A G-Rated Bachelorette Party

To celebrate my friend Jessica's upcoming wedding we (the old college roommates and friends) got together for Jessica's Bachelorette party at Disneyland. It was a perfect day for d-land - no lines, the weather was perfect and the park is now all decked out for Christmas. All in all it was a fun day with the girls.

With the Bride-to-be.


Some of us got wild and crazy and got our faces painted!

National kick a ginger day is mean

Apparently today is National kick a ginger day. I heard some teenagers talking about how cool it was to kick redheads today. That's just terrible.

As a mom to future redheads (crossing my fingers) I don't appreciate this kind of discrimination.

Yes that's Ben as a baby with his sister Angie.

My favorite surprise

The day David was born was definitely one of the happiest days of my childhood. There was so much anticipation surrounding the arrival of our baby brother. Ruby and I would talk to David so much while he was in our mom’s belly that it felt like we knew him and he was a part of our family before he was even born. We were so involved in the entire process of becoming older siblings it felt like the biggest responsibility of my life at the time (it probably was). We got to pick out his name. I choose the name David because I had a crush on a curly haired blond named David who was an actor on a Mexican soap opera. Ruby got to pick his middle name, Humberto after his favorite horse jockey. We were 5, and 6! What parents let their 5 and 6 year olds name their kid? Mine do. If you know my parents this totally makes sense. David was going to be a Daniel so my mom had picked out the name but she went for my suggestion so of course Ruby had to have a turn at it. I’ve written on here that I was 7 when he was born but I was actually 6 and 11 months. David was of course a “surprise” a very cute surprise. He is still super cute. I'm amazed at how vividly I remember David’s "birth day". Ruby and I had brand new outfits to wear to the hospital. I wore a pink sweatshirt with a fuzzy velvet cow in the middle, light blue jeans, and matching pink socks. I picked out the outfit myself. I remember thinking my grandpa would like it (he was a dairy farmer). The minute I got to hold David for the first time I felt like he was mine, he was perfect. I was immediately obsessed with his tiny feet. Ruby was just as happy.

I can’t believe my little David is now 20! No longer a teenager. He was a puny 6 grader when I left for college. This must be similar to what parents feel like when their children grow up. I’m so thankful for David. My life would have been so weird and incomplete without him. My mom has always said David was not an accident, he was a surprise, he was meant to be because God doesn’t make mistakes.

Ruby and I weren’t stupid we soooo knew David was an accident.

Happy Birthday David! I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect baby brother.

PS

In case you are not familiar with my family Ruby is actually a boy, we are 14 months apart and his real name is Ruben after my dad.

I don't have many pictures of us as kids on my computer but I found this one. I remember we were not planning on getting our pictures taken that day, but the photo place was having a sale that my dad couldn't pass.

Chalkboard art

I walked into Ben's Sunday school class and found this gem of a portrait on the board. Let me remind you that Ben teaches 15 year olds! Coincidentally he was giving a lesson on genealogy/family history work of all things. If you look carefully you will see that Ben is predicting we will have three children, Timmy, Billy and Suzy. Not sure I'm going to let him pick out the baby names.

Day of the Dead

I started doing my family history a few months ago. My grandma’s 94th birthday in July was a reminder that I might not have much time left with her and I need cherish the time we have together and get as much family history as I can get from her. I plan on going to Tijuana sometime this week and do a little more research, note taking and hanging out with my abuelita. I just discovered the recording feature on my iphone; score! A few weeks ago I was at a flower shop and I came across a bunch of marigold flowers. The smell of them brought back so many memories of my grandparents on my mom’s side and immediately my first thought was…I need to do their temple work. On Day of the Dead my grandparents would go to the cemetery and they would always bring me along. They would go to the tombs of my great-grandparents and other family members and leave orange and yellow marigolds. This tradition has been lost in my family, in fact I’m pretty sure in most big cities in Mexico the Day of the Dead is a dying tradition (no pun intended). As a child I loved this tradition because I was able to learn so many neat stories of those people for whom we were leaving flowers. I felt like I knew them and I was connected to them. I’m really excited to have the opportunity to do my family history, I’m learning so much in the process. I’m so proud of my grandparents and all of the sacrifices that they made for our family. I feel so blessed to be the one in my family who gets to do this work. It’s taking me a while to get to this point where I finally understand the importance of genealogy, better late than ever.

*borrowed image.

Halloween

This year we dressed up as ipod earbuds. The costumes were made out of cardboard, cheap satin fabric and duct tape for the letters. I had a lot of fun making these and we won best overall costume at a party so it was worth the work.


Too bad the video is super dark because Ben's dance moves were pretty rad. As always he was the first one on the dance floor.

Could the rumors be true?

Is Anderson Cooper gay? If true, he should just come out and stop making girls like me daydream about him. I professed my love for Anderson Cooper here on my blog last year. Not to worry, Ben isn't the jealous type. I've already been in an elevator with Anderson and contained myself. To be more accurate I didn't even talk to him, I pretended like I wasn't excited but I totally was and almost peed my pants.