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Noah: Would you just stay with me?
Allie: Stay with you? What for? Look at us, we’re already fighting.
Noah: Well, that’s what we do. We fight. You tell me when I’m being an arrogant son of a b—- and I tell you when you’re being a pain in the a–. Which you are 99% of the time. I’m not afraid to hurt your feelings. They have like a two second rebound rate and you’re back doing the next pain-in-the-ass thing.
Allie: So, what?
Noah: So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s gonna be really hard. And we’re gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that, because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day.

Being schooled by my six yr old is great fun! lol

Me (to my Mom): yeah James likes this show, it’s about a little chinese girl named, “Ni Hao Kai-Lan”.
James: uhh, mommy, her name is Kai-Lan, “Ni Hao” means “Hello” in Chinese.

Geeze I knew that (I promise June!), I just phrased it incorrectly, haha.

Nevertheless, I’m pretty proud of my offspring. He’s one smart little dude!

I forgot to mention in my last post that Chris, James, and Logan found an abandoned dog at Littlefield/Shultis park in mid February. It was cold and we knew that it would rain so Chris called the local shelter and after finding they were closed for the day, brought her home until we could figure out what we would do.

She did have a collar on so I immediately thought of the unfortunate family that were most likely at that moment frantically looking for her, hoping she was okay and safe. It had already started raining at that point so as an alternative to making “FOUND DOG” posters and hanging them outside, I logged onto craigslist and posted the “found dog” notice under the “pet” section. Not even an hour after posting, I received a phone call.

The man said he “knew the owner of the dog” and that she was most definitely abandoned at the park. The owner’s house was apparently in foreclosure and she and her family, in having to look for a new place to live, decided it was best that she let the dog run loose at the park in the hopes that someone will eventually pick her up. He told me she didn’t want to take her to the animal shelter because she’ll just end up being euthanized.

So in the end, we decided to just keep her. She was just too sweet a dog to let go and it was sad that her last family ran out of the means to take care of her. And while I feel bad for their current predicament, I still think it would have been nicer to at least have taken the dog to the pound. That way she’d at least have shelter and food for a time, and would still have a slight chance of being adopted out to a good home. My husband said it much better in his blog. Look for it in the paragraph titled, “Economics” (yes my husband sometimes structures his blog posts in sections, lol).

And if you haven’t guessed already from the title of this post, we named her Zoey. Well, Zoey Alleyne Deschanel, but just Zoey for short. We actually went through about a half dozen names, the first one that I blurted out being “Olive Oil” because of her long skinny legs. Chris really liked that but I didn’t want to think of how ridiculous I’d feel having to call out for her in the back yard, saying “Olive Oil, come heeeeere!!”

Oh and I forgot to mention she is a Chihuahua and Miniature Pinscher pix, also known to other owners of this mixbreed as ChiPin or MinChi That means that would also make her a MexiGerman, or a GerMexican, lol. Well, you can see she looks sort of like “Santa’s Little Helper” from The Simpsons here:

It’s now March and at first I felt bad about glossing over February like nothing interesting happened, but then I did a mental face slap because I know that the happenings in my life– whether notable or not– don’t need validation by being posted on this blog.

That and I’m either really busy, or really lazy. I’ve even become so good at both that I can be both busy and lazy at the same time.

Anyway, I do want to mention some particulars from last month though… Mom celebrated her 51st birthday on the 2nd and towards the end of the month we threw a surprise birthday party for Tita Lyn’s 50th. Valentine’s Day came and went just like any day for us, because as Chris and I grew wiser not just in age but in our relationship, we realized showing LOVE to each other is a 365 day holiday, not just on one that Hallmark guilts people into making it a highlighted day to show you care. We already have birthdays and Christmas for that.

It was a sad day yesterday though. One of my aunts passed away, the mother of one of my closest cousins. March 5th, I believe at 7:40pm. The reason I know the time, or the estimate time anyway, was I was sitting on the couch and I felt so empty not being able to be at the hospital last night with her everyone. So I picked up my phone and text’d Abs with “what’s happening now, I wish I was there.” And a few seconds later she text’d back, “tita just passed”. She had just passed within that minute.

I was at the hospital the day before, on Wednesday and stayed till passed 11pm. I had the amazing privilege to be able to sit with her for about 20 minutes, and held her hand and talked to her and stroked her hair, and it was just her and me for that time because everyone went for either a bathroom break, smoking break, or just to get something to eat. And I felt so lucky to just be with her, this aunt that has been a constant in my life since I was a little kid, a really sweet woman who had fire in heart and a big love for her family.

Last night James, Logan, and I prayed for her during our bedtime prayers, and thanked God that she’s home with Him in Heaven, and that she at least doesn’t feel pain anymore. We’re thankful for that.

I talked to my cousin today and learned the funeral may be on Friday next week. The wake, probably Wednesday or Thursday.

And while the week will go on as usual, and the world will keep turning even without her in it, she won’t be forgotten… and she’s still alive in our hearts.

I figure I better have a few more posts in for January before it quickly slips by and it’s December again. Too fast, time… slow down, please.

So last Wednesday I slipped and fell (purely due to my unending clumsiness), while picking up Logan in the afternoon, and I landed hard on my left knee(cap) to avoid Logan from getting hurt from the pavement too. So not only did I get a big bloody gash on my knee, but I believe now that I probably messed up my ligaments pretty bad. Apparently there’s something you can get called, “Water on the knee“, where excess fluid build up would happen. Nice, just what I need. I’ve received advice from family and friends to elevate my leg, and keep pressure off of the knee, but as much as I appreciate the care and concern, how can a mother of a six year old and two year old do that?

Well, I finally relinquished my stubbornness and made an appointment to see my doctor this Friday. Hopefully she’ll say it’s not bad, and that it will heal on it’s own, and hopefully I will not be leaving her office with crutches. Now that would suck.

Anyway, Chris, Jesse, Ronald, and Bill went for a ski day at Big Bear on Monday… lucky ducks. I of course stayed home with my bum knee, hung out with Logan, and continued with my guitar practicing.

Last night we took the kids to their very first Roller Skating Rink experience. They had a lot of fun and I so wished I could join them on the floor, but I contented myself with sitting on the sidelines, taking pictures of course (I’ll post those later). James kept falling down, being it was his first time. But do you know how that little six year old of mine remedied the situation? He grabbed two little girls and held each of their hands so that they could help him stay up. It felt like an eerie peek into the future, if he ends up like Chris, who was himself, a “smooth talker” back in the day. I swear, the grin on Chris’ face could have rivaled The Joker’s.

He was our try for a girl, but oh did he surprise Chris and me on the day of my ultrasound! Logan is our spunky, dimpled, smiley little boy… James’ little brother and best friend… our mini gymnast, our little daredevil…

But today my baby boy isn’t so much of a baby anymore.. today, Logan turned two years old!

We had a wonderful birthday party yesterday, and with the help of our awesome family and friends, we celebrated our sweet little Logi Bear! And tonight, we’ll be continuing the celebration at Chuck E Cheese

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Happy Birthday, my sweet LogiBear!!

We’ve been working with Logan on saying his own name, instead of responding, “GaaahhhhahahAHhhhhhh” when we ask him what his name is.

So today he finally said his name! Which, by the way, he’s decided will now be changed to “Woh-Dan”: Click here to listen.

I know this is mainly a Christmas movie, but the message and song that closes it, is pretty appropriate for the New Year I think. I pray we all have an amazing, prosperous, and blessed New 2009!!

We took James and Logan to their early Christmas present two weekends ago: to ride on the Polar Express Train for a round trip to the North Pole!

The drive to Williams, Arizona was, well, definitely not a short trip. And I must admit, I was a bit worried how the boys were going to be on our first family road trip. But, they did just fine, and we had so much fun showing them the sights and sounds down the 40 and Route 66.

The Polar Express Train Ride was something I’ve been wanting to do since James was two, so I’m really glad that now both brothers were able to enjoy it. We stayed at the Grand Railway Hotel in Williams just for that weekend, and when they tell you it gets really cold in the desert during the wintertime, you better believe it!

Well, regardless of the weather, Williams was still a beautiful sight to see:

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Chris’ parents came along too

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I love this shot of Chris and Logan…

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I really wanted to take this sign home with me

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Family Pictures!

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And in the evening we go for the train ride…

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They had hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies for everyone…

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Logan couldn’t drink his because it was to hot, so Chris got a bit greedy….

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So the tradition is, all the kids show up dressed in their jammies, just like in the movie. You can see how some of the adults have fun with it too and dressed up for the occasion

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The ride ended with the best part: meeting Santa!!

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Oh but let’s not forget the bell Santa gave to every child who believes!

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Well I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with their loved ones! I sure did… ate too much of course but loved every minute of it! And Christmas is just right around the corner!!

We were driving home from James’ school this afternoon and he had one of his “just remembered something that happened a way long time ago that I wanna talk about again” moment. This one was about the tornado that hit the Perris area earlier this year during the crazy winter/rainy season.

James: Mommy remember the tormado (yes he pronounces it with an “m”) that you were in before?
Me: (being a bad Mommy and not listening completely because I’m listening to John & Ken on KFI 640) Yeah…”
James: How–
Me: Wait– what?! What tornado?
James: The tormado that you were in remember? How did it make your body feel like?
Me: I was never in a tornado, silly kid!
James: Remember you said there was a tormado that you saw and it pushed the train?
Me: Ohhhh, no the freeway that I was driving on, it had a tornado on it, but when I reached that area it was already gone. And yes, it pushed a train over so that was really crazy to see! Isn’t that good that the tornado had already gone by the time Mommy reached that area?
James: Yeah because your car would have flown in the sky huh?
Me: Yep.
James: And you would have gone to heaven!
Me: (uneasy chuckle) yeeeah, that could have happened.
James: Well when you’re in heaven do you stay there forever?
Me: Yep, when you go home to God, you gotta stay there.
James: Well if you go to heaven I can just ask God to give you back to me.

I think I switched the tone pretty quickly at this point, saying something like, “So yeah that train was SO big but it got pushed over anyway so that means the wind was so strong, crazy huh?!” And he forgot all about the previous conversation and went from there. I switched it over because the last time we had a talk about “death” and “dying” and “going home” and all that, he ended up in tears saying, “I don’t ever want to die because I want to stay here with you forever and I don’t want you to die either!” And that was like, a couple of months ago I think. It was then I realized he was way too young and didn’t have a real handle on his emotions yet to speak about subjects like that, although I had no regrets about trying to talk to him about it. This way I can see where he is emotionally and what he can handle, and that he at least understands somewhat what happens to someone when they’ve passed on.

This is definitely one of the hard parts about being a parent. The couple of months ago that he brought up death and he started crying as I explained about it, it just broke my heart. I couldn’t console him and tell him it was going to be okay and that it was all a part of life. He didn’t stop crying for a good five minutes, but I held him just as long, and even longer. I told him, “Trust me kid, I wouldn’t ever want us to be apart either. We have too much fun huh?”

And he looked up at me with his tear soaked cheeks dripping on my shirt, and said, “Yeah, I’m way too much fun to die!”