Brave Birthday Party, the Big FIVE

Nov. 2013

I feel like I wrote Vayda's birth story just days ago, I can't believe she's 5 now! To catch you all up, she turned five back on Nov. 2nd....yes, I've got a lot of blogging updates to do. But what better way to jump back in than with a birthday party post?!

We went through months of watching Brave on repeat. Vayda was obsessed! Naturally, my mind was running wild with a million ways to incorporate the movie into the party. I tend to have a million ideas and be disappointed with the little I am able to do, but I have to tell you, this one was a fun one. Even if I didn't get to do everything I wanted to do.

For the invite we had a mini photo shoot at a park nearby. Took her bow and arrow and outfit of course. I then used these great arrows from irocksowhat blog to complete the look of the invite.

adorable teddy graham snack bags made by Tia Mini

party bags with the DunBroch Clan colors

Originally I made these whisps for the front yard, they ended up in the centerpieces. If it did it again, I would make 3-4 smaller whisps for the centerpieces and keep the larger ones outside. 

Amazing cake, inspired by pinterest. Made my Sweet Sisters Bakery in Chula Vista, CA

dessert table 

I love my mom, she added those branches to complete the look :)

before the ping pong table was loaded down with food.
side note: throw a table skirt on that thing and it was perfect! 

And we cannot forget the ponies! That's right, my MIL said about 2 years prior that she was going to get ponies for Vayda's 5th birthday...she sure followed through. They were a hit! I told the girls to enjoy it because this will most likely never happen again ahaha. 

After a little while my birthday girl slowed down. She got a bit cranky and wasn't her normal party self...you know, the last one in the jumpy, running a muck with all the kids. I didn't realize till that night after all the madness she was coming down with a cold! She has such a high fever that night :(. All in all it was a good party despite that cold. She bounced back a few days later to play with her presents :).

Dancing Queen & Merry Wishes!

 For having her Folkorico recital on a weekday, everything was moving all too well. When we got to the auditorium we did have a few hiccups (i.e. thought I dropped her shoe at home and was going to send her on the stage in her dress and tennis) but nope, everything went as planned.

Their first dance was great...well they fumbled on the floor but they "danced" so cute! I had to stay in the front of the room to keep my photo op spot so I asked the hubbs and Nana Tula to run back and help with the costume change for the next dance. 

That's when the fun began. A few songs later, performed by the older girls, Tula said Vayda needed to go potty. I jumped up and went to the back of the auditorium to help her out. As I was walking back there the girls in her class were all in a line holding hands going to the front of the room, their dance was next. I couldn't see which was Vay because they all had HUGE sombreros on their head lol. I frantically looked at the hubbs asking where she was and he said the front of the line. Without thinking I went back to my spot and prayed that she wouldn't have an accident in the middle of the dance floor. The Cucaracha song came on...yes I said Cucaracha lol, and she wasn't there. We all shot looks at each other screaming with our eyes, WHERE IS VAYDA?!? I ran back to the back of the room and at that very second the teacher was running out of the bathroom asking if they found her mom. OMG she was in the potty lol! I ran in and could not help but laugh a little...I was waiting for something to happen. Thank God it wasn't on the dance floor in the middle of the auditorium!!

The moment I had her skirt back on and ready to go, the teach swooped in, picked her up and got her to the dance floor the moment their next song came on. It was classic. After little things like that it makes me breath more, enjoy every second and reminds me not to feel like everything has to be perfect. It's the little imperfections that make everything worth while. I began taking pictures and even face-timed my parents and Oma so they could see her last dance. Made my heart smile.

So from our home to yours:

I know she's going to kill me for this later, but how adorable does it get?! This is def going in the wedding slide show ;)
-LL

can we move fwd please?

“Mama, I’m all ready to go. I have everything I need.”

Maybe she is a girly girl after all? Lol. Is it bad to wish your kid has to wear glasses because she looks so darn cute in them? Ok, I guess it is bad. But how freaking cute does she look?!

Last night I came home to yet another mess. Our apartment has now had 9, yes NINE, leaky pipes/roof. That means nine times out of the 2 ½ years we've lived there, there have been open holes in either the wall or ceiling to fix them. 9 times I have had to clean our stuff off because of their mess. And 8 out of the 9 times it took them 3 weeks or more to fix the problems and patch things up (surprisingly this last one took only 1 weekend, wow). I've had enough. I told our landlord last night that I did not want their “fix it crew” to come back tomorrow (now today) to change the wood out from under the sink. I told her I didn't want to clean up after that and they can revamp the whole place if/when we eventually move. She then said, so you’re moving now? No! If we had a place to go I would have left a loooong time ago. I was a little emotional I’ll give you that. And she’s not the one to blame so I can’t be hard on her. Her boss is the worst apartment manager EVER. It could possibly be because she’s preoccupied with her affair. Oops. Anyway, I am grateful for this apartment, despite the leaks it’s been good for us. Quite honestly it’s kind of spoiled us. Since we’re looking at older homes our bedrooms and bathrooms now are much bigger than any homes we've looked at =\. Womp. Point of this rant? Please PRAY we find a home soon.

-LL

p.s. don’t forget about the Starbucks giveaway! Only 4 days left to enter J. 

The Big Kid turned FOUR!

A HUGE happy birthday to our 

Vayda Marie!!

Seriously, where does the time go? I feel like I just had her yesterday :(. 

Following our bite-sized Halloween, we woke up Thursday morning at the crack of dawn to spend a magical day at the happiest place on earth. Why the crack of dawn? It was Thursday so we needed to beat AM traffic to LA. Annnnnd we picked Thursday so we could avoid the big DL crowds. I packed our bags (I wish I could say they were already packed, but I lagged), packed the girls and off we went, the four of us plus Nana Tula. Vayda knew we had talked about going to Disneyland for her bday but we never said that was the day and it was the day before her bday that we went so we hadn't made a big deal about it. 

Sidenote: Yes, we live in Southern CA and no we do not go to DL on a regular basis. We may get passes in the future when they are more aware of things but at the moment the hubbs and I enjoy going for special occasions. We also want them to truly appreciate those special days when we do go. Let's also all agree, DL is effing expensive!!! lol 

On our way up the hubbs decided to tell Vayda we were going camping. I think that's what made our ride up so entertaining. There were long conversations going back and forth about camping and how she just wanted to go back home. It was hilarious. Once we got to the Disney lot and got out she was suuuper excited. Our whole day was great, short lines and tons of fun. It was the first time I've seen her boast about her birthday too, it was adorable! Someone said it was their bday too and she had to correct them, "no, it's my birthday." haha..so far 4 is so fun! 

This was Lori's first time to DL and that was a whole other excitement. We were joking before hand that she was going to have a blast because there is music and food. That's all our little chunkers needs to have a good time ;).

after each ride she would do the sign for "more". too cute!

We spent the night at the parentals, woke up to celebrate on her actual birthday with a traditional pancake & ice cream breakfast (these were my FAVE growing up). They played a little and then we hopped back on the road to SD. 

I guess we were in the celebrating mood (Hubbs would prob give me a sideways look and point to me) so we went to see Wreck it Ralph that night...even though we were all beat. That movie so fun btw, def a go see.

The next day she had her folkorico dance class and a last minuet birthday dinner at Fuddruckers with family and friends...by this time hubbs' sideways face has angry eyes. haha jk! He wanted to celebrate just as much ;). 

Sunday we relaxed and Vayda went to Legoland with her Nana & Tia. Talk about poooped! I never want to celebrate that much again ahha we were all exhausted but it was so well worth it. I only hoped that she would feel special on her birthday and man did she ever. :)

Seriously exausted reading this lol. that's it for a year! =P Happy birthday Vay! 

-LL

"Oh the Places You Will Go"

(btw, Vayda really said that lol, I asked her 3 times to make sure! hahaha)

Last Monday was Vayda's first day of Preschool! I was fine and more excited than anything for her...She's been so ready for school! Vic, well, he was not taking it so easy lol. Vayda I think was more excited than ever to have new friends.

new school kicks

I got to drop her off, pick her up and catch up on how it went all on the ride home. But it quickly went back to normal the next day and it hit me...my baby is in school! Because of my work schedule and her school schedule I can't drop her off and pick her up...isn't that what moms do?!? I was a mess that Tuesday. Emotional mess to say the least. It was hard getting over the fact that I can't watch her and see how she's interacting with the kids and her teachers the entire time...and making sure she's paying attention, ugh that's the hardest. I have to let go a little. It's not the first time, but the first time I had to, it was when I came back to work and she was with family. I don't think it gets better than that. This time it's with strangers :(. I'm not there to make sure  she's not in danger, being impolite, not eating or has dirty hands. This is not fair, but this is life. All I can do is trust that she's being watched over. You better believe my mama bear instincts are higher than ever now =P.

night before her first day :)

before check-in

it's that papa bear protection

"oh the places you will go"

my ham. love her to death! 

attendance chart

her cubbie <3 td="td">

It's been two weeks now and I think we are getting into the new groove of things...Vayda is loving her new friends, teachers and the playground of course :).

More to come...

-LL

A World of Her Own

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” – Alice in Wonderland

Vayda was sitting at the kitchen table and I was putting on her socks and shoes. This is how my Wednesday morning began:

Vayda: Momma, I have something for you!
Me: What is it Vay?
*She pretended to hand me something.
Vayda: Look, into the mirror.
Me: What’s in the mirror?
*I’m still waiting for my coffee to kick in so it took me a second…and then it clicked.
Me: Oh no! It’s my papa! He’s sick, I have to go…he may be dying?!
Vayda: Yes you can go.
*then she did a lap around the kitchen pretending to run to her papa.

Haha yes, we act out Beauty and the Beast in the morning!

Later that same morning when I was dropping her off at Nana’s I gave her the same speech I do every day, the “PLEASE go peepee and poopoo in the potty” speech. As soon as I finished she ran off to the potty and said she had to go peepee. I quickly said bye to Tula so she could go help Vayda out and so I could get off to work. As I turned around in the cul-de-sac and glanced back at the house I saw Vayda standing outside yelling something. I stopped, rolled down my window and heard her yell (mind you, across the street) “I went peepee in the potty momma! Have a good day, say hi to Maleficent!”. Hahaha. I yelled back "Yaaay, great job baby!". Those lucky neighbors got a great wakeup call!

Never a dull moment with my VaydaCakes.

little warrior.

So um, this kid is pretty rad. At 6:45am I’m putting Lori in the car and Vayda says, “Momma can you hold my monkey juice?”. For those of you that don’t know, monkey juice is aka the Danimals yogurt smoothies. So of course I said sure, “but why Vay?” I didn’t get an answer, I just turned around to see this….

She got her bow and arrow out to shoot “the mean cat” lol! We call this stray cat the mean cat because he really is mean! He will hiss as you get close. Way to go VaydaCakes…protector from the mean cat. Good morning!

Vayda's FIRST Chargers Game....

Ok, so these pictures are looooong over due! I finally got my hands on them, so here you go. Vayda is exactly one week old. You must think we're crazy (sometimes we are haha) but this is kind of a tradition. When my brother was born my parents took him to a UofA football game, when Rita was born they went to some hot air balloon races & when I was born we went on a airplane ride to Cuenca in Ecuador....SO as you can see this is not sooo crazy ;).

Exactly one week after she was born, Megan and Sergio invited us to the Charger game. We had great seats and yes, the Chargers won!!