We're busy up in here, yo!

The past 2 weeks have been just so busy, I barely have time to think!  Amanda's birthday pizza party was a huge success.  Her whole class was so cute and thankful for their pizza lunch.  I had fun too, setting up the plates, doling out fruit & pizza slices.

Last week was an emotional roller coaster.  We all had MLK day off on Monday, so we headed up to Castaic to drop off the boat for some (what we thought were) minor repairs.  The floorboards were feeling a bit soft, so Mike thought a few might need replacing.  Well, turns out the whole floor is rotted, along with the supports that keep the floor up.  So we're talking thousands of dollars to repair on an already super-old boat (not worth the cost of the repairs).  Mike has an emotional attachment to the boat since it originally belonged to his dad, so he was really feeling down about it, and deciding what to do.

Then he found another boat for sale with all the extras in a boat he ever wanted.  At a very good price too.  But the guy didn't call him back for several days, so we weren't even sure the boat was still for sale.  Plus, we weren't sure we could afford it.

Then on Thursday I found out at work that due to a new 'job grading' analysis they did, I would be receiving a fairly large raise, effective immediately!  Talk about good luck (or bad luck, if you see it as I was being grossly underpaid for the past several years)!  AND, that evening the guy selling the boat called Mike back and the boat is still for sale!  He is out of town, so we agreed to come down and see it next Sunday.

Then, upon talking to various family members over the weekend, it became obvious we may not be able to fit the new boat in our backyard.  You see, in order to store our current boat, after pulling it into the backyard, we manually swing it around in a 270 degree turn, and back it into a paved spot in our backyard.  The new boat has a double-axle trailer (old boat was single) so the pivot point changes and turning it sharply becomes out of the question.  So, Mike became depressed & upset again that we may not be able to get the new boat (he refused to even think about storing it somewhere because there are no storage places with roofs in LA for boats).  THEN, after discussing with more family members, now he thinks we can just pull off one of the tires (on each side) and still pivot the boat.  So then he was happy again.

Talk about the gamut of emotions!

So on a happy note, we celebrated my grandmother's 89th birthday on Sunday at my parent's house.  Though her health could be a bit better, she is a pretty spry 89 years young.  She is hilarious because they live in a retirement community and my grandmother constantly complains that it's all "old people" so she doesn't participate in any of the activities.  Hilarious!

This weekend (Saturday the 28th) is Amanda's birthday party.  I have almost everything finished except the food which I'm taking Friday off to do.  I am also cleaning our house from top to bottom and making my own balloon arch.  Hopefully I will get it all done in time.  The balloon arch is a funny story...
So the theme for her party on Saturday is "RockStar" because Amanda loves to sing and pretend she's a rockstar.  I bought a Rock Show set from one of those half off deal sites:

and a stage background to put up the day of the party.  So then I was looking up ideas for decorations and came upon the idea of a red carpet leading up to a balloon arch.  Looked it up on Amazon and a red carpet was like $5 - score!  So then I started looking up how much a balloon arch would be.  I was seeing prices from $350-$400.  Really?  For BALLOONS?

Thus began my search for a reasonably priced balloon arch!  I love the internet.  I found a site that said how to make one yourself, and set to work.  I headed to Home Depot and (with Mike's help) for about $5 got some PVC pipe to act as the base on either side.  Then I bought some aluminum wire on Amazon for $5 for the arch, and some pink & purple balloons from the 99 cent store.  All in all, I think I spent barely over $20.  Now it just remains to be seen how this will look!  Wish me luck!

Fabulous Five!

My baby girl is 5 today!

 This picture was taken this past weekend at a friends' birthday party at Scooter's Jungle.  She was so excited to turn 5 just like all her friends!

She is turning into quite the little lady.  She is often shy at first, but (just like me) opens up quickly and likes to make sure everyone is included.  I often hear from her teachers that she is the first one to approach a new friend in the class and befriend them.  I couldn't be prouder! 

She has a quick wit like her dad and will often have us laughing around the dinner table.  She can often be super-sensitive and quick to cry, but usually a quick hug and she's back to her mischevious self.  She has been an amazing older sister and loves her little brother to peices (most days).

She will start Kindergarten this Fall, although we don't know where yet.  That's the fun of living in the city near a school that has horrible API scores.  I will keep you posted on what happens with that.  But suffice it to say, I don't want her to go to the school down the street!

The 'norm' at our new school is for the parents of the birthday child to provide a pizza lunch for the class.  So I will be heading down there at noon today to provide pizza, fruit, juice & cupcakes to all the kids.  We also put together 'goody bags' for everyone with a personalized card from Amanda in each one (she is quite the artist lately).  Happy Birthday to my litttle (big) girl!

Christmas & after Christmas photos

So, for Christmas Day I was asked to bring a pie for dessert.  I decided to finally put my apple peeler/corer/slicer to work and make an apple pie!  Amanda wanted to help, and being that all you have to do is crank, I said "OK"!  So here she is cranking out the apples for our apple pie!



Christmas eve at my sister's house, here's my mom & Kevin.


And Amanda discovered Andrew's Leapster. My mom helped her with some of the games, and they had a good time for at least an hour!


After dinner, it was time to open a present, and Amanda picked one from Aunt Erin & family. She opened it and discovered it was the same present she had just gotten from my best friend! Oops!


Then the kids wanted to take a bath, so we ran a bath thinking the older two would take a bath first, and then the younger two afterwards. Ummm, nope. Everyone wanted to get in the bath together. So that's what they did!


(I have no pics from Christmas Day)

On the Wednesday after Christmas we headed to Travel Town at Griffith Park with our good friends the Mascari's. Here's Amanda & Nick next to a train wheel.


And the whole group walking on the train tracks.


I tried to get all 4 kids in one shot, but didn't get that great of a pic. Mady couldn't see over the top very well, and Amanda was being silly.


Daddy helping Kevin walk on the tracks.


And Kevin's FAVORITE part - riding on the train!

Happy New Year!!

I wish I had some punctuating thing to say about 2011 but really it was a pretty benign year for us.  Amanda turned 4 and Kevin turned 2.  I had LASIK.  That's about the extent of the really memorable stuff.  I guess that's how you want it to be :)

We are hitting the ground running again this year.  We're already booked up for almost every weekend in January and well into February.  Amanda's "rockstar" birthday party is the last weekend of January.  I dawdled in getting the invites out until mid-December so I decided to delay it a week and do it the 28th (even though her birthday is the 17th).  I have the goodie bags bought, decorations purchased and entertainment booked.  Just have to figure out the food.  And pray the weather is good.  It's a crap-shoot in January.  Some years it's been cold & rainy, and other years it's warm & sunny.  Amanda really wanted to have her party at home with a bouncer, so cross your fingers it stays warm & sunny for us!

New Years was quiet as usual.  Kids went to bed at their normal time.  I considered letting Amanda stay up until 9pm to watch NY turn to midnight but Mike put the kibash on that.  We rented "Captain America", and played a game of Monopoly (I won), kissed at midnight and then I went to bed.  Since I won Monopoly, Mike got up with the kids at 6:30, then he went back to bed when I got up at 8.   I discovered Target was open at 8am on New Years Day, so we headed to Target and got some shopping done with Mike slept in until about 10:30.  The kids were super-good that day as well. 

Actually all last week (their school was closed and Mike had the week of) they were on their best behaviour.  Sometimes I wonder if school is actually teaching them bad habits, or maybe they don't get enough nap or something... but man all week I came home to glowing reports of how they played nicely together with their new toys and rarely fought!  Go kids!  I took Wed. off and we headed over to Travel Town at Griffith Park.  Kevin is really into trains lately, and he LOVED it, especially riding on the train that goes around the park!

Then I had to work on January 2nd :(  First time since 2006, but I had to go in for a half day to get our year-end accruals in to corporate.  They insisted they have everything by end of day on the 2nd (even though they take the rest of the week to actually post everything).  Turned out to not be that bad of a day.  Hardly anyone was in the office, and those that were there showed up with food, food and more food!  I had a McDonalds egg McMuffin, a donut and a bagel for breakfast.  Then our CFO bought us lunch at The Counter too.  Plus the VP of Accounting brought in a hoard of desserts and tequila shots for after lunch!  I was done with work by 12:30, but stuck around until 2 eating and playing games.  If I had made any sort of resolution to eat less, yesterday would NOT have been good for me!

My only real resolution this year is to be better organized.  We're starting with a cleaning lady.  I finally broke Mike down and he is allowing me to have her come once a month.  It's not as nice as every 2 weeks, but it's better than nothing!  We will still have to do the in-between cleaning, but I'm hoping this will help us all stay better organized and less cluttered.

Cheers to the new year!

Merry Christmas!

 Merry late Christmas and a Happy New year to everyone!  I took very few pics on Christmas, was too busy opening presents and enjoying family.  I will put up what I do have eventually :)  In the meantime, these are some photos we took at the beginning of December.  We actually got the entire family from my grandparents down to our kids (their great grandkids) together for a big family group shot.  They were Christmas presents to both my grandmother and my mom to put up in their respective houses.  To the left there is a cute pic we caught of Kevin on Mike's shoulders.  I was to the right of them with Amanda on my shoulders, but she didn't feel stable and kept grabbing my neck (not making for a nice picture).  The other picture below this is a good shot of the whole family.  You can tell we were saying "CHEESE!"  Ha ha!

Some Elf Love

I've seen several blogs and heard several comments about the newest Christmas Craze - the Elf on the Shelf.  A lot of people are calling it stalker-ish and annoying.  However, we've had a lot of fun, and success with our elf!

Amanda will be 5 in January, and while she is certainly starting to grow out of whining and tantruming, there are times when she falls back into old habits.  Elf has been a saving beacon of hope.  We just tell her Elf is going to tell Santa she's being naughty, and wallah! she is ready to be good again.

Also, the fun of finding elf every morning is exciting for our young kids.  They wake up ready to skim the house looking for their elf.  Even Kevin looks forward to finding where he is today!

Yes, I have had several nights where I wake from a dead slumber, realizing I forgot to move elf.  In fact, 3 mornings out of 5 our elf hasn't even moved because (you guessed it), I forgot to move him.  But fortunately for us, our kids are easily sidetracked with excuses, and move on quickly.

I just wanted to say I really like this new and fun tradition.  And although it's not for everyone, we love it's magical and entertaining value.

Potluck fun!

I have been at my current company now for almost 10 years. And somewhere around 2005-ish I got involved in organizing an annual holiday potluck. At first, it started out as just a fun addition to the holidays. We would have our potluck around the 10th of December to help usher in the holiday season. Many people would sign up to bring their favorite dishes, and then we'd collect some money from those who couldn't/wouldn't cook themselves. We would go out and get some drinks, a couple party trays of sandwiches or fruit platters that would help fill in the gaps of the multitude of other dishes being brought.  Then there'd be two more holiday parties throughout the month (thrown by the company and another by the president of our division).

Then in 2008 it all changed.  With everything in the financial markets crashing, and the media tearing our parent company apart for having a "party", all holiday parties were banned.  Our potluck became the central holiday celebration at work.  And we decided to go all out!  We started by providing breakfast (donuts, bagels, OJ), then the potluck at noon which was partially financed by the head guys - we added a Honeybaked Ham, a full cooked Turkey, and all the fixin's you can think of.  By 2009 we also added Root beer floats in the afternoon, and it officially became an all-day affair.

This year, we outdid ourselves again.  From the time I came in at 8am, until I left at 5, I was running around setting up for the next part of the potluck.  And this time I remembered my camera, so I was able to document everything!  Good thing, because this was the last year for our President.  He is leaving to start a new company as of next week.  Sad for us, but exciting for him!

So I guess the moral of the story is, if you need a potluck organized, I'm your go-to woman!

Christmas lights

The weekend after we got back was again super busy.  Mike & I participated in the final Habitat for Humanity build through our Church on Saturday.  Then we got home and put up Christmas decorations.  Here we are putting up the lights outside.



And here is the final product (we finished just as the sun was setting!)




Then we headed inside to decorate our living Christmas Tree!


Christmas is one of the few times during the year that Mike is a scrooge and won't participate much. One good thing about this is, he's willing to take some pictures though, so you finally get to see ME! Although I was seriously grubby and exhausted in these pics after a full day of building a house. Sorry I wasn't at my best!

Thanksgiving recap

Finally have some time to do this (I think)!  It has been a whirlwind since we got back, and even though I've had my Xmas cards done since October, I just barely put them in the mail today!  UGH!

We flew into Chicago on Tuesday Nov. 22.  Flight was fairly uneventful which was super surprising.  Kevin actually took a nap!  Then he wanted to sit on Daddy's lap, so I got to relax by myself for a bit before we landed :)  Since we lose 2 hours flying out there, the kids went down really late (10pm Chicago time), and actually slept in since we slept in the (finished) basement and there was no sunshine to wake them up!

Wednesday we headed to the Children's museum in Naperville.  What fun the kids have here every time we go!
Kevin LOVED this structure you could hang plastic fish from:


And then he discovered this pin table where he could push the fish and see the indent on the other side!


And of course, the water table was a HUGE hit



Followed by the air discovery area. He loved this tube, blowing air on him.


Thursday, the kids were up bright and early. Here's Kevin and Grandpa Mark having their morning "coffee"


Then the family started coming over, and I got this super-cute pic of my newest neice, Hailey


Meanwhile Zach was being the ladies man and loving on all his girl cousins :)



Here are all the older cousins gathered in the basement tv area. Only Hailey wasn't in this pic.


After dinner, the husbands took the kids outside for some football fun to help burn off some of their energy. Kevin had a fun time throwing around a soft football with anyone he could throw to!



It's all fun and games until someone knocks down Daddy!


Amanda brought her stuffed animals out to watch her:


Look at these rosy cheeks!


It was cold, but not tooooooo cold, so the kids were outside for a good hour or so before their fingers started getting too cold.

Friday we headed to BounceTown (I think the name says it all)



On a side note, it is REALLY hard to get a good pic of the kids in this place!! They are constantly running around too fast for me to snap any good pics!

Saturday it started to rain, so we stayed home for most of the day. Mike started pulling out all his old toys. Here's Amanda playing with two of his biggest Star Wars toys.


Sunday we went to the Brunswick Fun Center, but I forgot my camera. Mike took some video on his phone (don't have it uploaded yet). Monday we stayed around the house again packing and hanging out with Mimi & Mark. And Tuesday we left (super early). Again, flight home was a success without much out of Kevin. He was coming down with a cold, so he slept most of the return flight as well!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Christmas!

Meet our Living Christmas Tree!  Mike heard about this last year, and we have been deciding if we wanted to do it or not.  We normally trade off each year, putting up a live Christmas tree for the years we are here for Christmas, and putting up the fake one for years we'll be in Illinois.  This year is a "live" year, so we decided to try the living Christmas Tree.  It's potted, so it never dies (unless I kill it), and they take it back to the nursery at the end of the season.  We got ours through http://www.livingchristmas.com/ which only serves So. Cal but I have seen articles that there are over 30 places across the country that do it.  So google it for your area and see if they have a similar program for you!

Anyway, I have a literal ton of pictures to upload from Thanksgiving.  We had so much fun, hanging out with family and doing/seeing so much.  I ran the turkey trot as planned, but twisted my ankle just after mile 2.  But guess what, I still finished in 34:03!  My best time yet!  It would have been closer to 33 minutes had not been for that stupid stick in the middle of the road!  Grrrrrr!

Hope everyone is having a great start to the Christmas season this year!!