Happy Birthday Cakestina

My gal Cakestina is having a birthday. Our school is having a fundraiser. We celebrated Cakestina at our school’s dinner night at STACKED. STACKED is so much fun. We love eating there (and it’s super close to our work so being the big fans that we are, we go often). 

You order your completely customizable food from an ipad. It’s good fun and they have an awesome menu of burgers, salads, pizzas, mac and cheese, sausages, shakes, and cookie ice cream sandwiches. YUM! The concierges that take care of your table all work together. At the end of you visit, you can easily split a check, chose if your method of payment and even chose if you want to tip (if you do, and you should people, just saying… you can chose a percentage, flat dollar amount or other). The menu has so many options, gluten free, curry ketchup, pretzel bun, siracha mayo… oh man I could go on for days. Love that place and LOVE my girl Cakestina… if you’d like to know how much, I wrote about that here. We made a reservation for 25, fancied things up with some balloons and all got together to celebrate. It really was a fun night. And of course we had to sing… LOUD. Considering that STACKED has not interior walls separating diners, our lovely voices really carried through the restaurant. Lucky folks.
Happy Birthday Cakestina. Hope you feel loved beyond measure.

He's got talent. JT signs I'm Yours at the Emerson Talent Show.

Weeks ago, this guy says he wants to sing at the talent show... with some friends. I say sure. I printed out his lyrics, switched out the word "damn" for "man" and found a karaoke instrumental version for him to sing along to.

In my dreams, he's playing an ukulele and singing. But I'm cool with this too.

At no time during the rehearsal period did I hound him or even go watch. I didn't "stage mom" one single bit. He picked his song, his music, his outfit.

We bought the tickets and our Ohana... including Maga, Tutu, Auntie Nini (Breezer) and Uncle Edward came to watch the show. We sent him a gram. They were delivered back stage. I sent him a giant pixie stick. For courage.

We were nervous for him. He came out there, the 8th act in the show and did it. We were so, incredibly proud of him. Hea Bug yelled out as he started to sing, "That's my brother!" It was the best.
He got a trophy, it's up with his baseball trophies. And the talent show poster... it's hanging on the wall...

Love
Mrs. B

Baseball is back, Opening Day 2013

 
 We had Opening day! This is our 2nd full season playing at ELB. It's Hea Bug's first season and she's playing on the Rookie Rangers. Mr. B is as assistant coach for both of their teams and I am NOT a team mom for either team. This season, I will bring my chair and my cheering voice and I will be supporting my players (and the coach... love that guy).

We chose to ride our bikes to avoid the hassle of parking. Good choice. After we rode over to the town center for a stop at the bike store, the book store and lunch at Islands. Then a nice ride along the riverbed to take us home.

JT. Pinto Cubs

The Ranger Girls.

The night before the regular season, JT had a practice game. They played 7 innings for 2.5 hours! That's a long time after having been at school all day. Plus it got super cold at the field. Now that HeaBug is old enough to run around with her homegirls, it makes it easier to sit and watch. He hit a grand slam ladies and gents. Yes he did. Then he pitched. He caught. He played short and 2nd. What I love the most is that these kids get to move around and really experience baseball. This is where they get to fall in love with the game. It's not always about winning, especially at this age. Yes it's exciting but truly who cares about being undefeated or all stars when you're 8 years old. What we want for JT is to just get out there and play.
We are a baseball loving family for sure.

HeaBug is excited to play because it's baseball and we love it. Her first sport is gymnastics but we want her to try out playing everything! Baseball seemed like a great place to start. When HeaBug was 5 days old, I carried her in the sling to watch brother at his first t-ball practice. 

She's always spent Spring at the field. 

We sure are proud of our kids. We love that they love to be active and play sports. We love cheering for them and coaching them and supporting them. I have countless baseball shirts from different teams. Mr. B and JT have more hats than any other person I know. HeaBug has quite the collection of team hair bows. Playing team sports will help them to learn so many important life skills. Physical exercise, it's key to be active and they will grow up healthy and strong. Building their self esteem, learning to handle disappointment, being empathetic to others, commitment, good sportsmanship and fostering friendships with kids on your own team and other teams. Being able to play nicely and be graceful in victory and defeat. Those are the things that we want for them. They are well on their way.

Love
Mrs B

Happy Birthday Naima

When we met she was a small fry. A tiny fry. A cutie fry. She was quite the center of Mr. B’s whole world. Only daughter of his only brother, his love for her has be more than fierce from the very beginning. As I came into their lives she became important to me too and I easily fell for her precocious nature and sparkly eyes too. How we love Naima. She’s gotten older and more beautiful and graceful and smart and kind. We feel so lucky to be a part of her life. For her 15^th birthday we wanted to do something special and appropriate for such a young woman. We decided on a year long subscription to Birchbox. It’s a fabulous site that sends a goodie box filled with samples of perfumes, creams, makeup, fashion tid bits and more. It’s a monthly surprise! of the best kind. We couldn’t ask to be Auntie and Uncle to anyone sweeter than she. Happy 15^th Birthday Nai-nai. Love you.

Our little Valentines

These cuties are too much. I had grand plan to make their Valentines this year. We had a day off from school but as busy as we are at work, they had to come to the shop with me. While I remembered to bring a few of my Valentine decorations from home, I did not grab my camera. Thankfully, my iphone is with me always and I love the different textures of our building at work.The results of our little impromptu 5 minute photo shoot are as follows.

Their Valentines turned out super cute. JT's said, "My heart's a stereo, it beats for you so listen close. Stay Cool Valentine, Your Pal, J" and HeaBug's said "Happy Valentine's Day! You're sweet! Love HeaBug".  These two are just too much. They have learned that it'll go by faster if they just smile when I'm taking their picture. The whole process was super quick. I took the photos with my iPhone, then created the Valentines with an app called Redstamp. I emailed the jpegs to myself the uploaded them to Costco. I ordered wallet sized prints and picked them up that evening!
Easy Peezy Lemon Squeezy!

Mr B and I long ago decided that we would reschedule Valentine's day to August 12. We figure flowers are more available and not nearly as expensive and it gives us a chance to get away just because.
We still celebrate the kids, heart shaped food, special lunch box treats and special Valentines. It's especially fun while they're so little.

Love Mrs B

Fly new wheels

Since we've come back from Amsterdam, I've been day dreaming about a new bicycle. I got one a few years ago for Mother's Day. I love it but I'm needing something with gears and all of my online wish listing had me jonesing bad for an Electra Amsterdam.

New, these are around $700 and I wasn't willing to drop that kind of coin. For a bike. For real.

Every now and then, very randomly, I'll hop on craigslist and this day, this beauty caught my eye. She was in Bell and had been listed the week before for $200 then relisted that morning for $150. Sold!

I called up homegirl and made arrangements to come and pick it up! I'm super stoked and I've got this cool front mounted bike seat on the way!

I'm so excited!

I've found the skirt guard and fenders online and those are next on my list to order. Sweet right?

Love Mrs B

The Sweetheart Dance

Our super rad school puts on a Family Valentine's Themed activity called the Sweetheart Dance. Such fun. Dancing, a live band, balloon artists, crafts, a photography room, food vendors and a whole cake pop table. The last time I went to a dance in a middle school gym, we had to take our shoes off so we didn't scuff the floor. It had definitely been a long time since then but thankfully we got to keep our shoes on!
We had four tickets but since Rock Steady is in the midst of a crazy busy season, Mr. B has been preoccupied with work and the Sweetheart Dance was no exception. We did a few dances and at a cake pop for him anyway.

These cuties were in the same first grade class and they are in the same class now. I was taking a picture of JT and suddenly there they all were together. Looking at it, I wondered if they will still be friends in 10 years... When they're Seniors in High School. There are more to the group but this just happened to be who was around at the time. Doesn't it feel nostalgic? Like something they'll put in a yearbook... Something they'll look back on. I don't want time to go by as quickly as it is but I can hope that they will grow up and know the power of friendship.

We are grateful to go to such an amazing school and be part of such an awesome community. 

Love Mrs B

Running(ish) Surf City

So months ago, in November, while still high from running the Long Beach 1/2 marathon, I signed up for the Beach Cities Challenge. You run Long Beach, Huntington Beach, and Orange County. You can start with any one but you must do them consecutively to qualify for the special medal. I was doing great about continuing to train, averaging at least three 3-4 mile runs a week and a longer 6-8 mile run once a week. I started a facebook group to help motivate my pals. It's called, The Happy Pace. Isn't that a cute name?

I was doing great. And then we got busy with birthdays and holidays and parties and life and I totally slacked. In the last 6 weeks I have maybe done 6 runs and none of them over 5 miles. Yikes. Race day came. I knew I was going to do it. I knew I had to do it. I also knew that I hadn't been actively training and not to push myself to the point of injury. I was only racing myself and my goal for a run is just not to die. So far, so good.

Surf City was beautiful. Most of the course is right on PCH, with the beach and the Pacific to the south. Right there. Next to you. 

This run takes place every super bowl Sunday. The crowd wasn't as great as LB (there are some crazy amazing supporters in Long Beach) but it there were 18,000 runners. 

I finished. With an official time of 2:58. (This includes waiting in line at the 4th mile to pee). It's 1 minute faster than my very first 1/2 marathon and 11 minutes slower than my second. I'm scheduled to run the OC 1/2 on May 5, so I've got a good timeline for getting back on track. I managed a steady 12 minute mile for the first 3, a 13 minute mile for the next 4 and my overall average was 13:38 per mile. Not to bad considering I did a lot of walking. My finish line jam ended up being Ho Hey by the Lumineers, not quite the same tear drawing effect as Katy Perry but it was good stuff nonetheless. It's great though. To be out there and to have these accomplishments under my belt. I'm excited for the day that my kids can be there and see me cross a finish line. Me a girl who 3 years ago would have rather laid down and died than run. 

And while I was crazy sore the next two days, I know that's as sore as I'll ever be running a 1/2. Since there's no way I'm going in having lapsed in training ever again.

And, I made lunch. And dinner. I felt like superwoman. But a tired superwoman.

I'm ready to get back out there.