Government Spending at its Finest

So I come home last night to find two HUGE piles of tree limbs in our front yard. What the heck?! Apparently, FEMA hired Asplundh to come through our neighborhood and cut any and all branches that were over 2" in diameter. Not branches that were interfering with power lines, but any and all branches that were over 2" in diameter. So...they went to town on our trees.

I am LIVID! What a gross misappropriation of taxpayer dollars. And how can this even be legal? How can the government order a company to go onto private property and cut trees?! Last I checked, the trees on OUR property belonged to us?! Cutting large limbs from old trees like they did to ours can send a tree into shock, and end up killing it. One of the greatest things about our house and our neighborhood are the huge, old oak trees in our front and back yard. We have spent a good deal of money shaping those trees only to come home to find that they were arbitrarily whacked at. Unbelievable!

I've sent a letter to my city councilmember and to all 4 local news stations. Hopefully this will draw some attention to this matter. Ugh! Another fine example of our government at work!

And the little one said, "Roll over..."

When I drop Bella off at school in the morning, I usually hang out for about 15 - 20 minutes, playing with her and the other rugrats.

Well, this morning, Bella was laying on her blankie and kept rolling over to her side, like she's been doing for weeks now. Only this time, she was *this close* to rolling over all the way! Ms. Cindy (her teacher) and I would get so excited because she was so close to flipping all the way over, but she'd catch herself and roll back onto her back. We joked that as soon as I left, she'd probably roll over on her own.

It was time to go, so I walked over to her cubbie to fill out her sheet for the day and I hear Ms. Cindy going, "Oh, oh, oh...". I look over and there goes our little princess, rolling all the way over on her own. YAY!!! So exciting!!! Of course, she probably won't do it again for a while since she seemed a bit startled by it all. But I was so happy to be able to see her do it in person. I'm just sad that Sean wasn't there to witness it.

Fun Weekend

What a great weekend we had. Fall Festival on Friday night (at Bella's school), nice dinner date with my handsome hubby on Saturday night (grammie kept Bella) and Texans football on Sunday. All in all it was a fantastic weekend.

Friday night was Bella's school's Fall Festival. Grammie met us at the school and we spent a few hours on Friday night "playing". We had a yummy barbeque dinner, then bid on a few of the silent auction items. My mom made a jewelry set for the silent auction and we were anxious to see how much it would go for. When we left at around 7:30, the bid was up to $70. Seeing as how it cost $100 to make, we hope it ended up going for more than that!! Sean and I had to work one of the booths for 30 minutes so grammie entertained Bella in the gym (too many mosquitos and wild kids outside!). Our 30 minute shift ended up turning into an hour since our relief never showed up but oh well. We had fun! We worked the "Giant Bowling" booth and had a blast watching the little ones try to knock down the big pins. Sean ended up teaching the kids to throw the ball instead of rolling it, so bowling turned into a cross between football and basketball. HA! Not sure that's what the organizers planned, but oh well.

After we finished our shift, it was back inside for the cake walk. I did two rounds of the cake walk while Sean fed Bella. Unfortunately, I didn't win a dessert, but it was sure fun trying. By 7:30, Bella was ready to go home, as were mommy, daddy and grammie. So, we made our last few bids on the silent auction items we wanted and headed home for nighty-night.

Saturday night Sean and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniverary. We had plans to dine at Ouisie's, but neither one of us wanted to dress up for dinner so we changed our plans last minute and ended up going to our favorite restaurant, La Griglia, for dinner. YUM! We stuffed ourselves with pizza bread and I had a few glasses of tasty red wine. Sean had medallions of beef and I had the tasties lamb chops ever!!! We ordered dessert to go (cheesecake for Sean and Heath Bar cake for me) and headed out to put our PJs on. You'd expect us to have a romantic evening since we were childless for the night, right? WRONG! We were asleep by 10PM. HA!

Sunday we went to the Texans game with our dear friends, Frank and Kara Kotlarz and their two boys, Parker and Carson. It was a last minute decision to go to the game (thanks for letting us tag along, Frank and Kara!) and we had a blast. Granted, the Texans played sloppy and we ended up losing, but we still had fun! Yummy food, great company and getting to spend a few hours with two of the cutest boys on the planet = the perfect ending to a wonderful fall weekend.

These pics were snapped on the ride home. Poor Parker and Carson were wiped out from the game. I think these pictures are adorable!!

This Little Girl Needs a Miracle

My mom works with a really nice guy named Ross. Ross and his wife, Gretchen, have a little girl, Maclaren. Now, from what I've heard, Ross and Gretchen tried for years to have a child. They wanted to be parents like you wouldn't believe. After all, everyone deserves to experience the wonderfulness that comes with being a mommy or a daddy.

Well, a few years ago, Ross and Gretchen were finally blessed with a child! But the sheer joy and happiness that comes with having a child was soon overshadowed by something else: fear and sadness as Ross and Gretchen discovered that something wasn't quite right with Maclaren.

I will leave the rest of the story for you to read below. Once you've read it, if you feel so moved, PLEASE make a donation to the TIRR Foundation in Maclaren's honor! As a parent, I can't imagine what it must be like to wonder if your child will ever have a "normal" life. Little Maclaren is soooo cute, and she deserves to be given every chance to live life as any young girl would. We are blessed to live in a city that has a cutting edge medical community and maybe, just maybe, Maclaren's miracle will come sooner rather than later. But in order for that to happen, funds needs to be raised to move this study along. Won't you help out? Sean and I did...now it's YOUR turn.

Donations can be made here: http://www.tirrfoundation.org/?id=231.

Maclaren's story (click on the image and it will open up as the full-size image):

A House Divided

Today is election day (and our 2 year wedding anniversary, to boot!). In the Aguilar house, we are a house divided. Though I started the election on the Obama side, I ended up on the McCain side. Sean, on the other hand, still firmly remains on the Obama side. So...essentially our votes cancel each other out. But that's okay...I'm just excited to get to vote in this historic election. No matter the outcome, the 2008 presidential election will be one for the history books: by the end of the day today, we will either have the first African American President or the first female Vice President. No matter which way you look at it, the end result will be a historic one!

I think it's fantastic that our country has progressed in such a way that both of the above can happen. To think that African Americans used to be treated as second class citizens and that slavery was okay. Now its looking like we will elect an African American man as President. And women used to not even be allowed to vote, and now we may have a woman one heartbeat away from being President. These are exciting times, my friends!

I'm nervous about the election. I don't think either candidate is the "perfect" candidate, but I worry about what will happen if the wrong candidate is elected. I'm not sure which one is the "wrong" candidate, but I worry about the next year. I worry that, if Obama is elected, some crazy white supremicist will take him out. That could start a race war unlike any we've seen. I worry that if McCain is elected, we will be subjected to another "Bush presidency". I worry about taxes, and my 401(k) plan, and both candidates health plans, and national security. I worry about the world that our little Isabella will inherit down the road. But for today...I am going to try to enjoy the excitement surrounding this election. After all...today IS our 2 year wedding anniversary. That's a good thing, right?

Bella's First Halloween

Friday was Bella's first Halloween. What a fun day it was!! She went trick-or-treating at daycare, and come home with a baby pumpkin and a pumpkin sippy cup. Grammie came over to see her all dressed up in her very first costume (a sunflower). We weren't sure how Bella was going to take to being dressed up, but she seemed to love it, at least for a little while. I think she was tolerating the costume for the sake of mommy, daddy and grammie who thought she was adorable!!

We didn't do any trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. Still too young for that. But, we did answer the door once or twice, but alas...little princess was fast asleep before the bulk of the trick-or-treaters started coming by.