circus


Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Spread the Word to End the Word

Created by young people with and without intellectual disabilities, Spread the Word to End the Word is one element of Special Olympics’ vision of a world where everyone matters, where everyone is accepted and, most importantly, where everyone is valued. Leading the way in promoting acceptance of people with intellectual disabilities, Special Olympics opposes prejudice and discrimination, continuously working to dispel the negative stereotypes associated with this population — the use of the R-word being one such stereotype. In a world that has worked to eliminate pejorative racial and ethnic language such as the “N word,” among others, the R-word is gaining popularity.
Today, young people across the country are leading local efforts to raise awareness and collect pledges on http://www.r-word.org/ from peers and the community to vow not to use the R-word.




One day Vin will meet a kid with Down Syndrome and he'll say "Yea, so what, my friend Kira has Down Syndrome."
And one day Kira will meet a kid with two moms and she'll say "Yea, so what, my friend Vin has two moms."

Monday, March 30, 2009

Catching Up

Ok so I'm majorly behind on my blogging and it's been a full two weeks since my last posting. We've been so busy with home improvements, party planning, business travel, illness and midterm grading that I haven't had time to post anything. So... here' the catch up...


Spring Break
So you know you’re getting old when you’ve spent the last two spring breaks doing home improvement projects rather than going on a road trip. To make matters worse I’ve now officially turned into my mother and started gardening.
Both my mother and grandmother have beautiful flower gardens and work on them almost every day. This has never really struck me as a fun way to spend my free time but I’ve decided to give it a shot. Patty came to town for 5 days and we dug a front flowerbed and put in climbing vines in the back. Teri and Audrea finished up the backyard fence and pulled the weeds that were taking over back there. Our next step will be in install sod. Stay tuned for more before and after pictures.
Front Before:




Front After:




Backyard
Notice Chauncey the newest member of our family and named by Teri. He is an amusement park animal from Michigan that I got in Canton a few months back. He is in desperate need of some attention but will someday be a fun toy for Vin and his friends.




For our lunches I made some hummus and apricot chicken salad. No big deal right? Wrong! Teri has a way of presenting the most ordinary food to make it seem like a feast!





Arboretum – Dallas Blooms is in “full bloom” at the Arboretum right now. It was absolutely beautiful!






Neighbor Party
One of the things I love about our neighborhood is well… our neighbors! We often get together for happy hour drinks or dinner at each other’s houses. Our last get together was hosted by Paola and Eddie who live in our old duplex. It was so fun to go back to that house and see how it looked. She is from Brazil and made us “Caipirinha’s (pronounced [KIE-PEE-REEN-YAH]) it is Brazil's national cocktail, made with cachaça , sugar and lime.” Paola made ours with passion fruit and strawberries. Since Patty was in town to babysit and we only had to walk across the street to get home I had many of these!
Eddie owns a business called Recycle Revolution that recycles for businesses. We all learned so much from talking to him. Did you know that Dallas does NOT recycle glass even thought they lead you to believe they do! I was incensed about this and am now making Teri only buy beer in aluminum cans and swearing off all wine drinking. Just kidding about the wine!






Friends & Family









Tara's Surprise Birthday Party

It's a rare event to actually throw off a successful surprise party but we managed to do it for my sister Tara. All the credit goes to Cassie who orchestrated this from Georgia for the past 3 months and whose intention was to show Tara how much she means to us as a sister, friend and daughter. Guests traveled in through snow storms, delayed flights and sick babies to celebrate!













Monday, March 16, 2009

Sleep!

I'm currently in the Double Tree Hotel having a mommycation. It's my first night away from Vin which means it will be my first night of uninterrupted sleep since he was born. From my calculations I've not slept more than 4 hours in a row since about March last year. I'd love to tell you more but a king size feather bed is calling my name!

** Thanks Teri for booking my room and getting me out of the house!**

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Chores

Now that Vin is mobile Teri has him doing chores...


Monday, March 9, 2009

And He's Off!

At long last Vin is crawling! He's just one week shy of his 10 month birthday so it's about time he got moving!
In these videos he's still a little shakey and the front rug is holding him up.
Too cute!

Phase I of the Backyard

We are in the process of trying to make the backyard more kid friendly. This weekend we put up a fence for a dog run and during spring break we will be putting in grass and a front flower bed. Patty is coming in next week to supervise and advise us. She has an amazing yard in Spearman and is working on the Llano one.

I must admit that I did very little of this work and we had lots of help.



A BIG THANKS to Scot, Ana, Jeffrey and Jadi!












We also want to thank Bob for giving us these beautiful roses for our anniversary and Vin got a new monkey!

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Bathing Beauties

Last night we babysat Wesley and had fun bath playtime!




So Busy Being Social

Did having Vin change our social life? - Yes!
Are we now friendless and bored by ourselves at home with the baby? - No!

I can hardly believe that we have more social activities now than we did before - but we do! Below are just a few of the activities we've been up to lately. We're so busy hanging out I hardly have time to work much less blog.

Top Chef Finale Dinner - Here's our menu with everyone's contribution:

James - Meatballs with red sauce
Younger De Leon's - potato gnocchi with sage butter
mussels steamed in a tarragon, white wine sauce
roasted bread crumb crusted shrimp
Jadi - crusty bread and a veg
Jeffrey - his famous caesar salad
Older De Leon's - dessert
Audrea - wine










Jackson Purdue's 4th Birthday Party

I've known Wendy for about 10 years now and I finally met her parents. Here they are with a sweet sleeping Kira.

Wendy is an expert pinata maker. Jackson requested a skateboard so that's what he got.




Mommy Breakfast - we've started getting the kids together on Friday mornings to play so here's an assortment of play date pictures.