My good friend, Anne Eurose, threw her cousin, Deejay, who is also a good family friend of mine a baby shower for the soon-to-be arrival of their baby boy! I was thrilled when she asked me to make cupcakes for Deejay’s shower. The theme was really cute and easy to do…if anything, it was difficult for me to narrow down all the ideas!

Red velvet with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream

It feels like yesterday sometimes…and sometimes it feels like a whole different life, but I’ve known Deejay and her family for a very, very long time. Actually, our families have known each other for a very long time. Deejay is one of the sweetest people I know…not a mean bone in that little body and she is going to be a fabulous mother….she kind is one…to DX. LOL.

Her equally amazing cousin, Anne Eurose, one of my BFFs drove to Southern California with three kids (the oldest being 3 years old) to throw her a party. She really is super mom. She took care of her three kids, had time to go to Disneyland with us AND threw an amazing shower with some of the cutest personal touches I’ve ever seen! She even asked me to help w/ the cupcakes. It was fun and I’m always willing to go eat some delicious Filipino food!

Cute diaper cake Eurose made.

Everybody always told me having twins, or triplets, or any higher order multiple birth is exponential in work load compare to the n-1. I will never know if this is true since I had the twins and don’t plan on having anymore. However, a vendor called me at work today regarding some work and asked how I am. I told him I’ve been in and out of the office since my twins are taking out all the people around them with their cold and he says he has twins too! Actually, he has 4 kids. Wow.

He says his kids are 20, 15 and the twins are 12. Continued to tell me he knows why people who have twins first don’t ever have anymore. He told me firsthand, through experience, that the workload is indeed exponential. “Having twins is like having 6 kids!” He even told me it will get easier once they are 3 years old and says that his wife and him had a celebration when the last kid was potty-trained. How cute is that.

They are amazing people because the reason why he has 4 kids is because his wife is just baby crazy. After deciding that the twins will be their last, his wife signed them up to be kind of like foster parents but only for babies of teenage mothers who loses custody from the state due to whatever circumstances they are in. He says it’s very sad when babies addicted to crack comes into their care. Those babies take longer to place but he says they always end up placed somewhere. The list of people wanting babies is very long and there is always a home waiting for them. That’s just beautiful to me. I admire people like this.

My mother-in-law has been sick since Monday. Mike and I took turns taking off days to take care of them. I took yesterday…today he’s home. I heard this story and just had to share how cute and easy my kids are.

On Monday, my mother-in-law was already sick but didn’t know the extent of it so she did not tell us. She was so sick she didn’t take the kids out and told them she’s going to nap and play among themselves. At one point, she woke up to find Brooke fast asleep on her leg. She just decided to nap on her own. It’s 3pm and the kids usually nap at noon. She looks at Aidan who was still up and said, “Sleep”. He repeated his grandma, “Sleep” and laid down and took a nap. Too sweet for words.

Childhood friends with our children

Anne Eurose and the Abris trio are in town for Deejay’s baby shower this weekend. We were suppose to meet up on Tuesday but Bao and Van had this fabulous idea to go to Disneyland with 4 adults and 5 kids ranging from 4 months to 3 years old. I don’t know why we listened to the ‘ones who don’t have children’ but we did and went to Disneyland! Super chaotic from helping Eurose with the kids and Bao parking her car to super fun of Jaden’s reaction to Woody in It’s a Small World and Brooke’s discovery of “hot dog” in Toon Town (“Hot dog” is Mickey Mouse because of the Hot Dog Dance at the end of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse).

It was pretty much crazy but so much fun. The kids were such troopers! We met up with a very pregnant Deejay at Downtown Disney, went to DCA to visit Bug’s Life where the two older Abris really had a good time on rides with Van. Watched a glimpse of World of Color and tried to get on Toy Story Mania but it was a 40 minute wait so unfortunately the kids had to miss that. We all stayed out until 11pm (Yes, we’re nuts)

Hopefully we can do this again next summer and spend an entire day so the kids can do everything they want to.

There was a lot of drama this year over what will happen to the fairgrounds in Costa Mesa when the city decided to sell it during these difficult economic times. At the end of it, the city did what they thought they had to do and sold it. However, the new owners are leasing the land back and we should be having the OC Fair every year until this lease is over! Yay!

We went on Sunday with Van, Bao and the kids. My fair trip was almost ruined due to some tres leche cake (damn lactose) but I would like to report that the fair has very nice clean bathrooms.

Bao and Mike were dying to get a bunch of fair foods, particularly the Krispie Kreme Fried Chicken sandwich. Very much like the Monte Cristo, it was a Krispie Kreme donut split in half with a fried chicken breast and what I think is grape jelly inside. I wasn’t feeling too good but had a bite. It was good but super rich of course. Mike ordered the fried zucchini nachos which is fried zucchini strings topped with nacho cheese sauce and bacon bits. What’s not to love (besides the calories)? The kids loved it too. Other disgusting yet delicious fair foods we tried included: Australian battered potatoes (two thumbs up), the big D donut and of course…the corn – possibly the best thing about the fair! Well, that’s my opinion, the kids were a little different.

Van and fair food

With their beers

Aidan was loving the fair! I would say they loved the livestock the most, followed by how super stimulated they were with all the lights and sounds. They both would point at the stuff animal prizes at the carnival section and tell us what they saw: “Frog!!!” “Fishie!!!” “Banana!” It was super cute and worth the fact that we parked at OCC and walked to the fairgrounds!

Lovin’ the goats

We ended the night by visiting the exhibits to check out Jackie’s cakes (1st place on cupcakes and 3rd for both cake entries..great job!) and walked back to the car. It was a lot of fun.

Back to OCC parking!

I can’t believe she’s 90…it’s amazing. Ba Noi was very much a 3rd parent when it comes to our primary caretakers growing up. She’s my “mah mah” like Mike’s mom is to my kids. I remember watching cartoons and how even though she barely new English or understood technology…she knows at 2PM is when my cartoons will start and would turn the dial on Ong Noi’s old-school TV for us to watch our shows. She would walk me to the bus stop in the mornings when we lived in San Jose and be at my stop to walk home with me everyday. She would make com chien with sugar and we’d always get in trouble for putting more soy sauce in it before tasting it. (It’s always too bland.) Man, I love her and am so happy she is still around!

This past weekend was Ba Noi’s 90th birthday extravaganza! Van flew into town to celebrate (It was suppose to be Van and Eric but drama-queen beagle Indypooh decides that she will have seizures every time her parents leave her…actually, it was pretty scary but we learned she’s okay!)

The kids took to her right away and the entire vacation was like baby fest 2010 for Van and she couldn’t be any happier with this. Here are pictures from her trip:

http://picasaweb.google.com/VanHNgo/CaliforniaTrip

Not really, but it sure felt that way to Mike and me!

The kids had their first cough in a long, long time. We were nursing two kids with stuffy noses which in turned went to the back of their throats causing them to cough it back up (and sometimes…throw it up). AB took turns waking us up every hour. At one point, Mike just held Brooke in the rocking chair for her to fall asleep. Aidan doesn’t like be held to sleep and wants the confort of his own crib. So he’ll be screaming in my arms to get into the crib and screaming in the crib to get up so he can breathe…vicious cycle.

This lasted for two days until they were all better but of course got everybody around them sick. Casualties are: Di Ba, Di Tu, Mahmah.