Paulo's 5th Birthday!

Can you believe my boy is five years old?! I was looking at some of his old photos, and I realized he's losing some of his baby fat. His chubby cheeks aren't so chubby anymore. At least the dimples won't be disappearing along with them.

Paulo has known for a long time that he wanted a space party. He helped me with the invitations and the idea for the space room and everything.

Hunter pulled the space room together with two black light bulbs and lots of glow-in-the-dark star speckled poster boards all over the walls. The kids just went crazy in there running and dancing around to the space music.

In keeping with tradition, I just had to make a special cake to go with the theme of the party. This is my first 3D cake, though. They were just baked in some metal mixing bowls.

Paulo was blowing his hardest and the candles didn't even flicker. Don't you love Andre's face in the background?

Opening presents from all his generous cousins and a few special friends.

My eldest nephew, Elias, finally busted the space shuttle pinata. Are you surprised? Look how tough he is. The twenty cousins immediately swarmed the pile of spilled Milky Way bars, Pop Rocks and other cool candies. It was rather chaotic, but somehow only one child got trampled. Sorry DJ. He's okay, though, don't worry.

What a fun party! I love you, Paulo! My big boy!

White Christmas

It's official. We've left our lovely life in Pasadena to return back home to Utah and begin yet another adventure! Hunter has started his own business named Dyvergent. We now live in Provo in my good mother-in-law's basement.

Christmas was cold and white. The boys didn't seem to mind. They immediately wanted to play in the snow and would often just sit and watch the snow flakes fall. I guess seeing the snow was a big deal to them, especially for my California boy, Andre, who probably doesn't remember when we visited last Christmas.

Charging up the stairs to the Christmas tree.

Digging into the stockings for goodies.

A Christmas orange, in memory of Grandma Mann

Andre's main gift, a set of Bob the Builder die cast vehicles. He opened them one by one. He loves these characters.

Paulo overjoyed to be opening his main gift, his very own space helmet!

The visor opens at the touch of a button, and another button says "Mission control to pilot, all systems are go. Prepare for countdown. 5-4-3-2-1-Blastoff!"

Hunter had the idea to make these space PJs instead of buying the full costume. I just bought a white sweatshirt for both the boys and sewed on the patches that Hunter got from JPL.

I may just have to prepare myself for sending Paulo into space one day. He's quite determined.

Somehow Santa knew my kids get nervous at the doctor's office. This toy medical kit should help with that. ;)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, for the first time in my life, I hosted my own Thanksgiving dinner. We figured since we're moving in a few weeks, we shouldn't spend the money on traveling home for Thanksgiving.

Since there are just five of us, we made a mini feast. We made half recipes of our usual potato casserole and sweet potatoes. We made a nice salad and had stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce. Since I don't know how to cook a turkey, and I prefer chicken anyway, we simply bought a rotisserie chicken from Pavilions. It was so tender, and tasty, and so easy to reheat! :)

The best parts, I think, were Jon's delicious artisan french bread, and his apple pie. We've been so lucky to have Jon stay with us. We eat like kings. In fact we were worried that our Thanksgiving feast would just seem like any other feast we've made, but we were wrong. I feel like we put way more effort into this one. I was in the kitchen the majority of the day. Anyway, it was worth it.

This year I'm very thankful that Heavenly Father's been taking care of our family. I've literally seen example after example of this. Whenever we've had a need, Heavenly Father has provided for us with specific things. Just one example is my dear friend, Corina, who has been so generous to give us clothes for the boys. Just as soon as I would begin to notice the kids needed new sizes, Corina would show up to church with a new bag of clothes for us. And when I've needed a little extra help when things are busy, or when the kids are sick, dear friends have offered to lighten my load in different ways. I'm just very grateful, because I know Heavenly Father knows me personally, and that he answers my prayers--usually through the generous and inspired actions of latter-day "saints".

Halloween 2010

What a fun Halloween we had this year! Both boys were old enough to say "trick-or-treat" and appreciate the costumes. Andre was Bob the Builder, and Paulo insisted on being a ghost. Jon was King Tut....and I am officially tired of sewing costumes until next year. :)

Oh! And for the pumpkins this year, we did something a little different from our usual elaborately sculpted pumpkins. This year the boys designed the jack-o-lantern faces on paper, and Hunter and I carved them out. They both wanted scary faces...hence the squiggly mouth. Cute!

Little Jokesters

We went out to Round Table pizza in South Pasadena the other day, and they had some candy dispensers at the front of the restaurant. Andre immediately noticed that one of the dispensers had these fake mustaches, for only 25 cents! It was perfect, because my boys have been joking about mustaches lately.

So, we got a really big laugh out of these little mustaches, and surprised Uncle Jon when we came home. Hilarious!

Hunter added the "little professor" touch.