Diego Does Disneyland

We finally just got up and went after talking about it for months. We wanted to go to the happiest place on Earth, yet weekend after weekend it just wasn't happening for us.

This weekend, Diego missed his Tia's (Aunt's) 27th birthday party, but he was there in spirit!

P.S. - Quite frankly my favorite photo is the one taken by my simple point-and-shoot camera, capturing the suspense in his eyes while riding the Snow White Ride. Hahaha!

Spirit

I just finished helping my group decorate our elevator lobby. We do this every year. I work for a large company that has its own campus, and my group happens to be lovers of Halloween (Not me really, I prefer Christmas, but I still love celebrating it!), as well as situated on the ONLY 13th floor of the entire campus.

Thus began an annual decorating event for Halloween that has lasted for 3 or 4 years now. Through the years it has slowly morphed into a corporate expectation for us to "go ALL out" and decorate the entire floor the spookiest we can, then throw a HUGE party on Halloween open to the entire company. Sadly, the big shindig was stopped this year and is being replaced with a more private family-friendly party on the 11th floor. Corporate can stop our yearly 13th floor party, but they can't break our spirit!

We've decided to decorate the lobby in the theme of "Mollie Gravestone's Supermarket", complete with a Deli/chop shop (operated by Mike Meyers), Juice bar (operated by Dr. Kevorkian), Snack Bar (operated by It the Clown), and Day care (where all the demon babies are cared for). I think my favorite prop are those Demon babies.

I like them so much, I decided to turn Diego into one in the picture above. Muahahahaha!

PS. We're not done yet with the decorating. We still need to dim the lights and add the final details like grocery store pricing, name tags, etc. (my group was calling me the Martha Stewart of Halloween; if that's what a perfectionist is called these days, then so-be-it!)

Deli/Chop Shop

Day Care


Juice Bar

Home is where the Pumpkins Patch

After a few weeks of over-planning to go to the Annual Pumpkin Festival in our area, wouldn't you know that it ended up being a cold, wet, and dreary day? In addition to that, my hubby worked in the morning, missing part of our family Sunday time.

He has been working so hard so that we could achieve our goals set for the end of the year. I know he has only good intentions, and that is why Diego and I don't complain about his hectic schedule lately. We know where his heart is. It's in the pumpkin patch...

My Blue Angel and Golden Child

I'm not going to write very much in this post. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• Watching the Blue Angels airshow in San Francisco
• Having the LIVING DAYLIGHT scared out of ourselves when a plane snuck up from behind and scared all of SF residents with a demonstration of sudden G-force and breaking the sound barrier. (see Diego's happy tears photo)
• Diego's first time riding on his dad's shoulders
• Continuing to be a tourist in our own city

Crawling our way there

"Oh no, once he starts crawling you are going to be so stressed! Enjoy him now while he can't go anywhere."

This is advice that many mothers have given me since I became a mother. But Diego's knack for stubborn, unyielding cries to be carried had tested my sanity patience (as well as his previous baby sitter's), and I longed for the day to come that he would be a self-mobile baby.

In my heart and mind, I knew that the cries would be alleviated the more mobile that he became. True enough, things have just gotten better and better (aka, less stressful for me) as he has graduated from rolling, to supported sitting, to scooting, to climbing, and now FINALLY crawling!

Yessiree! You read right. I am over the moon at this latest development which started early this week; a development that at times I was convinced would NEVER happen. I was beginning to believe that he would painfully and slowly grow directly into a biped before my very eyes. Thankfully, I have been blessed with a temporary, figurative quadruped to pass the time instead.

I continue to disregard each and every warning that any mother has ever given me on this topic. On the contrary, just as I knew in my heart, my once-wailing baby has become a smooth-sailing baby whose cries are now few and far between. I am now able to do things without those symphonic background melodies that caused the hairs on my arm to stand. While he's exploring his new sense of freedom, so am I.

Life is good.

Full House and Full Zoo Experience

Continuing my quest for a gazillion pictures before Diego turns one, my husband and I spent our family Sunday being a tourist in our own city and giving Diego his very first, among many future, trip to the San Francisco zoo.

Until now, I have loved my point-and-shoot camera and never saw the need to spend more money for an SLR camera. Don't get me wrong, I understand there is an AMAZING quality difference, but they all seemed so over-priced, hard to learn to use, and (being someone who hates to be weighed down) too bulky to be able to just pop in my purse. I know, I know, I'm just a pile of excuses aren't I?

Thousands of excuses later, all it took was a day with my sister's Nikon D90 camera, and now I am re-thinking my whole stance on the entire topic. It's not only the photo quality that's beginning to turn me, but the video capability as well. I love amateur video-editting; and that is why I am now vying for the Canon EOS 7D. Trying to curb my shopping addiction, I have decided that I will save my monies until December of this year and buy the camera at that point. I'm anticipating a little bonus check from my company to help with my purchase in December. For now, I will continue to borrow my sister's camera and get more used to the features and learn how to take better quality photos. I'll admit that I took these recent photos, treating the camera like a point-and-shoot, but even so I still noticed a difference.

I can't wait until December now. That way I can start the next year off with BANG! (sorry, I'm just a sucker for new tech gadgets since I don't buy them often)

Qori can't do that!

A few weeks back, while I gave my golden retriever my dinner scraps, a bean went down the wrong pipe and in one mighty cough and heave, he chucked the sucker out. From the left, an unexpected hearty chuckle came out of Diego. His laugh was so uninhibited that it made me laugh, for understanding the punchline.

I am amazed at his understanding and ability to find comic relief in so many things. They say that dogs retain at the reasoning level of a 4 year old child for their entire lives, but Mokee has never laughed at Qori for choking on a bean before. You have to understand that prior to Diego, my only mothering skills were those associated with caring for my golden retriever, and my Pomeranian before him. And to this point, I have found so many things to be so similar: The way I talk to him in baby talk, the way I show him affection, the way he needs me to be on top of his feeding schedule, the way he explores his surroundings. Of course my dog never needed diaper changes and to be fed with a spoon, but those are just the details.

Now, he is beginning to do things that are more "human" in nature. These new mannerisms are quite frankly scaring me silly as they are confirming after 8 months that I am a mommy to a human baby boy. I've spent so much time comparing him to my experiences with Qori.

He shredded some papers; Qori always does that. He cries for attention; Qori always does that. He's chewing on his toys; Qori always does that.

Now that he is surpassing Qori's level of development, I feel as if I am entering a new world.

He used his two homo sapien fingers to rip a long sticker off of a pillow; Qori could never do that. He grabbed my purse and started taking things out with his hands; Qori could never do that. He accidentally called his grandmother on my cellphone; Qori could never do that. He laughed at something funny; Qori could never do that.

Just yesterday while I was editing a video blog and Diego was quietly sitting on my lap, I almost forgot he was there. Until he started laughing again. I looked at him, and he was looking at the screen. I had unknowingly freeze-framed on me making a funny face. Each time I moved the frame, leading to yet another funny face, Diego would burst out into laughter again.

Qori could never do that.

But Diego still doesn't crawl or give high-5s. So don't worry Qori, you're still in the running for now!