Hey Connie! It's not Arbor Day...

It's Memorial Day and I found the coolest cake surprise I've seen in a long time! Check it out!



You only see the flag after you cut and pull out the slices!

I Got My Erys Perst.

It's the last week of school and Sarah and Jacob are bringing home the contents of their desks and classrooms piece by piece. Sarah brought home a book called "My Monday Journal" which is where they write about what happened over the weekend. This was my favorite entry.



In other news, our psycho neighbors' house sold in three days and a lovely, young law student has moved in. We met Maritsa, presumably her significant other Brant, and her lhasa apso, Layla on Saturday.

T-minus 24 days until Dallas Market.

Sarah's dance recital is this weekend. So is Jacob's birthday party. And coming full circle, Sarah can change out her earrings for the first time on Sunday!

Happy 9th Birthday Jacob!

Finally...after 14 extra days, an auntie's visit came and went, a failed induction and lots of pitocin and forceps... Jacob entered the world on May 25, 2001.

Here he was on his first trip to NJ for Thanksgiving that year. Look at all those teeny, tiny cousins! Now there's several more and the ones in the picture are almost all grown up!



Some of my other favorite pics...



And lastly, his most recent school picture. Sigh. WHY???!?!!!!! WHY I must ask, do you make a kid stand in a lumberjack pose when he has a faded temporary tattoo on one arm and jeans on? Had we known it was a full body shot I would have scrubbed that spot on his arm and dressed him up a bit more. And the pained look on his face is not how he usually smiles. He looks like he's constipated. I'm so annoyed at the people who take these pictures! Lifetouch?!?! I'm talking about you!



We brought cookie cakes up to school today and will head to BJ's for dinner tonight. I will set up his party for sometime in the next two weeks. It's always challenging around Memorial day to get his friends there. Maybe later in life his birthday will be the party everyone goes to on Memorial Day weekend!

Happy Birthday Jacob!

Bridal Shower Cake

Made a bridal shower cake for a co-worker friend yesterday. She asked for yellow cake with raspberry filing. Her colors are turquoise and orange and purple and yellow...but all those frosting colors on a cake should really be reserved for fondant or kids' birthday cakes, in my opinion. Grown-ups, especially ones about to get married, should not have blue lips and tongues in their wedding album pics!

Wanted to get those colors in gerber daisies but could only find magenta and yellow. So my friend Charisse came to the rescue with some ribbon in orange, pink and turquoise. Not my best work, but it turned out OK.

Four Asses to a Sesterius

Jacob has to do a project about Romans. We had to select a topic from a large list and write an outline. I'm absolutely positive he selected Army/Soldiers/Weapons because we could make a model of a weapon and he would get to bring it to school. Unfortunately, every little boy in the class probably had the same idea and only two of them were allowed to report on weapons. So Jacob got his second choice: money. Which means the outline is useless and we start from square one.

Money is a pretty complex subject for these kids. They just learned about the different coins we use in this country today last year. And money in ancient Rome, while primitive, is still complex to grasp and the foreign language names don't help much. I struggle with doing too much of his report for him vs. watching him flounder on how to even do the research!

Just so you know, the basic unit of currency in Ancient Rome was called an "as." Which becomes "asses" when plural. Did I mention we're dealing with young boys here? Oy. Mark can barely keep a straight face. It's like when they say the names of the planets and snicker when they get to Uranus.

Anyway, it's not due 'til next week. Time to procrastinate!

Catch Up

My friend Jay started a blog and I enjoy reading it. He's written about five posts so far and the last one was months ago! I'm tempted to write him and say that the point of having a blog is to post stuff for your readers to read... but then here's me, going almost a week without posting anything. Touche.

This picture is from the outlet mall in San Marcos. We went there on Mother's Day. The kids were watching remote control boats on the little pond but my cell phone camera couldn't capture all that in one shot.



This is Lucas on water day at school last week. Unfortunately, a child was sent home that day with a suspected cases of the chicken pox which was later confirmed. Hope they didn't all share the same wading pool. Lucas has had his immunization but apparently, so did this other kid. Could take up to two weeks to show up so my fingers will be crossed for a little while longer.



And this is what I did this weekend...over 100 necklaces to get ready for the Parker Show we have coming this weekend. Jennifer has hired another girl to help with just beading which is great! She also wants me to create a blog for JMD and also a VIP program.



It's going to be a busy week! Jewelry shows Monday and Tuesday, PTA on Wednesday, Ethan's pre-K graduation Thursday, and then the jewelry show all weekend. And I'm making a bridal shower cake for someone Sunday. Phew! Is it summer yet?

RIP: Fudge

Fudge was Jacob's class pet in second grade. We kept him over the summer and even though Jacob is in third grade now, we kept Fudge for Spring Break too. He was a sweet little guy. Friendly, cute and gentle. It was fun to feed carrots and lettuce to him. Fun to play with and watch run around the living room at break-neck speed. Apparently, he died over the weekend in the classroom. Mrs. Tiller had to bury him on the grounds of the school and then brought her class out for the "funeral" where they read letters to him and put wildflowers on his grave. Poor baby.



I told the kids today. They didn't get too bent out of shape. Ethan said "Awww. I liked him" which pretty much sums it up for me too.

Happy Mother's Day

It was a great weekend really... Mark came back from Atlanta Friday night. Saturday we finished up some cleaning and painting and went to two birthday parties. One was for Ethan's friend Nick. Nick happens to live next door to Eva (of Desperate Housewives fame) Longoria's parents who came to the party.



Ella and Henry are super sweet. We talked a lot about raising four kids (she had four daughters and Eva was the baby) and about Morgan's Wonderland - the new special needs amusement park built right here in San Antonio. They had just been there the day before for an event with Eva's foundation - Eva's Heroes - and celebrated the opening of the park with her oldest daughter who has special needs and lives in a group home. Ella was a teacher and had wonderful and funny stories about teaching special ed and Henry was much quieter but liked talking about his garden and making salsa. Very cute and completely normal for two people with such a celebrity daughter and son-in-law!

The second party was for Sarah's friend Catherine at the Emerald Family Fun Center in Bulverde. (www.emerald-rainbow.com) Fun place with mini golf, a rock climbing wall, bouncies, mini bowling, etc. Like ChuckECheese but cleaner and less creepy.

Then Sarah and I went to her friend Grace's house where we were treated to a rousing theater performance of The Princess and the Movie Star! Apparently nobody was willing to be the Pauper. They sang and danced and generally tired themselves out.

Sunday we had a lovely breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast. Got some iTunes gift cards to I can rock out to my heart's content and then headed to the outlet mall. I wanted to go to Pottery Barn Kids for some bedding for the boys' room but apparently it is too NEW to be at the outlet.



So we went to Crate and Barrel for fun and stopped at Chuy's on the way home for some tasty Mexican food.

It was a great day. Hope all you Mothers out there enjoyed yourselves today too!

Serious bling

Yes, I know I live in Texas and we bling everything from our head to our flip flops. But today I met a new piece of bling I really liked.

I was shopping for a bracelet for Sarah's teacher's staff appreciation gift and had about $200 bucks to spend. So I stopped by Stone Oak Jewelers which is owned by a friend and her family. I was shown a couple ideas but frankly, there's not much in this store for under $200.

Which brings me to the QUARTER-OF-A-MILLION-DOLLAR SIX CARAT EMERALD CUT DIAMOND ring Mike let me try on today. Oh boy, I wish I had a picture of it because let me tell you, it sure looked nice on my finger.

Mother's Day IS just around the corner...I'm just sayin'. ; )

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Random stuff to tell:

1. My friend who took my wine charms to a show sold two sets. She said the show was terrible for her - primarily because of booth location. Hopefully, she will be interested in taking some to Dallas market and give the wholesale option another chance.

2. Our neighbors' house was on the market for three days and got an offer already. Can't wait for the new family to move in. Will be a first grade boy and 4-year old boy. Hopefully, a pal for Ethan.

3. The principal at our elementary school is retiring. We are very sad. Mrs. Newman opened the school 10 years ago and since we just got rated #1 in the city, she says it's best to go out on top. Anxiously awaiting word on who her replacement will be.

4. Our other neighbors are in the process of adopting two kids from Haiti. They are economic orphans - a brother (9) and sister (12) whose mother is still living but cannot afford to take care of them. They were also orphans before the earthquake. It could be 6-9 months before the kids make it to San Antonio but we are all excited about seeing this family grow in such a neat way.

5. Tomorrow is the Mother's Day Tea at the preschool. Slideshow and tears - a given. Ethan will be graduating in just two weeks! I can hardly believe it but know he will be just fine in kindergarten next fall. And birthday buddy Matthew will be back for graduation and that will be terrific!

Lack of Originality - Part II

Several weeks ago I posted a rant about how Jennifer's jewelry designs were being copied (and Charisse's domino necklaces, etc). Well today, Jennifer was at Ace Trading and voila...



The necklace that is second from the left is a dead ringer for our "Rodeo Diva"



She first created this design when we were in Dallas during the market in January. Whether it was purchased there and sent to China or after that - we'll never know. But now it's being produced in mass quantities for a lot cheaper. Granted, they probably use plastic beads and not crystals. No bead caps. Nothing that makes it special or unique...just cheap. And to some people, that's all that matters. Hopefully we'll have grown our business well enough to have customers that want the real thing, and we will also keep some new designs in our back pocket from now until June's market so the copycats won't get a head start.

Grrrr.....