Perspective

Yesterday was a fun day. We had watched Food Network awhile back and saw on "Diners, Drive-in's, and Dives" a dive in the San Diego area called Studio Diner. We decided to check it out! Once we located it we found ourselves on a waiting list of 30-45 minutes. It wasn't a large place, but most everyone there was a die hard fan and willing to wait any length of time they were told. After 40 minutes we were seated in the back, which was a good idea because of our two rambunctious children. I ordered the most amazing ruben and Rachel had a pancake as big as her head! Not only did Abigail introduce herself to everyone sitting around us, but Rachel proceeded to accidentally dump her apple juice in the waiting area. Needless to say, I think they were glad we were on our way out. :) After this small adventure we decided that the monsoon type weather didn't agree with us and we drove to the nearest inside mall. Having children under the age of 5 we found ourselves invariably in the Disney store. They were having a "Draw Mickey" lesson and my husband was very excited about this. We all took a spot in the back of the store and collected our supplies necessary for drawing Mickey. Abigail lasted about 5 minutes and Rachel about 6, but Dave went to town and loved every minute!

After coming home and eating some fruit we put the girls to bed and felt pretty good about our Saturday jaunt. I sat down at my computer to relax when I read that one of my friends had a friend that lost her child that very same day. It was SIDS and he was 6 months old. My heart sank and all of a sudden my day with my family seemed so much more than I had previously thought. How could one day hold such different outcomes for two different families? Here we were relaxing after a fun day out and another family was mourning the loss of their son. I realized as I laid in bed last night, pillow laden with tears, that I had so much to be thankful for and when Abigail woke up in the middle of the night I ran in with more vigor than previous nights. I held her tighter than before and kissed Rachel longer than she probably liked. It shouldn't take a tragedy to make us feel this way, but I guess sometimes it does. To all my friends and family, I love you!

Best Friends

While in Monterey we met a family that became near and dear to our family. We got together often for dinners, games, camping, as well as attending church, OCF, and PWOC. Our daughters found each other and immediately became fast friends. It became a norm for them to see each other many times during the week. One of the hardest things Rachel has had to deal with in her short 3 1/2 years of life, was moving away from her best friend Marissa. As a mother, I found it difficult to deal with the constant questions of when we were going to see Marissa again and tears when the answer wasn't what she expected. My heart broke every time I would see her eyes light up when she declared that she was going to see Marissa that day, and then dim when I would have to tell her that Marissa lived in a different state. This friendship is something I think we all aspire to have. Someone that loves you and makes your heart feel alive. These two friends had been apart for 6 months when under sad circumstances they were brought back together again, even if only for a short time. Don't you sometimes wish you could bottle an emotion so that when you were feeling blue you could bring it out again? This is what I felt when these two saw each other again yesterday afternoon.

Best Friends

Rachel and Marissa

Abigail's birthday cake adventure

My sister is the master baker. I mean, she should be on some cooking/baking show she's so darn good. :) For Rachel's 3rd birthday she made this amazing Dora cake for me with home-made icing and blew me away with her mad piping skills. :) So this year I decided to try my hand at what my sister does best...frosting a cake.
Okay, first off, you have to, like, totally bake the cake. Not complicated you say..well, apparently it was for me. I mean, come on people, it's a box cake mix! (chuckle)
Not even reading the instructions for this bear birthday cake pan, I decided to put 2 boxes of mix in the pan, instead of the 1 that was needed. What happens when you put too much mix in a pan? That's right, it overflows and bakes on the bottom of the oven. Realizing that there was smoke in the house was my first clue. :) I open the oven to find that my lovely strawberry cake was now a molten lava catastrophe! I pulled it out of the oven and in all my ingeniousness decided to flip the cake over into a cookie sheet pan... thinking that it would hold it all. Not a chance. So now I have released the hot molten lava onto my beautifully clean burners...yes, I know...it gets better. :) Not wanting my burners to be covered in liquid strawberry cake, I pull the sheet off...now over the floor, dripping hot cake mix everywhere. What fun Mom! Abigail now sees what I'm doing and decides to have a finger painting session right there on the floor with her uncooked strawberry cake. :) Sigh. Maybe I should have gone to Costco instead. lol

Alright. So I started over. With white cake this time. :) I figured I'd already had WAY too much fun with the strawberry kind.

It worked. Yeah!!!! I CAN bake a box mix... stop laughing everyone. :)

Here is the final project completed!

He's kind of smirking isn't he????

Lessons learned:
1. Read directions before beginning project! (Very important one here)
2. Make lots of frosting so you don't have to try and duplicate the same color if you run out.
3. The black dye stains your hands so be careful!!!!
4. This is much harder to do with a one year old hanging onto your leg. :) Recommendation is to do this during naptime. lol
5. Make sure the frosting is cool cause otherwise it looks "blobby".
6. This is stinking hard so kudos to Victoria for all her hard work!!!!!!

This is the conclusion of my "bear birthday cake" fun. :) We will dig in tomorrow!

Orange Julius

You know those things that take you back to your childhood and in their own special way transport you no matter what your emotional status may be? Well, today I encountered that very thing. I lost my sunglasses a few months ago and decided that it was time to get a new pair. I had a $20 off gift certificate to Sunglass Hut so I GPSed my way there and found an inside mall (of which I didn't think existed here in San Diego). I was able to find a pair of sun glasses with Abigail screaming for no more than 10 minutes and the computer freezing up twice while the guy was trying to ring me up. Lovely. So after that I thought I'd feed Abigail, well, nurse her to be specific, only to have her rip the nursing cover off...enough said. So there I am, looking around for something, someone, somehow to calm me down and reassure me that life is good and not entirely chaotic. There it was. Across the way, down the other side of the mall.
Orange Julius.
This may not seem like anything to some of you, but it's like an In-And-Out to some Californians. It's not great stuff, but it's something that takes you back to a time when you had small worries...you know, what you were wearing to the football game, or did that guy look at you in Chem class. I proceeded over to the Orange Julius and ordered an original. That first sip, well, gulp, was wonderful. I was immediately happier and actually excited that I could share a little bit of my childhood with Rachel. She liked it and ended up taking it from me, which was fine cause I suddenly didn't care about much except loving my new glasses and smiling because I felt like that teenage girl in the mall all over again. :)

Abigail's favorite place

I've been asked a few times where Abigail gets her large bruises on her head. No, Rachel is not hitting her with things. No, She has not fallen down the stairs. Yes, her favorite place in the world is underneath our kitchen table. :) I have no idea why and I have not taken the time to analyze this behavior. I have just accepted the fact that this is her domain and she has resorted to accepting the welts that her beloved leaves on her head. :)

Maybe we should get one of those high top tables? Naw, this is too much fun Mom!

Superbowl

Every year this day comes. We are not big football fans so it kind of sneaks up on us if you know what I mean. I don't plan for amazing appetizers, or big parties (although I have been to a couple of those). But this year I did make pretty good nachos and popped some popcorn for Rachel. The weather allowed us a small amount of time outside, enough so that Abigail could test out her trike riding skills and Dave and I could enjoy a root-beer.

Balloons

Okay, so I ran out of milk yesterday and couldn't muster the energy to go out and get more so this morning's coffee was lacking to say the least. I finally gave in around 1PM this afternoon and decided that I should go to the grocery store. Then I had a great idea...Trader Joes! They have balloons and my kids, I'm sure most all kids, LOVE balloons. I mean, one of Abigail's first words was balloon. Well, more like, "Ba-oon", but we got the drift. So we go in, shop, no big deal. Then at the check-out I was hoping (and praying) that they would give us TWO balloons instead of one just for Rachel, because Abigail will throw a bona-fide tantrum if Ray gets one and she does not. Thankfully they both get a balloon and we make it out to the car with no problems...and then it happened. Rachel accidentally let go of her balloon. You would not think that this would evoke such a tremendous emotion, but low and behold my daughter was standing in the parking lot with the biggest tears running down her face pointing to the sky, sobbing and crying out, "My Balloon!". I wasn't sure if I should go back in and get another one, or if it was one of those times to try and teach my child about contentment. The decision was made for me when a kind older lady stopped and asked if she could get another balloon for Rachel. I gladly accepted. When Ray saw her bring out another balloon you would have thought she was giving her the world at that very moment.

Don't you wish all our problems could be solved with a single balloon?