Road Trip

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Guess what y’all! We are going on a road trip. This will be our first ever family vacation! It will be the first time in 6 years that I have taken a two week vacation!! We will be driving to San Francisco and the to Redwood National Park. We will actually be staying in Mckinleyville, CA for the Redwood part because we have heard really good reviews about the location. We’ll be near the beach and the forest. It is really exciting.

I am almost done mapping out all of the locations where we will be stopping. I stumbled onto Tripit.com and have started to put together an itinerary for the trip. We will be leaving in about two weeks, so I am trying to get everything together now, instead of waiting until the last minute. I read somewhere online to pack each days outfit in a separate zip lock bag to make it super easy. I would have never thought of doing something like that.

How Do You Hug a Porcupine?

This morning I got a chance to speak with Laurie Isop the 2009  Grand Prize Winner of the Cheerios® New Author Contest. She was great, she let me know about her experience as well as information about the contest. This was my first interview, so of course I was nervous, awkward and ran out of questions. Laurie helped me fill in the gaps when I started to awkwardly laugh and stutter (ha!). Laurie told me a bit about the contest, she stated she was the 3rd winner of the contest and that it usually takes about 18 months from winning the contest to having the winning book in the box.

Image by http://www.spoonfulsofstoriescontest.com/

Laurie actually had the book prepared to try and publish herself at a later date when she got the call from Cheerios® letting her know that she had won the contest. Her greatest challenge was to let her vision go into the hands of the selected illustrator Gwen Millward. Laurie was relieved that the communication with the illustrator was great and that her vision was coming alive the way that she wanted. Laurie said she felt like she won the literary lottery. Laurie’s book will be available bookstores nationwide July 26, so be sure to grab a copy.

One of the goals of the contest is to get books to children ages 3 to 8 years old. The contest occurs annually and they are still accepting entries through July 15th. Please go to www.spoonfulsofstoriescontest.com for more information and to enter. In conjunction with the launch of this year’s New Author Contest, Cheerios® plans to donate 100,000 new books through its charitable partner, First Book.  As part of its Spoonfuls of Stories® program, Cheerios® works with First Book to get high quality, award winning books in the hands of children in need.  Since the program’s inception in 2002, Cheerios® has given away more than 50 million children’s books free inside cereal boxes. Cheerios® has also donated $3.5 million to the nonprofit First Book® to get books to children from low-income families.

Laurie also told me that the books in the Cheerios® box are in English and Spanish. I think this is awesome, growing up I learned to speak both English and Spanish at the same, my mom would have to go hunting for a similar book in Spanish so I can see the differences in the words. I think this will help children who are bilingual, they will be able to look at both English and Spanish words.

It’s her party, and she will cry

Yes, terrible twos has officially begun!

Ariana is moody and loud. Her favorite word is NO and her method of tantrum is the “shake and jump”.  Yeah, she shakes, screams and jumps up and down when she gets upset. It drives me nuts, but I LOVE her and cannot keep myself from laughing when she does it.

The day of her birthday which was on Thursday, we decided to have some cake and let her open her gift. We had bought the cupcakes and stuff the day before (bad, I know) so we can just relax and have everything ready for Thursday.

It turned out to be a super stressful day for me because I realized I could not find my camera’s battery charger. Do you know how hard it is to find a charger for the Canon T1i?? Gah, anyway after we got that settled we had chicken and rice ( her favorite) and we let her eat cake.

The grandparents had so much fun watching her eat the cake. We opened gifts that were a mixture of clothes/toys, she of course could care less. She enjoyed the rest of the night by acting a fool. Her aunt, uncle and cousins came over a while later and oh my she loved it. She was a little shy at first but she was a little happier to see her gift she got from them. She got a little laptop where she can check her e-mail *squeal* the cutest ever. LOL She slept really good on Thursday.

We had her party on Saturday, it was not really a party since it was only us and the grandparents but it was a party to us lol. We rented a princess jumper and hung crepe paper all around. She had a Dora cake and got more gifts. It was crazy to say the least. We all got into the jumper including grandma and grandpa. The kids had a blast, and I think the adults did too. Our neighbors gave us the side eye several times when me and Eric were in there jumping like fools.

We had a wonderful time and she ate cake.

She turned two on the 9th and she has a blast. This post will be very picture heavy. [Read more...]

Mary

My Mary cat, she is super nice :) She keeps my feet warm when I am cold.

We thought we lost her a couple of weeks ago, it helped remind us how important she is to our family. She layed with me when I had my terrible hyperemesis. She went to the bathroom with me when I needed to barf( TMI, I know) thats how devoted she is.

My furry little friend will be 4 pretty soon, I be sure to bake her up something yummy.