Looking forward to more backyard bikini watercoloring this summer!
*****
A few weekends ago my friend and neighbor, Hollie, did a lowcountry boil for her son’s 1st birthday. She’s a Southern gal from Georgia so she’s done a lot of these. I’d heard Paula Deen speak of a boil many times, but had never devoured one myself.
It was SO delish and so casual. You basically just pour it out and eat with your hands! So fun and summery.
Jay found a clam bake (which is similar to the boil) that can be done on the grill.
You had so many adventures on your way to THREE! Spent a lot of time at the local amusement park Bonfante/Gilroy Gardens. Summer concerts. Garlic Festival. Your first gymnastics class with some friends from the neighborhood. You visited Grunc at “Camp Duke” in Yosemite for the first time. More apple picking. Lots of trips to Happy Hollow Zoo with Charlotte. Halloween in South Carolina. Shared Holden’s First Thanksgiving and Christmas. Visited Popsi in Seattle for Easter. Started dance class with your friend, Maya. Enjoyed MANY playdates and visits from family and friends. You celebrated your 3rd birthday with an Afternoon Tea Party with tea sandwiches, Ina Garten’s Herbal Iced Tea and again, your favorite, piggies in a blanket!
On your way to FOUR you continued to amaze us and make us proud. More trips to Gilroy Gardens. Dance classes. Became potty trained and celebrated with Wall-E at the movie theater. More Summer concerts. A day at the local Lake. A trip to the Oregon Coast for cousin Kim’s wedding. A visit to San Diego for Mommy’s 20th high school reunion! Lots of story times at Barnes & Noble. Dim Sum at our favorite China Town restaurant in SF. More apple picking. Annual visit to the Pumpkin Patch with the Coronas. You were a beautiful butterfly for Halloween. A move to Southern Cal in mid-November. Turkey Day in San Diego. The family’s maiden voyage to Disneyland! Celebrated a beautiful Holiday Season in our new house. Met your first friends in Valencia. Started preschool in January. A trip to the Bay Area to visit family and friends. A visit to The Getty. Your first fundraiser walk for Autism Speaks at The Rose Bowl. Again, many playdates with good friends and visits from family! You celebrated turning Four with an Ice Cream Social. We had mini sloppy joe’s, Ranch potato salad, piggies in a blanket, and a build your own ice cream sundae station with sprinkles, mini marshmallows, Fruit Loops, graham cracker crumbs, chocolate syrup and whipped cream EVERYWHERE! It was fabulous!
Your girlfriends and you decided to play dress up at your party and you changed into your cheerleader Halloween costume from 2 years prior!
Your FORTH year also continued to be full of fun and new experiences. A trip to San Diego to help Cousin Dorothy celebrate her 100th birthday. A darling end-of-the-year program at school. A wonderful trip to Wawona, Yosemite with the family to visit Grunc & Jill. Swim lessons. Awesome concerts in the park. Swim play dates. A weekend in San Diego and your first trip to The Corvette Diner. Visiting Mommy and Daddy’s friends in Newport Beach. A road trip with Mommy and Holden to the Bay Area over Labor Day weekend to celebrate two very special birthdays (Charlotte & Baby Finley) and visit cousins Izzy and Samantha. Trips to Santa Monica. The Pumpkin Patch in 100* weather. Your first UCLA football game. You started your last year of preschool with your new teacher Miss Linda. LA Zoo with Lolo & Lola. Second annual family Disneyland trip to kick off the holiday season. San Diego for Turkey Day. Vegas for Daddy’s 40th. The best Christmas Season ever. Karaoke on New Year’s Eve. Viewed Rose Parade Floats. Started dance class again. Second Autism Speaks walk. Miniature golf. Bumper boats. Nature hikes and SO much more.
You love life and enjoy everything you do. You get such nice feedback from Miss Linda and your dance teacher, Miss Vanessa. You are a good friend and a caring sister. You are crafty, smart, curious, funny, silly, spirited, fearless, sensitive, full of energy and we can’t wait to see what adventures you will uncover as you celebrate your way to SIX.
But first…..
tomorrow is YOUR big day!
Guaranteed to be full of tumbles, leaps, cartwheels and jumps as you celebrate turning FIVE!
After dropping Birthday Girl to-be off on this drizzly Thursday morning, my car almost automatically surged directly down Newhall Ranch Road to the drive-thru Starbucks. I don’t know what happened….
Grande Nonfat Caramel Macchiato (with 2 extra pumps vanilla) & a “birthday cake” mini doughnut!
One of the little secrets Holden and I share on our Tuesday & Thursday mornings.
Feeling nostalgic this morning….in more ways than one.
Hope your Thursday is filled with lots of happy memories!
Your First Year was filled with so much…both literally and figuratively. Here are some highlights:
You visited the San Diego County Fair at just a few weeks old. You took your first plane ride at 3 months. You and Rascal kept Mommy company on our drive to Nor Cal (your new home) when you were 5 months old. You were the sweetest Monkey while trick-or-treating in Menlo Park on your First Halloween (also 5 months). You were baptized and celebrated your First Thanksgiving at Lolo & Lola’s house in South Carolina with the whole family at 6 months. Of course your first Christmas, New Year’s, Superbowl, Valentine’s Day, St. Paddy’s Day and Easter were very special. You visited the grumpiest Santa at the SF Zoo, but later saw the “Happy Santa” at the good ‘ol Valley Fair Westfield Mall. You began swim lessons at 10 months and this is where you met your very first girlfriend, Charlotte! You moved into your brand new house in Gilroy at 11 months. I celebrated my very first Mother’s Day with you in beautiful Carmel, but had to get dinner “to go” later that evening because you had the HUGEST blowout in your darling little watermelon outfit (including your watermelon Robeez!) But, it was still one of the most special memories even with the package of wipes that we went through to clean you up in the tailgate of our old white Volvo wagon! Shortly thereafter, you celebrated your First Birthday with a Jungle themed adventure! I had SO much fun planning your bash and I think this is where I went into perpetual “party plannning mode”. Even though we had just moved to the area, you had SO many friends and family there to celebrate with you as you entered your Second year of life. It was a “wild” day and I a still dreaming of your fresh banana cake from one of my all time fave bakeries, Icing On The Cake in downtown Los Gatos. Oh how I miss that place!
Here you are in your cheetah print dress from Auntie Jeannie & Uncle Mark in Boston:
And your gorgeous fresh banana cake:
*****
Your Second Year was also action packed. Here are just some of the highlights…You quickly started meeting lots of fun new friends in your neighborhood (your BFF being, Logan) and by this time you and Charlotte were two peas in a pod and spent Wednesdays together after swimming lessons. You visited the Santa Cruz Boardwalk with your friend William when you were 13 months. You attended your first Gilroy Garlic Festival at 14 months. You flew to Vegas at 17 months to visit Lola & Lola and celebrate my 36th birthday. You did your first “apple picking” at Gizdich Ranch with Logan when you were 18 months old. You celebrated your 2nd Turkey Day and Christmas in your new home along with family. You went to the snow in Lake Tahoe when you were 20 months. However, the biggest milestone of your second year was that when you were 21 months old, you became a Big Sister. I will never forget you waiting (aka running) out in the halls with Gramma when your Baby Brother was born. You came in just minutes later and laid eyes on Holden and you have been a wonderful Big “Sissy” ever since (well maybe despite a couple minor instances!). You were such a patient girl for the first couple months while Mommy and Daddy got the hang of things. You shared your 2nd Birthday weekend with Holden with a back-to-back Baptism and your Western Cowgirl themed rodeo on Memorial Day Weekend 2007. Again, this birthday was filled with MANY new friends, family….and of course, fresh banana cake from Icing On The Cake! We also served mini sloppy joe’s, Auntie Bucky’s Ranch potato salad, Uncle Matt’s baked beans and your favorite, piggies in a blanket for all the little cowboys and cowgirls!
This is one of my favorite pics of you EVER. EVER.:
…and again, the infamous fresh banana cake:
Only 2 more days, my Little Sugar Muffin, and you’ll be FIVE!
Now, off to celebrate with mini bagels & cream cheese at school with your classmates!
I am giving myself a gift in honor of her birthday and reliving the past 60 beautiful months.
“Baby A” was due on Saturday, May 28th, 2005.
The Curious George nursery was bright and welcoming, itsy bitsy Pampers Swaddlers, sensitive wipes & Boudreaux’s Butt-paste were arranged neatly in the little basket at the end of the changing table, gowns and onesies were bathed in Dreft and just waiting for a sweet little body to fill them…we were ready!
On my due date we got “dressed up” (for me that was a super stretchy black dress & some black flip flops!) and went out to a nice dinner ~ what would be our last dinner before becoming a family of three.
We decided on Thai food and went into Hillcrest to Celadon ~ right next to the hospital should my water break while enjoying dinner! We shared spicy curries and pad thai noodles. Jay drank wine and I sucked down not one, but two thai iced teas!
We got home close to 11:00pm and I went straight to bed. The next morning I awoke early and started to feel “some pains” around 7:00am. I started timing and sure enough we were on the 5-1-1 schedule. I timed them for a little over an hour and then we were on our way to Scripp’s Mercy Hospital.
They could not find my pre-registered paperwork so there I was filling it out again while Jay went and parked the car. I went into a triage room to be monitored and was admitted shortly thereafter.
I tried to go all natural, but after getting to 8 cm and being told this was my last chance for an epi, I caved and shortly thereafter had a needle in my back and was able to now enjoy labor and actually talk to those around me.
By 5:00pm I was ready to push and my crotchety old Jewish doctor was hurrying me along because he had two other women down the hall close to delivering, too.
I pushed for an hour and a half before he determined the baby was “sunny side up”. Dr. S wanted to use a vacuum to help with the delivery, but after I said, “Uh….NO you’re not!”, he manually “turned” the baby and by 6:39pm, Elliott Elizabeth Aspiras came into the world!
A baby girl!
6 pounds, 14 ounces and 18.75″ long
Sunday, May 29, 2005
I was thrilled either way, of course, but I now had a little one to dress in pink, ruffles, dresses, sequins, tutus, bows and patent leather mary janes ~ a little girl to LOVE.
After sitting under the bili-light for 8 hours (for jaundice), she was ready to come home:
{Tuesday, May 31st, 2005}
Birthday Countdown: Part II coming tomorrow!
Now, off to get ready to take the little one wrapped in the chickie blanket above to her Kindergarten assessment!
I substitute cucumber and carrots for the apple and jicama…I also use red onion in place of the scallions. This time I used about 5 ounces of udon noodles instead of the spaghetti and it gave it more of an Asian flair!
Yummy warm or cold.
You can also make it as sort of a macaroni salad and use whole wheat macaroni. Super easy and portable in the warmer months since there is no mayo. Add chicken, too for a heartier meal!
Earth Day is coming up next week ~ Thursday, April 22, 2010
Elliott made this at school ~ I think it’s the perfect reminder to follow Jack Johnson’s words:
Reduce * Reuse * Recycle
Doing what we can to sustain Mother Earth for our children.
We recycle LOTS in our household. I love that Elliott knows what can and can’t be recycled. She knows to set aside the plastics and paper goods so we can put them in the blue recycle container. Each week our recycle bin is at least 75% full while our trash bin is at about 25% capacity.
C’mon friends…if you aren’t recycling, please start now.
Remember to bring your reusable bags to the store (I am guilty of not doing this, but am getting better).
Hand down gently used clothing to friends or take to your local thrift shop.
Turn off lights when not in use.
Walk to the store.
Buy organic when possible.
Think about taking the bus or train to work once in awhile. My hubby does…on average 4 times a week.
Don’t let your 3-year old flush the toilet a million times while potty training (I am known as the “Toilet Flushing Nazi”).
Pick up some super cute stainless water bottles for the whole family:
{Monkey cuteness ~ $5 @ Old Navy ~ Thanks, Popsi!}
Oh, and don’t EVEN get me started on littering! That topic gets my blood boiling.
OK, I’m done preaching for now.
No, I don’t drive a hybrid or use cloth diapers, but I do try to make greener decisions and reduce our carbon footprint on a daily basis now more than ever.
I love this song by Jack Johnson. It reminds me of when Elliott was a baby and we lived in that tiny apartment in Sunnyvale. The Easter Bunny got her the CD from the Curious George movie and we would listen to it in my old Volvo wagon religiously! Isn’t it cool how songs can take you back to a certain time in your life? It’s fun to listen and reminisce about times gone by. Remembering 4 years ago…when she was just about 10 months old.
All the more reason to start being “green” now ~ time goes by too fast and it’s NEVER to early to reduce, reuse and recycle!
