How does it feel to be six?

"I feel...umm...a little different...wait...I feel older now." That's what Veronica said to me when I asked her how she felt to be 6 now. I still am trying to compose myself from the realization that my first born is in fact 6 years into her own life. Anyway, Veronica wanted a Princess and the Frog Costume Party and I did my best. My favortie part of putting this whole thing together was this picture that I took of Veronica. She was so happy and felt so loved...it totally made it all worth it.


(Disregard my dying flowers)
This shot was taken while the girls at her party were singing Happy Birthday to her. She loves the attention.




We played "Kiss Naveen". My amazing, artistic, talented, awesome friend Sheena drew Naveen and helped with the puffy paper flowers.


I thought it would be fun to have the girls do some paper crowns. Then they got a little crazy with the glitter. I'm still finding glitter EVERYWHERE! It was fun...I think.



The birthday girl requested brownies and ice cream(thanks for not making me make a Princess and the Frog cake).

Some kids watching part of P&F to calm down their excitement before their parents came.

I made up a little scavenger hunt for the girls. I didn't think that it would go as well as it did. Well, there were some fights about who got to grab the clue and who could read it. But the end was worth it. I hid the goodie bags in a treasure box. By that time, which was close to when the parents were to come get their kids, I WAS EXHAUSTED!!! It was fun though.

My parents and my brother and his wife came over later for even more celebrations! Here is abuelo with his oldest grandchild.


My dad is so good at being an abuelo. It's no wonder these kids love to have him around. Veronica loves to draw and received lots of construction paper to draw on. Here she is not wasting any time getting to work on those reams of paper.


So cute!

Harvest Festival

at Pierce College with the family. We were sitting around wondering what to do and decided to head over to the Festival for a few hours. It was a fun time. The kids got to ride a pony and go on a giant inflatable slide.

We caught the street workers repaving the streets.


David loved watching this.


After bathtime.


Getting ready for bed. Vanessa sucks her thumb and likes to hold her softie. Funny thing, it's an airline blanket that Jeff brought home from one of his travels. We didn't think it would be such a big hit.





All clean and ready for bed.

Nothing like sourbelts to "encourage" the kids to finish their dinner.

This is a common scene in our house. Veronica is very much a bookworm.

What a treat

Jeff and I got box seats for a Dodgers game for their last Friday game at home. We've stuck by the Dodgers in their not so impressive season. Anyway, I have decided going for box seats is the only way to watch the Dodgers at the stadium....except when you're sitting next to an annoying boy, old enough to know better, who keeps rocking the seats back and forth. I almost pounded the kid, and Jeff actually TOLD the kid to quit messing around. We were on 1st base side and the seats were awesome and did I mention the food that comes with it? Pretty good.

Jeff was pretty annoyed with above mentioned kid and I caught him with this expression on his face.

As we were leaving the stadium, we got to walk by the main offices for important Dodger people, and Jeff spotted this guy "punching out" for the evening.

goodbye old car...

...Hello new car!


In a previous post, I mentioned how David was super attached/obsessed with a red car. Well, that car was totaled. Seriously, this kid took his car everywhere. He even recognized the sound the car would make whenever it was picked up or dropped on the floor. He named it "lightqueen" after his favorite character, Lightning McQueen from Cars. I have repaired it in the past with glue, but I honestly didn't want to go to the trouble to fix it. So, I did what any parent would do...got him the closest thing to his "lightqueen"...I hope this one can hang with David. He seems to like it as much and even agreed to dispose of his old car all by himself. Funny thing, when David came to me with his broken "lightqueen" he was very upset and I told him I couldn't fix it anymore and if he wanted a new car. He took a breath and said yes and ran to my closet and showed me my secret hiding spot for extra cars. He had already set his eyes on this car long before.



Thank you "lightqueen". You have been so good to David, I only wish he was a bit more gentle with you. He loved you so much.

Santa Barbara

We headed over to Santa Barbara for a couple of days while Jeff had work. It was short but fun for the most part. We hung out with the Tanigawa's, who were also there for work. It's always nice to go somewhere and have friends to play with while there.



I think this is Stearn's Wharf.

All the kids. Vanessa, Lana, Jared, David and Veronica. Who is that nutty kid in the orange shorts?

Being wild on the hotel beds. I wonder what housekeeping thought when they had to clean our rooms. Seriously, it was a mess!

The boys, Jared and David, getting ready to head out and explore.

The guys had a free night so we headed over to the pier and had some yummy crab. Vanessa's at that terrible age where she will not sit for more than 5 minutes. After 5 minutes she is all over the table, has her hands in the water glasses and stealing all the forks.

The pier was showing a movie right behind the restaurant we were eating at. We got some high chairs, since the 2 babies weren't sitting in them, and set them up so they could watch the movie.