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.

The Post Christmas Family Weekend

We had a great weekend spending time with some family that we hadn't seen in a while! It was terrific getting to see and spend time with them. Love them so much.

Saturday brought time with Los Schlarbs. Mr. B's brother, his beautiful wife Yana and their two amazing children. We visited, feasted on BBQ chicken, scalloped potatoes and cornbread, exchanged gifts and witnessed a nerf/marshmallow war.

It's funny how my hubs and his brother don't necessarily look alike but together with their sons, you cannot deny they are family. Elisha is such a good big cousin to JT and JT really looks up to him.

 Sure do love these gals. I met Naima when she was just a year old. I babysat her when she was HeaBug's age. I taught her about purses and chap stick. She was the flower girl at our wedding and the apple of her Uncle Bobby's eye. We love her so much and we are so proud of the beautiful young lady she has become.

 
 They were able to open their presents from GK and Papa Ron.

My Uncle Ron and his family were down here in Southern California on a holiday. My Aunts' cousin is marching with her band in the Rose Parade so they came to to support her. We were excited to get together in real life, thanks to Facebook, we're able to keep in touch and know what's going on in our lives and with our families. Cousins were fast friends and had lots of fun playing outside. They didn't even stop when it started pouring rain!

 Dancing in the rain!

 Cousins.
No respectable rain play would be complete without hot cocoa to warm up.

It was a great visit and a great weekend. Filled with people we love.

Visiting the graves at Christmas

The day before Christmas Eve we wanted to go and visit the Grandparent's graves. They are all buried local so we wanted to try and get to all of them. Our first stop was to Cypress Forest Lawn, to see Grandpa Jack. Jack Schlarb left us 22 years ago this December. Mr. B remembers him so fondly from his own childhood and it it is him whom we named our own son after. JT likes to read about Grandpa Jack, how he pitched for USC and stormed the waterfront. We got the metal all shiny and left a small Christmas Tree.

We then headed up to Rose Hills to visit Herb Booth, Mr. B's paternal Grandfather. Heabug calls him GranmpaGrampa. It was a little surreal listening to her "talk" to GrampaGrampa as we cleared and cleaned the headstone. The day was cold. We also were able to visit the Jink's who are Gramma GG's parents. Herbs parents are also in the same cemetery.

Lastly we made it to visit my grandparents. HeaBug is named for my tutu Maraea. She passed away in 2001, when Mr. B and I were still dating. I'm so glad he got a chance to meet her and see what a wonderful woman she was. She was full of life and music and laughter. She had the kindest soul and thought of everyone before herself. She loved her family intensely and we all felt it.

This is the Little White Church. It has recently been restored and relocated to the Green Hills Memorial park. Isn't it just beautiful? It's important for us to know who we are and where we come from. It's important to teach our children about the people that came before us. The people who paved the way for us to become who we are and create these lives for ourselves. I remember going with my Grandma to visit my grandpa's grave. We would sit and clean it and play music. Now we take my kids up to visit both of them, sometimes its just us, sometimes more of our family goes. I guess it seems like kind of a weird way to spend a Sunday afternoon but we genuinely had a good time. We wrapped up the evening hitting up a tiny spot called Harry's cafe. They serve the best Saimin, the OG stuff that I remember from my own childhood. Delicious!

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.

Gobbling Good Times -Thanksgiving 2011

 "Let us remember, too, that greatness is not always a matter of the scale of one's life, but of the quality of one's life. True greatness is not always tied to the scope of our tasks, but to the quality of how we carry out our tasks whatever they are. In that attitude, let us give our time, ourselves, and our talents to the things that really matter now, things which will still matter a thousand years from now."
--Spencer W. Kimball, "A Gift of Gratitude",

 Thanksgiving is at our house. We did the travel from home to home, family to family when we were just a married couple and continue to do it now as a family for other holidays but after JT was born... We decided that if you'd like to see us on Turkey day? Here is where we will be.

Over the years we've had so many of our family and friends fill our home on this holiday. The kitchen is where any and all who want to and are capable gather to chop, cut, rub, stir, mash, whisk, sort, mix, unwrap, test, taste, joke, laugh... generally in a hysteric manner, talk, chat, visit, reminisce, love...

I get a lot of credit since I buy the turkey. Haha. But the meal is always one prepared by many hands and with a lot of love. I have learned how to cook a Thanksgiving meal here, in my own kitchen. Sisters, Mothers, Aunties and Friends sprinkle their wisdom on my kitchen and the result has always been delicious. We average 25-40 people every year. There is always plenty of cider and butter. Last year we had all six missionaries from our ward and you know how 20 year old boys eat like they're 20 year old boys and there will be no more food in life after this meal. LOL, love you elders and miss you... well most of you ;)

This year was considerably different. Deciding to let go of my Faux-C-D tendencies I didn't stress centerpieces and place cards or food cards or renting chairs or always doing the same exact thing as last year or previous years. This is how I roll now. And you know what? Still turned out great. Still tasted wonderful.
My sister and niece came down to spend the night on T-Day eve and as in past years... we went to a late showing of the latest Twilight movie, this year was Breaking Dawn. Obnoxious and funny in the theatre. It's one tradition I don't mind being a slave to. Maga got to come with us since she's been on leave from her school job after injuring her back. She normally works until 11 and is too tired to go with us so I'm glad that she has been getting to hang out more! My friend Cakestina got to come too. She had fun laughing at how silly we were and even "spilled" the Reese's Pieces on the couple sharing the one seat in front of us. That's what they get for coming to a Twilight movie to make out. Staying up that late isn't as hard when you're giggling like schoolgirls the entire time!

A lot of people do a Turkey Bowl the morning of Thanksgiving. My nephews and Brother in Law play in one. Since we started running, we planned all year to do the Turkey Trot 5K as a family in Long Beach. My stress fracture and subsequent time off from running nixed that idea. We decided to play softball. There's a fantastic little park down the block with 3 baseball fields. We invited anyone that wanted to play. Big, little, family, friend, old, young, cheery, grumpy. haha. A great turnout yielded about 20 players. Grandma GG came and played with HeaBug and said had she not been needed to keep our little lady company, she'd have gotten out there and whooped us all. LOVE how fiery she is! We played from about 7:30ish to 9ish. Decided to randomly draw teams... Random decided to stack most of the fellas on the red team. We had fun, rocked our bandanas, I know I impressed with my stellar Alice Cullenesque pitching skills! (Hey, I JUST watched Twilight, I couldn't help myself). It was SUCH a fun morning. I was glad we put a breakfast casserole in the crock pot the night before and a french toast bake in the oven before we left for the field because it sure was nice coming home to breakfast.

This year we had a smaller bunch than we've had before. My Long Beach in-laws had their own T-day feast. My Pasadena in-laws stayed close to home as Papa Ron just had surgery to remove cancer. (Eff Cancer. Just saying) We just kept things really small and low key. Rain was in the forecast so we decided to stretch out our lovely "As-Is section" Ikea table and fit all 16 right there in our dining room.

This year we also made Grateful Rolls (thank you pinterest). Inside each crescent roll was a piece of foil with someone's name on it. As we started dinner, everyone took and opened a roll. You said what you were thankful for this year and then gave a compliment to the person who's name was in your roll. It was a little choppy but the sentiment was definitely there. The feast was delicious and the conversation had constant laughter in the background. We didn't watch White Christmas, which is one of my favorite things to do but we did stuff ourselves with pies and other deliciousness.

Applewood Smoked

Cooking Nosh

Sugared pecans. Good on salad and alone.

the grateful rolls

Bird. Garlic Herb Butter.

Pre butter the Hawaiian Rolls. Makes them Fancy.

Spinach, Gorgonzola, Cranberry, Bacon, Pecan. With White Balsamic Vinaigrette

Feast Peace

grateful rolls.

carved it. thank you America's Test Kitchen tutorial.

Asparagus, Baby Bellas, Red Onion and Garlic Herb

My Gals.

Hope your Thanksgiving was amazing. Hope your home was filled with laughing kids, stomping feet, snoring husbands, and delicious aromas. I am certainly thankful on this day as well as everyday. I count innumerable blessings from Heavenly Father. I hope you can too.