A Super Fun Saturday!

My day started off with shopping and lunch with some of my favorite friends!

back row: Sandy, Amy & Sheri

front row: Christy and Me

I had a great day yesterday, which is a good thing because that was it for my weekend!

 That's right, as if I don't already work enough, I "got" to go to work today (Sunday) too!  We had an open house at our school.  It ended up being fun to meet some of our schools prospectiive families, and talk to some of my students who were there to give tours.  I must admit, I would have LOVED to have been hanging out with Pancho and the kids as they played outside all day today (football, baseball, bike ride, feeding ducks). It was such a gorgeous sunny day and I missed it!!!!  I was stuck inside from 12:00 - 4:00. . . thats the best part of the day!  The worst part is that our preschools and younger grades got tons of visitors and the middle school was full of visitors too, but NO ONE switches schools in 5th grade, therefore I sat there the whole time in my beautifully scrubbed classroom, with examples of websites, powerpoints and more, that my students and I had put together, AND NO VISITORS!  Only 5 more days in this work week to go . . . but I'm not complaining :)  Ok maybe I am just a little bit!

Saturday night was Brenda's surprise 40th Birthday Party

(I guess that its that time in our lives, we go to 40th birthday parties almost once a month now!)

I have to say . . this was a SUPER FUN one though!!!

The Franssens definitely know how to throw a party!

Brenda and I

Happy Birthday my good friend!

When Kurt met Brenda, she was a dealer in VEGA$ (for real)

He threw her a Vegas themed Birthday Party with gambling tables and all!

 . . .a picture of Pancho and I before we headed out the door for the party.

The kids were excited for one of their favorite babysitters, Courtney, to come.

Steph, Kelli, Brenda, Amy, Me and Darbi

(Do not call us Cougars!) ha ha

Brenda started the evening off with a shot,

and the fun just went on from there!

I loved gambling, I played Blackjack most of the night but there was also Roulette and Craps.

Brenda took over as dealer at different tables all night long.

It was so fun to watch her deal, she is so good at it!

Brenda dazzling us with her "dealing skills".

Amy and Kelli

Brenda and Kurt were at my 40th birthday party last weekend, and Kurt loved the cutouts my dad had made for my party.  So lucky Brenda got to have cutouts of herself at her party too!

I was teasing Brenda that we need to get our cutouts and go out on the town and party with them!

Steph, Me, Melanie, Darbi and Melissa

Pancho got REALLY into the gambling.  He won more than $10,000 in Brenda Bucks.  He was one of the big winners of the night!  Too bad we can't win this much in REAL money when we go to Vegas.  I guess that you have to gamble more than $100 (our tightwad buget in Vegas) to win that much.

All of the girls at the end of the night!

Most of us were wearing really high heels, in true Vegas style, so by the end of the night we were all comiserating about how much our feet hurt.

Brenda and Jim enjoying a little "Brenda Cutout Fun"

One last pic of Pancho and I to commemerate the fun we had at Brendas Party!

At least my Saturday was fun!   . . . another work week here I come!

Lucy's First Gymnastics Meet

Last weekend was REALLY busy with Birthdays & Basketball Games & Playdates/Sleepovers.  We even had time to fit in Lucy's first gymnastics meet.  On the way there, she was so excited.  Her teacher had told her that she could win a trophy at the meet.  She has seen her big brothers come home with lots of trophies for various sports, but she has never gotten one herself.  This was her BIG DAY!

Showing off her winning stance!

Once she got there she got really nervous.  I think it all hit her.  I saw little tears in her eyes as she walked out onto the mats in front of more than 100 people.  I wanted to run out there and hug her and tell her that everything was going to be OK, but I guess that we have to let our babies grow up sometime!

a little teary and nervous

Still not quite sure what she had gotten herself into,

just keep thinking trophy . . .trophy . . .trophy!

Waiting for her turn to do the vault.

on the balance beam

She amazed me, she is really good! 

She actually won a couple of first place ribbons for her age group.

TAAA DAAA!!!!  She got her trophy!

Look at that proud look.  It is so much fun to go through these moments with your children.

I love seeing them try hard in difficult situations and succeed!

I LOVE being a Mom, Lulu I was so proud of you today!

Lucy with the other girls in her age group.

So proud!
First thing she said, "I can't wait to show this to my brothers!"
She has been showing this trophy and her ribbons to everybody.  She even brought them to school for show and tell today.

What a spectacular little girl I have!

PS Huge kuddos go out to all of the gymnastics moms out there.  I was at this meet for 2 1/2 hours and I filmed everything Lucy did (floor exercise, bars, vault, beam etc) and Pancho watched the whole video in less that 5 min.  It is a LOT of hurry up and wait! Pancho meanwhile was at 2 different basketball games! 
Good Times!

My Classroom Surprise

Another good thing about my Birthday this year is that it fell on a Friday that just happeneed to be a half day at our school.  It is the end of the semester, so the teachers had the afternoon to do some grading.  By noon when I sent all of the kids out the door, I was so thankful for a half day, because it turned out to be a PARTY!!!  I was so happy, but also exhausted from all of the excitement.  Little did I know what was going to happen later that night!

When I got to school that morning, 3 of my students has persuaded their parents to bring them in early and my room was completely decorated with streamers, balloons, posters and best of all the nicest notes and letters from each student in the class.  The notes made me cry, they were so sweet.

These are the 3 girls who worked so hard. 

Their moms told me that there was a whole week of constant phone calling that went into the planning of this!

They also went around to every student in my class, took a picture of them and downloaded it onto a keychain for me.  I now have this cool keychain that plays a slideshow of my students for me!

more decorations . . .

This is the stool that I sit on a lot.  They decorated it to be a "princess chair" for me complete with a pink pillow, balloons and a crown!  They had also filled all of my white boards with birthday messages for me.

I always tell my students not to make me mad, becuase if they do, "The Fultonator" will come out!!!

The Fultonator is my altar ego (kind of like the HULK).  It is a running joke in my class, and often gets them to be good (yet in a funny way) if I threaten The Fultonator!   So one of my students made me a Fultonator hat.

This is the hat maker, he is one of those creative, fun, funny kids. 

He was so excited to give it to me!

Pancho brought enough roses for every student to give me one.

He had my principal take me out of the room and ask me a question while he passed them out.  Then when I came back into the classroom they all yelled Surprise and gave me a rose.

A lot of my students brought me gifts too!  I had no idea they were going to do ANY of this,  it was quite a surprising day.

My class, in our decorated classroom, right before I passed out the cupcakes that one of my students brought.

Me and my Boys!

Me and the Girls . . .

I was so surprised by all of this attention, I have never done anything like this for any of my kids teachers.  I didn't even know how they knew it was my Birthday.  The girls told me that it was written up on our Birthday calendar with all of their Birthdays, so when they saw it was coming up, they started planning.  I think it has to do with thier age too, they are just old enough to be able to organize something like this,

Whatever it is . . . there can be no doubt that I am VERY LOVED by a small group of 5th graders, who happen to be the best class in the whole world!  Thanks guys!

What Fun Surprise!

Yes - I REALLY was surprised!

Pancho, my Mom and my Dad did such a super job planning this party for me.  I am actually a little dissapointed in myself becuase I pride myself on being very perceptive, nosy and a little bit controlling :)   How did they get this one by me? 

Turning 40 was actually pretty fun!

Pancho told me that we were going to drop the kids off at my Mom and Dads so that we could go meet some friends out for dinner and a movie for my Birthday.  I had been  debating all week about what movie I should pick.  As we walked into my parents house, I wasn't thinking anything out of the ordinary.  I knew there was no way that Pancho would give me a surprise party, I had been telling him for years how much I would never want one.  As you can see from the pictures below, they got me good.  I had no idea that I was about to walk into a room full of about 50 of my closest friends yelling SURPRISE!

(by the way, the kids didnt know either, Pancho was afraid that they would give it away)

That is a true look of Surprise!

"Pancho!  How did you pull this off ?!?"

Then I got emotional looking at all of those faces, so many people that I LOVE all in one room, it was sureal.  I was smiling and crying at the same time!

Friends!

Amy, Teesh, Me, Liz, Dina and Christy

More good friends  . . .

Brenda, Tina and Me

O'Hara Teachers!

Tammy, Leslie, Me, Mike and Heather

Me and the guys!

Mike, Sean, Brad and Chris

If you look closely at the photo Liz is holding, it is of us at my 24th Birthday.

I was holding up the fingers for 2 and 4 in that picture!

I had to get a picture of Steph in here too!

Tina, Brenda, Steph and Me

My eyes look creepy in this picture, but Lulu was all excited to show me the card that she had made.

Me and my Dad!

Dad took this picture of a group of us having dinner from the balcony.

My Dad had picture cut outs of me made and scattered them all over the house.

This is Lucy with a cut out of me when I was about 4!

The family . . . right after this picture, our babysitter came and picked up the kids.  I was glad that they got to see the surprise though.

Me and Christy

Sally, Mom, Me and Tammy

Some of my parents friends (who also happen to be my friends) were there too!

They have watched me grow up!

Liz, Me, Christy and Teesh!

Lifelong friends.

Dina, Liz Christy and Me.

This is the Linfield Gang.

I was so happy that my friend Dina made it down from Portland, we hadn't seen eachother in a few years!  It was fun to re-tell some of those hilarious college memories.

The man who pulled this whole thing off . . .

I Love You Pancho!

Thank you for not listening to me and giving me the best Birthday ever!

PS Thanks to my Mom and Dad too who did a lot of the work, hosted it at their house, made a video of my life, had emabrrassing cardboard cutouts made of me, and have given me the best life full of fun family memories!  I LOVE YOU!