Damn, does that last entry say May 18?!?

Been busy busy busy these last few months, I guess. Lol. Let’s see…went to San Diego/Anaheim over Memorial Day weekend, celebrated my cousin Lisa’s graduation from SDSU, took the kids to Legoland then Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland. The kids’ first time, and they LOVED it. I guess that’s going to be our vacation destination from now on…well, when we go to SoCal, that is.

After our SoCal vacation, we came home so Dillon could finish out the school year, then it was off to Vegas…where we got married.  Yep, finally did it.  I was chatting with a friend and he asked why we weren’t married, and I explained that I didn’t think it was necessary, since there was really no benefit to being married.  We argued for a while, then he told me to look up the tax benefits.  Sure enough, we’ve been missing out all these years, lol.  So I decided since we were going to Vegas anyway for my sister’s high school graduation, and (some of) my family was going to be there, we might as well do it while we’re there.  The kids were the happiest, I think. The family members that weren’t there, and weren’t notified, were NOT happy. 

Hmmm…let’s see what else.  I don’t think anything big since then.  My car passed 100k miles, lol.  Had a mini family reunion in Monterey. Alexandra started a new ballet school. We’ve been doing the normal daily stuff, but I’m trying to do more outdoors-y stuff with the kids.  We went to Point Lobos a few weeks ago, they had a good time there.  Been spending more time at GG Park.  Spent a day at Gilroy Gardens.  Celebrated Jasmine’s Sweet 16th at Seacliff Beach on a cold ass day.  Oh, got a new iPhone 3gs, but I didn’t want to…yet.  HBY made me   Been shopping, of course.  I buy things faster than I can take them out of the bags at home.  I’m now debating between a 17″ Macbook Pro or an iMac.  Actually, I’m really still debating if I should make the switch to Mac at all, I have a hard time thinking I’ll be one of “those Mac users”…

That’s been our summer in a nutshell.  I didn’t get to bring the kids to Hawaii this summer like I wanted…I can’t use a Delta buddy pass on a Northwest flight until 2010, and I dont want to risk getting stranded at SLC or LAX alone with the kids, so we may go in October, or we’ll just push it back until next summer.  Hopefully October, though.

Still on our to-do/visit-in-the-near-future list:

• Ferry ride to and picnic on Angel Island
• Explore Point Reyes (specifically “Dillon” Beach, lol)
• Santa Cruz Boardwalk (I can’t believe I haven’t gone all summer!)
• Great America
• Coit Tower

Dillon goes back to school on Aug. 24…wonder if I can get all that in before then? I also have two birthday parties…oh, AND  a stamp day!! I REALLY can’t believe I haven’t had a stamp/scrap day at all this year.  That’s just crazy, lol.  Scrapbook Expo coming up this week…I may go down on Friday, but I’ll have the kids, so I don’t know if I should do that to myself…

Our long-term to-do/visit list:

• Explore Big Sur
• Hike the Pinnacles (although I’m not sure if Babygirl’s big enough for the caves, which is really why I want to go)
• Visit the Giant Redwoods
• Yosemite (but not to camp)
• Dillon wants to visit Mt. Rushmore…I don’t even know where that is
• Grand Canyon

I hope to get to do all of that by the end of next summer, although Mt. Rushmore is iffy..

Okay, I think I’m current now.  I’m sure once the school year starts and we’re back to a normal routine on a normal schedule I’ll update more often.  I think I’ll start a new Project 365 on Aug. 24.  Lol.

HBY’s 33rd birthday

Since HBY had been working so hard these past few months, for his birthday we decided to go and get a couples’ massage.  And I decided to go to a place that Daphne mentioned, Watercourse Way.  (Thanks Daph!)  I had mentioned to Debbie that we were planning on going there, and she told me she LOVED that place.  Somehow I don’t really see Debbie having a spa day, but there you have it.  She said the place we should really check out is the spa at the Ritz Carlton Half Moon Bay.  I was like – damn, I think we’d have to work our way up to that place   Although, it is my favorite place in the world I think.

Anyway, so we did an hour in the hot tub room followed by the couples’ massage.  Let me just say…one hour is way too long to be in a hot tub.  I will definitely be getting the room with a cold plunge the next time we’re there.  But it was a very nice place.  As for the massages, the first 10 or 15 minutes we were supposed to sit in the steam room, but after about 10 seconds I thought I was going to suffocate – damn, do people really like that??  Lol.  We were probably still just overheated from the hour in the hot tub.  I think we both enjoyed the massages at the Claremont better.  But still, overall a great experience.  The good thing about this place compared to the Claremont is that HBY and I stayed together the whole time, even afterwards when we showered and got ready.  The bad thing is there wasn’t really a place to sit and blow dry my hair and do my makeup, which is kind of what I was planning on since we were going to still go out to dinner afterwards.

Guess where we ended up going after the spa?  Well….we WERE in Palo Alto after all, so we had to go to HBY’s favorite place….Fry’s.  Lol.  The ugliest Fry’s out of them all, but oh well.  We passed by a bike shop that had a sign out advertising $349 every single bike in the shop.  He got all excited, he’s been wanting to buy me a bike forever, but I’m so not interested in going bike riding.  Ever.

For Dinner, HBY got to go to the restaurant he’s been dying to go to ever since I met him, Tommy Toy’s.  Fancy schmancy Chinese food, I don’t get it???  We had calamari, hot and sour soup (which I gave an honest try but couldn’t bring myself to like), duck, filet and fried rice.  It was okay, I guess, but I wouldn’t choose that restaurant again.  The fried rice wasn’t even as good as Benihana.  And with the duck, they only gave you two pcs. of the bread, which had to be the cheapest thing.  Oh well.  I had a lichitini, with Kai Vodka, I think I’ll be making those on my next bartender night

After all that, we hurried home to have cake with all the kids, Pristina was watching the kids, and DNS, Megan and Joshua were here also.  Whew, what a day, we celebrated the whole day, I don’t even think I’ve had a birthday where I got to do what I wanted all day long……..

My “Baby” is 4 now…

Yeah, still a long way to go, but I feel like the “hard times” are behind me.  No more bottles, no diapers (thank god).  No more waking up 4-5 times every night to feed/change.  No incessant crying while trying to figure out what the reason is.  No more need to constantly watch every second to make sure they don’t touch/eat/do something that could hurt them.  Whew.  On the other hand, I’m not much looking forward to the teen or even pre-teen years, especially with the girl.  I guess I better just make the best of this time with them.

So this year, I finally decided to throw Babygirl an actual birthday party.  Normally, we’d take her to her favorite playplace (The Jungle), invite all the cousins and a few friends and just hang out and let them play.  But this year Alex said “I want to have a Princess cake and lots of friends sing Happy Birthday to me”.  So I tried to be firm and tell her “sorry, you don’t have any friends”, but in the end I gave in.  Dillon had a party every year until he turned 6, not really fair to never throw her one.  I know the 2nd-born gets jipped, but come on…

So I put together a last-minute party at Jungle Island in San Jose.  Seriously, I decided like 8 days before the date that I would throw it.  Luckily they were able to fit me in.  And there was a pretty good turn out.

The Princess cake she wanted

The "friends" she wanted to sing Happy Birthday to her

her favorite friend Olivia, they share the same birthday, Olivia is a year older

She had so much fun all day…until it was time to leave, then she cried her head off.  HBY kept arguing “just let her play for 10 more minutes”.  I swear, sometimes I want to sock that guy.  One day I will.  Then I’ll run, lol.

On her actual birthday, we spent the day with Megan and Joshua.  Took them to the Academy of Sciences and Botanical Gardens. 

Then, back home to let Alex open her presents from the party and the millions of presents from Mae Mae.

Topped it all off with a “tax crunch” ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins.

I’d never had it before, never even heard of it, but it was pretty damn good, I definitely recommend it…

Happy 18th Birthday Baby Sister…

…who’s obviously no longer a baby. It’s funny and weird and crazy how fast time passes. And for me, it’s not so much the kids that make me feel it as much as watching my once-baby sister Arianna grow up.

Here we are back in 1994, she was 3 years old and afraid of that little dog.

We were in Hawaii on vacation at the time, but back then I still lived at home and every night she would come to my room and lay with me and I would sing her Expose songs until she fell back asleep, lol.  And yeah, whatever, that’s how I looked back then with all that kinky curly hair, constantly wearing t-shirts and spandex shorts…I was a Polynesian dancer, that’s what we looked like then, lol.

And here she is with my mom, probably in 2001 or around there, she was 10 or so.

Here we are back in 2005 – DJ (my brother), me and Arianna.

I think that’s the most recent picture I have of the 3 of us.  I’m the oldest, my brother is 2.5 years younger and Arianna was born when I was 15.  I always thought my mom was crazy for that one.  And I PRAY that that doesn’t happen to me.

Here she is now, 18 years old.

Happy Birthday Arianna.  May all your wishes come true…

TAKEN

HBY and I got to go out on a date last night, and of course we’re an old fuddy-duddy couple so we went to dinner and a movie. In our defense, it was last minute, I was originally supposed to go to Daphne’s to do some scrapbooking and celebrate our birthdays, but Dillon came down with some kind of stomach virus or bacteria, and I didn’t want to pass that on. To Daphne anyway, I guess I had no problem passing it on to Pristina? Haha, sorry Pristina! Anyway, since Pristina is in her teen years, I thought it only fair that we pay her for her babysitting services. And of course I’m not going to take advantage of her and pay her minimum wage.  So, date night for us is EXPENSIVE! I’m going to have to add that expense into our monthly budget, whew.

Anyway, we went to downtown San Mateo, and it was PACKED! We got there right at 7, I should have known better, that’s when everyone comes out for dinner. We got lucky though, a parking space right in front, the movie we wanted to see was one of the only ones not sold out, the restaurant we went to eat at gave us extra quick service when we told the server we had only 45 minutes to get back to the theater, and the movie was good…fast-paced, almost non-stop action.  Lots of violence All in all, a successful night.

On Friday, I met up with Lib, Elma, Jackie, Racquel and Cecilia to celebrate Elma’s birthday which was on Dec. 29, lol. Since both Racquel and my bdays are in January, and Cecilia’s is on Feb 1, we decided to pick one night each month that we can celebrate our birthdays seperately. Lib’s husband of course had to point out to HBY that we were just “finding excuses” to go out and drink. WHATEVER! So my month is March, I gotta pick a date and find a place in the city. Jackie, Lib and Elma take care of October, November and December, so we have to find some occasions to celebrate during the spring/summer months, lol. We already decided on a Mother’s Day getaway…can we do a Father’s Day getaway too? Haha. Independence day?

Today we took the kids to a nearby park to play, Dillon tried to ride his bicycle (HBY is annoyed at me because I won’t allow any training wheels, but who cares, training wheels are dumb), Alex rode her squeaky tricycle in cirlces, and HBY tried out his new rollerblades I got him for Xmas. I ran alongside Dillon’s bicycle for like two hours and now I’m sore and I broke a nail. Afterwards, he played on the structure and then we tried to play tennis. He got frustrated that real tennis is not like Wii tennis, he has to actually run to the ball and hit it the right way ;p So we made up our own game, where we just kinda threw the ball at each other across the net. At least he was happy…

Happy New Year!

Chinese New Year, that is. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t make new year resolutions, or I’m sure one of them would have been to update my blog on at least a weekly, if not daily, basis. And I would have already broken one of the resolutions I would have made. Whatever.

January has been busy, starting the middle of December actually. We had Xmas parties, Xmas photo shoots, went down to Marina, took the kids to Marine World to check out the Holiday Lights, did A LOT of shopping…playing Santa, delivering presents…Xmas eve at Gate’s, Xmas day at Deanna’s, and STILL didn’t make it to damn Christmas in the Park! I’ve only been wanting to go since Dillon was a baby! Next year FOR SURE!

Nana came to stay with us the day after Christmas, since we didn’t make our usual trip to Las Vegas this year. I just didn’t have it in me, I didn’t feel like dealing with any of it. Plus, we’re going there in June anyway for Arianna’s graduation.

While Nana was here, we went all over…shopping…sight-seeing…a visit with Aly, Marine World, Monterey, CHURCH(!), Lake Tahoe, whew. But we still didn’t do everything that I wanted to. I STILL want to do the tourist thing and ride the double-decker bus around the city. Oh well, the kids had a good time with her, and Nana got to watch her K-dramas online in the evenings on the kids’ computer.

Then finally, winter break was over. Dillon went back to school, Nana flew back to Las Vegas for a few days before going back to Hawaii, and things were finally back to normal. But still it was busy…Goldie’s bday, trip to Marina to play the new Guitar Hero World Tour with Maile and Aunty Momi before Maile had to go back to Hawaii, Debbie’s baby shower, my bday, Goldie’s baby shower, Elma’s birthday celebration (her bday was in Dec…we’re going to celebrate my bday in March, lol)…still need to get together with Daph and celebrate our bdays (even though she already gave me my present, thanks Daph!).

Man, I hope February will be more calm. So far I only have one thing planned the whole month, hope it stays that way…

Dillon’s 6th Birthday Celebrations

We took Dillon to Discovery Kingdom on the Saturday before his birthday.  And, like we always do, we dress up the kids in their costumes since they have the Halloween thing going on at the park. 

Bumblebee, Harry Potter and Snow White

It was pretty lame though, they only had a few trick-or-treating stations and all they gave were mini Milky Way bars.  Gross.

The kids had fun though.  Joshua came, so Dillon had a ride buddy.  Joshua didn’t like the roller-coaster though, and that’s the only ride Dillon really likes, so maybe I have to look for a new buddy for him.  Well, when his sister gets big enough, then she’ll be his buddy, she loves those rides.  They got to go up onstage take pictures with the tazmanian devil. 

At the end of the day when we were heading out of the park, I guess they were gearing up for Fright Night (which I would have loved to stay for if I didn’t have the kids), so there were zombies and monsters and guys with chainsaws running around chasing all these screaming people (girls, mostly, lol).  I was pushing the double stroller with Alex and Katana inside so I had to run past before they scared them.  Honestly – couldnt they wait until all the small kids were gone?  There was one little kid, I guess got freaked out by all the commotion and was crying kind of hysterically, clinging to his mom and there was a zombie/monster guy headed towards him.  The mom looked him in the monster in the eye really mean and said “DON’T YOU DO IT!”  Hahahaha.

Anyway, afterwards we went back to Donna’s house to hang out, have cake, open presents.  THEN! Donna busted out the alcohol.  She made me a mixture of Ketel One Citroen and Odwalla Pomegranate Limeade.  Oh my god.  I didn’t realize until about the 5th drink that she was making it about 90% alcohol and just a splash of the juice.  It was SO GOOD! I couldn’t believe that little juice could mask all that vodka.  Crazy ass.  Well, yeah, I got drunk.  Luckily we stayed long enough for it to wear off a little before we drove home otherwise I would have thrown up.  I’ve come to realize that I can’t drink like I used to…yep, it’s taken me this long…

For Dillon’s actual birthday, we did a celebration in his classroom.  He shares his birthday with another classmate, a Russian one, and his mom and I decided to do a culturally themed celebration.  She brought in some of her son’s favorite Russian snacks and I brought Dillon’s favorite Chinese little egg custart tarts.  Nasty things, Dillon would eat those all day if he could.  So the kids got to celebrate, learn a little about the birthday boys and learn a little about different cultures also.  Pretty cool…

After school, since it was early dismissal that day, we took the kids to the Academy of Sciences.  I couldn’t believe it was still so crowded on a Monday at 1 in the afternoon! 

We got to see almost everything, except for the rainforest.  We got the membership though, so we’ll definitely see it next time.  We were lucky enough to catch the last Planetarium show.  It was cool…but…I fell asleep.  I couldn’t help it.  The AC was blasting and Alex was sitting on my lap because she was scared, so she was keeping me too warm, with the cold air and the darkness, I didn’t even know I fell asleep until HBY smacked my arm.  Oh well, I’m sure we’ll watch that again too. 

After that, I wanted to go to J-town for dinner,

and of course HBY convinced Dillon that he wanted to eat at Benihana for dinner.  lol, HBY is still in love with their fried rice.  I don’t mind, and the kids LOVED it.

 

We told them it was Dillon’s birthday, but I had to leave before them to get the crepes (which was why I wanted to go to Jtown in the first place), so I missed that whole celebration AND the picture!!! 

 

Oh well, needless to say it was a long day for Dillon, he fell asleep in the car on the way home…

 

::Except for the Tazmanian Devil picture, all of the photos were taken with my iPhone, then “massaged” in Adobe Lightroom.  I LOVE that Software!!

Welcome home Diana

Diana got back from boot camp late Saturday, and since her mom and brother were still in New York, Mae picked her up and Diana stayed at Mae’s house. We belatedly celebrated her birthday Sunday night here. Mae bought an ice cream cake: Strawberry ice cream over chocolate cake (Diana specifically requested it). I thought it was going to be gross, but it wasn’t bad. We thought she would stay at Mae’s the whole time she was here, but then Jimmy was granted leave from his training and he came on Wednesday. On Thursday, we all decided to hang out downtown, so the cousins could have a chance to hang out with Diana before she shipped out again. Diana had mentioned that she wanted to go ice skating, so we figured Yerba Buena was a good place, there was that little playground up there for the kids, and the carousel, and then afterwards we could all go to the mall or wherever to hang out. Goldie and the kids came with Cathy and Carter, Mae and Pristina, Donna, Thomas with kids including Annika. And Jimmy and Diana. Well, we were supposed to meet down there at 3pm, but I had to pick up the Sharepoint Designer software from the Microsoft guy and he was running late, so we didn’t actually get down there until 4pm. But we were the first ones anyway, along with Goldie’s crew. Then Diana and Jimmy got there, and we found out at the rec skate was from 12p-4p, so no luck there. But we were already there, so we ate, then headed over to Yerba Buena. When we got there, the playground was crowded – I mean REALLY CROWDED – and not with the kids that I’m used to seeing at playgrounds, they were mostly over 10, rowdy, obnoxious and – sorry – dirty. The term inner-city comes to mind. There was an area for water play, which was actually pretty cool, except when we got there, there was a girl sitting on the edge with her feet in the water. Then there was a seperate sand box, but you could tell there was water in there and I looked at the kids and said to them – “you touch the sand or the water and we go home right away”. And they know I mean that shit. Anyway, the kids had a good time, Dillon loves to climb, Alex of course follows her brother, there were these huge slides that Dillon liked but Alex wouldn’t try. Dillon had fun coming down on his stomach, feet-first, head-first, then he came down head-first on his back. He’s so crazy and that slide was FAST. Check out this clumsy ass

Babygirl wouldn’t try the regular slide for a long time because when we got there the big obnoxious kids were playing all over it and not letting the smaller kids slide down. I finally made her do it. Then we rode the carousel.
::When Donna saw this picture, she told me I shouldn’t let him just stick a little of his head out behind mine, makes me look like I have a big-ass head. And she’s told me that before, so I told her once I took her advice and tried to stand behind him and only stick my head out a little and I made sure I stayed behind his face, and my head STILL looked hella bigger. I told her I rather people think it’s a trick of the camera, hahaha.

Then these kids decided they wanted to play in the sand. Uggh, I hate the sand at the playgrounds. Yeah yeah, let them be kids but whatever. Nasty.
Finally, when we had had enough of the playground, we walked over to the mall to have cream puffs and coffee, hang out for a while, then they were off to Dennis’s new place (which is a story in itself), HBY had to go to the hospital to bring food to his dad and I took the kids, Mae and Pristina home.

Maile’s Graduation Party

We celebrated Maile’s graduation from Notre Dame high school today at the Bayonet Black Horse Golf Course in Seaside.
The setup was nice and there was a little side room that we used as the “photo booth”, which was (one of) my (many) job(s). So everyone or family or group got to take pictures and I would crop the photo and insert it into this file:

and yeah, it’s ugly, but the guest of honor CHOSE those colors, and they HAD to be primary. uggh.

This is what it looked like with the picture inserted. Uncle Derek created the backdrop. When I saw it, I thought it was going to clash, but it came out okay, I guess.

I made the invitation exactly like that, with different words and a picture of Maile. What I wanted as the backdrop at the party was one similar to the one in the original invitation:

What they had was practically completely opposite. But – I definitely didn’t want the job of creating the backdrop along with the hundreds of other jobs that I had, so I can’t really complain.

I also burned 100 cds as the party favors and made the labels and covers based on that same template:

Can you imagine how SICK I am of looking at those freaking colors? Uggh…

Anyway, at the party, we had a laptop and a portable printer set up so I could quickly create the pictures and print them out and stick them on the paper frames (that I also had to cut, punch, score, fold) in time for people to pick them up before they left. Well, they made the announcement before the food was served to go and have their photos taken, but one came until after they ate – of course when I was trying to eat – and then! Yes, the printer started acting crazy. I did two test pages in the beginning, which came out perfectly. But when it came time to print the actual photos, the stupid thing wanted to act up. That took me at least 30 minutes to figure out, and by then the guests were all lining up waiting to pick up their photos. And OF COURSE the people that were assigned to help me were nowhere to be found. Luckily HBY stayed to help me, especially since we had problems with the frames! When I cut all the paper, I cut 3.75″x5.25″ mats and punched the corners so that I could just slip the 3.5″x5″ photo right inside. I cut another piece for the backing, either 5″x7″ flat card or a 4″x11″ folded card. After that, I was going to punch out little hibiscus flowers with the Quikutz and stick them on each one. Freaking 90 of them. I was like – forget this, so I sent all the papers and stuff down to Monterey where the majority of the relatives were going to be the night before the party so they could do it. Shit. What’s that saying about wanting something to be done right?? My cousin Nick’s new girlfriend somehow was allowed to help. And I guess she thought that the punched out corners were just for show? And she GLUED THEM DOWN solid. So how the hell was the picture going to slip in there? And Aunty Maile was pissed and throwing them down saying (pretty rudely) “this needs to be done over”. And Aunty Aly said to her “you’re not being very nice”. And that set her off, this was how her rant went “I’M not being very nice? I’M not being very nice? Christina spent all that time cutting and punching these and now they’re ruined and I’M not being very nice?” Haha, I almost feel sorry for that girl…but you know??

Wow, that was a long story, and totally off-topic. So…back to the party…after I printed out the pictures, cut them out, then I found that they didn’t slip into the corners that I punched, I was REALLY ANNOYED. They did try to salvage them, and some actually were okay, and some allowed a smaller sized picture in. But I designed that photo exactly at 3.5×5, if I trimmed it down further, the words would be cut off and it was just so ridiculous. HBY tried to use his knife and slice through the openings of the ones that were stuck, but it just cut through the whole thing. So in the end, we had to use double-sided tape and just stick the stupid picture on there. Well – hello – I didn’t have to go through all that god damn trouble if that’s what I wanted to do. This is what the folded card looked like:

Then I had to deal with the “can I have 2 copies of this one?” I swear. I definitely don’t want to do that again. It all turned out nice, but shit, I was stuck at that laptop all night, if I wanted to sit behind a computer for 4 hours straight, I would have stayed home, lol.

Here’s the picture that Aunty Maile, Uncle Bryan, Bryanna, Dillon and Maile took.

I have no idea who was taking these pictures, all I know is a lot of them were unfocused. First of all, I have to ask – couldn’t someone pick Dillon up so he wasn’t way down there? Throws the whole picture off, I think I actually cropped him out of their picture when I printed it out. Anyway, Bryan was watching me do the pictures since I guess he didn’t care for the disco lights and loud music, and he saw this picture and was so upset that he wanted to re-take it. By the time he saw it, his daughter was passed out and Aunty Maile was on the dance floor (and it’s practically impossible to get her off the dance floor until the music stops). But he was really bothered by the fact that he looked like he only had teeth on one side of his mouth, so I “helped” him a little.

It’s not that different, but definitely an improvement Haha, I couldn’t believe it bothered him that much, I didn’t think guys normally care.

Aunty Marie asked me to fix her “second ear” on her face, I didn’t save that one, below is the original, the retouched version actually looked okay.

While I was doing that, Uncle Bryn asked me to make his goatee black again, and I tried but finally had to give up. I can’t work miracles, you know. Although it would be cool if I knew how, I’ll definitely have to work on my Photoshop skills…

The best thing about the party is that the kids had a great time! I didn’t get to take any pictures of the actual party like I normally would, and I’m pretty bummed. There was a designated photographer, but who knows what kind of pictures he took, or how many, or even when I’ll get to see them, if ever. When I finally remembered to have our picture taken with Maile, both kids were all blue in the face from the cake:

Dillon’s face got washed out with the flash, but Babygirl’s face was crazy blue still. I tried photoshopping it clean (and of course I took all the stupid black dots off my face while I was at it), but couldn’t get her lips right.

So…that was our Saturday evening…in detail, lol…

HBY’s Happy 32nd Birthday

So today is HBY’s 32nd birthday, and poor guy had to work all day. Dillon told him that he was going to fill the living room with balloons and he was going to be so happy. I wonder if Dillon remembers when I did that for him on his 2nd birthday. Well, after I picked up Dillon and Pristina from school, they started decorating the house and I went to buy balloons and stuff. Those kids were so happy to have all those balloons.

Here’s Dillon blowing up one, he did good but couldn’t tie it himself so Pristina or I had to do it for him (after wiping off all the slobber)…
And here’s Alex with “the hooray”, as she calls it. It still cracks me up when she says it…
I wanted to get a picture of them with all the decorations and the one Happy Birthday banner up, but we were not having an easy time of it…
I like the natural light look, and this is what Pristina could come up with:
That was the best she could do, and you can’t even see the balloons really. So I took over. And these were the best I could do:

That one would have been really cute if it wasn’t blurry, so finally I gave in and used the flash. This is what happened:

I have NO IDEA what that expression is on Dillon’s face. I was so annoyed I just gave up. And this was Pristina’s bright idea

Haha, what a dork.

So anyway, finally HBY gets home from working all day, and the baby got to give him his present:

Dns came over later in the evening, but they couldn’t even really hang out because Hby had to sleep kinda early since he had to work early the next morning. Poor guy…