Movie Night

Reading through our local Kids Magazine, there's a small town by our house that starting to have "Movie Nights" during the summer. This is they're first movie night of the year. I called my cousin up and told her to pack up snacks, drinks, chairs and blankets, oh and don't forget the kids to join us. It was nice! The weather was really nice, it had a nice breeze and it wasn't to hot either. They had a moon bounce for the kids, since the movie was "Kung Fu Panda II" they were giving away free panda bears! They also had free hotdogs (provided by our StateFarm Insurance)drinks and snacks. We bought pizza because they said to bring food and drinks, if I would've known they were having free hotdogs, then no pizza. But that's ok, we were told also that it was a volunterred type of thing so no telling the next movie night we'll get free food. In the kids magazine, I find all kind of neat stuff for Gavin to do. Local Libraries have arts, crafts and story time, EVEN free food for lunch!! You can't pass free food! Also, children's museums, they have free summer parties for kiddos! Since Gavin and I stay home all day everyday, why not take him out once-twice a week. For FREE! And, I just renewed our Sea World Passes and that's once a week. I try to keep Gavin busy throught out the year since he's not in school yet. Once, school year starts, we're going back to pre-school here at home.

Still here!!

Well, hello everyone! Yes, I'm still here and alive. I've been very busy. There is alot that I want to blog about, post pictures, share memories and etc. Theres allot that has happen. Allot of changes. New things came to us. Family back together again. Planning our future. Loss of a friend. I just dont know where to start. All I can say that I'm very bless right now. Bless that I have a wonderful healthy family and a roof over our heads. I want to share so much of Gavin and the activities that he has done. I've been busy also reading other blogs. Its thereapy for me. There's been times that I want to sit in the corner and get my laptop and start blogging away. But instead, I think about what are the plans are ahead for us in the week. What are we going to eat. What are the plans for the weekend. Is it time to spend with grandma or grandpa this week. I'm telling you, so much in my head. Is that why I'm having migrain headaches? Is it stress? Stress is what I've been having lately. But I shouldn't because I have everything that I need underneath this roof. My family, food, shelter, clothes, and love. Then why am I stress? That's something I need to figure out why. Well soon I will start blogging. I just need to find where I can start. What I need to start with. Believe me there is so much I want to share with you. Until next time, thanks for stopping by! Have a greadt week!

Playdates....

Since Gavin and I been cooped up in the house and not to mention my cousin and her son, we decided to have breakfast, lunch and play! When ever our schedule is clear for us to join each other's company, we have breakfast at our son's favorite place.....Jim's. Since the weather was not letting us have fun in the park, we decided to try this place by our house "Pee Wee Bees". It's actually a cool nice indoor place for the kids to play! It's very clean, colorful and lots and lots of backyard toys such as slides, moon bounce and etc to play with. They also have snacks, drinks and etc for kids and and even for the adults too. Everything! It's really nice! You can also have a party there for birthdays. Now, that's when it gets expensive. Well, they provide and do everything for you. Cake, party supplies, food and entertainment. Mommy's check it out. Hopefully there's a Pee Wee Bee's in your neighborhood.

Since the weather is changing on us constantly, we try to find an indoor place for our boys to play. We usually go to to Sea World, Zoo or to the park where they have a swing set and have picnics. I can't wait for the summer to come. So we can go swimming too! Since, I've been taking care of another child and after school, Gavin and I do what we can to have fun inside our home. I also pre-school Gavin in the mornings, so it's not like we're totally bored at all. But, it gets tiring being cooped in the house ALL WEEK ALL DAY!


Gavin and Preston (cousins and Best friends)










And after we got home....They knocked out! I love you my boys!

So far, so good!

As you read on my blog early in the year, I made an Household Notebook that keeps all my cleaning lists, coupons, etc. Well, so far so good I'm keeping up! Two weeks ago, I organized every room in this house! What I regret was not taking the before and after pictures to proof it, but I was so ready to get started and over done with it! This past weekend, my husband and I cleaned our garage since we've been holding it off for so long. Let me tell you, we got rid of allot of stuff! Ugh, just couldn't believe that we kept those things in there for so long. Man, I wished I took pictures! That evening, we went out on a date. Our son had a sleep over at my moms that weekend. That was our weekend for 'Date Night" anyway. Actually, we went out the night before. Ha-ha! Then Sunday I had just me time with my cousin. We had an early breakfast and went to the Outlet Factory stores. We had tons of coupons that we saved lots of money for. We mostly and mainly shopped for our little ones. Nope, no coupons for us. Just Gap, Old Navy, Children's Place, Carter's....yep just our kids. AND not only that, we decided to have a lunch and i found $50! Yes, $50 on the floor! Besides, that I was happy that I had extra money (from my shopping) back home.
I'm also keeping track in my check book record. I have too. It's been so long that I haven't done that.

I hope I keep this going. So far, I'm doing good and I'm very proud of myself. And, so is my husband.

Kids Workshops

One of my New Year Resolution was to entertain and keep Gavin busy. Instead of staying home on the weekends other than take him to basketball practice (which is an hour), watch movies or even take him shopping with me. I want him to enjoy something that he really likes and that we can do over and over again. I came across that Home Depot and Lowe's offers FREE kids workshop on one of my favorite blog that I read everyday. Home Depot only offers it once a month on the first Saturday of the month and you don't have to sign or make a reservation for it. Lowe's offers it every other Saturday and you do need to make a reservation I believe 2 weeks in advance. It's pretty cool, both places. They give the kiddos free, apron, kit, pin or patch and a complete certificate. I already made reservations the whole month of January and February to Lowe's. Haha! Gavin, my husband and I enjoyed it very much. Gavin is always wanting to help daddy outside or hammer stuff around the house and I thought this whole Kids Workshop idea was great! And Gavin and daddy can also have a boys day out while mommy gets "Mommy Time".




Home Depot

HE DID IT!!! Its a Saving Shed (a.k.a Piggy bank). Good job baby! Your did great!

Lowe's

Its a Castle!!! Good job baby boy! Keep up the good work!

Our Pets..

You know I've never posted my other children's on my blog. We recently adopted another little girl this past August. I found her on Craig list. While back, I took Lola to get her shots and I ran into another Shih Tzu that was beautiful with White and Chocolate colors. The lady told me that her daughter spend amount of money on her dog because of the color. I fell in LOVE with that dog. The lady also mentioned that the Chocolate color is a very rare color to come around and that if you find one to get it. When we were driving bk from the coast, I just thought I would look into Craig list on my iphone. Well, guess what? Someone was selling shih tzu for a good amount price and they posted a chocolate shih tzu. They were selling three but they were black and white. I called her up and she told me that she was selling it at that price because they don't have any shots. Ok, sounds fair. Nor, didn't have any papers. So, I told her I was interested and that I would call her when we were back in town. So, my husband and I meet up with her and her husband at a local store. They got down with the puppy...she was so adorable! And very dark chocolate too! They forgot to bring pictures of the parents but they gave me this sad story that they think their neighbor stold their female shih tzu. Anyway, well we ended up taking her home. But her face, was different. oh oh! Yep, oh oh! Once I got home, I looked up Chocolate Shih Tzu's and their exactly the same and look the same with green/hazel eyes. Okay, well maybe her face is a little different. Well, it's been a very LONG TIME that we had a puppy. So here we go picking up the mess and trying to fix whatever she chewed on. UGH!!!! My furniture! Darn it! Well, days and months were flying by and little by little she was growing a little longer, taller and NOT even looking like a Shih Tzu! My Lola is an Imperial Shih Tzu and she stayed really small and short. Gavin, our son, got so attached to her and her to him. I keep telling him that I was going to find a home for Zoe because she's bad. He said " NO Mommy, give Lola away!" Ha-ha! Yeah right! Well, the more she grew and months past by she's been a really good watch dog. She is VERY protective over Gavin. We'll be outside and someone will be walking by and Zoe will get in front of Gavin and starts either growling or barking. And she'll evern bark at anything she hears or sees anybody at our door (sometimes I'll have our front door open to have light come in thru our storm door). Well, she picked up the potty training very well. But I still keep her in the kennel at night, just in case. There's been allot stress and frustration ever since with had Zoe. But we're growing to love her anyway.

Lola

Zoe at 6 weeks

Zoe now.

Happy New Year & Resolutions

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone had a great start. We sure did and are. There are many resolutions that I have in mind and would like to keep. First of all, I was reading one of my favorite blog and she had posted about being organized. Organize is SOMETHING that I need to do. I'm a pack rat when it comes to certain things and I realized when I was reading her blog, I don't need them. I really don't see them so it wouldn't hurt at all if I gave them away or throw them away. There is allot of nick nacks that I keep such as scented lotions, scented candles, little make-up bags/pouches, etc. She had also mentioned about doing A Household Notebook. It also helps you organized everything in your house and among others things. Bills, grocery shopping, weekly menu, cleaning task, and etc. So, I made one myself. I'm in processing of organizing it. I will share with you later on that. But in the meantime, I would like to share my resolutions with you guys.

1) Spend more time in the morning with my son:

I do preschool with my son, but not as often as I should. So, I need to start getting back on track with pre-school. But first, I want to take him out every morning to teach him how to ride his bike. My husband and I have been very lazy to go out and teach him. He has a helmet and a bike just sitting in the garage. He does wake up really early in the morning. So instead of me putting on a cartoon while I make breakfast, I can get him ready for a little ride and come bk in and eat breakfast then do pre-school. That does sounds fair, huh?

2) Date night with my hubby:

My husband of 12 years is an RN. He works 10-12 hours a day and takes call every other two weeks. It's really hard for us to spend any time together. He comes home very tired and his feet hurts. He misses us during the day and he wants to spend whats left of his time with us. When we do have time for each other, it's also spending time with our little son Gavin. No problem with that, but we want to SPEND TIME WITH EACH OTHER. So, we made a plan the week he's NOT ON-CALL we can do date night. It could be the movies, dinner and a movie, walk around a shopping center, go to Barns & Noble to read and drink a Starbucks Latte, or just go to the gym together. I've talked to my cousin that would also like to spend time with her husband and we both agreed that we can watch each other children(s) when we want a Alone Time. So, this past Friday I had our first date night of the year.

3) Make a Household Notebook:

Like I said earlier in my post, I want to be more organized. I went ahead and bought the stuff I needed and started to make my own "Household Notebook". One thing that I did different was make my own address book. I was determined to find a new address book for this year and couldn't find one at all since my old address book had allot of changes to it and scribble scrabble. Target, Walmart nor any local store had one. So I decided to make my own. What I did, I listed just my family in one page, my husband's family on another and friends on a different page. It would be easier for me to sent out birthday invitations, Christmas cards and etc. And of course not to leave anybody out for that matter. Another, there's a cleaning check off list for everyday, weekly and monthly. It breaks down to each and every room, from to bottom. Cleaning dash boards, blinds, vents, shelf's, you name it. And it breaks it down the day(s) to do it so you won't over whelm yourself by wanting to do it all at once. So, hopefully this will work. I'm planning to do this while Gavin takes his nap during the day and after pre-school/lunch.

4) Go by my Weekly Menu:

This is part of in the Household Notebook. I decided to write down in everyday slot what's on the dinner menu and the grocery list for the week. Because, it gives me a headache everyday of what I'm making the next day and needed to go to the store every single day. It gets tiring and frustrating. And gas it not cheap these days either. My goal is to write this weekly menu every Saturday and do the grocery shopping on Sunday when my coupons come in.

5) Make a picture folder of Gavin at the end of every month:

I have so many pictures! I don't know where to start! Oh, I know. At the end of every each month, I'm going to download pictures that I've taken for that month only. I want to start making a photo book of Gavin every year. Why didn't I think of that when he was first born? Time is going by so fast and I want to catch every moment of him. And I want to go back and look at the pictures again and again and again.

So far I have 5 resolutions. I know I have more, but these are my MOST important ones.

Oh, and one last thing, I want to control what I eat and help myself by loosing weight.

I hope every one has a Happy New Year with many blessings. And to hope to accomplish your resolutions.

What is your New Year Resolution?