October is a busy month for us. Lots of birthdays, Halloween, and numerous other social activities - this weekend especially. So of course it's the perfect weekend for me to come down with a cold. Oh well, the show must go on.
Saturday started much as it usually does with Seina's dance class. They're working on a cute dance routine to "Let it Snow" for their December recital. After the dance class we had to come home and work on a project for Mason's school. That left about an hour for lunch, shower, and changing and on to my niece Tristyn's birthday party.
Costumes were encouraged at Tristyn's party but as I'm not quite done with Mason's airplane costume for this year, he had to wear last year's race car driver costume. He did soop it up by adding the racer helmet.
Siena snuggling with Abuelo Jose during the cutting of the cake.
The little princesses - Cinderella Siena and Snow White Tristyn.
Tio Joel, fittingly, was dressed as Grumpy.
Digging in the hay for candy and treats!
Tia Mandi (aka the Wicked Witch from Snow White) and Tristyn. Mandi had the best Wicked Witch make up - I was a little frightened. Hopefully my reoccuring childhood Snow White nightmare doesn't come back tonight.
Kendra and Andre forgot their costumes but got to get some snuggles in with Joel and Mandi's puppy.
After the birthday party, it was time for my cousin Chelsey's baby shower. The kids all got to hang out at Heidi's house with the guys. For those of you who don't know my cousin Chelsey, she's the one person in the family we NEVER thought would decide to have kids. Course, she's also the one person in the family who never ceases to surprise so there you have it.
Mary Lou, Heidi, and Chandra put on a wonderful shower. They served high tea including amazing food. Even the tea was great, and I'm not much of a tea drinker.
All guests were also tasked with decorating a onesie. Amanda and my aunt Joanne, of course, came up with this one.
Heidi had a little accident with the brown paint. I guess there are limits to how hard you can squeeze it.
Here's the baby carrier Chelsey received...my mother noticed that apparently you can nurse while walking your baby around. Everything's about multitasking these days.
Mary Lou made this wonderful blanket for her newest grandson.
After a great night at the shower and staying up late to watch the Beavers lose to Washington in overtime, it was time for busy weekend part 2: Siena's birthday party!
Yup, my little baby Siena turned 5 on Saturday, celebrating her birthday with her birthday buddy Papa Ron. The kids were excited for today's party as well. So was Tommy.
Yaya was a huge help as ever and as you'll see in later pictures, we certainly needed all the help we could get. She brought all of the finger foods and decorations. We couldn't have pulled this off without all of her help.
She even put Mason to work sorting napkins. He's a good kid and was more than happy to help.
Here's the birthday girl! She's sporting her Belle halloween costume today for her party. We even had to put her hair back in a low pony tail just like Belle.
The birthday buddies play horsie before the guests arrive.
Officially it was supposed to be a Wii playing party but the kids seemed more than happy just to play with the toys together so the Wii thing didn't totally happen. That's totally fine though and Chris and Siena did manage to get a little Wii resort action in.
Similar to Heidi's brown paint fiasco, we had a couple big mishaps ourselves. Papa Ron was kindly helping to break up the ice and managed to stab the bottle of Coke with a knife, sending cola spewing all over himself and the kitchen.
Siena told me that she wanted a pink, heart shaped cake. While at Michael's last weekend, we bought some special heart shaped cake pans. This morning the kids helped me mix up the cake batter and bake the cake. They also helped to mix the frosting. Unfortunately, I forgot to grease the bottom of the cake pan which led to a disasterous result when trying to get it out of the pan.
As for the frosting, the pink frosting I got from Micheals was gel like, which I've never used before, and it ended up coming out of the container in a giant chunk leaving the frosting closer to crimson than pink.
The best I can say about this cake is that it looks anatomically correct.
And the blob of cake didn't seem to faze Siena.
The good news is that it tasted better than it looked. Maybe next year we'll buy a cake.
Siena got a lot of wonderful presents. We got her a camera of her own after she's filled up the memory cards on both of our phones.
Cool girlie toys and a happy Siena!
All the kids had fun helping Siena with her presents.
How does all this stuff work?!?
The kids had a great time Play-Doh cooking after present opening.
I realized after everyone went home that I forgot to give out the treat bags to the kids as they were leaving. Can I blame a Ny-Quil hangover? Ah well. It was a great weekend and everyone had fun. Now on to another busy week.
The kid's table. It should be noted that it was only a couple of years ago that Luis and I, along with our cousins were still at the kid's table.
Mason came back for kumla seconds! We were so proud that the only thing missing was confetti and streamers. Good little Nor-rican.
Mason tested out Jay B's new hip...the giddy-up seems to be back in full form.
Auntie Lou and her frock. This was the picture she didn't know I took.
And the one she did know I took. Apparently this apron has been handed down a couple of generations. I thought she was just making a fashion statement.
Happy 93rd birthday to Grandpa (in a couple of weeks)! No better way to celebrate than with some kumla in your belly!
Yaya's got a birthday coming up in a few days too. Of course her candles had to be in some pumpkin pie. And Siena had to help with candles.
Heidi displaying her cup labeling skills...or rather Dan's who didn't think Heidi's was sufficient. 
Miss Rory. We wore her out.
So we ate kumla, celebrated birthdays, and enjoyed hanging out. And of course didn't get home until 9 on a school night. Totally worth it though.
