click on photo to see larger version!

Proofs

We have a few days to decide which photo to choose.

The Phi likes #2 because she has busy eyes in that one.

So help us choose.....

Which picture do you like best?

• 
  
  A


• 
  
  B


• 
  
  C


• 
  
  D

view results
Free vote poll

It was a graveyard smash....

After an awesome Thai dinner (Thanks again for the recommendation Patrick!) with my family we all headed to our OG hometown of Santa Paula to our cousin Gabriel's Halloween / Housewarming party.

The kids were excited to dress up in their costumes. PR Dad went as a disco dude and I went as a birthday princess. The party was a lot of fun and it was awesome to spend my birthday night with my cousins!

Cassie the Pin-Up girl
(disclosure: cigarette is totally fake!! All props for the costume!)

DJ Penguin on the 1's and 2's


My favorite costume was my cousin Karina as Lady Gaga.
When Poker Face came on they made her come out and dance.


This was my favorite picture of the night. Joe-Joe and Erika (the twins) having a good time.

My favorite part was when Joe-Joe got on the mic and wished me a happy birthday, then they moved me into the middle of the dance floor and they took turns dancing with me as they chanted my name.

My family is the bomb!

To see all the pictures click here

Sick Day

Had to call in sick to work so I am calling in sick to my blog. We
will return tomorrow with regularly scheduled programming.

Soccer Saturday

We started my birthday out by cheering my awesome niece The Chone on at her soccer game. The whole family met at the park to root her on!


This was the first time I saw her new haircut and I love it. It reminds me of my short hair from when I was about the same age.

The Chone is such a well rounded kid who plays lots of sports, and plays the violin.


The Phi got a good seat to watch her cousin play.


Little Felix got the same view.

Felix is not has playful with me as Lili so when he was hamming it up for my camera I just kept snapping. Here he is hiding behind his Tio Joey.


I am glad that The Phi loves her cousins so much!
It was a great way to start my birthday!

I really thought we were past this

Last weekend we headed over to the pumpkin patch. The Live Oak Pumpkin Patch is awesome and The Phi had been looking forward to it all week.

Too bad we had to leave after being there for half an hour.

The Phi was in a mood. A whiny cranky mood. As we tried to figure out how many ride tickets to buy The Phi complained she just wanted to get on something. So we get the tickets and get her on this little motorized John Deer tractor. She gets on, rides around, bumps into a parked tractor and proceeds to LOSE HER SHIT.

Crying, and carrying on pushing my hand away from her and just being a brat. No amount of talking from PR Dad was helping so I told her. Get your act together or we are so out of here.

She couldn't pull it together so we walked a crying kid of there. Her wails intensified in the car but I am not one for empty threats.

She carried on for another 30 minutes and I thought PR Dad's head was going to explode. He does not do well in these high stress kind of situations. I on the other hand can ignore her. I told her she had a short amount of time to stop or we are just going home. We ran some errands and she finally calmed down. We had some lunch and she was back to normal, so we headed back to the pumpkin patch.

Even after the rough start of the day, we ended up having a good time.



The Phi got to shake the monkey's hand again this year.

We picked our pumpkin.

She got to jump on the cabled trampolines that she loves.

And even had the pumpkin bouncer to herself.

I was really surprised that we had this little tantrum incident. We haven't had something like that from her in a long time, but the "teenager" like attitude has been showing up more and more.

Cube

It's like Ice Cube said " today was a good day"

Sent from my iPhone ;)

32

So today is my 32nd Birthday. Wow...... 32..........

I guess I should be sad because I am getting older, but I can't. I have 2 reasons that no matter how old I get....

life is good.......

Happy 32 to me!

Mine

I understand your desire to reprimand me, but at the same time you need to understand my need to take care of my daughter. She is 4 years old and she is our world. We love her and understand our responsibility to keep her safe. I understand your need for order and efficiency, but there is nothing more important to me than the safety of my child.

You are asking me to do something small, something that many other parents have no problems doing. Dropping them off and watching them disappear in a building, confident their child will get to where they need to be. I cannot do this.....yet.

This is our routine, this is what makes myself and my daughter comfortable. I know the stress and anxiety she would feel if I forced her to walk in herself. Right now my daughter loves school and looks forward to going everyday. I do not want to ruin that.

My daughter is 4 years old, I would never allow her to walk anywhere alone. I cannot open the door, kiss her and hope she makes her way through the maze of kids, with ages ranging from 4-18, into the cafeteria filled with every student that goes to your school, hope she successfully finds her classmates, and hope that her teacher is there to supervise. I simply cannot do that.


I see other parents doing the same thing every morning. Other parents who are not ready, other children who are not ready. I have my suspicions as to why your singled me out this morning.

I understand your concerns, but nothing, NOTHING, is more important to us than our daughter. She is our responsibility and I do what I do to protect her and to keep her safe. She is our only child and we may seem over-protective to you, but we are. We are over-protective of our 4 year old. If something happened to her, if she was hurt, or worse, it is I who will have to deal with the hurt, loss or guilt. Not you.

I understand that hundreds of students do this everyday with no incident. Chances of something going wrong from the car door to the cafeteria may be 1 in a million. But why do I have to run the risk that the one time something does happen it happens to my child? If walking her into school makes it 0 in a million then that is what I will do.

So I will continue to walk my daughter into school every morning. You can stop me everyday and everyday I will say the same thing. "I understand, but I am just not comfortable with that suggestion".

6 years old

Happy 6th Birthday Mr. Buck-a-Roo Fantastic.
We love you as much as you stink.
And that is a lot!

Costume Shopping

This Saturday (which is also my birthday!!!) we are all going to a costume party. For over a week The Phi and I have been hitting costume stores trying to find something for her, me and PR Dad. Last night we hit two more stores and my right eye was twitching by the end of it all. We walked out with The Phi's costume. It was twice as much as I wanted to spend and it is in the fairy/princess theme. The kid has like 7 Disney princess dresses in her dress-up bag but still. After her unique and awesome of ideas of Cash Money Eyes and Woodstock she went with the generic fairy/princess path. Oh well, she is the one that has to wear it. At least she has a costume.

PR Dad and I still don't. We are so freakin' indecisive and everything seems so generic. I cannot come up with any good ideas for us. For other people I can think of awesome costumes.

Like my parents. I always thought they would make a good Lily and Herman MunsterBecause the height difference is about right and Lily is always worrying and Herman is always laughing.

My Brother-in-law Luis could be a clown.

Because he has a lot of clown tattoos and it would scare the crap out of my sister Ouie.

And my sister Ouie could be Octo-Mom
Because Ouie has the big lips and it would scare the crap out of Luis.

Tia Uh-laine could be Cesar Milan.


Because she totally loves dogs and has that big bright smile like Cesar.


All totally great ideas, right? But for us we got nothing!

Latino Family and Book Festival

So you guys know who Edward James Olmos is right? You know they guy from Stand and Deliver and every other movie about or with Mexicans in them. Well when he is not busy making movies and television he puts together an annual Latino Family and Book Festival. For those of you who don't know my college education is in Chicano Studies. My passions are Chicano art and literature. I had not been to the festival in years so when I heard it was going to be at Cal State LA and that it was FREE I knew I had to convince PR Dad to spend a Saturday there.

As usual it didn't take much convincing. PR Dad is the most agreeable person on the freakin' planet.

We spent a few hours there and had a good time. The Phi got to paint.



They had a kids area where a stage was set and Latino children's book authors read their stories. I was pleasantly surprised to see the name Kathleen Contreras as one of the authors speaking. While in graduate school I took a class with her on Latino children literature. It was a great class and it was nice to see her, say hello and get a warm embrace from a wonderful teacher/author/woman.

After story time we headed to a classroom to listen to one of my favorite authors speak. Victor Villasenor is probably most famous for his book "Rain of Gold" . I heard him speak in Palm Spring last year and was very excited to hear him speak again.

Most of his lecture was the same as last year but still very powerful and inspiring.

The Phi has been asking a lot about college lately. So I was happy that she was going to see a college classroom. I showed her the chairs and the little folding tables that come up so you can take notes. It was cute to see my little 4 year old sitting in a college lecture seat.

About 10 minutes into the lecture I look to my right to check on The Phi and this is what I see....





Yup. Sound asleep. For the entire lecture. Hope this is not a glimpse of the kind of college student I will have on my hands in 14 years!

First Field Trip

Last week The Phi had her first school field trip. Each student was required to have a parent with them, and since The Phi is an overachiever, she had both parents with her.

The morning of the field trip we got up early and as got The Phi ready I asked if she was excited. She said "Yes Mom I am so excited to ride the bus!" Except there was no bus involved in this trip.

After checking in at school we made the drive up to Riley Farms. Where we were transported to the colonial days were The Phi learned how to.....

spin yarn and weave with a loom


how to churn butter.....


to make candles.....



to eat awesome caramel apples.....



and to write with a quill.......



After our tour we stopped for a picnic lunch.



Then we marched to the pumpkin patch to unsuccessfully find a pumpkin.

The trip was good, and The Phi had a good time. For me it lasted about 30 minutes too long. Every notice we had received regarding about the field trip told us to dress warm because its always chilly up there. So I wore a sweater and it was like 90 degrees and I was hot and miserable by 1 pm. It was very cool to see The Phi interact with her friends and place little faces to names she talks about.

Our Latest Read

The Phi and I have discovered an old, but new to us, book series. Junie B. Jones is a updated version of Ramona. She is about 6 years old or so and an imaginative and mischievous little girl. The books are chapter book but are still pretty fast reads. We can get through one book on 2 or 3 nights.

The Phi has taken a big liking to Junie B. Jones and now will go straight to the "P" section of the kids books to find one of the books we haven't read yet.

I am looking forward to the coming months where The Phi will start to read. The letter sounds are there and it is just a matter of days before she starts putting things together.

I love reading and I am hoping The Phi will have the same love!

My daredevil

Found Car Show

After wine tasting with my Boo PR Dad, The Phi and I decided to explore Old Town Temecula and were very pleasantly surprised to find a Classic Car Show!












It was such a nice way to spend the afternoon. Old Town Temecula is really cute and would love to go back when the streets are open to wander and shop around.


Every once and awhile I snap a photo of PR Dad that I ADORE! I love it so much it becomes the desktop background on all my computers and I print it out and out it by my bedside.

While at the car show there was a booth selling sunglasses. While The Phi tried on different styles PR Dad put on a pair and I snapped a photo and SWOON!

I am such a sucker for boys in glasses!

BEP

My sister Uh-laine introduced me to the new Black Eyed Peas song "Meet Me Halfway". After the second time I was hooked and for like a week I had this song on a constant repeat.

Apparently The Phi was paying close attention. The other day while we made dinner the song came on and The Phi started singing, like every word.

Of course I grabbed the camera

Wine and Catch-up

There was a time when my best friend Ami was a part of my everyday. Even though she lived in San Diego and I lived in Ventura County we saw each other very often. She has always been one of my absolutely favorite people to be around and talk with.

Years ago she moved to Chicago and as life begins to move quickly for each of us its hard to find the time to be in each others every day. Except she is in my thoughts everyday.



On Friday afternoon, while she was on a quick visit home, we meet at a winery in Temecula for lunch. The surroundings were beautiful, as most wineries are. I sat at the table on the patio next to a vineyard and waited for my Boo.


She walked into the patio, looking amazing (as usual) and I was so happy to see her. She sat down and it was as if time had stopped the last time we we together and it just picked right up again.


Talking with Ami is never forced or uncomfortable. We could talk to each other for hours. And we have. We ate lunch, we drank wine and we caught up and picked up where we had last left off.
Finding a friendship that can stand the test of time and distance is beautiful. We have been through so much together and those tough times where I spent hours listening to her just think out loud. And the hours she spent listening to some of the crazy things I thought were good ideas.

We never judge, we only support and love each other.

The Family that Parties Together

A few weeks ago The Phi and I headed to Santa Barbara to celebrate Tia Uh-laine's 24th birthday.

To say we had a blast is an understatement.

We all meet up for pizza and came home to open gifts.


Then the kids headed outside to check out the new power wheels that Nana and Tata got for them.


There was also new tricycles to ride around on.


And of course Day-Day had to get in on the fun.


The Phi knocked out by 11 pm, but the party had just gotten started. Uh-laine friends and their 4o's came by.


Some of our cousins and our brother Tom and his crew rolled up and of course beer pong was played.


The twins partied right along with us until 4 am!



The next day we had a late breakfast and headed over to the bowling alley. How cute are little toddler bowling shoes times 3.


And Pops got to bowl with his kids and grand kids and still cheer on his Chargers!


The weekend was almost perfect. We were missing PR Dad and The Chone.


And somewhere The Phi ended up with $5 and could not resist a cash money eyes pose.


Hope your birthday weekend was fun for you Uh-laine. We can't wait to celebrate 25 with you!