It's been soggy in Southern CA

We've been hit a lot by rain storm this year. Can't believe how much rain we had in these just 2 months of the year 2011. On Wednesday my husband was picking up my son for ice skating and snap a rainbow just before they left the place. Just a little beautiful thing to see among the grey clouds.

We will have booth sale tonight for the girl scout cookies, the prediction was rain from Wednesday thru Saturday. We had a beautiful day Thursday, with no rain and sunny, but Friday for sure they said storm is on it's way tonight. Our booth sale is 6 to 9, I'm beyond nervous, I have about 100 cases of cookies, and if it's pouring, I don't think we will have a good people traffic, sigh..... that means we still have to sell more after the booth sale.

Happy Birthday Mom....

Yeah Valentine's day is here....and so is my mom's birthday. I feel this year I don't want to fuss about Valentine's day anymore, feels old....not even thinking of setting up nice dinner at all, we just ate some left over, chit chat we the kids and maybe just put up social network on dvd later tonight. We've rented this from Redbox since Sunday, no time to watch it yet.
The kids had fun with lots and lots of goodies from their school. Candies and chocolates that I don't know when they will disappear. We still have a whole big bowl of candies from Halloween.

Spicy enjoyed the goodies too

My mom is 71 today. I called yesterday coz of the time difference, my parents live in Indonesia. So in the morning when I was vacuuming  and cleaning up the house I began to think about my mom, she's always been the core of our family. My dad will be like a kite without a string without her, my oldest brother has to talk to her before he feels better about anything, my second brother who is more independent has his own way of communicate with her. For me she raised me with tough love, don't sweat over little thing,  move on, and face the reality, which is I think helps me to live in a different country thousands miles away from her.
When I was moping around the dining table I just realized that I never really say thank you to her, never say how I appreciate her. As I become a mom for almost 8 years now, I become more and more understanding what she did to us and why she did that to us in certain circumstances.

She used to be very sensitive about her cooking, if one of us said he or she didn't like her dish, she could blow up left and right, and her reason is.....same as mine now when I blow up to my kids and husband.....They do not appreciate the time and thought we put on planning and cooking the dish,...dishes for her, she cooked  at least 2 dishes per day. After I blew up I usually laugh inside just because it reminds myself to my mom.

My mom always did a big birthday party at home, for 3 of us, until one said enough, I'm too big for that.
Somehow I always have happy thoughts about my birthday, I always remember how my mom put a lot of thought on the games we were going to play the prizes for the winner, the cake, and the food. One that always sticks on my head, a party that we did in the backyard, with chairs in circle, we did a freeze dance, balloon pop, newspaper relay, and a lot more.
Now with my kids, I love to plan party at home, and I'm willing to have 20-30 kids at home. I grew up with these fond memory of big bashes. I don't do the rule of the guests should be the same number of your birthday age. I think the more the merrier, I love to make a little extra special on the decoration and all.  So in other words, thank you mom for the party, for the dishes (like it or hate it ;))))), thank you for always thinking about us (yes she thinks a lot, she told me that a lot of time she couldn't sleep at night thinking of something), thank you for loving my kids too, thank you for being a grandma for them.

I ended up being a stay home mom just like her half way thru her motherhood, I hope my kids will understand and appreciate my choice of staying at home and raise them other than going to work and leave them in the daycare 5 days a week in this early life of them.
I still haven't taste the teenage mood and attitude yet, not looking forward tho, but I'm sure thru that years later I will gain more perspective of my mom's love, worries and our spat ;)

She's multi talented too...;)))) Barber shop ala Mom. 

She worries so much that we were the only kids in the community that roller skate with helmet.
So not cool, it's so not common back then in our time, and I still got teased by my childhood friend  now ;)

Love u...happy birthday Nyak and hope I got to see you guys  soon, not sure about going back this summer, maybe next year. For now... HAPPYYYYY BIRTHDAYYYYY......kisses and hugs from the kids too.

Busy weekend

Friday my 4 yrs old had playdate with his schoolmate at the friend's house, so he was super and I mean supppperrr excited. I got to chit chat with the mom at drop off and pick up time, so it was fun too for me. My 7 yrs old had her playdate too right after school, and she had to go straight to gymnastic practice with that friend. I picked her up halfway thru practice and went to a classmate birthday party that already started half and hour before. Came home around 8pm, and by 9pm the kids were all out.

Early in the morning by 8 I and my daughter left for gymnastic competition, which is not as fancy as it sounds, this is her 2nd year in the team, and all the competition is a very low key event. They got scored for some of the competition, and the other meets just to practice. But, this time, they are competing as a level 2 team, there's still a lot of things they need to work on, but as I sat with some moms and dad, the excitement built up since now 10 of them and level 2 woohoooo....(they started with just 4 girls before, then 6, then 9 and final number is 10). I feel like somehow the 2 times a week practice 2 hours each started to pay off, at least for the girls themselves, they practice hard. The point was 15.5, and they can only go to the national if it's 16, but I think it's not bad for their first time.

She's the far right, she has to lead the little ones to the point where they need to start and she'll move to the back.

While this morning my son had to go visit the doctor for an ear infection, he's been complaining about the earache last night. After that he went with his dad to a birthday party at a bounce house place. He went wild that's what I heard, the other 2 friends that goes soccer with him were there too, so it's a real PARTEEEEYYYY.....They came home around 2.30 and now both my son and...my husband are napping.

Squishy

My daughter's birthday is this month, but in the late January she was really crazy about squishy, I think whoever have kids knows about this collectibles. She started browsing online, she said just want to look around. My husband is a big online purchaser, so he's been explaining about ebay to her for a while. She started looking at ebay, and there they are, all squishy toys are there. She asked me if she can have squishy for her birthday gift, I said she can buy them now, but that's her real gift, we will not give her any other gift. She excused herself to the bathroom to have sometimes to think, i had to giggle when I heard that. After 10 minutes she came out and said she's ready, she will take that as a gift.

Monday, we got the package, her little brother hid it so she wouldn't see, but he told her that the squishy was here.

Tuesday, she got the itch, and bargain with me to open the squishy, but agreed to wait for her dad to come home from Vegas so we all could see her open the gift.

Came Wednesday.....

Rare octopus

Rare penguin too

The fun part to open each tiny balls

24 in 1 big plastic ball, some rare, some ultra rare. I learnt so much more about these squishies

Rare pink sheep, I think this sheep is very cute no matter what.

And yeay to us we don;t have to think of gifts anymore for her.

Pool project

LET'S SEE WHAT'S WRONG IN THE POOL.

We've been planning and saving for a swimming pool for about 6 years. Finally, we are going to have one...hope very very soon. My husband was doing his pool drawing on his computer, asked me this and that, what I think about the width, the length, and at the end he said, "let's go, and let's sit down on the pool will be and see if there's anything wrong...." I looked at him puzzled...what? how?

He took the kid's little stools put it inside the rectangular he made with strings. he sat down on it and said we need to see if there's anything wrong from this angle...and then moved to a different corner, I can't stop laughing. He said, "Sit down here with me, and see if there's anything wrong", I said, "you were THE something wrong honey!"

Chinese New year

Mango pudding

Our dog, our live vacum cleaner, she's quick to clean up the floor.

Last Wednesday was chinese new year, I didn't even realize until Tuesday morning,  I was planning to do something a little special for dinner for the new year's eve, but ended up was not able to cook anything at all. We live in the area that not many good chinese restaurants, so I had no other choice, Pick up stix for dinner. Sooooo not authentic, but as long as there's chopsticks and noodles I think it will feel more asian eve. I was able to make mango pudding from an old pudding box I had, and put them in a cute jars that I've been saving from evey time we bought a pudding from the asian bakery. I asked for some extra container, my husband always love to eat straight from the container just like the new yorker in the movie.

The Girls are here

MEET THE TWINS.
We went up north last Saturday morning to visit my husband's cousins who just had twins. Here are Sophie and Kaylee. I still can't tell the difference even tough they are not identical.

Sorry, I can't remember which one which.

They both were born around 6 pounds, full term, only a couple a day earlier than the due date, I think it's amazing. I don't know how to manage two babies at once like that, but we are happy for them.

Saturday Outdoor Dinner

So last Saturday I was feeling kind of homey, don't feel like going anywhere, don't even care about eating out. A and the kids were out to wash the car, and somehow I started to reorganize my cabinet, moved all our Starbucks big mugs collection...yes...it becomes a collection, and it's a space taker collection upstairs. Phew....more space for my plates and bowls now.

I came out with my cold ice tea to the backyard and it's a gorgeous day, sunny in the mid 70s, great time to eat out in the backyard. Ran up, dug for a tablecloth, nothing really match the image in my head. Found an old gold color blanket, perfect size. Took out my all white plates that we never really used daily. Found 4 blue champagne flutes from my old never happened gift basket business.

Perfect, I love the color combination. The only thing left were just the food, opened the fridge, started to browse around on my iphone for recipe with whatever ingredients I have on my hands. Unfortunately no way I can finished it all up for lunch, so I was planning it more for dinner.

Came dinner time, everything were at its place, lit up some candles, pour some drinks, foods were on the table, the kids started to filled up their plates....and a helicopter showed up, circling our area, with it's scary sound and the light....my daughter was looking horrified, yeah she's always nervous every time she hear helicopter flies low. I looked at A, and in a minute we scope everything we can from the table and brought them in....we ended up eating our dinner on the breakfast table bar.