8-25-11

i got these little glow sticks at michael's the other day (a package of 15 for $1) and i took them out for him as it was getting dark. can't lose him too easily with him glowing! =P

he had fun...

darn. and i thought i took the video (with my phone) with the correct orientation. guess not. boo.

he kept wanting me to take a picture of him while he made these weird eye movements. so i took video instead.

oh wait! i think it oriented itself correctly. yay!

(you can see matthew's team in the background, running during the last 20 minutes of practice. i think it's usually 15 min, but they're lucky today for some reason! ooops.)

8-24-11

so we decided to head over to irvine regional park and the oc zoo today. we first went about 2 years ago, with gramma, when brenny was not yet one. there's a train to ride on and a children's zoo on the other side of this massive, regional county park.

a petting zoo...but nowhere near as nice as the zoomars petting zoo. the rabbits were even caged up, and only the kids (not mine!) were roaming free to be petted and brushed.
i told dashiell these were "burros" and he says, "you mean donkeys?"
look at this chuckwalla resting comfortably. =p
after the zoo, we went to the other side, where i saw there were lots of picnic tables adjacent to this little playground. there were lots of kids there before we got there (that just left) and then more came while we were eating.

this (dinky) little playground set was far more interesting with lots of other similar-sized children around to play with. =)

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in the collage below:

getting a close-up visit by a peacock...and matthew being very serious while completing the scavenger hunt at the zoo. there was one 2 years ago when we came...i'd hope that the questions were different, but i have no idea. matthew completed it before we had to leave (with nana's help on the last one), so all was good!

8-23-11

matt had a scrimmage today against a pretty tough mona park (from LA) team

they were rough on our boys...

see the kid in the yellow socks with his arm around the quarterback?!

oh yeah, that's matthew!
a few seconds later...he's still got his arm around him, and the qb's on the ground! woo-hoo, matt!!
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while waiting...
brennan kept saying to me, "take a picture of me, mam-mam!"

and in the collage below, is what brenny says to me almost daily now.

especially whenever i try to leave the house (even more so if matt is going with me)!

8-22-11

the boys were good during the day, so derek stopped by DQ to get them a treat. =)

derek also made a stop over to 85c bakery for me...

i am addicted to their stuff.

he also picked up a slice of black forest bake for me too. YUMMY.

and here's my favorite...the raisin milk bun.

i had derek get 3 of these. sadly, i ate only 1.5 of them. mom ate 1/2 of one of mine, and the last one?! dashiell and brennan each had 1/2.

dashiell: "this is always my favorite, even more than you mom!"

a matthew tower:

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later at matt's practice, brenny was looking at this 6 week old shih-tzu/pomeranian (?) mix that someone had. it was TEENY. after a short while, i went over to make sure he was being gentle, and they said he was fine, except for accidentally kicking it (gasp!) but they said he didn't do it on purpose. whew!

then not 5 seconds after i asked HE STEPPED ON HIM! OMG. i felt terrible. i stepped right on his ribs. i thought he might've broken them. the wailing that came of that puppy was sad. he yelped for quite a bit.

and all brenny kept saying matter-of-factly: "i stepped on the doggie, mam-mam!"

8-21-11

8-20-11

derek successfuly changed out our broken garbage disposal. woo-hoo!

8-19-11

red bean bun from 85c bakery...

cleaning out the wading pool again.

8-18-11

derek needed to go to work today around 9am, so we decided that we'd drop him off and then take the kids to pretend city while he did what he needed to at school.

the boys had a good time there. by 11:20, when we left, it was crazy-crowded. i am so glad we are members and get to go early. it was a zoo!

they had some new cars to ride in.

dashiell really took to a redtrain-car. he got in it quite a few times. one time he even waited right next to it while a little girl was in it, until the mom decided she had better share. =p

so we went to pick up derek, and the kids got out and visited the campus for a brief moment.

we went through the office (thanks to brenny) and they came out with some tootsie rolls each~
we headed to lucille's bbq for lunch (thanks to some gift cards that i had, we only paid $10!), which was next to 85 degree bakery . some kids of mine this past year recommended it to me -- and one even brought me one to eat. it was yummy.

so we stopped by there after lunch, only to discover a long line out the door (i was told it was long on the weekends...but maybe they've gotten so popular it's long all the time now) and so it took a little more than 1/2 hr.

so here's my taro swirl below...

got a few others. will see how i like them.

8-17-11

8-16-11

stand your ground, matt, and push him back! =D

8-15-11

decided to head to this park that megan fas had her 2nd (?) birthday at a few years ago.

dennis the menace park, downey

[we saw a plaque on the way out that mentioned this park being built by the 'dennis the menace committee 1958-1966' or something like that...so i suppose years ago maybe it was themed appropriately. not so much anymore.]

• location: 3.5 stars (have to hop 3 fwys to get here, but it's really not far. parking lot is a ways off, but there's plenty of benches in the shade.]
• fun-factor: 4 stars (it helped that a group of boys showed up to play after 45 min, because our boys were getting tired of each other!)

umm...i had trouble staying on this l'il dinosaur. i kept sliding off.

i had to grab onto dashiell's legs to prevent it! =P
then i got wise and wedged my legs in there.

with only 5 min before we were leaving...they had a sweet, quiet moment next to each other

[yes, just for a moment!]

[see excalibur in the rock!? dashiell wanted to know why it was there!]

8-13-11

before matthew's dad came to pick him up for his scrimmage game,

i quickly took him outside for some pictures.

look at his 'mean look' with the skull cap on. grrrr!

then his tough guy look with the helmet on. double-grrrr!

matthew's team, cerritos steelers pee wee, had their 1st scrimmage today against woodcrest generals (from la)

our boys did very well.

i think matt did too! he played almost the entire time. starting off on the o-line, then on the d-line. he was right tackle (i think) then later nose guard for a bit. he got in 2 tackles and almost a sack (ok, that really doesn't count, but he was close!)

it was only a scrimmage, so it's still early.

they moved people all over in different spots, and it was nice to see matt in for most of the game, playing as well as he was.

there were a few boys that only got in a limited number of plays...and although i feel for them (or is it the parents?! because i've been there) i was happy that matt was playing more than he'd done before.

if you look in the collage...top right picture. it's almost as if matthew's saying, "ha! take that!" to the kid he's knocked down. oops.

bottom left picture was one of his tackles (shared with another). i think he was the first one there on that one. but who knows?!

interestingly enough, he's playing as an 'older-lighter' this year, which he's never done before. these boys are 10-11-12, with the 10 yr old being able to weigh up to 140 (i think) whereas 12 yr olds have can only go up to 125. he was 138, so he's lost A LOT of weight to be able to play this division still.

such a hard worker and improving every day!!!

(coach called on matt to lead the chant in the pic below...'steelers on me, steelers on 3. 1, 2, 3! steelers!')

8-12-11

the house was getting cleaned this morning, so we needed to get the kids all out of the house =p

i've wanted to go back to brookhurst park for a while now, so today seemed like a good day.

matthew's played football here a couple of times with cypress before, but the boys were much littler then.

so we tried it out to see how it would be like...

brookhurst park

• location: 4 stars (fairly close, right off the freeway, so easy to get to)
• fun-factor: 3 stars (might have been higher had there been other kids there to play with.

the big concrete structures make it a fun place to play hide and seek, but not much in terms of playground equipment. the rock climbing wall is ok and the 3 motorcycle rocking things were ok too)

since it was still early, we decided to head to another park. looking on google maps led us there, which was just down the street from the bp mall.

boisseranc park

• location: 4 stars (had tennis courts, racquetball courts, and a pool there, too!)
• fun-factor: 3 stars (standard playground. good thing there were two sets. nothing extremely different or extra-fun)

we headed to pat & oscars right after for lunch, since it was convenient.