Happy Holidays!

Hope everyone's holidays was joyous. We spent ours with our boys and ended up running around the city Christmas eve. Not the running around from one event to another kind. Instead at the last minute we decided to take the boys to get their photo taken with Santa. We got there 30 minutes before the mall closed and stood in line for about an hour. They were nice enough to continue taking pictures after all the stores had closed.






After a successful photo with Santa (no crying but had to do a little coaxing) we left and headed to Ghiradelli square to check out the decorated Christmas tree and lights. Unfortunately the hubby forgot to recharge it after coming back from our So.Cal trip and our camera ran out of batteries Luckily we had my point and shoot camera in the glove compartment. We took one last pit stop at City Hall before heading home and getting ready for Santa's visit.

 Christmas Day- It was raining all day, but we didn't let that spoil our fun. The boys opened their presents while we enjoyed our coffee. Mason mainly received new clothes and Maddie received a combination of clothes, toys, videos and video games. They are very spoiled, or blessed. However you want to look at it.Spent the rest of the day indoors relaxing and at night we took our annual trip to "Fantasy of Lights".Well it's our second year and most likely we'll make it an annual tradition for as long as the boys continue to enjoy it. I just wish they would change it up a little each year. 


And that was our Christmas. =)

Full-time Stay at Home Mom

I have officially become a full-time stay at home mom (SAHM). Technically it started Dec 1st, but with the last week of day care and then another week of vacationing it really didn't start til the week of Dec 13th.  We had to pull both kids out of daycare and preschool, but it also means I get to spend more time with them for a little while.

This whole unemployment process is new to me and a bit overwhelming. The people on the phone aren't too friendly, but who can blame them. They probably hear the same story over and over again that they've become emotionally detached. I just hope I did everything correctly and it starts to kick in soon.

Now I'm just waiting for my severance check to arrive. Tick tock tick tock....

So.Cal Trip

My girlfriend and I have been planning this trip for about a year now.  I think her and I were more excited than our kids or husbands. It's great to have friends with kids around the same age as yours. Makes vacationing a bit more interesting, and watching the boys react to new experiences is so fun. This year we took the boys (age 3 and 4) and the babies (1 1/2 and 6 months) to Disneyland for two days, Legoland for a day and then San Diego Zoo for another day.

At Disneyland we did the 2-day hopper, which surprisingly wasn't enough days to get through all the rides. It doesn't help when you have kids that needs to be fed and changed every so often, but I think the boys were able to get on a good amount of rides for the 2 days. The boys got to enjoy driving cars at Autopia, riding the submarine, Toontown at Disneyland, and the train ride and bumper cars at California Adventures. We even took them on the Pirates of Caribbean and the Haunted House. The adults were able to enjoy a quick ride on Indiana Jones and Space Mountain. The first night we stayed to watch the holiday parade and the fireworks in Disneyland. The second night we stayed to watch World of Color at California Adventures. The cool thing was Baby Mason was able to ride many of the family rides, so all 8 of us could enjoy the rides together.

We didn't get the chance to check out the holiday decorations at The Grove nor eat at one of the top rated (according to Rameniac/Yelp) ramen places. I think next time we need to include one day for shopping and sight seeing.

Days 4-7 we stayed in Carlsbad, CA. (About 30 min north of San Diego)
Legoland was a huge success for the boys. Unfortunately Legoland has strict height requirements so Baby Zoee couldn't ride all the ones the boys were riding on and Mason couldn't ride on any. The boys loved driving the cars on their own, and surprisingly enough they were able to drive it themselves (steering, turning, passing).

The San Diego Zoo was a nice change of pace. We took our own time walking through parts of the zoo, and then we decided to take the bus tour. With the bus tour you got to see much of the zoo and the animals we wanted to see. We didn't feel like walking much more after 3 days of constantly being on your feet, so we felt the bus tour satisfied our needs. We did go back to see the pandas before leaving the park.

We took hundreds of pictures, so if you'd like to check them out please visit our picasa web album. 

Making baby food

I have succumb to making baby food instead of buying already made baby food in a jar. Now that I'm leaning more towards organic food and searching for non GMO products, I decided that I should start making my own baby food. Why didn't I do that with my first born you ask? Well, I really thought this whole organic thing was over hyped and a marketing ploy. I felt since I grew up with store bought baby food, ate non organic foods and was doing just fine, my kids would be fine too. But now that I've read too many articles, if I can do anything to keep them healthy and cancer free then choosing to go organic couldn't hurt.

A good friend of ours lent us their Beaba Baby Cook, and it's been great. I made my little guys his first homemade sweet potato baby food on Thanksgiving. This thing steams the food, and then it puree the food. I still give him store bought baby (organic) baby food, but it's mainly for when we travel. Plus I think he likes the homemade ones better.

Now I just need to go through the baby food recipe book to see what else I can make. =)

Baby's first Thanksgiving

The Bubba Family had a nice quiet drama free Thanksgiving dinner, just the four of us. The hubby smoked a small organic turkey, I made the butternut squash and sweet potatoes, stir fried some kale, made matsutake gohan (rice) for the first time, and enjoyed some wine and desserts afterwards. We didn't have to worry about planning some elaborate dinner, getting the house cleaned and set up, or face the major clean up that normally happens after a big turkey dinner. We didn't have to be somewhere by a certain time, we didn't have to get us and the kids ready. It really was a nice relaxing day for us. Very refreshing.

    

  

Going Organic

Ever since I've read an article that a friend of mine posted on her facebook status, I got on this new kick to start "going organic". Organic food, organic cotton, BPA free, lead free, hormone/antibiotic free, etc etc... I guess with a newborn and a toddler I've become a bit more concerned what I'm putting in/on/around my kids and more aware of how much crap is in our food today. And all my husband can think of is, "how much is this going to cost us?" Yes I know, going organic is not that cheap, but we can take baby steps. Change one thing at a time.
If you're curious here's the blog that my friend posted that got me thinking:
http://web.me.com/aprildavila/MWM/Blog/Blog.html
and the article about it:
http://civileats.com/2010/04/08/nonsanto/

So our first step was to buy organic produce and while at the Dragon Boat festival we came across the "Farm Fresh To You" stand. How convenient. We ended up signing up for the regular box, which consists of mostly vegetables and a few fruits, on a once a month basis. So far we're in month 2, and I have to say we're really satisfied with the program. It forces us to add fresh vegetables to our dishes, which we've been so bad at doing for the past year or so, and cook at home. There are a few vegetables that we have no idea what it is or what to do with it, but with the worldwide web at our fingertips we can find quick and easy recipes easily.

Starting next year we'll start to add organic meats, and I'll start to go meatless. Not completely vegetarian. I'll add more fish to my diet, continue to eat eggs but cut out meats (chicken/beef/pork, etc). I'll let you know how that goes.

Annual Nugget Rib Cook-Off

This year was Baby M's first BBQ Rib Cook-Off. He might have been a little too young to attend this annual pilgrimage, but overall he did ok. He didn't like being in the stroller for too long, and was fussy especially in the evening. I'm sure he was tired and over stimulated by all the noise, lights, and people. Next year hopefully he'll be able to eat some ribs and actually enjoy the festivities. 

The results are in and here are the winners. At least this year we tried the winner, but as usual we missed the rest of them. 

2010 Best in the West Nugget Rib Cook-off - OFFICIAL RESULTS
1st	Bone Daddy's BBQ
2nd	Kinder's Custom Meats Inc.
3rd	Rasta Joe's BBQ Inc.
4th	BJ's Barbecue
5th	Chicago BBQ Company
Best Sauce	Johnson's Bar-B-Que
People's Choice	Bone Daddy's BBQ

Potty Training

How can I forget to blog about one of the most important accomplishment in a toddler's life? Bad Mommy (as my son would say). I'm happy to announce that our first born is 100% potty trained during his waking hours. Night time is another challenge that I will tackle at another time although he's been dry through out the night since he started potty training, and only have had one overnight accident so far.

I have to say potty training is not just about training your child to use the bathroom, but training us parents to be diligent and to get on some type of routine. You can't just get up and leave and not worry about when the last time your tot used the restroom, or not have a pit stop weaved into your schedule when you're on the go. In the beginning phase I've learned that you have to be diligent in reminding your child to use the potty, watchin for cues, and never keeping your eyes off of him during the training phase. Kind of like training a new pup.

I started his potty training on a Monday, and since my boy is such a creature of habit and resistant to new things, it was a very tough beginning. At one point he was sitting on his little potty crying and screaming "I can't go potty" and "NO POTTY!" for about an hour before he finally made his first tinkle in the potty. I'm sure I broke every rule in potty training, but I just knew if I let him win we would never get over that hump with him. Sure enough I was right. After that first real tinkle into the potty he was open to using the potty instead of going in his diaper. At first I put him in cloth training underwear but he kept having accidents in then, so instead (as many people have suggested) I kept him bottomless. He was only allowed to sit on towels for the first 4 days. With a lot of high 5's, encouragement, and praises he learned to go pee in the potty and he was allowed to start wearing underwear during the day. He also transitioned himself from the portable potty to sitting on the toilet, but I realized he still wasn't going #2 in the toilet. With a quick trip to Toys R Us, I incorporated rewards into his training. I bought his favorite toy (hotwheels)  and left it in the bathroom for him to see and told him that he could have 1 car every time he went poo-poo into the toilet. By the next day he finally did the deed.

Overall he did fantastic. By the end of week 1 he was using the potty probably 70% of the time, and by the end of week 2 he was 98% trained. Outside the house it was a hit or miss, but after a few accidents I think he finally gets that he needs to let us know that he needs to go. We also need to remind ourselves to make a pit stop every couple of hours when we're on the go, so we can't completely fault him for having an accident when we're traveling.

Last week was a good test since we had a 2 hour event to go to with a 2 hour car ride. After about 1 1/2 hour into the drive our son told us he needed to go potty, and was able to hold it until we could get to the nearest fast food restaurant. Then I took him to the restroom again when we arrived at our destination, and then he told us he needed to go towards the end of the event. No accidents! Yippee. I think it's safe to say he's potty trained, but we'll always bring extra underwear and pants, just in case for those uh-oh moments.

Great job Maddie! We're so proud of you.

Almost forgot to mention that Daddy showed him how to pee standing up and making pee bubbles. =)

Eat Real Festival

  Did someone say food fest?!! Of course we had to be there. This was our first Eat Real Fest so we didn't realize how big it was and made the fatal mistake of eating everything at the very beginning. We were too full to try anything else. Lesson learned, we'll have a strategy in place next time and print out the vendor map. =) For more information about Eat Real check out their website: http://eatrealfest.com/

Next week... BBQ Cook-Off fest here we come!

Here are some pictures that we took: 

		Some entertainment

  

Mason's Red Egg & Ginger Party

We had Mason's Red Egg party today at the local park. It turned out to be a very nice day, not too warm and not too cold, although we did get the bayshore breeze kicking in. The kids seemed to have a good time running around, playing at the water play area and the playground. Thanks to everyone for coming out and celebrating with us. Hope you had a good time.

For Mason's party we had a tiger theme since Mason was born in the year of the tiger. I've been collecting ideas since I pregnant, and had fun putting together the invitations, favors and party decoration.
Since I couldn't really find the card I've been imagining I decided to create my own. It's still not what I really really wanted, but I was able to get my tiger in a cracked egg theme on there. I used Illustrator to create the overall invitation. To create the lil tiger in a red egg, I found the tiger graphic from the ones included in the office program, and the cracked egg I had to create in Illustrator. It took me hours to do this since I'm such a newb to Illustrator and Photoshop, which is why I kept this very simple.

For the favors, I had put my request in to my aunt in Japan to see if she can find mini kokeshi boy dolls that were inexpensive. Instead she found me these. I forgot what these are called in Japanese but they wobble if you push them, which also has a nice meaning. Something like you'll always get up if you're ever pushed down. If I find the actual meaning/saying I'll repost this.  I put these into a clear 2x2 box, added some red shreds for a little color, slapped on a favor tag and tied a ribbon on it. I got all the packaging supplies from Michael's, although I did have a heck of a time finding the clear 2x2 square favor boxes.

I stumbled across these clear plastic with tin containers at Michaels and thought these would make a great centerpiece. They had ones that were all clear, but the ones with the patterns were on clearance. These also comes with a lid, which I didn't need for my purposes. I slipped in two photographs (one on each side) and the added colored paper as the background. I poured fish tank gravel in (since that's all I could find at home) to weigh it down, added the red shreds on top of that and then filled the remainder of the space with chocolates. I stuck some airfilled balloons on a stick in the middle and a few oreo pops all around. If I had more time I would have tied a ribbon around the balloons sticks to complete the look.  I forgot to take some good shots of the finished product, but I think you can see from these pics how they turned out. 

I decided to make Oreo cookie pops for fun, and the chocolate covered Rice Crispy treat favors for the kids. These were fun to make, but I definitely need to find either a different chocolate or a recipe/tip that will keep it from melting too much. Anyone have any suggestions/tips? Oh and note to self, make sure your creation fits into the packaging you selected. I didn't check to see if the double oreo pops would fit in the little bags I bought before making all the oreo pops. Since I did these the night before the event, when all the stores were closed, I ended up using saran wrap to wrap them up.

For the kids we got some buckets w/ shovels from Target ($1 bin) and foam animal shaped visors from Michaels (in the clearance bins) and left it on each table. There's a sand pit area on the playground so we thought it was fitting. I just wished we took pictures of the kids with their animal visors. 

And last but not least.....drum roll please..... the CAKE.
Our friend, who owns/runs Crazy Cake Company in Davis, CA, made this cake. She's a very creative and talented person so we left it in her hand to design the cake, and boy did she not disappoint us. It was so cute and cool that it seemed like a waste to cut it.

Last Day of Japanese Class

Maddie had his last Japanese class on Saturday, and I had to take both kids there all by my lonesome. I made sure I prepared myself since he never likes to sit in the classroom without his security blanket (AKA Mama or Daddy).

I first prepped the baby backpack the night before and on the morning of I woke up Maddie an hour before we had to leave so he had time to wake up and become pleasant. He's such a grump in the mornings. I gave him a pep talk all the way there, letting him know that he had to sit in the classroom with his friends without Mama because Daddy wasn't there and I had Baby Mason. But I think what really got him was I told him that this was last day of class. That really seemed to have perked him up. 

We arrived 15 minutes early giving him a chance to warm up and get comfortable with the idea of sitting in the classroom. I thought for sure I had to shove him in the room and leave him crying, but instead he held his own binder, followed the sensei into the classroom, and sat in his normal seat. He even went through the binder with the sensei until the other kids arrived, and I could hear him saying some things in Japanese and others in English. I was a proud Mama at that moment.

I have to say I'm very happy with his progress in learning Japanese, and it definitely gave me a new found determination to speak Japanese to him at every opportunity. I'll be enrolling him again sometime in January of next year. I would have enrolled him for the Fall (Aug - Jan), but he would have missed most of September and a couple in October that I thought it wasn't worth it. Plus it was really hard to get up every Saturday morning when your newborn was only sleeping for 4 hours at a time. I figure by January he'll be sleeping through the night and we wouldn't be so sleep deprived. So til next year.

"Gourmet" Food Trucks

OK I'm hooked. I don't know if this is a new thing or not, but there has been many specialty food trucks popping up all over the place. Or at least I'm beginning to notice it now.

In order for you to find where a specific food truck will be you have to be on facebook or twitter to find their route of the day.  I'm not quite sure how you find out about these food trucks or if it's just word of mouth, but luckily we have "Off the Grid" who organizes several food trucks to be at one place for a few hours one day a week. Check out their site for more information http://offthegridsf.com/index.html. This one is on Fridays from 5-8pm at Fort Mason. You can also find out who's in the lineup for Fridays on their facebook page.

We've gone a couple of times already, and going again this Friday. They add new vendors each week, which is what draws us back. Don't these look good?

	Kung Fu Tacos	Onigilly
	Curry Up Now - Burrito	Seoul on Wheels
Chairman Bao - Baked bun	Chairman Bao - Steamed bun

Our feast, and we had more coming.

Mason's 2 Month

Mason had his 2 months doctor appointment and his first round of immunization. He cried initially when given his shots, but calmed down quickly. He seemed to be a bit more sleepy than usual and slept for much of the day, but for the next couple of days he was fussier than normal. I couldn't put him down or put him into his swing, which meant no nap or rest for me. Needless to say it was a tough couple of days, thank goodness he's back to his normal self.

Mason's 2 month stats:
                        Weight: 13 lbs, 4 oz (重量 6 kg) (90th percentile)
                        Height: 24 inches (高さ 61cm) (90th percentile)
                        Head circumference: 16.25 inches  (頭部の円周 41.3cm) (90th percentile)
                  

Kristine & Norman Wedding

Peter's younger brother finally tied the knot. The wedding was held at the Purple Orchid in Livermore and our little Maddie was the ring bearer who unfortunately had a melt down the day of and never made it down the aisle. He did so well during the rehearsal too. Needless to say we were very disappointed (and a little embarrassed).

The wedding was beautiful and the bride was nothing but gorgeous. Both bride and groom were grinning from ear to ear, you can tell they were very happy, shedding happy tears. The weather was beautiful, but hot during the day and during the ceremony. It did cool down in the evening just in time for the reception. I'm guessing it was a Disney theme for the reception as the tables were named after Disneyland rides. Everything was perfect, just wished we could have hung out longer but with a newborn with sensitive ears we had to cut it short. Congratulations to the happy couple and Kristine welcome to the family. 

M&M did very well, aside from not doing his ring bearer duties. They both slept well, ate well, and behaved well. I think the reason why Maddie didn't walk down the aisle was 1) No Nap 2) I think he was afraid of the wedding dress and 3) hungry, thirsty & hot = irritable. Oh well I guess we had too high of an expectation from a 3 year old.

Of course we took 100's of pictures which you can view on our picasa album, but here are the highlights.

Entrance to the location	The ceremony location
Flower Girl & Ring Bearer during rehearsal	Mason's rehearsal dinner outfit
Mason's wedding day outfit	Maddie in his tux
Family Pic
The cake above	& reception table below
	Maddie was a dancing machine.