Peace within the storm.

Okay, I'm going to try to pull it together for Aria. She's too young to fully understand what's happening to our family. I want to go on for her. I want to document the joys and sadness in our lives. I'm going through rough times but there are good to be documented too. One of these moments took place Christmas Eve when we allowed Aria to open a couple of presents from under the tree. A couple of presents soon lead to the opening of the bulk of the presents. We still have a few left for tomorrow.
Aria's so funny. She appreciated every gift and would say things like, "Ohhh!! the is too cute." She cracks me up. She got tons of stuff from her auntie (my sister) and had a blast ripping the wrapping paper.
The Mermaid playset that I got her was a hit. She's playing with it now as we speak.

Taking a break.

Sorry, I'm going to take a break from blogging for a while. I had a miscarriage last Tues and I lost my precious baby boy. I'm pretty depressed and I don't know when I'll feel up to blogging again.
Sorry.

Different perspective.

Aria and I were talking about movies and this conversation occurred:

Me: Remember the alligator that ate the duck in Madagascar?

Aria: Yes, but maybe the alligator didn't eat the duck. Maybe it was a friendly alligator and it took the duck home to his family.

Me: hmm... that's a possibility.

Early visit from Santa.

Santa came to our Mommy & Me class on Monday. I had a talk with Aria before he arrived and she told me she was not going to cry when she sees him and she was going to go up and tell him what she wants for Christmas. Wrong. She refuse to go up to him for a quick photo opt no matter how much I begged and pleaded with her. Very stubborn my child is. This givss me a good idea about whether or not to take Aria to see Santa at the mall and I think I'll pass.

Teacher Sandy with Santa. He's passing out candy canes.

She was only willing to take a picture with Teacher Sandy and even then she was not happy.

Outside play with Daniel.

During class at YMCA.

Busy Weekend.

We had a wonderful and busy weekend. My sister flew in on Friday for a weekend visit. It was so much fun having her around. Besides being a great sister she's a wonderful aunt/babysitter to Aria. I really appreciated her visit too because I was not feeling all that great physically this weekend (long story short, this preganacy is kicking my ass). Just having her around meant that I didn't have to chase after or carry Aria all weekend. We also did alot of eating - Souplantation, dim sum, pho, Chinese food, & Mexican food throughout the weekend.
Saturday was our most active day of the weekend. We hit Target in the morning. I wish we live closer together because I have a great time going shopping with her. She's a Target fan too! After Target we took Aria to her scheduled YMCA classes. Here's a picture of a snowman that she made in her craft class.

It's a snowman!

Picture from lunch. Aria with her Auntie.

The main event for Saturday was The Felt Club. Felt Club is held every month but the one on Saturday was a larger one than usual because of the Christmas shopping season. We got there around 3 PM and we were able to convince A. to come along. We weren't there for very long but we did not leave the place empty-handed. My sis and I both picked up t-shirts and Aria got an ice cream sandwich made by the famous Heidi. I was too shy to talk to her but I'm a big fan of her site.

Here's Aria showing off her ice cream sandwich.

Inside picture of The Felt Club.

Two very happy customers - my sis and Aria.

Random conversation.

Aria: Mommy, I don't have any toys to carry.

Me: What are you talking about??

Aria: I don't have as much toys as Bella (her older cousin).

Me: Ahh.. are you serious?! You've got more toys than she does. Go check out your room!


The kicker is that just this week alone, I received 2 mail-ordered boxes of toys for her and I purchased at least 3 big toys for her at a couple of stores because I'm a sucker.
The kid's appetite for new toys is insatiable. It's no fault but my own. I have my own petite version of Veruca Salt.

Christmas card.

It's finally done. Here's a sample of the Christmas cards that I'm sending out. I ordered them from Snapfish and I'm picking them up from Walgreens. Woohoo! The processing was really easy. Finding the right picture was the hard part.

Saying 'goodbye'.

Aria's ballet teacher Jen at the YMCA is moving on to a better position and will no longer be teaching Aria's class. We're so sad because she's a really wonderful teacher. She's very patient with her and is very good with kids in general. We're going to miss her.

Dim Sum

We had dim sum for lunch after we picked Aria up from school last Thurs. The place we went to actually had ladies pushing the carts vs. having us order from a menu. I usually like the cart experience better because it's more authentic. Aria demanded for one thing only - custard tarts. Those are her favorite. Unfortunately, there was a mishap in the kitchen and the custard tarts weren't ready until the very end of our meal and all throughout lunch all we heard from Aria was "I want my custard tarts, I want my custard tarts.." We were able to make her eat other things but she was not a satified customer until she ate her custard tarts. Totally tally of custard tarts that Aria ate for the day was 6. Granted she ate 4 of those at home but she still ate 6, in one day. I've gotta learn how to make them.

Another Birthday Party.

Our whole family attended a birthday party for one of my friend's son on Thurs. He turned 1. A. was able to come with us because he cashed in more sick days and will have a 4 day weekend. (shh... don't tell his boss, he thinks A.'s sick)
The party was held in an indoor playgroup which I've never been to before and I wasn't too impressed with the place. It was opened to the general public when my friend's party was taking place so there were alot of rowdy kids running around. Alot of those rowdy kids (not from our party) were not supervised and their mothers were simply sitting in a gated off area socializing. A couple of kids from my friend's party got hurt by those moms' kids and the incidences were reported to the owner. Those mothers still didn't correct their kids or apologize for what their kids did. One of the moms from the our party got fed up and lead a girl to the owner and told her that that girl has been bullying her son. The owner told the girl's mom and that's when all hell broke loose. I swear I thought I was at a Jerry Springer show when that rowdy girl's mom started screaming "Who touched my daughter?!! How dare they touch my daughter!! I'm going to call the cops!!"
Ahh... hello, if you were watching your daughter like you were suppose to then you would have witness how your daughter was bullying other kids. Geez. The mom from my party was shocked when the bullying mom ran up to her and wanted to literally start a fist fight. I stood there with A. and watched this in shock. I can't believe that the bully's mom reacted that when when she and her daughter were at fault to begin with. Now I understand why that little girl acted the way she did, she learned it from her mom.
I also forgot to put the battery in my camera that day so I wasn't able to document it. Darn.
On a brighter note, my friend emailed me a few pictures from the party and here they are: