uncle jessie will always be better looking than uncle joey

1. i love Easter. its fresh. its colorful. its candy-filled. egg hunts bring me SUCH happiness. when Jorey and I were little we loved to hide the eggs over and over and over again all Easter day long. tonight, we hunted black-light glow in the dark eggs in our backyard. OH MAN. so much fun. i have to go to Target and buy a set for myself. when i was in elementary school my church got the bright idea to have us hunt rocks rather than that eggs. yeah. rocks. nearly 200 hundred children running around the church lawn picking up color-coded ROCKS that we traded in for candy. NOT GOOD my friends.... little girls running along with their flimsy little Easter basket that began to fall apart with the weight of the rocks. the ROCKS. rock hunt? really... please imagine it in your head and laugh. Tomorrow, there will be no hunting of rocks for the Melinders.
2. Sleeping in a house with my family is the biggest blessing in the world. I have a cute little room for myself and everyone just seems so well-adjusted here... such a relief. A well-adjusted family makes my subconscious so much more peaceful. The house already has a great Melinder feel to it and people have been over here hanging out more often than not since I've been home... just the way we like it. come on over, you are your fam is welcome...
3. This coming week will be my last week teaching my precious third graders and I might cry. I'm really attached to this group of kids... I've never really considered teaching in an urban setting, but these kiddos have REALLY opened my eyes to the possibility. I could do it, I always thought I wouldn't be capable of handling it, but these kids have been really rough and I've made it work. They got really upset when I told them that I wouldn't be coming back after next week... Julissa, Russell, Ahmari, Anahie, De'Iveon, Jonathon, Ashlund, and Alec are eight kids that have really impacted my life and I will miss them more than i can say. This week will be fun though... they are going to throw a "surprise party" for me... complete with pictures they are drawing! I can't wait. I love children's art. Someday I'll decorate with some of my favorites....
4. I've been on a Pine Cove conference marathon lately and its been blast SLASH huge learning experience. Its so funny thinking about my mindset a year ago and seeing how I feel now. Both times going into the summer absolutely freaking out excited and absolutely freaking out nervous. My first weekend this semester I was the work crew director for the weekend and let me tell you.... I am not qualified to be the work crew director. Mainly in the fact that I have NO CLUE what work crew does. well... now i do. God was definately teaching me that it is okay to make major mistakes, look foolish, keep calm and always ask for help when I don't know what I'm doing. My nasty pride gets in the way so often and I really don't like looking imcompetant. But that weekend taught me that it is far far worse to make silly mistakes that affect a lot of people than to ask a silly question that simply hurts my pride a little bit, but saves me a lot of trouble. Tough weekend that was... I never like crying in front of people I respect and don't want to disappoint. But I had a amazing group of women to support me and love me.... and laugh with me. Its going to be a great summer, and God needed me to utterly fail to prove to me that things will be fine. Even if I do screw up BIG time. the NEXT weekend, however... was STELLAR. I got to be in a skit AND birthday rap to one of my best friends of all time.... oh AND be french fry twins with abbey. so so so so so SO good. I learned that little boys don't get sick of warball. like really... they don't. and if you suggest another game to play, they will go from zero to warball munity in the blink of an eye. beware. just play warball and no one gets hurt. Leadership weekend coming up! I'm so pumped to be with all those great people in one place... it might be too much to handle. The boys are going to be out of control.... SOOO much personality.
5. I cut my bangs. I don't know if i like them. I mean... I like the way they LOOK but I sure don't like having to put in effort every single day... they have to be fixed or I look like Michelle from Full House. oh Full House.... the other day I was flipping through the channels and landed on the episode when DJ buys a horse. WHY???? Why would DJ ever think it was a good thing to BUY a horse? yeah, its fun for a little bit... but Kimmy Gibbler is never a good financial partner in such a large investment. come on DJ... you should've just talked Aunt (well... not Aunt yet, Jessie hadn't proposed at this point) Becky into buying it in the first place.
6. Planning a formal is fun, but ridiculous. I love making the plans and getting be in charge of all the major decisions, but the stress is beginning to get to me a little bit. Its just gotten to be so huge so fast... and I feel like I'm going to get to the week of and realize that I forgot a lot of important little tidbits. like the fact that ballooons need to be weighted down with something... and I need to budget for that something... thought of that one tonight. I listened to our playlist for the third time tonight and its so fun. I can't wait to just jam and let the formal stress be done with at that point.
7. I'm SO ready to live an apartment with my friends... but really afraid of the responsibility things that go along with it now. between water heaters of death and bed bug infestations, but friends sure have has it rough lately... it makes me sad for them.
8. I've discovered that "studying" in the library is like a social event at Baylor. You go to work/run into everyone you don't get to see during class. Abbey and I made some enemies I'm sure the other night as we passed notes over our study cubby by throwing them at each other. ISSUE: Abbey and I are NEVER going to get any work done next year if we work in the same room without a divider of some sort to separate us. Because our brains find the same sort of things really funny and it can go on for far too long... we have a chart. and it has revolutionized our world. So, if you want to find me Baylor friends... i would look in the library now... its my new fav.
9. my biggest obsession right now is the Hoedown Throwdown my Hannah Montana. oh yes. i'm so addicted... its SAD. I learned the whole dance and my and my cousins had a dance party tonight... it was delightful. the video is fun since we all look slightly the same... yay for sort-of Mexican cousinhood. My awesome cousin Katie got to come hang out with me during her spring break and it was awesome... she is seriously legit and I want her to move in with me.
   

thats all i can think of for now.
top five pictures of the moment:

skit! yes. i'm wearing a pimp hat. but I'm Penelope Ilene Peutersnip... from Beverly Hills, where Botox is cheaper than milk. Tailor? Dolce and Gabonna, of course... darling.

birthday rap!!!! dreams do come true. and who better to get to do my first birthday rap with than Abbey??? so fun. we're basketball players, if you can't tell.

Jasmine. my first big senior counselor moments happened with this little darling. she loved me. then hated me. and then loved me again.

french fries!!!!!

cousin love!!!!