Herrera Highlights: 2008

Just a quick note

This morning as I was walking into the kitchen twiddling around, rubbing my eyes, Rick walks past me just smiling away! When I asked him what he was smiling about he said "That he is just so happy!" I said "Why"? He said "because I have such a great family!" AWWWWW It melted me to a billion pieces! I LOVE HIM, LOVE HIM, LOVE HIM!!! I was really blessed with him and the kids! They make me so happy!

Nutcracker Ballet @ The Bass Hall

This year the kids were old enough to take their first trip to the Ballet! I was so excited all day I could hardly contain myself!!! I had always dreamed of the day that I would be able to take my kids to see the NUTCRACKER! So when Christmas time came around I was thrilled to get our tickets to the performance! We decided to go to the bass hall in Fort Worth, it is a BEAUTIFUL theatre in a really nice part of downtown fort worth. We were going to a 7:00 showing and it was the closing show of the season at the bass hall, so we had to dress to impress. So we all dolled up for an evening at the theatre. We even had VALET PARKING!

Rick had been suffering from a headache all day long, and I was hoping he would start feeling better, but he just never did. He was miserable! The kids were WONDERFUL! They sat quiet and still the WHOLE show! They were really impressed (Which made me even happier that we decided to take them) During intermission we did a restroom break and let the kids walk around in the lobby.

We weren't the only ones who wanted to see the Nutcracker that evening! The place was PACKED! I don't think there was a seat left in the house. It was just a beautiful show, and it is amazing some of the things those ballerinas can do. I was thinking that the next day would be full of spins, jumps, and attempts to do the splits from the kids, but nah. All of those things came from RICK! By the way he absolutely hated the show! But he was sure that he could do the mens part just as well as they did. And without any prior training. All in all it was a wonderful time with my family!

Christmas Time Fun!

Here are a few fun Pics of the kids enjoying Christmas time fun! Seeing Santa, Making cookies, and just being silly!

Look I'm Santa

Decorating cookies

Christmas Parties

The kids finished with school for the 1st half of the year with a Holiday Celebration! Rick and I were lucky enough this year to go to Eevie's Party without Ricky.

We had to get our last bit of holiday shopping done so we left Ricky with a friend and finished with our shopping.

Eevie made a Christmas Craft, Decorated a Cupcake, Played Pin the nose on Rudulph, and had a book exchange at her celebration.

Ricky had one here at our preschool where he sang Jingle Bells and Rudulph the red nose reindeer, and ate too many sweet and salty snacks! LOL! I am happy to be relieved of a few of my motherly duties as well as teacher duties for 2 1/2 weeks! I can sleep in yeah!!!

Happy with a little food in his tummy!

That is the face of a angry little boy!

Ricky didn't want his nose painted red, so he threw a fit. I don't know why his hands are down his pants though?!

Positive Patrons of society

A couple of weeks ago we had a servicing project for our girlscout troop. We were to go to the nursing home to sing Christmas carols to the residents there. Since so many of the residents were confined to bed, or just didn't feel like getting up and walking around, we went down each of the halls stopping at each electrical outlet to sing Christmas carols. The girls did such a wonderful job, and the smiles on all of the senior citizens faces were priceless.

I was a little nervous at first because I remember going to the nursing home as a girlscout when i was a kid, and I didn't have fond memories of it. The smell was bad, the people were a little bit weird (I was just a kid! LOL) and I just didn't like the hospital feel it had going for it. So going back as an adult was a little tense.

Once we got in though it all changed. It was so funny, when we went to the first room, I went up to the door and tried getting the ladies attention by calling the name that was on the door. When that didn't work I called the other name, No response either. So I tried the first name again... Well, she looked up past her newpaper, saw me and quickly went back to reading. Basically I got blew off! LOL. So I started laughing as hard as I think I ever had. I just couldn't help myself. Finally we began singing to someone who basically could care less that we were there, or at least me anyway. Shortly after we began singing I notice movement coming from her. She is turning up her hearing aid!!! Finally when the song is about 30 seconds from being over she gets up and walks to the door. Oh, that was the highlight of the day!!! We had a few people follow us around singing with us and just smiling and happy!!! At the end we all decided that we would go and visit them again. Just someone being there to visit them, made them all so happy! Here is a picture out in the front of the nursing home. Not all of them could make it to this service event

Christmas is coming!

The last month has been full of Christmas Cheer at the Herrera House! My kids are SOOOO Excited about the upcoming holiday! We are excited to Celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ our Savior Lord, and of course the visit from SANTA CLAUS. This year our kids were really into the christmas decorations! They took so much time helping decorating the tree, putting up Christmas lights everywhere, and putting out all of our holiday nick nacks.

So far we only have a few treasured home made ornaments on our tree, but we are building family traditions each year, which we are excited about. We can't wait for Christmas!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was wonderful. I am sorry I don't have many pictures, I just didn't take many. We were invited over to the Sheriff family's house and had a wonderful Thanksgiving "Dinner" That was actually more like lunch. And the kids had a blast playing with each other. There had to be at least 15 kids there. The grown ups had a good time hanging out.

Then in the afternoon we went over to my mom's house we had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. It was so yummy! My brother and his Fiance was there, My sister, and my parents. While we were there we watched some movies including Hancock, and just had a good time.

Both of the kids ate really good. They both had turkey, veggies, and of course PUMPKIN PIE! I made 4 pies this year. 3 apple and 1 pumpkin, and also some apple crisp. We have a lot to be thankful for in this family! We are all healthy, we have a beautiful home, lots of family and friends who love and care about us, and we have amazing jobs that bring us lots of joy. We are really blessed!

Movies

We have been quite the movie go-ers lately! I am usually not all into movies, but lately I have actually really enjoyed going to the theater or just sitting around watching them with Rick and the kids.

Here are a few that we have went to see or bought or both:

TWILIGHT

Rick and I went on a date and saw this movie on opening day, Rick didn't like it. He said it was too typical. I loved it, but I have also read the series so I kinda of knew what to expect.

WALL*E

We took the kids to see this movie when it was in the theater, they loved it so much that the day it came on DVD they wanted it. Eevie had a gift card left from her birthday so she decided that she wanted to get the movie for the family. We have already watched it over 12 times. It is already a little slow at the beginning, but watching it over and over again really becomes a killer.

KUNG FU PANDA

We were supposed to be going to see Madagascar 2 in the theater opening night. We went to dinner and spent way too much time at Best buy looking at Flat screen HD TV's (Whole other story) So we didn't have enough time to go to the movie. We saw Kung Fu panda at best buy so we decided to buy it and have movie night at home. It was so great! I just love spending time with Rick and the Kids. It warms my heart so much.

BOLT

The day after Thanksgiving Rick was off so after going over all the ideas of things we could do (Skating, Movies, Park, etc) We decided to go and see BOLT. We planned to go and see it in 3D but after getting to the jam packed mall the time was scheduled wrong online and we were 3 hours early, so we just decided to see the 2d version. This was one of those movies that really was a family movie. We all enjoyed it.

My Birthday

I had such a nice birthday this year. Rick and the kids treated me out to a wonderful night of mexican food at one of my FAVORITE mexican restaurants. Plus just the fact of not having to cook for a family of 4 is a treat in itself. I didn't have any embarrassing songs to dance to or unwanted attention on myself, it was just a nice, quiet, yummy dinner.

Rick suprised me with a Brand New Laptop that I absolutely love! I needed a new laptop badly! It is the HP Pavilion, it has a dvd burner, tv recorder, and is huge! 18" screen. Rick is great at picking gifts! I have been pleased with Every gift he has gotten me! GREAT GREAT GIFT GIVER! I really think that my love language is receiving gifts?! It makes me very happy when I get surprises! I love you so much Rick! Thank you so very much for everything.

I also got a new anniversery band. It is really kind of a Christmas present, but I got it a little early. I really believe Diamonds are a girls best friend! Anyone that knows me well, knows that I LOVE jewelry especially if it has DIAMONDS!

For those of you wondering... My birthday was Nov 7th, I am just trying to catch up on my blog. :)

NEW POST COMING SOON!

I am so sorry I haven't been my usual blogging self lately. Too many other things are going on in my life right now to spend any time updating my blog. I will hopefully catch up soon, I have so much to tell!

Sleep Over

On Saturday we had Janet over from out of town, and skylar from 2 houses down spend the night. It was fun. Watching Tinkerbell the movie, eating ice cream, playing barbies and eating pizza. At about 10:00 we told everyone time for bed and turned out the lights. About 5 minutes later someone was already crying...it was Skylar she was scared and wanted to go home.

Oh, the first sleepover!

Another Day @ The Herrera's

Well, as I have said in my last post I don't think blogging everyday is going to be too hard for me. We ALWAYS have something going on at this house!

Well the most recent incident:

After this crazy weekend of entertaining birthday party guests, and friends from out of town, I was completely wiped out! So Sunday morning I am sure I was sleeping like a rock, well when I finally woke up... about 7:45/8:00ish, (B/C I had to wake up before Ricky so he wouldn't get into trouble) I go up to Ricky's room to wake him up and he isn't in there. So I think to myself... "Hmmm that is odd where could he be?!" I continue looking, I check Eevie's room, Closets, under his covers in his bed, bathrooms, and so on. So I start getting a little worried. I check in both guest bedrooms (With our guests in there) Still NO Ricky.

By this point I am starting to get FRANTIC! I start screaming out his name, still no ricky. PANIC sets in, I look in the backyard, call his name. I look out the front door thinking to myself "He wouldn't go out front by himself?!"

NOW I AM TERRIFIED, I am crying, I am a nervous WRECK! I was about to call the police... but before I call the police I decided to walk out front and do a slow glance around our street, I notice something move...IT WAS HIM!!! About 4-5 houses down the street! He crossed the street by himself and was standing my someones mailbox crying!!!! I ran over to him as fast as I have ever run. I was crying so bad I could hardly talk! That was the most Horrific thing that has ever happened to me! He unlocked the front door and basically escaped.

Later on when everything calmed down I asked him what he was doing out there by himself? He told me "I was looking for kids to play with."

Security Lock for the front door. (Out of Reach of little hands)

Well the next day when Rick got home from work the first things that went up is a protector lock, and alarms for Ricky's room doors so that when he opens his door we all know. Plus it scares him to hear that alarm so maybe he will stay in his room instead of getting into mischief.

Alarm for Ricky's bedroom door

Halloween Birthday Bash

Halloween was so much fun! We decided to throw Eevie's B-day party on Halloween this year since it was a Friday, and we wanted it to be affordable. We had about 12-15 kids Rsvp and over 30 kids showed up! Thank goodness I made tons of Nacho Cheese and had extra punch mix. Eevie was so excited that so many of her friends showed up! They all had a lot of fun bouncing on the bounce house, swinging, and just being silly kids in costumes.

Once again Rick decided to dress up as the same thing he is every year for Halloween and for work... You guessed right. A Fireman! (How original?!)

Here are some of the kids in their costumes. We should've had a contest! There were some really cute costumes! Everyone just looked darling though.

Well, as usual you never know what the weather will be like in Tx for Halloween. This year it decided to be in the mid 80's during the day and only drop down into the high 60's after dark. Poor Ricky was in a Fleece Tiger costume. I guess all the excitement distracted him.