Toothless wonder

My dear, sweet, Emma pulled out her top front tooth this morning!

Do you remember when you were a kid, how exciting it was to lose a tooth? Well, she is 6 years old and it is pretty much the coolest thing that has happened to her in her entire life! She told me so herself!

It was pretty loose, so I grabbed my camera and starting video taping....

She has now lost more teeth than her big sis, Kaylin! This is very happy news for her, but Kaylin, who is 8 1/2, will not be so happy when she gets home from school and finds out!

Kreativ Blogger Award

I want to give a big, big thanks to Marta at Haus of Girls, for nominating me for the Kreative Blogger Award! Be sure to check out her Etsy site ...cute stuff!

Here are the rules:

1.Thank the person who nominated you for the award.

• 2.Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
• 3. Link to the person who nominated you for the award.
• 4. Name 7 things about you that people may not know.
• 5. Nominate Kreativ Bloggers.
• 6. Post links to the blogs you nominate.

7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs to let them know that they have been nominated.

7 Things you may not know about me:

1. When I was young, my hair went past my butt. I used to sit on it accidentally and my neck would yank back! Ouch!

2. My husband and I are middle school sweethearts. ♥ We are 32 yrs old and have been together for over 17 yrs!! That's longer than we've been apart!

3. I am the youngest in my family. I have two big sisters and we are all 5 years apart.

4. I always wanted to be a Mommy.

5. My Dad passed away when I was 16 and I still miss him terribly. Sad, I know. :(

6. I want to travel the WORLD! But I wish I could do it, and still be home by like 7 every night to cuddle with my girls in our jammies.

7. I love, love, love to read!! I am totally addicted, and don't really watch TV anymore!

Now I'm Nominating:

Sheree

Julie

Carol

Kendra

Tita

Thanks again, Marta!

Pumpkin carving fun

The G6 invited us over for a pumpkin carving party!

We each made goody bags. Sheree made sweet (candy) ones, and I made salty (chex mix) ones. We ended up taking them to the soccer games on Saturday, and the kids loved having a special treat!

The Daddies and kids went to town cleaning out the pumpkin guts (yes, we are keeping seeds to bake some).

We printed out pumpkin faces and the Daddies got to work. To bad they had to leave for the Jay-Z concert and only got one pumpkin carved, each!

What's a party without balloons?

After awhile, the kids decided to make faces on the balloons. This is Emma's. Can you see the barrette in the "hair"?

Jack-o-lantern pizza for the kids.

Ummm......is that a pizza pie???

NO!.....I kinda messed up with the second pizza. I got a little ahead of myself and added all the toppings to the very thin pizza crust while it was still on the cutting board. Um...ya, we had to move the pizza on to a oven pan so that we could cook it in the oven. What a mess!

But, the Daddies saved the day (and the pizza)!

I had to show a picture of the punch that Sheree made. It was orange pop and vanilla ice-cream. It started foaming after the orange pop went in....sicknast!!

The kids gobbled it up, though!

After the Daddies left, the kids settled down with a good game of Apples to Apples.

Then they moved on to puzzles.

The day after the concert, Dao finished up all the pumpkins. Can you guess which pumpkin goes with each child?

Doesn't look like we are going to make it to the pumpkin farm this year. :'( The weekends are just to busy with soccer (and rain). So here are some pics of pumpkin farm's past. :0)



2005

2008

Storm Troopers Last Game

Payton's team, the Storm Troopers, had their last game on Saturday!

Payton was really into it at this game! She was all set to score on Daddy! We were high fiving during the game, because Pay actually kicked the ball. She always practices for the first 1/2 hour, but come game time, she wants to eat snacks and snuggle in the chair with Mommy. So there was much to celebrate when she was kicking the ball out on the field during the game.

Dev was the MVP (he has been for pretty much the whole season) with 9 goals!

It had rained (poured really) all day Friday and Saturday morning. When it was game time, the rain went away.....but the mud and worms stayed. While waiting in line for drills, the kids were checking out all the worms.

The girls thought it was funny that the boys touched the worms.

Sheree brought Storm Trooper tattoos, and the kids were super excited to show um off.

Madi, was so adorable with Kaylin's white board. She had been fussy during most the game, but once Kaylin let her use the white board, she sat and colored for almost 15 minutes.

Poor Livi was out with the flu, so we are super happy that the team will get together again next week for the pizza and trophy party!

New boots

Kaylin has been beggin' for Uggs for a really, really long time. I just haven't felt like forking out over $100 for boots when the kid is going to outgrow them in a couple of months.


Enter Target....my fav everything store. I bought these bad boys for $20. Do I care if she grows out of them in a couple of months? Not really. Do I care if they fall apart when the season ends? Not really (but they do seem pretty sturdy).

Is she just as happy with these $20 boots as she would be with the $100+ ones?

Yep! She really is!

School Jog-a-thon

This year was our schools first jog-a-thon. I volunteered for Haley's class which consists of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders (it is a multi-age classroom school).


I have to say, her class had the most spirit. Their class color is white, and the kids went all out!


I counted for these goofy kids. The boy in the top right corner actually colored his hair white with spray and he had a painted on white beard!

Here they are getting pumped up to do some serious laps around the track!

My camera died right after I took this picture (bleh!) so no pics outside. Ya know the boy with white hair? Well, he ran 20 laps....that's 5 miles folks!

I learned my lesson long ago, to pledge a total sum and not per lap amount! These kids are crazy and will go the extra mile (literally!).

We just found out that the school raised over $43,000!!!! Our goal was like $30,000, so this is amazing! Our facilities budget was cut by 50% so this will help in so many ways!

A big shout out to Stacia Williams who put the whole thing together. Hat's off to you lady...you totally rock!

The wedding (part 2)

Haley was a Jr. Bridesmaid, so she started off the ceremony walking with groomsman Joie (Rob's little bro).

Rob's nephew's were the cutest little ring and coin bearers ever!

The flower girls. Kaylin (8 1/2), Emma (6), & Payton (4 1/2).

The beautiful bride, B, with Mom and Dad.

This gets me all choked up! Who am I kidding, I always cry at weddings!

The bridesmaids and flower girls watching the ceremony. My girls were super good. Not one peep out of them during the entire ceremony!

The groomsmen.

Bride and Groom listening to Rob's little sis and little bro say some poems/passages.

The vows.

The veil.

The cord. It was accidentally forgotten, so Rob (who is a major yo-yo addict) made one out of yo-you string that he had in his car. A-mazing. He totally saved the day!

Mr. and Mrs. Rob Villahermosa. Do they look happy or what?!

My girls were happy to be done with their "job" too. I am not kidding you, we could not believe how good they were.

The flower girls awaiting the after wedding pictures.

The lovely couple along with all the bridesmaids and flower girls. :)

Thank you so much to Andrew, for taking all of the pictures during the ceremony! You did such a great job!

The wedding (part 1, the tea ceremony)

In keeping with Chinese Tradition, my lovely sister in-law, Suong (we call her "B"), and her now husband Rob (who is Filipino) had a Chinese Wedding Tea Ceremony on the morning of their wedding.

B and most of the bridesmaids waited upstairs in her parents bedroom for the groom to arrive and the ceremony to begin. She made her beautiful red dress/outfit herself (among many other crafty things she did for the wedding).
Please note the purple bed set on the bed behind the girls. This was given to Dao and I for our wedding. It is meant to bring good luck for us in making babies. As you all know it most definitely worked for us! Watch out B and Rob!


Haley was such a lucky girl! She got to spend the night before the wedding with the bride-to-be, and her other Goo-Goo's (Aunties). B made all of my girls jewelry which included necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. Haley's are all fresh water pearls, and the younger girls have crystals.

She had her hair professionally done, and Goo-Goo Xuan did her make-up!

Mom and Dad are getting ready for the ancestral offering and prayer. An entire pig, fruit, and candy are offered to the ancestors. Incense burn, and then...


the couple does a prayer ceremony. Nothing is ever explained to us, but I think they pray three times, once to the ancestors, once to their parents, and once to each other. Dao and I also did this for our wedding day.

Now they serve the tea, starting with their parents.

After they serve the tea, they get red envelopes, or jewelry. B got a beautiful white gold diamond necklace and earring set. This is considered as part of her dowry.

Rob's parents and family were super sweet. They not only came to the ceremony, they also participated.

Dao and I loved being on the other side of this. It's a lot less stressful!

After all the "old" people are served tea, the couple sits down and the children (anyone younger than them and unmarried) serve them tea. The couple then gives them red envelopes. My kids ♥ red envelopes and discovered early on that they contain $$ inside. :)

After the ceremony, everyone grubbed on tons of yummy food and got ready to head to the church wedding.

Part 2 coming soon...