Monday, May 24, 2010
Facebook Reminders
Sunday, May 23, 2010
4 years
Friday, May 14, 2010
A Fun Series
I really like this last one because it was the one in which we sort of gave up hope in getting a good picture that day. Plus, I think my hair looks pretty cute here. It is getting so long, I love it. I just hope that I don't start to hate it in the summer and end up chopping it all off!
UPDATE: Before I posted this, I had text Marcel and asked him why he couldn't smile, but he couldn't remember. Once he got home and we were both talking about how funny it was for him to try to smile, we remembered: he was suffering from a very bad case of allergies that left him not feeling very well and with a very poorly behaved nose!
Random Updates
One day, Marcel got home from teaching and took baby into help him play drums. I thought it was so cute and had to take a picture. I think the look on her face just about says it all even though she seemed to actually be enjoying herself. Her mom was just saying the other day how I'm going to see all her "firsts" and wanted to have a video camera here, so now I'm trying to take pictures/videos to give them. This will definitely be in there!
I love the decoration you see there...I made it for Marcel in October 2007 on one of his old drum-heads. That was just about the time we had started FAEA: Forever And Ever Always, which I still use to sign all the cards/notes/emails I send him!
We got this a few days ago from Marcel's little brother, Snoh, who just turned 5 years old. He'll be starting kindergarten in the fall, but already has a great grasp on his letters! I love his "R" :) And we did get a little laugh out of "I like you"
And again, with baby. I had her on the blanket while I was doing the dishes and she made it under the chair on her back and loved the tab on the zipper of Marcel's jacket. When it was time for me to eat lunch, I moved her back to the blanket and a few seconds later she had rolled back over to play with his jacket. She seemed a little frustrated that she got there on her stomach and wasn't able to play with it again. No worries, though, because she had managed to bring a toy along on her journey. Next thing I knew she was asleep! It was a big milestone for us. Before this nap she had just recently sleeping out of the swing and still only fell asleep while being fed a bottle. And the blanket is all bunched up because she discovered it was light enough to pull on to bring the toys that I purposely put out of her reach close enough to play with. Pretty darn cute, this little girl is! It isn't working as birth control for me, like my aunt just asked me a few days ago, in fact it really leaves me with desire to be a mom, but for now this is as close as I'm getting!
Thursday, May 6, 2010
I Just Have To Brag
Now on to why I'm posting:
Last Thursday I had just gotten into bed as Marcel was getting home from school. He was so excited about something, it was kinda strange! But he pulled out some papers to show me. They were the two ruberics for his big projects in his last class of first semester. I wish I had a scanner to put the pictures up, but I don't so I'll suffice to just typing her notes:
PROJECT 1: Teach a lesson from your specialty
*The lesson you chose to teach is the BEST I've ever seen. Well done sir!
PROJECT 2: Lesson-planning toolkits--binders of information regarding your specialty that will be used to make lesson plans
*Marcel, not even sure where to begin. These two portfolios are an excellent representation of where your knowledge, heart & passion stem. You seek collaborative support...I noted many entries pulled from a variety of sources. Excellent that's what teaching is. You have a gift. You also have a very firm foundation that defines a clear framework to be taken into your teaching field. Marcel, I am pleased and impressed by your work. Please do not take offense to this next sentence, as it is intended as a praise: You shine tremendously in the big things--teaching and culminating projects. You have a transparency that is second to none. You also gave your wife credit for helping?! :) Well take her on a cofee date. She is a gem! Marcel, I commend you on exemplary toolkits :)
I helped only by lending my awesome hole-punching abilities and designing front covers for his binders so that they were better than just listing his name! And he did take me out on a coffee date, only because we have a gift card still from Christmas, otherwise it would have been out of our budget!
One more thing, I think he is still waiting on the final grade from the class where he received that AWESOME feedback, but if he gets an "A" like I'm expecting he will, he will have finished first semester with a 4.0! To be working full-time and still doing so great at school is hard work. I'm so proud of everything he is accomplishing!
Also, he has his student teaching placements. He'll start November 1st in a Vallivue district elementary school which is mostly observation and some teaching, and after that he'll be at a Nampa district high school for his main teaching of a band. We're both very excited for that to start and for his graduation in about a year, the date is yet to be determined!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Marcel's 23rd Birthday
I have to start by saying that Marcel's birthday has always seemed to get overlooked for one reason or another. I blame it that it has always been so close to our anniversary. When we were dating our anniversary was on May 22nd and now it is May 30th! Last year, we were very strapped for money (it was practically already our money even though we weren't married yet) and wanted any extra money we could find to go towards having fun on our honeymoon in Vegas, so we went to Grease at Keller Auditorium, solely because Pacific's alumni office had a group rate on tickets!
I found myself wanting to fall into that same trap again this year, thinking that we're about to reach our first anniversary as a married couple and I want to do something fantastic but that we don't have a lot of money for that since it is only 1 month after Marcel's birthday. I stood strong and planned Marcel 4 days of birthday activities. They could have all been done in 1 day (except day 1 & 4 would be hard to do together, you'll see below) but it was way more fun to separate each one into it's own day.
Each morning, Marcel got a hand-made card that had a hint for the day in it. I included the hint's in this recap! He also opened a gift around the time we were participating in the activity.
DAY 1: Friday, April 23rd
Hint for today's activity: Check your email! (I had sent him an e-card that had a coupon for a night spent together) more clever hints to come :)
Marcel and I both worked, but I took baby to Fred Meyer for some shrimp so that I could make Marcel a special dinner: Shrimp & Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo! We have fettucini all the time but for me to use shrimp was a huge milestone in our house. I don't eat seafood so he felt honored that I made it for him. I also rented Obsessed, which turned out to be a barely ok movie in my opinion but Marcel seemed to like it. Either way it was so nice to just spend the night together. Marcel had been at church Monday-Wednesday nights until about 9pm and then had class on Thursday night, so this was the first evening we had spent together all week. It is so nice to have such uninterrupted time to reconnect to your spouse!
Day 2: Saturday, April 24th
Hint for today's activity: We'll witness something legal only in the United States & The Republic of the Philippines
We woke up really early and headed to my dad's house so we could walk with him in the March of Dimes 6 mile walk. It was pretty fun and a great cause for us to support--Marcel's brother was born at 32 weeks! We then headed to the park to watch Payton & Presley play in their 2nd softball game ever. It was also pretty fun too. I have spent so many years watching & playing softball so it was nice to get to do that again. Marcel knew about both of those activities, but then we headed home to get ready for the surprise part of the night. Marcel had figured out that we were going to a movie, because what else starts at 7:30 on a Saturday night, and had put a few snacks in my purse to bring (sshh, don't tell!) and when I found them, I said, "oh, these are for the movie?" I GAVE IT AWAY! Ugh, I was so mad at myself because I had caught myself several times all day and this time I finally forgot. He didn't know that we were seeing The Bounty Hunter (where the hint came in--I searched for Bounty Hunter on wikipedia and found that fact). It was a pretty good movie; I was hoping for better but we both enjoyed it!
Day #3: April 25th
Hint for today's activity: We'll see what the weather has in store for us!
Church day: Marcel had to be there by 7:45am for pre-service worship team practice as the sound guy so I got up at 6:30 and made home-made hashbrowns for us. They always turn out so good, if I can say so myself, and to think there were many many years of my life when I hated just about any form of potato! Marcel got his card and immediately thought the activity was weather-dependent, which was wrong. I met him at church to attend the 2nd service and after we were done Marcel drove without knowing where we were going, just had to trust my directions. I led him to Dairy Queen where we were going to enjoy Blizzards. I had to explain the clue to him! Blizzards are a weather-related event. I LOVE cookie dough blizzards but there just isn't room in our budget for them too often, but for a birthday it is okay! Later that night we had home group for church which was fun as well. It was only our second time at the group and we already feel so connected to the group. Again, just a really nice day spent together :)
trying for an artistic picture
Hint for today's activity: We'll be traveling out of this country!
I had to work this day but Marcel decided not to sub. He asked me Sunday night if he had to work the next day and I got a little frustrated because the school year is almost over and I want him to sub everyday, but when as I was going to bed I realized that I don't like to work on my birthday either, so I couldn't hold a double standard. My mom brought by Marcel some presents this morning, before he had gotten up for the day, so don't be surprised by the picture (she got him the first 4 seasons of Boston Legal). Marcel was awesome enough to mow the lawn and I weeded part of the backyard while baby enjoyed the outdoors. She is SO happy to be outside or shopping; it is wonderful! Baby went home just as my mom was getting here to lend us a weed-eater. We then left for our big adventure. Again, he sort-of knew it was a dinner date because it had been a long time since I had eaten last and he knows me better than to think we were going to do something non-food related without me packing snacks! We went to Jalapeno's, which was somewhere we had never been to before. It was a decent dinner, just made us miss La Sierra in Forest Grove! The best part was that we both brought home left-overs so no cooking the next night. Then we came home, cuddled on the couch and watched Two & A Half Men, just like every other Monday night!
Thanks to all of the coupon blogs I read I was able to do ALL of this for a very small fraction of what it should have cost.
- The shrimp was free with coupons and I had all the rest of the ingredients in our pantry that I had also gotten for just about free
- Obsessed: free with a Redbox promotion code
- The Bounty Hunter: Buy 1 ticket, Get 1 ticket free when I redeemed 2 of my Tropicana rewards points (I have never gotten a point from buying the juice, instead I just wait for people to post the codes that can be redeemed by everyone to get my points)
- Dairy Queen: Buy 1 Blizzard, Get the 2nd one for $0.25! We splurged for the large sized so we could bring some home, but still paid a little less than what 2 smalls would normally cost us!
- Jalapeno's: Restaurant.com $25 gift certificate for $2 a few weeks ago. It required that we spent $35 and included a 18% tip before the certificate could be used, but it still turned out to be a fantastic deal.
- His present each day was a shirt or sweater that I had gotten at Old Navy, on clearance and with a coupon!
- The Wink photostrip was also 100% free, including shipping
Thursday, April 22, 2010
I'm Ready
I am so happy with how the cards turned out and while I know Marcel himself is not very artsy/creative outside of music, I know that he'll appreciate the work and time I put into them. It had been a really long time since I had used my Cricut and I don't know why I'm not using it every single day--it's AMAZING! I just wish I was a little more creative to use it to its full potential.
Starting tomorrow, every morning through Monday (his actual birthday) he'll get that day's card which has 1 reason why I love him and the hint for that day's activity. There is also a gift for each day but he doesn't get that until we are in the midst of the assigned activity of the day.
Emily said "4 days worth? wow, you're nice" and I've always tried to do fun things for his birthday, but he's always trumps me. My birthday celebrations have always been better than the ones I planned for him. I'm secretly NOT hoping that this year it will will be different. While I'm very proud and excited for everything I planned and know that he'll love it, I'm turning 25 this year and think that is cause for a pretty big celebration!
The real reason for the post was to get some of the pictures and background explanations posted so when it comes time for the other posts they won't get too terribly long! Here's the first 2 pictures :)

my creativity, as limited as it may be

the gifts!

