Chicken in the Yard!

Happy Mother's Day Weekend!

Belle and I have been busy today getting ready for Mother's Day weekend! As you can see we made a delightful dessert and wrapped a few presents. Baking with Belle is always "fun." It's nice to do something together but also very very messy. Though she's getting better at it. We bought these special sprinkles the other day at Belle's insistence. Then she proceeded to drown each cupcake in them. Thankfully most rolled off. Of course you never can have too many sprinkles though right? Right.

We just got back from meeting Katie downtown for dinner. We went to The Yard House at LA Live which is the new shopping/dining area around Staples Center. It is quite nice and would be tons of fun for a night out with a bunch of friends. We had a delightful meal coupled with tasty brew. There was a red carpet event at the Nokia Theater right outside of the restaurant so it truly felt like a night out in LA.

So, tomorrow we plan to spend the day hanging out together. The morning will start with scrumptious waffles, apple chicken sausage, and hot coffee. The afternoon will be consumed by tidepooling in Palos Verdes followed by a picnic on the beach. Finally, we'll wrap up the night by eating a nice dinner out or cooking in, not quite sure which yet. Either will be tasty. Sunday we head out to Riverside to see our respective Moms and BBQ it up with the family.

I have to say that sounds like a jam packed weekend of food and fun. It just started and I'm loving it already, but more importantly Katie loves it too! And now it's time to consume cupcakes and open more presents. Happy Mother's Day weekend!

May the fourth be with you

Hah! I didn't forget this year. Not only that, I roped our child into dressing up for the occasion. You never can train them too early you know. Oh and just in case you think this is the first time Belle has sported Star Wars attire you'd be mistaken.

2007 was also a busy Star Wars year for Belle. In early may she sported her Yoda attire and then later was surrounded by baddies at the Star Wars conference. Yes, I admit, I went to one. But it was only because I was bored and had nothing better to do that day.... that's so not true.

Later that year in October Belle was running around the house as R2D2. And I'm glad she was running because do you see those chunky legs. Holy moly! I don't think that outfit fit her the next day. Anyways, May the fourth be with you... always.

Our kid can spell?

Apparently Isabelle knows how to spell her name... oh and write it herself. We went on a leaf hunt the other day and after we glued them all to this giant piece of paper Belle proceeded to put her name on it. And she got all the letters right! You can see it in red crayon at the top right corner. Sure the "S" is backwards and the "L's" are spilling down the side of the page where the last "E" is hanging on for dear life, but it's all there! She then moved on to take notes next to each leaf in her normal scribble method. Thank goodness, because if she started breaking down the genus and species of each leaf I would have freaked out.

A different day she asked me to draw her a flower while at CPK, her favorite restaurant by the way. So I drew a little green flower. She then picked up the blue crayon and busted out two blue flowers copying exactly how I drew mine. I just sat there wide eyed for a few seconds. She then said: "The second flower has extra petals." I of course enthusiastically praised her flower drawing skills while in my head I'm thinking: "Extra petals!? Hell girl, when did you learn to draw flowers and why wasn't I notified!?"

Honestly, I'm with this kid all day every day and all of a sudden she pulls this stuff on me. I should see it coming, but I don't. Maybe her little brain just clicks and then BOOM! Whatever it is, it's awesome. Scary, but awesome.

Poo poo emergency!

As a parent you learn to ask your kid early and often if they have to go to the potty. You ask as they wake up in the morning, before you leave the house, at restaurants, grocery stores, museums, parks, right before they go to bed, and just about every other time of the day. You soon learn that the answer is always the same: "No." Though it's delivered in more of a: "No! Get out of my face about it, sheesh!" manner.

So today as we were strolling around Trader Joe's I didn't even bother asking whether she had to go or not. And it was about when I got the bananas in the basket that I heard the panicked cry: "I have to go potty!" Which in kid terms means "I know you ask me all the time and I say no but now I've waited too long and if you don't get me to a potty immediately you're gonna be buying me some new undies, pants, and mostly likely socks and shoes." So, being a seasoned parent, I kept my calm and steered us in the direction of the bathrooms. That's when the chant began.

"Poo poo emergency! - Poo poo emergency! - Poo poo emergency! - Poo poo emergency! - Poo poo emergency!"

I turn to locate the source of the alarm only to see my daughter following slowly behind me, stop, face one direction and shout her announcement. Then she'd take a few more steps, stop, turn the other direction and shout her announcement again. This continued until we finally reached the stockroom where the bathrooms were located.

Thankfully we made it and all was well. Though I'm not too sure Trader Joe's appreciated a little kid yelling "Poo poo emergency!" while heading into the stock room. That can't be good for business.

And I was so proud of myself

Last weekend was one of the most productive weekends we've had in awhile. Katie had tons of work to do so she worked from home while Belle and I got stuff done around the house. Usually this is a recipe for disaster because all Belle will want to do is crawl all over Katie's face, but not this weekend. This time she quite enjoyed playing and helping me outside.

The majority of our accomplishments involved the garage. For starters I got the Firebird running, which is a feat in itself, and pulled it out of the garage to give it a wash. Belle helped me by soaping up everything within her midget arm's reach and then moved on to wash her own car. She then proceeded to rinse off my car, her car, the garage, the trees, our house, and the entire front half of my body. Thankfully it was hot out so I didn't mind so much.

We also pulled out Katie's old desk from the garage and put it in Belle's room. We've been shipping baby furniture and stuff to Trish and Michael in preparation for their wee one so this left plenty of room for the desk plus other stuff. It was mostly the desk that was cramping the garage though. And since the garage is such a slippery slope area of the house once the desk was moved I had to clean and move the shelving unit, and then the tool cabinet, and also my toolboxes, and the random paint buckets, etc. It was a good sized project, but it is now done and the garage isn't as much of a danger zone.

And that brings us to the dreaded cabinet. Back in the day when we renovated the kitchen we yanked the old cabinets out and trashed most of them since they weren't salvageable. But there was one cabinet that we kept in the garage where it gathered dust and spiders. I swore one day I would install it on the wall to gain huge amounts of storage space. That day had come. And with Katie's help hefting it up there it was installed perfectly. Or was it? Well, I thought it was, until later that night I decided to close the garage so my newly washed car didn't get dirty. Thankfully I walked outside before pushing the garage door button because as the door came down it slammed right into the edge of the cabinet. Obviously someone didn't measure the clearance like they should have.

So, I took everything off the shelves again, removed all the screws including the two that were stripped which require the use of calipers, and with Katie's help we shoved it over a few inches. This time we tested the garage door and it cleared. A few more screws later the job was done, capping off a weekend of accomplishment. The car is clean, the garage has more storage space, Belle has a new desk, and Katie got lots of work done. A good productive family weekend.

The friends have gone home... sadly

Well our Arizona friends have come and gone, but we sure had a good time. Belle was so happy to have Juliana and Dante to play with on a daily basis. Marty and Ant rented a little house in Venice that had a nice yard for the kids to play in. Theresa, Danny, and little Abby came by one day as well so all the kids got to play together. You can see they spent a lot of time in the yard. They chased bubbles, played catch, kicked the football around, made chalk drawings, played with umbrellas, and sat on plants. They mostly just sat on plants. I'm not sure who started it but the plants were "nests" and they were sitting on the balls which were "eggs." By the end of the trip the plants weren't looking so hot.

 

Other than plant sitting we also made a couple of trips to the beach to fly kites. It was pretty much freezing out there so we stayed away from the water. The wind was always up so the kite flying was flawless. Though at some point Juliana and Dante let go of their kites which are now flying somewhere over Texas. Later that day we ate at C&O's so that made up for it. Honestly what can't a "Killer Garlic Roll" fix?

All the kids were getting over some sort of cold or other. I mean, with kids that's just how it goes. You can't stop living and seeing people because your kid's sick. All kids are sick. So we just let them mingle. At one point they all asked for tissues and we got to witness synchronized blowing. Thankfully I had my camera at the time.

We also made a few trips away from home. One was to the LA Zoo to check out the animals. The kids had a good time running around together, especially at the little playground that's there. They were jazzed about the animals too, but probably still liked the statues more. The other trip was to Disneyland of course. And what's there to say about Disneyland other than it was fun as always. Although something did change this trip. Belle is now scared of roller coasters. And I'm not talking about the big roller coasters, I'm talking about the Gadget Go-Coaster in Toontown. The one made especially for kids. The one she's loved forever and always wants to ride. Until now, that is. We waited in line for a good 20 minutes with Marty and Juliana only to have Belle scream the entire ride in terror. It's a 15 second coaster so it's not that much screaming but there were tears in the end. She did not enjoy it. Juliana did. I'm not sure why she didn't like it this time... we'll see what happens next time.

So other than all that we just hung out, sometimes having folks over our place for meals, other times going over there place for meals. But pretty much every day there was something to do and some new folks to hang out with. It was like having a week long reunion. But now things are back to normal and it's just me and Belle during the week. We do miss those guys. We'll need to visit them soon for some more fun. Maybe less roller coasters this time.

Belle's lullaby

Belle often makes up stories or songs and usually incorporates whatever she sees around her at the time. So often there will be a story about a stuffed animal who likes windows, and pencils, and paper, and crayons, and sofas, and Daddy, the end.

Tonight Belle sang her Mommy a lullaby and since Katie had her laptop out she documented it. I now share with you all Belle's song:

Picture Window Let My Baby Go To Sleep
Baby come out and come to sleep
my little poor baby I sing you to sleep
my little poor dumbo I sing you to sleep
I don’t know the words but I sing you to sleep
I open the windows and open the doors
and I let in some bugs
and some day, my poor little dumbo,
my baby I told you to sleep
and I rock a bye baby and I told you to sleep
and I couldn’t really sleep
home and sleep.
I will read you a story.
The end.

Now THAT was a concert!

Would you believe they played for a full two months and we just got home!? I thought not. Though, that would make for a pretty intense concert and no doubt Airborne would play splendidly for a solid few weeks. After that we'd probably get pretty tired and move on.

That being said it was an awesome concert. Made even more so since it was at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The variety they threw up there on stage was amazing. They played acoustic, with mariachis, with a high school marching band, with a sting quartet, with just the lead singer and the violin, with the giant Walt Disney Concert Hall organ, and of course they played fully plugged in with extra loud rock and roll glory. Overall, amazing experience.

So where have I been? Hiding, mostly. That and celebrating Christmas, New Years, Katie's birthday, Valentine's Day, and my birthday. I guess just living life and the blog got neglected. But it seemed like a good time to post right now so I did. Now I best reward you all for your patience... um, here's a cute pic of Belle just kicking it at the Getty:

By the way, Marty, Ant, Juliana, and Dante are in town for the next 10 days. Lots of cute pics of the kids playing soon. Come on down and hang out.

Concert time!

I'm off to see The Airborne Toxic Event with Katie tonight at the Walt Disney Concert Hall! So excited! Should be a fabulous concert. I'll write more about Thanksgiving, the concert, and pie later. Have a great weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving!

May your day be full of friends, family, and the people you love. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!