I don't know why..

Around the holidays I eat horribly! Usually I don't crave goodies like cookies and fatty foods, but when winter time comes around I can't keep my hands off it! It's so bad. Looks like I need to do couch to 5k again to make it through the New Years. Sometimes I miss being pregnant and getting to indulge more often without feeling guilty about it!

Here is my current enemy.

darn you Starbucks for your delicious peppermint white mocha latte!!!! It doesn't matter that I get you in non-fat and light whip, because I'm practically buying you every time I leave the house! I'm too weak to deny myself your pepperminty-sweet-yumminess...

Gobble Gobble

Thanksgiving is coming around the corner and we're hosting dinner at our house for the first time. I've cooked a turkey before but never hosted at my own house (my friends have alway had me lug it over to their place). This year Matt's required to invite all the single soldiers over to our home for the holidays, so no soldier has to spend the holidays in the barracks. A few of my friends and their families are coming too, so hopefully there will be a good turn out. I'm really hoping only to have to make a turkey because my refrigerator is small and I only have one oven, so fingers crossed that no one has to flake :)

this is exactly how I cook a turkey. I seriously love Alton Brown and his show "Good Eats", he's like the Bill Nye the Science guy of food.

Halloween

Halloween.. Halloween... I have never really appreciated you much.

My husband is a Halloween fanatic. He totally goes hog wild for Halloween. I'll never understand what is really that great about this holiday, but I decided to put a full effort into trying to embrace it this year.

We went to the pumpkin patch the weekend before Halloween. Madison loved every second of it. It was a such a beautiful day. Madison really got a kick out of the small petting zoo they had at Aloun Farms. Her favorite part was the bunnies and the chicken. I was so surprised that the chickens let me pet them. I grew up in Elverta and I always thought chickens were, well... chicken, and usually scared of people, but not these chickens.

When we went into the actual patch of pumpkins, though dry, there was actually a great selection to choose from. Madison squirmed out of our arms and ran for the pumpkins, then decided she wanted to sit on as many of them as possible. Don't ask me why, but I think she thought they made great seats. After I picked my pumpkin I mostly had fun picture taking and chasing Madison through the pumpkin patch, while Matt was on the hunt for the perfect pumpkin. During Madison's mission to sit on every pumpkin, she missed a pumpkin and sat in a patch of thistles and Matt had to pick them out of her butt, it was the funniest thing ever. At that point I gave up on trying to keep her clean and let her get as dirty as she wanted. There was a lot of Hawaiian red dirt at that farm and it was windy, so it was all over everyone. They even had a "slippah" washing station near the stands where you pay for the pumpkins for all us flip flop wearing people who came that day.

We had also planned to go to the haunted plantation which is a big attraction to Oahu during Halloween, along with the haunted lagoons. Sadly, that didn't happen because I came down with a horrible case of bronchitis. Even though I felt awful I decided to just tough it out because I was determined to enjoy this Holiday for Matt and Madison's sake.

We carved pumpkins. Matt was so excited to carve his pumpkin that he actually cheated and got a head start on his pumpkin while I was sleeping in/recovering from my bronchitis the morning before Halloween. His punishment was to help Madison with her pumpkin while I caught up carving mine. Madison was not digging the pumpkin carving experience. She was completely grossed out by the pumpkin guts and cried when we tried to encourage her to put her hand inside. I think she preferred to watch Matt do most of the work. I have a feeling she likes pumpkins better as seats than as jack-o-lanterns.

Finally the day we all anticipated came. Halloween. I woke up feeling like death, Bronchitis still hitting me hard but I didn't care. Matt was excited and it had Madison wired. We had to run a few errands before the trick-or-treaters came so Matt threw Madison's sheep costume on and we went to the store. When we got back we only had about an hour to get ready for the kids to start ringing our doorbell. I threw on my costume (my first one in years) while giddy Matt put on his terrifying costume and added a few finishing touches on the house. Madison was absolutely horrified by Matt's costume, which had me all flustered. She would not let go of my legs when she first saw him. I could hardly walk anywhere. She was pretty much hysterical, and I was irritated, but I let Matt have his fun regardless of my screaming sheep. I decided to take her trick or treating to get her mind off of Matt's hideous zombie costume, which was not a good idea because it seemed like everyone's dad in the neighborhood had an over the top scary costume on. I think it was a little too overwhelming for Madison because she wouldn't even walk for me. She was too nervous, so I had to get her pink buggy out. I'll admit, a fluffy sheep in a pink car buggy was the most adorable thing I've seen all year, but I was ready to be done with Halloween.

We went down our block collecting candy and letting all the mommies "aww" over Madison's getup. After that we decided to go home and watch some Halloween cartoon specials on Nick Jr, while daddy had fun scaring the crap out of the neighborhood children (and a few of their parents). I'm a good mom, so I made sure to taste test all of Madison's candy before giving her any. It's a risky job, but I decided to make the sacrifice. The rest of the night went smoothly, our pumpkins were only knocked over a few times by kids running away frantically from my zombie husband. Next year I'll know what to expect and make better preparations for Madison.. but for now it's on to much better Holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas :)

Aloha.

We only have 1 year left in Hawaii before Matt gets new orders for a different duty station. I never really understood why the military likes to move people around so much, you'd think they'd want to save some money and keep everyone in the same place for like.. 5 years at least, but no.

There's so many different options to choose from, to request, or reenlist for.. but we keep tossing back and forth what we should do. We even have the option to request to stay in Hawaii for 1 year longer.

It bothers me so much not knowing exactly what is going to happen next or if we're going to like it. There's so many things to think about like.. Will we be in a foreign country? Will Matt deploy right away? Will he like his new unit? Will this be good for his career? Will Madison like it? Will I be able to find a good job or school to go to? How far from home (California) will we be? Will people want to visit? Will they give us a nice house? I sit in bed awake at night thinking of a million different possibilities, and I know it's so bad to worry about things I cannot control. I keep telling myself that it's in God's hands and that no matter what we'll be okay... but I can't help but feel like I'm a little kid trying to stay up late enough to get a peek at what Santa Claus is going to leave under the tree, and if it's good or not.

Regardless, I will miss Oahu with all my heart. I absolutely love it out here though it feels small at times. I have never had much complaint besides that.

September

Oh September.. how you have been a busy and expensive month.

first my glasses break and my insurance doesn't cover new ones. The lenses alone cost $275, don't even get me started on the frames.

I desperately need all 4 of my wisdom teeth pulled. I can't even bare to type the price of this expensive bill...

and my daughter's 1st bday party plus our family portraits.

All I can say is.. THANK GOD I HAVE A JOB. Otherwise we'd probably be hurtin'.

because of all of these expenses we decided not to go out to a big fancy dinner for our 3rd wedding anniversary as planned. This was a real bummer because year 1 Matt was in Korea, and year 2 I was so pregnant I was about to pop and too emotional to function. We swore this year we'd do something really special but my darn eyes and teeth had to get in the way.

Even though we decided not to get anything for each other this year, I did get this suprise knocking at my door..


Super cute and thoughtful because I love love love Sanrio characters, and the pineapples are shaped like Hello Kitty. Madison ate half of my gift because .. well she eats most of my food before I get it to my mouth, but I only shared half the strawberries with her :)

Family portraits could have gone better. I thought the girl who helped us was really unprofessional. She did really well on the family portraits, but when it came time for Madison to get her pictures done (which was the main reason we were there) She never adjusted the lighting, and the backdrop actually collapsed on Madison at one point. Everything fell on top of her, and burried under all the fabric and metal bar the only thing not covered was Madison's little feet. It was like the house that fell ontop of the witch in the "Wizard of Oz". The photographer just stood there in shock with her hand covering her mouth, while Matt and I frantically pulled out daughter out from the clutter. After that Madison wasn't really cooperating with the photoshoot.. so we didn't get any really awesome shots like I expected. I wish the new babies r' us out here had Kiddie Kandids like back home.. I like them a lot and they're reasonably priced. They wouldn't have left me at a computer desk the day after my session to sit there and edit my own pictures until "I liked what I saw". I was irritated that I paid $200 bucks to edit my own pictures that only came out satisfactory to begin with. I guess you win some, you lose some.
This was the picture taken right before the backdrop fell on her... She was completely fine afterward, only startled.

here's a sample of one of the family portraits I liked a lot

Madison's birthday was everything I wanted it to be. The only complaint I had was that I stupidly decided to work the night before, so I didn't come home until 7:00am. The party started at 2:30, and I decided to prep some of the food before I decided to go to bed at 9:00am. Matt was supposed to wake me up at 12:00pm (before heading out to pick my cousin up from the airport and also buy balloons). Apparently he woke me up, and I sat up and told him I was going to get up.. but I must have been sleep talking because I do not remember that at all, and didn't wake up til the first guest got there. Thank goodness it was my friend Brittney and her family, and they were accidently 30 mins early. I quickly got ready after I answered the door.. but had no time to cook the lumpia before the rest of the guests got there. It was all good though, we had plenty of other food (good thing I decided to prep some before falling asleep).

Everyone showed up that was supposed to, all the kids played nice, and everyone had a wonderful time. Madison never really got fussy and she had lots of fun playing with all the kids. The Bday cake that I spent 3 to 4 hours preparing the night before came out perfect and tasted absolutely magnificent. I had no left overs.

I'm so excited for future birthdays to come. Party planning is SO much fun and watching my daughter having an abosolute blast was worth every second. The look on my daughter's face when we brought her downstairs to see all the balloons and decorations was priceless, you could tell she was amazed by all the colors and how different the house looked.

Roses are ... Purple.

I decided to have a couple glasses of red wine (I'm a bit of a light weight) and next thing you know I'm in the kitchen baking a cake. I wanted to do something different this time, something with the frosting, but I didn't know what. So Iyou tubed some videos on how to make roses out of frosting. I found a few, skimmed through them and ta-da! I had the general idea, peace of cake (ha!). However, I couldn't find any videos on how to make leaves (didn't look too hard though, I was sort of wingin' it) so I took my best crack at it, and played with the frosting tips a bit. I ran out of icing bags, so I made my own out of parchment paper, It's amazing how creative and resourceful I get when I have a slight buzz.

Anywhoo, ladies and gentlemen, I now introduce you to CAKE #4!!!

Spooky.

Working graveyard at my work can be super creepy sometimes. Most of my shift I spend just sitting in the office auditing and doing paperwork in absolute dead silence. I have heard many stories about the place and I swear I hear things sometimes, or get this feeling that I am not alone. I especially get this eerie feeling about the kitchen late at night. I haven't witnessed first hand anything too out of the ordinary besides the ice machine going off on it's own and the door censor ding when no one is there...plus it gets unbearably cold at times... but that is definitely enough to get me on edge and freaked out.