Brick or Treat Party at Legoland

We took the little ones to Legoland for their Brick or Treat party. The kids loved it! Kay had never been there before, so it was cute to see her react to all the different things there. Unfortunately, she was a little too small to ride most of the rides there. She has about an inch to go until she can ride most of the rides, but it was still a fun day.

Daddy's Birthday & 3 Day Cupcakes

We all enjoyed Daddy's 36th bday! Wooo the big 3-6. Getting up there my love!! The kids and I tried to make Daddy's bday special by making little handmade or hand written items from the kids. We made the card and I made the decorations. the decorations.

Kay even managed to learn how to sing "Happy Birthday to You"

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This week I did an event for my friend Amber's 3 Day Breast Cancer Walk Fundraiser. I made about seven dozen cupcakes for her fundraiser bake sale. It was fun to make kinds all at once. It got me thinking, I could do this every day ;) Mark was my inspiration for one of the flavors I titled Chocolate Banana Malt Shop, since we used to share chocolate banana malts at Ruby's on Oceanside Pier.

G5 Weekend Report

It was a busy weekend, but fun. Friday was a cake night. I was up until the wee hours finishing up the cake for Cora's birthday.

Saturday, we went to her party. It was so much fun. They had carnival games, a castle jump and of course yummy food.



Sunday was kind of a lazy day. I cleaned a bit, we took the kids to lunch at Island's Hamburger and then I went veggie shopping at Henry's and I cooked up a storm. It's nice to get some of those week night meals out of the way and in the fridge or freezer.

Easter 2009 & g5 Weekend Update

We had a nice Easter weekend. We did the usual. Hid Easter eggs, colored Easter eggs, had a huge caloric meal and went to church.

Friday, since our helper Jamie was here with her kiddos, we decided to dye eggs and do a preliminary egg hunt. We gave Jamie's kids some goodies. It was a fun day, but we all missed Javi. Javi was visiting with his dad who was in town from the CHP academy.

My mom came in to town on Saturday and since we were sharing Javi this holiday weekend, we decided to do our Easter on Saturday. We did the big meal, ham au gratin potatoes and stuffing! Then I made a dutch apple pie for dessert, yum! We did the egg hunt and the Easter bunny came with the baskets. Loads of sugar for my little bunnies ;0)

Sunday, we met our friends the Pomiak family at church. Kaylee didn't quite make it through the mass, but did surprisingly well considering that we were there about 30 minutes before mass started and then made it through 45 minutes of the service. T hen we came home and had leftovers and watched a movie together. I had a mountain of dishes from the day before to catch up on and I tried to clean up a bit, since I have been down for the count with pneumonia most of the week. I crashed out around 7pm. I was feeling pretty run down from the busy weekend. I don't think my body was quite ready to get back to a regular routine, because I woke up this morning feeling sick all over again.

So, back to the doc for me, I think. I am guessing that it's viral pneumonia and that's why the antibiotics didn't work too well.

Here's all the pics from the weekend....



Hope you had a fab Easter weekend!!

Four Out of Five g5's (update)

Sorry, nothing really too interesting to report over the weekend, except being sick.  Kaylee has an ear infection, Ethan, just a cold/cough and I may have pneumonia, but I won't know with out a chest film.  I have an order for one, but I'm on antibiotics and I promised the doc if I didn't feel better in a couple days that I would go get it done. 

Some spring break, eh?  Well, at least Javi has had fun and done stuff over the last few days.  He has been with his step mom, Brianne and his Nana over the last few days while we recoop.  I am so grateful for that.  The kids are out all week so I guess that's a good thing.  No running around, just lots of movies and laying around.  The weather has been so beautiful it would be nice to take a nap at the beach or something.  I just hope my little bunnies are well when the Easter bunny comes!

g5 Weekend Report

Ok, I missed last weekend. I was being a lazy blogger ;) We did have fun at Natalie's 33rd Bday Clambake.

Let's see...Friday, I had coffee with the girls in the morning. It was nice to hang out and chat. We'll have to do that more often!
Friday night we took it easy. I made smoked sausage and yellow rice for dinner. Always a fav in this house. We relaxed and watched movies as usual. I read more of my book, that I finished this morning called Soul Mates. It was an interesting book. It was all about past life regression/hypnotherapy and the existence of soul mates and what the author's definition of a soul mate was. It was very enlightening. A different book from what I would normally read, but gave me some things to ponder. I love a book like that.

Saturday, we went to one of my BF's surprise birthday party. You would think that this party was more for kids! They had a blow up slide that they turned into a water slide courtesy of Grandma squirting everyone with the hose ;) It was 84 degrees in Temecula where they live, about 45 minutes northeast of us. They have a great house for entertaining and they always put on great parties. I got to visit with a lot of old friends, in between chasing Kaylee all over the place. We had a lot of fun. "Uncle Brian" carpooled with us and we are usually his adopted family at these functions, as he is unmarried and with out children. The only one of our friends. Mark took the day off, as usual when it comes to these functions but, he deserved a day off after three weeks straight working ;) Uncle Brian had fun with the kids. For a single guy, he is really good with them. He carted Kaylee around the yard, took Ethan swimming in the pool and even took him to go potty. Pretty impressive for a single guy! Single ladies, any takers??

Here are some of the pics from the party...

The Birthday Girl, Brook

Javi helped her with the candles.  Stand by with a fire extinguisher!!  Man, mine will have that many candles this year.  Ugh!

Hey, Can I squirt you with a water gun Uncle Brian (light blue hat)? 

Ethan frolicking around the yard.

Javi yelling at the girls to go down the slide, meanwhile not having the guts to go down himself and get sprayed by grandma with the hose.

Sunday, I ran some errands, took Ethan to Target and went to Trader Joe's solo. He needed some alone time with mama. He's been in a funk lately, wanting more alone time from the other kids. I can't say I blame him. We mostly just hung around and played with the kids. Mark colored with them. I made tacos, beans, rice and salsa. Ok, so the meat was a little over seasoned. Mark called it "meat tenderizer". I told him if he didn't watch it, he would be cooking his own meals all week!

Laying like a big girl and kicking her feet.  She looked like a teenager.  All that OT is paying off.  She holds a crayon better than most 10 year olds at 20 months.

Here daddy, let me autograph that for you.

It was a nice weekend. Relaxing. Next weekend Mark said he would let me try to hypnotize him with the script from my book. That should be interesting!! LOL  Hope you all had a great weekend too!

G5 Weekend Report

Hope everyone had a great weekend. We had a nice relaxing weekend.  Friday I cooked an enormous dinner, which I enjoyed making, thoroughly.  Everything from scratch, just as I like to do.  I suppose I was inspired by watching the movie Tortilla Soup on Thursday while I was folding what seemed like a mountain of laundry.  I spent most of the afternoon cooking.  I made corn tortillas, roasted salsa, tortilla soup, enchiladas beans and rice.  I was a little disappointed that the tortillas had kind of a funny aftertaste.  I am guessing because the masa may have gone stale.  It had been in the cabinet for quite a while.  I didn't know that it could, but I guess it's just as perishable as anything else.  I made a mole enchilada sauce and a Mexican beef roast as filling.  The roast practically fell apart when I was preparing the meat to go in the chili mole sauce for the enchiladas, which is just the way I like it.  Ethan liked the "chippy soup" (tortilla soup) as we called it, which was very surprising.  It's garnished with creama (kinda of sour cream) and cilantro.

Saturday we went to Kaylee's first real playdate (meaning a play date that was actually scheduled for her).  We went to a meet up with the families from my speech class.  It was the first time we had actually seen all the kids in person.  We get to watch videos of each other utilizing the techniques we learn in class.  The kids were so cute!!  Kaylee had a really good time.  So did Ethan!  He didn't want to leave.  They had other children that Ethan played with that were more his age.  Kaylee really like playing with our host's eldest daughter.  It was nice to see her get some time in with a "big sister" type.  The girl also seemed thrilled since she has all younger brothers.  She was fascinated to get to play with a little girl.  We headed out to the outlet mall after that to pick up some much needed clothes for Mark and Kay.  

We relaxed the rest of the day.  We watched AFV for the first time with Ethan.  Man, was it a crack up to see him laughing at all the video clips.  I think it was funnier to watch him react then it was to watch the videos themselves!

Sunday, we made some time to teach Ethan how to ride a bike with training wheels.  Javi never rides his bike.  He just never really took to it.  He's always been more interested in his scooter or skate boards.  Although the bike is too big for him, he did a really good job pedaling.  We decided it was time to get Ethan a bike of his own, so I think I will take a look at the second hand sports shop to get him a little 12" bike.  He won't need it for more than a year or two at best, so we thought it better not to spend too much. 

Here's a clip of him riding with Mark teaching him.

Delayed G5 Weekend Report

We had a pretty full weekend.  Friday was a long day with Kay's MRI.  I took Ethan and Kaylee out to grab some lunch when we got home from the hospital and we did some grocery shopping at Trader Joe's (health food store).  That evening we just watched movies and hung out, nothing too exciting since we were wiped from the early morning at the hospital.

Saturday we took the kiddos to the train park and to lunch at the Hamburger Factory.  We always love going there.  It was such a beautiful day too!

It was such a nice day, Mark decided to take the boys to the pool so I could get some cleaning done while Kaylee took a nap.  It was nice to be able to clean one room with out worrying that another one was getting blown up at the same time :)

I also started purging closets, spring cleaning!  The kids have pretty much out grown their entire closets.  Ethan has especially been stretching lately.  Good thing I have plenty of "Javi-downs" to give to Ethan.  It does help with clothing costs and I only save the ones that are in good shape.  We donate the rest.

The kids all helped daddy put together Javi's k'nex roller coaster.  They worked on it for three days straight, but after all that, it's missing two pieces!!  Oh well, they had fun building it.  Especially Kaylee!!

Sunday was a relaxation day for the kiddos.  For mommy it was a Costco day.  It seemed like we were out of all of our paper products, paper plates, paper towels, napkins, tissue, etc.  So $265 we headed home with a trunk full of bulk.  Thank goodness that is only a once every few month purchase. Our typical Costco bill for the month is about $150, since I usually only go once.  I know the days of my shopping at a regular grocery store are numbered, with the way our kids are starting to eat.  Javi can mow through food like nobody's biz, since he eats about every 2 hours.  This kid is like a bottomless pit!  So that means more bulk, and less variety, but easier on the pocket book.

Sunday afternoon, I went to the Indian market.  Oh my, the aroma of the east was intoxicating.  I picked up some spices, naan and almond ice cream for that evening's specialty dinner.  My friend, Natalie was coming over for dinner and a movie (postponed to Sunday, since Ethan was sick on Thursday).  I made Butter Chicken, a popular Indian entrée served over basmati rice.  It's very rich and very flavorful.  Mark said it tasted like it was from an Indian restaurant, which is always one of my fav compliments.  I also made some masala raita for dipping the naan.

Nice weekend with the fam.  Hope yours was great too, now that we are half way to the next weekend!!

G5 Weekend Report

This weekend was fairly uneventful because I was sick all weekend, EXCEPT for Kaylee's little stroll!! I did make Chinese food Thursday and Friday night and it came out pretty good. Mark proclaimed my General Tso's chicken was the best Chinese food he had ever tasted and almost ate the entire platter of chicken! Friday night, I made Pepper Beef and Veggie Fried Rice. The flavor was great, but I think next time I will just spend the couple extra dollars on better quality meat. It was a little tough. But hey, what do you want for $3 package of meat!




Saturday, Kaylee and Ethan gave their sick mommy the royal treatment. It was nice to have a relaxing day playing with them. We played beauty shop with Kaylee's Disney Princess Beauty Set.


The kids pretty much entertained themselves for most of the day which was nice. Ethan showed Kaylee how to play Kirby on the DS.


Sunday was another day filled with feeling sick, though I did still manage to get some cleaning done and grocery shop. Then we watched the Oscars and Ethan fell asleep in my lap. I was glad to see that Slumdog Millionaire won so many awards. It was a great movie. Very different from other movies. However, I would still like to see Milk and The Reader, since they also won in the best actor/actress categories. I would also like to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I do look forward to HP and the Half Blood Prince that will make it's debut around Javi, Kaylee & my birthday! Woo hoo!


Hope you all had a great weekend!

G5 Weekend Report

Better late than never! I actually had this post ready last night, but had one video that had to be uploaded. I got a migraine and never finished it ;) Hope everyone had a wonderful Superbowl weekend.  Friday and Saturday were pretty uneventful since two out of three kiddos were sick.

Friday, I made some Greek chicken avgolemono soup for Mark and I for lunch.  I had prepared chicken souvlaki (Greek marinated chicken breast) for dinner for ladies' dinner and a movie night on Thursday, so we had a lot of leftovers.  It was d'lish soup!  We also had some leftover pita and tzatki that we munched on with the soup.  

That afternoon, we had a "Superhero Afternoon" boys played a little live action Super Smash Bros with their plushy Sonic and Mario dolls.  We also watched Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer.  I also worked on the football cake a little.  I baked the cake part.  I rested most of the evening and went to bed early, since I too was feeling a little under the weather.

Saturday morning, Ethan and I made the chocolate buttercream for the cake.  Yum!  It smelled heavenly.  Ethan was the official taste tester.  It is so cute to see how interested he is in cooking and baking.  He would rather cook with me in the kitchen than play video games.  He actually shut off Wii when I asked if he wanted to cook with me!!  

Javi went to Bates' Nut Farm with his cousin, Nana and Aitona for the day.  Javi's dad left for the CHP academy in Sacramento on Saturday and will be there for the next six months.  He will be coming home every other weekend, so Javi will still get to see him, but it's definitely going to be a big change for him.  It was a nice distraction for Javi to do something fun with his grandparents for the day.

Daddy brought home some McD's for lunch and a much needed ice coffee for Mama.  It totally hit the spot and I felt recharged to finish off decorating the cake.

I stayed up pretty late on Saturday night preparing food for our party on Superbowl Sunday.  I made all the dips, veg tray, etc.

Sunday the kids woke up early and we played for most of the early morning.  Then it was go time for mama.  I started cleaning, more food prep, and setting up for the party.  I made a much needed coffee run to Starbucks for daddy and I.  Since the kids had gotten up early, I was sooo ready for a cuppa.

Our party kicked off around 2:30.  We served food from just about every ethnic group.  I had made some lumpia, pizza, wings, hot artichoke dip, garlic fries, my famous roasted salsa, asian pineapple teriyaki meatballs, hummus & pita, and of course, cake for dessert.  

We had a really good time.  There was about 15 of us, including the little people.  Even did a little karaoke during half time.  Here are the pics and vid.  Mark & the boys were very elusive and managed to skip out on the pics and the vids.

Family Science Night

We had a great time at Family Science Night at Javi's school.  They did a great presentation!  They had different buildings set up with different scientific centers.  Building F, which is Javi's class building was set up with the body exhibits, another was set up with physics, another was set up with chemistry and the multi-purpose room (their auditorium) was set up with the solar system, planetary and world exhibits.  We really felt like we were at an actual museum they had put everything on so nicely!!  I was really impressed!

All the exhibits were interactive.  Kids could run experiments like look at their eyes in the mirror through a magnifying glass, measure the small intestines, do forensics on their finger prints, magnetic energy, and they learned why popcorn pops.

Javi's fav was putting iodine on the crackers to see how the digestive system breaks down food. Ethan's fav was the popcorn.  They also got a bag of really good popcorn at that exhibit ;)

My personal fav was the eco exhibits.  It taught kids what material were recyclable and which could be tossed.  They even had a trash/recycle basketball game where Javi won a pencil.  

It was really neat!!  I'm so glad that Javi invited all of us!  Javi got to go out for dinner with his step-mom & dad right after, so he got to learn about the digestive track first hand.

G5 Weekend Report

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!!  We sure did. 

Friday night, we hung out at home.  Mark had gone in to the office for the first time in a couple weeks, so I decided to cook a special dinner.  It was a Pinoy feast!  I made lumpia and pancit.  It was my first attempt.  I made chili sweet sauce to go with the lumpia.  Yum!!  The lumpia was great, but the pancit, not so much.  I have never used rice sticks before, so I think I may have over cooked them.  They were a little gummy.  I'll have to get some advice from my neighbor who made us a Philippine Feast a couple weeks ago for next time.  Otherwise, the flavor was good.

Saturday, Kaylee and I went out shopping with a neighbor friend of mine.  The boys stayed home to play video games.  Mark has been working a lot lately, so it was nice to get some male bonding time in with Ethan.  We were supposed to go to this great resale place, but it was closed so we got lost in Cost Plus World Market for a couple hours.  I love that store!  I did purchase a gift for the bday party we were attending that evening, which was a Twilight theme.  

Rushed home to get dressed in my vamp gear.  Did the whole undead thing with the makeup ;) Wore all black, the whole nine yards.  Kay was my little vamp baby.  She wore her punk rock cute little outfit.  Looks like something from L.A.M.B., Gwen Steffani's kids' line.  My little cutie.  I was running late, so I forgot my camera.  I don't have any pics :(  My friend Natalie took some pics, so I will just have to wait on the pics.  We had fun at the party.  They had everything all decorated to theme.  Complete with themed food ;)  Wooden spears of meat (kabobs), bleeding red velvet cupcakes, Type O- and O+ blood on tap (sangria), just to name a few...Kaylee was tuckered out by 9pm, so we headed home.  It was a twilight party, so of course, that's when it began, so she lasted for quite a few hours.  

The boys had a great boys night in.  They ate junk, played and watched movies.  I didn't want to take Ethan, just in case he was scared by the costumes.  He doesn't like parties much, so he said he wanted to stay home with daddy anyway.

Sunday was a lazy day.  It felt great!!!  Don't remember the last time I was that lazy.  We laid around all day and watched movies.  I didn't do one single productive thing except feed everyone.   We had a "carpet picnic".  Ethan, Kaylee and I packed a picnic basket full of goodies and laid out a plaid blankey on the carpet.  It was fun to pretend we were out at the park.  We tossed the ball around too just like at the park and we made origami too.  It was too gloomy and patchy rain to have a real picnic, so it was the next best thing ;)  

I made some yummy loaded baked potato soup for Sunday dinner.  It was d'lish!!  I'll have to write out the recipe sometime before I forget it.  I improvised as usual!

Hope your weekend was nice and relaxing too.  Have a great week!!

G5 Weekend Report

It was such a nice weekend, celebrating Ethan's birthday!  We certainly have been enjoying the cake all weekend.  It's officially gone!  I think it's the first time we have ever finished a birthday cake.  Ethan had about six slices through out the weekend.  I figured, why not?  It's his birthday cake and he doesn't get it often.  Enjoy it while you can!  My mom took the last few slices home for my grandparents to enjoy.

Let's see...since you already know what we did on Friday.  Let's go straight to Saturday.  We pretty much lounged around for most of the day.  We played wii with the kids and had left overs from the "breakfast for dinner" from Ethan's bday party.  In the evening, my mom and I went to pick up chinese food, our usual Saturday dinner, from the little place a few blocks away from our house.  The people know us and they are really nice.  They make all of Javi's stuff special order because of his diet, which is really cool!  We dropped by Home Depot while we were up there to purchase some duct tape to fix our dryer.  The vent hose just keeps falling off.  There is nothing wrong with the cuff that attaches it, but it just keeps falling off.  I suspect it's because I dry large loads and it shakes the darn thing loose.  Anyway, we ate chinese and watched movies, just relaxed.  It was nice.

Sunday morning, we did much of the same, except for I went for a morning jog!  My first in quite a while.  It's time to burn off some of those Xmas lbs!!  Woo, I have gained a few too ;)  I am really motivated, so I am confident I will stick with it.  I have also been trying to eat healthier...again!  I got kinda "lax" during the holidays, so it's time to get psycho again.  

My Normal Diet...

Breakfast is a small bowl of oatmeal with raisins and a coffee.  Then for lunch, a fruit smoothie and a small snack (half sandwich, or soup, luna bar, etc.).  I usually have an afternoon snack like half a banana or hummus and pita, then a normal size dinner (no larger than a salad plate full), which typically includes at least one veg.  I try very hard not to eat sweets, but on occasion I like to have a piece of chocolate or a cookies.  I love love love fancy coffee, so I can usually just reward my self with a coffee and I'm good.  Of course, try to drink as much water as possible too.

This is my NORMAL diet.  You don't want to know what I have been eating for the last six weeks!!  But I'm sure it's not much different what everyone has been eating ;)  I'd like to try to work out, strength training at least 3x's a week and cardio 3x's on the off days.  I'd also like to incorporate yoga at least 2x's a week.  

Sunday afternoon, I took the kids to my friend's Natalie and Steve's house to watch the Charger game.  Mark stayed home to catch up on some rest.  The ladies and I played Texas Hold'em during half time and in to the second half, since at this point the Chargers were a little behind.  It was quite the roll reversal.  Steve had done all the cooking for the game, then he played with the kids a little while the ladies played poker!  It was most entertaining for me to witness this.  Steve did a wonderful job hosting the football party.  I know all the ladies are a tough crowd.  Besides Ethan, he was the only guy ;)  

Ethan discovered he is quite good at Golden Tee.  They have a stand up arcade game in their living room, so Ethan had a good time.  Sure he was amazed by an arcade game being in their living room.  Kaylee discovered that she really likes dogs.  She loved petting Apollo, Natalie's golden retriever.  I could tell Mark saw my wheels spinning when I told him that Kaylee liked their dogs.  He just said "NO PUPPIES".  I whole heartedly agree, since I've been there may times already.  Maybe sometime in the future, we can look in to rescuing an adult dog that is already house trained.  I do really miss having the companionship of a dog.  We always had a dog when I was growing up.  It would be really nice for the kids to also have that kinship.

Natalie's dog, Apollo