Foto Friday...Mateo

This past weekend we were invited to baby Mateo's baptism/1-st birthday party. I have had Mateo as a guest on my blog before at a much younger age, but he is one of those baby's that I've also been taking pictures of since he was born.  So I had the the opportunity to take a few pictures of him at his party while he was still in a good mood, and I wanted to share those with you today. It was a warm day and this little guy really did well considering all the commotion happening around him. 

His mom, Nana, says you'll know if Mateo doesn't like you right away because he won't smile or even look at you, but I was lucky enough to have him at least look at me and occasionally smile big for me as I caught these pictures even as he sat upclose on my lap.

I have a thing about shoes!

Angie is Mateo's Auntie, and you should recognize Angie from some of my past Foto Friday posts and who always has her own amazing homemade parties. So knowing her they probably made these beautiful table centerpieces themselves.  I loved the colors and the set up...always perfect for the occasion. And speaking of perfect, Angie, Nana and friends came up with an even more incredible dessert table theme to match Mateo's already favorite TV character- Sponge Bob! And they made themselves an incredible version of a Bikini Bottom dessert land with all home made desserts of course. I loved this pineapple fruit island!!

 

 

 

Mateo's family went all out to make this a special celebration (as this family usually does), and  they had some fun balloon structures as extra decorations. Always inspiring, and they truly know how to throw a party. It was all too cute!

It was a wonderful party as would be expected, and we had a really nice afternoon. Taking his pictures was just an added bonus. Mateo was such a good sport for me, and also so curious about this camera thing pointing at him, lol.


Thank you Nana and family for letting us share in his special day. 



Thank you all for stopping by!


From my corner to yours...Have a great Memorial Day Weekend!!

XO

Grad Night...just for Danny!

Danny is in 8th grade and graduating from middle school in less than 3 weeks, so one of the privileges that 8th graders get to go to is the middle school version of Grad Night which is going to Magic Mountain on May 16th. However, to make it an incentive the students are only eligible to go if they have good grades and no disciplinary issues or 'U's on their report card. Ok fair enough, Danny has been working really hard all year and has had amazing success so he well deserved to go to this event.

So we had been planning on letting Danny go on his own (parents were not allowed to go) even though it would have been the first time he'd ever attend a field trip like this and to an amusement park he's never been to boot. A little lot scary for us as his parents not knowing exactly how he would handle a park like that on his own, but we figured if he went with the few friends he's developed this year, he would be ok. However, the 3 friends he was planning on going with were either not going or not eligible to go. So For many reasons we just felt it wasn't safe to do by himself, and he just wasn't going to get to go to Grad Night with his school.


But as luck would have it, we were fortunate enough to find an alternative that worked out better than we could ever have hoped for.

By the grace of God, I happened to find out that AAA was having a 'Members Only Night' on May 9th from 6pm- 12 am and this tickets were incredibly discounted. OMG!! I couldn't believe it!
This was it- a week before his actual Grad Night- it was perfect! So we made plans to take Danny to Magic Mountain as a family (Jerry unfortunately had to work) along with a couple of friends for him to go with and we gave him our own version of Grad Night!!

 

 He was soo excited to be able to go and his friend Andrew was so grateful that we

 were taking him with us. They were ready for a great night.

 We stopped off at In-N-Out to eat a full meal (for a decent price!) before we got to the park.

This place always hits the spot!

 Almost there...

 Andrew couldn't wait to get inside since he knows the park backwards and forwards. 

He was a great tour guide.

We were going to start off slow, with some easy rides first just to see how Danny, Mikey and Zack would do since they've never been on these rides. And honestly I think the last time I had been to Magic Mountain was before Chris was born...oh gosh, a really long time ago!
So I wasn't sure how my stomach was going to handle it either.

Ninja was the first ride we went on and it was soo much fun. It definitely got us ready for the next ones, and Christian mentioned how he never knew just how much I could scream.

LOL!

 Danny was even more excited when he realized that they had a a DC Nation section of the park. 

He loves DC Comics and this section had all of his favorite characters.

 Danny shocked me completely. The kid was taking Andrew's lead and was proving to have
 nerves of steel (no pun intended, hehe). He got on the loop rides, standing/going backward rides, 

even this 'going-in-circles-to-make-you-sick' ride without a hitch. I was so proud of him
and happy that he was fully taking advantage of this night and hoping that it would live up to the 

grad night he was technically missing out on.

 So Mikey and Zach, being a lot younger, were not quite ready to hit the big thrill seeking rides, 

so I would wait with them outside while Chris would go with Danny and Andrew on these rides.

To be honest, I was happy to have these few breaks in between because

my stomach was not sure what it was feeling or what it wanted to do after the first few rides
(I told you), so I wasn't going to push it...so we took selfies instead. ;)

 

One of the most wonderful things about this AAA Members Only Night,
and that really made it worth it (for me) was the fact that the lines for the rides were
 basically non-existent! On some rides we would walk right up and I think the
 longest we waited fort the boys was about 30 minutes outside of Goliath. 

Short lines are the best way to get through a theme park!

 These two were having soo much fun. They're friendship is relatively new but
they were totally bonding that day on a new level and were excited to share this experience together.
Andrew is very much the extrovert, which Danny is not so I appreciate Andrew for helping
Danny come out of his shell a little bit to have this much fun. 

So one of the rides I was looking forward to riding was Lex Luthor's Drop of Doom. For all of you 80's kids like me, we used to know it as Free Fall. It is a 40 story high, 400 ft drop of hell. 

So the picture to the left is a google pic, but I wanted to give you perspective of what the ride looks like. Why I wanted to do this to myself at the moment? I'm not sure anymore.

It was evening time already, and Danny and Andrew above were totally pysched and went on this with me. However, as soon as we got hitched into our seats, I realized that for the first time Danny had gotten second thoughts, and out of his own volition he felt it necessary to do the sign of the cross over himself and had me do it too. LOL! I think the reality of what a possible mishap on this ride could mean for all of us had hit him, and he felt the need to get himself some holy insurance from above that we'd be ok. Gosh I  love this kid, he was too cute!

Anyway, we got to the top (beautiful view btw), but it was just way to high and the cart starts swaying before the drop!! Lets just say that there is nothing like that adrenaline rush, and we got down ok, but Danny had decided he was never getting on that again! And that's ok with me!

 

 

  After that we decided to skip of few of the other big rides, as we were getting tired but we 

ended the evening by riding Ninja 3 times in a row while Chris and Andrew got on Full Throttle 

to finish up the night on a high. The kids had all gotten these cool capes and had ice cream

for a nightcap and we said goodbye to Magic Mountain around 11:30pm.

We were all exhausted especially after a full day of school and then a full night of fun, but the kids kept saying what an awesome time they had had. Danny was especially grateful that we had done this for him and that he would never forget Magic Mountain. Aww...that's all we ever wanted for him and so grateful that we found a way to make this happen for Danny. He soo deserved to have a Grad Night just how wanted it and he got just that!

And why not throw in a little plug for AAA! Thank you for all your services and for having a day like this for your members just when we needed one at such a great price!!

I'm sure we'll go back soon knowing that its definitely something he and the boys can handle, 

but the memories I have of Danny enjoying his own grad night are priceless. 

Danny We Love You and are soo happy you had a great time!

From my corner to yours...Thanks for stopping by!

We do...

I was catching up last week on some blogs I read, and one of them is always Ali Edwards' blog.  A few weeks ago she had this post called 'We Do' where she describes values that she wants to pass on by example to her family and that she felt important enough to write down as a family manifesto of sorts. I really liked that idea, so as I read it, it made me wonder what 'We do' as a family that I would consider being our set of values I would like to pass on to our boys, and I've been slowly writing them down over the last few days.

Here are a "few" I came up with, but I know I will be either adding or changing this list as I continue to think about it some more so.

In our family...

We do Religion. Its a priority- church on Sundays, its a given. We love that the boys know that God is part of their lives this way.

We do Prayer and gratitude. We always give thanks at every meal and never take for granted that we are together, that we have food on the table and a safe warm place to sleep. We are always thankful!

We do grandparent/family time. Our boys our have been lucky enough to have Jerry's parents and my mom and my aunt as loving grandparents in their lives to share their time with, and a big family of Tios and cousins so we make sure we see them as often as possible. 

We do birthdays. each one is special and the entire family celebrates each one- cousins, aunts/uncles young and us older ones too. 

We do creativity. We encourage and praise each others talents be it through song writing, pictures, voices, baking, music playing, drawing and we encourage each other to practice and to love what we do. 

We do music.  It is an important part of our family- through the vibrations that come from multiple instruments playing in our garage, to singing, to the keys on our piano and even through our own headphones. Music is always alive here. 

We do outside too. Some of more than others- some of us walk, some of us ride bikes, we play in our backyard, and we are exploring our community and what it has to offers us. Oh and lets not forget we love the beach! 

We do friendships. They don't all live near but we make it a point to get together as much as possible. 

We do learning. We always expect the best out of ourselves, we learn to the best of our abilities and 

we push and encourage to put out the best effort we can do...and then expect a little more. There is always room for improvement. 

We do housework.  We help out when we are asked and even when we're not. Our house is not perfectly kept up, but this is our home and everyone is expected to keep it in order as best as possible. 

We do please and Thank you's. With everyone and everywhere, but especially amongst ourselves. Politeness is never an overdo even with family. 

We do food. We are foodies and love to eat! We love to eat at home and enjoy a special meal out every week, but I love that the boys appreciate when I recreate their favorite foods at home. 

We do silly. There is always a time to let loose and we let each other be who we are. 

We do surprises. We love to surprise and get surprised and have special ways to deliver said surprises. There is no peaking in this house. 

We do communication. Its been the corner stone to our marriage and to our family. We do not always agree on things, and we definitely have our arguments, but we also have learned to give each other time to calm down, and then learn to communicate, to safely speak our minds and talk things out. 

We do 'I love You's.' To our loved ones, friends and family members, but more importantly to each other. One of the things I cherish the most is hearing the boys tell each other they love each other without hesitation or embarrassment.

....
That is is our list for now. Like I said, it may change and I may add to it, but it was worth writing down to make them visible. Its a reminder of what not to lose sight of to keep our family close.

Have you ever thought of what your family list of "We Do's" are? Food for thought, right?
It's been a really nice exercise for me so I encourage you to explore this idea for you and your family.

From my corner to yours...Have a wonderful week!