Top 10 Adoption Blogs

12 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by in All Others

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My blog was nominated over at Circle of Mom’s for the top ten adoption blogs. If you have a moment, click the link and give me a quick vote. It only takes a second, I promise! You can vote once a day if you like. Thank you so much.

Thanks everyone who voted, but circle of Moms sent me this e-mail this afternoon:

Hello,

After serious consideration, we have decided to cancel our Adoption Blogs by Moms – 2012 contest. Our Top 25 program is meant to celebrate, connect, and support mom bloggers. Following some feedback from participants in our 2011 contest, we decided to make this year’s Top 25 more inclusive. In doing so, we unknowingly stepped into a very sensitive issue and debate, and we apologize to all the moms who have been offended, no matter what your position on adoption is. We’re committed to finding a way to give all parties in the Adoption Triad a voice on Circle of Moms. If we run a Top 25 Adoption Blogs in the future, we’ll consult with mom bloggers in each part of the Adoption Triad on how to create a supportive contest where all bloggers would feel welcome and respected by Circle of Moms and by all participants. We appreciate the time and energy every participant put into this contest during the past week, and we sincerely regret that we can’t reward those efforts in the way we had planned to when we launched the contest. 

We will be closing the contest at 3pm PST today and all blogs will be removed from the contest page.

Sincerely,
The Circle of Moms Team

 

In sadder news, I’m taking the day off so I can give my full and uninterrupted attention to my cat. Big T is watching Little T, and I’m hanging out in my room and showering her with tuna, catnip, and anything else her kitty heart desires. She is sitting next to my feet right now, my poor baby. I just can’t imagine her not being here anymore. Ugh, this day…it’s awful. Please keep us in your thoughts, it’s been a tough week around here.

tough day in the {parent}hood

11 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by in All Others

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This week has been rough. My beautiful cat, who has been my friend throughout my 20’s and into my 30’s, is dying. I was dreading this week because I knew it was time to take her to the vet, and I knew it wasn’t going to be good news and that it was going to lead to lots of awesomely expensive tests. To complicate things, I don’t have a sitter and had to take Little T with me. He made it so hard. He’s usually very good but was having a bad day for some reason. He was crying and fussy and couldn’t sit still. He wanted my iphone but he didn’t want my iphone, and being quiet was the last thing he wanted to do. He was being so loud that the vet had to take Angel into another room to listen to her heart. Isn’t it crazy how parenting can sometimes turn a difficult task into an overwhelmingly impossible one in .03 seconds?

I knew from the vet’s face that it was bad news when he came back in the room. He said Angel had heart failure, and that we had to go to the animal emergency room. I called Big T who was home sick, and asked him to come and help me with Little T. We went to the animal hospital together and they said Angel needed a heart test, so this morning I’m driving two hours out to Carlsbad because that’s where their heart doctor is on Wednesdays. How can we afford this? We can’t. Ugh.

Despite everything, I had to go to a networking event last night. I was able to pull myself together for a few hours until the way home. That’s when I lost it. I mean, mascara running down my face, sobbing-into-the-steering-wheel-lost-it. Ugh.

Easter Sunday

09 Monday Apr 2012

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

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For Easter we spent the day with Big T’s family at Grandma K’s house. We weren’t going to be able to eat a lot of the food there, so we made a vegetable pot pie and orange and strawberry cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I had bought these Peter Rabbit Cupcake Holders a year ago, and I was really looking forward to using them:

The cupcakes turned out delicious, there were only a few lonely cupcakes left at the end of the night.
As always, Grandma K’s backyard was beautiful.

We’d practiced opening Easter Eggs with Little T earlier in the day, so he ran to the yard when he saw that we’d put all of the eggs out there. In the eggs we had fruit sweetened vegan jelly beans, stickers, bunny grahams, and some vegetable snack crisps.

Little T wasn’t the only one who enjoyed the Easter Eggs:

After the Easter Egg hunt, we caught up with family members:

Yep, that’s a body bugg on my arm. I wear it because I’ve been sitting so much since I started editing, and I want to make sure I get my 10,000 steps in every day. 

And Little T played trains with his Uncle D:

And then he played with Dad:

We always end the night by sharing a song from each family member in the group. This year Little T even had a song. It was “Nice N Clean” by Chromeo. Little T loved to dance to everyone’s music, he has the Night at the Roxbury head bob down pat.

I hope you all had a great weekend, and a great Easter for those of you that celebrate. 🙂

three years ago….

05 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by in Photography, The Family

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Yesterday was our third anniversary, but everything has been so crazy around here that we completely forgot to make plans. My mom, who knows me so well and knows how busy it’s been, sent me an e-mail telling me not to forget to take the time to celebrate. So at the last minute, our friends Michelle and AJ offered to watch Little T while we had a quick dinner/dancing date together at California Adventure.

We started out with a glass of wine and some funny faces.

Then we moved over to ElecTronica:

And then we tested out our hot dance moves. I think Little T would have been proud.

It was only two hours, but it was one of the best dates we’d had in a long time and turned out to be a surprisingly awesome forgotten anniversary.

Trayvon Martin

31 Saturday Mar 2012

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I know I’m not alone when I say Trayvon’s story has weighed heavily on my heart and my mind. The injustice of it all is breathtaking. Not only that, but those of you that follow this blog know that a few months ago, I saw a person take his life with a gun in less than a second. I can’t even begin to tell you how this has made me feel about guns and Florida’s ridiculous gun laws.

But Little T…

How will I explain to my sweet baby boy, who is especially talented at making everyone in the room stop and smile, that he may be considered suspicious because of the color of his skin? Should I tell him he can’t ever walk alone at night? Should I tell him that hoodies are off limits? Should I tell him if a strange man is following him down the street, he should stop and hang around to see what this strange guy wants? What do I tell my son? Because unfortunately, some people will look at my son and they won’t see the happy, sweet baby boy that makes me smile every day. They’ll only see the color of his skin, and they’ll think he’s a threat.

Big T and I have grown up without having to worry about these things, and we’re not going to pretend we know what it’s like. All I can say, is that my son is my world and I don’t ever want anything like this to happen to him. If it did, my world would stop.

And this. This link breaks my heart. It’s an article in Time Magazine written by Toure, talking about how to explain Trayvon Martin to your black son.

1. It’s unlikely but possible that you could get killed today. Or any day. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. Black maleness is a potentially fatal condition. I tell you that not to scare you but because knowing that could save your life. There are people who will look at you and see a villain or a criminal or something fearsome. It’s possible they may act on their prejudice and insecurity. Being black could turn an ordinary situation into a life-or-death moment even if you’re doing nothing wrong

Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/03/21/how-to-talk-to-young-black-boys-about-trayvon-martin/#ixzz1qfGYn6g

If you haven’t read about Trayvon Martin, you need to. It is a tragedy that deserves attention.

The Princess Trip

30 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in The Family

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It’s true. Once a year, all (or at least most) of the women in our family gather for an annual princess trip to Disneyland. I’m not sure how this tradition started, but I know that my grandmother is always referred to as “the Queen Mother”, and that the trip always ends with us going down Mainstreet in a vehicle and waving to people like we’re in a parade or something. I’ve always been more of an Indiana Jones type of girl-but nevertheless, once a year I pull out the princess tiara and pink shirt and practice my princess wave.

For reasons unknown, this year started out with a kazoo contest. My team didn’t win. I’m guessing it’s because there were some shady things going on between the winners and our judge, aka=The Queen Mother.

These princesses aren’t the kind of princesses that takes their time in the morning and get to the park around noon. They’re the kind of princesses that get to the park at 7:00 a.m. and don’t leave until 11:00 at night. We didn’t really take a break until mid day when the Queen Mother demanded it.

Here she is, the Queen Mother herself, enjoying an hour of relaxation:

And here’s the whole team, Princess Power!

After this, we got into all sorts of shenanigans. I want to take this moment to apologize to anyone who waited in line with us and had the misfortune of being serenaded by a bunch of princesses with kazoos.

One Princess down!

So that’s what I did last weekend. It’s hard returning to a normal life after spending a weekend with royalty, but this princess has officially packed away her tiara until next year.

Adventures at Wondercon

20 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Photography

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Last Friday I was sitting in my chair editing photos and mentally planning out my weekend, when I got an e-mail asking if I’d be the photographer for Save Our Seeker, a super cool group of people that were going to be hosting a photo session with Craig Horner from “Legend of the Seeker” at Wondercon. They asked if I could take photos for an hour on Saturday and Sunday, while people did a meet and greet with Craig.

Being the neurotic over-planner that I am, I got to Wondercon 2 hours early. Big T came to help me carry the equipment, with the idea was that he’d watch Little T while I took photos. We went to lunch because we had time to spare (!!!mistake!!!), and then made our way to Wondercon. I’d never been at the Anaheim Convention Center before, but the place was jam packed. It took us half an hour just to make a turn to get near the front of the convention center. From our car we could see that the parking garages were full and the nearest parking was 2 miles away. My heart sunk as I realized there was no way we could park, carry equipment, manage a baby, and get there on time. We quickly decided to drop off Big T with the heavy equipment while I parked. The traffic was terrible though, and by the time it took us to get to the front of Wondercon, we only had 30 minutes to get to the location, and I still had to register.

In a moment of recklessness and panic, I had Big T drop ME off with 65 pounds of clunky equipment-I know because we weighed it later. I carefully positioned bags and around my shoulders and started the long walk in the rain to the convention. I’m not kidding when I say long, because what had looked like the front of the convention center turned out to be the opposite side of where Wondercon was. My body was aching and the calories on my body bugg were spiking like crazy! It took me about 15-20 minutes to get to where I needed to go, and then I had to walk down the stairs with everything and go from person to person trying to figure out where I needed to get a pass. One kind man with an awesome tattoo finally took pity on me because of all the things I was lugging around, and gave me a pass and said to come earlier next time. Erg.

My friend Cha met me downstairs, and we split divided the equipment and made our way to the photo shoot. Big T never made it to the parking lot because the traffic was too bad, and decided to wait at Downtown Disney with Little T instead.

Once we got to the booth though, everything turned around. The group from Save Our Seeker was awesome, and Craig Horner was one of the sweetest and most genuine guys I’ve ever met, and kept trying to help me set up the photo equipment. He talked about his new pilot that’s coming out on the CW, and chatted and took pictures. He even listened to me go on about Little T (oh man, I’m one of those parents that goes on and on about their kid). :p After the photos were finished, I took my equipment downstairs and called Big T and asked him to come and pick me up. My friend Jackie texted while I was sitting there, and said she was at the convention center too! I immediately begged for her to help me carry my equipment outside, and she said she’d meet me in the lobby by the bar. I looked around wondering where the bar was at the convention center, and it took us a while to realize that we were in two completely different buildings, heh heh. So I gathered up the equipment, and hobbled outside and down the street to search for Big T. A few moments later he came driving up. The way I remember it-there was a beaming light shining down on him and angels singing in the distance as he drove towards me, because I couldn’t have been happier to see him…and his car.

So, the moral of the story? Get a friggin dolley! Sheesh! Oh…and Craig Horner is really nice.

Portland Part 2

18 Sunday Mar 2012

Posted by in The Adventures of Little T, The Family, The Travels, vegan

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This is soooooo late! But I don’t want to forget the second half of our trip.

By this point, Little T figured out we were going to fun places every day, so he’d spend the morning crawling into his stroller and looking at us impatiently. Big T had to work at the conference, so Little T and I took a trip to the zoo. He was really excited to test out his new animal noises. Whenever we’d see a bear or a lion he’d roar like crazy. I practically ran after him with the stroller the whole time. Kid was on the move!

Little T stared at this fish display for a while. He couldn’t figure out why they weren’t in the water where they were supposed to be:

After the zoo, we met up with Big T and walked over to another vegan food cart for lunch:

This is where I ate the best chocolate peanut butter cup I’ve ever had in my life:

I got a grilled cheese sandwich and Little T had a vegetable sandwich with hummus…well, that was the plan anyway. Little T fell asleep and there was absolutely no way to keep the little guy awake to eat. Talk about running out of steam!

That night we went to a restaurant that was really bad, so I won’t mention it on here except to say that at the end of our meal they wrote a suggested 25% tip? Even this ex-waitress thought that was a little high.

After dinner, we went to the Portland Art Museum.

The next day, Big T didn’t have to work and wanted to see the Children’s Museum himself.

And then we all went to the zoo, where it started….snowing. 0_o Because of this, we stuck to the underground areas.

By this time, we began to realize that Little T was getting pretty sick. He’d had a cough all week but it was getting worse and worse. We decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel to rest.

We ordered some Indian food and spent the rest of the day watching movies.

The next day we had to stay inside again because Little T wasn’t getting any better. It was a sad way to end the vacation, but not much we could do and we had to take care of Little T.

Little T entertained himself by finger painting on steamy windows.

And I think he enjoyed taking a rest, doesn’t he look like a content little guy? Big T and I, on the other hand, were going stir crazy staying in that tiny hotel room!

The next morning we packed up our things and made one more trip to the Sweetpea Baking Company to have lunch and pick things up for the plane trip.

Sandwich:

Bagel with vegan cream cheese:

and some (half eaten-teehee) baked goods:

Little T was great on the plane trip! Isn’t this picture of him sweet?

Overall, a great trip! I can see why so many people adore Portland. We came home and our schedules got crazy, so it was nice to have a week of fun before the storm. 🙂 And that’s it! Hope you’re all having a great weekend! I’ve been working as a photographer at Wondercon, I can’t believe how busy this month has been!

Vegan St. Patty’s Day

14 Wednesday Mar 2012

Posted by in The Family

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What are you doing for St. Patrick’s Day? We’re going to a friend’s house, but before that we’re planning on stopping at Native Foods because they’re having a Weekend long Vegan St. Patty’s Day Special where the beer and wine are 1/2 off all day and they’re serving a Vegan version of a Classic Deli Rueben. Last year we all wore green and went to One World Vegetarian. If you wear green on St. Patty’s day, they give you a free vegan cupcake (w00t)!

But, to balance all of this St. Patty’s food out, why not start the day with something healthy? I got an e-mail from Omega Juicers the other day. I don’t usually post these things, but I love green drinks and I thought this was a great idea. Kids (and adults) might be a little more excited to try a green drink on St. Patty’s Day, you never know! :p

Here’s Little T and my own favorite green drink recipe:

  • lots of kale
  • Two stems celery
  • 6 large romaine lettuce leaves
  • 1 apple
  • 1 lemon
  • a little ginger
  • 1 pear
  • 1 cucumber

And here were the recipes from Omega Juicers (www.OmegaJuicers.com):
The Leaping Leprechaun

  • 1/2 cup strawberries
  • 1 banana
  • 1/2 cup of spinach leaves
  • 1 cup water

Lucky Lucy

  • 1 handful parsley
  • 2 apples
  • 1 handful spinach
  • 1 cucumber
  • 1 lemon
  • 1-inch piece ginger

Sparkling Shamrock

 

  •  fresh pineapple cubes
  • 1/2 cup strawberries
  • 1 banana
  • 1/2 cup of spinach leaves
  • 1 cup water
  • One to two drops of vanilla essence
  • One cup of plain soy yogurt and add a teaspoon or two of agave for sweetness (optional)

Irish Twist

  • 3 cups fresh baby Spinach
  • 1 Lime, 1 large Tomato
  • 2-3 Carrots and 1/2 Carrot top bunch
  • 1/2 bunch Parsley
  • 1 stalk Celery

Green Morning

  • 4-6 Carrots
  • 4 stalks of Celery
  • 1 Lemon
  • 1 Macintosh or Yellow Apple
  • Combine all ingredients into a blender. Blend until really smooth, not still grainy or chunky or with bits of leaves floating about. It can be thick, as you can always thin with water, but it needs to be smooth.  This should take only a couple of minutes. Blend until the greens are so pulverized that they are no longer visible other than infusing your smoothie with a beautiful green color.

For more information about juice and smoothie recipes or Omega products please visit www.OmegaJuicers.com

Speaking of green drinks, last night I was talking with a friend about vegetables. We’ve decided to have a healthy party, where we get together and share healthy foods. We thought this would be a good way to get ideas from each other! Who knows? Maybe it will turn into a monthly thing!

I hope you’re all having a good week! I’m heading off to photograph another wedding at Disneyland today. I can’t think of a better way to spend the day than at a wedding. 🙂