Skullcandy + Dave = Awesome

The title of this post is a little bit of an inside joke.... I hope we remember about it when we are old and re-read this :)

For the last 2 1/2 yrs Dave has been a successful entrepreneur.  He and Quinny, his (business) partner {heheheee}, started a company called &Art.  It is/was a small videography company.  They had a few clients but ONE major client who was Skullcandy.

If you don't know already, Skullcandy makes headphones.  What do headphones have to do with video?  Well, Skullcandy sponsors professional BMXers, Snowboarders, Skaters, Motocross-ers.... &Art would film and edit everything they would ask them to do.

Turns out Skullcandy wanted to bring the video side of things in house.  We were VERY grateful for the monthly work.  It blessed us tremendously! But the opportunity of being in house with Skullcandy would be such a blessing.

They talked to Dave about this possibility a long time ago.  After much talk, Quinny (we call him that, that's not his real name, its just Quin ;)) and Dave thought this was the best direction they could take.  Plus, Quinny wanted to go to school.  So, IF this opportunity became a reality it would be PERFECT, for both of them.

Skullcandy had said, back in November that they wanted to make this position effective at the beginning of the year. Well, January came and went.  Dave continued to do work for Skullcandy, by himself, since by this point Quinny was in full-time school.  For us, "the beginning of the year" meant January 1-15ish.  February, also, came and went.  Still, the same thing, Dave continued to do TONS of work for Skullcandy.  He would talk to his-would-be-boss weekly and he would assure him that this was still a go and that he was hoping to finalize it "next week."

By this point we were just getting used to the idea of getting disappointed and we were getting used to the uncertainty of this ever becoming a REAL thing.  Then, March.... "next week we are going to get this all said and done"... blah blah blah, yeah, right.  I've heard that before.

Then out of the blue, when I got back from my run on Monday, Dave says, "Brett called." I was THRILLED and couldn't wait to hear what he said!!!!!  Dave has not been blessed with an "excited" side to him (like me or his girls.  We get excited over anything and you KNOW when we are excited... we show it :)).  Anyway, we read the contract and felt good about everything.  After a final talk with Brett, later in the evening, everything was done and the contract has been signed!!! YAY!!!!

We are SO happy and this is exactly what we wanted and needed!  This is a HUGE blessing for our family.  We will have insurance again!!! YAY!!! I am so proud of Dave and excited for this new adventure and chapter in his life.  I think all of his hard work is finally paying off.  Can you tell I am SO HAPPYYYYY???!!!!  Cause I TOTALLY AM!!!!!  WE are totally thrilled!  Dave has a new... I don't know what to call it... a new "feeling" about him.  He seems to have a new bounce to his step.  LOVE IT :) 


ps.  I like to rock my Skullcandy Chops while I run.  They are the perfect headphone, in my opinion, for exercising.  :)

Big Al Turns 71!!! (picture overload)

Al turned 71yrs young last Sunday.  On Saturday they, Diane and Al, had a VERY fun party planned at a "bowling alley."  It was a blast!!!!!  Most of Al's kids were there and most of Diane's family as well.  The kids bowled like there was not tomorrow and so did some of the adults, which resulted in some very sore arms the following day :)

Al and Diane.... 

 Most of the grandkids.  Note Milli, not wanting to be in the picture, at all! 

Bowling pics form the rear... the best "form" goes to Dave Pearce, seen bottom left. 

left to right: Me, Bob, Dave T., Jake, Abuela, Sean and Dave P.  

Bowling pics from the front.  

Again, I think best bowling face goes to Dave Pearce or Al.  LOVE IT!!!

left to right: Sean & Alex, Dave T., Sarah, Todd (Diane's son, he is just awesome! and a new grandpa!!!), Todd and Mackay, Sean M. & Chole, Karalee & Alex, Gary, Me, Gary (again), Birthday Boy and Dave P.

Cutie Pies.  I just love these two!!!

Max, Megs and Jake.  Max was so funny this evening.  He was singing Beiber (sp? don't even care to look it up) and was actually pretty good and was cute to take our jokes.  These "older" cousins are super cute with the younger ones.  I love Jake's crazy face in this picture too.  

Maddie and Leah.  Later in the evening they were playing bar tenders with Jake.  

Lots of opened soda cans, ooooops!  But they had fun.  :) 

Emily with her chubbers, Riley.  He is a cute "little" tank! 

My cutie pie, Otapotamous and Abuela.

Milli was so good all night.  She was just pleased as could be playing with balloons and "coloring" on the bowling score sheet.  Plus, she was just so happy.  LOVE HER!!!!! 

This was such a fun party!  We all really enjoyed it!!! But of course, the best part was celebrating Al.  It was his b-day after all and we love him.  :)  He is a sweet grandpa.... Happy Day to Al!!!!

FHE @ Temple Square

 It was a gorgeous Sunday, a couple of weeks ago.  Dave was going to be out of town for the next week, so we switched out FHE to Sunday afternoon.  We headed down to Temple Square and it was beautiful!!!  Dave and I both took a gazillion pictures of, mostly, the kids.  

 

Leah took this picture of us.  It reminds me of Dave and I's first date.  We met up right here, almost 12yrs ago.  We have changed a lot.  But, here is where I get sappy, our love has grown so much since then.  I really just love him!  With the Temple in the background I think it just puts things into persepective.... we will be together forever, with our children.  There is nothing I want more, nothing! 

 

Sweet Sisters, when they want to be ;) 

  

Mylo posing, my shadow and Leah having her picture taken by Dave. 

 

Milli is just her own person.  She had to wear this necklace and she had to wear her headband like a hippie.  I think it works for her.  She ran around like she has been cooped up all winter.... because we have been!  It was wonderful! 

Sweetest little thing in our home... I L.O.V.E HIM! 

We took the opportunity to go see the Christ statue.  What an amazing feeling is in that room!  It seems like the kids can so tangibly feel it as well, since once we got in there they were quiet and "reverent."

The grounds are simply beautiful and the kids had a great time playing and touching every single water fountain and running around with big smiles on their faces.  It was SO nice to be out there and I wish FHE was like this every time :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day?

I had big plans.  But, then I didn't have enough energy.  Still we did have some fun....

The kids tried to lure a Leprechaun into a "pot" of gold.  This was a last minute thought after school.  They made a trail of gold candy and jimmied a shoe box with a swiffer duster wand.  They checked it about 100 times during dinner.  They never did catch one.  Apparently the "pot of gold under the shoe box was too big and the Leprechaun was able to escape with a few gold candies in tow.  :) 

Our "green" dinner consisted of green tortellinis and some green asparagus, summer squash and tomatoes and some green lemonade.  It was not very fancy, as years past, but it was still festive-ish.  (Dave was out of town and it was crazy trying to get everything set up, cook, feed a screaming-hungry baby and control the chaos, PLUS clean up a little accident from Little Miss Potty Trained {supposedly})

For desert we had mint chocolate chip ice cream with green frosted sugar cookies.  

It was easy and tasty. 

I was upset that I didn't get a picture of us all wearing green, except for Milli, who thinks green is "yuckY!" Yes, just like that a big "Y" at the end  :)  She wore a rainbow dress, cause she can't wear anything else, no kidding!!!!

Sequence of Otis, Daily Occurence

Now that Otis can crawl and get around he can also get into some unsolicited trouble.  He was happy and proud of his new found "little spot, " but then he was not so happy and cute, he was sad.  VERY SAD!  

Enjoy!!!

This whole sequence just makes me laugh, a little, or maybe a lot :)

Happy Day to Dave!!!!

Today was Dave's b-day and we had a great time celebrating as a family.  We all feel very blessed to have him.  He does A TON for us all the time.  Just to name a few things, I rarely have to unload the dishwasher, I rarely get up with the kids or even feed them breakfast, because he does it!  I love it :)  Its like a treat every day, whats not to love?

For his special day I asked him what he wanted for dinner and I was a little aprehensive with his request.... He wanted me to make Chicken Tikka Masala.  Its an Indian dish that he gets once a week.  He just loves it!  I researched a bunch of recipes and made the one that looked and sounded easy and tasty.  It was OK.  I may make it again with some tweeking. 

As for the special day cake he asked for a yellow cake with lots of fresh whipped cream frosting.  I was succesfull with this one :)  It was very yummy and way to big! 

As for presents, well this is the hardest part of any party for me.  I am not a good gift giver.  Plus Dave would like things that are very expensive, like a new fancy lens for his camera.  I wouldn't know where to begin and what he already has.  So, I opted for a gift that we he really wanted.... a new set of NICE knives.  He was very surprised and he said that now he can start cooking!  Hahahahaaaa!  Whoever belivies that is crazy!!!!  But I might just hold him to it :) 

It was great to spend a day just focusing on making Dave happy.  He deserves it!  We love him!! We are SO lucky to have him!!! 

We love our Boo!

A LITTLE bit of a Funny Story:  I have called Dave, "Boo" for a while now (1yr or more).  This nickname started when he was on one of his trips.  He and his buddy were renting a car in Florida.  It was an African American Lady who was helping them.  She kept on calling his buddy "Boo" through the whole renting process.  They got a kick out of it.  So for that whole trip they called each other and everyone else "Boo."  Sure enough he brought that nickname home with him and it has stuck.  Here's where the story gets a little funny.  I have been known to ask the kids something like, "who let you watch TV?!?"  to which Leah will quickly reply, "Boo, said we could!"  Or she will often say "mom, where's 'Boo'?" I can't help but giggle when she refers to her dad as "Boo," it just cracks me up! 

8 Month Old Chub-Master

I promised that the next post would be of Oti's chubbiness... I hope this will suffice!  :)

This was taken just two days ago... proceed.

Please take notice of his, um, knees... or maybe I should call them rolls! 

He LOOOOVES the bath, LOVES it!!!  I think the above picture is so cute, 

 he has to almost do the splits so he has enough room for his belly :) 

Empanada (Argentine Savory Turn over) and Otis' "empanada" foot.  

There you have it... Chub-Master!

8 Month Old Update:  He is crawling, sitting and his latest thing is crawling to something and "climbing" up it!!!  Life is clearly changing around here.  He is getting into all the little things that he can choke on and there is A LOT he can choke on!  LEGOS!!!!!!! AAAAHHHH!!! 
But, its fun to see him grow and progress! 

Sometimes Dramatic, but usually Fun and Silly

Leah is sometimes dramatic, but the truth is that she is usually a lot of fun and she likes to be silly, like me :)  I have been playing around with one of Dave's camera.  I want to call it my own, but he is not ready to part with it just yet. So I have been snapping pics frequently and this is what we got the other day.  Enjoy!

See?  I told you she was silly and fun.  I should have added crazy, with that hair!  And her crazy grill (aka mouth) She looks so.... old in this picture, its crazy!  She is getting big (tear rolling down my cheek, just one tear!) and I just love her to pieces even when she is being dramatic ;)

Awwww!  She loves her baby brother.  She always wants to "steal" him from me and I try to share.  She's very helpful with him, VERY helpful!

Being funny.... again!  hahaaa.. I love this "squishy" face.  I also love Oti's chubby hand.  More on his chubbiness on the next post.

"Holey" Smile Begins

Mylo has entered this fun, excited and awkward looking state, finally!  He has been wiggling this tooth for what seems to me months and last Monday it was finally pulled out.  It was very exciting.  Sunday, we (Dave and I) pushed it really hard.  Mylo kept on coming up to us and asking us to do it every hour or so.  Then he wiggled it ALL day Monday.  Monday night, for FHE (Yes, lame, but it was a family affair) we all gathered around and while Leah tried holding Mylo's hand for support, I carefully tied some floss around the very loose tooth and pulled.  It took about three tries and with a quick flick of the wrist if flew out... Yes, it flew!  It hit my cheek, then I heard it hit the wall in the front room and that was it.

Mylo didn't even flinch.  I said, "its out!" and he said, "really?!?!"  all surprised  :)  Sure enough he felt the new hole in his mouth and said, "but I don't sounds like Leah when her teeth came out".  I reassured him he would get that cute little lisp when his top teeth come out.  I just love him!

THEN, we were on the search for the flying tooth... With flashlight in hand and all on our knees we found the shinny little tooth.  YAY!  (that would have been devastating)

 THEN, Mylo wanted to write a letter to the tooth fairy.  The letter said this:

Dear Toothfairy, 

I want to keep my tooth.  

Can I please keep my tooth?  

Please check a box below:

Yes, you may keep your tooth

No, you may not keep your tooth. I need it. 

Thank you. 

Love, 

Mylo Trevino 

ps.  Please leave this note here.  Thank you!

I was sure the tooth fairy would let him keep his tooth, but she didn't!  Lets just say that we had a sad little toothless boy the next morning.  He got over it as the day progressed.  

I'm just wondering.... How much money does the tooth fairy leave at your house?  At ours, just ONE dollar.  Is that crazy?  It seems that other tooth fairies leave $5.  If that is the case, Leah is owed some money and so is Mylo....

update 3/8/11:  Yes, I do pull out their teeth.  I am too impatient :)  It try not to do it too early, but i just can't resists!!!!  

update 3/10/11:  The toothfairy (aka. Dave) said it wouldn't be fair to Leah.  Since she never got to keep her teeth.  I'm sure the toothfairy knows where they all are... She is good at keeping them all together.  Perhaps some day they will get them all back :) 

Baby Boy growing.... fast

Monday Otis was just barely starting to "army" crawl, then all of the sudden, on Tuesday he was caught doing this!  Its happening too fast!!!!!!  We have been enjoying watching him crawl, slow and cautiously.