Harvest day fun!

What a busy day we had today! It all started very early in the morning, I took DD to preschool for Harvest Day celebration!

To help the kids with the event, her class has been doing a lot of fun crafts earlier this week.
A couple of moms signed up to bring snacks for the kids for today's special celebration. I brought fruit and vegetable crackers (you know, the healthy stuff). Another mom actually made this amazing looking cake for DD's class. I was impressed!

The kids got to do a parade so show off their costumes. Here's DD with one of her teachers.

Then all of the kids got together to sing harvest songs. It was so adorable. Can you find DD in the photo?

After all that fun at DD's school, I went to Old Navy to do some shopping. Mostly I went there because DH requested for a few things. To my surprised, Old Navy was having a huge sale. All sales items were additional 50% off, and then if you were the first 50 customer with an Old Navy Credit card, you got another additional 50% off everything in the store. I ended up buying stuff for myself, DD, DH, my cousin's baby, and my bff's 3 daughters. I ended up getting 46 pieces of clothes, 2 Halloween candle sets, 3 pairs of flop flips as well as 1 Halloween costume (for DD to wear next year) all for $88. Wooohoooo!

In the afternoon, I picked DD up from school and we headed stright to DH's work for their special trick treating event.

A lot of offices went all out decorating everything. DH led DD around. We only walked through 2 floors in one of the buildings and DD filled up her bucket twice! She was loving the fact that people just gave her candy. A couple of people wanted to give her extra candy just because they love her costume (we nicely declined, of course). LOL!

In the end, DD was leading the way and telling her daddy "More candy! more candy!"

After 2 buckets full of candy, it was time for us to head out. I never got a chance to get a photo of the awesome statue in front of the company main entrance, so I thought we would get a few in before we leave. If you have been to my house, there is a small version of the exact same thing (also made of bronze) sitting in our family room.

See, I was there too!

We had a lot of fun trick treating at DH's company! Just look at our smiles!

As soon as we were done at DH's work, we drove straight to Angela's house for playdate. DH (in black) and Katie (in pink princesses dress) was playing with Angela's husband. I was really impressed by how good he was with the kids-- although I remember thinking that the last time I met him too.

At the end of the playdate, the kids were exhausted and some of them decided that the best place to hang out was the staircase.

After a couple hours of fun at Angela's house, we were ready to head home. DD could not wait to get her pumpkin out of the car and display it in our house. (DD got the pumpkin from school, apparently each kid got to pick one up from the pumpkin patch they sat up at school today.)

What a fun day we had! We are looking forward to a fun filled day tomorrow too!

Being a mermaid...

DD was watching "Finding Nemo" this afternoon. When the scene of Nemo disobeying his father and went toward the boat causing Nemo to be captured by a human came up, I had this brilliant idea of using it as a great educational moment. I paused the movie and sat DD down for a talk about how it is important for her to listen to mommy and daddy. Furthermore, she needs to always stay with one of us when we are in public places so that a bad guy doesn't grab and take her away like what happened to poor Nemo. I told her that we would be very sad if someone took her away, and she would be sad too because she would not be able to see her mommy, daddy and friends again. After my little speech, I asked her if she understood. She nooded her head, and said to me," If bad guy take me, I will be mermaid. I don't know how to be a mermaid!"

ROFL! So thanks to "Finding Nemo," she thinks that if she gets kidnapped, she will be put into a fish tank and have to live her life as a fish (or as a mermaid because she is a person living in a fish tank)! She cracks me up!

Halloween gift to myself

I have been wanting to get this necklace from Tarina Tarantiano from months now. Because of the price of the necklace, I kept on adding it to the shopping cart, but never checked out. Last week, I saw that it went on sale, so I finally decided to splurge and buy it for myself. I have a few weaknesses. Unlike the typical woman, I spend very little money on makeup and clothes for myself. I also don't ask for diamonds. But, I love Louis Vuitton purses (got one earlier this year, so I already met DH's yearly quota). My other love is Tarina Tarantiano jewelery. They are a bit pricey for stuff that's not made of real diamonds or gemstones, but I really love how unique her jewelery pieces are. About 7 years ago, I brought a couple of Hello Kitty necklaces and a pair of earrings from the designer, and I thought they were extremely well made. II mean, it's been 7 years, right?! Anyhow, I wanted to add more to my collection, so I ordered it!

I have been really, really sick the past 4 days. DH drove me to the emergency room on Friday night and I spent the night there. Poor DH and DD stayed up all night waiting for me in the waiting room. Early Saturday morning, I was released from the hospital. I slept probably 80% of the weekend away. I could not move because I was in a lot of pain, so DH took care of me and DD the whole weekend. He actually ended up taking Monday off so that he can drive DD to school, pick her up, and also take me to the hospital for a follow up doctor's appointment. While I was so sick, I came to a few conclusions.

1. When we are old, I hope to be healthier than DH. Don't get me wrong, he did a great job taking care of me & DD. I just think I am better at it than he is. That's why I am the mom, right?!

2. DD really is an awesome kid! She was being unbelievably good the entire time I was in bed with pain. DH had to go back to work today, and I still haven't fully recovered, so poor DD has been stuck at home all day. She spent the better part of morning playing with her doll house all by herself. And how she is watching tv in her room while I lay in bed trying to get better.

3. I actally like being the person taking care of my family. While I try to recover, I actually miss doing things for them-- this really surprised me!

4. I need to be nicer to myself. As much as I love spending money on DD, I need to spend a little time and money on myself too.

I hope to never get this sick again & I can't wait to be all better so I can take DD places! My Tarina Tarantiano skull necklace came last night. I can't wait to wear it out!

I bet you would have never guessed a playdate could get so heated!

What a day! The playdate actually started out really well. I picked DD up from school and we were off to the park to meet up with our friends for a nice afternoon playdate.

DD was beyond excited to see her friends!
Although the kids enjoyed running around the park, Lara brought some cute Halloween crafts for the kids to work on.
DD got paint all over herself.

The kids having fun with their crafts.

DD and Leila

I have seen Leila for awhile now. I love her new hair cut, it is so cute.

DD was having fun too.

DD pointing at Leila demanding that I take pictures of her too.

The girls played so well together.

After all that fun, it was time for pizza. Debra's husband was nice enough to pick up pizza for us. What a nice guy!

Then it was time to play again.

A few moments after I took the last photo, Lindsay (Lara's little girl got knocked down from a young girl on a swing). When I downloaded the photos, I saw this (I happened to captured this woman in the background). Anyhow, as I stated earlier, poor Lindsay got knocked down and was on the ground crying. I think this was the face she made as Lindsay got knocked over by her daughter. I rushed over to pick her up. Meanwhile, instead of helping poor Lindsay up, this woman was standing over her & screaming at Lindsay. She demanded to know where the mother was. I picked up Lindsay and I was pretty outraged by the fact that she would be screaming at a young toddler as she was laying on the ground crying. I confronted her and told her that she had to be partly responsible because she was watching her own daughter (who looked like she was at least 8 years old), and she allowed her daughter to knocked over a kid. Although, in all honesty, I was more upset by the fact that she was yelling at a crying toddler. By this time, Lara had rushed over and took Lindsay from my arms. The woman was screaming waving her finger at me. On top of that, she was shaking uncontrollably. At this point, I knew the woman had lost it, so I walked away. Lara also walked away, but the woman was so crazy that she followed poor Lara along the park to yell at her. Yeah, I kid you not!

About 15 to 20 minutes later, as I was talking to Dennis (Nancy's husband), the woman returned yet again to call me names in front of all of the little kids in the middle of the park. Clearly, she totally lost it. I was so shocked that I did not even know what to say at first. Dennis, bless his good nature, stepped in to help me out. He got into a yelling match with the woman. While the woman's daughter looked on, she continued to call Dennis names and screaming at him across the park. Trying to break up the fight, I asked if that's how she really wants to behave in front of her daughter and in front of all of the little kids in the park. The woman ignored me and kept on yelling. I am not going to repeat any of what she said here because they were actually pretty bad. While she was screaming at Dennis, I took this photo of her. If you ever see this woman in South OC parks, I highly recommend staying away from her.

Dennis won the screaming match, the woman finally backed down and left. LOL! Dennis was the hero of the day for getting the unstable woman away from us!

By the time all of the drama was over, we saw that Lindsay was totally over it! She was happily playing with her big sister.

What a playdate! You want drama and excitement? Apparently you only need to go to the park for it! ROFL!

Gymnastics class

DD is the one in the red leotard.

Craft, lizard & first signs of my garden tomatoes

A couple of days ago I made this picture frame (actually, I made 2 of them) so that I can give one to my in laws for Halloween. This was a pretty simple & easy project that I think I will repeat again for Christmas.

I brought a plain wood frame and the premade skull board (also made of wood) from Michael's. The frame was $1 and the skull was $0.69. Then I picked up a can of black spray paint from Walmart for $0.96. I spray painted the frame a couple of times (waited 4 hours in between coats) and then simply hot glued the skull on. The photo was taken early this week while we were at Disneyland. I had it printed at Costco for $0.19. After I was all done, I have DD's Halloween photo in a cute (& totally reusable for next year) photo frame for only a couple of dollars. By the way, for anyone who might want to try this easy project, I am pretty certain that it took me less than half can of the spray paint to properly coat 2 frames front & back.
This morning DH discovered a lizard strolling in DD's bathroom. I am not sure how it made its way there, but DH caught it to release it back to the wild. Too bad DD was already at school when this happened, she would have been very happy to see a live lizard hanging out inside of our house.

First tomatoe on our tomato plant. Hooray!

And the second baby tomatoe is coming in too!

Even my green onion is growing well! (My sweet basil in the background is being attacked by some unknown creature or creatures. I think all of the leaves are going to get eaten up in no time. So sad.)

Elmo Princesses kind of day

When DD got up this morning, she decided that it was Elmo time. The Elmo t-shirt I got for her last year finally fits now. With the t-shirt and the matching Elmo shoes, she looked so adorable!

This afternoon, we met up with our friends at the Disney store for their Princesses event. It was sort of lame, but DD was happy that she got to dress up. While I was there, I picked up a couple of dresses for her. They were 50% off, and I had a 20% off coupon, so I was able to pick up 2 dresses for her for $45. Hooray!

Disneyland fun

I took DD to Disneyland today. It was much less crowded than when we were there last Thursday, so I don't think we will be back there on a Thursday again. Anyhow, because it was not packed with people, we were able to get on a lot of rides with less to no waiting time.

When we got there, we did our usual stop at California Adventure.

DD dancing with Pluto. So cute!

Then we were off to Monster Inc. ride, DD stopped to point at every single character at the photo-up place. LOL!

This is how I feel at least once a day. LOL!

DD typically gets her photo taken with Mickey or Minnie while we wait for our Soaring fastpass. But, today she said "No, thank you" to taking photos with them; so I took her to see the "It's a Bug's Life" show. Here's DD with her bug eyes (3D glasses) on.

After doing a bunch of rides in california Adventure, we walked to Disneyland. We stopped at Buzz Lightyear before getting lunch.

Look, it's the Queen from Alice in Wonderland.

DD was super excited to get her photo taken with the witch from Snow White.

DD wanted to get her photo taken with the tea cup.

Loving her horsey!

We haven't done the Pinocchio's ride for months, but today DD insisted that we go on it.

As luck would have it, the ride broke half way through so a cast member had to come and help us get out. DD was sad. Although she said that she was only a little sad.