All the days of Christmas

Notes from Santa... 

Christmas is always magical for us B's. We enjoy the whole season, get our decorations up as quickly as possible and celebrate everyday.
Over the past few years, we've slowly moved our kids and ourselves away from the shamefully now normal excitement of "getting, gimme, more" and encouraged feelings of "I have enough, what can we give?". It's hard to instill in kids especially when all around them there are examples of excess. We work hard at it though, molding kind, generous, contributing citizens of the world.
This year, we counted down our excitement to Christmas day with a family activity advent calendar. Each morning, the kids opened up the activity for the day. Some were silly (make "snowman soup" aka hot chocolate with marshmallows), some to teach lessons (pick out a brand new toy that you'd really like for yourself, then donate it to the children's hospital), some to make sure we did traditional things of the season (hang mistletoe and sing I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus).
It was an inspired activity and we started off strong. As the month wore on though, our commitment list grew longer and longer. With so many birthdays and parties and holidays in December, by the 13th I felt like a crazy person trying to add yet one more thing to do every day.
Then Mr. B brought it all back home for me after I was stressing completing 3 days worth of activities in one night... He said that it was a great idea and that we were having fun when we did things that were a part of the advent calendar. We were also having fun doing all the other things populating our schedules that weren't on the calendar. Stressing about it was taking away the joy of it. So right then and there, I re-embraced the relaxed, chill, qué sera sera attitude that we had agreed would see us though the season, heck, through life.

Ms. Hea Bug

Don't mind his grumpy face... It's hard to sit by your stuff and not open it cuz mom is taking a picture. lol.

Stuff happens. Things come up. When you're surrounded by people that you live and adore though, it doesn't seem to matter so much. I know what I have and what is important. We didn't accomplish every activity but we did a whole lot of them, together.

We enjoyed Christmas close to home setting out a ginormous cookie for Mr. C. JT wrote an awesome letter offering up Mr. B's Red Bulls and Diet Cokes if he wasn't satisfied with milk. We bid farewell to our Elf on the Shelf, Blue Berry Angus. We woke to french toast casserole and a morning of "one at a time gift opening". The kids were so excited with their treasures. We made the rounds visiting our family and enjoyed a delicious day. We were so happy to spend yet another amazing Christmas in each other's company. This marks 13 that Mr. B and I have spent together... way back since '99. Love him, love my kids, love all the this holiday stands for.

Wishing your family a very Merry Christmas too... Love, Us B's

Awards for the Boy Bug!

Only a far away pic since he was anxious to get back to the playground...

SO proud of JT! We were invited to attend the 1st trimester, 1st grade awards at our Amazing charter school. JT received an award for perfect attendance and the Mathematician award!
I obnoxiously cheered for him (even though we were supposed to be quiet until the appointed clapping time... um way lame) and for the other kids that I knew who they were.
There was a reception directly after in the library. We waited in the line for a bit but as we got closer saw that there was lemonade and nachos. While I personally am a liquid cheese fan, I knew JT would enjoy the pizza packed in his lunch more. So we said goodbye and watches him run off toward the handball court... Or lunch benches.

Rock Steady: The 3 hour Christmas tour

Mr B and I hosted our Rock Steady Christmas party on the Pacific Spirit. A 65ft boat out of San Pedro, Ports'O Call. Friends we've made thanks to the work and believers of the Rock Steady dream joined us for a 3 hour tour lol.
The ship included a fiesta buffet and unlimited margaritas.

My friend Cakestina made 75 chocolate and vanilla cake pops and also handled decorating the boat for us. It was fabulous! The treats and decór as well as not having to handle it and knowing it would come out perfectly. It was chilly but we all had a great time. One of our friends, Coach Fred, works in the harbor and instructed our captain where to take us while pointing out cool things and awesome facts. One of our guys thought we'd hired a tour guide for the evening, haha!

As in so many aspects of our lives, we are truly blessed to have our business surrounded by awesome people who continuously make us look good.
Thank you. You know who you are!

JT rocked his 7th birthday

Saturday, we celebrated JT's 7th birthday. I cannot believe that he is this old. And only going to get older.

Months ago (yes months. i'm crazy, we've covered this already) when I asked JT where he'd like to have his birthday he said... Yosemite. I'm not that crazy.

I told him it probably wouldn't work because there will probably be snow and seeing how most of his pals are from Long Beach, not everyone has snow shoes.

We looked into doing a party at the batting cages where he hits once a week, On Deck but decided to go to the Rock Gym in Signal Hill. We went there for our niece's birthday a few years ago and knew we'd have fun.

Breeze whipped up some super cute invites on photo shop and thanks to the clever ideas on One Charming Party we assembled 30 (just in case) small reusable bags, filling them with Pop Rocks, Rock Candy, Bouncing Rock Balls, (play)compass caribeners, Rock Star tattoos and decorated them (well wrote in sharpie but whatever) "Friends Rock".
Cakestina handled the 4 dozen cupcakes and 5in cake for the top. So yummy and SO cute! She's the bomb! I knew there might be some friends with allergies so we also made some yummadocious vegan rice krispie treat! Delish!

 

Side note: I use a lot of exclamation points, especially when talking about food. Hmm.

As I mentioned in my post about the gymnastics holiday show... I originally thought the show and his party were going to be on the same day so when I booked the party, I had to choose the 2pm time slot. I knew there was a chance of there being a party before us but when we headed over an hour early and were told that the current party wouldn't be done until 2pm I have to admit I was temporarily worried and miffed. Then I decided I could either be a jerk parent to the staff (which by the way turned out to be JUST ONE person!!) and be stressed in the process or I could roll with the punches, realize that nothing I did or who I yelled at would change the situation, and enjoy the tons of people that turned out to celebrate our JT!
It took forever to get the kids all strapped up in their safety/climbing harnesses but the just ran around the gym. We had a lot of awesome parents that were willing to belay our little climbers. After all the waivers were turned it, we had about 34 climbers! That's nuts. JT knows too many people, haha! They played, munched on apples, pretzels, granola bars (ALL individually wrapped because it's cold season, they're kids, and Mr. B is faux-c-d about communal food lol.) and little waters. We sang happy birthday and the playing continued.
We had a great time despite the chaos and JT felt so loved and celebrated!
The Booth Bugs were exhausted and so we missed a party that we were supposed to attend that evening :( (so sorry again) but we grabbed some dinner at Golden Eagle, a burgers and breakfast all day kind of spot there in Signal Hill.
When we got home, after a shower JT opened his birthday presents. He was so cute at his overwhelming appreciation for his gifts. I love to see that.
On the morning of his actual 7th birthday, we had balloons strung throughout the house. On each one was a special message written in dry erase marker. They led to kitchen for a breakfast of Belgian waffles on happy birthday plates. Me B and I picked him up for lunch and went to John's for shakes and pancakes for lunch then after passing out treat bags (school supplies, glow sticks, silly straws and pixie sticks) to his classmates we went to Sushi for dinner. All his picks. Ahh, we've raised him well!
JT has enriched our life. He amazes us and fills our house with laughter. He is strong, kind, socially aware, responsible, courageous, bright, athletic, and energetic! We love you so much bug. Being your parent is a privilege and a joy.

Happy Birthday to... Breeze

Beautiful Breezer,
Aging has made you cooler,
Birthdays suit you well.

We can't even say how much we love her. She's my person. You know, the person you'd call. The person that would laugh at your most embarrassing moments and then swear never to reveal them to another soul.

The person that will tell you stories while your in the car because your parents said you weren't driving far enough to watch Kung Fu Panda... not the short lame kind, the long, complicated, intricate, awesome, drawn out kind. The person that won't tell your wife if you were playing on the xbox. The person that will tell you the truth when you ask for it. The person that won't pass judgement, ever.
She's trustworthy and kind. Sarcastic and random. Fierce and loyal. She snorts when she laughs, that honest and awesome kinds of laugh. She gets my crazy, and that's a whole lot of crazy. She understands and embraces the faux-c-d tendencies I've passed on to her.

She's the actual best.

in the world.

no lie.


We celebrated her and JT with a trip to Disneyland (Thank You Fiebergs!) which was magic.

Happy Birthday to... Mrs. B

It was my birthday on the 6th! Birthday's are always fun at our house :)

JT's school holds a monthly family dinner night at various local restaurants and December's happened to fall on my birthday. So we arranged to meet our homies and grub down on some yumminess at Papalucci's in Belmont Shore! Afterwards, we walked (in the cold!) to Frosted on 2nd street and bought half a dozen cupcakes... 3 of which I ate for breakfast the next morning. Don't judge. Commit to do the same on the day after your birthday.

I didn't want to do anything extravagant as I'm saving all that up for our Anniversary vacation coming up next month... 10 years. So breakfast with my parents and family, dinner with our pals and kiddos pals, life of love, live-in bff's, smartypants booth bugs, job that rocks, handsome hubs... a girl couldn't really ask for more.

Happy Birthday me.

Silent Auction Fun

A fun night of bidding on fabulous baskets, all bids benefit our Amazing Charter School. We were the winners of Hair Bows by Mrs. Sees (JT's kinder teacher). We bid on them last year but lost at the last minute. This year, HeaBug's hair is growing and cute bows help to cutie-fy the crazy curls up top!

We won a Keurig instant drink machine (you're welcome Rock Steady Shop) that was JT's class's basket. And thanks to Mr. B's thoughtful scouting, I scored a basket full of wrapping paper supplies. I used most of it for our Christmas wrapping! Sweet. Poor JT bid but on a Lego Harry Potter game but lost. He was close to tears because "WE ALL" (as in the rest of us B's) got something but he lost and he lost his $25 of his own money that he bid.

We explained to him that since he didn't have the winning bid he didn't actually have to pay any money! He was comforted somewhat but my sympathy for him went out the window when he asked to stop at Target on the way home so he could pick out something for "equal or lesser value". Little monkey trying to work the system! LOL.

There was live music, free crafts, a girl scout bake sale and a delicious spaghetti dinner. JT was happy to get to hang out with his buddies and Hea Bug made beautiful decorations that made their way on to our Christmas tree at home.

It's turning into a fun annual tradition since this is the second time we've attended! Here is a peek at last year.

Our Annual Ornament Party

 We host an ornament potluck party come winter time. It's good motivation to get the tree up asap and keep our house wonderful and Christmasfied for as long as possible! Our wide and wonderful group of loved ones come together to mingle, eat, sing, play, visit, chat and ultimately take home a new and potentially unfabulous ornament for their tree. It all depends on the players. It's all in good fun and this year we tweaked things just a bit. We themed the food, had a hot chocolate bar with different flavors of chocolate, flavored syrups, whipped cream, cinnamon sticks and the hot water dispenser. We had coffee from It's a Grind available to help keep us warm in this chilly southern California winter cold. (argh 45 degrees!!) Note to self as a non coffee drinker... coffee drinkers prefer house blends and not vanilla nut or hazlenut or whatever other flavor sounds yummy to my not coffee drinking self. Sorry guys!

Instead of our usual 3 steals rule, we took it down to 2 since we knew we'd be expecting a lot of people! So here's the game... You bring a gift wrapped ornament. Awesome, funny, beautiful, whatever, as long as it's under $10. You place it on the table. When playing time comes... We draw/assign numbers. Chronologically, players choose to open an ornament or steal one that they like from someone who has already opened something. Each ornament can be opened then stolen 2 times at which point it's frozen. Our game is generally pretty intense and ruthless but this year, while still fun, we were all a little distracted by the cold. At least I was!

Lots of kids jumped in the trampoline and chased each other down the slide. Last year, the lovely Cakestina made cookies to decorate. This year we popped out the spray can of frosting and graham crackers to make "gingerbread houses". We got quite the wonderful array of candy/cookie/cracker/frosting sculptures. Love their craziness and creativity!

 Even the little ones get excited about playing the game. The kiddos were awesome at taking a break from loud play so that I could holler out my narration of the evening!

Lucky us, we had old friends, new friends, kids from 1 to 92! In total there were upwards of 60 faces warming our chilly backyard! I remember when we first started hosting this party, we'd have 20 ornaments playing. We had 52 on the table this year. Needless to say, I should've allotted more than an hour when I was planning!

There goes my faux-c-d again. ;)

We definitely missed a few faces but we will be doing it again next year! Filling the house with yummy Christmas scents (put a cut up apple and or pear in a pot of water with some cinnamon sticks and a few shakes of nutmeg. stick it on the stove and let it boil. your house will smell DEE licious!)

 I must say, I sneakily put the Duck in Hunter's gear ornament back in play this year. He just didn't have the same charm as the dead chicken ornament the Mr. B loves so dearly and I figured since no one was attached... I'd just wrap him up and smile at the person who scored on taking him home this year!

 The fantastic additions to our tree this year included a silver spray painted grenade, a white owl on a branch with a bell, a menorah (Happy Chrismakkuh), turquoise slippers and a stuffed heart with a peace sign stitched on it.

 We feasted on salads, chips and dips, pastas, pies, cookies, meatballs, spicy sausages, and beautiful cakes. We did how we like to do come this time of year (well anytime of year I guess)... Surrounded ourselves with peace, love and joy.

It's nice to own a production company to light up your backyard for a night time party! 

It got PRETTY chilly, we tried staying warm by the fire!

 An AMAZING shout out to my friend and neighbor Mia Reed (of Mia Marisa Photography). I was fretting because I hadn't taken out my camera at all during the evening and was worried I wouldn't get any photos that night. She took herself oldskool on my little Canon Rebel XS and snapped a few for me! You are wonderful and I'm so grateful for you!!

 

The Kamaes and The Thompsons.

 Peas in Pods