Brave little one!

My little guy today went to preschool and it seemed as though all was going well, until it came to the final moment of saying goodbye and then it happened! The panic, the crying & screaming and Mommy (me of course) had to do an about face and say good bye with a lump on her throat, as I watched from a distance the teacher cradling him and consoling him as I normally would. The temptation was there to run in and grab him and tell him it was going to be ok, but I held back!

I had a strange feeling this was going to happen, because his goodbye was very similar yesterday the only thing was that he put on that BRAVE look on his face as I walked out of the room, as if though he was putting up the front just for me. Today he was just not as strong, poor little guy....he really was trying to be a Brave little one for me again.

Hopefully, tomorrow it will be better.

So how did the 1st day of school go?

Azriel was certainly happy and excited as you can see in these pictures! He was getting himself ready this morning as if it was the best thing happening to him. He brushed his teeth, got dressed and put on his shoes like the big boy that he is and was so excited that he didn't even want to eat breakfast. He just wanted to go!

The drive went smooth, (it's only 5 minutes away) but with it being the first day of school it took us about 10 minutes extra to get there, that still not too bad.

Once we pulled into the school parking lot, the question "Mommy, are you staying with me?" uuuuugh! Of course, I had to be honest and tell him that "Mommy was going to leave him so he can play in the playground and would be back later to pick him up". He whined a little, but he jumped off the van when it was time to walk to his classroom. Once in the classroom, I said my goodbyes and THEN......the CLING! "No mommy, don't leave" uuuuugh! His teacher was great, she called him and walked towards him and picked him up and there was peace, I said my goodbyes once again and braced myself as I jolted for the door and was able to leave without any further drama.

Oh but how I wanted to cry after I left him and how I miss him, after a whole summer of having him home with me day in and day out.

Ok! Ok! It's only until 2:30 pm and I will have him back to hold, love, and hug all I want, and then.... I will wish it was 8:30 am again! LOL!!! I love that cutie of mine.

Meet the Teacher Day!!

Today was Meet the Teacher day at the elementary school where my 4yr. old will be attending this school year. I was a bit aprehensive at first, since this will be a whole new experience for my son this year; New School, New Teacher, New friends, etc. etc. However, I felt so much better to see that when I registered him earlier this summer he actually wanted to stay at the school, but as anyone with children in the Autism Spectrum know, things can change in a snap!

I am glad to say that it was a great day! He embraced the whole process of preparing to go to the school and visiting with his new teacher and potential classmates. Once there, he was a bit shy at first but loosened quite quickly when he saw other children show up and that mommy was actually staying today. He talked with his teacher (which is only 21 yrs. old) and his fellow classmates, and played throughout the room as though he had been there before. Even though his teacher is quite young I must say I feel pretty good about how the school year will go. Last year being our first year of Pre-K was not a positive experience at all, but I really felt comfortable on how things went today, her level of preparedness and willingness to answer questions made me and other parents quite happy and comfortable with her. Hopefully, when Monday comes around the transition of dropping him off will be just as smooth as the visit was today! (Wishful thinking! LOL!) I will report to let you all know how that goes.

Junkitz Gals "My CKU Instructors"

Here are the photos of some of the fun we had while in this class with the Junkitz Team! From left to right: Stacey, Janna, ME, and Theresa!




You can see they were goofy, corky and fun and they danced too!! They loved to dance each day in class and got most of us going and participating in the dance!
Of course we were put to work hard it wasn't all fun and games, LOL!! This picture says it all! LOL!!! As I have mentioned before, I LOVED IT and would do it again in a heart beat.

CKU was the Bomb-diggidy!!!

Wow, I can't say enough about this CKU-Albums, it was AWESOME and by my experience it was the best I have been to. It was great having an Album Track and having that focus on that particular project and of course the opportunity of learning from the best of the best in this awesome Industry. I am so glad that I made the decision to go and I thank my dear friend and upline Jan for "teasing me" with the idea of going to CKU during TLC's convention this year. Jan you ROCK!! Thanks! I had the opportunity to meet and take photos with the STARS of the Scrapbooking World! If anyone knows me they know that I love Ali Edwards, I totally find her style so out of my box and she inspires me to think out of it. She is also an awesome spokes person for Autism, since she too shares the experience of having a child in the spectrum. Due to performing in the Dorm Contest we won some prizes and I was able to get her latest book, Ali was kind enough to sign it for me. This was a great and fun experience, and if you Scrapbook I highly recommend you attend a CKU!

Here I am with Becky, Cathy Z., Tim Holtz & Stacey (Junkitz owner & Artist)! These are just some of the Scrapbooking Industry Stars and some very talented and cool people, love 'em all!

I certainly don't want to forget to highlight my AWESOME Album Track teachers the infamous Junkitz Gals "Stacey, Janna & Theresa" I soooooo enjoyed their class, the album was great and these ladies are just so totally off the top COOL & CRAZY!!! They even danced every day in our class and got the students involved to dance with them too! LOL!! It was absolutely a fun class and I even dare to say the BEST Album track there!

I'm having trouble uploading the image of my wonderful CKU instructors, but I will create a new post with their pictures so you can see how much fun they were!

Off to CKU!!

These past few days I have been busy preparing myself for CKU, gathering pictures, supplies for the classes, etc. etc. For those of you wondering, CKU stands for Creating Keepsakes University! I am heading to Atlanta GA to join some of my TLC friends and others to have a week of intense Scrapbooking Classes with the best and elite of the industry. I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a CKU here in Orlando last year with my upline Jan Pepe and I LOVED IT!!!! It was totally the best experience and I came home with sooooo much STUFF!! Its just a blast, plus our DORM (Group of Ladies) won the Singing Contest! Yes we sang and WON!!! So you know we did something right, LOL.

In any case, our DORM this year has entered the Singing Contest and we were nominated to perform among other competitors, so I will have to let you know how we do this year! So keep your fingers crossed for me and my DORM. For more information on CKU go to www.creatingkeepsakes.com you will see the link to CKU on the left! This year I am participating in CKU Albums I believe it is even more intricate and intense than last year the goal is to come home with 2 completed Albums, so I am siked! I was planning on uploading some pictures from last years CKU but Blogger is having issues and is not allowing uploads at this moment and I really have to get going and get ready for my upcoming trip, it's a 7hr. drive from here. So I will catch you all when I come back on the 30th!!!

10 things I learned in high school "not" on the curriculum

1. How to cut class
2. How to cut class and get away with it for 90 days
3. How to forge my deans signature for the hall pass
4. How to kiss a boy
5. What an important fact "fashion" was
6. The true meaning of "Peer Pressure"
7. Being with the "IN" crowd
8. That I was pretty
9. What a broken heart felt like
10. Pay back!

Crazy & Busy day..............

1. Make breakfast for my boys and their friends that are sleeping over
2. Wash some loads of clothing
3. Enter some orders from TLC in my database
4. Call potential recruits
5. Call some of the customers regarding their orders
6. Work on CKU homework
7. Go to the post office
8. Stop at the Dollar store (4yr. old request)
9. Get lunch together
10. Run out to get some additional items for dinner at the store (forgot to do that while out the first time)
11. Cook dinner for this large crowd of eight tonight (6 of them being males) talk about being hungry.......LOL!!
12. Go to Walmart with my 18 yr old
13. Stop at Blockbuster to rent a game for the kids tonight
14. 12 midnight Put my feet up with a nice cup of hot tea!

10 Unforgettable Moments in My Life- Blog prompt

1. Getting my ears pierced at age 16
2. The day I married my soulmate
3. November 10, 1987 - The birth of my 1st born son
4. 1987/1988 - The year that Louie joined the Air Force and we moved from NYC to Georgia and really became independent adults.
5. September 29, 1990 - The birth of my second son while his Daddy was away in Saudi Arabia fighting in the Gulf War. Louie did not see our son until 8 months later.
6. 1995 the year we got the keys to our very own 1st home here in Florida
7. February 23, 1998 - The day an F4 Tornado destroyed our home
8. The news of my 3rd pregnancy(while planning to have my tubes tied)
9. 9/11/01 - The day of my 1st prenatal visit and the morning of the Twin Towers Tragedy
10. February 6, 2002 - Azriel's premature birth at only 26 weeks into the pregnancy 3 months too early, weighing only 1 1b & 8 oz and measuring 12 inches long and no promises for the future.
11. April 17, 2002 - The day we brought Azriel home from the hospital after 72 days in NICU

I know the Blog prompt was for 10 but I had to edit my post and mention the birth of my second son since it was a very difficult time for us as a family and one that I will never forget.

Digital Scrapooking

I am so proud to say that Top Line Creations is the first Direct Sales Scrapbooking Company to launch and tap into the Digital Scrapbooking market. I received the LifeTimez software the other day and began to play with it immediately. I have never scrapbooked digitally before and by the look of these pages you can see that even those with no experience can use this software. It is just so easy and I love it!!!! Now all those photos I have that I have not done anything with can find a beautiful home and I can share them easier with family and friends. For more information on this software you can go to my website at www.simplescrappin.com or visit my TLC website at www.topline-creations.com/scrapmania. Here are a few pages that I did using this awesome new software!!!

Where has the Summer gone?

Wow time sure flies when you are having fun! Summer is certainly a great fun time and I have been quite busy this year around. My fun and crazy (I mean that with love) cousins came in to visit with us and we had such a great time.

We also had a 4th of July BBQ with our closest friends and family and it was a nice time for everyone. We really enjoyed having everyone over. Here are some pictures of both my family visiting and also the 4th of July. Since I haven't posted in almost a month I figured I would go ahead and make up for some lost time on this post.


Here are my cousins from PR, Pennsylvania and New York City.

From left to right (Nirma - PR, Bky - PA, Helen - NY and Bky's sons Christian & Danny)





*** 4th of July FUN!! ***

Angela & Angel having fun at the pool!


Azriel enjoying the spa............



Our friends Angel & Marie



My uncle David & his lovely wife Wanda



Me and my cousin Ephraim & his wife Nancy!



Our friend Miguel with his son Sammy!


My mom relaxing by the pool

My lovely hubby!

Family visits are starting so Summer is definitely here!

Ok you know when Summer is here when you start getting calls from family members that will be coming into town. Here in Florida, we are used to having these yearly visits and I don't know about everyone else but I enjoy them (Nirma, if you are reading this post I will definitely be returning your call, just been a bit busy). I have family members flying in from Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico and I am so excited to see them once again.

I come from a very large family and sometimes it's hard to keep up with each other, but thanks to modern technology, emails, cell phones, blogs, etc. etc. we are able to keep communications with each other on a more frequent basis. My grandparents had 11 children together, there are 38 grandchildren, 41 great grandchildren & 2 great-great grandchildren all together. Now talk about a mini tribe! That makes a grand total of 94 of u (including the grandparents). Whew! Now you can see why it is definitely hard for us to keep tabs on each other, but overall we are pretty tight and try to keep up with all that is going on in this large family of ours.

Here are the lovely grandparents that started it all!

Name some things you are thankful for:

It's not thanksgiving but I figured this was a good prompter and we certainly need to be grateful more than once a year.

I'm thankful for several things:

1. My Life
2. My health
3. My Husband (the best thing that ever happened to me)
4. My Kids (The Joy & pride of my life)
5. Gods provision in my life (I can't thank him enough)
6. My Family (what a crazy one too, but I love them all)
7. My Friends (what a great bunch)
8. Scrapbooking (such a wonderful outlet)
9. TLC (The best Scrapbooking Company out there)
10. MY wonderful TLC team! (Certainly couldn't be where I am without you)
11. My Awesome Upline! (Thanks for teaching me and letting me know TLC was right for me)
12. For CKU and my CKU Buddies!

So what can you think of today, that you can be thankful for?

Cars - This Movie was cute and funny!

WOW! We all had a great time watching this movie, and
we laughed hysterically. Besides Lightning McQueen, Mater was by far one of our favorites.

The little town that the movie focused on called Radiator Springs was a special little place and I couldn't agree more with my friend Jan that everyone needs a little bit of Radiator Springs in their life!

I think I'll buy this movie once it comes out on DVD for sure! It's a must have for our Disney Collection!

By the way telling Azriel we were going to see the movie Cars once the haircut was done worked like a charm! :)

Fun Saturday!!

Cars the new Disney Pixar movie is out in Theatres! My little guy is going bonkers over this movie, so Dad and I are taking him today to view this new Disney Pixar film. I am a bit excited about it myself I must say.

First we plan to take him to his favorite hair cuttery place "Cool Cuts 4Kids" not sure if you have one of these in your area but its a "Salon designed with kids in mind". Kids can choose their favorite movies or play the latest Nintendo Game Cube games while they get a haircut! They even have an enclosed play area set up with Thomas the Train for younger children. It's just awesome, because if anyone knows my Azriel he is simply obsessed with playing video games and so he will play and keep himself busy while he gets his hair cut. What a wonderful combination! Getting him to leave is another story, LOL!!! The best part is that because only kids get their hair done in this Salon, their are no bleach or hair dye scents in the environment, keeping Azriel very calm and happy. Children that live with Autism are very sensitive to certain scents and simply can't cope with them, and Hair dye or bleach scents just don't sit well with him. So we are absolutely thrilled that there is a "Cool Cuts 4Kids" near us! Since getting him to leave is such a challenge we try to plan something exciting for after the haircut (amooth transitioning is very important) so today it's "We're going to see the movie Cars", that will definitely work! I will let you know.

It's the Little Things!

Have you ever played hide and go seek with a 4 yr. old? I tell you they have a way of making you forget the aches, the pains, the fact that your body is indeed getting older. Playing hide and go seek was the call of the day and oh boy did I have fun, especially in our new house since there are so many places to hide now.

As I was hiding from my son, and waiting for him to find me I can hear his little feet running on the carpet from room to room and at times I heard his giggles and excitement of thinking he had found me. (Incredible that with all his challenges in life he still has the ability to understand this simple concept of HIDE & GO SEEK!) I couldn't help but laugh all by myself and at one point I laughed so hard that a giggle noise popped out and I gave away my location, but I just loved playing the game and going back into time sort of speak! It really is a different place in my motherhood experience and one that I intend to enjoy to the fullest!

Being the mom of a 4 yr. old, 15 yr. old, and 18 yr.old bring many happy & special moments but it really is the little things that matter and that you will cherish the most!

Letting our birds fly

Well today my first born son Luis (18 yrs. old) went off to New Jersey for a months vacation. He has been telling me about his plans for some time now, so I did have a chance to get "somewhat" prepared for this. His main purpose for this trip is to visit his girlfriend which lives out in New York and is very soon moving out to P.R. He also has family out in New Jersey and New York that he will be spending time with, and we are very happy about that.

However, as a parent you always feel uncertain that they are ready to fly on their two wings. As a mother you feel the need to shelter them from the worlds dangers and protect them from any harm. Children do grow and before you know it they are chasing their own dreams, pursuing their own goals and creating their own future. It's not easy to accept that I have learned.

My experience so far as a mother of a teenager growing into adulthood has not been a bad one, I certainly have nothing to complain about. He is a great son, a wonderful brother and an excellent friend to his peers. He has done very well in school and graduated from H.S. with a 3.5 GPA. He has certainly made us PROUD to be his parents.

I had a hard time accepting his purpose for the trip, but quietly have prayed that it all works out for good in the end. There are just some things that we must let them learn on their own, and live out in their lives. I too was young once and remember how bold, and persistent and determined I was, and nothing anyone could say would change my outlook on MY LIFE. Not easy for us to stand back as parents and see it all play out, without interfering, is it? There are really just some things you can't change or stop your children from doing. We must teach them how to fly and when the time comes we have to just stand back and allow them to spread those wings and let them fly.

House photos!!! FINALLY! :)

Ok so we finally moved in to the house, it's been 5 weeks now since we moved in. I had promised some more updated photos of the house when it was done and so here they go. Moving is a whole lot of work and unpacking I think is worse, trying to situate yourself and find a place for everything that already had a place is kind of strange and time consuming. In the photos I tried to minimize the view of the mess of moving, so hopefully you will only see the "beauty" in this whole process and not the "craziness", LOL!!! Just keep in mind it is all a work in Progress. :)

Ok now that you have seen the first floor let's go to the second floor!!!

This is definitely a Scraproom in progress and technically it's my husbands "office" its just that I took over! LOL!!