Happy Halloween

Pictures and story about our day will come soon, I promise. But for now, here is a big shout from Team Lua!

Halloweens of Yesterday

As we get ready to celebrate Jack's first Halloween, I think it's time to take a walk down memory lane. And of course by that, I mean only as far as my first baby's first Halloween ;)



2004 celebrated Samantha's first Halloween. There was nothing more suiting to my little angel than to be angel. We went to my mom's this year, where Sam helped hand out candy to all the trick-or-treaters, which she LOVED. And knowing her Dad well, she hid all the peanut M&Ms under the skirt of her costume.





2005 brought us Halloween in the form a princess and very new, days old little pumpkin. Although, Lexi has now informed me that dressing her in pumpkin pajamas, despite the matchin hat, does NOT constitute a costume. This year we went out trick-or-treating with our friends Megan and Rick and their beautiful daughters Carly & Lydia.



2006 brought the first of what is sure to be many years of Disney Princesses. This year we had a Snow White & Cinderella. It was also the first year we did Boo at the Zoo...and we were lucky enough to be joined by our friend Karen and her daughters Elizabeth & Abigail. This also was the first year in our new house, so we went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood for the very first time.



2007 was our 2nd year doing Boo at the Zoo and materialized a Dorothy and Glinda the Good Witch (which yes, is the recycled princess costume from Sam's 2nd Halloween). By this time the girls were pros at the trick-or-treating stuff, but were still too little to make it much further than the block. Good thing our neighbors love them and always fill their buckets!



2008 was a hard Halloween for us. After attending the girls' first ever school parade, I got a phone call that my grandmother was unresponsive in the emergency room. After much debate back and forth (and MUCH understanding from the girls), Nacho and I finally decided that I needed to be with my grandmother. It was heartbreaking for me to leave the girls, but I also knew I'd never forgive myself if I missed the opporunity to say goodbye. Oh and did I mention I was 8.5 months pregnant? Nacho took the girls trick-or-treating and they seem to have had fun. And the best news, my grandmother is now fine. Well, not fine fine, but not at the point of needing to say goodbye.


So that brings us to this year.....2009.....and my baby's 1st Halloween. You'll have to check back tomorrow to see a picture of them all dressed up and to find out what we did. That is if you care. But I can promise it will be great, since I feel like I have a lot of making up to do for last year.

Nothing Like Last Minute

About a week ago, I emailed Sam's room parent wondering whether they were going to have a Halloween party. Earlier this week, she let me know that yes, there was going to be one, but that she was just going to ask the first 5 parents on her list to bring things and she'd hit the rest of us during the course of the year. No problem.

This morning at drop off, she tells me that there is one mom she's been emailing, calling, etc who hasn't gotten back to her and could I please bring the fruit. Of course I said yes. Which, since I have a baby who's feeling under the weather, meant I called Nacho and told him to pick up some fruit.

Fast-forward to 6:30 tonight. As I am a)making dinner, b) cutting up fruit and veggies for the party tomorrow c)making cupcakes for Nacho's work and d) trying to entertain 3 kids (ok and e) probably snapping at Nacho because I.JUST.NEED.SOME.HELP), the phone rings. It's our room mom and apparently the other mom just got back to her and of course is bringing the fruit. Now, I don't blame our room mom at all. She's got a thankless job and I know I wouldn't want to be the one trying to organize all of this. And if she weren't the one doing it, I would have been the one to sign up and I just don't have the time for it this year. Or the patience.

Guess those kids will be eating LOTS of fruit tomorrow.

Culture & History

Yesterday I got to spend the day at a grown up. After brunch with my crew, I headed off into the world of adults. It was amazing. My grandparents had two extra tickets to the San Francisco Opera and invited my mom and I to come along. I've only been to the opera once before, as a teenager, when even as a music lover, I didn't fully appreciate it. I'm still not an opera lover, but the one I saw yesterday - "The Daughter of the Regiment" was wonderful. It was funny. And clever. And had one of the most amazing singers I've ever heard - Juan Diego Florez.

Not bad on the eyes either, right? But this man hit 6 - count 'em SIX high C's in one song. Amazing I tell you! And we had perfect seats.

As we were driving home, my grandfather asked my mom (who was driving) if it would be ok if we drove through the Presidio. My grandfather retired as the Commander of the Presidio, and my mom spent a lot of her teen years living there on post and he wanted to show me the house they lived in. I had seen it as we would drive by the Presidio on the way to the airport and it sort of had become a joke - "there is the house" as we would drive by at 60mph (or whatever the speed limit actually is there). But this would give me the first chance to see it up close and personal. I have to say the Presidio is beautiful. The best view of the Golden Gate ever. And now that it is no longer a working Army base and instead a National Park, people are free to go in there. Anyways, my grandfather showed me where his office was, where command was, where the Commanding General lived, where he lived, where the golf course is (which I found was very important to him!). My mom showed me where she hung out - sometimes to the suprise of my grandfather! Although not an active base anymore, they have converted barracks and officers' quaters to apartments and houses, so people still live there. As a matter of fact, my grandfather told me that their old house has been occupied continously since they left.

I don't think I have what it takes to be an Army wife (and kuddos to those who do!), but I could feel the sense of community and comradre there, even though it's not a post anymore. I would love to be part of community like that.

I don't know why we've never driven through the Presidio before. It's such a nicer way to get from the city to the Golden Gate and it's so interesting. Maybe someday soon I'll take Nacho & the chicklets and we can explore it some more. Especially now they've opened the Walt Disney Family Museum there!

Disney Princess vs. Raider Nation

Interesting match up? We thought so too. But that what it was when we took the kids to see Disney on Ice: Princess Wishes on Sunday to celebrate Lu's 4th birthday. And I should take the time to mention now that I am a horrible mother for not giving her birthday due recognition here with its own post. She did however have an entire weekend that was all about her, so I hope make up some points there.


Back to the match up. Disney on Ice was held at Oracle Arena at 10:30. The Raiders had a home game RIGHT.NEXT.DOOR at 1pm. And by right next door, I mean they share a parking lot. And if you know nothing else about Raiders fans, it's that they take football seriously. Which means the parking lot opened up at 8am for people to start tailgaiting. And tailgate they did. They were nice enough to open up a back parking lot for the Disney people and bus us in to the front of the arena, but apparently decided getting us back after the show wasn't quite as important. And who knew people liked to pay the parking fee to tailgate and not actually go into the game. Because when we came out they were still tailgaiting, even though kick off had been 30 min. before. So we got to walk our beautiful, sweet, innocent children through the Raider Nation. People this is the kind of stuff I'm talking about:



(in an effort of full disclosure, we didn't actually see anybody who looked like this. Well only one. But I know that they were around)

I'm sure they're very nice people, but frankly they scare me. They were playing the Eagles and I thought about a shout for my friend Christy, but then I remembered I was SCARED!

Anyways, the show was great. I was actually surprised at the quality of it. But I do have to admit, listening to all the music made me want to be back in Disneyland. But really, is there ever a time I don't want to be there?



And I was very proud of my husband, who despite being so close to his team (he's a non-scary Raiders fan), didn't try to escape the Disney Princesses once. That I know of. After waiting 30 minutes to get out of the parking lot after the show, we turned on the Raiders game on the radio. And much to our chagrin they were winning. WHAT?? The Raiders winning. They almost never do that. And much less against the Eagles. We got home in time for the second half, except of course it wasn't televised. Because the Raiders are normally so bad that if they don't sell out a home game, they aren't on TV. But hey, they actually won this one!

And for the record, I am a born & bred true 49ers faithful.

Come and Knock on Our Door

We've been waititng for you.....

We're constantly being told by people, mostly family, they the don't see the kids enough. Yet they ALWAYS expect us to bring the kids to them. It would seem to me, that if they feel they aren't seeing the kids enough that they would make the trip to us. But they don't. They'd rather call and complain. And the excuse I just can not wrap my head around is that we live too far away. Umm, do they not understand that the distance from them to us is the same exact distance from us to them? So why is it not too far for us to drive? And hello, we're the ones with the 3 kids. Yes our decision to have them, but it's far harder for us to pack them all up to go somewhere.

And it's not like we hibernate in our house all the time. We go the family events and birthday parties. And I like to feel we go a lot to just hang out. And if people don't want to come hang out here, that's fine. But then I want them to realize that they are making a choice not to see the kids. So quit complaining about it.

Table Foods

Jack is really getting the hang of table foods. For dinner tonight he had sweet potato fries, cinnamon rolls, pumpkin spice bread & Activia vanilla yogurt. In other words - a dinner consisting of Costco samples.

I'm expecting my mother of the year award in the mail any day now.

Fall Fun

We have a local pumpkin patch that is in a state park and it's only open two weekends a year. One of those weekends always falls on Lu's birthday, which is next weekend, so this weekend was it! It's a great pumpkin patch with crafts for the kids, food, hay rides....and of course pumpkins!

We think Jack may be allergic to hay. Or just plain tired of me trying to get that ever allusive group shot. Because this is what he did EVERY. SINGLE. TIME we put him on the hay stacks.















And y'all thought he never cried ;) Truthfully, I think it was the hay because anytime he was around it his nose turned bright red and his eyes started to water.

He did have some fun times though!












































I never did get that "great" group picture I was after. This is the best we got.















You can see the irritation they have with me in their eyes. Is it my fault they can't all look at the camera AND smile? I think not. And I warned them that I would keep taking the picture until the cooperated. But after about 15 even I gave up.

We did get a nice family picture though
















After the pumpkin patch we headed to Six Flags again. We have season passes, so we've sort of been going when we feel like it, which makes it nice because there is no stress to get everything done. This time of year is also a lot of fun because they have it decorated for Halloween & they have a trick or treat trail for the kids. I'm looking forward to how they decorate it for Christmas. It won't be Disneyland, but it will still be fun.





























And we apparently did all of this at the right time because our weather reports are showing that we're getting hit by a big storm tomorrow, which is supposed to dump rain and bring winds in excess of 60mph to our area. Yeah, I know some other parts of the country are already dealing with snow, but this is California and for us this is BIG!

Heartbreaking

Yesterday was a day full of family fun for Team Lua. A trip to the pumpkin patch followed by an afternoon at Six Flags. I had planned on posting about that today....and I will, but right now I've got something else on my mind.

While we were at the pumpkin patch, I ran into an old friend. I guess friend is the right word....although recently we had drifted apart. We started as best friends in Jr. High, grew apart in high school, but rediscovered our friendship when we shared a class our 2nd year of college. I was with her when she did her final fitting for her wedding dress. She was one of the first to know I was expecting Samantha. We had children, her 1st & my 2nd, a month apart. Circumstances required her to return to full time work, so that added to real estate she had started doing kept her busy. And understandably, the free time she did have she wanted to spend with her husband and son. So in the past few years our friendship has been a few emails here and there, Christmas cards, etc.

We ran into her & her husband a few months ago in Target and found they were expecting again...a baby boy due right around Lexi's birthday. Yesterday I saw her at the pumpkin patch - holding a baby boy, too old to be her's, but not visably pregnant anymore. The baby boy is her nephew. And she told me the heartbreaking news that they had lost their son in her 31st week of pregnancy. For those who haven't recently been pregnant, that is 6 weeks away from term and 9 weeks away from her due date. Apparently he just stopped moving and the autopsy they performed didn't give them any more information. He was born in the middle of August. Two months ago. How I wish I could have been a support to her then, instead of finding out over two months later. All I can do now is offer my support now. After hearing the news yesterday, I thought about where I was at 31 weeks pregnant. Nurseries ready, gearing up for baby showers, looking forward to delivery day which didn't seem that far off. My heart breaks for them. For their baby boy.

Awkward

I mentioned in my last post that a mom of a classmate of Sam's stopped me today. Our conversation went as follows.

Other mom: my son is having a Halloween party a week from Saturday and really would like for Cassie to come.

Me: That's really nice. Except mine is Sam.

OM: *blank stare*


OM: What? Really?

Me: Yep.

OM: Well then, who's Cassie?

Me: She's got the curly hair

OM: Yeah. You sure she's not yours?

Me: Pretty sure.

OM: Oh, well maybe he wants Samantha there too. I don't know exactly what his plans are. He's got the invites with him.

Me: Oh, what is the policy of handing out invites at school. You know, when the whole class isn't invited? (I actually want to know for when Sam needs to do it)

OM: Oh, I don't really know. If we had been on time today I would have asked the teacher.


Really, the kids have been in school for 2 months now and we see eachother EVERY morning. We've even parked in front of her house some mornings. And she doesn't know which child is mine?

It doesn't really matter because Lexi's 4th birthday party is that day, so she couldn't go anyways. But I really, really don't want to see my baby girl come home with hurt feelings because she wasn't invited. Not that seeing the mom this morning would have changed that, but to know she doesn't even know which kids she's inviting to her house. Not encouraging.

Feels Like A Monday

But after I checked the calendar, it really is a Friday, so I guess that's good. But this day needs to turn around. And quick.

I didn't sleep well last night. I don't know why but I hate nights where I toss & turn. And I think I fell into a deep sleep about 10 minutes before the alarm went off. Because that's the way it always works, right?

Then I woke up to the news that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Umm, what??? I'm not normally one to get into political discussions on public boards, blogs - even my own - but this I can't let pass by without comment. What has he possibly done to deserve this award? Especially given than nominations were due in early February, meaning he hadn't even served a full month of his term. I hope the board or whoever hands these out realizes they just made this "honor" on par with any of the entertainment awards. It no longer means anything.

I do have to say, that is refreshing to see the attitude change on Facebook since election day, which everybody knows is the measure of everything. There are a handful of people who are happy by this news, but the majority are walking around like me - saying WTF?

Off my soapbox now and back to reality -which is that I had it so together this morning, that I left my purse at home on the school run this morning. The kids told me not to worry - if I would just stay under the speed limit, I'd be fine ;)

However, by the time we got to school, I was seriously considering selling my kids to gypsies. No alarmists please - I haven't Google.d how to go about that....yet.

Then as I was leaving the school a mom stopped me and even though we see eachother every day and our kids are in the same class, she thought I was the mother to another child. I know Sam likes to act like she doesn't know me when we get to school, but she does acknowledge me enough to say goodbye. Most days.

But now, the baby is napping, the girls at school and I have one glorious hour left to myself. Think it's time to catch up on Grey's.

Run For Our Money

In our experience, easy babies = hell on wheels as toddlers. Samantha was our "hardest" baby, if you could even call her that. I'm sure other parents would laugh at us because in all honestly, she was easy. But in comparison to her sister & brother, she was our hardest. Alexandra was easy. So easy. Unbelievably easy. To the point where I was scared to have another because I was confident we had used up all our good baby genes. And then she got mobile. While she was sweet as ever, she was into everything. Climbing on furniture, jumping off the couch. I even found her standing on the dishwasher door when I stepped away in the middle of loading it.

And now we have Jack. Seriously the EASIEST baby ever. Always happy, always smiling. Even when he's sick and/or teething, he's still happy. How we got so lucky with amazing babies, I'll never know. He's been truly mobile for a little over a week now (he was rolling for a month before that though). In that time he has learned to crawl, get up onto his knees, pull up to standing and get into a sitting position. He loves everything about it. Also, in that time he has managed to...

Get his hand stuck in the VCR - and pull the VCR off the shelf trying to free himself.

(I actually freed him before taking the picture)

He has found computer equipment his father was sure he had hidden well enough to not be played with

He pulls the receiver off the shelf daily.

He's pulled the fireplace door off it's hinges. It had already been tied shut at the top because Lexi was famous for pulling on the doors to. Luckily, the door didn't break.


He is nothing if not helpful though! He climbed over Nacho to "help" take the handles off the fireplace doors.


Obviously, we need to take another look at our baby proofing technique. Because I'm sure he'll manage to find more to get into than his sisters did. However, it was Samantha who managed to figure out how to open the cabinets in 30 seconds after Nacho and I spent all day installing those under the cabinet locks. So who knows?!

Have you ever seen somebody so proud of what he can do?

Fright Fest

Today we surpised the kids with a trip to Six Flags. Ok, not so much a surprise because we have season passes, but we hadn't been for awhile and Nacho did have them convinced that we were going to Target for awhile. Except my kids have a great sense of direction and knew the minute we pulled the wrong way out of our development that we weren't going to Target.

Our day started with Lexi wanting to go on Tony Hawk's Big Spin. Because Nacho doesn't like rides that spin, I got to go on with her. Today was the first time she was tall enough for it, so I had to let her do it. The ride broke down half way through our wait time. Except it didn't really break down. Somebody threw up and they had to clean it up. That should have been warning enough for me, but Lexi was so excited about that we waited it out. And I found my dad's look-a-like in line, so not all was lost. But I can say this:

NEVER. EVER. AGAIN.

Apparently I'm getting old because I just can't handle those rides anymnore. Roller coasters - fine. Even teacup style spinning rides - fine. Put the two together. NOT FINE! I was able to do the ride and I didn't actually get sick, but I walked around with a horrible headache the rest of the day. Now I know how my mom felt all those time we made her do rides, even when she warned us how they'd make her feel.

We didn't participate in much of Fright Fest because it's geared towards older childen, but we did take advantage of the trick or treating they were offering the kids. They were handing out full size candy bars - Holla! They even let us the baby trick or treat (What? Everybody knows you only take babies TOT so you can eat the candy.)

On a totally unrelated note - hey it's my blog, I can do that - how is it so few parents seem to have to control over their children? Sure mine make mistakes, but if I see it happen I address it and make them apologize, even if it was an accident. But some of the parents I came across today didn't care that their children cut in line, or pushed over other children or were just general bullies. And in some cases, actually encouraged it.

I don't want to end on a sour note because it really was a great day. So I'll end this with saying that I think a return trip next weekend is in order...you know, for the chocolate!

Oh and Lexi loved Tony Hawk's Big Spin. Yay for me :-/