North to Alaska!

The day has finally come, we leave at midnight for our trip up to Seattle and Alaska! We are all excited and sooooo ready for this vacation. I cleaned my house, did my dishes and will be packing and finishing up laundry today. I will not be blogging during my trip because it is so very expensive to use the internet and because I am on vacation :)

We are going to Seattle for Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning. Then we board our ship and head off on our family adventure. Did I mention there are forty of us?!? Yes, between my siblings, spouses, children, Aunts, Uncles, and Grandparents, we add up to forty people. I am excited to have time with my sister of course, but also my brothers and their spouses. We all get along so well and have not had a full family vacation since I was a junior in high school, almost twenty years ago.

Anyways, I will be off the computer for a week and a half. Hopefully, I will come back refreshed and back in the groove of sewing, cooking, and crafting up a storm. I have been a little burned out lately but I know I will get back to it all.

Hope you have a fabulous time without me and see ya soon!  

Vacation Bible School Crazy Hair Day!

We have been really busy with VBS this past week, wow with taking the bus and walking downtown everywhere with Enzo, we are tired, well I am tired but it was well worth every minute of it!! 

Kira was so excited to do crazy hair day!

I did zig zag parts and gave her five ponytails and braided them

Then we added fun hair ties

Looped some of the braids

It was crazy!

Enzo wanted crazy hair too and told me he wanted Vampire hair!

He really wanted the "pointy thing in the front" , the widow's peak

so I took his new hair at the hair line and brought it forward with gel

He was so excited!!

Momma Moment

Friday we went to the pool with some friends and had a wonderful time. My sweet bubba is so amazing and has such a wonderful spirit. He wants to go, go, go all the time. He was so excited to play with "big boys" and boys his age too! It was a little bittersweet though. I noticed he had a hard time keeping up with all of the boys. Obviously, he would not be able to keep up with the older boys, but the boys his age he was a little behind. I don't always think about his C.P.  because he just goes out and gets things done "Enzo's way". But every once in a while I am reminded of it and hope that kids do not think of him differently or make fun. A mother's worst nightmare is your child getting pick on. Thankfully, I had not seen kids make fun or put him down. But rather they embrace him and let him tag along. :)

The thing that is so amazing is that he does not even notice it! He just kept up as much he could and if they made it to the end of the pool (1 foot deep) and turned around and passed him, he would turn around immediately too. He put an effort of 200% and it blessed me so much. He just simply amazes me everyday!

Just a little momma moment, thanks for listening :)

Goodwill Treasure

Last Saturday I went to Goodwill to look for some work shirts.

I hit the jackpot!!

I got this 3/4 sleeve sweater for $3.95

This little number is of course my favorite color

it is a little big, but I am planning moving the buttons

over on each side about an inch

and it should cinch the waist a little more.

again just $3.95

This jewel, literally, jewel tone SILK top

from Banana Republic is perfect!

oh yeah you guessed it 

$3.95 

Last but not least,

children's clothing was 1/2 price.

I was looking for a nice warm jacket for Kira when we go to Alaska

Gap Kids

Bingo

totally reversible and has down filler!

Regular price $10

but I got it for $5!

I found L.L. Bean insulated rain boots for Enzo $10 and Stride Rite ones for Kira $15.

They were not on sale but next Saturday all shoes are half price.

So looks like I will be hitting it up on the 24th.

They have a whole month calendar with all of the discounts on each day!

Sweet

Quick Note

I am winding down from six days in a row at work. We are all off schedule sleep wise. We are going to bed late and waking up late which is not bad since it is summer. I went to bed early last night....11:30, well sort of early. I am keeping dinners super easy and light. Dishes are getting done somehow, laundry is clean but not folded or put away. But I do not care, I am enjoying time with the kids and Eric. Eric has been AMAZING!! I came home on Friday night and he was in the kitchen doing all the dishes. He swept and mopped the kitchen and vaccumed the house! We were able to enjoy Saturday morning instead of cleaning, so sweet!

Today it finally warmed up and felt like summer!! Enzo had therapy this morning and he got a new splint for his left hand. For the next couple weeks at therapy he will be wearing it during his session. Eventually, he will be wearing it during the night. I think it will really help him and his hand. I had to bribe him with a lollipop to wear it. Trader Joe's now has natural organic lollipops!!! Yeah!

With the sun out I brought out the pool again and poured some warm water and the kids played for awhile. We are watching "Muppet Movie" right now and I love this movie. I remember watching it as a kid. I loved the muppets, especially Miss Piggy! HiiiiYaa!(karate kick). I could not believe how many big stars were in it, Bob Hope, Richard Pryor, Madelin Kahn, Steve Martin, Orson Wells etc. It is just as fabulous as I remember.

Finally, I have a great tip with leftover rice pasta:
I have found the only annoying thing about rice pasta is when it comes to reheating it. Instead of adding all your sauce to the pasta, serve up your family and then store your cooked pasta in a container without any sauce, sauce in a separate container. Then when you go to reheat the next day add pasta to a saute pan with about 1-2 cups of water. Over medium to high heat warm up water and pasta. The noodles will become untangled and soft again. Drain and serve with favorite sauce. It worked like a dream and I do not know why I did not think to do it before!

Anyways, enjoy your day and stay hydrated.
P.S. Only 16 days until our Alaskan Cruise!!!!Yippee!! My Uncle has so kindly paid for my entire family to go on a seven day cruise to Alaska. There will be about 35 of us! What a blessing!

Fourth of July

We went down to Orange COunty for a whirlwind trip this last weekend. We left after I got off work Friday night around 11:00 pm. Eric was a trooper and drove the whole way. We were blessed with Eric's parents car to drive down. Wow! what a difference a car makes. The Beast whas made the trip but it is better it doesn't. We got in around 3:00am and of course Enzo woke up thinking it was morning and wanted to play with cousins. It took about an hour or two to get him back to bed, that was fun.
Needless to say we went into the weekend sleep deprived....never a great thing but oh well!

Saturday morning I made my famous pancakes as requested and we ate and ate and there were still tons left. I may have gotten carried away but they were good the next day too. We froze them with wax paper between and then popped them into the toaster...yummy!

Eric was able to go and watch our friend shape a surfboard blank that Eric had got a while back. Later the guys went SUPing (Stand Up Paddling). Jebraun and I went to shopping for a few odds and ends. I offered to give my sister some highlights and we got supplies for that too.

Saturday night I made GF pizza for the kids and bought Trader Joe's Whole Wheat pizza dough for the rest of the clan. I baked up five pizzas for them and one for the kids and I. We had a topping bar and everyone made their own pizzas. The trick with the pre-made dough is to bake it first for about 8-10 minutes, then add your toppings and throw it back into the oven to warm up the toppings. way better than having burnt topping and gooey crust! Thanks Trader Joe's Check out guy for the tip!

Sunday morning we woke up early and headed to Disneyland!!!

We got there about 8:30 and pretty much walked on every ride until lunch time!

We went on

Dumbo

Merry-Go-Round

Alice in Wonderland

Teacups

Winnie the Pooh (twice)

Mark Twain River Boat-I had never been on it!

Pirates of the Caribbean

Swiss Family Robinson's Tree House-(it is not Tarzan's tree to this family!!!)

Tom Sawyer's Island

Mickey and Pluto made an appearance at Club 33!

Club 33 for lunch at 1:30 was amazing!

Club 33 has always been such a treat but they went up and beyond the call of duty. My mom had called to see if there was any way they could accommendate our gluten free issues. Boy, did they!!

The chef made a special gf marinara sauce and got rice noodles for us.

Then for dessert they made special flourless chocolate cupcake, gf chocolate cookies and berry sorbet!!!

They have totally out did themselves and it was all so tasty. Then they gave us the rest of the cookies, about 10 more cookies in a bakery box to go!

Then we were off to California Adventure

Bugs Life here we come!

Heimlich's Chew Chew Train

Flik's Flyers

Francis' Ladybug Boogie-(like the teacups)

It's Tough to be a Bug Show

Toy Story

Soaring over California

Family picture of 20 people!

The whole clan

except

 my brother Christian, Sheri, his wife and Maile their daughter :( 

Needless to say we had fun!