Highlights from a busy month

It seems like we have had a lot going on in the last month or two. Here are some highlights:

1) My friend Wendy and her son, Owen, flew in for the weekend. We worked hard and played a little. We took them to the Fort Worth Stockyards in between "design on a dime" projects.



2) The Weather - Crazy! We had a really bad ice storm (the picture was taken at midnight in our front lawn) at the end of January and in the middle of February we had a tornado warning. It was my first tornado warning that included a siren. At the time I was on the phone with Sione trying to figure out where our battery operated radio was. I moved our 72 hour kits, pillows, blankets and water all into the bathroom while the siren went off. Just as the siren quit, we were ready to camp out in the bathroom. Oh well, practice makes perfect.

3) A B (as LaRee calls here) came to stay for the week of LaRee's birthday. We had a mini mission reunion planned, which turned into 4 of us girls (Sisters) going to dinner at Chili's. None the less, we laughed, ate, laughed some more and, sadly, ate some more!
4) Grandma Jackie (Becky's mom) and happily LaRee's pseudo Grandma joined us on that Wednesday as well as Jessica, a dear friend and sister from my mission. Paula, also a dear friend from my mission, lives just 30 minutes south of us. She joined us as her schedule, and the crazy weather, would permit. See #2 Ice Storms.

Here Grandma Jackie is reading "Go dog, go!" to LaRee at breakfast and here they are conversing over their lunches.
5) Wendy and Owen returned to finish up the mini home makeovers that we had started 2 weeks prior. We painted walls, shelves and other odds and ends found around the house. We altered curtains and rearranged my furniture (or lack off) and we came up with what we agreed was an amazing couple of rooms.


6) LaRee took a black jumbo sized permanent marker (who even needs a jumbo permanent marker?) to our freshly painted wall. By the time I was done giving a time out and being very angry with our little artist, Wendy had already painted over the mess but I did get a picture of the wet paint.




7)Elmo has started wearing shoes and taking baths. Both are very big deals at our house.


8)Sione busted out his tools and did some home improvements of his own, which ended up being an even bigger deal than Elmo's shoes and baths.

9)We went up to Little Elm to spend some time with Uncle Todd and Lexie, his roommate's dog. All three partys were pooped by the time we left to go home.


10) Last but not least, our little Rock Star turned 2 which I will blog about real soon!!



P.S. Becky Jean and anyone else that is still reading, my word for the year is going to be Better. It was "change," but Sione kept teasing me about stealing Obama's word for the year, so I switched to the word "Better". I am going to strive to be a better Wife and Mother, a better friend, a more patient and kinder daughter, neighbor and citizen. I want my relationship with my Father in Heaven to be better and I want to serve Him in better ways. I am going to be a better listener, a better cook, and a better person. I am going to strive for better health and a better quality of life through all kinds of learning. I will have a better follow through of things I start or have wanted to start. I want to be better at putting things away and everything having a space. I want each day to be better than the last! I often think about a lesson once given in church on the subject of striving for the best. There will always be good, then better, then best! I figure if I thrive for better this year, then my feet are heading in the right direction and I just might be ready to have my word for 2010 be "best!!"

I love saving a buck any time, but especially in an economic slump

Four things that have saved me more then a buck and have brought a smile to my face over and over again.


Sione and I have found a movie theater that shows movies on Tuesdays for 50 cents, this means that we can go as a couple for a dollar. I'm not really a numbers person but this much I know - If our movie costs a dollar for the two of us then for sure we can afford one of their dollar hot dogs. Now that's when I wish I had a camera, to catch the look on Junior's face as I hand him the worlds smallest hot dog.


Verlyn and I hit a garage sale where the mother and her mother-in-law were both teachers and they had stacks and stacks of kids books. Well, I went book by book trying to narrow down the number of books that I figured I could pay for (I had 2 20's in my pocket) and realisticly how many we could carry back to the car. Eventually the woman came and sat down with me and started making suggestions, well - more like "you have to takes". By the time I finished I had 50 books in hand and she said she would give me the deal of a life time, everthing for $20!!! How happy was I. This is LaRee with some of the books. Please make a note that her dad was the one that dressed her that morning since the momma was out garage saleing. We as women came out of the womb knowing that you shouldn't put a pattern shirt with a patterned pants.



As most newlyweds, we had a little wedding gift money and decided to spend it on one of those fancy garbage cans that you open with your foot. Well, about a month ago a piece of plastic on the hinge broke leaving it unusable. I was so happy to hear that Sione had a plan to fix it, although my first thought was the fear that this involved ducktape, but he suprised me and used durable, semi-attractive, hardly noticable metal. Thank you Sione for being so creative and persistant!!

Eating at home is becoming more frequent for us and now that I am a stay-at-home mom, I am trying to be better with meal planning, etc. We have discovered that Rhodes sells 3 frozen loaves of bread for a dollar and some change which is much cheaper then any prebaked loaf you will find in the store, so we have been trying to keep on top of baking our own bread at home. Here is LaRee singing her praises for homemade bread.

My 2 Part blog of over the holidays

This was the first year that we had a real tree. We always put up our, as Sione likes to call it "Charlie Brown" tree, but this year we invested in a real fake tree and finally after years of collecting ornaments I was able to display them.




Christmas was a lot of fun and most of that has to do with having LaRee in our life. Her excitement grew during the day as you will see in the pictures. It was the first day that she felt good in over a week. Bless her nose running heart!!
Here LaRee and Elmo are watching T.V. on one of the days that she didn't feel so good. Elmo gives LaRee much comfort in her times of need.





Not a real fancy fairy princess look but this is the best picture to show the whole shoe/wand package.

Our family friend Todd ( we know him from San Diego and he now lives in Dallas too) his sisters came in from Arizona for Christmas so we took the opportunity to all get together and play tourist with a trip out to The South Fork Ranch where parts of the television show "Dallas" was filmed. Our little island boy is even a fan. Sione watched the show for the year and a half that he lived in Hawaii with his Grandparents. It's hard to even slip in the word Dallas without Sione jumping in with the theme song from the show.


Let me tell you, LaRee seemed to enjoy this 2 hour adventure 100 times more then our 2 day trip to Disneyland. It was too funny to watch. She loved it. She really likes spending time with her Uncle Todd and its a ranch so she had wide open spaces to be and do as she pleased.

Merry Christmas Y'all

I just love Christmas when families gather and people in general feel a little more sensitive to others. It is a time that we have so many reminders (if we look) of Christ's birth. What an amazing thing that was for the world, let alone each of us individually. It makes me feel humble and reminds me that we are all part of a much bigger picture. Our stake (made up of multiple church congregations) put on what they called "The Nativity" where members donate their nativities for this 3 day event and some very talented members, then turn the stake center (building) into this amazing display for the public and church members to attend. It was nice to be a part of this peaceful kick of to the Christmas season. Here are a few of my favorite nativities:

They had a celestial room which was done all in white. It felt so peaceful and heavenly.

I have always loved these silly little mice. There is a shop in San Diego at Seaport Village that sells them and I can not tell you the number of times I went in just to look at there collection of mice. If I had a million dollars.
These two were so unique. This first one was made out of peanut shells and the second out of nuts and bolts. Clyde Rhodes would have loved it.


Simple but very much how I think it might have been. This one was from Uruguay I think.

These last two were submitted by myself and my dad. The coconut nativity is from a trip to the Polynesian Cultural Center with Mr. Sione Latu so it has a special place in our home and stays out year round as a little Christmas reminder. The Native American nativity was hand painted by my Auntie Jalayne. She did such an amazing job. Such detail. LaRee like it because it has a bear. I have found her numerous times, on a chair trying to reach it and I always know she is trying to reach it because I can hear her going "GRRRRRR!" like all bears do.

My kid makes me laugh

I can't help it. I have to blog about LaRee, again!! She is just so funny and crazy and WILD!

I came home from caroling and delivering christmas treats with the church Relief Society only to find LaRee and Grandpa in the kitchen cooking or should I say holiday baking. Grandpa gives LaRee way too many privileges in the kitchen. If you click on the picture it might come up bigger on your screen and you will be able to see the circle of peanut butter on her face as well as the powdered sugar on her cheek and pants. She was "run-around-the-house" happy. I am sure it was a mixture of happy to be with Grandpa and sugar!!!!
We finally bought a couple of bar stools for our kitchen bar. I was doing dishes and all of a sudden I see this little set of eyes peer over the bar. That little stinker can pull her self up and sit up to the bar.
Do you ever wonder what your kids are doing when you finally take that quick trip to the bathroom? Well, mine is busy diapering Elmo. I opened the door to find a diapered Elmo and by the time I had returned with the camera, LaRee had joined us. Elmo is hipper then most kids, he wears one side of his diper over his shoulder. Too Cool Elmo!!
This must be LaRee's version of a Tea Party. She has put a stuffed dog in one chair and given both of them sippey cups. Note she has stuffed a pillow behind her back for what I can only guess is a little added comfort.

I came into the kitchen Sunday morning to find LaRee squeeling over the Toys r Us ad from the Sunday paper. I asked Grandpa if he had given it to her and he said that she had "requested" he give it to her. There was so much exciting stuff that she couldn't take the time to sit down.
On this moring LaRee had a spoon and she hopped down from the table and helped herself to a fork from the silverware drawer and ate the rest of her cereal with both a spoon and fork. This girl is definitely special, I am just not sure what kind of special.LaRee had such a good time decorating our Christmas tree. This is a picture of her clapping and singing her own praises after hanging an ornament, which she did with every ornament she put on the tree.

As I was passing our Christmas tree I noticed what looked to me to be a new ornament. It was a set of nailclippers. I am guessing that because it had a silver loop at the top , when LaRee found them in Grandpa's room she figured they were to go on the tree as an ornament. Clever girl!

Company

We finally had our first official house guests. The Santos and Hepp family flew in from Kearns, Utah. I worked with Yvette Santos when I first moved to San Diego. I love their family and we always have such a good time when we are together -- talking and eating and then talking and eating some more. Jesse Santos is a master of the barbecue and Nana (Yvette's Mom) makes the worlds best potato salad. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from their visit.

What a couple. Both Yvette and Jesse are from Guam. Jesse is in the Army and that is how they ended up in Utah. Next round they are looking at Texas. How great would that be?!!
This is Logan. He has the most enchanting laugh and a smile that is just as great as his laugh!
This is my Godson, Jarad. He turned 5 while here in Texas. He is turning into such a little man. He loves LaRee which thrills me. They just about wore each other out with their running around and such.

There was a great amount of tumbling done by Jarad and LaRee.

LaRee, Trevor and Sione. Trevor really took to Sione and every time he saw him you would hear, "Uncle!"
LaRee didn't know whether to cry or laugh when the ride started. She started to cry, but broke into a smile and got all excited once the ride got going. Look at that face!! It is so hard to catch that kind of excitement on camera, but we see it alot and love her for it!!