Category Archives: The Family

Happenings Via Instagram

11 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Quick Snippets, The Family

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First off: I’m doing a lot better. I’ll write more when I have time, but for now:

IPhone pictures of the last week via Instagram:

Little Miss Snuggle Bunny:

Entertaining himself on long car rides with his drums:

Wanting to wear a scarf like momma and grandma:

Meeting the official greeter of Sonoma:

New duds:

Snuggling with his favorite doll:

Playing with my iphone camera:

Laughing at how he looks with his new hat on:

Sitting in his chair and looking way too grown up for mommy:

Getting stuck in Miss Piggy’s crate (mwaha):

Watching Michelle while she’s hard at work:

Making a weird face and taking a picture for my mom. In the bathroom. (teehee):

Life Goes On…

09 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by in The Family

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How am I doing? Better, since I’ve gotten home. It’s hard to explain how I feel. It reminds me of when I volunteered by answering emergency phone lines during Hurricane Katrina. I’d go from spending hours talking with a devastated husband while we worked on locating his wife who’d passed away during the hurricane, to having to act pleasant while I waited tables in a restaurant. It’s strange seeing everyone be fine when you’ve experienced something so violent. It feels like the world just tilted, but you’re the only person who can feel it.

Big T and I went to see a friend/counselor on Saturday. We talked about everything and worked out how we’re going to move forward from here. I have to remember that what I experienced was rare. I’ve been telling myself that it’s safe to walk down the street with Little T, and that most people don’t have guns in their pockets.

While the image of what happened slowly fades, I think about how I’m grateful that we weren’t injured. I’m glad Little T wasn’t old enough to know what happened, and I’m so glad we all made it home safe. My heart hurts for the family of the man who died. I also have a lot more respect for the police force and the danger they put themselves in. It was surreal to see and feel that danger first hand. I could never do it.

So basically, I’m getting through it. We spent the weekend on the couch eating popcorn and watching Harry Potter movies. I’ve been getting more Disneyland photo shoot requests, so I’m going to get an annual pass and I might take Little T to Disneyland this week so we can cheer ourselves (me) up. I took a break from work this weekend, but today life goes on and I have to keep moving forward.

Top Chef New Years Challenge

05 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by in Photography, The Adventures of Little T, The Family

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Here’s how we spent our New Year’s Eve, having a tasty Top Chef style challenge, I hope you enjoy the photos from our night.

Secret ingredients and quick fire challenge revealed: Make an appetizer with two ingredients that are known around the world to bring good luck on New Year’s Day. Black eyed peas, collard greens, cabbage, raisins, grapes, and champagne.

They drew knives to see who would choose their ingredients first. Scott decided on black eyed peas and currants, and Big T decided on collard greens and champagne. Here’s Scott cooking away:

The winning dish, doesn’t look like much but it was delicious:

The winner had 30 dollars to spend at the grocery store for the next part of our challenge, the loser only had 25. For part two, they had to go to the grocery store and buy ingredients to prepare dinner. They had to incorporate brussels sprouts and grapefruit into the meal.

15 minutes to shop:

Keeping track of time:

A twist! Pick out an ingredient for your competitor to use:

Big T had to leave a grapefruit out because he’d gone over the limit:

Plating:

Cooking:

Scott made grapefruit risotto with a roasted brussel sprout topping. Big T made pasta with a brussel sprout pesto sauce and a grapefruit salad. Both dinners were sooooo good and disappeared fast, but Scott was the winner in the end. What a delicious evening it was. We definitely need a repeat with some other chef friends involved (I’m looking at you, KD, Sonal, Michelle and Andrew!)

Our Holiday

28 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by in The Family, The Travels

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I don’t have tons of Christmas pictures because sometimes it’s nice to put down the camera and enjoy a glass of wine along with everyone’s company. But I will say, this Christmas was unexpectedly delightful. Unexpected, because I’ve been feeling emotional and tired lately. For one thing, Little T has a stuffy nose and he’s always very clingy when he’s not feeling well. Clingy as in: nobody can hold him except for mommy. I love that I can give him that comfort, but it does wear me out a bit. To add to that, I had to spend a lot of time on the computer. I always feel a little out of it when I’m on the computer for too long, so it was a hard stretch of work. I’ve also taken a nose dive health wise. I haven’t been eating well _at all_, and I feel really worn out because of it. I’m extremely sensitive to food and when I don’t eat right, I feel it X10. Not to mention, my neck and back are flared up from holding a heavy Little T (I injured it ages ago when I worked at Disneyland, and every once in a while it will get thrown out of whack again.) Anyway, because of all those things, I’ve been feeling out of sorts (physically and mentally) and a little down, but seeing everyone at Christmas turned out to be just what I needed.

The night before Christmas Eve, my family came over to spend the night. Little T was ecstatic when my nephews showed up at the house, walking around while shouting and pumping his arms in the air. It was pretty funny. After Little T went to bed, we watched “Rise of the Apes” and ate popcorn and Christmas cookies.

On Christmas Eve, the rest of the gang showed up. Big T made vegan crepes and we loaded them with chocolate, powdered sugar, and fruit. After that, my younger brother spent the morning using Photoshop to morph us into characters from The Office.

Apparently, geekiness runs in the family.

Later we opened gifts. Little T got a baseball kit and bongos that he banged for approximately 30 minutes before he broke them. He is very intense when it comes to drumming, silly Little T. :p

We played baseball for a while before heading over to my Aunt’s house for the extended family Christmas. When we got to my Aunt’s, we were bombarded by babies. There were seven babies total with two more on the way, so it was a babypalooza over there. Needless to say, we had lots of fun baby watching.

Little T was having too much fun, he even started to photobomb us. I hope he doesn’t teach that to all the other babies:

Around six, we drove four hours with my mom and step dad to get home and had Christmas Eve night at our house. We woke up early the next day and brought Little T out to the living room, expecting him to be excited about the Christmas Tree, presents, and stockings. He was excited for two seconds, and then he saw M’s Guitar Hero drum set that he loves and started to bang on the drums again. We had a great morning, and Little T was feeling so much better and we actually were able to sleep the night before because of this. Yay!

After Christmas morning, we went over to Big T’s grandparents house and spent the day with his family. We had Christmas Crepes again, ate lots of cookies, opened gifts (I got a huge gnome for my collection-teehee) and enjoyed each others company. Overall, it was a good week.

I hope Santa feels like sharing….

23 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in Photography, The Family

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We’re celebrating Christmas at my Mom’s house tonight. The whole clan is spending the night after spending the day making cookies for Santa.

Hopefully he doesn’t mind sharing a few, because Miss Piggy is looking pretty hungry.

Happy Holidays to all of you!

Love,

Momma J

For more bokeh pictures, give the link below a click:

And *edit for the winner of our flicker scooter* GypsyNicole (#34) is our winner from a random number generator! In her comment, she wrote: “Thank you for the giveaway opportunity and happy holidays!”

Holiday Happenings

23 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in Photography, The Adventures of Little T, The Family

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A great big box of stocking stuffers from Viva La Vegan Grocery:

Playing outside in a big pile of leaves:

Making silly adjustments to PJ’s because Little T is sooooo tall:

Having time for pretty hairstyles:

Watching Coach at a basketball game:

Getting tickled during half time:

Eating lots and lots of crispy kale:

Drumming in pajamas that don’t match (clearly, we’ve had some pajama issues on this trip):

And enjoying the lights around the neighborhood:

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.

20 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by in Photography, The Family, The Travels

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~Burton Hillis

Chirstmas for us is a week long family extravaganza. We start the weekend before Christmas at my Dad’s, spend the rest of the week at my Mom’s, drive four hours to get home on Christmas Eve, have Christmas morning in our home, then have Christmas Day with Big T’s family. Not to mention lots of family activities in between. It’s a family gathering marathon.

I got exhausted just writing that!

It can get a little stressful, but we try to take it easy on ourselves when we don’t have time to bake or we have to do something last minute. It all works out in the end.

Here are a few pictures from our first Christmas event at my Dad’s house:

Priceless is seeing my older brother, getting excited over receiving the movie Conan.

My Dad and S-Mom are treating Big T and I to a date night for our Christmas gift, babysitting included! What more can parents ask for? Little T got a little play slide and a musical toy.

After we exchanged gifts, we took a basketball break. Little T wanted to make a basket, so Big T got out the ladder and helped him out a bit.

When basketball was done, we played Dance Revolution on the Wii.

Piggy spent the whole day in the kitchen. She has mastered the skill of looking like she hasn’t eaten in weeks, heh heh.

Speaking of eating, there were lots of tasty treats all around:

Later in the evening the babies went upstairs to play…except for B, she had important phone calls to make.

We had a great time catching up with everyone (and isn’t this the cutest smile ever?):

Meanwhile, the big kids played Oklahoma Monopoly downstairs. I tried to explain to Little T that he wasn’t old enough to play yet, but he just looked at me and said, “come on mom, Oklahoma Monopoly is for everyone”. I can’t argue with that.

Bad Dreams…

19 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in The Family

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Do you ever have bad dreams about your kids? Last night I had a dream that was really upsetting. I was in the middle of a war zone and a group of us had found a place to hide. Our hiding place was safe because we could see outside but nobody could see in. I was trying to save as many people as I could and bring them into our hiding place. It was tricky because there was a road in front of us where the enemy was constantly driving back and forth and I had to be extremely careful. Some people I’d save, and some people I couldn’t get to in time and they didn’t make it. All of this caution was thrown out the window when Little T appeared across the road. He was all alone and lost and scared and crying. I panicked and had this overwhelming feeling of pain because I couldn’t protect him. Without thinking or looking to see if there was anyone dangerous around, I panicked and threw open the door and ran across the street to get him.

That’s when my phone went off in real life and woke me up. I turned my phone to silent, and went and got Little T from his crib and held him tight.