book fair decor

each year our school has a book fair. hundreds of books are brought in from scholastic books and we have a book sale, who's profits go to keep our library fully stocked. the scholastic company always picks a theme for the year's book fair, and i am enlisted to compliment that theme with some of my own home made decorations to fill the hall that the books are put in. the theme this year was '50's diner'.

when turning the corner to arrive at the book fair, i put this juke box welcome.

assorted through out the hall was a bunch of records (full length and 45's) as well as a bunch of milk shakes.

i will admit that this is not some of my finest work, but it turned out ok- and the book fair was a success, so it must have been alright!

(previous book fair decorations: '09, '08)

showtime

bubba, deep in thought, as he challenged me to a game of checkers!

diana spend almost an hour in the girls room. i peeked in there to try and figure out what she was doing with them. i got this picture, but i never did figure out what they were up to... girls are so weird!

after our checkers tournament, mema and bubba went downstairs where mema showed bubba how to play 'chopsticks'!

diana and tweets enjoying 'cloudy with a chance of meatballs'!

one last present

the kids quickly tore into the packages! its been a month and a half since christmas, but they seemed to remember pretty well how to open presents!

they loved them! aves and tweets got some pink girly stuff, tiaras and bracelets and other things, and bubba got an ABC bingo game!

bubba wanted to try out the game right away, so we set it up and all three of them played it. i dont think aves quite understood how it worked, but the game involved stickers, so she was all for it!

sunday afternoon

aves, still not feeling so good, found a nice cozy place to lay- right under papa's foot rest!

we ran out of places to sit, so mom had a seat on the floor.

diana trying to keep herself warm. its not the fact that mom and papa's house was cold, being cold is just her default mode...

bubba getting some quality time in with his mom.

timmy was entranced by the game on tv.

ouch.

my little momento of the night at chicago dr. pub. thanks, jeffry lee!

shirt optional

rex, giving his best smiley face, and jeffry lee seems to be chomping on something that is trying to get out of his mouth...

myself, diana, and jeffry lee all fearful of the random hand coming right toward us!

aaron was very excited, and i guess i was mad at him about it for some reason.

the score at this point: jeffry lee= 1, dignity= 0

i would like to submit this photo into evidence to be used against jeffry lee at a later date...

hair and a meal

its a bit blurry, but diana was excited for mexican. she even got desert!

barbara, with her cute new haircut, sharing a drink with nick- aw, how cute!

not to be outdone, i wanted to have a cute picture with nick too!

blu ray upgrade

i'm pretty excited to get this thing- i've been saving up for it since summer!

looks nice in its new home, huh?

goodbye old dvd player, you gave me 9 good years. now go off into that big media center in the sky! you will be missed...

poco on the job

like most chihuahuas, poco has bad teeth. a couple years a go he had a bunch of teeth pulled out, and they seemed to have been all on one side. the result? his tongue has a way of hanging out the left side of his mouth... which leaves us with funny moments like this!

while we were gone in florida, poco spent the week with diana's dad. when we got him back we forgot some of his stuff at dad's place, so he shipped them to us. when we got the package poco could smell that there was something familiar inside. when diana opened it up, he went crazy! look at that tail wag!

diana was reading on the couch, where poco always joins her on her lap. this night poco decided to peek out and see what was going on!

warm laundry is poco's favorite!

so much for clean laundry! hope you are enjoying the nap, stinky dog!

leaving on a jet plane

connected to the airport was a huge hotel and and even a little shopping mall! our flight was delayed, but we had more than enough to distract us!

even at the end of a long trip, nick still has a funny face or two left over...

and so do i! goodbye orlando! goodbye disney! we will miss you!!!

goodbye disney

my little princess enjoying her last hours at disney.

me, fondly remembering all the good times we had here, and overwhelmed by all the pictures and blogging i'm going to have to keep track of...

i took one last opportunity to show be beautiful princess just what i was made of! turns out, i'm not made of much...

diana was too chicken, but the rest of us went on the indoor pitch black space mountain earlier in the day.

a nick-sicle

oops! looks like the fruit popsicle is a bit colder than nick bargained for...

astro orbiter

the ride had us spinning around pretty quickly. the weather was perfect and we had a great view.

a shot of the two of us on the ride and some of tomorrowland down below us.

you can see the castle quite clearly from way up here!

after we got off we took a minute or two to catch our barrings...

joes crab shack

this is a big moment for diana. just days before leaving she went to the dentist to finish the work on her tooth. she has had issues with her teeth since she was 10 and has not been able to eat certain foods because of it. one of those foods is corn on the cob. she would always have to cut it off the cob to eat it. well, for the first time since she was 10 she got to eat corn on the cob!!! she was so excited and proud to be able to eat it that way once again! congrats, honey!

its a pretty strange way to eat, but then again nick is a pretty strange guy...

i was a bit confused at first, but i soon got the hang of how to eat these things.

the maelstrom!!! (again)

after the ride you come out right into the gift shop for norway and for some reason there is this creepy looking troll thing waiting there for you! i think nick had the right idea- try to kill it!

it seems nick has made peace with it and decided instead to have a picture with barbara in front of it. after we left nick regretted not getting that sword and shield!

i tried to get a picture of the ride while we were on it, but some things are just too amazing to capture on film it would seem.

yes, they actually had a shirt of the maelstrom (the maelstrom!). it was 30 bucks, but i regret not buying it every single moment of the day. i take solace in the realization that no shirt could ever truly capture the splendor of the ride itself.