I am sure everybody has had a day when they feel like they shouldn’t have gotten out of bed.  Well, today was that kind of day for me.  I have been fighting a cold all week so I am already irritable.  It was just one thing after another and as I am writing this post, I see that it is still early so I don’t dare ask what else can go wrong.  I just feel totally defeated and am waving my little white flag.  And don’t forget, while reading this, remember that Fridays are my clean house days so I already have a shit load of stuff to do.  So, you know it’s going to be one of those days when:

*my early morning wake up call at 1:30am from Isabella because her leg is hurting and she needs her heating pad warmed up(another entry entirely for another day) Oh and let me tell you, if you take NyQuil and get woken up after only a couple hours of sleep, you feel worse.

*  when my alarm went off and I get up, I felt terrible, like I got hit by a truck

* I am walking to the kitchen to make Jenna’s breakfast and step in something wet–I don’t even want to know.  It was what I expected, cat throw up. I heard him in the middle of the night and I forgot about it.

*the girls are in a giggly mood at breakfast time and are not eating, but just playing around

*Maya wakes up earlier than usual this morning, before 7am

*Maya wants breakfast and ends up spilling her cereal and milk

*I set out the clothes for Maya to get dressed(this is a whole other entry on how she has to do everything herself).  Well, she doesn’t like what I picked and after 3 outfits later and a messed up dresser, she finally puts on her clothes, all backwards.

*I remembered I forgot to take out chicken for dinner so I go to the freezer to get it out.  Damn it! I bought the wrong chicken!  How the hell did I pick up boneless skinless! Fuck!
*Maya found a highlighter and had fun with it by drawing on the dog, the wall, her shirt, and her toy box.

*as soon as I pick up Isabella from school, the fighting and teasing begins between the two of them

*at lunch with Belle and Maya, Maya spills her juice on the floor that I just finished mopping..son of a bitch!
*and last but not least, I am sitting down folding laundry and I hear a big splash and then a cry!  Oh shit I say to myself!  Maya knocked over my entire mop bucket and was dripping wet (nobody was hurt during this ordeal). This happened at 1:30pm and I have to leave to get Jenna at 1:40pm and now I have to give Maya a bath because she has floor cleaner all over herself and her clothes.
Well that has been my day so far and it is now 3:15pm.  After writing it all down, I guess it is kinda funny.  It wasn’t funny at the time though.  I hope that my afternoon and evening goes better than my morning.  I am looking forward to my cake class tonight so I can just chill out from this day from hell.

Wow, where do I begin.  This post is for my first born whom we named Jenna Marie Shizuko. It was 8 years ago today that you graced us with your presence.  We were not expecting you for at least 10 more days but you had other plans.  You were so tiny and perfect.  Only weighing in at 6lbs and 18 3/4′ long, you were a tiny little peanut as your nickname would soon become thanks to papa.  You were so perfect in my eyes.  I was excited beyond words.  Daddy, Nana, Erica and Auntie Andee were all there to welcome you into the world.  I knew that my world was going to change forever, but for the good.  I have always wanted children and you made my biggest wish come true.  I now had a daughter to care for.
Now looking at you, 8 years later, you have become quite the young lady.  You encompass all that makes the human race good.  You are kind, sensitive, caring, compassionate, helpful, giving, loving, stubborn at times, smart, affectionate, happy, thoughtful…I could go on and on but I think you get the picture(and I am not just saying these things because I am your Mom).  You are excelling in school and an avid reader which just makes me smile.  You remind me a lot of myself at your age.  My nose was always in a book too.  You have many friends at school and even make new ones when you are given the opportunity.   I am so proud of you and what you have become in just 8 short years.  I am looking forward to seeing the woman that you will become.

Jenna, I love you with all my heart and I can’t wait to see what new adventures you will encounter in your life.  Remember that I will always be here for you no matter what life throws at you.   Know that you can be and do whatever you set your mind to.  Don’t forget your values and what you stand for and you will be successful.  Happy Birthday Jenna, I love you.

Lance’s and my anniversary just passed at the end of August.  I can’t believe we have been married for 9 years.  He took me to Carmel Valley for a 4 day getaway. We stayed at The Carmel Valley Resort.  It was absolutely beautiful!  You can see pictures on my flickr page.  We drove up Thursday night and came home early Monday afternoon.  My sister Erica watched our girls for us.  Thank you so much to her for helping us out.

On Friday, we went to Cannery Row and walked along the wharf.  We stumbled upon a car show and we browsed for a while.  We saw a lot of neat old cars.  It was nice to just  have no plans and be able to live in the moment without a schedule.  On Saturday, we drove to Big Sur.  We did a lot of sight seeing and stopped at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and went on a little walk.  It was so beautiful there.  You can also camp at this particular park which we are considering in the future.  On Sunday, we just hung around Carmel in our room.  We drove into Pacific Grove and found this awesome place to eat breakfast.  It was called Allioti’s Victorian Corner Restaurant.  We wanted to go back for dinner but they don’t serve dinner on Sundays.  We will definitely go back there next time we find ourselves in Carmel.

The days went by too fast as they always do when you are away.  Lance and I got some well needed time with just the two of us.  We were able to get up and do nothing if we wanted to.  We read, took walks, played Yahtzee, ate, took naps and just enjoyed each others company.  It was very nice.  We try and do something like this once a year.  I think all couples need time to themselves, especially if you have children.  I am looking forward to next years adventure. I am sure it will be just as nice.
I wanted to say thank you to my husband for taking me away for a much needed mini-vacation and to Erica and Mando for watching the girls while we were gone.  Lance is spoiling me by taking me to such nice places like this.  It is one of the nicest places we have stood.  I am sure that we will stay again if we go back to Carmel Valley in the future.

It seems like ages since I have posted anything to my blog.  I had forgot the password and kept asking Lance but he kept on forgetting to give it to me. I finally got it and am now writing a post.  Let’s see if I can catch all of you up on what has been going on in my life.  I hope you all had a great summer.

Wow, summer really flew by. We didn’t get to do much this summer in terms of vacations but we had our share of birthday parties. It seemed like every time we turned around, we were at a party for someone. Especialy the month of July when we had a party every weekend.   We also had a lot of barbecues this summer. One in particular was our 1st annual Flickr barbecue.  It was fun, we had a good turn out and are hoping for more people to come next year.
One thing we did that the kids really enjoyed was camp night.  I came up with the idea and it turned out to be a success.  All of my nieces and my one nephew got together, brought our tents and warm jammies for a night of fun.  We all pitched our tents in my backyard for a camp night.  We barbecued hot dogs, had nachos, ice cream soda punch, the kids made dirt cups, and a lot of other junk food.  And no camp experience, even if it is in your own backyard, would be complete without some s’mores.  The kids had fun making them.  When the sun went down, Lance had a special surprise for the kids.  He had borrowed a projector from work and hung up a white sheet and all the kids, and the adults, watched Monster’s Inc. outside.  It was like being in the drive-ins.  Something the younger kids will never get to experience.  Everybody really enjoyed the movie and the whole evening.  I think this is going to become an annual thing at our house.

My mom and I headed out to Oregon and I got to visit my grandma again in August for her birthday.  She turned 88!   I made cakes, made her meatloaf, we played Scrabble and I just hung out with her.  My aunt even made her stuffing.  It was a very nice visit.  Thank you to Lance for allowing me to go.  It was good to see her and my godparents.

The kitchen remodel is coming along.  Lance can only work on it on the weekends so it is taking longer than I would have liked.  We are almost at the stage where we can do the new sheetrock and texture.  Once that is done, I can paint and that alone will give the kitchen a whole new look.  After the painting, we will put in the new cabinets, flooring and appliances.  I cannot wait for the finished product.  I just hope it is done before Christmas.

It has been a busy summer even though the we didn’t really go anywhere.  The girls also learned how to ride a two wheel bike over the summer.  All in all, they had fun.  They were excited to go back to school too.  Isabella is now in Kindergarten and Jenna is in 2nd grade.  They both go to the same school now.  Check out my flickr page for some pictures of them on their 1st day of school.  I will try to post more often but you all know how it goes..you get busy, you have stuff to do and before you know it, 5 months have passed.  Well, I hope that all of you who do read my blog are doing well.  Until next time.

Well, I hope you all had Happy Easter.  We celebrated Easter this year on Saturday at my mom’s house.  It is an annual tradition to go to my mom and dads house on Easter and have a barbecue.  All of my sisters were there along with all my nieces and one nephew (9 total).  We had an Easter egg hunt for the kids, good food and lots of fun.  I love getting together with my family.

After Easter, the girls had spring break.  We didn’t go on vacation but we did do some fun stuff.  On Tuesday, we went to Pump It Up for pop in play time.  The girls love to go there.  My sister Maudie met us there with her daughter Viviana and I also had Jessica and Angelo.  It was fun for everybody.  On Wednesday, I cleaned out the girls closets and toy boxes.  I am having a garage sale the first weekend in June and wanted to do a little “spring cleaning”.  The girls and I got rid of 6 bags of stuff!  It was a very productive day for us.

Lance took thursday and Friday off from wor to spend time with teh famiy.  On Thursday, we headed out to the San Jose Kids Discovery Museum.  The girls had a great time and we met up with our good friends Kerry, Dennis and their son Kial.  We bought a yearly pass so we can take the girls back.  On Friday, we picked up my niece Jessica and went to the Oakland Zoo.  The weather was perfect and I think the whole East Bay was there that day.  It was pretty crowded so we didn’t do rides this time.  We had a picnic lunch and the girls had fun.  Maya enjoyed seeing all the animals.

On Saturday, we had a busy day planned.  We had a birthday party at 1:30pm for my niece Gianna and the Ice Creamery in Castro Valley.  At 6:00pm, Lance and I had another birthday party to attend.  This time, it was just the adults.  We were going to celebrate our friend Jen’s birthday at PF Changs. We were really looking forward to it becasue we have never been there and it was all adults, no kids.  After dinner, Lance had his monthly poker game schedule for around 8:30pm.

All was going well until around 4:15pm.  I had packed the girls bags to go to my moms house.  She was going to watch teh girls while we went out to dinner.  The girls were on a sugar rush from the ice-cream so they were running around.  I told them to settle down and that we would be leaving in about 15 minutes.  Well, you know kids, they didn’t listenn.  I was in teh garage talking to Lance and I was just about to go back inside to tell the girls to stop running around when I hear this blood curtling scream coming from the kitchen.  I open the door to find Isabella holding her with blood dripping down her hand, arm and onto her shirt.  I scream for Lance to come inside.  Isabella had ran into the window sill in the kitchen while running around the table.

When we looked at the wound, it was pretty deep.  Due to it being on the head, there was quite a bit of blood and so I of course, freak out a little bit.  I am getting better and one day, I hope to not freak out at all.  Thank God for good ole’ rational Lance.  After he calmed me down, he applied pressure to the wound for about 5 minutes and was able to stop the bleeding.  It was off to the emergency room they went.  There goes our evening that we had planned.  At this time, it was already 4:45pm and we just knew it was going to take all night in the ER.  So, we call everybody and tell them that we were not going to make dinner and that the poker game was put on hold until further notice.

Well, Lance is at the ER texting me to let me know what is going on.  Isabella needs stitches again.  The first time was when she bit through her bottom lip after falling in the garage.  She was a trooper yet again even though when the doctor did the first stitch, she could feel everything and was screaming in pain.  Lance had the doctor give her more medicine and she was fine after that.  After all was said and done, they were home by 6pm.  That was the fastest ER visit that we have ever encountered.  Lance still wanted to meet our friends for dinner but I just didn’t feel right leaving Isabella even though she was going to be ok.  Lance was still able to have his poker game that night which was good.

It was a very busy week and ended on somewhat of a bad note.  I was just glad that it wasn’t any worse than it was.  She could have really gotten hurt.  Isabella is always getting hurt but she is a tough little girl  She reminds me of my granna Gladys.  She is always telling me that anytime anybody got hurt, they knew it was hurt.  It looks like Isabella is following in her great grandmas footsteps.

To end the weekend, we just took it easy on Sunday.  Lance worked out in the garage and I cleaned up around the house.  My sister Erica actually picked up Jenna and Isabella and took them to Fresh choice for and early dinner.  they really enjoyed that.  thanks Auntie Erica.  While they were out eating, I went shipping.  Nthing like shopping to help clear the mind of a really long week.

I hope that everybody had a good Easter.  I am so grateful for my family and friends.   Even after the long, trying week, I am still blessed to have 3 healthy daughters, a loving husband and an extended family who knows when to lend a hand.  Thank you to all our friends for their calls and concerns about Isabella.  It meant a lot to me.  And we all need to get together soon so Lance and I can join you this time ;o)  Until next time……..

Are dogs intelligent animals?  I thought so until today.  As all of you know, we recently adopted a dog and his name is Buddy.  We are going to finalize his adoption on Sunday.  Anyway, today Maya was asking for her afternoon snack.  Well, today, she wanted a popsicle.  We have a refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom that you pull out.  Well, while I had the freezer door open, I hear Buddy yelp in pain, like somebody stepped on his foot.  I didn’t step on him.  Maya wasn’t near him.  I didn’t close the door on him.  What the hell happened I thought to myself.  Why was he yelping in pain.  When I looked at him, I noticed that he was shaking his head back and forth and constantly sticking out his tongue.  As I looked closer, I noticed that the tip of his tongue was beet red.  I then concluded that he licked the freezer drawer and his tongue got stuck.  What a dummy!  He continued sticking out his tongue for a couple of minutes and after I realized he was okay, I had to have a laugh.  It is kinda funny. And here I thought that dogs were supposed to be smart animals.  Maybe ours is just over curious.  I can tell you one thing, I bet he doesn’t do that again.

Hello everybody.  It has been some time since I have posted an entry.  I can’t believe that it is already the end of March.  Where does the time go?  Before you know it, it will be Easter.  I don’t know about anybody else, but this time change coming early this year has just messed me up.  The kids are not tired at night time and they don’t want to get up in the mornings.

As most of you know, we are fostering a dog right now.  We have had him for almost 2 weeks now and he is a good dog.  He has some issues, mainly barking at other dogs and at times, our cat, but we are working on that and he is getting better.  If you want to see a picture of him, just check Lance’s blog or flickr account.

The girls are doing well in school.  Jenna is still reading like a champ and Isabella is picking up on that and beginning to read herself.  She can read 3 letter words which is amazing to me.  Jenna is going to be doing a science fair project for school.  She is excited about that.  I am sure we will have pictures to post when we are working on that.  Maya is growing like a weed and her new thing she likes to do is jump.  She learned how to jump with two feet off the ground about 2 weeks ago now and she loves doing it.  It is so cute to see her expression when she is jumping.

As for me, I am doing good.  I am still going to WW and doing good.  I am really happy with my results and I never thought it possible.  I am getting in a lot of walking now that we have a dog too which is great.  Lance is doing good too.  He has lost 37 pounds now and looks great!  Our weight loss not only benefits us but our girls as well as they are eating healthier because we are eating healthier.   It is a win win situation.

Well, that is the quick of it.  I will hopefully write more later when I have more time.  Right now I have a crying child to tend to, a dog that needs to be taken out to go the bathroom and two older girls who are getting ready for bed.

Well, we all know that Valentine’s Day is the day to show your loved ones just how much you care.  Well, Lance did just that.  He got me a new iPod shuffle, in hot pink!  I have a regular iPod but rarely use it due to its size, ease of use and things like that.  I was a little skeptical at first but having used it now for 2 days, I think I am really going to like this new toy!  It is small, easy to use and I can take it with me anywhere.  Here is the funny part.

On Valentine’s Day, Lance hands me my gift all wrapped and everything.  It was totally unexpected and a nice surprise.  The day after v-day, I find out that he bought himself one too, but in blue.  I just had to laugh.  I can imagine what kind on thinking went on in his head when he was in the Apple store.  He had originally went there to get some airport extreme thingy (whatever that is) but came out with an extra 2 iPod shuffles.  What I found funny about it, was that he didn’t tell me until the next day when I brought it up, that he had bought one for himself  too.  I casually joked, “I am surprised that you didn’t get yourself one.”  Then he lets out a little chuckle and says, “I was trying to find a way to bring that up.”   He didn’t even bring it in the house so I might stumble across it.  He left it in the car!  Gotta love him.

Anyway, I really like the gift and you did good honey.  I really think I will get more use out of my new shuffle than my older, regular iPod.  It was a thoughtful gift, even if you too had to have one ;o)  I love you.  Happy Valentine’s Day.

For the past month or so, have gone to take a shower and to my surprise, there is no hot water.   Lance will have to re-light the pilot light on the water heater and we then have to wait 1/2 hour before we have any warm water.  This is getting really old.  My dad told me about a little screen that may prevent this from happening but when I went to Dale Hardware this morning, they had no idea what I was talking about.  He said it may be the thermo-coupler that needs to be replaced.  The man helping me suggested I call PG&E and have them come out to see what is wrong.  It is a free service so I think that is my next step.  I am tired of talking cold showers and I hope we can fix this problem soon.

Well, I realized that I haven’t posted anything about my weight loss in a while. I am down to my last 10 pounds and let me tell you, they are the hardest! I have hit some bumps along the way with the holidays but nothing that was too major. I am still losing and I couldn’t be happier. I have lost a total of 45 pounds and have 5 more to go before I can become a lifetime WW member! I have dropped 4 dress sizes and love to go clothes shopping now!
I never thought I would be able to do this but with the support of my family and friends, I made it. It has been a long journey and will continue for the rest of my life. I haven’t felt this good since I got married. I am actually the same weight now as I was when I got married. That is just amazing to me!

As I have lost the weight, Lance has been inspired to do the same and has recently started his own journey. He is doing quite well and I am proud of him. He has taken up bike riding and rides his bike every morning to Fremont bart where he then hops on the shuttle to go to work. It helps out a lot when your spouse is on the journey with you. Keep up the good work honey, I know you can do it!

When I reach my goal, I will let you all know. I will get there eventually but I am not giving up. This has become a lifelong commitment for me and I am hoping that I can stick with it. I don’t want to go back to the old “Tina” who never wanted to do anything or go anywhere. I have my life back now and am loving every minute of it!