Awards in the house!

I'm not talking the Academy Awards. These are awards that are closer to my heart! Both of my kids received awards last week at their end of trimester assembly. This assembly was even more special in that Firecracker received her VERY FIRST SCHOOL AWARD! Firecracker has always struggled in school and the fact that she received an award was HUGE!! Her teacher emailed us a few weeks in advance and we decided to keep it a secret so that it would be a surprise. Even my in-laws came to cheer her on! You should have seen her face when she saw M & M Dude (he rarely comes to the assemblies), her Vovo & Papa (my in-laws) and me there, yet she was unaware she was getting the EFFORT Award. I'm very proud of Firecracker as she has worked so hard this year!
And to our surprise, (well, kind of; as Mr. President's teacher is not very good at communication), Mr. President received the Principal's Honor Roll Award for having straight A's!!
As you can tell, I'm beaming with pride! I'm just so proud of both of them. To celebrate, we took them out to dinner on Saturday night! Their choice!

Mardi Gras!

Mr President went to his school's Mardi Gras dance last week. Two of his really good friends were crowned the 5th Grade KING & QUEEN of Mardi Gras! They seemed to have a good time. Firecracker did not want to be left out so she had me get her a mask and beads too and she wore them when we picked up Mr. President and his friend (who happens to be a girl;).



Here is Mr. President in between the Queen and King!

My Funny Valentine

I just had to share this. I was greeted this morning with Firecracker at my bedside anxiously waiting for me to get up. When I got up and went down stairs, she started making me a "special" coffee. She called it her "Valentine's Delight". Firecracker added conversation hearts, cinnamon, marshmallows, whipped cream, splenda, and popcorn seasoning. It was so yummy! (and I did not even taste the popcorn seasoning). Firecracker also had gifts for all of us. They were wrapped and everything! I kind of figured out my gift because I could not find the jar of peanut butter as I needed to make Mr. President a sandwich for lunch. She was very resourceful in that she used things around the house and geared them towards our likes: I got a jar peanut butter and a banana moon pie, M & M Dude received a can of diet Pepsi and lots of chocolate, and Mr. President received lots of candy.
M & M Dude even surprised me last night by bringing me my favorite orange/peach colored fragrant Argentina roses!
Happy Valentines Day!

Test Kitchen

I've been busy of the last couple of weeks. I've always loved to bake even since I was a little girl. I was not much into cooking, but throughout the years I've become to love it! Maybe it's because I really didn't even know how to do basic cooking like browning ground beef until I was well into my 20's thanks for the help of my husband. (My mom loves, loves cooking and did not spend the time showing us the how to's.) Anyway, when I saw the 43rd Pillsbury Bake Off on the Food Network last year, I knew I needed to enter. I was not sure what I was going to enter, but I knew I had to do it. I received an email from Pillsbury about their upcoming 44th Bake Off in January and started studying the rules and eligible products. From there, I created 2recipes that I just entered this afternoon. One recipe took for awhile to come up with the final version and another is something that just came to me in one evening and a trip to the store. Keep your fingers crossed that I get selected as one of the 100 finalists! I'm not expecting to win, but would love the experience on being in the Bake Off!

Birthday and a bit of science!

Last Thursday was M&M Dude's 42nd Birthday! Since we had gone out to dinner to his favorite pizza place in Ripon last Saturday and his birthday was the kids 1st day back to school after 6 weeks, we decided to do something very low key on M&M Dude's actual birthday. M&M Dude requested burritos and cold stone ice cream. Worked for me!
Originally, my in-laws were just taking us to dinner (M&M Dude's choice; a tradition), but a few days before asked if we wanted to go to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco too. Well, you probably knew our answer. We had a blast! I had not been there since I was a kid (and it was called the Exploritorium then). Since we knew it was going to be very busy; being a weekend and all, we got up at the crack of dawn and headed over to pick up my in-laws.
Here are a few of my favorite exhibits/shows:
The Rainforest (loved the butterflies)
The Living Roof
Fragile Planet movie
Bugs 3-D movie
If you have a chance to go to the California Academy of Science it will not disappoint! Just get there early as it gets very busy in the afternoon!



Had to post a picture of my guys watching halftime yesterday with their 3-D glasses! LOL.