The Jones Girls

Today is our 10th annual Arabic Dinner Family Reunion.    I was up late last night and got up at 6am this morning to get a good head start.     Everyone would start showing up at 3pm.

Our friend, Nadia, has triplets that are turning 2 and today is their birthday party at La Habra Heights Park.   So at 9:00am I began getting the girls ready for the birthday party.  Cliff left at 10am to take the girls to the party.  

This gave me an advantage to get a lot of work done.    My brother, Rob, helped me so much (thank you my dear brother!).

The girls came home at 12pm noon.  They played their video games and I continued to prepare the food and the house for the party.   I took a quick shower.

Everything was ready and my family began coming over at 3pm.    We had lots of good food, wine and most importantly the grandest time catching up with each other.  We took a lovely family group photograph.

What a wonderful evening!!

Today is the last day of the school year for Maryssa’s speech class.  She will continue again in September and will go Monday and Fridays.

Today we brought her Speech teacher, Miss Shelly Marker, the baked cupcakes and cookies that we had decorated the night before when I babysat Corrie’s kids.    We also brought her a little vegetable garden that we had planted with seedlings with a little note that says “Thank you for helping me grow”.   We gave her a Thank you card with a $5 Panera Bread gift certificate in it.

Maryssa got to pick a prize from the treasure box.  She had a fun day today at speech.

 When we got home, my brother, Rob, showed up to help me prepare the Arabic food for tomorrow’s party.  He was such a huge help!

Feli, previously our nanny who now comes once a week to tidy the house for a few hours, came over to tidy things up for me in preparation for tomorrow’s party.

Then Rob and I went out to dinner and had sushi and went for a nice walk in the neighborhood.   

It was a nice day!!

Last week at Savannah’s Kindy class the kids and her teacher’s fiance, surprised the teacher with a wedding engagement proposal. Here is the video link. Savannah is holding the letter “O” for the word “YOU” in WILL YOU MARRY ME? So cute!!   Congradulations Miss Chrissy Tarbell!!  When the triplets have her in Kindy, she will have a new last name!!

Check it out  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1Om-NDOuQg

Tonight Cliff and I took the girls to Summerfest in Brea.   It is the world’s largest Catholic private school carnival.    It is an annual event going on over 25 years now and it is organized by the student’s parents.   They have top notch entertainment such as Peter Frampton and all sorts of different and awesome performers. 

Tonight Pat Benatar was performing!!   It is a free concert so I wanted to go and see her.  So when we arrived there, it was 6:30pm.  She was scheduled to appear at 7:30pm.    After many ice creams later, no Pat Benatar. It was past 7:30pm by now.  Our poor girls were having melt downs.

So we left our wonderful point of view spot and headed over to the rides.   We got some tickets and the girls did a really fun roller coaster ride. They screamed so loud and it was hilarious!  Then we went on the horse carousel.   It was now 8:15pm and Cliff was about done.  He wanted to go home.

So we went over to my friend, Wendy Rice, booth. She was volunteering to do the 50/50 raffle.    I asked if I could stay with her at the booth and watch Pat Benatar and if she would drive me home afterwards so that Cliff could come home with the girls.  She said sure…and then she suprised me with a wristband…on the wristband it said “VIP”.    Hmmmm….what was this?  So she walked me over to where Cliff and I had originally been to watch Pat Benatar which was adequate enought to watch.   She kept walking past that spot and then walked over to the VIP section.  We showed our wrist bands and they let us in.   She escorted me to where she has reserved two seats that morning…in the SIXTH ISLE,,,,FRONT AND CENTER!!   OMG!!    

So we chatted for a bit as we sat excitedly waiting for Pat Benatar to make her appearance.   Finally, at 9:30pm, Pat entered the stage.   I tell you, we were so close I could see every detail.    It was so amazing.    Wendy and I sang all of the songs along with Pat Benatar.    Her husband, the guitarist, would through out his guitar pick every 15 minutes to the audience for someone to get.  It was so neat!!

She performed beautifully.  She explained some of the songs and what they were about.   Then she got a standing ovation and performed a few more songs.  Things wrapped up at about 11pm.   

Wendy, thank you so much for giving me such a wonderful gift!!     I had the most incredible time with you my dear friend!!

Thank you to all of those that fought for our freedom in our beloved country.  I honor you today.

Today Savannah is out of school and I was planning on taking the girls to Adventure City.  I came down with a bladder infection…pain!!  So we didn’t get to go to Adventure City.

So I took the girls and we got in at Urgent Care at 1:45pm.   We met with the dr. and she gave me a prescription to clear up the bladder infection.  Whew!!

Today is a huge milestone for Savannah.  When she was just turning 3 years old, I had her evaluated for speech, development, and physical delays.  She met all of the criteria at the tender young age of 3 and attended Meadow Green school Special Ed Preschool.  Her all time favorite and unforgettable preschool teacher was Mrs. Van Vliet.

Mrs. Van Vliet is an amazing teacher and speech pathologist that specializes in helping children meet the goals in delays.  She did a exceptional job preparing Savannah for Kindergarten.

So Savannah entered Kindergarten taking speech twice a week.    This year she has progressed well and the result from our IEP meeting  a few days ago meant that today is Savannah’s last day of speech.

This morning I decorated pretty, summery cupcakes to bring and surprise her in speech class.  We are going to party..this is a huge accomplishment for Savannah!!

Savannah received a beautiful graduation certificate at her party.  It put tears in my eyes.  I am so very proud of my sweet Savannah!!

I had an appointment today at Savannah’s school for Savannah’s annual speech evaluation.   Corrie, my friend, watched the triplets for me while I was in the meeting.

Savannah’s speech teacher is Darcy.   Savannah was with us at the meeting as well as Savannah’s teacher, Miss Tarbell, and the school psychologist.     We went over the test scores, from when Savannah was 3 years old in 2007 to currently at 6 years old in Kindergarten.  and her receptive language is average to above average.  Her expressive is average.  She scored a little low in certain expressive areas. 

The end result is that Savannah has progressed so well, making it by leaps and bounds since she was 3 years old….. she is graduating from speech!!    We did discuss the idea that I would like a progress report the 1st trimester of 1st grade to make sure she hasn’t fallen behind and to re-evaluate if she needs more speech.

I cried my eyes out.    At that very moment, I was the proudest momma on earth!!     I love you my dear, sweet, smart and amazing Savannah!!  I love you!!