Howard Family, Party of 5

cookie party

2012-01-13T07:51:00.000-08:00

A friend of ours invited us to a cookie/gingerbread house making party on December 21st. The girls were happy to go because of the kids and the cookies, I was happy for that too but I was also very excited to be in this kitchen, which is kind of my dream kitchen. It has an "island".

We mixed everything together:

Rolled it out (on the island!) and got to work:

If our oven had a window on it, I never would have almost burned 144 gingerbreadmen.

Well I probably still would have.

My girls wore their aprons. :)

Time for decorating:

Then they all ran around like wild animals for 15 minutes:

It was a lot of fun, and we were still snacking on cookies well into the new year!

I also did a lot of reflecting and I think I might have been a completely different person with a whole different life, if I had been fortunate enough to have an island in my kitchen growing up.

If I had a reading nook and a kitchen island in my house, I would probably never leave. And I would be very fat from all the baking I would do on my island. And very smart from all the books I would read in my nook!

christmas randoms...

2012-01-06T07:59:00.000-08:00

My goal was (always is) to have my Christmas cards in the mail by December 1st.

The 15th at the very latest.

Well.....

These suckers went out like 4 days before Christmas, and it was a miracle they got into the mail at all.

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I love cards, sending and receiving, and I love writing them out, but this year for some reason they were just a thorn in my side (and clutter on my table) the WHOLE month. Not next year.

Our lil Elf on the Shelf is named C Jr. When you open him, you have to give him a name right away but of course all 3 of the girls picked different names, no one wanted to give in and agree on a unanimous name, so we took the first letter of each of the names they picked (I forget what they were, it's written in our Elf on the Shelf book) which happened to be C J R which turned into C Jr. Like Carl's Jr. And equally as tasty.

But C Jr. sure was a mischievious fellow.

I'm pretty sure he hid my ipod from me for a good two weeks just to be funny,

and he may or may not have stolen $25 from us!

He's very tricky:

He was so out of his element in San Diego, you could tell he missed the North Pole and snow at Christmastime:

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We walked through Christmas Circle this year. Partly to walk off the big meal we'd just had, and partly because my check-engine light is on and I would never live it down if my car broke down and had to get towed out of Christmas Circle and backed up traffic for miles and miles.

I actually preferred walking it, although next year it'll be nice to plan on that and have the appropriate coats & scarves.

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Sweets for a little friend:

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These pretty wrapped packages were one of the highlights of the Christmas season for me. They went to friends of Jesse & their girlfriends, who were SO not expecting anything from us, and had nothing for us in return which made it so much more fun, for some reason.

The girls went with Jesse to give the gifts and I'm sure his friends felt awkward not having anything to give in return, but it took away the "chore" of gift-giving (the obligatory "exchanging of crap" that Christmas can turn into) and just made it fun to give.

The girls actually said, out of their own mouths, with no coaxing from me, that giving gifts IS a lot more fun than receiving them. I was proud. :)

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My favorite night of the Christmas season, except for Christmas Eve:

We watched Christmas movies with the heater on (our version of a fire in the fireplace), ate popcorn and drank hot cocoa. By the end of the movie, everyone was cuddled and asleep....even Missy. :)

dumping continued, again...

2012-01-05T12:21:00.000-08:00

A sweet gift from the girls when I was sick with allergies ALL weekend long:

Training at work, from my desk.....for 4 very long hours:

Mallory, testing out why dogs have so much fun sticking their heads out the window:

We are so silly:

Just another day on tv!

Birthday party for a friend of Jesse's.....which ended up being the "cooincident of the century" because it was directly next door to the house I grew up in:

Church dinner:

Also at the church dinner....if I could get my neck to appear this long in all photos and in person, I'd be happy:

Purple cauliflower.

Over-priced and freaky-looking, but just as tasty as the white kind:

Went to Karl Strauss @ lunch to p/u some growlers of beer for Jesse's brother and his friends. Had to try and conceal the fact that some spilled and my cubicle smelled like beer for the second half of the day:

Sick day, healthy lunch:

Toesies:

Mallory modeling the hat I knitted for her a few years ago:

Happy mail day for me:

Hard at work/play:

Playdate!

Funniest sign that made me laugh out loud...not as funny to Jesse:

School picture:

Crazy sock day! (aka: everyday for my girls):

Mmmmm:

Friends:

Blanca trying to sneak Andrea's slice of her own birthday cake!

No meat for Jesse:

I saved this little guy from my grandma's lead feet...go little guy, go!:

Breakfast of champions in my new bowl from Anthropologie:

Drill Team's Choice award recipient:

Letters from Santa!
The girls were soooo excited to get these personalized letters in the mail:

Complete with PROOF that they were good girls this year:

2011-12-31T10:36:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!!

tradition

2011-12-30T04:53:00.000-08:00

In keeping with tradition, the girls got to open one gift on Christmas Eve, when we got home from Nana's.

They each got new jammies, which is the tradition (although I don't think they've caught on to the tradition yet cause they always seem surprised by what it is). But this year, they also got new robes because they were still wearing ones that they received when they were maybe 3 or 4 years old.

Also new for this year, after I watched the video that I posted here, I thought that was a neat idea and maybe a way to remind us of the meaning of Christmas on that fun night.

So before I left work, I quickly printed 3 pictures of Jesus, then I stopped at a discount store and bought 3 little frames, and I wrapped them all up in the fanciest paper I had, with the prettiest ribbon.

The girls seemed delighted:

Mariah got the one she's holding, Arissa got one of Jesus w/ children (which we also have a big print of, hanging in their room) and Mallory got the one of Jesus & the lamb...cause she has thing for lambs:

I love it when last-minute ideas work out.

christmas day

2011-12-29T07:57:00.000-08:00

Santa visited our house, and while he was there he signed the thing that Mariah left out for him. She wanted to capture his autograph. :)

The girls loved watching eachother open the gifts they had picked out for eachother. It was so much fun.

This face made all the shopping and planning and wrapping worth it:

I found special books for Mariah:

Those were the only two in the series, and they were first published in 1977! Mariah thought that was just as neat as the fact that the protaganist of the story shares her name. :)

Mallory got some too, and hers are more recent and part of a larger series so I can't wait to get the rest for her:

Ear-muffs were a top requested item. All 3 girls got some.

Then we went to church!

After church, we had our traditional, formal, fancy lunch (usually it's dinner) at America's Diner: Denny's.

Then Nana came over to see all that the girls had gotten and to give/get her gifts. We had to literally clear a path for her to walk through the room.

Then the second she walked out the door we all crashed hard and took a nice 2 hour nap.

We woke up refreshed and headed to Grandma's for more gifts, food and fun.

How cute are these guys! :) I love black olives, and they're so much fun to eat when shaped like lil penguins....

The girls got slinkies and Uncle Jim set up a whole elaborate little "course" to show what they can do:

Success!

Group shot. :)

Which very quickly turned to this:

Those kids are quick! :)

more....

2011-12-28T12:19:00.000-08:00

Arissa & Nikki: & their matching hair accessories:

The fanciest birthday party on record...:

...complete with hairstyling and dress up and meet-n-greets (and mis-matched socks!):

And a proper tea party:

Dropping off at school:

Drill Team shins:

Cute schoolwork:

(translation if you can't decode 2nd-grade hand-writing: Missy is a good companion because she sleeps with me at night. She is real fuzzy. I like it when she purrs.)

Beautiful sky:

Going for walks:

Silly faces:

Arissa asked me to please make Abigail stop choking her. I said good lord Arissa, you can just tell her no and take her hand off....Arissa said "but she was having fun!":

I took FOUR CHILDREN to Target.

By myself.

Three of them are well behaved because I put the fear of God into them, the other one is well-behaved by nature it seems, but still. Four.

That lady on tv with the 19 kids is insane.

Last Padres game of the season.....BEST seats we have ever had or will ever have again probably. Courtesy of a friend of my Dad's:

Root root!

Super fancy lunch @ an Indian restaurant downtown with paralegals from my office:

I guess it was probably obvious that I don't eat at places like that very often, since I was the only one taking pictures of everything. :)

??? Just us:

Mmmmm lunch: black bean soup (with feta cheese & avocado) and a greek salad:

2011-12-27T08:50:00.000-08:00

Someone should write a Christmas song about our Christmas Eve, cause that's how perfect & lovely it was:

There were SO many "little people"!

A total of 7.

All girls.

All little

and cute

and playing together.

So cute!

These two aren't part of the "little" crowd but they're still cute as well:

I got special Christmas shirts for the girls from Gymboree....they each had different little appliques with sparklies and ribbon. And I got them plenty big so hopefully they'll fit for one or two more Christmases.

This was right before Arissa got vomitted on:

This cracked me up....each of the girls had these candy cane things, and Abigail took Mallory's. Even though the darn things are identical, Mallory wanted HERS. ?? We tried to be tricky and do a quick switch, but Abigail was onto us and only wanted Mallory's. It was funny.

So much fun, I wish all Christmases could be as nice.

2011-12-25T01:47:00.000-08:00

merry christmas

2011-12-23T18:21:00.000-08:00

One quiet, rainy Sunday afternoon, Jesse and I were wrapping gifts by the Christmas tree, listening to the holiday music channel on our DVR....it was so nice and festive and cozy.

Then this song came on and I loved it instantly and can't believe I've lived 32 years without it on my Christmas playlist!!

dumping continued...

2011-12-23T00:14:00.000-08:00

I like taking picture of food, when it's good. :)

This is a turkey sandwich (that I had to settle for, because they did away with the vegetarian one I used to swoon over), and the best soup ever on earth for all time:

Mariah's baptism day (and why does my face look so wide):

Messing around with the functions on my phone while waiting for Mariah to get some dental work done:

Couldn't WAIT to see the new Winnie the Pooh movie (took this photo during the credits):

One of the many Padres games we went to over the summer:

Tryin' to squeeze everybody in:

Found this sweet child walking around downtown, picked her up and she came to work with me for a few hours. And I took this pic on our 12-block walk back to my car:

Worn out shoes that I loved and couldn't give up and wore for probably 18 months past their "expiration date". Had to hot glue the bottoms shut every morning for several months! May they RIP.

More messing around @ the Super Dentist's:

More food. Cobb salad from Nordstrom, mmmmmm:

Agree:

New earrings that make me happy:

How I feel I appear to the world everyday (gargantuan):

Ears pierced....again:

A beach wedding photo shoot that we crashed:

Sandy toesies:

The backpack I wanted Arissa to get for 6th grade....she convinced me it might be a little hard to fit all her books in:

At the museum, talked Nana into buying them some photos:

At SeaWorld, once again:

Movie night @ the Warrens, Jesse matching his shirt with our chairs:

My beverage of choice every day:

What I did with the leftovers from cream-cheese stuffed strawberries that I made:

Nana has an irrational fear of lizards....I don't remember where this ugly thing came from but the girls thought it was hilarious to taunt her with it:

Funny sign, texted to Jesse:

Pianist in training:

Summer bday party.....and there's a gleam in my eye:

Look how my rubber band fell and landed!

Mariah's appetizer, pickles & tomatoes:

Arissa's appetizer, onions:

omg...

2011-12-22T04:08:00.000-08:00

...I am so sick of gingerbread men.

I love them, I love making them, I love decorating them, but when there's over 100 to do in a short period of time, when there are 100 million other things going on and needing to be done, they become a little less fun and more of a chore. I hate chores.

I spent a lot of money on the ingredients, since I had to make so many and because molasses is a whopping $4 a jar.

But only after I had spent the money and killed myself putting it all together did Target decide to put THIS on their shelves, which would have saved me quite a bit of money and (something in much shorter supply:) a heck of a lot of TIME:

I can't repeat the words I said when I saw that mix on the shelf.

Something along the lines of "son of a...!!!".

In my fit of rage at seeing it, I bought everything at Target that I needed....EXCEPT m&ms for the buttons, so I had to make-do with chocolate chips I had in the freezer.

Then after they'd been iced and were ready to be packaged, they were being stored in the oven so the cat wouldn't sit on them or eat them.

But I forgot that and I turned on the oven to get it warm so I could cook garlic bread.

I noticed the burning smell about 10 minutes later.

Still didn't register that all my little men were burning and their frosting melting. I just assumed it was something on the stove top where I was cooking pasta. Jesse finally opened the oven and discovered the atrosity.

Luckily I did not burn the house down, nor did I even ruin any of the men (except for two)! That's my 2011 Christmas Miracle, I guess.

This is a funny story now, but it was NOT funny at the time, or for several days afterward. :(

I'm so glad I'm done with those suckers. And I'm back to loving them again.

phone pics dump 1

2011-12-20T00:08:00.000-08:00

My phone reached over 1054 pictures recently, so I "dumped" them all (onto the computer & deleted them from my phone). It was fun to go thru them, so here's the first of several (probably too many) that I likey liked:

Walking the streets of LG:

Buddies, @ drill team practice during the summertime:

A super cute & friendly dolphin @ SeaWorld who was actually playing with the lady holding a stuffed dolphin. Lots of fun to watch:

Driving downtown, pretty lights:

Boyz II Men @ the House of Blues:

Going backstage to meet them:

The title of this episode caught our eye, and we texted it to Sherry right away:

An accidental "promotion" I got at work:

My pretty lil Student of the Month:

Taking my breath away:

Nana sewing a poodle skirt for Arissa, because we had two already but I wanted a blue one to match Arissa's eyes:

Prettiest/cutest cupcakes! Don't remember what we had stopped at Albertsons for......I know it wasn't for these, but I brought them home for the girls anyways, just for fun:

LOL: Jesse looked at my hair with horror in his eyes and said "oh my gosh, when was the last time you BRUSHED your hair?? It's one big knot!". I looked at it in the mirror and said "I did it like that on purpose, it's a braid!!!".

Oh how I miss Vacation Bible School week....and look forward to next year:

Getting my hair done to take pictures that never got taken:

At Macy's, picking out Mariah's baptism dress. The girls went wild in the dressing room:

A few years back (1998):

Sweet girl:

First library card:

teacher gifts

2011-12-19T08:04:00.000-08:00

These are the gifts the girls gave their teachers this year:

(I didn't want to add any ruffles or bows on Arissa's --well, I wanted to, but I chose not to-- because her teachers are men)

The girls had fun making them, and much more fun delivering them and seeing their teachers' reactions. :)

par-tay!

2011-12-16T08:05:00.000-08:00

Happy times.

Last weekend we had the Drill Team Christmas party (at Nana's this year).

The stockings weren't hung, but they were SET by the fireplace, with care:

Jaiden was the star of the party:

How you know it was a special occasion: cause Jesse ate MEAT.

But it's ok, cause look how happy it made him:

Gift exchange / secret santa...always fun.

I made Jaidy & Emylee little aprons and felt cupcakes. I put the cupcakes in actual cupcake boxes, which I was happy I found cause I thought it made it cute.

They played with them, took some orders:

Group photo! In which most are looking at Jaiden, some are doing something else, and only Mariah is looking straight @ the camera and smiling. That's my girl.

It was a very merry party.

special day

2011-12-15T08:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my Nana's birthday!

I wish I could throw her a party like I did last year (read that here), because it was so much fun.

I guess I better start planning a HUGE bash for her 100th, in case (fingers crossed) we get to celebrate that with her!

But we celebrated her 91st with lots of singing, some gifts, and some CAKE.

Still so much fun. I love my Nana. :)

I told her in the card I gave her that I hope to God when I am 91 years old, that I will look & act & feel half as good as she does. And I totally meant that.

Later that night, me & the girls watched the video we had made her last year (which almost didn't happen, save for the Christmas miracle...and a lot of hard work).

It makes me happy, as does my Nana.

pictures & funny girls

2011-12-09T01:44:00.000-08:00

This post is supposed to be about the girls' parent/teacher conferences at school, but then when I went looking for photos, I found a bunch from our "christmas photo shoot" (with our own personal, fabulous photographer Andrea Flow) and I wanted it to be about that too. And so it shall (be). :)

These girls are very, very sweet:

And taking pictures of them is always hard, but fun.

It's hard because when I want them to all smile, they frown. When I want them to be silly, they get mad. When I tell them to look that way, they look this way. When I tell them to act natural, they look posed and strained.

But it's funny because when you're able to capture them just being themselves, the results are always (in my opinion) winners:

Ah, good times! Those are my favorite.

I couldn't exactly use this picture for our christmas cards, but I sure wanted to! Don't know why I love it so.

Anyways, back to the girls & school.

I expect certain things when I have appointments to meet with their teachers....I expect that they'll tell me they are good, they try, they are generally nice girls. I even expect to hear about a few behavior issues here or there.

But I was so happy & proud at the conferences I had this week. I couldn't stop smiling, and it made my whole day.

Arissa:

The facts: She led her own conference and showed me all her work and her report card. Her grades are great but what really impressed me was her "plan" she had written out which identified her "problem" areas (such as they are) and how she plans to improve. She sounded so self-assured and confident!

The funny: When we were discussing a paper with her teacher which we all agreed could have had a more developed ending, she tried to call me out by saying "I had to finish it like that, because my mom was watching Oprah and yelling at me to go to bed!". :) Her teacher and I thought that was pretty funny.

Mallory:

The facts: She is the one I kind of expected I might hear about being too "chatty" in class, or god-forbid even bossy. But her teacher only raved about her and how bright she is and that she strategically placed her next to someone she wouldn't be too chatty with, and in fact her seat-mate is a little less motivated than her so she keeps him on task. She is helpful and respectful and well ahead of the standards for mid-year second grade.

The funny: The teacher was so impressed with a certain project that was given to the kids just for fun to supplement what they had learned in class, and how thorough Mallory was. The reason that's funny is that when Mallory told me the project was "just for fun" and didn't even have to be turned in, I thought she was making it up and I was bound and determined to teach her good work habits and planning and I made her work on that thing bit by bit, even meeting with an actual police officer and writing a play about it!

Mariah:

The facts: She is eager to learn, takes on extra responsibility, is so friendly and kind. Her grades are perfect, she catches on quickly and likes to help those who are not as quick. She loves to write and always goes above and beyond what's asked.

The funny: Her teacher likes her new glasses. wtf?? She doesn't HAVE glasses! Apparently for the last two weeks though, she's been wearing a pair daily that I had gotten her from the Dollar Tree to play with. I'm pretty sure they're reading glasses which means seeing beyond her desk must have been a challenge, but she stuck with it! Silly girl. Also, her teacher showed me this paper that Mariah wrote, which had me laughing out loud the entire time I read it:

My great-grandma is very special. She is ninety years old. She is very beautiful. She sounds rich, she gets money from the government. She is careful with living creatures and will always help. She is stronger than me. She has many friends, and is curious about dead things. She has two children. Her daughter died but her son is still alive and helps her with her garden work. She says she is ugly, she has wrinkles. She also lives alone. She is very special to my whole family. She is about to die...I am not sure, but I think. She likes having family over. She likes to eat spaghetti.

Oh my goodness. :)

Oh and one more thing, which really amazed, delighted, and shocked me:

All three of them excel in math. It comes easily to them.

How that's possible is beyond me, but I'm just thankful.

2011-12-07T09:07:00.000-08:00

I wish I could be as on top of things as the girls are.

By the beginning of november they had selected and wrapped a birthday gift for me. And Christmas gifts for several others. All by themselves.

I think I know what my gift is and after I open it, if I'm right, I'll share the story that goes along with it because it's super sweet (not the story but the fact that the girls remembered it and recalled it when choosing a gift).

I had been dying to cook something with pumpkin, so when it was pouring down rain one Saturday that's exactly what we did.

We made pumpkin spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

Soooo yummy. I've made some other pumpkin cupcakes that were bummers but these were pretty close to perfect.

We managed to time things out and "celebrated" 11/11/11 11:11 this year:

You get some pretty interesting expressions when you ask them to stand there, all ready a few minutes early and watch the seconds pass by. Especially when they're so close together.....inevitablly part of someone touches part of someone else and all hell breaks loose!
We also celebrated 9/10/11 12:13 but I gotta locate those photos. :)

Full of thanks...

2011-12-02T09:23:00.000-08:00

Our big day consisted of what every Thanksgiving should: baking, eating, family, friends, and being grateful.

This year the girls helped me with the rolls, they each took turns buttering the dough and then rolling it into the crescent shapes after I'd cut it:

I made little place-settings the night before:

I'm pretty sure I single-handedly ate half of those black olives....before we'd even been seated for dinner. :p

The girls played:

We all got caught up:

And everyone pitched in to color a huge gingerbread house:

Dessert couldn't come soon enough....and Mallory piled on the whip cream:

And everyone added to our 2011 Thanksgiving book. I love these things, they are so fun to look back on. A friend at work got married this year and decided to adopt our thankful-book tradition with her new family, after I'd told her about and showed some of our old ones. Every year I seem to make them simpler and simpler but there's still pictures and words, which is all that really matters.

And afterwards we followed a tradition we started last year, of going to see a movie on Thanksgiving night.

Seems like there's always a good movie released on Thanksgiving, and yet last year and this year the theatre was empty. I guess maybe some people eat DINNER at a normal dinner hour, not 2pm like our family. :) But it works out fine cause we got our pick of seats and enjoyed The Muppets very much.

Boo! again

2011-11-30T07:59:00.000-08:00

I failed at squeezing in all the fall-related posts! Oh well.....

From what I've seen, lambs were a popular costume this year.

Betcha didn't see one (the costume OR the child wearing it) as cute as this though:

A lamb, with a matching treat sack no less! Those things cost me a pretty penny but I loved them.

Mariah denied my costume idea for her (an owl) and chose instead to be an angel. She squeezed into the flower girl dress that Arissa wore at age 5, I found a halo here and some wings there, ordered her personalized treat sack from and she was all set:

Arissa chose to be a bee when she saw a set of wings & antennae at the dollar store. I ended up picking up two more sets of them at different places, cause they were cute, and she finally ended up wearing these. There was supposed to be a black & yellow tutu to go with it but I failed and didn't get it made.

Love this shot:

Halloween won't be the same anymore unless their treat sacks match their costumes!

Setting out to get their treats:

Arissa's shoe gave her problems so Jesse had to carry her on the way back.

We stopped by Nana's after we'd collected as much candy as we could:

And then finally by Nina's to end the night:

It was a fun night, and the girls got enough candy to last them a week (which was the amount of time I gave them to eat it before I threw it all out).

It was the first Halloween in several years that no one was violently ill (click the link if you don't remember). We came pretty close though, all of us had a stomach flu the entire weekend but when it was time to dress up, out health was restored thankgoodness.

A perfectly lovely day at the pumpkin patch, for a total cost of $3.

2011-11-29T01:45:00.000-08:00

Gotta squeeze all these fall/pumpkin-y/halloween-y posts in before December comes and they don't fit!

We took a trip to the pumpkin patch in Bonita. It's not the biggest, most elaborate patch in San Diego, but it's fun & it's quaint & it's close........& it would have been free except they extorted $3 out of us to let the girls run wild through the corn maze, which Mariah got lost in and sat down and cried for 15 minutes. :(

The pictures speak for themselves!

Tractor ride!

Interestingly, we did not purchase any pumpkins at the pumpkin patch. I got those on sale @ Sprouts, for $2 each, which I was so happy and proud of myself for. The one went rotten and the FedEx man kicked one in, and Mariah got sick the day we carved and never got around to carving hers. And so I'm glad I spent $2 each at Sprouts instead of $6 each at the pumpkin patch.

boo!

2011-11-28T08:02:00.000-08:00

Why's there a lil lamb in my passenger seat?

Cause me & my lamb were on our way to:

Nana & Uncle Ronnie came to watch too.

Can you tell Mallory had a blast? She was pretty excited.

Here they come!

Yeah, she sees me....

My little lamb got put to work at the end.

Arissa & Mariah (and the whole group) were also on the morning news several times, which is now preserved for time and all eternity on our dvr...and making it dangerously close to not recording Oprah's lifeclass because the memory is full. But it's ok.

oktoberfest

2011-11-04T08:35:00.000-07:00

I'd been looking forward to Oktoberfest since......the first day that it got really hot in the summer. Oktoberfest is the un-official beginning of Fall to me.

It wouldn't really be Oktoberfest without our traditional pizza dinner beforehand:

I knew we weren't going to get past the rides (and closer to the CRAFTS) without a fight so we let the girls go on a few.

Arissa was prepared to ride her favorite ride solo, except as soon as she sat down, these two little boys hopped right up next to her. It was cute.

Then came the Frog Hopper. Mariah's favorite ride. All 3 girls got on.

So much fun!

Then the ride started.

And the way each girl felt about the ride can be clearly seen here on their faces:

Mallory is not laughing. She is screaming/crying hysterically.

But she made it through. And I bet she'll be on that ride again cause she'll forget how terrified she was.

All 3 girls brought their wallets....hooray! That meant that all WE had to spring for was the pizza & the ride tix. The rest was all on the girls themselves, and Jesse was able to save a little somethin for the beer garden!

Here, Mallory's face is saying "can you hurry up and take the picture so I can go spend every last penny in my wallet on stuff I won't play with after 2 hours?"

These girls are lucky I can photo-shop those fingers outta my pics!!

One of the things they ~~wasted~~ spent their hard-earned money on was....sweets.

Highly over-priced sweets.

But watching them do their own transactions is always cute, and always entertaining for the clerk too:

"Please take our hard-earned money that our Mommy & Daddy gave us to teach us how to save for things we really want, and in return please give us some sugar with added sugar and a sprinkle of sugar on top":

Mmmm sugar. Mariah's came in the form of a Root Beer Float:

Arissa wanted hers in the form of shaved ice:

Then they all ran around in a little sugar-frenzy with their empty wallets until it was time to leave.

I so LOVE Oktoberfest.

I do not love the smell of bratwurst cooking.

GROSS.

car wash

2011-11-03T08:32:00.000-07:00

(Yes, stripes & patterns DO go together. It says so in Vogue.)

"Somebody come to our car wash":

"Won't anybody come to our carwash?":

They did. The girls (+ a few boys) worked hard. It was hot.

My BF really wanted to join in and help, you could just tell. Maybe in a few years....

lanterns

2011-10-31T13:47:00.000-07:00

We made halloween lanterns with mason jars, painter's tape, and acrylic paint.

I cut little templates out of the tape, then the girls plastered the jars with paint.

When they were dry, we pulled off the tape and threw a tea-light inside and watched 'em glow.

It's hard to see in the photos, but in person they're much more clear. We did two jack-o-lantern faces, and one spider + the words "boo!".

Musical

2011-10-31T08:48:00.000-07:00

I told Mallory it was her turn to get involved in activities like her sisters, and she could pick whatever she wanted to do. She ended up picking like 5 different things, and I told her she could try all of them to see what she liked best, but we had to start with just one.

And it made Jesse really happy when she chose Piano.

He quickly set up his big keyboard so that Mallory could practice at home.

She successfully completed (and then memorized) Mary had a Little Lamb and is now working on Clair de Lune.

I love hearing her play.

bonitafest

2011-10-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

The Drill Team's first parade of the season was at Bonitafest.

It was Mariah's first parade ever.

(I'll never forgive myself for not being able to finish crocheting that hair-net for her the night before....I totally failed.)

Waiting......

"Moms and their cameras, what can you do...."

She was nervous &excited. Mostly excited, I think.

I tried to keep Mallory busy.

Then Sherry gave her a very important job: handing out flyers for the dance studio to any and every kid/parent on the parade route. She was only shy for a second and then she did awesome.

Her socks were two shades of neon pink.

Guess who we randomly ran into?

Working on her forced smile for all the many cameras that get shoved in her face at these events:

All the girls are so sweet to Mariah. Sherry asked the leader-girls how come they were treating her different than the rest of the team (i.e., not shouting at her) and they said "because! she's so soft and sweet!". :)

Bright smiles, curly hair, dimples, and big old kissable cheeks....i love 'em.

first day of school

2011-10-03T08:49:00.001-07:00

New backpacks, all filled & ready to go. I shopped all over the internet and the real world for these three things. I ended up finding ones that were practical and that the girls approved of at: Gymboree (Mallory's), Amazon (Mariah's), and JC Penny (Arissa).

I always start off the school year really good as far as making breakfast (and getting up early) goes. Usually that tapers off to where eventually everyone serves themself cereal. But at least on the first day they get something home-made and warm, guaranteed.

I tried to pretty it up a bit with a nice place-setting, including fresh-cut hydrangeas & fancy doilies on the plates:

I stayed up late the night before making Mormon muffin batter (the traditional recipe plus some secret ingredients + blueberries cause I had to "healthy" it up to make up for the buttermilk).

Then we were out the door.

Got to hug & catch up with our friends:

I love the first day of school, and all fresh starts.

M&M brought hydrangeas for their teachers.

Arissa's teacher kept repeating that they should not be intimidated by all those books.

Maybe she wasn't, but I kind of was.

movie night

2011-09-28T09:24:00.000-07:00

Some friends of ours invited us over for a movie night in their yard.

They cranked up their industrial strength projector, hung up a sheet, and we all gathered together to watch MegaMind.

On the count of three, everybody say "Pottery Barn Chairs"!!

All the kids had fun, before, during and after the movie:

Arissa made a new friend:

Mmm....I forgot how good STOVE-popped popcorn is.
Popped in lots of canola oil, and sprinkled with plenty of salt afterward. So good.

sea world

2011-09-18T09:33:00.000-07:00

Hey, what are YOU doing here??!!

My hair looked the same as this guy's:

Playing around:

Mallory & Arissa went on Shipwreck Rapids several times.....

....while I waited. See what I mean about my hair....

This picture was interesting.....the lighting from the Shamu show highlighted Arissa:

The end!

I {heart} Sea World. It is my favorite place to go in the summer. It's beachy, but without all the sand and seaweed.

a sad day

2011-09-15T09:16:00.000-07:00

I got my daily after-school call from the girls yesterday, Arissa is always the one who gets on first, and as soon as I picked up the receiver I heard moaning and wailing in the background.

I could tell it was Mallory and it didn't sound like her usual, thrice a day tantrum crying (although that is pretty wild and loud too). This was sad, sobbing crying.

So I asked Arissa what happened and she told me Mallory's fish had died.

My grandma bought all 3 girls a fish over the summer, which they lovingly named, fed, and watched every day.

But Mallory's fish had completed it's mission on earth apparently, and was called back to the big fish-pond in the sky. But she left behind one sad, mournful little girl.

Nana's promise to buy a new one the very next day, plus a bowl-full of pretzels, helped to cheer her up quite fast.

But there was no way of talking Mallory into letting any of us flush this fish. It was going to have a proper burial if she had to do the whole thing herself.

So we planned a sunset cermony, dressed in our funeral best, and got er done.

Each of the girls said a few words. It was very sweet and somber, until after each speech when they would press one of the pedals on the play-microphone which then played recorded applause or drumbeats. It kinda ruined the moment, but it was pretty hilarious.

Mallory & Mariah wrote their own speeches, and Arissa read us a Bible verse:

And then Mallory rang a bell 3 times, and we had a moment of silence.

Our little guest of honor:

Nana didn't dress in funeral attire, but we still let her attend.

I made little crosses out of hydrangea stems, one for Vanessa The Fish and one for our other sorely-missed friend: Blossom, who she was being burried next to.

I even cut two of my few remaining bloomed hydrangeas for the decedants.

Farewell to our little friend, may she rest in peace.

movie in the park

2011-08-17T04:16:00.000-07:00

If it can be {legally} done in a park, we did it this summer.

Well except just going to the park to play.

That's old school.

Aside from the concerts in the park which we faithfully attended each week, we saw a movie in the park too (in La Mesa...cause we're fancy).

We wore our jammies so we could plop right into bed afterwards:

We set out our summertime quilt which has accompanied us to all of our outdoor fun this summer. But of course that wasn't "blanket enough" for Mariah, she had to bring her own as well...

I love love LOVE the girls' Pottery Barn chairs.

I love them.

I love how cute they are.

I love the fabric.

I love how compact they are.

I love the little carrying bags they come with.

I love saying they're from Pottery Barn.

They were worth every penny.

If they had them in adult sizes (or even bigger child sizes that I could squeeze into), you can bet me and Jesse would have matching ones. But as it is, we had to borrow old yellow ones from Nana. :( Not so cute.

The "big" screen:

10 minutes later:

I only really saw the second half of the movie, because for the first half I was playing with my best friend (under 4 feet tall):

Man, he's cute.

I love him.

Him and those Pottery Barn chairs.

He makes me happy.

But then he had to leave, cause babies have earlier curfews or whatever. :(

So the girls and I all cuddled up on that summertime quilt to watch the movie. I wasn't looking forward to this movie, but I really enjoyed it...it was super cute.

A really huge bug crawled on Mariah, it was hilarious.

Fun night!!

crafts & crazy cats

2011-08-15T11:35:00.000-07:00

The girls and I spent some time making fun stuff this past weekend.

I made felt cupcakes:

And the girls worked on sewing American Girl felt pencil toppers that I got them:

You can see from these faces...it's hard work:

But the results made us happy:

And through it all, since we had taken over Missy's favorite place to nap (the kitchen table-gross), she crawled into the next best place.

My work-in-progress basket. She looked a little squished, but apparently she liked it.

Looking at her all twisted and contorted like that reminded me of how I feel most nights when there's 3 kids in the bed with me.

But just like her, I make do. At least I don't have my face crushed up against a wire basket, like she did. I shouldn't complain.

banquet

2011-08-12T08:46:00.000-07:00

I so look forward to the Drill Team awards banquet every year.

Partly because it's fun to be around friends,

partly because it's so sweet to watch the girls reminisce about the year behind them,

and mostly because it's held at Souplantation.

And I love Souplantation. :)

Two years we made dvds as a gift for each of Arissa's team mates, one year I made Sherry that knitted Drill Team doll, but this year I was not "with it" enough to plan ahead for anything at all.

Two days before the banquet, I decided to take photos of Arissa with each of the girls and then I figured we'd just stick them in some little frames. But little frames weren't cheap to come by at the time, with one day's notice, so I got out my trusty die-cutter and made little doo-dads myself.

I used the pictures I had taken of Arissa with each girl, then she wrote a little note to each of them. Tied it off with some drill team colored ribbon et voila.

The banquet was so much fun (and the food was so good!).

Arissa got to celebrate her mom-away-from-home.

And somebody thought I was special too!

Even Jesse!

build a bear

2011-08-09T19:42:00.000-07:00

2011-08-08T04:41:00.000-07:00

My contributions to this year's 4th of July bbq were minimal.

:(

I felt a little bad.

I did throw some fabric together and make this banner:

And I threw together some super simple ingredients to make cherry cobbler, which Arissa had the genius idea to add blueberries to so that when served with ice cream, it's red white and blue.

Just like the centerpiece flowers:

Here's a super awesome thing that comes from procrastinating....

ALL the 4th of July stuff I bought was 1/2 off, because I waited till the 3rd of July to buy it!

3 pretty, tulle skirts like this one:

And this dress, from Macy's:

Jesse and I didn't buy new clothes, but we ended up being all red/white&blue ourselves:

We bbq'd, spent time with family, tried to stay in the shade.

Mariah tried to squish my Nana.

stars and stripes:

I now know why my Grandma cringes now whenever I corner her and try and get a picture. Being on the other side of the lens is not that fun.

Mallory was a real paparazzi with her cousin's camera so I had to try and suck in my stomach and angle my head correctly whenever she snuck up on me:

Mariah wins the award for 'Most Pit-Stops at the Buffet While Riding Your Bike in Circles', I'd say.

The girls and half of their Kamenski cousins whom they adore:

Any of the 4 cousins come around, and my girls are all over them, wanting to play, wanting to talk, wanting to ask more questions than anyone should ever have to endure. They look forward to any get together where they will be there!

We played cards.

M&M mostly tried to distract their cousins & keep them from winning...

Fun fun fun.

Then we said bye to Nana, and she brought in her flag (and I tricked her into looking at the camera so I could get a picture....ha ha Nana).

Arissa Turns 11, Part Two, the Party

2011-08-06T10:00:00.000-07:00

Arissa wanted a 50's theme for her birthday party.

Well, it would be more accurate to say she wanted a "sock hop" theme.

Because we started planning a party around what we considered "50's music", only to find that all those songs are actually from the 60's. :)

Either way, there were poodle skirts and "oldies" on the jukebox (ipod) and it was a fun party.

I made more laminated bingo cards:

We had classic American fare for lunch, burgers and root beer floats:

My cool retro straws, I love them so much:

Jesse let us borrow some of his records for a record-toss. I told the girls to relax and have fun with the records, but just don't drop them or scratch them or else Jesse will make you pay with your life cause those are vintage. :)

There was a hula hoop contest! That was fun. Gabby was a real star:

The pretty retro-looking cake that Arissa and I designed:

And oh my goodness, my little friend was there! Looking all sweet and trying to distract me from throwing the party.

I mean LOOK at that face and bald little head.

Arissa snatched him for a bit:

Then Nana got ahold of him somehow and it was all over for me.

Babies love her.

He was done with me. :(

"At the end of the day" (Jesse hates that phrase) it was a great party and a fun time. Then we rushed out of there to go to Mormon night with the Padres. Which also happened to be towel night! Woot woot!

busy busy

2011-08-06T03:12:00.000-07:00

Summer is so nice, but hard to find the perfect balance of resting/relaxing & keeping busy with fun activities.

We do our best but just like the other 9 months of the year, we're heavier on the "busy" side.

For example:

1) I finally took time to update the girls' school memory books from this past year (organizing all their keepsakes, and filling out the yearly interview).

I love having their "signature", to watch how that changes year after year.

Kinda not fair that I have to do all the organizing, and they get to do the FUN part (answering the interview questions about themselves). :)

Sorting through a year's worth of papers (x3) and deciding what to keep and what to throw out is exhausting work. Especially as a sentimental person, and as a scrapbooker.....I want to keep EVERYTHING.

So mid-way through we took a break and:

2) We made fabric friendship bracelets.

It was funny because at the time that I got all the materials out, the girls weren't really in the mood and Jesse could hear us from the other room:

"I don't WANT to make frienship bracelets!"

"Well, TOUGH! We're making them! So be friendly and get busy!"

Once they saw me finish mine, they were more amenable to the idea and got into the spirit of making their own.

3) Our super friendly neighbors (who are the PERFECT people to live in a duplex with, if you have to live in a duplex) got married on the day Mariah got baptized.

We cleaned & decorated their porch to make for a festive homecoming.

I did a big poster with my high-tech, impossible-to-duplicate figurines:

I loved the doiley banner....I kind of want to make more of them and hang them around the house, just for fun.

The white crepe paper kind of ended up looking less like a wedding celebration and more like we were pulling a prank and toilet-papering this nice couple's porch. But I think they understood.

4) I instituted my second attempt at family journal-keeping. I'm not the best example with my own personal journal, but I'm trying.

I got the girls their own binders (those suckers are EXPENSIVE, so I have a feeling this go-round with journal keeping will last awhile, at least just so I can get my money's worth out of them).

We spent an afternoon decorating cover-pages for them.

In my mind, I saw us all laying on the living room floor together, a nice breeze coming through the window, for 10-15 minutes of un-interrupted quiet time, writing about our day and our thoughts and feelings, together.

So far though the journals have been written in sporadically, when each of the girls just happened to get the whim to want to do it. But there's a few more weeks of summer, during which I hope to try to get this to be more like I envisioned it. But if not, at least they're writing something. Even if, as in Mallory's case, it's a made-up story about a turtle who broke his leg. ??

2011-08-04T07:47:00.000-07:00

Stephen Levine says that:

"Hell is wanting

to be somewhere different

than where you are".

Even so, I wish I could go back in time and be here again right now:

Mallory couldn't take her eyes off that falling snow for even a second:

Back in Salt Lake we got caught in a brief, but fairly violent hail storm:

I am posing for a picture to show the ice in my hair.

But it had melted already.

A souvenir (a very short-lived one):

So instead of trying to bring it home with us, we got a bunch more and made them into a big ball and did this:

This is our San Diegan idea of "snow gear":

At least it wasn't flip-flops!

In San Diego, jeans are all you need on the coldest of days. Snow up-to-your-knees is a little different than our idea of "cold days" though. :)

Soooo much beauty everywhere we looked.

I wish I was there.

makin' stuff

2011-08-02T08:43:00.000-07:00

While Jesse took M&M to the comic book store with him, Arissa & I spent some time crafting.

I was working on a little banner for the 4th of July.

Missy joined us, but as you can see, she doesn't seem to have the same enthusiasm for crafts as Arissa and I do.

What a party pooper she is.

Look at that face!

Arissa made a scrapbook page about my boyfriend:

I also made some I-Spy bags for the little girls that I made the knitted dolls for back in April:

One of 'em is a baby though, so I made a blanket for her instead.

This blanket was hard for me to wrap up and send off. It wasn't the effort I put into it...it was a super easy crochet stitch, the kind where I can watch tv or have complex conversations while working on it. And yet, it took forever. I think it's been a work-in-progress for at LEAST a year and a half. Maybe more.

The thing I love about it the colors. I had those colored yarns and wanted to make something rainbow-y with them. So since all of my girls currently have their own blankey, and wouldn't fit this one anyways, I decided to send it off to another sweet baby. I do hope she appreciates it though. I expect a hand-written thank you note, as soon as that's possible. :)

home is where the beach is

2011-08-01T03:41:00.000-07:00

Every time I entertain thoughts about moving away from San Diego, I go down my list of things I would miss, things that keep me here. But honestly there's only ONE that I really don't know if I could do without.

La plage (the beach)!

Not just any beach...if I couldn't go to Mission Beach or Pacific Beach or Ocean Beach for many many years or ever again, I think I'd be okay. But La Jolla, specifically La Jolla Cove, I don't know if I could be happy being any farther away from than I am right now.

For me, it doesn't matter WHAT is going wrong...just being there is a cure for anything.

And when 5 people are stuck in the house together, huddled around the air conditioner, and it's getting hotter and hotter by the hour and you can't take it anymore..... the only thing to do to get some relief is go. to. the beach! Asap.

Which is the situation we found ourselves in on the Saturday of 4th of July weekend. I didn't really want to go to the beach at all that weekend, because everyone else in San Diego would be there, but it was too hot to stay inland. It was our only option.

So we went and it was so pretty and the water was icy and the sand was soft and there weren't a hundred people there and clouds rolled in and we forgot all about the scorching temps back home.

The only un-fun part was when it was time to go home. :(

But we will be back again and again and again.

My favorite place on earth!!!

What on earth do people in non-coastal places do when it gets hot like that? Pools and sprinklers are great but it's not the same.

Father's Day at the Fair

2011-07-06T08:47:00.000-07:00

As I said, we spent Father's Day at the Del Mar Fair, chasing after the girls.

Mallory chose to go to church w/ Nana, so we were a family of 4 for the day. It was a weird feeling, having a 1:1 parent:kid ratio.

First things first, the performance.

Have you ever shown up at an event and been wearing the same outfit as someone else?

Maybe.

But has it ever been a Chewbacca shirt? I doubt it.

Always giggling:

Mariah, Emylee, Moi:

Guess who else was there?????

my little love:

I nearly squished him, poor little guy.

I could have sat there and held him for the rest of the day, but his dad wanted him back. And since it was Father's Day, I let him have him.

Then we set out to see what kind of Del Mar Fair fun we could find.

Like taking pictures with {abnormally} large cows:

And riding just a few rides:

Arissa took almost as many pictures as I did, with her fancy new phone:

Mariah stole my sun hat!

She looked cuter in it than I did though, so I let her keep it:

We were all hungry for some good food (no deep-fried butter at the fair for us) so we decided to go pick up Mallory Mae and head to Karl Strauss for Father's Day dinner (which we combined w/ Arissa's birthday dinner, since she and Jesse picked the same place).

Gotta love the fair.

2011-07-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

happy 4th of july!!

CTR

2011-06-30T10:21:00.000-07:00

Getting ready for Mariah's big day....which will also be her "under-water debut", if it actually happens. (I'm sure it will. Pretty sure.)

Taking over 200 shots of her to put on her baptism invitations seemed like a good idea until I looked at them and they were all so cute and now I have to pick ONE.

It's almost impossible.

Of course there's some like this thrown in for good measure:

She was still sporting her Princess Leia hair-do from her party the day before, as you can see.

I don't know which is prettier....the little girl in the white dress or those hydrangeas!!!

(obviously Mariah is the prettier one....but it's a close call, don't you agree??? How gorgeous are they!!!)

Arissa Turns Eleven...part 1

2011-06-27T08:17:00.000-07:00

I love celebrating birthdays!

Even despite all the stress I cause myself trying to plan fabulous parties with intricate details and make the birthday girl/boy feel like a star on their special day....I still just love it.

Once again, Arissa's birthday will get celebrated in 3 parts.

Part 1 was her actual birthday. Grandpa took her and Vanesa out to breakfast, then to the Verizon store where he got her a new phone. She is loving that thing and would not have put it down at all if I hadn't insisted.

Then she spent time at Vanesa's house, then came back to Nana's for a few hours. Played with sisters, loved on Nana. The usual.

Then we had Nana & Grandma over to our house for cake and some gifts.

Once I set about cleaning the kitchen and the table for the 'party', I figured why not go all the way and I decorated a little. The best way to make any table look 100x prettier is to add some beautiful flowers, so I snipped a few hydrangeas and put them in my fancy vase: a mason jar. :)

I put some old pictures of Arissa up, along with the cake, and the utensils and the gifts:

I myself loved the old pictures. Watching Arissa open her gifts and eat her cake, at 11 years old, next to all those pictures of her as a baby was so neat to me. Will definitely add this to my repetoire for future birthdays!

All 3 girls got an American Girl outfit for their doll on their birthday. For Arissa, we got her doll the outfit that Arissa modeled in the American Girl Fashion Show:

Remember?

So cute. :)

It might be possible that I was more excited about the outfit than Arissa was.

Grandma got her some super cute pjs (among other things) that she really loved....look at that face:

Eleven candles......

And no, my pretty paper pennants in the cake did NOT catch fire, thankyouverymuch. :)

That little cake was mighty tasty....we may or may not have eaten a piece for breakfast the following day.

After our celebration, we headed for a 'members only' event at Sea World.

Which was funny cause we didn't even do any of the 'members only' stuff because the lines were a mile long. Instead we hit our usual hotspots: the bay of play, the beer garden, etc. etc.

It's not every day that we get to watch the Shamu show and stay till the end for the fireworks though, so that was a special treat:

It was fun.....thank you Arissa for turning 11 and allowing us to celebrate. :)

family message board

2011-06-22T03:00:00.000-07:00

I mentioned before how I rescued this childhood artifact of mine from the hellhole that is our garage, shined it up & gave it a new coat of chalkboard paint & used it for birthday wishes:

But then it kind of stuck around and has now become our daily family message board of sorts.

I feel like it's kind of ghetto to have it on our porch, but I sure don't want chalk and chalk-dust all over the house so for now, the porch is where it remains.

It's kind of nice though because as I leave for work I do some doodling, and then when the girls leave for school (or Nana's now that summer is here) an hour later they know what to expect for the day.

And sometimes they take it over completely:

See why it's fun and why I don't want to move it back the garage just yet? :)

Dance Recital And...

2011-06-20T09:33:00.000-07:00

Yet another recital came and went.

They are not photo-friendly events, cause of the lighting and all the movement.

But I got a few!

Pre-performance:

Is it just me or do both of them look like their dads a LOT in that picture? More beautiful, girly versions of their dads, but still. Cute.

My other star-studded performer.....fresh out of the salon (aka: our kitchen)& sporting her new bangs!

Sidenote: There's a cute/interesting story to those bangs.

I don't think even a professional paparazzi could get some good action shots at one of these recitals.

Well, probably my friend Andrea could.

But for me, it's impossible.

Without the flash, it's nothing but a blur of color.

With the flash, nothing shows up because the light doesn't reach far enough.

I managed to get ONE photo where you can at least tell who the people in it are.

It was a perfect storm of:

the sun not being down yet so the room was lit up a little

+

me leaning forward over the shoulder of the person in front of me

+

all of the dancers posing and being still for 8 seconds.

So there's that, my one and only live-action recital photo that came out worth a darn.

In other news.....

My "boyfriend" was there!

Jesse and I started calling Jaiden (a baby) my boyfriend, but I realize that's creepy and wrong so I gotta find another word for him.

Feel free to submit one if you have one.

"Boyfriend" just seemed to be a good fit though because:

1) I get all giddy when he's around

2) I drop everything and run over to him

3) I find excuses to take him from his other girl (namely, his mom...sometimes his sister or Arissa)

4) I love to hold him

5) He is cute as all get-out, just as a boyfriend should be

It all started at Drill Team practice, a month or so after we "met" (he was born). I had already oo-ed and ah-ed over him with the other parents, and he was sleeping in his carseat on the floor.

All the girls ran out of the studio to go practice, and the adults followed.

Except for me, I was knitting and was in the middle of a row.

You know how that is.

Anyway, one of the girls ran back in and said to me: "Andrea says, can you watch the baby. Thanks." and ran right back out.

Well obviously I was already "watching" him, in the sense that I wasn't going to let a stranger come in and walk off with him, or if there was an earthquake I would have grabbed him up on my way to safer ground.

But once I was officially asked to watch him, I got kind of nervous! He was so small, and so new. My smallest, newest one is 7 years old....I wasn't sure I remembered what to do with one.

Then, of course, right on cue, he started to cry to get some attention.

Just like a man.

So I gave him his bottle and he was happy (again, just like a man).

But then after the food ran out, he cried again and he, like, wanted something.

I realized I had no choice.....

I stood up.

I picked him up.

I rocked him back and forth.

I patted his little back.

And then it happened.

He let out a burp..... the size, volume, and depth of which I have never heard before or since.

And that was it, our bond was established.

I was there in his time of need, and he repaid the favor by kindly stopping his crying once I had sovled his little "problem".

And it's been true love (albeit my usual kind of true love: one-sided) ever since!

I love that lil guy. And I will gladly fight Arissa to the death for a chance to hold him everytime he's around. :)

She luvs my little man too...and you know how that goes.

day for dad

2011-06-19T00:12:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's day to my dad who I love so so so much.

that's us at my 5th grade graduation.

And this is me with my Dad, my Grandpa, and my Great-Grandpa:

(Guess where that outfit is that I'm wearing, 29 years later.....at my Nana's house in pristine condition of course!)

My Dad is a great man who I can't even start to explain all the wonderful things about him without crying! That is a very frustrating trait I have, I must say. I think about anything emotional and the tears just start coming. Gotta fix that one day.

Anyway, he's awesome and I love him. That'll do.

Course I couldn't mention Father's Day without mentioning the person my girls will be celebrating.

Currently, on this carefree, beautiful day (today is Saturday as I'm writing this) when he could be doing ANYTHING at all, he is driving Arissa around town to find a birthday gift for her friend, then coming home to make two grilled cheese sandwiches for M&M in 2 different pans because one likes grill marks on her sandwich and the other doesn't.

And on Sunday when I post this which will be Father's Day, instead of going golfing or lazing around as is a father's right on Father's Day, he will be following the girls around the Del Mar Fair because A&M have a performance there.

He is a star.

In a Galaxy Far, Far Away, Part 3

2011-06-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

A friend at work let me borrow a wall backdrop, and even though it was hard to hang up outside, it did make for some cute Star Wars-y photos with Mariah's friends.

That was the only boy from her class that showed up.

I love how they're standing. You know how it is in 2nd grade....you can't touch a boy, that's ridiculous. Hopefully it stays that way until college graduation. A cootie epidemic or something. I don't know.

Anyways, he was super sweet, and his sister is in Arissa's class and she came too so that was fun.

Also fun, were the party snacks we had:

To any super-observant people like Jesse who might point out that those are RUFFLES chips: I didn't have enough LAY'S to fill the huge bowl my Grandma provided so I had to mix in whatever else she had in her pantry, which happened to be Ruffles. None of the party guests under the age of 11 could tell the difference. I say it that way because Arissa is super-observant like Jesse, and she could tell. :)

Are you impressed by my super fancy, one-of-a-kind labels with my lovely handwriting?

The Yoda Soda was by far the biggest hit. Everyone went back for more.

The cake I ordered was the only Star Wars one available.

It was dark....lots of black and red and it kind of scared me a little so I ordered it but I asked the baker if he couldn't.....pretty it up a little. He didn't understand what I meant, and I don't think he understood why a girl would even want a star wars cake at all. So I asked him to make the frosting white, and just add in some blue here and there.

I threw out the ugly parts of the cake accessories, leaving us with just Darth Vader and whatever the other guy's name is. Their light sabers really light up! I thought that was so cool.

As always, it takes a TEAM of people to blow out candles.

In this case, it also took a team to get them lit too:

(You can see Jesse's hand lighting them and Audie's hand blocking the wind)

The "force" was not with them on that one, cause the wind blew them out anyways. But we tried it again, and got 'er done.

Then, onto gifts!

Saying thank you:

More thank-you's:

It was a sweet, fun party. Very girly, if I do say so myself.

And I think we proved that GIRLS can be light-saber-carrying super heros who battle life-forms from other planets....and they can still look pretty doing it, thankyouverymuch! :)