it's been so long since I last saw you, beach.

When my Ma and siblings came down to visit, one of their requests was to visit the beach.

It takes a little longer than an hour to get there but it depends with all this awful Houston traffic.

When the husband and I lived in Florida, we were about one hour away from Cocoa Beach. We miss it.

I had heard horror stories of Galveston. But what I saw when we arrived, was beautiful-ness. 

The sand, clean. The weather, perfect. The sun, shining. The water, cold but tolerable. It was game on!

We made a little trek and onto the beach we plopped. 

Our place was set up, then we knocked off our flip-flops and...

...into the water we went!!!

I would like to introduce you to my little fish. His name is Jonah. We call him JoJo. 

He wears whale swim shorts. He loves the water. 

...and sand. 

I started off with a sand castle of course, I am not a fan of the salty water or sand, but I shrugged it off and decided to get dirty and sticky with salty humidity. Once every 5 years is not that terrible =D

This was the first time to visit a beach for my boys. They have experienced 'fake' waves at Great Wolf Lodge and sand in playgrounds, but never the two together. I was extremely curious to what their reaction would be, and to my delight and theirs, they loved it!
Andrew asked me a couple of times to clean his feet because they were 'dirty'  but I quickly told him at the beach, everything gets dirty so you just have to put up with it, son.

And Moomie sunbathed and played in the sand. She loved it as much as the boys did. 

The boys wanted so badly to stomp on my castle. I told them they would get to, at the end of the day. Once or twice, I caught them out of the corner of my eye, roundin' about the castle, knocking off a little sand here and there. The urge to destroy it was hilarious! 

My beautiful beach  baby sister, gosh I love her. 

and her beautiful pink toes.

At lunch time, we had Lunchables, cheetos, chicken pitas, and watermelon! Yum! 

And soon we got air raided with poop from the locals. I was the only one hit--twice.

And James, this hunk of a redhead, had such a blast. He was Fish #1. Spending most of his time in the ocean while we others played on the shore. He almost got tailed by a jumping fish and kept creeping up on these crabs! And since he started baseball this year, we had a fun game of catch. He's got quite an arm!

A beautiful rainbow.

I loved the beach! With family, it made it so much more fun! Thank you beach for not disappointing me!!!
Have a happy Friday, guys!

Mother's Day / Dia de la Madre

2007

Always a goof

2013

She's been through a lot.

Yet she still  manages to be fun, loving, and caring with all her heart. I think they're her greatest gifts.

Thank you for being such a great Mamacita, Mamacita. I love you.

the sun did it

Hello! This week has included a ton of different things, from the beach to my birthday to the production of our first journals from our hand made paper! It's been an incredible week, with a visit from my Mom, sister and brother who drove over 4 hours just to visit us. It was pretty lovely :)

Lots of facetime with my dad from Mexico too, which I love because he gets to see my boys in action full with goofiness and spanish lessons :) 

We didn't do school this week so I made sure we were overly artsy. Jonah is my scribble monster. And  Jonah also learned to pedal Andrew's bike--something that took Andrew quite a time to achieve. 

Andrew lives in his own imaginarium as he draws his robots with big muscles and invents bouncy shoes and his own board games.

 You remember how I got so mushy with love for this guy HERE and HERE back in February? Well, I'm about to do it again.

You see, the husband is what you would consider a jock. He's a math and science genius. A coach. A sports and gun fanatic. While I swore off jocks in high school and highly disliked them, he was different. 

He was funny and smart. This is how he roped me in, you see. He showed off his pearly whites and made me laugh and I was totally his. Forever and ever.

His left brain was and is my complement. And until he started getting into this paper-making business, he was never part of my right-brain artsy-ness {or should I say, mess?} He always puts up with my artsy moods, my craft moods, and my hormonal moods. But now, it feels like I've connected with him in a totally different way. In an art way, which I never would have expected in our entire lives. I mean, he offers to take me to Michael's or Hobby Lobby voluntarily (in search of tools to better his trade, but regardless)! 

Whose man does that?  

One night, my breath was taken away at this sight:

When I looked over at my desk and saw him on my stool. Hunched over. My heart was so full. Of happiness. Love. Wonder. Of complete shock. Turns out, he was making custom watermarks for his paper. Now, do you really wanna know how much more I love this guy? lots more. 

                                   And am currently feeling:

totally

a new batch of paper

 And we got bags full of vegetables -- again! {and we haven't made a dent in it which means we need to eat more greens!}

 So I made agua de melon {cantaloupe juice}...just like in Mexico. I remember my tia Ale always making agua de something.....so refreshing and pretty.

And when my family came for a visit, we went to the beach. I didn't know the beach was this accessible!!! 

I want to take advantage of it more often!

And after the beach, I received a giant birthday cookie {which I've always secretly wanted!} 

So, thanks Mom! 

also, this was not my fault. it was the sun's.

I loved the rosettes on my cookie :)

The library has been good to me lately. Reading up on artists. Crafts. Paper. Day of the Dead history. 

You know, the usual subjects. 

I was completely inspired by Picasso and this book that I painted a random still life under two hours. On a whim. On my birthday. Yesterday. It was very relaxing. A quick color study with acrylics and charcoal.

Ooh, and my mom bought me this new table! Which was uber-easy to set up all my paints and not get so frustrated by my crowded art desk! I plan on using this table til its last breath. Even if we do get rid of all the boys toys. And another picture of something I've painted recently. A simple, yet colorful daisy for my Tia Betsy's 50th. She loves it. 

Watercolors on our own paper :) Making things for others brings me joy.

Pssst. Wanna get freaked out? Remember these goofballs from a couple of posts ago?

I put the images on the iPad, and thanks to Frame Magic I was able to make a face switcharoo and totally freak me out. 

Who are they--can you tell? These kids are weird lookin'. They don't look like mine. 

Have a great weekend guys!

It's {almost} my birthday

And although I don't specifically always get what I want, haha, who am I kidding? I never get what I really want...I've been thinking about my next birthday which happens to be the big 3-0.
Holy peanut butter balls. 30. It's kinda silly to be thinking about my next birthday instead of the one that's next week. But I like to plan ahead.
So deep in thought about my next birthday I wholeheartedly decided what I am going to get and no one is gonna stop me--well, maybe my indecisiveness--but regardless. I might just overlook this birthday, but I have huge plans for the next one. So here's my list of two things:

1. A tattoo

It doesn't have to have a meaning, or some kind of symbol, like your kids birth stone {seriously, who uses that?} I just want something that's pretty to look at. A really neat piece of art. Now, if I can only decide what to get!

This one happens to be one of my favorite ones...just doodles, lines, and designs.

And I definitely want it on my arm though. I can't believe I've gone all my life adoring other people's tattoos while I've been too chicken to decide on one for myself. My husband even has two!

Here's my Pinterest Board of the tats I've collected for the past 2 years with acceptable {read: cool} tattoos:

SO, any thoughts? Any ideas? I know some people might disagree with tattoos or look down upon them, so can I just say that I've lasted this long without one, and is it now ok to get one in my almost-middle-age as a wife and mother of two? I promise nothing tacky, Mom ;)

2. And a birthday bash!
Full of DIY screen printing crafts with skulls of course,

Funny old-people jokes,

Lots of Balloons and delicious coctel de camarones

Margaritas and lounging----yuummm

And my frickin' face on my cake

...but first, I need to gather some real friends, not just internet friends, who will come to my bash.

I think though, we have plans to go to Picasso's Black and White and the Children's Museum so, that'll be fun. Cheers!