Rain.

I woke up to a nice surprise this morning - it was raining. Aria took it as a sign to try out one of her raincoats. The first one I found happened to be a fireman's jacket. It fixed perfectly and Aria had a blast playing in the rain.

Ho, Ho, Ho.

We went to the mall after school let out today and took Santa pictures. I convinced my friend Lisa to do it too. Here are the results:

Here's Nathan with Santa. Love his striped socks. He's so cute. Santa's not bad either.

Aria's really wearing a Halloween costume that I got a couple of years back. I purchased it on a whim because I love the fabric but it was way too big for Aria. I've had it in the closet and today is the first time she's worn it out.

Happy!

I took Aria with me to the mall to return an impulse buy from The Disney Store. We saw the cool Enchanted display and just couldn't walk away empty handed. ( I wasn't really spending more since I did return something. ) She loves the new movie and her new doll.

Thanksgiving weekend 2007.

We went to A.'s brother for Thanksgiving dinner and brought along 2 pies from Marie Callender's for dessert. I was still suffering from a stomach flu so I wasn't 100% in the chowing department. The food was good. Julie (sister-in-law) made all the traditional grubs. There was a turkey, creamed spinach, mixed veggies, mash potatoes, gravy and bread. We ate and played and then headed home.

Bella in front of her tree.

At the kiddy table. They were hungry.

Friday morning, I headed over to Target at 6AM to partake of the sales. I didn't score too much except an air hockey table. Yes, I'm crazy. We live in a small house and we lack the space but I've always wanted one ever since I was little because my cousin had one and he wasn't very good at sharing. I shopped with Alice so that made the whole event fun. After Target we headed over to the mall and hit The Disney Store, Macy's, JcPenney's and a few others. Overall, I got some great deals but I'm no where near down with my holiday shopping.

Guess what movie we saw this weekend??

Enchanted!

It was great! We saw it with Alice and Cassidy and the kids understood the whole movie without any 'whys'. I highly recommend it. We had another Thanksgiving dinner but this time at my house. I cooked my turkey on Sunday night and had A.'s parents over. I also made mash potatoes, asparagus, stuffing, sausages. A.'s mother brought over chinese style sweet rice, my favorite! I want to learn how to make it but she said I need an electric rice cooker - which I don't owe, so I guess I can only enjoy it during the holidays when she makes it.

Another Skirball Friday.

Last Friday, (no, no, the one before Black Friday) I arranged to take another mommy (Nicole) and her daughter (Kara Lila) to Skirball. I met them in my Mommy & Me class and invited them when she approached me with a question about Skirball. It's so much easier to show someone the Noah's Ark exhibit than to try to explain it. Too complex.

We stayed a couple of hours and left content as usual.

What do you see when you look in the belly of this bear?

Hmm.....

The scene of another polar bear! Too cute!


It's a puppet of a Japanese fox.



One of the camels that'll great you at the entrance of the Ark.

Parking structure wall.

The high point and the low point of this visit for me was when I saw Wil Ferrell. I'm usually not one to be star-struck, but he's one of my favorite comedian. I willed myself to approach him and talk to him. He was very reserved but did respond that "yes, he was Wil Ferrell" and "no he will not take a picture with me". : (

So I snuck in a picture of him when he wasn't looking.

There's Wil Ferrell!

Seeing the doc.

Aria had her 4 years old appt. a couple of days after her B-day and she's doing fine physically. She's in the 10th percentile for height and 50th percentile for weight. She received 2 shots, one of them the flu vaccine. It was the first time that I saw the doctor clean her ears. Boy, I was shocked by what size of the nugget that came out of her right ear. It was pretty massive. She was not amused by the procedure.

Aria turned 4!

My little girl turned 4 on Nov. 11th! Geez, I can't believe that she's only been part of my life for 4 years, yet time slips by so fast, I don't want her to grow up so soon. I just want to keep her forever-young so that I can always pick her up and hug her close to me. These have been the best four years of my life because of her. Life before her seems so insignificant.
To celebrate, we threw Aria a party at home and invited around 18 of her friends. The total attendance was well over 50 which included siblings and parents. It would have been no problems if the weather would had cooperated with us. But that Sunday happened to be the only day out of the week that was overcasted and coo. The place where we reserved the jumper with refused to let us rent a jumper because of the weather and we ended up having to cram over 50 people inside our house for the party. Thankfully my sister drove down from Sac. Town and helped me with the set up and the last minute tables setups. The mermaid that we hired was awesome. She kept everyone entertained with a wonderful magic show and great face paintings. She stayed for an hour and a half. I had an art activity and a pinata. The party lasted for over 3 hours before the bulk of the people started leaving. I apologized to everyone profusely for the cramped spaces and hoped that they all had a good time.

The kids were mesmerized with Ariel's magic show. Check out how cramped my living room was.

Doing some arts and craft.

Waiting to get their face painted.

Picture with Ariel. Aria refused to look in the camera. Surprise, surprise.

During pinata time.

Waiting to blow out the cake.

Teacher conference.

I had a parent/teacher conference on Weds. regarding Aria's school progress. The report was very positive. She's doing great on every aspects. She's got great fine motor skills etc. I did bring up the fact that I worry about Aria's willingness to make friends. The teacher told me to not worry and that she'll come into her own. Let's hope so.

All plugged up.

We're having plumbing problems and until it's fixed, my life is at the mercy of the plumber. He didn't come yesterday for our scheduled appointment. This morning, the company claimed that that appt. didn't exist. I threw a fit and she said that someone will come within the hour. 2 hours and another phone call later, the plumber is finally here. I don't want to chew him out but come on, what happened to good customer service??Now all my schedule events are all screwed up. I hope I can make it to Aria's teacher conference. Arrr...

Michael turns 2!

We celebrated Michael's 2nd birthday on Sunday. Alice picked Underwood Farms to host the occasion. It never entered my mind to host a party there but after experiencing Michael's party I think it's the best party location ever. They offered a horse drawn wagon ride around the farm, animals to feed, endless pony rides, moon bounce, wooden train play area, god, there's so much more. And unlike all the other indoor playgrounds, we were permitted to stay the whole day, after the 2 1/2 hours of shaded party pavilion time. The party was simply awesome. I'm thinking of doing Aria's party there next year.

Here's the birthday boy and his mom Alice.

Aria playing with Michael on hay ride.

Aria on a pony ride.

Joshua is so cute.

Cake time.

I think A. told them to make faces here. Lovely.

Enjoying cake. Check out the frosting on Cassidy's face.

Moon bounce.

Outside the moon bounce.

This is Antonio the Donkey. He was so sweet and gentle. Aria really enjoyed feeding him from the palm of her hand.

Aria and Joshua went on a tractor ride in individual cars. I got scared when I saw the tractor disappeared from my line of vision and were gone for a good 5 mins before returning. Good thing they enjoyed it.

Skirball Friday.

We did our usual Friday Skirball trip except this time we invited allow my friend Keiko and her son Monty. Monty likes Aria alot more that the other way around. She tolerates him. She's so selective with her friendships. If the kid's younger or a boy, she's less willing to play with them. I hope this thinking will stop soon. I want her to have more friends and I don't know how this is going to translate when she enters kindergarten when there are less supervision. I don't want her to be a loner or lacking in friends.
Overall, they had a good time. They did run around together towards the end of the trip but Aria refused to give him a hug goodbye. Oh well.

She made a beautiful artwork with rubbings. It's a keeper.

They ran around a bit at the outside patio.

Sushi.

"Look what I made in school and I'm going to share it with you!"

A fellow mom brought in all the ingrediences to school and Aria and her classmates each made a sushi roll. It's her first time making and eating sushi. She actual ate 1/3 of it. Pretty impressive for a picky eater.

Halloween continued.

Halloween night was filled with activities. Based on a Maggie's suggestion, we went to a free Halloween Carnival held at her church. We were pleasantly surprised with the event. They offered so much stuff to do. They offered carnival games (prizes were pieces of candy), jumpers, bumper car rides (Aria was too young to ride them), magic shows (very boring and long, we're going to skip that next year), and a room filled with balloons (Aria refused to go in because of her fear of popping balloons). We stayed way too long and by the time we go home it was almost too late to go trick-or-treating. Even though it was pass 9 PM we still headed out for more fun. Aria can't miss the trick-or-treatin'. We did a couple of blocks and were rejected at a few houses but we came home with alot of candy. I didn't pass out one single piece of candy this year because we were so busy. A. too alot of it to his work but we saved some for home. I'm going to have to jog more to work it all off.

This is Aria's costume for her afternoon Kindergarten Prep. class.

She loved this game. She swinged the string over, waited a few seconds and yanked back the ple and it came attached with a piece of candy.

She tried soccer. Didn't do very well but still got a piece of treat.

Waiting in line. She's wearing her Ariel wedding dress.

I think this is her favorite game - put the colored ball in its corresponding slot.