5/04/06: Plans are under way for Emma's 3rd birthday party. We are going to do a weekday party for kids. Emma chose her party theme to be "Dora the Explorer". We will do lunch, a pinata, a game or two, and a craft all within the Dora theme. It will be fun and low-key. We are still deciding on what day...it's so hard with everyones' busy schedules. Emma is so excited for her party. "Vamonos, everybody let's go!"
4/28/06: Congratulations to the our good friends, Sam and Michelle, on the birth of their third son, Eli Samuel Aguilar. We are so happy for their family! Click on this picture of the Aguilar Family to visit their site.
4/28/06: Landon is doing sign language now. He just started doing "more" on Wednesday. The sign for more is putting your fingertips from both hands together. Maddy and Emma both did one finger to the palm of the other hand. Landon is doing more of a clap. It's adorable, and he gets his point across. He is also doing "all done" which is putting both hand up and turning back and forth. He puts both hands up and shakes them. It's sooo cute. The world of signing is beginning for our boy. The girls both did over 100 sign by 16 months old. I'm sure Landon will do the same. How exciting!!
4/28/06: Madeline asks every once in awhile how old you have to be to do certain things. Like: How old do I have to be to babysit? How old do I have to be to cook my own food? How old do I have to be to drive a car?....and so on. Well, yesterday we were in the car, here's how our conversation went:
(Maddy is in red, Mommy is in blue)
Mom, How old do I have to be to be rich?
People can be rich at any age. Some children are rich and some adults are rich. Some children are poor and some adults are poor.
I want to be rich. You are rich. You are rich in love. you have soooo many people that love you, I think you are the richest girl in the world.
She thought about that for a moment and kind of rolled her eyes, then said, Can we go to the beach today so that we can dig for a buried treasure?
4/24/06: Have I ever mentioned the girls' imaginary friends?? Maddy has had her imaginary friend, Angela for about 3 years now. Angela is 4-years-old to 16-years-old depending on the day. She gets to do the most amazing things!! Just yesterday, she was in space visiting E.T. on her rocket ship. Life in Angela's house, everything is fair. She doens't have to go to bed at 8:00, she gets as many cookies as wants, and she always gets to buy whatever she wants at Toy's R Us. Madeline uses Angela as a way to tell stories. Sometimes we wonder where she hears the stuff she tells. It's pretty funny!
Emma has had her imaginary friend, Reena, for about a year. Reena has an extraordinary life just like Angela. But, Reena is only three. This morning Reena was swimming in the ocean and she got bit by a squid, not to worry; she got a band-aid. Emma also is pregnant with an imaginary child. She has been pregnant just over a year now. Her baby is a girl, and she is going to name her Sally. She is always saying, "It's almost time.." We thought for sure Sally would be born when Landon was born, but nope...not yet. Both of the girls talk about their imaginary friends at least 10 times a day. What imaginations they have!!
4/24/06: The last few days were days of springtime gardening. On Thursday night, the whole family got out to the front yard and pulled weeds! Christian pulled out a little potato plant that hadn't grown any since we planted it last year, and he poured in a few bags of new soil. That evening we prepped the ground for new plants and flowers. We were out there until the sun went down. Friday night we all went shopping to buy our new flowers. We all chose what we wanted including Maddy and Emma. They each bought a strawberry plant to put in the window box. On Saturday morning we all planted the new flowers, arranged the garden decorations, and watered our new garden. It was a wonderful teamwork activity that we could all be proud of!
4/20/06: I had the kids pictures taken together at JCPenney on Tuesday. It is so hard to please me when it comes to professional pictures. I didn't think we got even one good picture. All of the kids behaved pretty good, it's just that we couldn't get a perfect smile from all three of them at the same time. It was extremely frustrating!! It's a whole lot easier being the photographer...not the mom. I guess we got a few decent ones. They'll be on this site next week so you can see for yourselves.
While at the mall on picture day, I bought some new summer clothes for the kids. I love to shop for them! I bought skirts and shirts for the girls and summer rompers for Landon. I was even able to match some of them...Love the matching!!
I found out today that my good friend, Kim Whieldon is pregnant!! (Bryce and Tayven's mom). This was a complete SHOCKER to them..totally unexpected, but they are excited. Congratulations Kim and Ryan!!
I added a bunch of pictures to the family page of this site. Check it out if you get the chance!! Some of them are kind of old.. but I finally got the extra time to update that page.
4/17/06: What a fabulous weekend we had! It was certainly a busy one, but fun! It rained on Friday night and Saturday morning so plans had to be adjusted a bit. The Easter Eggstravaganza went great! We did everything indoors even the egg hunt. All the kids who came had a good time.
The sedar went well too. Christian and his crew pulled off the kosher dinner for 100 people without a hitch! It was wonderful! He even made matza ball soup! It was delicious. Not bad for a Christain cook!
On Sunday morning the girls were up at the crack of dawn to see what the Easter Bunny brought for them. Maddy got a new Barbie and Barbie make-up, Emma got a princess phone with interchangeable faces, and Landon got a Baby Einstein toy. Plus other toys and things in their baskets. It was a fun but quick morning before we all got dressed up in our "Easter Sunday Best" and headed off to church. After church we put the kids down for naps and then went to Travel Town Train Museum for a picnic and egg hunt with the Ham family. Fortunately, the weather permitted a nice day in the park! The children all had a great time, and we got tons of fabulous pictures! It was really nice to do a picnic for Easter; I think we may make a tradition out of it. We'll see???!
4/11/06: Maddy is truly reading now. She can read any 3 letter phonetic word and sometimes even 4 letters. Any longer than that and she forgets the sounds in the beginning of the word. She is doing awesome!! We have been working on letter sounds for about 6 months. Now she is reading out of
Fast Track Phonics for Roots books. I taught elementary school for 6 years, but I never was in kindergarten or first grade to see how exciting it is when a student starts decoding words. Maddy is so excited with every new word she reads. The look on her face and the excitement in her whole body is priceless. It's almost magical to see her sound out each letter to put together a word. I'm so proud of her!
4/11/06: I added new movies to our Dropshots account. There's one of Landon in his Johnny Jumper and one of Maddy "reading". Click on the movie real to see them.
4/10/06: We had a nice weekend. It was nice to finally have the whole family well again. I missed two of my three work days last week staying home with sick kids.
We are looking forward to this weekend. It will definitely be a very busy one!! We will have our Good Friday service on Friday night. Christian has a small speaking part that night. Then, on Saturday morning I am in charge of the "Easter Eggstravaganza". It's a Easter carnival and Easter egg hunt for the neighborhood kids. Saturday night we are doing a Passover Sedar at church and Christian is the "head chef" for that. Easter Sunday we will go to church in the morning and then to my parents house in the afternoon for a family day and egg hunt for the cousins. We have overcommitted ourselves once again. But, it is a holiday weekend and being so involved at church and wanting to see family on Easter, we couldn't say no to any of these wonderful events! Look forward to tons of pictures after the weekend.
Christian is loving his job. He enjoys the people he works with and he is liking what he is learning in training. The hours are really good for him too. Praise God he found something fast and he is enjoying it so much!
4/6/06: I added new movies to our "Dropshots" account. Click on the picture of Emma singing to her rollie pollies to view the clips of the kids. Then, click on each of the pictures to view all 3 new clips. There's a really cute one of Landon laughing!
4/6/06: Things
around here have been pretty hectic with the the flu! Madeline had it first, then 3 days later Emma got it, then 2 days later I got it, and now I think Landon is coming down with it. He felt really warm this morning, and ate poorly yesterday. It starts with a fever and then into vomiting and then the fever continues for a day or two. It has been pretty bad. Last night Christian had a fever and he took some Airborn and Composine (a perscription medication that is supposed to stop vomitting). Thank the Lord, Christian got up and went to work today feeling fine today. He was really nervous about catching it, being his first week of work and all. Hopefully he's had all he's going to have, and we'll have this bug out of the house for good!!
4/3/06: Today was my first day on the job. The company is awesome. I will be in training for the next 2-3 weeks. There are two others in training with me. I am very humbled in being selected to be a part of such a prestigious company. Our trainer and the RVP of recruiting took us out to lunch today and the RVP, Chelsea, talked about how she selects candidates for job openings. She mentioned that on a weekly basis she will go through 250-300 resumes, select the top 30 and call them, then selects her top 10-15 for the next round which is face to face in the office and then selects the top 5 for the next round and then selects the best candidates from there for one or more openings. So to think that I made it from 250 possible candidates is very humbling. I am very happy.
The sad news, for Julie anyway, is that I am being sent to New York twice this year. Once in July for the annual company meeting and once in September for Advanced Finance Training. But, I will be in Rochester which is 6 hours northeast of New York City. So I won't to pretend to be Donald Trump or Gordon Gecko on Wall Street.
So all is well and I am very happy. I have much studying to do during the coming month and work will be hard. But if it weren't worth it, it would be easy. The company does reward handsomely for hard work with a company trip for the top performers to exotic locations throughout the world. Last year they all went to St. Kitts, this year will be in Maui for the winners and one guest. So you can rest assured that I will work hard towards earning my way there. Julie deserves an experience like that.
It is all so professional. We have a beautiful office on the 16th floor near South Coast Plaza and from my desk I can see all of north Orange County, LA, and the Inland Empire. I work in a building full of lawyers and of course we all have to wear shirts and ties if not Suits to work. Not quite as casual as ECCU, which is fine because I own so many dress shirts and ties. Honestly, I fret more about my wardrobe than most women do. I owe this habit to Burnie Thompson who taught me all about french cuffs and dressing like Cary Grant. Thanks Burnie, and all the retail men's clothiers thank you also. Anyway, got to go. Tune in next time for the next
Adventures in Equipment Lease Financing!!
3/31/06: Today we will be driving out to Agoura so my parents can watch the kids for us while Christian and I get to go out on a date. We are going to go to dinner and to the "Improv" for a nice evening out. It will be nice to be out just the two of us. Thankfully the grandparents on both sides are willing to help out and babysit once in awhile.We will stay the night in Agoura and then spend the afternoon with Sean, Michele, and Jen for a brunch with the kids. It will be a fun and busy weekend.
3/31/06: My e-mail address at work has changed. If any of you have e-mailed me at the "sunkistcommunitychurch" address over the last 2 weeks. I will not be able to retrieve those messages. My new work e-mail is:
julietorresluna@sbcglobal.net
. Since we closed our account, I don't have access to my old address book (drats!). I would like to compose a new new address book here at work. We don't have that many addresses at our home e-mail address book. Please e-mail me at my new work address if you get a chance. Thanks!! ~Julie
3/30/06: It was Maddy's turn to have the flu-bug. Poor baby woke up around midnight and had thrown up all over her pillow, night-night, and sheets. She was crying and not feeling well. Christian and I tag-teamed the clean-up and none of us got a good night sleep. Maddy was up continually getting sick all night long. We are all staying home for a quiet day while Maddy recoops (and we try to gain a few more winks of sleep).
3/29/06: We are all thrilled beyond words that Christian was hired into a great position at such a reputable company. He wasn't even out of work for a month. He will start working on Monday morning. His hours are 6:30 A.M. -3:30 P.M, which is great for traffic! They told him for the first while he will probably be working later than 3:30 though so that he could "fill his pipeline". Whatever it takes! We are so happy!!
Maddy has a doctor appointment today. She had all of her shots up to date, but she needs to have a TB test done for kindergarted registration. I don't think it's a really painful one, but she is our drama queen; We'll probably see tears.
Today is my last class at Santa Ana College. I enjoyed teaching college. If they offer the class to me again, I will accept it. It actually will be quite easy to do it again now that I have done it once. It took a lot of preparation this time, but I have saved everything and already read the text. So, next time it will be a piece of cake! Now that Christian has been hired at a new job so quickly, it will still be possible to use my Santa Ana College pay to take our trip to Pennsylvania to visit our friends, The Thompsons, in the fall. I can't wait to see them! We are just waiting for airfair to go down and we're in. We plan to travel with the Thompsons to New York while visiting also. What a memorable trip this will be!
3/27/06: For the last few weeks I have been interviewing at First American Capital Equipement Leasing Co. in Costa Mesa. I had my final interview today and was told I would have an answer tomorrow morning. While in an interview with another company this afternoon, they called home and spoke with Julie and told her I have the job. Poor Julie had to sit on the good news for almost 2 hours before I called home. We are very excited for this opportunity. Thank you all for your prayers and words of encouragement.
To learn about the company I will be working for, click on
the
$ sign above.
March 25, 2006: Maddy had the time of her life having a slumber party for her birthday. We invited 2 of her firiends, Karina and Maddy Lou. We let Madeline choose what was for dinner, snacks, and breakfast. She chose to have Happy Meals for dinner, gummy bears and popcorn for snack, and doughnuts and cheesy eggs for breakfast. All four of the girls behaved beautifully. It was easy to throw a party for these girls because they were all sooo good! The moment they arrived, they wanted to change into pajamas. So they did..and then into dress-up clothes, regular clothes, dress-up clothes and then pajamas again. We did two projects: scratch art and frame painting. They played in the toy area and in the girls' room. Then around 9:30 they settled down for a movie, Madagascar. They went to bed around 11PM and fell asleep around midnight. They all were up around 7:30 (that's sleeping in around here). Christian made breakfast and the girls played in the backyard. It was a fun party. If Maddy chooses, I would do it again next year. Emma looks forward to her own slumber party. We said she needs to wait til she turns five too.
March 23, 2006: Today we went to "Travel Town Train Museum" in Los Angeles. It was a really cool museum with free admission and picnic areas for lunch. It was a perfect half-way meeting place for us to meet up with the cousins. The children enjoyed climbing up onto the trains, looking at the covered wagons, and feeding the squirrels their lunch. We will definitely return in the future. We need to take advantage of being able to go out for long mornings with the kids. For the next 3 years, one or both of us will have a child in half-day kindergarten, so these adventerous outings will have to be saved up for the summers. Hey, maybe 5 or 6 years from now we'll have all the kids in school; and my sisters, my mom, and I will be able to get together for a relaxing cup of coffee or something?? Probably by then, we'll be taking Amanda's kids to Travel Town Museum for the day. Actually, I absolutely LOVE this time of life...I wouldn't trade in the time I have now with my kids for anything!!
They are a joy!!
To learn more about "Travel Town Train Museum", click on this red steam engine.
3/23/06: Christian was called back today for a fourth interview with First American Capital on Monday at 9:00 A.M. He has made it through all 4 phases of the interview process. Yipee!! This is the job he really wants; please pray that this last one goes well for him and they offer him the job.
He also got a call back from ITT Tech. They want to do a second interview with him on Monday morning too. He accepted it, but he will have to reschedule with them because it will conflict with the First American Capital interview. Hopefully they will accomodate him so he has this one as a back-up. The job search is going well for us. We appreciate your prayers for our family. Keep it up please..I think it's working! :-)
3/22/06: Christian had a phone interview with First American Capital on Friday of last week. They immediately scheduled an interview with him face to face for Monday morning. And now, as I am typing he is at a third interview with them right now (started at 10 AM). The company does a 4 interviews process. Christian is really excited about this company. It is a leasing company to "Fortune 500" companies. Christian has been thoroughly impressed with the people he has met, let's pray they are as impressed with him!
Yesterday he also had an interview with ITT Tech for a position open as a recruiter for their schools. He is not as thrilled with this position because it would include nights and/or weekends. But, he's not turning down interviews. The money is good, but the hours stink!
We have not heard from Ebbert Tools yet and Hope International University the pay was too low to even consider taking the job. The top runner as of yet is First American Capital. Keep sending the prayers up, we apprreciate em'!! Thanks.
3/20/06: Put on your thinking caps and take a fun little quiz about our family. Go to the front page and locate a white and
blue box. Click on the box to take the quiz. Enjoy!!
4/17/06: What a fabulous weekend we had! It was certainly a busy one, but fun! It rained on Friday night and Saturday morning so plans had to be adjusted a bit. The Easter Eggstravaganza went great! We did everything indoors even the egg hunt. All the kids who came had a good time.
4/11/06: Maddy is truly reading now. She can read any 3 letter phonetic word and sometimes even 4 letters. Any longer than that and she forgets the sounds in the beginning of the word. She is doing awesome!! We have been working on letter sounds for about 6 months. Now she is reading out of
Fast Track Phonics for Roots books. I taught elementary school for 6 years, but I never was in kindergarten or first grade to see how exciting it is when a student starts decoding words. Maddy is so excited with every new word she reads. The look on her face and the excitement in her whole body is priceless. It's almost magical to see her sound out each letter to put together a word. I'm so proud of her!
4/10/06: We had a nice weekend. It was nice to finally have the whole family well again. I missed two of my three work days last week staying home with sick kids. 
3/31/06: Today we will be driving out to Agoura so my parents can watch the kids for us while Christian and I get to go out on a date. We are going to go to dinner and to the "Improv" for a nice evening out. It will be nice to be out just the two of us. Thankfully the grandparents on both sides are willing to help out and babysit once in awhile.We will stay the night in Agoura and then spend the afternoon with Sean, Michele, and Jen for a brunch with the kids. It will be a fun and busy weekend.
March 25, 2006: Maddy had the time of her life having a slumber party for her birthday. We invited 2 of her firiends, Karina and Maddy Lou. We let Madeline choose what was for dinner, snacks, and breakfast. She chose to have Happy Meals for dinner, gummy bears and popcorn for snack, and doughnuts and cheesy eggs for breakfast. All four of the girls behaved beautifully. It was easy to throw a party for these girls because they were all sooo good! The moment they arrived, they wanted to change into pajamas. So they did..and then into dress-up clothes, regular clothes, dress-up clothes and then pajamas again. We did two projects: scratch art and frame painting. They played in the toy area and in the girls' room. Then around 9:30 they settled down for a movie, Madagascar. They went to bed around 11PM and fell asleep around midnight. They all were up around 7:30 (that's sleeping in around here). Christian made breakfast and the girls played in the backyard. It was a fun party. If Maddy chooses, I would do it again next year. Emma looks forward to her own slumber party. We said she needs to wait til she turns five too.
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