More music videos

I had to look for some newer videos by Marques Houston (formerly in Immature, see previous video). I saw a couple of videos on TV that I didn't dig too much but found some better ones on You Tube. I really like this one, he still got a good voice.



I saw this Swedish hip hop video the other day. Best Swedish hip hop I've heard. It's PHAT (= FETT BRA eller TUUUNG). The video is shot in the ghetto of Stockholm.



Digga digga digga! :)

Sorry, I know the width of thses videos are wrecking my design, but it's worth it. :D

Me back in the day, west side baby!! Just kidding, hahaha. My only excuse is I was a teenager and a huge fan of 2pac. Still a fan of course.

And speaking of 2pac! Here we go....

YEEEAAAHH!!!!! Next month it's 13 years since he passed away. I still remember the day I found out like it was yesterday. R.I.P. Tupac.

Nightmares

Three of us had nightmares last night, Hakeem, Javari, and me. What are the odds? I raraely have nightmares but the one I had last night was really weird. I don't rememeber too much of what happened but two kids accidentally died, not mine luckily. One was exploded by a laser bomb thingy(???). Two men were the actual target but the kid was too close. The other kid's death was more creepy I think, I don't quite want to remember it.When we told the mother two of her children died on the camping trip she passed out. Never had a dream like that before, not normal. In Javari's dream we were all chased by a robot that had spikes on his knuckles. Hakeem was chased by monsters from Dark Gaia (something in Sonic). I think we're only watching Sesame Street from now on. LOL
Nightmares aside, Hakeem starts second grade tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it being more quiet and no fighting during the days. What I don't look forward to is taking Hakeem to the bus stop at 7:30 in the morning, meaning I have to get up at 6am. :( Dequan goes to sleep around 1am so that's not much sleep for me. Hopefully he'll get more tired at night when we start getting up earlier. *fingers crossed*

Here's a video with one of my favorite songs of all times, sweetest voices ever. Love the 90's.

Open houses

It was a busy day today, or maybe I should say yesterday since it's 1:30am now. We started this morning with an open house at Javari's new preschool. There's lots to play with there and they have different areas with a play kitchen, train table, lego building, drawing, etc. Javari likes it there but he thought there were too many people today. It was really packed as they had one open house for all the classes. He was too shy to say hi to the teachers but I'm sure he'll be more comfortable once class starts in two weeks. Hakeem and Dequan had fun playing there as well, and Dequan was putting everything he could find into his mouth. Hopefully he won't get sick!

Inside the preschool.

Outside the preschool.

After that we went to McDonald's for lunch and some more play. Hakeem has mentioned several times today that Dequan got his first McDonald's toy ever. It's a special occasion I suppose. :)

Dequan with his new toy, a submarine.

The older two played "red light green light" with a bunch of kids. Javari told me he had found new friends, cute.

Hubby was working in the morning but he came along for Hakeem's open house in the evening. My big boy is going to seond grade, wohoo! Interesting how the do the classes though. In Sweden we have the same class mates for the first 9 years of school. Hakeem's class has been split up and mixed with other classes. In his new class there are three kids from his old class (out of the kids that were there today). I don't know if this an American thing or just his school. I wonder why they do that. They also have a new teacher every year, whereas in Sweden you normally have the same teacher for the first 3-6 years.

New class room and teacher this year.

Just can't get them all to look at the same time.

Starting next week I have to get up super early in the mornings. Feels awesome when I've been on an entirely different schedule all summer. Better get used to it.

Running around kind of day

Today was a running around kind of day. Hubby came home from work early so I took the opportunity to go shopping without kids. Not shopping for clothes or for fun unfortunately. We're having a back to school/new member potluck with our playgroup on Wednesday so I had to get a bunch of stuff for that plus some groceries. First I went to a dollar store and Walmart. Then I went home and breastfed the baby real quick. Then out again to two more stores. At one of the stores I enjoyed an ice cream sundae all by myself. That is luxury because I could actually think for a few minutes. After I came back home I had to put school supply gifts together for the potluck and prepared all the paper work for Hakeem's school and put some school supplies in Hakeem's backpack. It's one week left till he starts but it's nice to prepare early sometimes. I'm usually a last minute kind of gal but I'm trying to get better. :)

Here are some pictures from this past week's fun...

Javari eating a donut at Krispy Kreme. Yep, that's my son.

No donuts for Dequan yet.

Sitting pretty in the dentist's waiting room...for 2 seconds.

Hakeem's getting pretty good at it.

Javari's turn...watch out!

Sweet child of mine.

Videos!

I finally managed to get the videos off my camera. I could not find them when trying to upload them on the PC, been trying for months. Just tried it now on the laptop and they were right there. The first one is Dequan and I filmed it last week while in the waiting room at the dentist's.

This is Dequan a few months ago. He's screaming till he's choking, so funny. :)

I hope I can capture Dequan doing some sign language. He's doing a couple of signs already - "milk" and "more". I love that he can say something to me. Hopefully it will minimize some frustration and screaming. We already have way too much screaming in this house. All the boys, including my husband, are extremely loud. My mom will probably die when she comes here. She always has the volume on the TV down so low that I can barely hear it at all. When hubby has the TV on it's on the highest volume. I hate it and I think my mom hates it even more. Oh, and my sister is even more sensitive. Last time we visited her she would cover her ears when Hakeem and Javari got loud. That is hysterical to me, hahaha.

This morning we went bowling and then we went by Javari's preschool to drop off the final papers. He's all set for school now. Next Friday we have two open houses to attend at Hakeem and Javari's schools. Luckily they're not at the same time. Speaking of school...I used to be so against school uniforms. Like "no way in hell my kid will wear that! But then Hakeem started a magnet school in first grade where uniforms are required. Now I actually like it. He doesn't need much clothes and I don't have to put an outfit together, just make sure he has a clean shirt and khakis. They don't have to wear a suit jacket at least, that would be horrible. It's just a collar shirt and khakis in a few color choices. It's pretty nice that the kids don't have to worry about labels or what they're going to wear and what others are wearing (other than the shoes maybe). So more focus toward school and studying. Only downside is that I didn't buy much clothes to wear outside of school so Hakeem wore the same clothes a lot last year.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow. I was gonna do it tonight but I swore I was gonna go to bed before 2am. It's 1:57am now so I better hurry up. If you're reading this please comment so I know if anyone has made it here. :) Night night.

I have moved!

I'm all done moving my blog to Blogger. It will be easier and faster to upload pictures now. I like the design template I found (my background). Just wish it was wider in the middle, it's really made for one column. But this will do for now. Hopefully one day soon I can make my own design. I seriously need to take a new picture of myself. That picture on the right is OLD. It was taken at our wedding eight years ago. LOL I'm probably too old to take a picture with a tiara now but maybe I'll do it just for fun. :) Oh, and I'm trying to make my domain point here but customer support at my old host are extremely slow with responding or don't respond at all. 

We went to Krispy Kreme two days ago. I will post some pictures from there in my next post probably. Tomorrow we're going bowling and then we have to go by Javari's preschool and drop off some papers. He starts in two weeks! :) And Hakeem starts second grade. I'm looking forward to some alone time with my baby.

Baby Dequan

I took these pictures of Dequan at the park last week. He was in all of these moods in under three minutes, starting with crying and ending with laughing. :)

Baby Hakeem

Here is Hakeem wearing the same clothes and looking quite a bit like Dequan.

Baby Javari

Here is Javari around the same age.

Bunco Queen

I'm not very good at updating this blog but I'm trying. I don't understand how a lot of bloggers have time to post a few times every day, especially when they have kids - that takes dedication. Still they seem to have time to do a lot of other stuff. My energy level is pretty low and I don't like to go out and do stuff every day. I don't mind staying in the house for a week sometimes, like right now. I know I will be a lot busier when the kids start school so I'm not missing my opportunity to relax. Hubby calls it lazy, but whatever. :) Actually I was busy this week getting started on moving this blog to blogspot. I have moved all the posts but I need to do something about the design before I start using it. Too bad I'm not an expert on digital design. :/ I'm hoping to take some design classes soon.

I didn't take any pictures during the bunco game last Friday night, but I can tell you I had a blast. There's no strategy in bunco, you just roll the dice and try to get lots of sixes, but it's a very social game. You keep switching tables after every round and you end up talking to everybody. So it was my first time playing and I ended up winning the biggest bunco prize...ME...who never wins anything...wohoo!! I won an electric papper shredder, which we needed because our old one broke. I also won a bag of school supplies for my kids. I had Dequan with me and he was on his best behavior and loving all the attention he got. It was all smiles all night...until we got in the car and he was all alone in the backseat, facing backwards in his carseat, waah waah waaah! Then he fell asleep 10 minutes later and all was well.

Today Wednesday was his 9 month birthday, hurrah! I was gonna take a picture of him but I forgot. Will do it tomorrow instead. It's 1:45am and my little angel just fell asleep in my lap. I should probably go to bed too...I just have to...umm...check something first...

The occasional scrapper

We've been in the house for a week and I still didn't get much cleaning and stuff done. I suck. Last night I spent almost three hours cleaning and organizing the kids' room. I asked the kids to pick a bunch of toys to put in the garage because it was just too much in there. They don't play much with their toys anymore, guess they're getting too big for that. They just want to play video games and online games, and watch TV. We also rearranged their bed to make more floor space, and I vacuum cleaned in there. After that I was so tired and slept in an arm chair (NOT comfy!) in the living room for an hour while the others watched TV. That was my second nap of the day so I didn't go to bed until 4am! Today I'm hoping to get around to cleaning a bathroom and the fridge/freezer. I've been trying to do that all week, sigh. Tomorrow we're getting out of the house, yay! The park in the morning with the kiddos. In the evening the baby and I are going to a friend's house to play bunco for the first time with a bunch of ladies I've never met. It should be fun, especially if I win something! :) They play for money and prizes. I have to bring Dequan since I'm breastfeeding. I hope he behaves.

I actually had time to do this the other day:

Maurice, Hakeem, and I at Mt Charleston when Hakeem was a little over a year old. We were celebrating midsummer with SWEA.

I haven't made a scrapbook page in over a year. As you can see it's not finished. I need a title and some journaling. I have several unfinished pages like this one because I don't have titles that match and I'm scared of journaling. So I gotta go to a scrapbook store and find something that works and is in the right size (I'm hoping for brown chipboard letters). That's how smart I am.

Here are a few layouts that are actually finished (no journaling though):

Hakeem at Bonnie Springs when he was around 2.

Page 2 out of 4.

Hakeem in Sweden when he was 15 months. The water was really cold so we only dipped our feet.

My stepdaughters Lanaize and Joshlyn. This was one of my first layouts. I still need to add their names on there somewhere.

I wish scrapbooking wasn't so expensive and time consuming. I have tons of pictures I want to scrap. I'm scared to use the kids' baby pictures until I get better at it.