Daddy Time

These moments to me are so priceless!


Victor and Alana have been spending some major QT together! She is getting way more attached to him then ever. Don't get me wrong, she's always been "Daddy's girl" but lately she won't even let me take her to bed! She wants daddy to do everything for her, which of course is awesome for me, but makes me sad too! I'm sure it's just a faze but I have to accept she will always be "Daddy's girl". No matter what he is doing, she wants to be just like him! It's the cutest thing ever to watch her mimic him. He's been doing a lot of reading lately and she picks one of my books up and sits next to him to read. She pretends she knows the words. She's not a big fan of books without pictures, though she will still sit there and read it with him.

Roller Girl

Shoe size 8 couldn't have come soon enough! Since Alana was born I've been waiting for her foot to grow into a size 8! Why you ask?? Because that is the smallest roller skate size they have to rent! This weekend before all of the Christmas madness came, I decided it was time to take Alana on her first rollerskating adventure! For my birthday last year she was just itty bitty and I haven't been back since! Her shoe size 8 was finally here and finally time to take her out for a roll! My friend Jamie does Roller Derby and was excited to hear I was going to take Alana out so she came to cheer Alana on. And to help me, god knows Victor and Crystal weren't getting on skates to saves their lives! All morning I had been telling Alana we were going to go skating. She was pretty excited about it and I was really surprise how much she already knew about skating. She said "mommy, will you help me skate?" ... She already knew she would need help. Apparently she's seen people rollerskating on TV or cartoons before. Does Calliou skate? In the car ride there she said she was going to put on her rollerskating shoes. Clearly she knew what she was in for! We got there and my friend Jamie was there already on her skates ready to go! She brought Alana some Rollerskating presents! How cute are these little Rollerskating hair barrettes! Jamie did a good job of getting in good with Alana for meeting her for the first time!


So, I ran over to get the smallest skate that they had and stuck them on her feet. I was a little scared that she might just not want to do it... I'm so happy to report I was scared for no reason! I put them on her, and she started walking in them. We were on carpet at first but she took to them the second they were on her.

After she was pretty comfortable on the carpet we took her onto the wood floor. Jamie held one hand and I held the other. She was up and skating!!! It was such a proud moment for me! I had grown up skating and wanting her to love it as well. She did!!

For the first time around the ring Jamie (Roller Derby Queen) tried to teach her how to bend her legs and how to keep her feet spread apart. Alana was just happy to be out rolling around. As soon as we were done with the first lap, we hit the carpet and she said, "I'll do it myself"... so we let go. Sure as hell, she did it all by herself on the carpet. Of course like any other 2 year old her favorite part was trying to play the video games and asking for quarters for the candy machines. I let her do some of that, but was ready to be out on the floor again.

Her second time out she wanted to try all by myself again. On the wood floor this time! She was very brave and I honestly wanted to cry! This made her soooo big in my eyes. She is such a big girl and I'm so proud of her! She only fell 2 or 3 times, and was so great at getting right back up and moving on. Falling didn't faze her at all. After about the 4th time around the ring, (each time taking a good 15 minutes) she was done. She said "mommy, I'm done". What more could she say? I was amazed at her for even having the guts to try it and to go as long as she did! I don't have a great picture of her smiling because I think she was concentrating on balance! I think this is one of the first times she's had to worry about balance! As we left, I promised her we would come back again, and maybe next time bring her cousins along. I am one proud mama!!

2 and a half!

So my baby girl is officially 2 1/2 years old this month! Back in May of this year right before Alana was even 2 we attempted to move her into her "Big Girl bed". Let me start by saying since the day she was put into her crib, she's loved it! She was that EASY child that just liked to be in her crib, NEVER tried to climb out and was SOOOO easy to put to bed every night. We would say "Time for bed" and she would walk right into her room and wait for us to put her into her crib. So in May we thought, we should just move her into her big girl bed.. why not. That lasted all of 2 days. Instead of doing it the correct way and getting the little sides for her bed we just took the front off. That is the wrong way to do it... She was content in her sleeping habits and content in her crib and we went and ripped off the front of it on her. No more security... so after the second night, the front of the crib went back on. She wasn't ready. She was horrified to go to bed, she would not stay in it, she refused to go to bed... where did that girl come from. So I jumped the gun when I blogged about it... It took us a good month to even get her back to wanting to go to bed. I'll just say it was hell for about a month trying to get her back into her amazing going to sleep patterns.


A few months ago Victor's mom found this really nice toddler bed that was used. We bought it for dirt cheap and since it was the wrong wood color for her room I thought it would be a fun project for me to start. I could sand it down and stain it. I've always wanted to stain something before but never have... now that is another blog in itself to read about.

Finally I finished it. Alana helped me assemble the bed herself. I was soooo nervous about putting it in her room because I don't think I could handle all of that again. But she told me herself that she wants to sleep in it. It's AMAZING how much she talks and the full conversations we have... Alana even helped me take down her crib to make room for the new bed. Can you believe she never tried climbing out of this bed? Crazy right? What was my hurry?

Saturday night was her first night in her new bed that mommy made for her. She helped me carry it down the hall into her room and she decided on where it went in the room.


That night Victor and I both put her to bed. But she wanted to do it "All by myself"... damn that phrase is used SOOO often by her lately! She climbed into bed and that was that... not kidding you, she's slept in it every night since then, so 4 nights and not one complaint or one minute lost of sleep. (Except my mommy worrying about her) She just hopped in and now hops out in the mornings. Clearly she wasn't ready right before she turned 2. But I learned my lesson! Also having her in her same crib with just taking off the front bars didn't work out for her. I am happy to say that she is a big girl in her big girl bed now... now if only Potty Training were this easy...

O'Christmas Tree

So because funds are extremely tight this year I wasn't 100% sure I wanted to spend money on a Christmas tree. Everyone keeps saying we should buy a fake one because they are really cheap and lasts for years. HELL NO! I grew up with a damn fake tree and every year I matched the colors with the colored holes and put it together... Lame. I told myself the second I moved out I would get my own real tree. And I have since I was 18. Maybe in a few years, a few kids later I might think about a fake one, but for now I have to have a real one! It's a must! We found a fantastic deal at Home Depot for an 8 foot tree, the deal was really too good to pass up, so we went for it!

This is the one we went with, Alana is showing off how BIG it is!

She was a good helper this year with putting the ornament on. We picked out this awesome tree topper that is Mickey Mouse last year and I was just as excited this year to use it again!

Alana helped Daddy put it on the top of our tree!

Every year we have a picture in front of the tree, these are my favorite pictures!

Please stop reading now if you want to keep the happy mood about Christmas from my blog... :) I warned you.

Christmas has always been full fun and love and decorating tree's and spending time with the family. I'm trying my darnedest to bring it back to that this year! I really am. But I have a few things that are sooo important to me missing from my Christmas. A few years ago we had some items taken from our Condo... big long, SAD story that I don't want to re-live, but in those items was ALL of our Christmas stuff. 100% of our Christmas stuff. The reason it is so sad to me is because here is what was included in my Christmas stuff...

Every year since I was born my mom would get us kids each an ornament with our name and date on it. Every year since 1980. Every Christmas we would pull them out like Gold and put them on the tree, as I got older I realized how important they were to me to see them from the 80's in the 2,000. About 6 years ago my mom gave them all to me to put on my own Christmas tree. Amazing items hand written by my mom.... gone.

My grandmother has collected Santa figurines for many, many years and about 6 years ago she finally gave me mine. She would write our names on the bottom of them and wanted to wait until we had our own homes to give them to us. I would pull them out every year and place them around the house, they were such a special gift... gone.

Alana's first Christmas ornaments, our "First Christmas Married" ornaments, our stockings from when Victor and I first met, all of the ornaments Victor and I have collected over the years from the places we visiting, including the Bahamas... gone.

I could really go on forever about what was taken from us in big Christmas bins... but it's sad and depressing and I guess that why I had to blog about it. It always feels better to get things out and talk about them even when it makes me sad! I KNOW it is just stuff. But really now especially because my mom has passed away it feels even worse. I do have all the memories from the "stuff" to keep in me. This year we are going to buy a family Ornament on it and I'm sure I'll buy Alana another "first Christmas" ornament at some point but it's so sad that I am missing everything else. It's time to build new memories and add new ornaments to our collection. I'm trying to move on from it and this year I am feeling a little better. I'm sure each year will be better! Right? Right.

Last year Crystal bought me this ornament and I burst into tears opening it. It was just a new start to our new ornament collecting. New memories.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings... reading rather.

Remember when...

With Christmas right around the corner and no blog to keep 5 years ago I wanted to always remember our story! Christmas day when Victor asked me to be his wife. Christmas morning 2005 Victor and I snuggled in our bed in our nice little apartment in Irvine. So tired from the night before the festives with Victor’s family, we still had to get up early because my parents and sisters were waiting at Julie’s house for everyone to gather for Christmas morning. My brother, his wife and kids from Arizona were also going to be there and I was excited for Victor to meet them for the first time! We got up and got ready, exchanged our few simple Christmas presents to each other. It was a perfect morning! We sat at the base of our beautiful Christmas tree to document our Christmas morning together.

Heading out the door Victor was acting kind of weird but of course I didn’t think anything of it. We had been together for 2 years, but we never really talked about getting engaged. We knew we wanted to marry each other but in time I figured everything would just happen, I never, ever expected what was to come that morning.

We got in the car, he started it and then sat there for a second. He said “We should bring some CD’s with us”…. Ummm… ok. So back upstairs we went to go get some CD’s. I was crouched down to the bottom shelf picking out a few CD’s to bring with us to Christmas morning with my family. He came and stood by me, as I stood up with a handful of CD’s, he got down on one knee. I don’t quite remember what he was saying because after he got on one knee I started crying and shaking, I’m not sure I even heard all of the sweet things he was saying to me, but of course I knew what it all meant. He pulled out a little black box and opened it to show off my stunning engagement ring! From what I remember I said yes! Haha. We stood in the house for a little bit, it was the perfect moment! No one else around besides the 2 of us.

Shaking from excitement we headed out to the car so we could get to my parents’ house! On the way there my first phone call was to Ashley, my bestest friend in Colorado! I had to share the news! After my 5 minute conversation about how it all went down I wanted to call my mom. But I didn’t want to tell her over the phone because I was going to see her 15 minutes from now. So Victor and I drove out to Corona, hand in hand, it was such an awesome moment, planning in my head how the rest of our lives were going to be together, how and when we would get married. At the time we were really into Jessica Andrews (and still are) and we were playing one of her CD’s. This song came on and I started crying again, it was the perfect song for that moment. We just sat there and took it all in.

I can stand with the weight of the world
On my shoulders
I can fight with the toughest of the tough
I can laugh in the face
Of all my insecurities
Anytime, anywhere, anything
I'm strong enough

But when you're holding me like this
I'm carelessly lost in your touch
I'm completely defenseless
Baby, it's almost too much
I'm helplessly, hopelessly, recklessly
Falling in love

So let consequence do what it will to us
I don't care
Let the stars stand as witness to it all
Say the word and tonight I will follow you anywhere
I just can't pretend anymore
I'm too sturdy to fall

But when you're holding me like this
I'm carelessly lost in your touch
I'm completely defenseless
Baby, it's almost too much
I'm helplessly, hopelessly, recklessly
Falling in love

I am not afraid
I am not afraid

'Cause when you're holding me like this
I'm carelessly lost in your touch
I'm completely defenseless
Baby, it's almost too much
I'm helplessly, hopelessly, recklessly
Falling...
(Helplessly, hopelessly, recklessly falling)
I'm helplessly, hopelessly, recklessly
Falling in love

We got to my sisters house and I tried to hide my ring until my brother got there because I had a fun way of sharing with everyone. As soon as my brother came in, he gave everyone hugs. When he came to Victor and I, I said “This is Victor, my Fiancé”. I remember my mom whipped her head around and everyone stood there and looked at us kind of weird… I said “My Fiancé, Victor”… Everyone got up and hugged us and shared in our happiness with tears in their eyes! It was a great morning! I got to share the story, call all the family and friends, tell them our news! That was a great Christmas morning! Every year on Christmas morning, I remember when… and the rest is history in the making!

Ahhh... Love you babe!

Lame

I know I'm lame, I haven't posted in FOREVER... but it hasn't been as long as some other people I know... Get on it girls... I'll post more this weekend hopefully.

My computer is a bit broken right now so I can't get my pictures off of my camera at the moment... lots of stuff going on, and to be thankful for. For the time being, I will leave you with this super cute picture of Alana making tortillas with her grandma! She needs to learn so I don't have to try them, I'll have my own little mother in law to make them for me!

A few of my favorite things

Wish I was in Opera's audience while they got all of her favorite things... but this will have to do for now!

A few years back while I was at SunCal, we did a recipe exchange and I got some of my new favorite recipes! My friend Anda shared this Peanut Butter Fudge recipe with me. Ever since then I've made it at least once a year. For Christmas parties or work functions. I even have my sister Jacquie making it the last few years! This is a hand written recipe from Anda's grandma and is so easy to make!! Taste amazing!!

Peanut Butter Fudge
2 cups Brown Sugar – packed
2/3 cup evaporated Milk
½ tsp salt

Butter 8x8x2 pan

In a sauce pan mix brown sugar, evaporated Milk and salt.
Stir over low heat bring to a boil and boil for 3 minutes.
Remove from heat.

1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract

Stir in chocolate chips, peanut butter and vanilla until chips are melted and mixture is smooth. Pour into pan. Refrigerate at least 4 hours or until firm. Cut into squares.

I've changed it up by mixing in more peanut butter of course, or peanut butter chips, or even white chocolate chips. Anything and everything sweet in it tastes great!

Another one of my favorite things right now is Christmas Music!! I know you're thinking it's probably WAY to early for that right? Nope. I'm loving it! A week ago I got 48,000 new songs for my iTunes and I'm having so much fun listening to new stuff, it's incrediable. A tiny portion of that was Christmas music. But not just any Christmas music, some Irish Bagpipe Christmas music. Amazing!! Also, anyone who sings O' Holy Night, I could listen to it for ever! It was my moms favorite and it has carried on with me! Alana has also learned Jingle Bells, the first chours only, so you can imagine what my car rides are filled with these days... lots of Jingle Bells! Last year the Holidays were destined to be bad, so I was Anti all Christmas stuff last year. This year I feel so different. I feel like for the first time I love the Christmas Season! The music, the decorations, everything about it. I'm very excited this year! Maybe because Alana for the first time really will understand Christmas and will have such a great time deocrating and opening presents! More of my favorite things to come, pictures of the PB fudge and Alana singing Jingle Bells!!

Brotha from anotha Motha

My sister Jacquie and her Fiance Donovan invited Victor and I to a show in LA called
Pandemonium. Not only did we get free tickets to the show, we also got to be witness to such an amazing story! Donovan's dad died about 10 years ago and a few years after he died, D got a letter in the mail from someone claiming to be his brother, from his dad, but another mother. They were able to talk a few times by email before losing contact information when his brother moved. 7 years later Donovan was searching on Facebook to see if he could find his long lost brother but he had no luck. No kidding, 2 days later he got a friend request from him. They were finally reconnected. His brother, RJ, is a performer in Pandemonium and would be in LA for a month or so. He left Donovan 4 tickets to come see the show. The whole ride down there I asked questions to find out more about the story and Donovan was so nervous! He was going to meet his half brother for the first time ever! His voice was shaky, his heart was beating so fast! We got to UCLA where the show was just in time for it to start. Poor Donovan had to sit through the entire show and watch his brother on stage before he could actually go to meet him! RJ left us passes for the VIP after party, so after the show we found our way in to get a drink and hor devours. We waited for RJ to come out. Slowly but surely we saw actor after actor come out and greet their friends and family. I was so nervous for Donovan, I could not even imagine how he was feeling! He knew what his brother looked like only from pictures, and we now just watched him on stage for 2 hours! But still we waited for what seemed like days, for him to come out from behind stage! At one point Victor and I saw him from a distance and D had his back turned, and I was so excited! The pressure what just building and building... finally he walks out the door to Donovan! It was such an amazing feeling to watch them hug for the first time.

They stood there for a few minutes and just sized each other up. Looking at their same features and picking out who looked like their dad. It brought tears to my eyes! It really was an amazing part of Donovans life to be a part of! Lucky for D, his brother is so nice and loving! We all stood for hours and talked and got to meet the cast! RJ would introduce D to the cast members and some of them would freak out because they've known RJ for so long and to finally meet his brother was awesome for some of them! It was all so much fun to be a part of!

The show its self is so great! It's almost like a cirque du soleil show, but it sounds like an orchestra. Kind of hard to explain. They take everyday house hold objects and makes them into instruments and together they play in an amazing orchestra. Between trash cans as drums and using wood saw's as violins, it really truly does sound like a full blown orchestra with awesome performers! They move so fast and never stop it was hard to get good pictures of them!

At the after party RJ had his own Entourage! We walked around the party with him and he introduced us all the everyone he knew. The cast of the show are amazing people! I wanted to take pictures with everyone! I felt like they were all celebs! Speaking of, there were a few there! Ricky Lake and Tommy Lee (which we didn't get to see). But we did get to see and meet Dan Finnerty and The Dan Band . He was so cool. We got to stand and talk to him for a bit! I love to meet celebrities that are cool and down to earth, and Dan was all of the above! Even as we were leaving, he called to us and said good bye and good night, nice to meet you... ?? What? Um, nice to me YOU!

It was a really great night and I'm so happy that Victor and I got to be part of Donovan meeting his brother. He is a really great guy!! It was after 1am and Donovan didn't want to leave his brother but we were all tired and his brother was also really tired, and we pretty much got booted out of the after party when they closed the doors on us! So we said our good bye's for now... I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot of him!

Wordless Wednesday

Yeah right... I am hardly wordless... but I tried :) Check out this amazing picture of my sister and her Fiance, done by the one and only Angel G Photography! More Engagement pics with Angel to come soon. Ahhh!! So happy for my sester! This man was sent to her straight from my mother in heaven!

Twinkle Beatles

This girl loves to sing. The other day she was sitting in this tub we have for fire wood on the fire place singing her little heart out. She sings about a little "R" instead of a little "Star". But she's getting it. Then the next song she sings cracks me up! She is our little Beatles fan! Enjoy a little serenade by Alana Rose.

Rosie Posie

LOVE my Rosie! Here are some cute random pictures to hold you over until you see her again! Video's coming soon... Blogger is kickin my butt tonight!

She loves her Whinnie the Pooh!

Cheese! LOVE this smile!


Grandma and Grandpa watched her the other night for a few hours while mommy and daddy got a date night in! We got to grandma's house and she was snuggled in her jammies next to grandpa on the couch!


For Alana's birthday, Aunt Ashley got her this adorable handmade doggie. One of her co-workers made it for Alana! It's a little purse! When she got it for her birthday she was excited to get a stuffed dog but she didn't really know it was a purse or really care at the time, she just liked that it was a dog! This weekend as I was getting my purse to leave the house she said "Wait, I'm going to get my doggy purse". I was curious to see what she was going to bring out. Sure enough it was the cute Doggy purse Aunt Ashley got for her. She was so excited to bring it with her! It was so cute!

Birthday Princess

This weekend was Kali's birthday! Kali is a special cousin to Alana because she's been with Alana since she was 3 months old! I watched her 5 days a week for the first year of Alana's life! Kali was kind of like her older sister! I felt like I knew how it was to have 2 kids! We love this little girl who is growing into such a little woman!! We celebrated her 4th birthday this weekend! Here is a little flashback to a few years ago with my girls!

My cousin Chrissy planned an amazing day at Disneyland starting with Breakfast at Ariel's Gratto at CA adventure. Kali and all of her cousins were going to dress us as Princesses so Alana was getting ready to put on hers at home before we left! I LOVE this picture of her! She looks like a little dancer! Her hair is sooooooo long now, I didn't even get a picture of the back but you would not believe how beautiful it is, long and curly! Not sure I'll ever be able to bring myself to chop it!

Waiting for everyone to meet up for the Princess Breakfast I snapped a few good ones of my little Princess Snow White! 

Could she be any cuter? I know she's mine and all, but seriously... 

The Birthday Princess Kali/Cinderella arrived! How adorable does she look in her outfit? She LOVES to dress up and taught Alana how to dress like a princess!

The Birthday Princess and her parents!

Alana still doesn't like characters all that much so this was as close as she would get to Ariel. She knows who she is and of course loves the movie, but she still just doesn't trust them yet for whatever reason! Aren't all of her cousins so adorable! Princess and Prince's!

As we ate breakfast we got a visit from every Princess. They came and signed the books and stood for pictures! Great way to meet them all on a personal level! Alana... still not having it, I pretty much had to make her stand next to the kids, even bribed her with candy.

She knows who Snow White is and was even dressed as her, still... not so much.

Then as soon as all the kids cleared out Snow White got down to Alana's level and talked to her about being her twin. Alana didn't back away for the first time EVER! Snow White asked for a hug and Alana leaned in and went for it! My heart melted!!!! This picture is worth a million words!

She even loved her so much she stood to take a picture with her! It was seriously one of those "Disney Magical Moments". It was so amazing! I wish I could find this Snow White and personally thank her for making Alana's day! Or maybe my day, ok, my year!

We got a yummy breakfast and then of course no birthday would be complete without some cake! Happy Birthday Princess Kalea!!

Out of the Princess outfits and on to the rides! Kali and Chrissy.

Alana's favorite ride!

Jacob smiling big for the camera.

Gotta loves these sweet boys! Jacob actually said he wanted to come home with me! I would have taken him home in a heartbeat!

Chrissy got the kids faces painted! Alana got to watch the bigger kids get theirs done first and then sat nicely for her turn! They are so cute!

We had such a great day with the family at Disneyland! I can't thank Chrissy enough for everything. She really planned such a fun day for the kids and I know that these pictures will be priceless in years to come!

We got to go home for a few hours and come back to see The World of Color! It was our first time watching it and it was AMAZING!! I loved it so much! It's like Fantasmic on steroids!! A 2010 version of it. The things that Disney thought up are so awesome! It is A LOT of work to see the show though. You have to get a fastpass for it in the morning when you first get there and then stand in line before the show to get in line again then to find a seat... a lot of work, so I may not see it again any time soon, but well worth seeing it for the first time! Beautiful work Disney!