party time!

We went to a super fun birthday party to celebrate our good friend CALEB's 5th birthday:

Mallory was gone for several minutes and came back with what seemed like an endless amount of tickets:

Apparently she hit the lotto of the ticket games and won 1000 tickets.

Not once, but twice!

It was amazing.

Then, right before we left I saw a cute stuffed armadillo in the prize area that I wanted.

For 500 tickets.

So I bought some more tokens and Arissa and I played 20 or so games of basketball until we had enough tickets to redeem the little guy:

I was so happy. :)

And the girls were happy to celebrate with their sweet little friend & couldn't have had a more wonderful time:

movie in the park

The only thing better than seeing "The Princess & The Frog" in the theatre......

......is seeing it on a huge blow-up screen

...in the park

...with your BFFs.

The city of Lemon Grove was having a movie-night in the park, and as soon as we saw what movie it was, we hopped right on it!

Nana graciously let us borrow her car so each of the girls could pick a buddy to bring along:

And after running around like crazy people for a few minutes, they settled down, snuggled up, snacked away and waited for the main attraction:

I wanted a pic of all those cute (albeit dirty) little feet cuddled together:

We thouroughly enjoyed the movie, singing & clapping during all our favorite songs.

We also enjoyed the weather.....which was beautiful and such a relief, although none of us planned on it being so COLD.

It had been 90 degrees the rest of the week, and then the day of the movie it was 10-15 degrees cooler, and quite chilly once the sun set.

But our few blankets and the company of good friends kept us plenty warm. :)

Right now...

I'm feeling sad for some friends who are going through hard times.

It's hard for me during times like these, because I never ever know what to say. But I always remember one time when I called the mom of a friend of mine who was going through something, and I told her I'd wanted to call my friend for a long time but had no idea what to say and didn't want to end up making things worse.

And she told me that no one does know what to say and that the call itself would be appreciated. So I bit my nails & fretted for 5 minutes and finally called..... and I felt much better and my friend didn't seem to mind that I wasn't quoting from a "how to say the right thing" book.

So now I try not to let myself get hung up on what the right/perfect response is, and just go, just call and the rest will fall into place.

I get chills every time I listen to this song, and when I've felt really sad & helpless for my friends, listening to it and has made me feel better:

(scroll to the very bottom of the page and turn off the music first so you can hear the loveliness of it)

Isn't it beautiful?

It's always been a favorite song of mine, but hearing it sung in that voice (as opposed to, say....mine) gives it a whole new dimension. I love it and I highly recommend listening to it during hard or sad times. :o)

summer nights

Sea World is just the best place to be in the evening/nighttime during the summer.

There's always something fun to do and see, and even in the swealtering heat of summer it's usually cool and breezy and wonderful.

And if by chance it's still uncomfrotably warm at 8:00 at night, we can just hang out in the Wild Artic exhibit. Cause like the name implies, it's guaranteed to be cool in there....with all the ice and polar bears and whatnot. :)

In June we went for a short trip, because we wanted to see the fireworks that we can hear booming every night.

The weather was perfect (to me)....maybe a bit on the cold side for the girls:

These girls liked the "silly mirrors" a lot:

We watched the nighttime version of some of the shows. It's a whole different experience at night.

And because Arissa had been begging for weeks, we went on Shipwreck Rapids.

Everytime we've gone to SeaWorld recently, she's asked to go but the line was too long. It hardly makes sense to wait 45 minutes in line for a 3 minute ride, when we have passes and can go back any time of the day or night when the line is shorter.

But this time it was very short....we walked right on.

And rode it again and again until we were soaked through and through.

Well actually 4 of us did.

Mallory had been on it before and had fun, but it didn't seem as fun to her in the dark, when she was already chilly. And someone had to take the pictures & look after Mallory, so Jesse took one for the team and went on with the others.

Then we high-tailed it for the ending fo the Shamu show...

...to see what we had come for in the first place:

Fun night!

weekend wonderland

We did our best to create a little "wonderland" in Nana's backyard for Arissa's birthday party.

The table:

The table looking even cuter once the seats were filled with sweet, smiley party guests:

A special mini table for the wee ones:

We played party games, of course.

And had a delicious cupcake-cake.

Mmmmm cake!

Arissa's friends warned her: if this is wonderland, and she's Alice, then eating the cake might make her grow super tall. Luckily, she stayed her right size. :o)

She got some really really nice gifts.

It was so funny how pretty much all of the clothes she got were of the same color scheme (the same color as her dress). I don't know if that's just a popular color in stores right now, or if the people buying them were like me and chose it cause they thought it would bring out the pretty blue in her eyes. She has a lot of blue in her closet just for that reason! But you can't have too much blue when you have eyes like that!

She was smitten with this card, with a special birthday wish/song from Justin Bieber:

It was a fun little tea party.

Even though we made lots of tea and no one drank tea.

Even though it got dark before we were able to play croquet.

Even though I put the wrong version of "boom boom pow" on my party playlist so in the midst of a sweet, lovely, proper tea party, a slew of explitives caught everyone offguard.

Even still. :o)

Music, food, un-touched tea, and family & friends = fabulous party.

Working together....

Thursday, April 22, was annual "Bring a Child to Work Day".

I brought 3.

:o)

The day before there wasn't a cloud in the sky, then a storm rolled in and we had to change our planned attire, and grab umbrellas and jackets, in a rush before we left the house:

There were activities planned for all the kids, but Arissa had "been there, done that" 2 years ago. So this year (like last) she wanted to be my shadow and do some of my actual work.

We took a tour of the basement, where all the old files are kept:

Throughout the day I kept trying to slyly give examples of why going to college is a good idea:

"You know, if you go to college you'd have a job where you could work in a nice big office...instead of a cubicle like me..."

"Now it's time for my break, but I only get 15 minutes. You know, if you go to college you could get a job where you set your own hours..."

etc. etc.

But you know how kids are.

Arissa was quite contented and strangely enchanted by my little desk, with my redundant work, and my little 15 minute break. Go figure.

I was able to give her some work to do, and I liked that.

Except then some nosey passerbys told her that if I'm putting her to work, I ought to buy her lunch. Arissa liked that.

Mallory & Mariah came back a little early from the festivities because they "missed" me. Apparently seeing police dogs search for and find narcotics isn't that much fun when you're scared of big sniffing dogs.

So they came back and we left for the day at about noon.

My good friend, Irene (who I orignially worked with when I started for the County, and transferred to Downtown shortly before I did) offered to take us all to lunch. She didn't have to ask us twice. :o)

We went to Sammy's Woodfired Pizza...and it was delicious. So good I couldn't even describe it to Jesse, I told him he just has to go and taste for himself. He said "it's pizza, I've been to Pizza Hut, I know what it's like", but I said no no no you don't. Can't wait to take him.

We had pizza.

We had pretty drinks.

We had ice cream sundaes with lots of whipped cream for dessert (the girls).

We had empanadas w/ french vanilla ice cream and caramal sauce (me & Irene).

It was the perfect meal.

And made for a lovely ending to a fun day!

(When Mariah had left the activities to come back to me, before Mallory could escape as well, the group took this cute picture):


(Mallory's in the second row, dead center, sitting on her bum, waiving hi)

Once again, Arissa is so lucky!

Last weekend was fabulous and full of fun....I call it a "birthday extavaganza", cause it was so much more than the word "party" conveys, and she had such a fun time.

She and her good friends from Drill Team celebrated Vanesa's 10th birthday, and they totally did it in stlye too!

Friday night was the pre-event slumber party, and then Saturday morning they got all done-up and headed out:

to the:

Us parents met them at the restaurant...they all looked SO cute in their 50's attire. Especially with the whole group decked out, it was awesome.

Jesse & I had just 1 little one in tow; Mallory was on an adventure of her own, trading in her poodle skirt for overalls to visist a local working-farm with her Grandma. She came home with two eggs "from real chickens" (Jesse asked her "aren't all eggs from real chickens?" and that perplexed her for a bit). She was so proud and excited.

So Mariah came with us to celebrate Miss V's special day:

She was happy there were other little ones there too (Drill Team siblings--the usual gang). They danced and played:

They got side tracked by these guys:

The kids thought they were terrific....I thought they were cool but a little creepy so I snapped the pic and then we got the heck out of there and re-joined the party.

How come all the girls have straws stuck in their hair?

Cause the waitress fancied them all up and gave them special do's:

I love these next shots...

While Arissa & two of her straw-haired friends were in the photobooth, I peeked in the curtain and took these:

:o)

And then, when our tummies were full, and our feet were danced-out, the girls were whisked away the same way they arrived:


....in style.

Arissa absolutely could not believe she got to ride in a limo. She called me on their way there: "Mommy! Do you know where I am??? I. am. in a limo!!!". :o)

After all the excitement of the limosine-exit, Mariah was real dissappointed to drive home in my little old car. She cried at the unfairness of it all, and couldn't comprehend how I could be satisfied driving around in my VW when there were perfectly good sleek-looking cars with hot-tubs inside them like the one Arissa just took off in. I had to explain that maybe that's how Hannah Montana rolls, but most limos do not have hot tubs and that our car gets us where we need to go.

But I know that from now on, anytime she and Arissa get into one of our cars, they'll be wishing it was a limo. :o)

From there we picked up Mallory and headed off to phase 3 of the party: gifts and hanging-out time at the birthday girl's house.

Arissa got her a little frame that says "friends" and a picture of the two of them. And then, much more valuable to a 9-year-old girl: a Justin Bieber cd. :o)

And that was Arissa's birthday extravaganza weekend.

I am so thankful for the sweet group of friends that Arissa has.

And I'm thankful for fun parties and poodle skirts...and the fact that my Grandma kept and preserved the one she made me for Halloween when I was in 4th grade, which Arissa wore to this party!