Almost forgot...

to mention that my girl is now 18 months.


Here's 18 things about my girl:
1. She likes to hit...then kiss the boo-boo away
2. She sweats when she sleeps (even without blankets in the winter)
3. She'll go to anyone that will carry her
4. She added ONE new animal to her vocabulary...FISH. So now you're either a fish or a Dog
5. She has the best pucker lips EVER!
6. She has a high tolerance for pain. This girl got 5 shots and cried a little bit, then went back to being her same self. AND...the other day, she slipped, fell and her tooth pierced her bottom lip! She bled, then went back to her normal self! This must be a trait from Paul, because I cry bloody murder with a little paper cut!
7. She likes to chill. She would rather sit at the table with me and my girlfriends, then play with the other kids. Thinkin' she's all grown up.
8. No longer drinks from a bottle. YEAH!
9. Doesn't like a mess on her face. Has to have a napkin.
10. Is starting to wear ponytails without taking them out!
11. Stares people down when she's not in the mood.
12. Waves and says, "HIiiiiiiiiiiii" to EVERY SINGLE person we pass by in public.
13. Loves to brush her teeth and put chapstick on after.
14. Knows how to pick up a microphone and sing or hum.
15. Opens up the new diaper for you when you change her.
16. Will jump out of her crib if you put her in it for a time out. This girl stacks up the pillows and stuffed animals to create a ladder.
17. Swears that she's having a full on conversation with her homie on her pretend cell phone.
18. Loves hugs.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Sam wanted to make her valentine's cards this year, so OF COURSE I HAD to take over.
These were super easy to do and cheap! Which in my book is priority!
I had left over brown kraft paper, found some dings online of all stuff that Sam loves (i.e. hello kitty, juicy crowns, girly-girl hearts, bling, etc.) printed them out in different colors of pink, purple and red, added a Valentine's message from Sam D., then stapled ONE candy (used skittles and starburst packs, 41 for $3.50) and different printed ribbon, tied the ribbon in a knot and BAM! Instant V-day card! Had some left over rhinestones to give it some va-va-voom! Sam was happy.

ABC's

Whoever gave this refrigerator ABC toy to Alexa is the BESTEST! She sings along with it and says LMNOP like,"namonamopeeeee!" It's great! Thank god it's FRIDAY! Sam starts TM again tomorrow. She missed it over the break.

The first official blog!

Ok...I did it! We have a blog up for our invitations.
Super excited to take pictures of all the projects to come!
Visit us at www.creativeinvitations.blogspot.com

Happy 2008!

And wow. It's over. I can't believe it's the beginning of a new year! Christmas was spent at my mom's with my family. The Christmas celebration lasted like 4 days!

2 days before ChristmasWe ate and drank at my mom's. My step-sister and her family were here for the holidays from New Jersey. It was nice to see Sam and Lizzie together again.
There was a lot of karaoke...and if I have to hear Felis Navidad or Dancing Queen one more time I'm going to shoot myself!
It's rare that we are all together.. I wish that we spent more time together when they were here. I still didn't get to take the family picture with all the kids and all of us at the park. Can you imagine how hard it was to get all these kids to stay in one place. Out of 30 shots this is the best one:
And for some reason all the family pics of the adults are in my mom's kitchen with drinks!
You'd think that the college student would last the longest with all the shot taking...NOT! He passed out first and even soooooooka! (ewww) Even the kids were laughing at him!

Christmas EveWe spent at my mom's again, this time with my mom's family. My cousins and I hung out and chilled. Grubbed down and opened gifts early! Alexa got an upgrade to her chair...a loveseat-sleeper!
And Alex with his new Allay hooded turtle-scarf:
Didn't take a whole lot of pictures during the holidays. Carla got a new Nikon D40 so she took much more. (CARLA...SEND ME XMAS PICTURES PLEASE!!!) Lex even got a nice new camera after Christmas. He is eagerly learning how to play around with his camera. He's taken some good ones so far, but I think that he likes the cool camera strap the most :)

New Year's Eve was so chillWe spent the night at my aunt Mher's. Sung karaoke until everyone slept. We had a sip of champagne for the countdown, but that's it. No hats or noise makers, or getting super drunk...just the fam. Alexa wasn't too happy about all the singing though. Check out her facial expression when I'm singing. The girl is seriously bothered.

Happy 17th months Alexa!
She is now 17 months and 3 days old today.
This is one of the first pictures of the new year.

babystyle was having a great sale after christmas, and I was able to get 6 outfits for under $30! That's a steal for that store. One outfit was this jumper. I absolutetly LOVE one pieces. It's just easy. The cute ones at babystyle are like dressy onesies to me!

This year is starting out great.

Love to ALLAY

You know when the weather starts to get cold and you want to wear a hooded sweatshirt AND your jacket...but your jacket is too small to layer or if you wear both, it's too hot...well, ALLAY solves that dilemma for me!
I can still wear my tank tops, have my hoodie and jacket and not feel the crowded-ness of all that clothing! Not to mention, I don't have to keep wrapping that darn scarf around my neck!
At the beginning of the month we had the pleasure of meeting Liza and Randy, the Filipino-American owners of ALLAY, at the annual Bixby Knolls Street Fair.
They make an amazing thing...the hooded turtlescarf!It's a turtleneck, scarf and hoodie all in one! I love this new accessory of mine! Liza and Randy both came over the other night with product and it was so hard to not buy them all. We've been on their website ever since we meet them. It's such a breathe of fresh air meeting young Filipino entrepreneurs. Their product rocks! I'm in love with it! This definitely gets my product props of the year award! And to top it all off...Liza and Randy are super cool. Just down to earth and sweet. One size fits all....even Alexa!

Christmas is one week away.

I can't believe it. I'm still not done with my shopping! I have yet to send out my christmas cards. I finally did the address labels! They are going out tomorrow forsure! If I have to cut another snowflake my fingers are going to fall off!

Had a jam pack weekend.

Saturday:

My girlfriends and I had our annual Christmas party/White Elephant/Cackaling/Potluck. This year we were suppose to be "creative" with our white elephant gifts and give your favorite framed picture of the girls. I'm so glad that I have like 10 empty frames just hanging around waiting for pictures. I did a collage of the last 7 years. 2000 all the way up to 2007. I was surprised that I was able to find pictures from every year. The girls loved it. They didn't even recognize a lot of the pictures.

After I was done, I didn't want to give it away! (Yeah...just ignore the scarf, orange sweats and blue thermals...it's freakin' cold in our house!) For the white elephant I ended up with a Starbucks Gift Cert! Pumpkin spice fraps...here I come!
I love these girls. They make me laugh until my stomach hurts!

We had shirts made! L(heart)N. We're such dorks!Sam performed at Lakewood H.S. for Prelude So.Cal. on both Sat. and Sun. Her longest performance. She did so well! We are so proud of her with dance. We finally found something that she wants to stick with.

She's the first one to come out and the last one to leave...check her out!

Later that evening we ended up going out for Tina's 31st birthday. I took a break from the camera...so no pic. from that night.

Sunday:

Early the next morning we started our Christmas. Paul's sister was in town from Arizona so we decided to have Christmas early and let all the kids open the gifts from one another.

Alexa got a chair...something that she's been needing.Her stair has been lonely since. She won't even let me change her without running to her new chair!
The poor girl was so confused. All week I've been getting on her case for touching the gifts under the tree then her ninangs come over and tell her to open gifts and she looks at me like, "I can touch the paper...can I...can I?"
All the boys got personalized black hoodies with their last names on the hoods.
After opening gifts we went to Cerritos for some Pinoy Bistro...ummmm yummy!
We got to rest for about 30 minutes...then off to Sam's 2nd performance. This time my brother came to watch. Drove all the way from San Diego to see her :) Then right after her performance we left to eat PHO...back in Cerritos! Whooo-Weee...what a weekend! Can't wait to do the next 3 christmas'. Christmas Eve with my family - mom's side. Christmas Day is going to be split between going to Brea with Paul's family friends and back to my mom's for my step-family side. Can't wait to grub!

On another note, I just wanted to send my prayers out to our friends: Camille, Tone, Steph and Pia. Their father passed away last week. May God give them strength to cope through these difficult times.