Merry Christmas!

The holidays are here! My single mother live has gotten really busy.
I even forgot about this blog. Not good, not good!

So if I don't post anything from now to the end of Christmas, 

I want to wish you a merry, merry, Christmas!

This is my son's school band performing for the Christmas concert. 

He is somewhere in there playing the saxophone. 

I'm very proud of my musician!

Feeling tired of the never ending work?

"Lets not throw seeds of our children lives into the winds of culture and foolishly expect a garden. Lets plant our children in the safe rich soil of home, water them with love, feed them with truth, nurture them with time..."  Sally Clarkson

I read a lot of stuff, and most of it is not worth talking about, ever again! And I also watch a bunch of videos, and the same, most of them I'm surprised I wasted my time!

But I also find really good ones, like this one.

I want to be related to encouraging writing and ideas that make us better poeple.

 Being a Mom is hard work! And it takes a long time to see how our kids are going to turn out. So long that sometimes it makes me think there is no point to invest my time.

But things outside our homes are not the best! Its our job as mothers to keep doing the best that we can for our families.

Black Eyed Susan

I didn't plant these Black Eyed Susans! They came out by themselves at my back yard.

 Last week when I cut my grass. I had to go around them, feel bad to cut them.

But I made a deal with kids. I do what ever I want in the front yard and they keep the back yard for themselves. They haven't say anything, yet. But if for some reason a ball brakes them, I can't say anything!! It's their back yard! LOL.

Santa's Problems

Did you enjoy my son's movie in the last post? Guess what? My daughter makes movies too!

Poor Santa, he got sour milk!

Quik Build

Hey I found out how to upload videos!!! For now on I will post the movies my kids make.

This movie was made by my son. I have some more to upload, and then I will show off the ones my daughter made.

Done that!

We went to clean my friend's gutters, I was supposed to just hold the ladder and make sure she was not going to fall, because I'm scare to go up on ladders. I shake and make the ladder shake, next I panic and then I regret to have gotten on it! But she was taking to long (her first time cleaning gutters ever) so I got frustrated and went up there, its not too bad after all! Now I will not ask anybody to clean mine anymore. I will start cleaning them by myself. All is left for me to do is, put a check mark on "cleaning gutters" on the "things to do before I die".

If you kneel before God,you can stand before any man.

Mother's Day

Yes, I'm still alive! Is been awhile since I post anything in here! Life has been soo busy! But I really need to show off what the kids did for me on Mother's Day! I like chocolates and on Sunday School they made this little boxes that look like kisses chocolate. I got 2 of them, one very colorful, from my daughter. And the other one, very simple, but still full of love, from my son.
Then they wrapped them and tied them up with a ribbon. Thank you kids!!

The Unbreakable Code

Long time ago I met some very sweet people. Some of them were guys and some of them were girls. With the girls I felt so welcome from the first moment, they were a little shy, and spoke and laughed with a hand covering their mouth, just like me and my friends from back in my little hometown, some where in Mexico.

Here I'm talking about my Navajo friends. I wish I was more eloquent in writing, then I will know how to write so many things about this friends, and I hope that when I said that I have very, very good memories of their friendship you let your mind wonder and imagine good things of what I'm talking about.

Since then, I have been trying to learn more about them. I heard about a movie called Wind Talkers. It's about the Navajo boys and men, that were recruited to help with communications in battle against the Japanese in World War II. But because there was a time when my little ones will follow me every where I went, and the movie is rated R, I never had the chance to rent it and watch it.

I found this book in the library, in the kids section. This was one of those days when the children were reading over and over, one book I'm not so happy about. And I was in a hurry to get going. So, since my kids are in to codes, hieroglyphics, and another languages I checked it out. I'm so glad I got a hold of this book! Its beautiful illustrated with paints of the canyons, and the Navajo territory, by Julia Miner.

It is the story of a boy that has to leave the reservation, because his mom has married someone from another state. The boy is very sad to leave his home. One of the things he is scared about is that, outside the reservation people won't speak Navajo to him. Or that he will forget it. That is when his grandfather, a Navajo Code Talker from World War II, tells him he will be all right, for he has something very special to take with him, the unbreakable code that saved the lives of thousands of Americans in the Pacific during World War II, invented using the unwritten Navajo language.

This is a true story, but don't be surprised if your children question it. It is too exciting and interesting! And be prepare, you might choke up at the time you read why the grandfather had to leave the Navajo Reservation.

And that is not all about this book! At the end of it, the very clever book's author, Sara Hoagland Hunter, has included the alphabet code, the Navajo Unbreakable Code, the same one used in battle in the World War II!

This story should not be unknown! Here is a link where you can read It. If you don't get a chance to put this book in your hands and your kids, like my kids, are into codes, hieroglyphics, and languages, you can go to the Unbreakable Navajo Code site and take a look at the codes words they used in World War II.

Orchids

Allow me to introduce you to my friend, Mr. Frog. This kind amphibian and some of his friends entertained my kids, while Mom enjoyed looking at the beautiful Orchids. Some weeks ago, after to much cold, gray skies, and the trees looking like a pile of dead sticks, I was really thinking that I was a citizen of Narnia.

Beware! The cold weather can really whack your brain!


But I found out this place called The Arthur and Phyllis Kaplan Orchid Conservatory in Old Dominion University, in Norfolk. They have many Orchids. I visited it, to get away from the brown view. The kids are not into seeing a bunch of flowers. For them It was a learning field trip.

Here are some pictures of these beautiful Flowers.

The kids liked to watch the frogs. And someone took them to a room where they have more frogs. In order to go in the back, we needed to make an appointment, we didn't have one, but this nice person took us, we went through it quickly, so pictures of my other colorful friends are not so good.

The kids got an idea of what it takes to cultivate these plants. Once in awhile their computer system will spread some type of fog. So, I think they learned something, And I enjoyed the colorful flowers. It was good for me, Now, I know, for sure, that I'm a citizen of Virginia!

Here is an article from the Daily Press. If you want to learn more about this place.

I read Tidewater Gardener blog, and that is how I found out about the conservatory. At the end of his post about it, there is a link to flicker, if you would like to see more pictures of orchids.

It is open free for the public from 10 A.M. to 2 P.M. But, if you go, make sure you get a visitor parking permit, before anything else! If someone goes to the University they learn something. Down there, everything is all about parking spaces. That is what I learned from ODU.

Then we went to the NEX. There we found out that these plants cost $44.00!

Our Weekend

We had a very exciting weekend! It all began when we went shopping for some one's Birthday present because we were invited to a party! Out there we found out that one of our current favorite book was coming up with a movie! It is called How to Train Your Dragon.

We have been enjoying Cressida Cowell book series, the story of how to deal with being a Viking, to train your dragon, be a pirate and more... She has written like 10 books, they are really cool. Even Mom is into them!

The party was at some type of indoor course were kids can play soccer inside. This is a new thing for us! We have heard of our friends in the Midwest playing soccer inside, but never done it until Friday. God decided to pour Hampton Roads with water on Friday, right around rush hour, is was a challenge to drive to this party, but we made it!We are so greatful of being invited, we had lots of fun! One of the things kids are still taking about is the cupcakes in the shape of Lego blocks! They think that Jared's Mom's is the coolest Mom they have seen in a birthday party, because of the way she made and decorated his birthday cake.

Acronym PIG

PIG: Spanish Acronym for Perros I Gatos.

Hieroglyphics

Do your children ever pretend to speak another language? Do they make their own "hieroglyphics"? I don't think my children are the only ones that pretend they speak another language and have "invented" their own "hieroglyphics". I think children are fascinated, by another languages and another alphabets. I said this because of myself when I was a child. And the teacher taught us History. Then I wished he will keep talking more and more about the long time ago Egyptian's way of writing, or the way the Arabic and Chinese people write and speak. And he did, he explained much of it, but the History class was only for me to know that some people long ago had this very unique way of writing, memorize some dates/time periods and that's it. That's all I learned about hieroglyphics.My children spend long periods pretending with their stuffed animals, they called them puppies and animals. Most of the time they pretend they speak Ewokese, the language of Ewoks, the little characters from Star Wars, they try to make all those funny sounds.I just laugh at them quietly. I think it's cute and funny, that they do that, because I remember myself pretending I spoke another language, when I was a child. But I don't remember "writing/inventing" my own hieroglyphics. They are ahead of me!
Both of them like to read Archeology, History or books that speak of the way people communicated long ago. They have also made some time of scroll looking thing, but I kept it for memories, in a very safe place that I can't even remember.
Fritzy is for F, why? is for y. Remember Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, how professor Jones said that X never marks the spot and at the end X did marked the X spot? Well here in this high sophisticated alphabet X is for X too. Very interesting!
We found some cool sites about Hieroglyphics. This one has other languages to look to. And this one lets you translate what ever is in your mind to hieroglyphics.

Breaking News!! Inmate caught escaping!!

One of the things we learned about hamsters is, that they always are trying to escape. We have the evidence! Right here, in Friends in Virginia! And by the way, did you ever wonder if hamsters really have a nose? Well, take a look for yourself. That, right there, is not a dot, that is its nose! Yes, they do have a nose!And here is the international creemeeneeaal, almost out!

We never thought that it will learn to twist and push the little door of its cage.
Some how she pulled the door in, sorry I missed that shot.Look at that!Shes out! Somebody stop her!And as I'm here typing this news, the hamster-owner/hamster-expert came to inform me that hamsters are escape artists. I can see that lady!

Learning a Word

My daughter was playing those good for nothing video games, then she ran to me and asked me: What is stamina? I don't know, I said. Can you please look in the dictionary, mom? Well, it may be good for me to learn that word today. I went online and found out what it means. She read the meaning, said "hmmm, now I know", and ran back to playing. I guess something good does come out of video games.

A Star Wars character in my house

Darth Cutieous

Little Pinata

The little pig that Razor got for Christmas became a little pinata.Very careful she painted squares in one side.And in the other side she painted lines and squares.
Pinatas are a mexican thing, and most mexicans have bigotes (mustache), so she made sure this pinata had one long and curly mustache, just like the Emiliano Zapata's. I would love to be invited to a party were the pinata was full of money!