Memorial Day Fun!

I know... I know... Memorial Day is just a memory, but I have been really busy. I worked today for the first time in almost 2 months. Wow... it's hard to get out of the house that early! It was pretty cool trenching at a vineyard!














Here's a cute picture of Shayna & Mark at the Lindsay's house, where we celebrated Memorial Day with a wonderful BBQ and good friends! They had a little pool set out for the kiddos and they all loved splashing around! It was too perfect! I, myself, enjoyed the "Adult lemonade" a little too much.























Here's a picture of my daredevil daughter going down the slide with no hands...


Tomorrow we are planning to go and get some pretty flowers to plant in our front yard, so stay tuned...

The BEST!

Today was an AWESOME day! Probably one the best! Shayna crawled into bed with me at around 5:00 am and slept til 6:00 am. I held her in my arms and just stared at her face for an hour! Then we got up and made some pancakes! She loves to help me in the kitchen, as you can tell by the picture.

After pancakes and a load of laundry, we headed over to meet our AWESOME playgroup at Liberty Park. Did I say AWESOME playgroup? I meant to say ghetto playgroup, as we all did not bring bathing suits for our children, so they played in the water park area in their skivvies. At least Shayna kept her hat on! Who cares... they all had a blast!









So what if the other moms/playgroups were staring! Our playgroup could've totally taken them on!











Shayna had fun playing on the swings and the slides, too. I know we'll be back there really soon (with our bathing suit, this time)!

My Little Genius!

Shayna has been always one step ahead of us. I've recently noticed that she is getting a little out of hand when we spend too much time in the house. I am attributing this to the fact that she is bored with her toys (and probably me)... so while we were shopping at Costco the other day I picked up one of those workbooks we all remember from school called, "3 Minute A Day Learning System - Preschool Edition." At first i thought, wait a minute, shouldn't it read, "3 Minutes A Day?" Whatever... I bought it anyways! She & I are having so much fun with learning lowercase letters, numbers, and our ABC's, that I thought I'd videotape it for everyone to enjoy... here is a little snippet (don't forget - she's only 2 1/2 years old):



I hope someone who works for Ellen sees it!

Shayna's 15 seconds of Fame!

This morning, Shayna & I went to our fun arts & crafts hangout, Look What I Made, here in Long Beach. We're regulars there and the owner asked for some kids to come there today to be on TV. The owner's husband is the actor, Coby Bell. You might remember him from the show Third Watch. What a wonderful bunch of people to be around. All the kids were great! painting... sculpting... & playing in the cool free-play area! All in all, it was a blast and I think that we might just plan to have Shayna's birthday party there!!!

Happy Mother's Day!

"There is no other closeness in human life like the closeness between a mother and her baby." -Susan Cheever

Today was my 3rd Mother's Day, which is kind of weird because Shayna is only 2. LOL! It was a great day being with my daughter (who, BTW, reminded me at 6 am that it was Mother's Day) and my mom. It was a pretty low key day, which included a trip to Costco and a pizza dinner with Mark & Shayna. I wanted to wish my other mom, Lynn, a Happy Mother's Day, too! Love you!

On Saturday, I took Shayna to Cal State Los Angeles for the Sonoma State University championship baseball game. It was great to see the "Seawolves" in action, even though the only recognizable face was Coach Goelz. Shayna was awesome! She loved watching the game with mommy. I think she just loved when I yelled at the umpires for making bad calls against SSU.
BTW, Sonoma beat UC San Diego 15-5. Way to go, Cossacks...I mean Seawolves... whatever! Good luck in the College World Series!

We left the game close to nap time so Shayna fell asleep in the car. One thing I've learned about being a stay-at-home mom is that after a few weeks, your brain turns to mush! I totally forgot to put Shayna in a Pull-Up.... she slept from 1:30 to 4:00... you get the idea... the car seat was soaked! Poor little baby! I took her right into the bathtub, while Mark hosed the car seat down.

After bathtime, the Lindsays came over for some homemade fallafel (I know, Jen & Lisa - I'll get you guys the recipe tomorrow!). They had a blast checking out Shayna's big girl bed!

It was so much fun watching the kiddos dip pita into hummus and eating cucumbers like it was candy!

Another STELLAR weekend for the books!

What Time of Day are You? Thanks, Marallyn!

I got this from my good friend's Blog: Shalom From Jerusalem

You Are Sunrise

You enjoy living a slow, fulfilling life. You enjoy living every moment, no matter how ordinary. You are a person of reflection and meditation. You start and end every day by looking inward. Caring and giving, you enjoy making people happy. You're often cooking for friends or buying them gifts. All in all, you know how to love life for what it is - not for how it should be.

What Time Of Day Are You?

Welcome to the 21st Century!

Yipppeeee... I am now finally cool! I have a really cool cell phone! It can take pictures, videos, and I can even send stuff over the internet! It's my first personal phone. I was such a loser... now I'm not!







Welcome to May, 2007. It is officially SUMMER here in SoCal! Around these parts, we have 2 seasons... Summer and I'd call it Autumn - cuz we hardly get any rain during our so-called Winter. For the past few days it's been in the 90's so we've turned on the AC to keep us Autumn-like...















Here's a cute picture of Shayna in her bathing suit (& Mommy's sunglasses). She's ready to go swimming! I am not, however, because I am 20 lbs from my goal weight. I guess I should start dieting! LOL!












Here is a cool picture that Shayna took of me!
Hahaha! Tomorrow is our first day of My-Gym Terrific Tots Class. We moved up one level because Shayna is over 2 1/2 years old now! We're with the "Big Kids" now!

Oh, and if you're in the Los Angeles area on Monday morning, check out KTLA Channel 5 Morning News @ 8:30 a.m. - Shayna & I might just get on camera when we go to our favorite art studio!

OK... My Bad!

OK... so the whole morning consisted of us trying to get out of the house on time to pick up my brother, Josh, at the Amtrak train station. Shayna was, of course, dilly-dallying, so we told her that we need to leave to pick up Uncle Joshie on the train right now. Little did I know, but the train pulls into the station for about, ohhh... a half a millisecond. One could blink and miss seeing the train altogether. After a great time visiting with my little bro and dropping him off at his hotel, we started to make our way back to the LBZ. Shayna would not stop talking about, "the Train." Where is the train...When are we going to see the Train... the train... the train.... the train.... OMG!

It was then decided for me that I needed to take Shayna to a train... any train! So, for my penance, I had to put her in the stroller and push her in 90 degree heat to the park with the train. We made it there in no time and rode the 1.5 mile $4 ride for exactly 8 minutes. Wow... she was cured... until we saw.... the pony ride.... More penance... when will it end....












So, I took her on the $3 pony ride.... twice! She had a blast riding, "Bucky," and I had a blast watching (& taking photos of her)!
















I guess I would do just about anything for my little angel!

Here is a shot that Mark captured as our little girl (angel) slid down a slide... head first... FYI, she came home with sand in her nose, mouth, & hair....

Ahhh The Sharpie

For the love of G-D, will someone please invent the "childproof" pen cap? Sheesh... how am I supposed to cook dinner or fold laundry or update my Blog?

On Monday, Shayna & I visited with the parents. It was really great to see Shayna playing with her grandparents! We spent the night and woke up the next morning ready to hit the L.A. Zoo with my mom. It was a blast. We became members last month and have already exceeded the $60/year amount that we paid. What a bargain! We've already been to the Santa Ana Zoo twice!

I don't think that I've been to the L.A. Zoo in nearly 2 decades... wow, I'm getting old to be able to say that... Regardlless, it has changed so much! It's now a world class zoo.

If it wasn't for the glare, this picture would've been awesome!


















This one's pretty cool, too! The Chimp put his hand up to Shayna's hand!














The Giraffe exhibit was really neat, too! You could almost reach out and touch them!

Here are more cool photos: