A New Season

It's been awhile and since the last post and so much has happened. So I will start off with the refreshing attitude and positive thinking that is getting me through the rest of 2010. In short, it was an emotional summer. Cancer worked its way through our family and friends. With the loss of my best friend, two of the Mister's aunts and the new diagnosis of cancer in extended family....cancer just plain sucks.

On a happier note. The kids are growing super fast!! Little Man started Jr. Kindergarten at a new school this year. He enjoys it and can already recite the pledge of allegiance and says he prays for all of us at school everyday. Soccer season has also started and he seems to be loving it. Our saturdays are dedicated to watching 5 year old boys chasing the soccer ball and parents yelling "the other way!!!!!" It's very entertaining. Here he is making one of his 3 goals from his first soccer game.



The Little Miss is 3 going on 16. She has to put on her lipstick aka bubble gum flavored chapstick before we leave the house EVERY morning. It's like clockwork...."where's my nake-up mama?", yes, it's pronounced Nake-up in her language. She started ballet this summer and is continuing through the fall. LOVES every minute of that as well, especially because it is a fairytale ballet class and the teacher plays disney princess music! When she is not taking ballet she follows Mommy around town running errands and stopping in at Target at least 3 times a week, she says it her favorite store. However, every morning we drop her brother off to school she is begging to stay and asks why she can't go to school too. Oh, and THAT is how Little Miss FINALLY decided to use the big girl potty.

We are no longer in diapers, praise the Lord!! We went to Little Man's school to meet the teacher and she was begging to find her desk with her name, her cubby and toys. So I told her she has to use the potty like the big kids. Well we went home and she went straight to the bathroom and went potty. Like that. So yes, she is ready for school now thanks to the motivation she got when Little Man's teacher showed us where the big kids go potty at school. Who knew that's all it would take.



Same old story with the Mister and I. He goes to work and I've got kid duty M-F. I have not been very focused on much and hope to find time to get some fitness back into my daily routines. Nothing new or exciting in our department. We recently had a nice visit from Grandma Clarin and celebrated a first birthday with PB (Pismo Beach) Clarin's. It's always nice to be with family. Stay tuned for pictures from that visit. Bye for now :)

Princess Potty

Don'worry Moms & Pops, the pretty pink princess seat that her face a plastered on is brand spanking new and clean, fresh out of the package. She kept doing this all on her own and thought it was the funniest thing in the world. I personally thought she was kidding one day when out of the blue she asked me "Mommy I want a potty seat like brudder (brother). A pink princess one for me mama." I asked her if she is ready to sit on the potty and say bye bye to her dippies (aka diapers) and she kept insisting yes because "I want to wear my Nihao Kai-lan and Cindereduh (cinderella) panties" So off we went to Target in search of her very own PINK potty seat.

There was one lonely princess potty ring left and she was SO excited to see it and put it in the cart. The whole time in the store I hear "I got my pink princess potty seat mama, I get to wear my Cindereduh pantieeeees! and Kai-lan panty tooooo. I'm a big girl!" When we get home she is begging to sit on her new seat. Aside from being excited about wearing big girl panties she also was aware that when we potty train you get "jelly beans" as she likes to call them but we all know them as M&M's, she insists they are "jelly beans". I even got her special pink m&m's since it was out for valentines and this girl LOVES all things PINK.

Eager to sit on her potty seat, eat some jelly beans and wear her "cindereduh" panties, we attempt to go potty. She smiles, swings her feet happily while she sits. Tells me all about how pretty her pink princess potty seat is, points out every castle, glass slipper, flower and carriage printed on it, holds the little handle bars on the side and nothing, just as I expected. It was her first time sitting on the potty without the fear of falling in so I was very proud of her. She got ONE "jelly bean" for effort then said "I'm done." I praise her for initiating all of that and for trying and reminded her about all the potty training rules we talk about. She said okay and went on her merry way.

Prior to all of this we always have talked about going potty and saying buy to our diapers, wearing underwear etc. so she knew what was in store for her. She refused to buy a potty seat and refused to sit on the potty before all of this happend. So of course I went with it and took her to buy her seat. I was hoping that she would be super quick at this potty training thing and get it down in 3days. Little Man had two accidents and turned into a potty pro in a matter of days....before he was three.! Little Miss will be 3 in less than 2months and she is nowhere near ready. To be honest I am not looking forward to pulling over to use the portable potty or rushing to find a bathroom at the drop of a dime right now, but she will be 3 and I hope to have her trained by the end of summer.

So a few minutes pass from her first attempt and she says she has to go again. Same thing, she sits, swings feet and smiles. Then she farts and gives me a big surprised face and says "YAY, I did it mama! Can I have jelly beans now?" I do my best not to bust out laughing because she looked so proud of herself. I tell her "good job! but I don't see any peep or poop so you can only have one this time." She throws me a sad face, says "no fair" and gets off saying "All done", washes her hands and eats her single lonely jelly bean.

And that was it.

No more interest in the potty seat. I smooth talk her, bribe her, entice her with candy and lollipops but Little Miss has lost all interest in going potty. All because mama was too cheap and only gave her ONE jelly bean. Hahahahaha. I think that's what ruined round one of potty training. BUT you would think we successfully completed potty training in 3days after seeing the EMPTY candy jar that held her precious pink "jelly beans". We have the Mister to thank for making them all disappear.

We will start Round Two soon, this time I will do my best to avoid being the jelly bean Nazi and be more generous...I will also hide the candy jar from Daddy!

Fantabulous February

February came and went in a flash for us. Here are the highlights of the month for us. The first one being Valentines day. I reached deep down into my inner Martha Stewart and made some homemade crayons to give out at Little Man's preschool party. They were a hit and super easy to make. The kids had made them before with various old crayons lying around the house but peeling paper off old crayons is NOT fun. So we bought a new box and paper peeling was a breeze. The kids enjoyed breaking the crayons and putting them in our heart molds. The swirls of color were really cool.

We made a total of 30 and Little Man signed his name on EVERY valentine. He did a great job. We put them in clear bags and printed out some Pokemon on white paper with a V-day greeting so his friends get the hint to color with the heart and not eat it...it resembled candy and I hope no one took a bite of it.

Little Man enjoyed his little assembly line of hearts and baggies. He did a lot of work that night. After the crayons we made chocolate kiss pretzels too. It was a busy night for our oven. Little Miss wasn't too interested in helping out since she got to color with her new swirly heart crayons.

I think Valentines Day was the main highlight of the month. We did encounter a milestone that jumped out at us in February, Little Miss asking for a Potty Seat! But that deserves it's very own post. We are still nowhere near being potty trained and are still buying diapers :( That should say a lot on how potty training is going...or not going.

Wicked January

I will start this off with one of our highlights from December. I didn't get to share my Annual Ugly Sweater Christmas Party pictures with those not on FB. I know it's March now but aren't we lovely in our $2 sweaters from the thrift store? I usually start my sweater hunt early in the season but I think all the little old ladies beat me to the game. I couldn't find any "good" ugly sweaters anywhere. Oh well, this was my family sitting by our fireplace. All of our friends come over and we enjoy seeing the tacky & ugly sweaters walk thru the door. Some still smell of potent old lady perfume...you canNOT get that out of thrift store clothes! The kids didn't get dressed in ugliness this year cause I refused to pay premium for clothes we will not use again. Here I am in my Vest and The Mister in his polo shirt, tie and ugly 2 times 2 small sweater. Pretty Nice right?! So that was in December. Just thought you'd like to see that moms & pops.

January was a busy month. Birthdays, Baptisms and Weddings filled the weekends for us. We celebrated the Baptism of our niece at the beautiful Mission San Miguel Arcangel. I love this picture, it kind of reminds me of "the circle of life" :)

All the kids got to go up to the alter and welcome our little cutie to the Catholic Faith.

Next up was the wedding of our dearest friends. The Mister served as Best Man and guess who served as a Ring Bearer?? You guessed it, my Little Man. He did such an awesome job, Mama was super proud. He even threw me a thumbs up before he walked down the aisle. It was so cute!



Then like the end of every January, we celebrated our "Wicked" 6 year wedding anniversary. For the first time we enlisted two of our most loving, patient & BRAVE friends to drive out to the country and babysit our two kids. It was the first time we have ever left the kids with anyone over 2hrs, other than Grandma Ely. Our friends survived and even volunteered to do it again!! The Mister and I drove out to the San Francisco to watch the broadway show Wicked. It was awesome and I would LOVE to see it again. The Mister is not into the whole broadway show scene but he enjoyed this one. I love love loved it and probably listened to the soundtrack one too many times. The kids will say "is this your Wicked witch music mommy??" haha. So here we are, posing before leaving the house and there I am posing by the big ole' poster at the Orpheum. It was a great end to the month of January. I even got a request from the Mister to see another broadway show, Avenue Q...i thought that was odd but now that we've got veteran babysitters in the area I think I see more date nights in our future!

Where have we been?

Our 2009 ended with a trip to Las Vegas to visit Papa Danny & Grama Laurie. The kids did awesome on the 9hour road trip. The adventure started the day after Christmas and it was like christmas all over again when we got to Papa Danny's house. The kids loved it and can't wait to go back. We took a trip to The Magical Forrest where there were tons of lights and decorations put up by local businesses, very similar to our Christmas in the Park here in the bay area.



We also got to visit with the kids Great Grandma and Great Grandpa (the Mister's grandparents) along with more cousins and aunties & uncles. It's always nice being around family and catching up with each other since we don't get to see them often. We wish we all lived closer to more family.

2009 flew by and 2010 seems to be breezing by just as quick. Stay tuned for a January recap!

The Nutcracker Ballet

The Little Miss and I had girly time a few weekends ago and we went to ballet! It was our very first time seeing the Nutcracker and we both enjoyed it. The San Jose Center of Performing Arts has a children's matinee which is a shortened version of the original Nutcracker. It is only ONE hour instead of the usual 2.5 hr performance. It was great for the kids and we plan to go as a family next year. I personally think I could not sit through the entire 2.5 hour show so this version is perfect.

We have been reading the Nutcracker story since it was one of their Advent countdown books and in the book (if you don't know the story) there is a Mouse King...(which dies) and on the drive down Little Miss specifically said "I no like the Mouse King mama...He scary" So when the Nutcracker & Mouse King were out greeting all the kids in the lobby she was NOT very happy to see him! She ran straight to a corner out of the way for him to pass.

Near that corner she ran to was a long table with tons of Nutcrackers, snow globes and christmas decorations. I really wanted to buy one for her but $12 for a new nutcracker is just outta Mommy's price range especially since we got the exact same thing at RiteAid for $3.99! No joke, the were the same thing.

As we waited for doors to open for our seats we grabbed a little snack from the concession and they had the cutest bags of cookies that we both ate up, chocolate covered shortbread YUM! Overall the ballet was great and she did really well. She was VERY excited anytime Clara (the main character) would dance on her tip toes, she would say very loudly "she dancing on tippy toes mama! yook yook!" (yook=LOOK) It was the cutest thing and a very fun day spent with my Little Miss.

Can we Build it?...yes.we.can!

A few weeks back when Cousin B was visiting we got each of the kids their own Gingerbread house kit from Costco. The best kit in my opinion if you are not willing to bake and shape things yourself. Tons of frosting and candy and you not only get a house, you get a christmas tree and TWO gingerbread people for $9.99!

Daddy helped the Little Miss and she basically ate a ton of candy while Daddy did all the work

I helped the Little Man who did it all on his own

And Cousin B got help from his Daddy. The kids had fun sampling all the candies and making a mess with frosting. Clean up wasn't too bad and I'd say the gingerbread decorating was a success!