Ares 1-X Rocket

I feel so lucky to live in a place where I can stand on my front lawn and take pictures like these:

Here's the Ares 1-X Rocket with my neighbor's trees showing on the bottom.

A little closer.

Extreme close up. Gets a little grainy this close, but I'm amazed by it.

I also recorded the launch on tv. Once we came back into the house, the boys made me play it over and over again for them. They counted down, "3, 2, 1, Blast Off!!" and then kept saying, "The wocketship is cool!" Celo heard me mutter "amazing," and like the parrot that he is, kept saying, "Mazing wocketship."

It was an exciting morning!

High School Reunion

On Saturday night, Marcelo and I attended his 10 year high school reunion. It wasn't very well planned. On Friday night, a group of about 60 of his high school classmates got together to go bowling. He went solo to that one because I had to stay home with the kiddos. He had a lot of fun catching up with old friends. On Saturday night, we went to a local restaurant/bar on the water. We went early so we could get dinner with our cousins, Irv and Andrea, and another couple. After dinner, we went out onto the outdoor deck where a ton of his classmates were dancing and drinking. He chatted for a bit with a few old friends, and said hello to aquaintances. We didn't stay for long. The next day, we went to see one of his closest friends who was in town, so he could meet our kids. All in all, Marcelo said it was an enjoyable weekend and it was nice to see how people are doing. I think in two years, when it's time for my high school reunion, I'll want to go, too. Hopefully it will be better planned!

My Sweet Diego

I hope that my boys grow up to be as sweet as their daddy. Marcelo is one of the most kind-hearted people I know and has a great relationship with his mom. I hope I have that kind of relationship with my boys when they're all grown up and married. I see things in Diego that make me think he's going to be a lot like his daddy, and that makes me so happy! He's just so so sweet sometimes. Here are some "for instances".

On Sunday, I walked out of my room all dressed for church and Diego got a huge smile on his face and looked me up and down while saying, "Woooooooooow! Mommy! You look beautiful!! I love your skirt, Mommy!" The way he said it was so cute.

On Monday, he was in the middle of playing and I was getting lunch ready. He walked over to me and said, "I love you Mommy. You're the best mommy in the whole world." I teared up.

A few weeks ago, I told Diego that we were going to start getting a box of toys together to give away to children who don't have toys. I told him that we would get the box ready and then around Christmas, we would give the toys away. I said, "I need you to help me pick out toys that you don't play with anymore so we can give them to boys and girls who need them." I walked away, and 5 minutes later, the box was full.

I saw that he had dumped a bunch of his cars in there and said, "Are you sure you want to give away these McQueens?" He said, "Yes. Some boys and girls don't have any McQueens." I was floored by his generosity and couldn't believe some of the things in the box. He kept adding more and more things and I said, "Diego, if you give all the toys away, there won't be any toys left to play with!" He said, "We can get new ones."

Oh. I see. He didn't quite understand what was going on. He thought dumping all his toys in the box meant he would get all new toys. So much for unselfish generosity. Once he realized we would not be replacing the toys, he started to take stuff out of the box. It was all pretty funny, I must say.

Toy story aside, he's still incredibly sweet and I'm so glad he's mine.

Halloween Fun

This is a word for word repeat of what I just posted on Facebook. It's for my family that doesn't have Facebook.

Little Celo dressed up as a ghost. Cracks me up. This is Ghost Diego. I downloaded a song called Ghost Train and we danced around to it. Diego loved it.

Celo thought it was more fun to walk around like this.
This is me sneaking a picture of Diego's marker-covered pumpkin. He wouldn't let me take a picture until it was finished.

"Okay, take a picture, it's done now."
Celo cannot be trusted with markers.

When I saw that he had written all over himself in brown markers, I tried to get a picture. Celo wasn't in the mood so he refused to open his eyes.
To get all that marker off, we took a creepy crawly bug bath.

I made a Lighting McQueen pumpkin for the boys. It was the biggest waste of an hour ever. When they saw it, they were like, "But that doesn't look like McQueen. I want a Tigger one." They don't even watch Winnie the Pooh.

Here are all our lovely creations.

Who's the Parent Here?

The other day the boys were being extra rambunctious and fighting non-stop. I had HAD it, and my voice got louder than it should have. Diego froze, then looked at me and said the following.


Diego: Mommy, why are you talking mean?
Feeling horribly guilty, I responded (a little more quietly, but still in a huff): Because you guys aren't being good listeners!
Diego: You need to say sorry for talking mean.
Me: Sorry for talking mean.
Diego: That's okay. Just don't do it again.


Um, I'll try not to.


On the days that Diego goes to school and I stay home with Celo, Celo and I usually make a mess in the living room. Instead of cleaning it up before I go pick up Diego, I just leave it so the boys can keep playing when Diego gets home. But when Diego gets home, the first thing he says is, "I really don't like the mess you guys made." So today, I cleaned up all the toys before I went to pick him up, so I wouldn't get scolded. When he walked into the house, he said, "Wow! You cleaned up your mess! Good job!"

Soooo, who's the parent?

So Far in October...

The boys have played dress up...

Celo's still fits, but Diego has grown a few inches since last year.

Diego learned how to draw people...

He's never showed much interest in art, so I thought this was fantastic.

I got a fancy new external flash...
It's for a wedding I'm shooting in January. So nervous and excited!

I practiced with my new flash on my fall decorations...This is the extent of my fall decorations. And yes, I bought that stuff at Dollar Tree.

And the boys have gotten completely filthy while playing in the backyard in the"grass"...I mean dirt."Celo, if you smile I'll give you a treat.""Diego, if you smile you can have a sticker." October is looking good!

General Conference

This weekend, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints all over the world tune in to General Conference.

This is what the Church's website says about General Conference: Messages of inspiration and guidance will be delivered by the First Presidency, members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and other General Authorities and general officers of the Church. The sessions are at 12pm and 4pm Eastern Time. Each session will have a different set of speakers covering many different topics, music by the Mormon Tabernacle choir, and will last two hours.

If you're interested in tuning in, you can watch by finding the closest meeting house in your area, or if you want to stay home, you can watch it on BYUTV (Dish Network -channel 9403, DirecTV - channel 374), ATT/Uverse - channel 567, or watch or listen online at either of these websites: http://lds.org/broadcast/gc/0,5161,8584,00.html http://www.byub.org/programaz/program.asp?id=571