Picture this...

July 4th, 2009 CHECK!

We began preparing for July 4th weeks ago. We have a kid now so we can't just sleep in on a holiday and then get semi-drunk as we see the night time approaching. Nope, we must now join in on the madness, be out there with the masses (which we happily do) and start recognizing!

We accomplished everything that was on the plan:

1. have family over

2. bbq hot dogs

3. be in the neighborhood parade and win a prize (the prize thing was not planned, it just happened because our stroller was so magnificently decorated).

4. make July 4th cupcakes

5. Go swimming

6. watch fireworks

7. document the whole day (okay, this didn't happen. We stopped taking pictures after the cupcakes).

By the end of the day Alex was completey worn out. He fell asleep on Nana's lap and slept through the fireworks.

Here is our coverage in photos:

The neighborhood parade was such a great time. It's like traveling back to the 1950's complete with a firetruck, a pancake breakfast, and a band playing all the oldies that my grandma used to sing. 

 

 

Alex: Eat the flag Dada!

Dada: OKAY!

 

Danny and I wore matching T-shirts with big American flags on them. We're officially crazy parents. Two years from now Danny will be cursing from the bleachers at Alex's soccer game. "You call that traveling, DUMBA**?!" We all know there's no traveling in soccer, but I'm afraid Danny won't.

 Hey babe, don't worry. We'll study up so you can curse at the refs correctly.

We won a prize!

 

Alex still can't believe we won a prize.

 

Alex got some face time with Auntie Chris. The night before Alex wouldn't give Christina a kiss. But the next day he must have gotten swept up in the holiday cheer because right before this picture he gave her a big wet kissie.

 

After the day was over I put on my pajamas, got Alex to sleep, turned down all the lights in the house and just enjoyed just a few minutes of peace with Danny before we both collapsed in bed.

In 1983 Michael Jackson was cool and so was I...I think

My first memory of Michael Jackson was some awards show I saw, it was probably the Grammies...I don't remember. The point is - I was mesmorized!

This was 1983, I was 9 and had just moved to Sandy, Utah from San Francisco and still doing my best to make some friends. I clearly remember the morning after the awards show - I was leaning against the brick wall of my school and I whispered to the girl standing next to me, "Michael Jackson is so great. Did you see him last night?" I whispered it because I worried that she wouldn't feel the same and the last thing I needed to do was go down a notch on the wrong side of the popularity scale.

Her name was Linda and luckily she felt the same. We became quick friends. In fact, she had a video of the making of the Thriller video which we probably watched 80 times over the next few months. (BTW, We stopped being friends a few years later. I went to her birthday party at Magic Waters in Draper and she scraped my back on purpose! To this day I really don't know what I did to make her so mad! One minute we're walking up to the next water slide and the next minute she turns into a crazy cat and is scratching her long nails down my back!)

My mom bought me the cassette tape of Thriller not too long after I saw Michael Jackson on TV and I played it and played it until the tape would literally not play anymore. And I made up half the words because I could never understand what he was singing and there was no google in 1983.

My musical tastes may have won me a friend in '83 but it didn't get me anywhere as I grew older. For example, let's travel to 1985, I'm 12 years old and I'm in the locker room after swim practice.  Two girls are grilling me on why I am clearly uncool, and I am doing my best to prove them wrong. "Like what music do you listen to?" they asked, "Phil Collins!" I said back almost instantly (I really should have thought that one through).  They walked away laughing. Later on, in an effort to win back their friendship I pointed out to one of the girls that she had an extraordinarily large amount of ear wax built up in her ear. I thought I was helping.

So at 9 I knew what was cool ...what happened?

And to my defense, Phil Collins had some brilliant hits in the 80's.

Happy Father's day!!

Happy Father's Day Dada!

 I love you very very much and will present you today with an extra slobbery kissie.

 

  

Bathtime is Serious Time

Alex takes his baths very seriously. He gets a very concerned look as soon as his feet hit the water. He looks at me as if to say, "CAREFUL mama! CareFUL!" So I gently lay him down in his bath bed. At that point, all he wants is to suck on a wet cloth.

However, on one occasion we were giving him a sink bath and I got a few snapshots of delight thanks to a little green frog. 

Here's the evidence: Do you see that small hint of a smile followed by potential delight?

 

 

I hope bath time gets to be a little more fun for him because we got a lot more of them ahead!

8 things I love right now

1. How my baby snuggles with me and gently plays with my necklace.

2. Browsing on Etsy. My new favorite place to buy presents (both for others AND me!)

3. Spending Sunday morning in my pajamas while getting a few creative moments to scrapbook

4. Spontaneous Thursday night picnics in the park.

5. At home on Saturday night watching movies.

6. Going out to the garden with Danny to check out what's changed.

7. Tea time every day at 3 pm. at my desk. It doesn't take much folks.

8. Hearing Alex laugh

My Little Brother, Richie-Poo, is Married!

My little brother, who's 10 years younger than me and who I've always called Richie-Poo, got married a few weeks ago to his long time sweetheart -- Kelly (Kelly, can I call you Kelly-poo now?)

 

Here's a picture of the bride and groom

  

The wedding was a lot of fun. It was in Long Beach, CA at a Yacht Club (I forget the name). They had really great mexican food, good margaritas and dancing. Richard and Kelly looked so happy.

Here's the rest of our weekend in Long Beach:

It was Alex's first plane ride.

 

Our lovely and wonderful English cousin, Barry, came with us. He's the one on the left, my left, not yours.

 

On the wedding day we headed down to the beach before getting all dolled-up for the wedding. Alex was obsessed with the sand and is looking down in all the pictures

We went to Downtown Disney. I think Alex has a crush on Belle.

 

Barry got into the downtown buzz too:

We got to take Alex to the beach before getting all dolled-up for the wedding. Alex was obsessed with the sand and is looking down in every picture:

 

  

 

A great wedding, a great time, a perfect weekend in sunny California.

My Reading List

II love to read (when I can find the time).

When I was a teacher we had to keep class journals of what we were reading, and the next list of books that we wanted to read -- those were our 'books on deck'. I thought this was a great idea. The kids....not so much.

In fact, just today I was thinking fondly of my teaching days in Washington Heights. I remember standing in front of the class, pontificating on something worthy, maybe comma use - I don't know, and the door to my room opened up just an itty bitty bit. And from that door came a loud female voice that said, "f**kin' white Bitch!" You may be wondering what I did next. The answer to that is simple....absolutely Nothing! I didn't miss a beat -- kept right on talking!

About 10 minutes later I had the class break up into groups. I quietly went over to one of them and said, 'did you hear what that person yelled into our room?" The kids all nodded silenty. "Ummm..do you know who they were talking about?" Kids in unison: YOU!"

I walked away thinking....Yep, I thought so.

Okay, that was totally off topic.

Gather.

Okay. Alex needs to hear 1 million words in like 3 years so he can build his vocabulary. To combat this number I've been reading to him at night while he nurses. I just read one of the books that I'm reading. Right now I'm reading, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. I'm only about 200 pages in but I'm really liking it.

Here are a few books that I've liked:

• A Thousand Splended Suns: depressing but strong female characters

• Funny in Farsi: cute stories about growing up Iranian in America.

• The Things They Carried: The water buffalo story made me cry

• Jenny and the Jaws of Life: short stories. My fav was "Melinda Falling"

• Frankenstein: weird choice, I know, but I really liked it!

• Life of Pi

• The Awakening: one of the only books that I've read more than once. The first time was in high school, I think it changed my life.

• I read most of the Shopaholic books while riding in N.Y. subways. Sometimes I'd get people turning their nose down at me for reading chick-lit. If you read on the subways in N.Y. it's best if it's something worthy. Danny pretended to read The Great Gatsby for about 3 months just so people would think that he was smart.

• Prep - read this in a week. Really liked it.

• If you love books then you've probably read Jane Austen. Those are all lovely. However, I read some Jane Austen back to back in college and realized that the plots sometimes went the same ways, and there was usually a wedding in the last 3 pages. Persuasion, her last novel and my favorite, is not like that at all.

There's a 1% well read challenge that I want to try. This challenge is to help you become 1% more well-read in one year. It requires you to read 10 books from the 1,001 books to read before you die. I think I'll try this '10 books in a year challenge' but I just quickly browsed through the 1001 books list and there are only about 3 books on the list that I've read! So it's safe to say that I may be reading books not on this grand 1001 list.

Because I'm an 'off-and-on' reader this 10 books in a year challenge will be a hard one. But I'm willing to take a shot at it.

How many books have you read from the list? I'm surprised that the Shopaholic series is not on there. I find that odd.

Don't forget that I'm cute too!

Danny and I were playing with Alex last week when Sugar suddenly weasled her way into the middle of us and, while staring at nothing, she did the only trick that gets her any attention these days.

Danny happened to have the camera out and caught the whole act:

 

 

10 minutes later, another attempt at being cute. This time she adds a smile:

One more thing I had to share:

This I know for sure: These 2 are going to spend the rest of their lives trying to crack each other up:

Where the Wild Things Are

Danny showed me this trailer tonight and I literally had tears in my eyes. I'm addicted to good stories. I get so involved in them, and I can tell that this is going to be one of those movies that I just can't take my eyes off of. I read this story as a kid and I've been reading the story to Alex before bedtime.

It's directed by Spike Jones and the music sounds amazing! I think the voice at the beginning is James Gandolfini's.

So put your headphones on and check this out!

I was Clueless

Alex is 4 months old in the picture below and he's wearing the outfit that he came home in from the hospital when he was born. Before I had Alex I had no idea about baby clothing sizes and actual baby body sizes. I knew they were little but this little jacket looked so tiny! And, may I also point out that the outfit tried to trick me! On the little pocket it says, "Welcome to the World." I basically took those words as actual directions.

You can imagine how huge this outfit was on him when I put it on him the morning we left the hospital! It was difficult to actually find the baby IN the clothes!

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of when we brought him home. We've probably taken 2000 pictures of Alex since his birth, but we didn't take any on the day we brought him home. I guess we were too busy figuring out parenting.