I'm Not Doing Jack Today!!

Every week and weekend is busy. I don't see this changing anytime in the near future. Somehow my energy level will just have to adjust.

So after a week of chaos, we contine the Tazmanian Devil existance into the weekends. Saturday morning I did a little bookkeeping work for one of my former clients. Yes, my current employers are aware and are fine with this arrangement. Anyway, after my money-making endeavours were done, I met up with the fam and we high-tailed it to our niece Tristyn's 1st b-day party. Since we're rarely organized, we first drove to Joel and Mandy's house before realizing that the reason there were no cars there was because the party was actually at Mandy's parents house. Doh! Back to the car.

We finally made it. Speaking of the birthday girl, here she is with her cousin Kendra.
There was a pinata. Siena took a big whop at it...
and ended up breaking it, but not in the open and candy falling out kind of way. She managed to rip the top off and separate it from the string. That's my girl!

Mason knew just what to do with that stick too!

Here's Luis' a$$ - oh wait, its the kids grabbing the candy.

Mason's got his loot!

And so does Siena. Just what they need, more candy.

After the birthday party, we hurried home and changed into our costumes for the Renner's Halloween Party. Luis and I were John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I'll keep the kids' as a surprise for next week's blog. The party was a lot of fun - good food and costumes.

That was a lot to do in one day for the Cruzes. Today is much more low-key by design.

In other important news though, the Blazers season officially kicks off this week. If you thought I was enthusiastic for the Olympics, they don't have anything on my Blazers. This year's team is certainly one to be excited about thanks to:

B. Roy!!!!!

Mr. Greg Oden!!!

And the thrilling Spaniard Rudy Fernandez!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh yeah, I'll be watching.

Now we're off to carve pumpkins. Guess I am doing Jack today after all.

The Super 3rd Birthday Spectacular!

On Thursday, my little baby Siena turned 3! Course, she's no longer all THAT little and she's certainly no longer a "baby"...though she will always be MY baby...

She's very very close to being potty trained - a little more diligence on her parent's behalf would probably result in the completion of that process. She loves to sing and color. She loves Dora and Lightning McQueen. She definitly has a big personality of her own.

Saturday was Siena's birthday party at Casa De La Cruz. Mason was ready for the party 3 weeks ago when we bought the invitations...now he's asking if its Christmas yet...

Siena's Great Grandpa Art was able to come to the party. Our entry stairs often pose a challenge for him these days but luckily there were enough helpful guys around to help him up and he seemed to have a good time.
Chris, Sharon, and Giada came. This is 2 weeks in a row that Baby G has made the blog. Its a record! Course, she does make for come cute blog material...
And of course its Mr. BerrEn. I'm determined to spell his name correctly this time. Though he doesn't look too pleased with the situation in this picture, I can assure the home (or work) reader that he did cheer up as the party wore on.

Here's uncle Walt showing off the shiner Annette, er a fall, gave him. He's also wearing a tree twig in his ear courtesy of his jaunt over to the JP Morgan unsold abode next door.

Here's Siena catching her hair on fire attempting to blow out her 3 candles. No, I am not kidding.

The Birthday song process. Yes, these 2 photo's are out of order.

Siena's Lightning McQueen cake! Yes, as mentioned previously in this very blog, Siena chose Cars for her birthday party theme. As a true feminist that she is, she is not encumbered by gender biases and categorization and nor should I be...and it's a darn cute cake for a darn cute little girl.

YaYa was kind enough to bring a little present for Mason. Its a motorcycle with a little guy riding it. It took all of 4 minutes for the little guy to be thrown for his bike and for the motorcycle to begin driving itself. And did I mention how wound up Mason was for this party?!? 3 weeks of buildup all erupting in a 3 hour span.

Aaahhh, presents. Siena got a lot of nice gifts. There were a lot of artsy-craftsy gifts that are PERFECT for her. She loves that kind of thing. She's already made her mark on each of the coloring and activity books.

The Hams, Evanses, Johnson's, and Great Grandparents pitched in and got Siena the cool slide pictured in the box below. Both kids LOVE it. Currently its set up in the living room but eventually it will make its way downstairs and I'll get my tidy living room back.

And my favorite is Siena's new plaid hat!!!!!!

Siena got a cute little purse from Barb and Keith Walker that came with her own bottle of lotion. She lubricated herself. A lot.

Ryder and Kaden seemed to enjoy their party favors...

I kept trying to take a break. It was a very active party. People keep popping out kids which keep the parties lively these days.

Mason ate at least a dozen suckers. According to him "I just keep finding them..." Unfortunately that means that none of the other kids were able to arrive home with their suckers...

At one point in the evening the slide box turned into a slide itself. Barb and YaYa tried to maintain order and decorum in the slide line but it was chaos.

Kaden showing how it's done.

Siena too.

And then the balloon fight started. Caveat to parents: If you purchase this kind of balloon for your child's party, expect total mayhem.

Yup, it was a good party. We're spending today recovering from it.

Little Pumpkins, Big World

It was another action packed week and weekend in Cruzland. Saturday started out with Mason's soccer game. He's getting so much more confident out there. He was getting right in the middle of the scrum, pushing other kids out of the way and kicking at the ball. Given how intimidated he was at the first session last spring, the progress is nice to see.

Saturday evening was Andre's birthday party. It was at a sooped up Burger King on Barbur Blvd. with a big play area.

Here's Mandy, baby Tristan, Joel, and Jr. (aka the Boricuas GM).
Bubba...with the play structure in the background.
That's right. I'm the Queen.

Here's Andre opening his presents. He set a land-speed record for present opening. All the other kids helped out...hence the scrum...

Mason and Siena felt it was their job to help clean up. This is after Siena had a massive diarrhea that we were unprepared for (this blog isn't Little House on the Prairie - I share all aspects of parenthood). We're talking up the back, massive stench. Since we're perpetually unprepared for such events, we had to borrow wipes and a diaper from baby Tristan. Siena is potty trained to the point where an average accident in her pull-ups wouldn't have been a problem. She could go without a diaper. However, with Montazuma's revenge, we felt protection was a necessity.

My husband is a Transformer.

King Mason.

Uh oh, the King can't see...and he has blue icing on his cheek.

Princess poopie herself!

Party kids. The older girls came and told me that they couldn't keep up with Siena in the big playstucture. Welcome to my world girls.

Sunday: To the Roloff Farm!

We went with our friends the DeCiccos to the Roloff farm to pick out pumpkins for this year. People who have seen the TLC program Little People Big World will recognize the farm. There was actually filming going on while we were there and we saw the dad, Jeremy (older boy), and the youngest boy out and about.

Mason picked out his pumpkin all by himself...and is proud of it.

They had a cool "Pumpkin" house at the patch. Here's the couch pumpkin.

I especially like the baby pumpkin in the high chair.

And the baby pumpkin...

This speaks for itself.

I included this picture purely because I was surprised at how good it came out. This is blacklight.

And back to the pumpkin patch.

Sharon and baby Giada picked out their pumpkin too!

Luis got to hold baby G too! Its amazing how much lighter she is than our pipsqueeks.

Of course there is a bike on a zip line.

Baby G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A view of the farm.

They have the coolest stuff around that farm! This is the Wild West town. Honestly, I want to go there just to play...and we've already established in the last blog that I'm an old fart.

Uh oh. Baby G wasn't so happy toward the end of the tour. It was getting close to lunchtime. See, I don't only show the good side of parenthood. There's pleanty of tears and poop too.

There are pirate ships and tree houses...see why I would love to go hang out there?!?

And a castle, though the castle is not yet completed.

If you look closely at the sign, it says "Bridge to Nowhere". Yes, this is the one Sarah Palin is in trouble over.

If you lived on that farm, there would never be a reason to leave. There is a soccer field and a basketball court too. So cool.

I'm now watching a Little People Big World marathon on TLC (what timing). And the kids are sleeping (yippee)! Its been another busy weekend.