Monday Minute 03/28/11

Welcome to another edition of the Monday Minute!  I hope this week I can blog with some good news: both about a job prospect of mine AND my best friend is over 40 weeks pregnant, so hopefully I'll be announcing a birth too!

BUT for now, let's answer some MM questions shall we?






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For newbies: link up below and answer the questions.  If you ever want to host one week or if you have question suggestions, feel free to email me!

Questions

(1) Where do you get your pizza from?
(2) How would you define your decorating style?
(3) Where do you regularly buy your clothes?
(4) What was the last clothing item you purchased?
(5) What do you prefer in your home: candles or flowers?

Answers

(1) Well, we vary it up, but BY FAR my favorite is Pizza Hut. My perfect pizza, you know, the kind I get when I have a bad day, is Hawaiian stuffed crust from Pizza Hut with some of their bread sticks on the side.  Pure yummy.

(2) I don't know the technical terms for this: modern, contemporary, etc. but I'd define it as "modern comfortable."  We want a home that invites people to take off their shoes, lie down, and relax, but definetely aren't fans of wall paper or old (antique, etc) items. 

Here's our livingroom...what would you call this style?  I'm clueless about this kind of stuff.

(3) I've tried my hardest for the last 4 years to not buy much clothes since two students don't make what you would call ... money.  BUT, since I worked as a law clerk and now as a teacher, I obviously needed to buy some stuff.  I tend to have GREAT luck at New York and Company.  I always find coupons for $75 off of a $150 purchase.  My family gives me gift cards there, so then I'll have $75 in gift cards and get $150 worth of clothes for NOTHING.  That's my favorite kind of shopping spree!  I also LOVE their jewelry.  Evan often gets me stuff from there and gives them to me as little surprise gifts.  I was given this one as a surprise before my job interview a couple weeks ago.  Sweet husband huh?

(4) Well we had "family pictures" taken yesterday by one of my best friends and in order to look kinda matchy matchy, we took a family trip to Old Navy.  I bought a white t-shirt, denim skirt, and the cutest shoes.  I hope the pictures came out nicely! 

Aren't they super cute?

(5) I like both, but I LOVE flowers.  Evan is always getting me flowers to be sweet.  Don't know if you guys have a Sun Harvest wherever you live, but they are SO affordable there!  A big, pretty bouquet is $3.99!  

Hope you guys have a great week and liked the questions this week!

Happy 10 Months Liliana!

Liliana:

This letter is a couple days late, but I wanted to write you your 10 month birthday letter.  You are SO awesome at this age.  I ADORE it.  It's so easy to actually "teach" you things.  It's like you completely understand what we're talking about and we're becoming a little interactive family.  I love that time together.

You're my gorgeous, beautiful baby girl.  We can't go ANYWHERE without a millon people stopping us.  Flying with you is an EVENT when EVERYONE wants to say hi and play with you in any line.

So, you're still in size 3 diapers and haven't transitioned in to 12 month clothing yet, but my guess is we'll be there at your 11 month birthday.  You crawl, pull-up, and cruise on EVERYTHING now!  You are so incredibly mobile, especially walking around any table around.  It's difficult to prevent you from wanting to climb on to anything.  You aren't a sweet little calm girl.  That isn't AT ALL how I would describe you.  You are SO active, SO talkative, SO happy, and SO perfect.

You dance to music now and nod your head and shake your boooooty.  FINALLY, something similar to Mommy! ; )  You clap whenever I say "clap your hands!" or "yay!"  If you do anything cute, you start clapping and look at me like "heeeey...where's my YAY?" haha.

Family picture on Match Day!

You wave to everyone and say "bye bye" which is adorable.  On our way out of the house, you like to wave and say bye bye to the washer, the dryer, the door, the sofa...needless to say, it takes a while to get out the door.  That's probably my favorite thing that you're doing right now.  I think it's hilarious.

You're saying "doggie" and "bottle" still too.  You also know what a kiss is.  Whenever I say "Liliana kiss" you open your mouth wide and stick your tongue out and touch it on our cheek.  It's slobbery goodness!

Also, you're starting to know that WE are your Mommy and Daddy.  When I picked you up from daycare recently, you got a big smile on your face, put your hands up, and said loud and proud "MAMA!" I LOVED it.  Still though, your favorite word it "dat."  You point at everything, especially fans, and say "dat? dat?"  Cute.

You LOVE the swing at the park!

 Another favorite thing of yours?  The give and take game.  Take a foam letter, give it to Mama, clap because it was exciting to give it to Mommy, and take it back two seconds later.  Then repeat the cycle...50 times. : )

I can't WAIT to see what other million things you do in the upcoming month.  You're really making progress with the possibility of walking already and take my hands incessantly so that I'll help you walk around.  It makes me a little nervous to see how much you're progressing in every way. I am so proud of you.  I can't believe we'll be having your birthday party soon.  I love you.  I adore you.  You are the best baby girl I could have ever asked for...you are brilliant, beautiful, and wonderful.

Love,
Mommy

You like the puppy SO much.  One of the funniest things you do is you kick her out of her bed because you LOVE laying in the dog bed!  It cracks us up!

oh and P.S. You eat EVERYTHING in sight.  At daycare, they give you chicken noodles, beef stroganoff, etc.  I didn't know you were ready for that, but you eat it ALL and have maybe perhaps possibly be known as the baby that leans OVER to steal food from the babies sitting next to you! HA!

Monday Minute 03/21/11

Today my sweety pie, Liliana, is 10 months old.  I simply can't believe she's nearly a year old.  The thought of it puts tears in my eyes. So to avoid the inevitable, how about a friendly dose of our Monday Minute eh?

For newbies: grab the button, answer the questions, and play along!  If you want to host or have question recommendations, please email me with them!





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Questions

(1) Would you consider yourself an artistic person?

(2) If you could automatically learn to speak another language, what language would you choose?

(3) How long does it take you to clean your house?

(4) What color shoes are you wearing?

(5) If you were a crayon, what color would you be?

Answers

(1) Not really.  I paint decently and I'm pretty good at lettering.  I do simple things well, but don't ask me to paint anything with any serious meaning because I suck at it.  I wish I could be more artistic!   

(2) At first glance, my answer was French.  I took 5 years of French in school and really enjoyed it.   However, it wasn't that incredibly difficult to learn and I think a more useful language would be Chinese.  So, I'd learn Chinese.  I think it would be pretty awesome in the business world and there are millions of people out there that speak it, so I'd join their party.

(3) Depends.  If I'm doing a very cursory cleaning, it takes 2 hours total.  If I'm cleaning it really well, it takes about 6 hours.  I'm pretty ridiculous about cleaning when I get to it so I think it's nice that Evan and I do it together 90% of the time.  It evens out perfectly to a comfortable clean.

(4)  Flesh ... I'm barefoot!  The last shoes I wore were brown though.

(5) My favorite crayon color of all time was ... 

SO for no rhyme or reason, that's the color I'd choose.  It's so perty! ; )

Teen Mom

I have SO much to tell you guys about ... I was just in Little Rock for 5 days and had a couple job interviews, found a daycare for Liliana, AND saw our house for the first time.  It was VERY productive, quite busy, but mostly exciting.  Now that we saw our home and now that I know where I want to work (which I'll keep hush hush on this blog until I hear anything), I just want to move there!  I want to be in our house and start living our lives there!  We're just sitting here going through the motions in the mean time.

ANYWAY since the main thing I truly do want to tell you guys about is the job interviews, and since I don't want to talk about those until I know more, I've decided to write about something I've wanted to write about for quite some time. 

Confession time:

Hello, my name is Cristina, and for some twisted and nutty reason, I record and watch the show Teen Mom.

I have read COUNTLESS blogs about women saying this show makes girls wants to have kiddos and makes teen pregnant look fun.  I could not disagree with them more!  I don't think I'm watching the same show as them.  I think Teen Mom makes motherhood look absolutely horrifying.  In fact, even though I'm a mom, the show makes me wonder "am I ready to do that?"  It teaches you how big of a responsibility it is.  It makes the stress of being a mom, the stress of keeping a relationship with the Dad, and of course, HOPING to not completely mess up the babies life look impossible.

So here's what I think about the current Mommy's:

Kailyn: From what I can tell, this girl kind of abused of some very kind parents.  Joe's parents were more than willing to have her live there as long as she didn't date somebody else and she just went and dated somebody anyway!  I'm sorry, but your kid is like 6 months old ... can't you not date for a little while?  She has trouble securing finances, went to go live with her Mom, rarely gets to see her son, and works at Sports Authority part time.  Doesn't exactly sound like that would make a 16 year old want to get pregnant, does it?

Leah: This little couple is SO southern and their grammar makes me want to pull my hair out.  They're actually trying to be together, but they had TWINS and got pregnant only after a month of dating.  This, I think, would make young girls realize not only the importance of safe sex ... but, how about getting to know the guy before sleeping with them?  I don't get how girls sleep with their boyfriends after such a short period of time.  Get to know the guy!  Anyway, one of their twins has development problems and every time they show the little girl, I cry.  I know, I'm such a wimp, but it just breaks my heart.  I imagine Liliana going in to get an MRI and it makes me cry!  I think this couple is trying their very best, but the stress of getting married and having twins is SO much to handle at 19.

Jenelle:  This girl ... well ... she should have NEVER BEEN ALLOWED to have sex.   I'm sorry if that sounds cruel, but she's a joke of a parent, if you can even call her that.  Her Mother has custody of her kid and while her Mom is pretty crazy too, at least she doesn't get high all the time, so she's more successful than Jenelle.  Again, this girl DEFINITELY doesn't make it look fun to be a parent.

Chelsea: Out of all the girls, I think Leah and Chelsea are giving their kids the best chance at having a normal life.  While the Daddy of this baby is a loser, and even though Chelsea has yet to graduate high school, she seems to do a good job with her baby.  The best thing Chelsea has going for her is her Dad.  Her dad is VERY involved in his granddaughter's life.  Again though ... NOT fun.  She can't get her GED because all she does it fight with the Daddy and take care of her daughter.  She's HOPING to go to beauty school and I don't doubt she would have achieved that goal had she not gotten pregnant.

SO there you have it.  I personally like the show.  I'm aware it's trashy reality, but I like seeing the babies grow, I like thinking to myself "well I'm a WAY better parent than they are!" and I like the message ... "this is HARD work!"

ANOTHER thing: I've read on some people's blogs that these girls get paid by Morgan Freeman to be on the show and that's ridiculous.  Correction to these misinformed readers: the girls get money FOR THE KIDS college fund.  I think that's a great payment. 

You guys might disagree with my opinion on the show, but these are my thoughts!  Being a pregnant teen sounds terrifying and I think this show shows that.  Heck, being a pregnant person, no matter the age, is terrifying. I think as long as people REALIZE that you're probably never really "ready" to be parents, then you'll be ok.  It's a learning process as you go...but for one hour a week, I like feeling like parent of the week! (haha)

Burnt Out

The last couple weeks have been tough and exhausting.  Evan has been working nights lately, and a BUNCH of them too...since February 28th, he has been gone 7 evenings.  If you do the math, that's almost every single night.  He works 7 pm to 7 am.  I get home from work around 4:45. Evan leaves at 6:30.  So that means I see him for less than 2 hours a day.  I miss him a lot.

And then there's this whiney girl in me that misses his help.  Working full time AND doing everything around the house got exhausting this week.  I truly have SO much respect for single mothers.  I don't know how they do it!  When Liliana's at her best, it's not tough.  But this week she got sick for a couple days.  She had a fever that lasted momentarily, but then she got a bunch of ulcers in her throat poor darling.  This obvioulsy made her really fussy.  THAT was when I realized how helpful it is to have a husband that helps me SO much.

When I say that he helps more than I've ever seen, I mean that.  I've had SO SO SO many women tell me that they've never seen a father as helpful and involved as Evan (this includes my sister-in-law, Mom, AND Mother-in-law). Every woman sees Evan going grocery shopping with her, or to the restroom to change her diaper and they look at me in amazement like .... "how were you so lucky to get that?" Evan LOVES watching Liliana.  He thinks it's a blast to change her diaper.  And if she wakes up early on the weekend?  He insists SOMEHOW that I've had a tough week and that he should get up and be with her.  When she was a newborn, he got up MORE often in the middle of the night than I did.  And, he NEVER ONCE complained.  He did it, from the kindness of his heart. I am so thankful for that.  I am so thankful to see the love he has for his little one.

To add to my stress this week is of course the fact that our house is on the market.  Keeping a pristine home is TOUGH!  I never realized how often I leave little things around the house, or how much of a pain it would be to put laundry and dishes away immediately in case I get a call that the house is going to show. 

The additional stress?  We're going to Little Rock this Thursday!  Why?  I have TWO job interviews!

Yes, that's GREAT news.  But, I have to pack all my stuff, Liliana's stuff, arrange for the dog to go to the kennel, talk to the neighbors so they can turn the lamps on in our house every morning in case it shows, etc etc.

As for my interviews, I can't say too much about them, however ... hopefully I'll have some more news for you guys when I get back!  We'll see...just wish me luck.

Through all this stress, I've just kept telling myself to relax, because guess what I'll be seeing on Saturday?

OUR NEW HOUSE!  FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!

Want a couple pictures as a sneak peek?

LOVE my soon-to-be kitchen!

YAY for granite countertops, I won't have to worry about putting trivets under everything everyday now.

The view that sold me on the internet.

I LOVE open floor plans in houses.  The living room, kitchen, AND an eating area all in one room.  

I'm in love.

EEEEE....SO PSYCHED! 

I'm so excited to decorate a new house (with the same stuff I have now, but still).

Yeah, seeing the house is going to be a BLAST.  And hopefully my interviews will go well and BOTH lead to offers.  And hopefully while we're there, the house here will sell!

P.S. I forgot to mention...my throat is super sore now.  Sigh ... the joy of getting all your kids colds! ; )

P.P.S. Sorry I just wrote a post bitching about everything.  I'm entitled to it ... I've been sleeping horribly without my sexy man wrapping his arms around me. BOO! haha.

Monday Minute 03/07/11

Welcome to another edition of the Monday Minute, and on time, can you believe it? ; )

BIG announcement: I WILL NOT be doing a Monday Minute next week (03/14/11) because I won't have computer access for a few days.  Therefore, if someone else wants to do it, either email me (lilianateachesus@gmail.com) or leave a comment.  I would love for somebody to host!  If nobody offers, don't expect a Monday Minute here...instead I'll be in Little Rock seeing our new house for the first time! WOO HOO!

Ok, now on to the Monday Minute. I wrote two of them, and awesome blog readers wrote 3 of them. For newbies: link up below, grab the button, and answer the questions.  If you ever have any question suggestions or want to host one week, let me know!





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Questions

(1) Do you change your oil or pay someone to do it?

(2) Are all the award shows over-rated?

(3) Do you double dip your chips at a party? Just once? Don't care?

(4) Who do you love most in the whole world? You can only choose one person.

(5) If you won the lottery, what outrageous thing would you do? The thing where people would say you had more money than sense.

Answers

(1) I pay someone to do it.  My Dad changed his for YEARS and had me change it a couple times.  It's a pain to do it myself!  So, I go on Ladies day at a Valvoline close by and get 3 dollars off!

(2) YES!  For instance, the Oscars were WAY too long.  I really only care about a few categories: best song (I love music, what can I say), best picture, and best actor and actress.  That's it.  Three hours for four awards?  I'll just read who won the next day.  HOWEVER, I do like the red carpet BEFORE the show.  I like saying "ewwwww how ugly is that dress?  What was she thinking?" OR "WOAH, she looks awesome."  My vote for best and worst dressed this year?

Best Dressed: Natalie Portman

 She is a GORGEOUS pregnant woman.  I'm pretty jealous of pretty pregnant women.  I was gross looking.  But she pulled it off looking even prettier than when she's NOT pregnant!

Worst Dressed: Cate Blanchett

I HATED this outfit.  Why is there a circle of beads around her boobs?  That's just strange.

(3) With family, yeah I do.  All of us do, we're pretty funny...a family of doctor's and we don't respect germs!  At home, when it's just Evan and I?  HELL YES. HA.  We both do, majorly.  At parties though?  NEVER.  I don't want people to get grossed out.  I dip and then turn the chip over to the other side at a minimum!  

(4) I wrote this question, because it's a REALLY tough one.  When I really think about it though, the answer is much simpler than I realized: my husband.  I do adore my parents, my brother, and of course a VERY CLOSE second was my Liliana.  But had it not been for Evan, Liliana would never have been born.  Evan knows me better than ANYONE else.  In fact, sometimes I think that Evan's the only person that truly knows me.  I do love him, so very much.  I am SO lucky to have him in my life and honestly think I'm the luckiest woman in the world.  Nobody else is as lucky as I am to feel what we feel for each other (or at least, that's what I think! ha!)

 PLUS, he's hot.  AND he makes me laugh.  How can I not adore him? ; )

(5) HMMM...I think I'd go on a shopping spree.  Since we bought the house in Little Rock, we've been on a spending freeze and aren't buying anything fun.  THEREFORE, I would MAJORLY lift the freeze and go to the mall and have FUN.  I would buy EVERYTHING they had in Liliana's size, I'd buy Evan a billion pairs of sneakers (he likes sneakers a lot), and I'd get myself anything that struck my fancy...for instance:

THESE would be MINE!  ALL MINE!!  

They're after all, a mere $200.  Pocket change for a lottery winner.

Link up now!  Oh, and nobody here better say they'd donate it all to charity and make me feel all bad.  I'm still going on my shopping spree mister.

My Family, All 5 of Us

Today on Kelly's Korner is Show us your life Friday.  I haven't linked up for these in a LONG time but when I saw that it was "feature your family" I knew I had to link up.  I'm actually pretty angry at myself for not having blogged about my family more.  They truly are unique, kind, entertaining, brilliant, and loving.

My family is a family of 5.  My Mom, Dad, Danny, Carlos, and me.

PARENTS

Mommy: My Mom is probably one of the most talented, hard working women you'll ever meet.  She is determined to be 100% at just about anything she puts her mind to.  I've heard people dub her as "super mom."  I'm not sure she likes that phrase, but it's a complete compliment.  Growing up, she somehow managed to work, have three children, have them all involved in piano and sports, cook a delicious dinner, and run the household.  When I say she had the three of us involved, I don't think I can go into enough detail.  She knew about every project we had, she never missed a volleyball game, etc.  What is so impressive is that my Mom is a radiologist.  Having a doctor be SO involved in her kids lives is almost unheard of.  Because of her success, I found the strength to decide to be a lawyer.  My Mom taught me that you could do it all, and be really damn good at it too.  My Mom and I are eerily similar: we're both hardworking and perfectionists.

Daddy: My Dad and I are really close.  I have always been a Daddy's girl.  My daddy is single handily the most brilliant man I have ever met.  I have had MULTIPLE MULTIPLE people tell me that they've never met a smarter individual...I completely understand why they say that.  He was an electrical engineer accepted to a graduate program in Stanford when he decided to do medicine instead.  Then, he graduated third in his medical school class.  He really is a jack of all trades...if you don't know how to fix something, he's your man, for ANYTHING.  My Dad and I have a few traditions that I'd like to mention: we go see the new Pixar movie every year as my Father's Day gift (Cars 2 this year!  WOOT WOOT!) AND we used to watch College Football together ALL day on Saturday.  We still talk about football on the phone every weekend.  I definitely got the math minded personality from my Dad.  I like to think that I got some of his smarts too.  Whenever he tells me I'm really smart, I, for that moment, actually feel proud of myself, and I rarely do that.

My Dad, me, and my Mom on the day of my wedding. 

I've been told I look like my Mom with my Dads complexion!

SIBLINGS

Carlos: Carlos was about 6 years older than me and passed away when he was 13 years old in a car accident.  I wish I could write an entire paragraph telling you guys what he did for a living, but unfortunately, I never got to know.  Carlos was an AMAZING older brother.  He was so kind hearted.  While Danny and I are no dummies, Carlos was the smartest out of the three of us.  He was SO very scientific oriented and won state in his science fair project earning him a full scholarship to school.  He did that at the tender age of 13, honestly, SO smart.  I miss him EVERY day and think about him CONSTANTLY. 

Danny: Danny is my older brother.  He is 7 1/2 years older than I am (can you tell I was an oops? ha!) yet we are RIDICULOUSLY close.  Danny is hilarious and always the life of a party.  He's an allergist with my Dad, but his biggest hobby by far is music.  He composes awesome pieces and plays piano so very well.  All three of the siblings were very involved in music and Danny definitely knocks my socks off in the composing department.  Danny and I have a great time just hanging out.  Growing up he always helped me with my basketball skills.  We used to drive to school together (it was a 30 minute drive) so we learned the lyrics to songs together and became really close after driving in the car together for an hour.  After my brother Carlos passed, Danny really took me under his wing and has ALWAYS been there for me.  I love him to death.

 Danny and I sharing a hug right after I got married.

 I love my family.  They mean SO much to me.  We're a loud, happy Puerto Rican bunch that has gone through so very much.  But one thing I can tell you ... we DO NOT take each other fore granted.  I am so lucky to have them, and that's something I think of every single day.

A Little Education Rant ...

I haven't written about my job lately.  Quite frankly, even though I'm at work more than I'm anywhere else, it's not usually what I want to write about.  I want to write about my sweet husband who has been working nights the last few evenings and whom I miss terribly.  Seeing him from 4:45 - 6:30 just ain't cutting it.  I want to write about my little girl who started big girl daycare recently and is kicking butt at it.  She's crawling, pulling up, saying quite a few words, and pointing to EVERYTHING in sight while giggling about it.  I want to write about our house in Little Rock and the one here.  The one in Lubbock is officially on the market and has had 4 showings, but no offers yet.  We're hoping it sells soon.  We think our home here is pretty darn incredible and anybody would be lucky to have it.  I still haven't seen our home in Little Rock, but Evan has.  He went last Friday for the inspection and while, of course, the inspection report wasn't perfect (the house was built in the 70's so naturally things happen), it was apparently quite good for a house of that age and especially in our budget.

BUT today, I'll talk about my job.  For the most part, I like it.  I think the day flies by.  I mean, in general, I start getting a little flustered around 2:30, but by that part of the day, I have so little left that I don't mind it.

The kids continue to be VERY behavioral.  We have so many problems with about 15 kids per grade level that it causes the entire school sometimes to go crazy.  For the most part, I love the staff.  They're all in it together, are smart teachers, and work hard.  Of course everynow and then, one of them has a weak day, but who doesn't?  I definetely have days where I'm not at 100% and just feel like curling up in a little ball without accomplishing anything.  NOW that I'm an adult, I realize those were our favorite 'movie days.'  Ha.

HOWEVER, I've made a few observations since I've started teaching and I wanted to jot them down.  They're opinionated observations, I realize that, but I can finally say that I have enough knowledge to make solid observations:

(1) There is no way Liliana will be attending a public middle school until Texas gets their laws in order.  Currently in Texas, there is no limit as to how many students you can have in a classroom.  Even GREAT school districts have some classrooms with 30 students in there.  That's TOO many for one teacher to handle!  I am a HUGE believer in small classroom size.  The students get more indivudal attention.  Additionally, I'm not sure we challenge our kids enough.  We have some kids here that are BRILLIANT, but since they act just fine, they're not getting the attention they need.  I want teachers that NOTICE their good qualities and run with it.  I also want teachers that have the ABILITY to challenge them. 

(2) Teachers aren't the only important people in the system.  The vast majority of teachers at the school are actually quite smart.  I've been very impressed.  However, the system needs to remember that children see EVERYONE, not just the teachers in a classroom.  I hear some of the ways others speak to the kids and their grammar is horrendous.  If we want children to speak properly, we have to speak properly to them in the first place!  If we sound like idiots, they'll start sounding like idiots too!

(3) My children, whether they like it or not, will be CHALLENGED.  I've always known education is important, that's part of the reason I went to law school and part of the reason I found my spouse so attractive.  A well spoken educated man is incredibly sexy in my book.  But teaching has shown me the importance of education.  When I say education, I don't just mean being book smart.  I think extracurricular activities are almost as important.  I will STRESS EDUCATION until they're sick of it.  They need to be reading, they need to be trying their best, and most importantly, I need to make sure they're being CHALLENGED. 

Our children will go to a great school, maybe public maybe private...I'll have to do my research when the time comes.  But you can bet I'll make sure they're being challenged.