May your new year be filled with hope, peace and joy and may it bring you a renewed positive perspective. Here's a few pics including the magic memory boxes :)
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Christmas Eve 2008
May your new year be filled with hope, peace and joy and may it bring you a renewed positive perspective. Here's a few pics including the magic memory boxes :)
Sunday, December 21, 2008
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Decorating the Tree
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Cleaning up a VERY messy room!
After 9 hours of work, 2 bags full of trash and 2 boxes filled with toys and old costumes that went to Freecycle I was done! I threatened Josh and Aaron that if they moved any one of those Star Wars action figures I so lovingly placed on their dresser, there would be no more Christmas for them!!
Here is the result:
Monday, December 8, 2008
Artsy Family
Here they are:
The first one is my favorite. This was his very first time working with acrylics and learning about colors and composition. He will continue his classes with her probably in the spring.
Feeling Crafty
Today I was feeling crafty and in the Christmas mood. One of my favorite holiday movies is A Charlie Brown Christmas so I decided to create my own painted, wooden outdoor decor. Here is the pic of the Snoopy I painted:
I still need to cut him out and his doghouse is painted but needs to be put together. I will also paint Charlie Brown, Lucy, Woodstock and the tree. I will post pics once they are set up outside:)
Tutorial:
MDF Boards (you choose the size)
Pencil or chalk
Craft Paint
Brushes or Sponge Brushes
Black Sharpie
Jigsaw
Wooden stake (either bought or you can make your own)
Clear Acrylic Spray to protect the wood
First I printed out a picture of what I wanted to draw. I wanted Snoopy so I got my copy of A Charlie Brown Christmas and made a copy on my all in none printer.
I then just freehanded it onto the board with pencil (here it's plywood, but believe me when I say BUY MDF it's much easier to work with as I later found out.)
Then I started to paint it. When I finished painting it I had my hubby show me how to cut it with a jigsaw.
He said I should have waited to paint it AFTER we cut it, but I didn't care. I wanted to make sure I saw where to make the cuts. You make the call cut either before or after. Any scratching I did on the painted surface was quickly touched up. Then I outlined the character with a black sharpie (one of those fat tipped ones) or if you have a steady hand you can outline it with a brush and black paint. Then you just spray it with a clear acrylic coating to protect it.
Then I nailed a stake 2/3 of the way up from the figure on the back. The stake was made by my hubby.
And there you go! Instant Christmas Outdoor decor for a FRACTION of the price of the roadside vendors.
Christmas Door Hanging
This year instead of a wreath on my door I decided to do something different. A couple of months ago I went to the Octoberfest downtown and picked up some old wooden shutters for like $2. I decided to turn one of those into my door decoration. Here are some pics of it:
I simply took the shutter and a Pine Spray I had in storage. I saw this really pretty birdie at Target and I got him for about $4. The ribbon I already had on hand. I just used some floral wire to tie the pine spray thru the shutter slats and I used the same floral wire to tie the bird to the pine sprig with a dab of hot glue. And that's all there is to it. I'll have to post a pic of it hanging on my door soon.
Linking up to these parties:
Thrifty Decor Chick Before and After
Centsational Girl Christmas Linky Party
Funky Junk Interiors
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Bathroom Re-do
Monday, December 1, 2008
Relaxing Sunday
Sundays are a special day for us. Yesterday we just went to church and came home and loafed around. We mostly watched movies the rest of the day and I felt like baking. So I started baking some cupcakes.
At the end of the day we just crashed from all the past week's exhaustion of Thanksgiving and shopping. I am glad to get back to normal.
Now I have the Joy of cleaning up our study (yuck)
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Thanksgiving 2008
I am so happy and thankful for my wonderful family. Especially my grandmother who is here visiting from Laredo. My grandmother raised me and taught me some valuable things, such as:
Be a hard worker-do a great job no matter what the job is- from pet store poop cleaner to CFO of a rural town!
Be honest and treat others with respect
Be clean-maintain a clean home, it doesn't matter if your floors are dirt floors (they used to be) or made of the finest imported italian tiles, keep your house clean!
Be pretty-this one has always stuck...my granma told me, always look pretty for your husband, he is out working all day with pretty women who are all "dolled up"at work and the last thing he wants is to come home to a wife with no make up on and sweats! I always remember this bit of advice and I NEVER EVER wear sweats! I want my husband to come home to a pretty wife (so far it's worked, we just celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary..and they said it wouldn't last (I was 15 he was 19 when we met ;)
My granmother is a treasure chest of knowledge, experience and wisdom. I am honored to be named after her, Aurora.
We celebrated Thanksgiving by taking the kids and my grandmother to the Tanglewood resort for lunch. It was yummy!! And no dishes to wash! We are so thankful for the many blessings that our Heavenly Father has bestowed upon us!
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Only four more working days!!
I will be going to "market" this Saturday to purchase some merchandise that I will have on hand for my holiday open house on the 5th and 6th. We always have so much fun with these and I love meeting other ladies who are at home crafters and home based businesses.
Well, I guess I better go off to bed now.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Trophy
Last Friday Aaron's T ball team met up at Peter Piper Pizza for trophies. He was so excited to get there. It was our first time there and his second season at TBall. He played the advanced Tball this time and he really seems to like it. He's even pretty good, and coming from artsy-fartsy, geeky (me) parents like us, this is a BIG deal!! He will play again in the spring and he is getting good at it so he will most likely not need the T anymore. We are proud of him. We especially love to see his silly faces. This kid's a character.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
An Historic Night!

Tonight my family and I stayed up to witness a historic event! We are overjoyed that Barack Obama is our next president!! I had predicted his win many months ago. I have always seen in him a freshness and innovation that has been lacking in the current political climate. As a government employee, I am intimately aware of how politics works. And I am very excited to have a brand new voice for the people. Hurray!! I explained to my children how this is a time in history that they shall never forget!! We had a little election party here at home with my sister and her family.
I shall never forget this night :)
Friday, October 31, 2008
Nightmare Before Christmas!
Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas!
If you haven't seen this masterpiece you are missing out BIG TIME! Ever since Ellison was 2 she has been in love with Jack Skellington. The movie is all claymation and the songs are wonderful. It took my family (mostly Sergio and Ellison) over a month to hand craft the characters and we're not through yet! We are planning on adding more characters for next year. We had lots of people taking pictures in front of our house and video taping our display :)
We even had the soundtrack playing. It was a great Halloween. Josh and Aaron were Boba and Jengo Fett. Ellison was a cute witch.
And Sergio and I had a blast handing out candy to all the neighborhood kids. Now on to our Christmas display (hee hee hee )
HAPPY HALOWEEN!!
Monday, October 27, 2008
Proud Parents
Self Motivated
Respectful
Mature for his age (he just turned 11)
He's not a goof ball (that's good)
Incredibly bright
Gets along well with everyone
Wish all 30 of them were just like him
He is funny!
He does not want to attract attention to himself
I recommend he goes into the GT program-Alpha
Needless to say, Sergio and I were beaming with love and pride for this wonderful boy we get to call our son. He is exactly the same way at home. Josh has been recommended to enroll in the GT (gifted program) before when he was in the 2nd grade. But I tell ya, this guy is so sharp he figured out what the testing was for, and now, years later, informed us he purposely failed it!! He didn't get a 97% percentile, he got 95% percentile and did not get in. We were puzzled of course, since he has always been so bright. I asked him why he didn't want to be in alpha, and he simply said, I don't think it's important...that is not going to guarantee that I am successful in my life". Can you believe that?? I tell you this guy is sharp!! He is exceptionally gifted in math and science but he told us he DOES NOT want to be "different". He states " my life is great right now..and I don't want to change it". This is also the same kid who has very deep, spiritual conversations with me and I do feel there is an old spirit living within that 11 year old boy's body.
Now, for Aaron's conference tomorrow morning. This little guy is a character LOL But he is a sweetheart too. :)
Saturday, October 18, 2008
UNT and Driver's Permit
She doesn't look excited in the pic >>>>>> lol
Then we took her to UNT to take a tour of the University. She plans on applying to their art program and maybe interning for Disney in the future!!
Ellison actually has enough credits to graduate this year (her junior year) but she wants to take a bunch of art classes next year just for fun!!
She also is doing very well in school taking 3 AP classes!! She was taking a 4th AP class which was actually a GT class YIKES!
Her counselor asked me if she was planning to major in Engineering with all the advanced math she has under her belt, but I told her art will be her major. She then recommended that we take her out of the GT class and into her favorite subject which is Algebra 3. We took her recommendation and took a load off of Ellison.
Anyway, back to the UNT tour.
Here's a few pics of the tour: