some pictures

Tea Time!

Open House

Teething

I just love these pictures and have been posting it up all over the place! I can't get over Jam and her toothy smile!

Anyway, i need some parenting advise. Jam is now sprouting her 8th tooth and it seems like this one is really doing a number on her. She's been drooling and chewing on everything the past few days so i knew for sure that a tooth was coming.. plus i can see it pushing under gums. Then last night she had diarrhea and a fever. Aside from being a little irritated because she was feeling warm, she was still regular Jam. I gave her baby Tylenol and dressed her in a regular onsie and then she fell back asleep. She woke up a couple a times after that but that was just cause she was looking for her chupie to sooth herself back to sleep. When we all woke up in the morning, she was up and playing with Leelai, but her fever had come back with a runny nose.

My question is... do you guys think this is all part of her teething or do you think this is something else? I've been reading about it on babycenter.com and other sites but i guess i'm looking for other people experience with the whole teething thing. Any feedback is welcome!

My beautiful dancer

Okay, so my camera is out of juice... therefore, no pictures. A-Sorray!

But! At dance yesterday, Leelai got the "Dancer of the Week" award! She received a certificate and an extra candy treat. I'm so proud of her and she's so proud of herself! I put her in dance class to help boost her self esteem and it looks like it's working. We have soccer sign-ups this Wednesday with AYSO too, so that should help boost her team-work skills. I'm so excited about all of Leelai's new adventures. I just hope I find the energy to keep up with all of them and have 2 babies to take care of at the same time. Who am i kidding.. my parents and Shewitz's parents have been helping me with the kids since Jam was born. Thank God for familia! Plus, my folks are retiring (actually, my dad officially retired yesterday!) so that will help out a lot too.

Did you watch Deal or No Deal last night?

So, last night Shewitz and I were flipping through the channels and came across Deal or No Deal. Howie Mandel says something like "This is gonna be a first for Deal or No Deal. The banker will reveal himself for the first time here on this show." I got all excited cause, you know, we never see the banker. So, i look all closely at the screen as the camera cuts over to the the bankers window....he's sitting in his chair with his back to us. He then turns the chair around to reveal himself,... and he has on a CLOWN FACE! I totally lost my breath- i couldn't scream. I jumped on Shewitz and burried my face in his chest and i swear to God i was trembling. I mean really! Who pulls that kind of shit on public television?! If I was just a month longer into my pregnancy, I could have peed on myself! I have not felt that scared since the days we use to sleep at Auntie Cel and Uncle Jing's house. If you DARE, watch the clip for yourself....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiXKlkXshFU

Thanks!

Thank you everyone who gave us their best wishes with the new baby. Lord knows I'll need them. And I'd like to give a "hip-hop Horay!" to myself for having the most responses for a blog post. I love you guys, and that ain't the hormones talking either.

So, my next adventure is looking for a good birth control method. I know that this is a personal subject, but i figure that you 7 readers won't mind since i'm related to all of you. I've broke 'em down into 2 categories. "Scary" and "not so Scary". I want your feed back cause i only have experience with the pill, which by the way is how i got pregnant with MJ... so that's a method that's out the window. So here it is:

IUD - scary
*mirena
*copper coil

Barrier Methods-not so scary
*diaphragm
*Cervical cap
*Lea's Shield (?)
*male condom
*female condom
*spermicidal foam
*sponge
*gel
*suppository
*film

Sterilization - Scary
*Tubal ligation
*Vasectomy (not scary for me, but Mr."It's like taking away my man-hood", is chicken shit.

I'd really appreciate anyone's feedback on this. I'd like my birth control how i like my man.... long term, efficient, with little to no maintenance.

So, i have some news....

The Jam is gonna be "manang Jam". Due date... October 9th.

George!!!!

Please read our adventures with George at his site.

Just pictures....

eegads! the ugliest chupie ever!

my princesses!

It's been a while

I've been so tired. I have so many new pictures of the Jam but i'm too lazy to upload them into shutterfly. I'm acting as if i physically have to transfer each pixel into the computer.... what a loser. Anyhoo, i'll talk now and put pictures later, how bout that?

Jam has teeth GALORE! With in the last 2 weeks, she sprouted all four of her upper teeth. We're also now at a point where i may need to lower her crib cause in the middle of the night she'll sit up and start sucking on the side rail. It's the most random thing i tell ya! She's usually a great sleeper at night so i'm thinking it's a teething thing.

Leelai is just growing and growing! When ever i pick her up from Grandma and Grandpa's house, we do a drive by of the new school she'll be going to for Kindergarten. Now that she's been on campus, and is familiar with where her classroom is, she seems to be excited about the whole Kindergarten thing. All the prepping is actually exciting to me too. I plan on being home also when September rolls around (for reasons to be explained in another month or so from now) so i can be there for her when she gets out. I've been imagining these days for a long time and i can't believe it's all starting!

On another note, Congrats to Famini, Egger, and Chameans! Baby no. 2 has arrived and apparently is drinking a good amount of "chi-chi" milk.

And on yet another note (i'm singing a song here), the show Lost is getting better and better! Like i've said in the past, i'm up for discussion if you are!

Believe it!

From the era of "Please Don't Go Girl" and "Hangin Tough"..
I bring you this...
http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/56462728

I connected a link AND put out the web address cause i think EVERYONE needs to read this..


hoang, if you're reading this by chance (probably not) thanks ;o)

AW GAWD!

Geez, i can't believe is skipped the whole month of December. Soo many things have happened since my last post. Let's see...


-Jam turned 5 months old on Dec. 15th and she welcomed her fifth month by sprouting 2 teeth! She started solids with no problem. It's as if she was a natural born eater... like her mama! She rolls and rolls around like a pro too! She will also look at your mouth so intently and try to imitate sounds. Her biggest challenge in life now is finding a way to not get her limbs caught in the rails of her crib in the middle of the night. I love my little chuncky-love Jam! I just realized too that she's gonna be 6 months tomorrow. How time flies!



-Leelai's been the best big sister to Jam and to her couther (cousin/brother) Gani. She's been practicing writing all her letters, numbers and recognizing her sounds. Kindergarten, here we come! Since Gani's been here, there's a new side of her that's developing and is making her learn patience, take turns, and using her words more. These are things that i know will develope more and more with age, but these are lessons that we try to teach our kids but are not really understood by a child until they are thrown in the situation (not sure if that sentence made sense). For instance the whole sharing thing. Sharing, to Leelai, use to be the biggest downfall in life before Gani was around. Now sharing is second nature. Manny, who is an only child by the way, still has problems sharing (i'm talking about them chocolate chip cookies a-hole... what- i said it!).



-Christmas was fun! it all happened so fast though. One day i'm shopping at Target, the next day i found myself with $2 to my name and a house scattered in pine needles and wrapping paper. The love and laughter of friends and family make it all worth it though!



-New Year's was great... i think. It was our first time partying without the kids. It was to be a night of a few laughs with the homies, but the pictures from my camera tell a different story. We were able to get up the next day and haul our drunkard cookies over to the ice rink with Edgar, Chameans, baby Chameans, and little Uniquo. She got a couple of good pictures of the girls in their gear, but sadly she didn't take a picture of the real Ice Princess (Manny). Maybe next time...

and now pictures.....

My darling Leelai! You'd never guess that she had a melt down after this was taken... nap time you know...

Jam at 5 months.

It was all a blur after this....

Goodbye beautiful beard...

So, we wake up this morning and for some reason the first words i blurt out are "Leelai, wanna cut papa's beard?" To my surprise, Leelai and Papa were both like "Okay!" So we got out of bed and ......

our little hair dresser got ready with the clippers.

A final shot of the swamp creature.

And who knew that under all that hair i was married to Cheech Marin?

The most cutest flippin thing in the world...

Okay, the things they have for babies today are certainly to die for. It's so fun to have a baby!

First, I see baby MP with the cutest little leg warmers and i absolutly had to get them too (BTW Meli, we need to get pictures taken of the girls in matching rainbow babylegs). Now, i find this at Nordstrom!

Isn't this the silliest thing!? It's cool too cause you can put it in the carseat and wrap your baby. UGH, i wish they had this in adult size. I'd wear it while driving. I can just imagine getting pullled over and the police officer saying "um, ma'm step out of the footed blanket please". This blanket is 40 something dollars but i'm getting it... and then i'm going to Joann fabric to buy me some fleece and make one for myself....

Marley's 4th Birthday!! aka Halloween!

Okay, so i'm a little late of posting up for Leelai's birthday... i'm still recovering from the madness.

Both sets of her lolo's and lola's weren't able to celebrate her actual birthday so we had a last minute shin dig for her at gool ol' Chuck E Cheese. It was a blast as always. I swear they have the best pizza and salad bar in the world.

Getting ready to do some damage.

Call it a hunch, but I don't think MariJam's having fun.

For Halloween/Leelai's birthday, we headed to the hills to Nina's house for our annual Halloween Fest. Each year the group gets bigger and bigger and we absolutely love it! Chamina has posted a few good pictures on her blog too.

Notice the absents of Johnny Boy. He was with his friends.... a typical teenager now. Did i mention that he's taller than all of us now? He's catching up to his Uncle Jeremy who is (only 1 word to describe him) HUGE!

Monster Jam.

We have a new tradition for Halloween. Auntie Chamina introduced us to a new friend named "The Great Pumpkin". After all the trick or treating is done, we choose 10 pieces of candy (mostly chocolate) and we leave the rest outside our door for The Great Pumpkin. She then leaves us, in return, a gift!

Halloween Treat!

Despite the fires, we hauled our cookies over to California Adventure for Mickey's Halloween Treat. It was sooo much fun, and it's probably something i want to do for Lee-Lai every year for her birthday. So you 5 people who read this blog, be ready to go every October! For the whole album of our special birthday event, click HERE.

CAST

Gani as Zurg

Lee-Lai as Minnie Mouse

Mina as Pablo

Happy Birthday to me!!!!

Getting Old?

Here's a picture of our 2nd generation Moontower Crew.... formerly known as the Denots Crew. How silly that sounds huh. Actually, this is only fraction of the kids in our group. I still think of my friends and I as a bunch of goofy young peeps, but seeing pictures like this really puts me on a reality check. These kids are starting to become older and are giving themselves a "crew" name. It crazy.

I also wanted to experiment with this site cause i noticed a small film reel icon on the toolbar section of this blog thingy... let's see how it goes. This small video clip is from the hospital when the Jam was only 2 days old. My little one just turned 3 months old but already she's sooo different!

Geez, the upload time takes long....

The Ultimate FAT Boy.....

Another "big ups" to my homie Andrew Zimmern. He has on the Discovery Website what he calls "Andrew's Rule Book". There are few things that i read and actually take to heart. For instance, the Harry Potter series, US Weekly Magazine, instruction manuals, MySpace comments... and now Andrew's Rule Book.

I love this man...

Andrew Zimmern has traveled all over the world, and he's learned a few things along the way — what to do, what not to do and what to definitely eat while traveling to these countries and cities. Dig in!

Ecuador

Rule No. 655 - (Please write this one down, folks.) When you're in the Amazonian rainforest and you're eating lemon ants, you have to be very careful that the conga ants (otherwise known as bullet ants) aren’t crawling all over you, because that would totally blow your game. It's a very important rule."

Gulf Coast
Rule No. 1 - If it looks good, eat it!

Rule No. 15 - If you can bake it, broil it or steam it, you're probably better off deep-fat frying it. At Wintzell's, the legendary oyster house in Mobile, Ala., their feeling is, if you can't shuck it or fry it, why bother eating it?

Rule No. 42 - If a backyard is littered with shotgun shells and an old rusted smoker – well, you know the food’s gotta be pretty good.

Rule No. 136 - Never trust the shop owners to tell you where all the good stuff is. You’ve got to sniff it out yourself."

Morocco
Rule No. 1 - Camels are much, much taller than you ever thought they were.
Rule No. 107 - Never breathe through the nose deeply in an open-air fish market.
Rule No. 156 - If you want to eat something funky, head down to the seashore.
Rule No. 505 - You gotta eat it twice before you say no thank-you to the rest of the plate.

New York City

Rule No. 361 - When you are ordering a lot of deep-fried stuff, don’t waste space on the garnish. Garnish is garnish." (this one is my personal favorite -melon)
Rule No. 375 - I would subtitle this one the 'Bizarre Foods Counterintuitive Rule': There’s no food on Earth that bacon doesn’t make better. (In the case of the food featured on this episode, we did want to taste all the maggots, so I defer to your judgment.)

Rule No. 378 - The enjoyment of the meal is in direct proportion to the size of the line you have to wait on to get it.
Rule No. 647 - The more disgusting the food, the greater the chance whoever is hawking it, selling it or pushing a bowl of it on you will say that "it’s good for what ails you."
Rule No. 724 - You know you’ve had a good meal when you have a pile of teeny shells, feet and connective tissue lying around on your plate.

Rule No. 937 ('Bizarre Foods' Rule No. 937, for those of you keeping score at home) - The QRA (Quick, Reliable and Accurate) method of dispatching animals is very important when it comes to eating things that have just been living and have now sadly given themselves for our pleasure.

Philippines
Rule No. 75 - aka Zimmer’s Law No. 75: The more disgusting the food looks, the more neutral it tastes."

Spain
Rule No. 107 - Any place with suckling baby pigs in the window is top-notch.Taiwan
Rule No. 1 - Never talk too much about a food before eating it (e.g. like on this episode, when Andrew and his companions were discussing what part of a goose they are about to eat).

Rule No. 379 - The more innocent a food looks, the more dangerous it is. It’s like those teeny little snakes crawling in the rainforest; they’re always the deadliest ones.

Trinidad
Rule No. 281 - Scan the booths, and look for the one with the biggest line. It’s got to be the best ... right?
Rule No. 311 - If you’re looking for interesting stuff in an outdoor market, just follow your nose to one of the stinkier spots in the market. Usually that means there’s fish and meat, and usually that means there are going to be some more interesting things going on.
Rule No. 364 - Food always tastes better when you catch it yourself.
Rule No. 747 - You don’t need to have a bite the size of a jumbo jet to absolutely freak you right out of your seat.

United Kingdom
Rule No. 235 - Food surrounded by a jello made from its own juices is always better than food not surrounded by a jello made from its own juices. Eel jello is one of the best.
Rule No. 439 Pigeons that poop on the host of a T.V. program usually wind up as dinner in a restaurant.

I got 2 months to my name!

On the 17th, Jam turned 2 months old! You know what this means..... a not so happy visit to the doctor. She actually did pretty well at first. She impressed the doctor by lifting her head high while on her tummy, and being able to see mama walk back and forth in the room. She also smiled and cooed like a pro. She totally screamed when the nurse gave her shots but that was expected. She actually stopped crying right after it was over. I also had the doctor look at her birthmarks (she has one on her upper back and another on her eyelid). The doc told me the cutest thing about them. The one on her eye is called a salmon patch or aka an Angel Kiss. Those types of birthmarks usually show up on the forehead or eyelids of babies and usually disappear with in the first year. The one on her back is a small hemangioma. When they are on the upper back or neck, they are also called a Stork Bite. So, my MariJam was kissed by an angel before the stork delivered her. I can't wait to share that with her when she becomes old enough to understand!

Lobster Fest '07

Last weekend we geared up and hauled our cookies to Lobster Fest in San Pedro. We ate, listened to the "one-man band", ate, listened to a rock band, ate, road on a ride, and then ate ice cream. Strange thing is, even after all that eating, we weren't discustingly full... i guess seafood isn't as heavy as pan de sal with butter and cheese. Anyway, i'll let the pictures tell the story.

Here's me and the Scheweitz post lobster / pre bucket of shrimp.

Tita Bean Bags and Uncle Pers Bags having lobster and the most expensive calamari in the world. BTW, Lobster fest was fun but not cheap. Good thing it's only once a year.

Here are the kiddies. Monster Jam and Lee-lai loved the "One-man band". If Gani was awake during that time, he would have loved it too! Either that, or he would have said " Stop! Go away one-man band".

Twins!

Here's Lee-lai riding her first carnival ride BY HERSELF! I was scared that she would flip out in the middle of the ride, or barf, or something. She was fine though... what a big girl now....

Here's Gani and Lee-lai being big kids. Gani told Tita Beanbags that they were singing the "little einsteins" theme song when the ride was on. How silly is that! I just love them!

This looks like Perci and Manny holding hands.

I forgot....

to share this picture. I love my girlies!