not to go the other weeks except this one and, of course, fcat week! (for those of you who are not acquainted with the florida school system you don't even want to know what fcat is, except everyone gets all stressed out over it. in my opinion for nothing at all!)

anyhoo, had to share that with ya! that was a new one for me! and of course being the rebel that i am sarah was not in attendance on monday! (okay it wasn't because i was being rebellious, she was still sick.)

funny phone call #1

okay had to share this. thought it was a bit funny. and maybe i am the only one that does. (this is a frequent occurrence in my household, but i just chalk it off to the fact that everyone else has a really bad sense of humor!)

let me preface the phone call by saying that sarah stayed home sick from school on friday so i let savannah stay home too. like none of you have ever done that? besides, that makes me her best friend for the day because i LET her skip school. and also they haven't missed a day of school in like a year or more!

so, i am home minding my own business when my phone rings and it's the school. well, that is a bit odd as both of them are home and let's face it who would really be calling me from the school besides the two of them? (and don't think that thoughts of being caught letting savannah skip school and being caught by the principal aren't running through my mind at this point.)

natuarally i answer the phone and get this, it is the school informing me that sarah and savannah are absent! well duh? like i don't know this already? but then the thought occurs to me ha! they couldn't skip school without me knowing it if they wanted to! i am sure that i remember this happening in our other school district but i had since forgotten about it until now. i am sure we are not the only school district in the nation that has this service, but i found it quite hilarious a.) because i will always know if they try to skip school and b.) because they didn't even know what skipping school meant! i had to explain it to them! their response, and i am not kidding, "why would someone NOT want to go to school?" oh the bliss of elementary school! i think i will have them say that into some sort of recording device (do they even make those anymore?) and save it for when they are in high school.

as i type this i vaguely remember this was the case when i was in high school too, but instead of a recorded message it was an actual person doing all the calling! the school secretary! umm..it was and still is a small town and they probably still do it this way! there were days when i was allowed to stay home for certain reasons i will not discuss in this public forum, but i remember now being home from school and dreading answering it for fear it was the school and they would find out i was at home! and if i was well enough to answer the phone then i was well enough to be at school. (or so i thought.) this was "back in the day", as my kids would call it, before caller id, answering machines (maybe those were out by then but my parents NEVER had one and NEVER EVER got one!) and voice mail. so you answered at your own risk! (it was also great because you could make prank phone calls! but I never did such a horrible thing as that.)

hope you all enjoyed this little ranting about a silly phone call as much as i did. and if not then i guess it's YOU that has the lame sense of humor!

100 years of school

this year is the 100th year anniversary of the palm beach district schools so at the girls school today, which is also the 100th day of school this year, they decided to dress up like kids did back then. sarah decided not to participate since she has p.e. and didn't want to dress up and then get all sweaty. that's what she told me anyway.

savannah on the other hand was very excited about this event. she took her lunch in a little basket. and the lunch was great for me to make. bread with cheese and a few other things. no sandwich making for me today! and she came up with the idea to tie her books with a belt. thanks to grandma who made this dress a few years ago we already had that part of the outfit taken care of! she was too cute skipping off to school in her 100 year garb!

birthday dinner tradition

whenever it's someone's birthday in our family we go out for dinner. (which rarely ever happens) the birthday person gets to choose and savannah chose friendly's this year. it was fun. i was just glad i didn't have to cook!

since it was a school night sarah still had homework and was doing it at the restaurant! she had competed in an academic games before so she didn't have time to do it after school. she's such a nerd!

okay this is a first for me so we'll see how it works!

birthday fun at school

on savannah's birthday i was able to bring in some fun snacks for the special day. here are a few pics from the classroom.

savannah and her homeroom teacher

with her buddies

gracie always gets to join in the fun! (until next year.)

this is why everyone LOVES miss. c! a little girlfriend talk!

aunts and uncles are great!

during the holidays mauricio's sister celena and her husband, david came to visit from utah. they were nice enough to take sarah with them to orlando for a fun trip to go wake boarding. since i didn't go this is the only picture i have from the event. (when they got back!) she had such a great time! you know they are growing up when they go on trips without you. ): we love aunts and uncles!