Going places

I booked my flight today. Where to you ask? No, unfortunately I'm not going to Europe for a month (oh the envy) like my friends K and D (yes, the ones that just threw a monster birthday party), but I will be going to California in late September to go visit my friend Jenny.

Although I am only "allowed" to go for four days, I am quite excited about the trip. We will be scampering all over L.A. checking out the sites. I told her I want to go on a cheesy homes of the stars tour or perhaps a taping of a TV show. Although I've been to L.A. twice before I've never really done something of that nature.

Of course the requisite trip to Disneyland is also in the planning (it will be my 3rd time there!) as is a trip to Six Flags and Knott's Berry Scary Farm (I'm particularly excited about this one since she says it's better than Halloween Horror Nights...I can't even imagine that) and whatever else we feel like doing. Oh, did I mention that C is staying with his dad?...yes, yes, very important detail.

Well, in honor of my trip across the country, I want to share with you a fun little tidbit I found. It's a handy-dandy little map that let's you keep track of all the states you've been to. There's also one for countries, but I didn't do that one because if you think my state one is pathetic, my country one is worse (6 countries). The states that are red are the ones that I've been to (or driven through). I would like to eventually visit every single state and fill up the chart...OK, you can stop laughing now, only 37 more to go. That Hawaii one looks especially inviting.




create your own visited states map

Double birthday weekend

This past weekend featured two birthday celebrations.

On Saturday night we celebrated Adrian's 31st birthday. The fabulous four were all there, but unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of all of them siting together because I forgot. Although, even if I had remembered, I don't think they would've sat still long enough to take the picture. There were much more exciting things to do such as dancing and climbing on tables (what kind of party was this Claudia?) to be wasting time sitting down.

Then on Sunday we went to a Izabella's first birthday party. K and D sure know how to throw a party. I get exhausted just by thinking about putting something together like that. There was a playground, a train, a bounce house, and a clown doing party games, face painting and balloon animals. What fun! Unfortunately Chris was sleeping for the first half of the party, so he didn't get to go on the train, but he did go in the bounce house though! R actually got him to unlatch from his kung-fu death grip and bounce around and relax a little, but he still wasn't fascinated with the whole experience.

The party was great fun, but I think I enjoy the birthday parties more than he does. Too bad there wasn't a piñata though...I've got to practice my candy swiping techniques for the next party.

Hot piece of prime rib man meat

Oh sorry, did I get a little carried away with the title there?

On Friday I went to the Chayanne concert at the AA (that's American Airlines, not Alcoholics Anonymous) Arena with my mom. I had a good ol' time dancing, screaming my head off, drooling and singing at the top of my lungs. What a hottie!

If you'll recall, he's one of the players (#14) on my Dream Team (hmm, that reminds me...I just thought of someone else that I forgot to add to my list...I'm hopeless I tell you), so there were many many many pictures taken. I had floor seats too, so you can actually see him in the pictures since he didn't come out the size of an ant. 'll try to put them up on Flickr tomorrow so that I don't overcrowd this post with them. Unfortunately they did come out a little blurry though because:

a) Mr. hot cheeks was dancing and moving around too much and

b) the "event staff" dude wouldn't let me go down the aisle to take pictures, so I had to do it quickly and incognito thus sacrificing picture quality

I had such a great time that I was considering going to see him again in June (at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel) that is until I saw how much the tickets were ($150 a pop). I'll pay that much to see Eddie Vedder (Dream Team player #15), but no one else is worth that much to me; especially not a repeat performance. $150 Dollars per ticket?? That is some really expensive man-meat. I'd expect a lap dance performance for that price.

Hey you over there, it's your turn to get a lap dance!

Issues of the dietary kind

Yesterday C had his 18 month check up with the pediatrician. He's 32.5" tall (50th percentile wow!), but he weighed in at only 21.5 lbs (5th percentile boo), so the doc was concerned that his weight had gone down. I'm not sure if it's because he was a little sick last week or what, but I promise, we do feed him.

She told us that we were going about it all wrong and told us to make some feeding changes such as:
-give him three six ounce bottles instead of two 10 ounce bottles.
-better yet, get rid of the bottles and use sippy cups exclusively
-no snacks between meals
-he must eat meals together with the rest of the family (not realistic because R works late, I eat late, C eats early)
-do not puree his food (we puree it because he only has 8 teeth, so he's not the best chewer in the world, so he takes FOREVER to eat just one bite).
-put the food on his high chair tray and let him feed himself, even if he makes a mess (not realistic, he usually throws the food, or ignores it completely).
-do not force him to eat, let him eat whatever he wants

In theory these things sound wonderful and dandy, but in practice it's another story. I don't see how he's going to eat more food with these changes. Perhaps if he has less milk and no snacks it will make him more hungry for meal times, but as far as letting him feed himself, all the food will end up in his hair, on the floor, or on his shirt. Whereas if we puree it, he generally eats it all and it only takes about 30 minutes to feed him. The downside of that is that it is usually a battle to get him to eat it all. From the first bite, he starts to nod his head no and closing his mouth real tight, before he's even tried it. We usually have to pile up about a million toys on his high chair to distract him enough to sneak the food in his mouth. Sometimes, that doesn't even work and I tend to lose my patience and let's just say, I hate meal time.

I told the Dr. that I would try to do what she said, but that I would come back in two weeks and have him weighed again to make sure he's not losing even more weight.

Tonight was my first attempt at "Operation feed yourself".

I put the (un-pureed) food on his tray, he started nodding no. I tried to keep a positive attitude the whole time and not lose my patience with him. I pretended like I didn't care whether he ate it or threw it. He ignored the food. I ended up having to feed him myself with the spoon. Once in a while he would pick something from the tray and eat it; that's a start I guess. He spit out the fish and the potatoes (see, if it's pureed, it's mixed in all together so he can't pull this little stunt). He only wanted to eat the pasta, so I had to hide the fish and potatoes under the noodles and feed him with the spoon. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. He also didn't want the pears (he usually loves his pureed fruit no matter what it is). The good thing is that he ate 80% of the food, the bad thing is that it took over an hour. OVER AN HOUR! He did eat some of the food on his own off of the tray, but for the most part I had to feed him with the spoon because he didn't really care enough about it to feed himself.

I hate to compare, but I see other kids his age eating and they practically devour their food as if they haven't eaten in days. Chris looks at it and couldn't care less...bleh. I really don't know what to do anymore. What can I feed him that has lots of calories and will help him put some weight on? Does what the dr says make sense? What did/do you do with your toddler?

Anyway, speaking of food here are some pictures from the picnic last Sunday. He didn't go in the bounce house, but he did have a great time playing in the sand box and was fascinated by the trees.

Say what?

This weekend we went to a company family picnic, but of course, I haven't uploaded the pictures, so in the meantime I will distract you with Christian's ever growing vocabulary. It's been about a month since I last posted some words; here are ten more that (I've remembered) he's picked up since then:

Shai = slide (which inevitably always causes me to break into a verse of too shy shy, hush hush eye to eye)
Pam= pan = bread
Papom = popcorn
offa = giraffa = giraffe
onva/odva = adonde va = where are you going?
ayta = ayi esta = there it/he/she is
cay = cake
baba = bye bye
apo = apple
chee = cheese (he LOVES to eat cheese, so he quite conveniently learned this word really quickly)

Can I get a witness

Ha ha! Now I don't need a witness because I managed to capture Cman on film saying "Ba-Ba" (Bye bye). I also managed to figure out the you tube thing (insert collective internet groan), so there will be lotsa fun video postings from now on.

I apologize for the crappy video image though. I took it with my old digital camera since that was the only one available at the time.

I still have to figure out the you tube thing when uploading from my video camera though. Just wait till I figure that one out and then you're all doomed to sit through home video hell. (Insert Dr. Evil laugh here).

Notice he's also trying to feed himself. I was trying to feed him, but he kept nodding his head (no no no), so I just gave up and gave him the spoon. Too bad the picture sucks...otherwise you'd be able to see that he's wearing most of the food.

Birthdays, Bunnies and Baskets

I am happy to report that this year's Easter celebration was definitely better than last years. There wasn't a runny nose in the house, well, except for mine when I found out that I wasn't going to get an Easter basket this year, but I'm getting ahead of myself though.

On Saturday, we went to Ryan's 6th birthday party. There was much ball kicking, chasing, grabbing and hogging going on between the toddler trio. There was a bounce house too, but Cman still hates them, so I went inside with him. He sat on my lap the whole time and didn't budge. The kamikaze piñata beating was tons of fun for the big kids, but Chris was a bit overwhelmed by all the commotion, so he decided to sit back and watch from a distance instead (he's a bit antisocial...he must get that from his father). The cake was very yummy, so much so that it prompted him to say a new word "Cay" (cake). He also said "baba" (bye bye) although no witnesses have come forward to confirm this.

On Sunday morning, Chris enjoyed opening up the Easter basket that mom and dad gave him. He didn't like the faux grass too much since it was sticking to his fingers, but other than that, he loved the loot. The first thing he grabbed for was the Buenas Noches Luna book, quickly followed by the Fuzzy Animals book and the Pat the Cat book (do you think he likes books?). He also got 3 little cars, a Spongebob toy, and a fuzzy peep that peeps when you put it in your hand.

This talking peep freaked him out a bit, so he tossed the peep across the room when it started making noises. Look Christian! A fuzzy peep! Look, put it in your hand and it will make little noises peep peep No, don't thro......peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!!! Thud.

He got a cute little bunny rabbit dressed as a pirate which I named Roger (you know, like Jolly Roger), but R rolled his eyes at me when I picked the name. I didn't get why he was doing that until a couple of hours later when I exclaimed "Oh my God, Roger Rabbit!".

The basket loot also included some playdoh so Chris can eat it experiment with it later. I haven't opened it yet, in fear of what he may do with it though. Thank God we don't have carpet, but he may try to feed it to the dog.

After the flying peep show (that sounds dirty and acrobatic), we got ready to go to the Egg Hunt at Brandon's house. I actually made a cake (believe it or not) and it looked very lovely if I do say so myself. I don't know that the taste was on par with the appearance, but hey, I tried. That is my first cake ever (and hopefully your last too Claudia)!

Christian had fun at the egg hunt, but I think I had more fun since I was the only adult picking eggs up. I tried getting Cman to do it, but it just wasn't happening. He would find an egg, pick it up and then throw it on the ground causing all of the contents of said egg to go flying everywhere. The times he didn't throw the eggs, I would try to convince him to put them in the basket, but he just wanted to hold them in his hands or sit and spin them on the ground (he has an obsession with spinning things...a tale for another post). Every time he put an egg down, he would lose it to another more astute child who would come by and swipe it from him. I managed to get 10 eggs for his basket, but he managed to lose half in the process. After the egg hunt we tried to get all the kids to sit together for a picture, but that was alot like herding butterflies. When one would sit, the other would leave. If they were all there, then one was crying (guess who?). Yeah, this is as good as it got with all of them being in the picture.

Afterwards, all the kids went inside to check out their loot from the hunt and although Sophie only got 2 eggs (alot like Christian except that her mom wasn't wrestling the other children for more precious eggs...must have more eggs), she ended up winning the prize egg! She looked so adorable with her little sunglasses and pig tails. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of Christian wearing his bunny ears this year, but he did look great in his Carlton Banks outfit.

Cman had a great time playing with all his little friends and checking out his Easter goodies. Yes, this definitely beats having an ear infection, although I do think he's coming down with a cold (alright, who brought the sick kid to the egg hunt?)

Let's hope...

Christian has a better Easter this year.
My poor baby was very sick with an ear infection last year and did not enjoy it one bit.

We are planning on going to an egg hunt/brunch on Sunday and I am planning on making an Easter basket cake. Notice the emphasis on "planning".

Tomorrow we're going to a birthday party (Yay! We love birthday parties), so this weekend promises to be chock full of excitement (and yummy sugary calories).

I will (of course) post the cake-faced, bunny-eared pictures next week.

Happy Easter!

The Dream Team

Last week I had a dream that my grandmother was throwing a magnificent party at her house and all these celebrities were there (but of course!). Nevermind that she lives in El Salvador. For some reason, I don't think ES is in the top 10 list of celebrity party spots, but humor me here for a sec will you?

I dreamt that Angelina Jolie was there with Brad and that she propositioned me and took me into an empty bedroom (wait, it gets even more interesting). Upon seeing this, the Bradster got pissed off and left, but that didn't stop her from making out with me.

Once in the bedroom, I noticed that we weren't alone. Ewan Macgregor and Wentworth Miller were also there in various states of undress. It appears that they wanted to join in on the fun as well (foursome!...now we're talking). They were pretending to be all into me and stuff, but I knew that the real reason they were there was to see Angelina naked and to try to have sex with her, but I guess they figured they had to go through her ugly less attractive friend first.

And then I woke up.

I don't know what the purpose of that dream was, but it sure sucks to be the ugly friend and to wake up before the dream gets good. Don't you hate it when that happens? I know I've been guilty of trying to go back to sleep so I can "continue" my dream where it left of, but unfortunately it never works.

I had been trying to analyze my dream and trying to figure out why those two men were the ones that popped up in the bedroom. I mean, I know why Wentworth (yes, we're on a first name basis you know) was there (cause I love Prison Break...and he's freakin' hot), but I don't know why Ewan was there? I mean, he's cute and all, but not necessarily one of my favorites or anything (oh and nevermind the Angelina Jolie thing...that's a whole 'nother can of worms). Anyway, I never really figured it out, so I let it go and forgot all about it.

Today, I was looking through my bookmarked websites (to delete old stuff etc) and I found this blog post from A Mom's archives that I had saved and it all made sense. Well, some of it anyway. I remembered that I had bookmarked that entry because I thought it was neat that 4 out of the 5 dudes on her list were also on mine. I saved it because I was going to blog about the hot men some day and share my own list of 5. I totally forgot about it, but it appears that my subconscious didn't. Ewan and Wentworth paid me a visit to remind me.

So I started thinking...OK Claudia, who are your top 5?...Can you really narrow it down to 5? And if so, do you remember their names? (I'm bad with celebrity names...my descriptions of people usually begin with.."you know that guy from that show?...hello, he co-stars with that woman..the one with the teeth and the smile")...and why the heck did Amanda's comment have to remind you of two more men to add to the list? and why does she always have to like the same guys you do?....and why are you talking to yourself? Perhaps you need a psychiatric evaluation? No I don't! Yes you do! No I don't! Yes you do!

While two of my identities continue their argument, the third will present you with our my Top 5, 10, 15 list. Oddly enough, I couldn't limit myself to 5 (anyone that's ever gone to school with me will tell you that I've apparently had that problem for a long time now). I think I have enough guys for a basketball team here.

Anyway, behold the yummy goodness (in no particular order):



Here are the names of the stud muffins you see pictured above: Cary Elwes, Brendan Fraser, Matthew McConaughey, Wentworth Miller, Johnny Depp, Dermot Mulroney, Mark Ruffalo, Julian McMahon, Hugh Jackman, Tobey Maguire, Ryan Merriman, Paul Rudd, Chayanne and last, but certainly not least, Eddie Vedder.

I noticed that I tend to like dudes with big foreheads...I noticed it because by the time I was done uploading all the pictures, they all started looking the same to me.

Who are your top 5 (or 15)? Although, I'm sure my list probably includes everybody else's top 5. Ha ha.

(and no Amanda, you don't have to comment again since you commented on Tere's blog, plus, I'm afraid that you'll come up with another one that I had forgotten about and then I'll have to change the title of my post to Top 16. And no, don't even try mentioning Jonathan Knight because I haven't seen him in a long time, so he may not be cute anymore).

Thanks to Tere (and her original post) for providing me with blog fodder and interesting dreams.

Dad's Birthday Weekend (new and improved with pictures!)

Yesterday was my Dad's birthday so we had a BBQ at my parents house. Yes, I have the parental birthdays really stacked together here. As if that weren't enough, my mother-in-law's birthday is tomorrow!

Chris was a little shy with all the extra attention at first, but eventually got used to all the ladies pinching his cheeks.

In other news...

Boohoo the fair ended yesterday and I didn't get to go another time like I wanted to. Then again, I was kind of tired.

On Saturday, I took Chris to play with Sophia. She's so cute and she's gotten so big! I especially loved the little pink Crocs she was wearing (Chris has a pair of those too, but he can't seem to get the hang of walking in them. When I put them on him, he stands still like he doesn't know what to do and then he sits down and takes them off). They had a good time taking toys away from each other and drinking from each other's sippy cups.

That same day in the evening, I went to the late late late movie with Cristy and Ayleen and we also drank from each other's sippy cups. Ok, no we didn't, but we did share sodas and popcorn. We went to the midnight showing of "I think I love my wife" because that was the only time I could go that day (R was working late). You know you're getting old when you call your friend to see if she's ready for you to pick her up and she's taking a nap so that she won't fall asleep at the late movie. You call your other friend and she's got her alarm clock set to wake her up so that she won't fall asleep before the late movie. Yes folks, I have geriatric friends.