FIVE. FIIIIIIIIIIIIVE.

HAPPY.

BIRTHDAY.

SYDNI!!!

It's time for this mama to come to grips with the fact that she has a 5-year-old. Little miss is my only child and for now, it's both a tough pill to swallow and a beautiful milestone, all wrapped up in one sassy little chickadee.

1. & then 5.
love love love love love.

I, embracing the typical ASIAN way, and on top of that being the typical MOTHER, consequently have thousands upon thousands upon probably a thousand more pictures of this girl from the beginning to now.

She is my light, my purpose and above all my greatest achievement. I live for her and daily give thanks that I was chosen to be her mama. Happy birthday, mini-me. I love you!!

******* 

Here in real time, Syd is actually with her dad today, since she was with me last year, and that's how trades work. [sad face.]  We celebrated Syd's birthday over the phone with her, with the actual celebration of course to follow. We also did some heavy driving today, back to Ohio from our extended stay in Illinois for the weekend.

family of four!
.. just.. missing.. one.. ♥

We're HOME, safe & sound.
Now that's a weekend! Thanks again to our awesome friends for their hospitality! Ya'll are the finest :)

Happy Labor Day to you & yours! I hope today was safe and awesome for you!

xo | cmd 

Labor Day Lake Loungers

Labor Day Weekend, Day 2.

As expected, we spent another day on the water. Dillon's dad lent us the pontoon for the day, and we cruised our way out to the middle of the lake in Holiday Shores, where we anchored down with several of the other lakers for an afternoon of floating and friends.

There are some pretty fun people out here, and I'm glad we got to spend a day with them! Once we were off the water, we loaded up and headed just down the road for some grub.

Don't judge me; I've already accepted the fact that I shouldn't eat these, but I've also accepted that I really don't care. ;)

this is the.. third time this weekend that i've had these..
this is the first time ever, that i've had them served in a dog bowl. 

Haha. Oh well.

Tonight was the perfect end to a Sunday, even though it feels like Saturday since we're not leaving until tomorrow. We parked ourselves on tailgates and chairs in the driveway for what seemed like hours, just talking and watching some Supercross, before friends started dispersing and we called it an early night. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels the demand of this whole getting old thing.. ;)

G'Nite!

xo | cmd

River Rats

For a split second there, I was sure it would be raining today. We didn't really check the weather for the weekend, but had faith in the elements holding out just long enough for us to be on the water for the majority of this Labor Day Weekend.

We may have wondered what the clouds would hold for the day, but by late morning, this was the starting view:

rob, kenny & the bajas

We departed from Dillon's house, met up with Kenny and Taryn, and loaded the Bajas into the water for a day that would be spent with awesome friends cruising the river.

Dillon & Matt hauled Dillon's jet ski's up to the drop-in in Grafton, so we made our way up river to get them, after picking up Kyle & Jesse. It wasn't long before Rob's mom & stepdad joined in, and from there, the day was at our disposal.

relaxing! 

^^ Jesse took this shot; that's Taryn over there on the right laying out, and I... am pretty sure I was asleep lying on the front of Rob's boat. Womp womp. ;)

After we'd lounged on the shore for a few hours, we voted it was time for food, and found ourselves heading to the Big Kahuna. Oh, and the poor little jetter had to be towed; it looks like an update on some wiring is in order!

poor lil jetter.. 

Finally..... 

front row parking & the bk

I have no complaints on how the afternoon panned out. We eventually all parted ways, and Rob and I headed back to Dillon's, where the three of us parked ourselves on the couch to watch part of the American Ninja Warrior marathon that's been on for what seems like weeks now. It was a toss-up on whether or not we'd actually get out and do something, but we eventually pulled ourselves together and found our fail-proof destination: Bindy's. 

and then there's this.. 

^^ Hahahah.. "It's a satchel. Indiana Jones had one!" - I love this guy. 

And that, folks, is how we're kicking off this Labor Day. See ya back on the water tomorrow! 

xo | cmd

3 Day Weekend.. GO!

Labor Day weekend is HEEEERE!

3 Days of no work started at the end of an abbreviated work day, and it took us very little time to hit the road westbound to Illinois.

( ^ ^ p.s. - I googled Labor Day, clicked images, and for some reason, there's a Filipino-adapted version of this.. so hey, let's roll with it.. haha) 

We have landed at Dillon's, with boat and dogs in tow.
This is gonna be an excellent weekend (:

xo | cmd

Classroom Treats

As an adult, I adore the fact that my birthday is at the end of November. That means that it's often snuggled right up against Thanksgiving, and consequently, I've found many years to be off work on my birthday. One year it actually fell right on Black Friday, which I celebrated by 1) NOT working and 2) NOT shopping. It was perfect.

My kid somehow lucked out this year having her birthday on Labor Day. That means no school on her birthday, and a long weekend on top of that. As a 4-almost-5-year-old, she's only eyeing the social consequence of not seeing her school friends on her birthday, but I think we've leveraged that with plans for multiple birthday parties. Still... lucky bug!

New rules these days on what kids can take to school to celebrate birthdays. They're probably not new, but all I know is that somewhere in the gap of my elementary days and now, restrictions have been placed on what kids can do to celebrate birthdays at school. It's not a big deal really, and if I'm being honest, I think it's probably a safer way to go. Looking back, I don't know if I was thinking about how that cupcake I just ate was made, or if that kid's parents' kitchen was clean. So yeah, probably the best bet.

Plus, kids [at this age] don't usually eat non-edibles, so from a healthy-snack standpoint, yay!

Long story short, tonight I took Sydni to pick out the stuffings for goodie bags to distribute to her classmates on Tuesday next week. She came home from school today with one from a girl's birthday, and apparently there's a boy whose birthday is tomorrow. I'm now very glad we won't be pumping sugar into these kids for 3 school days in a row, if not more.

done & done. 

kiddie treats! 

The biggest challenge wasn't really much of a challenge at all: Finding things gender-neutral for a co-ed class. Anyone who knows me knows I have a somewhat mild distaste for sparkles, glitter and generally for the color pink, anyway. We had a blast pairing little pencils with play-doh colors and jungle stickers, and she made an assembly line of it all by stickering my finished bags.

I've just figured out why parents have multiple kids: This stuff is fun.
[Go ahead and call me crazy. Check back in a few years to see if I'm still on that page ;) ]

Birthday treat prep = success!

xo | cmd

Party In The Park

Summer schedules are the trickiest darn things sometimes. Weekly commitments are especially iffy, since there are only so many days in the week and in Cincinnati, so much going on. Like, all. the. time.

Wednesdays for me are volleyball, and that's how that's been for the last 6-7 years of collective time I've spent in Cincinnati. Wednesdays in the Nati are also Party in the Park, which is a weekly assembling of various food & beverage carts, cornhole boards, local musicians and of course a lot of people down in Yeatman's Cove. I started attending PITP's when I still worked for Clear Channel; since then, volleyball was always the trump card over Yeatman's, but since there were no games this week, we figured we would skip on down to check it out.

Fitting, as it was the last one scheduled for the summer.

music @ pitp

love this guy beyond words! ♥

The sun set on Cincinnati, and it was beautiful.

pretty city! 

We're halfway to Friday. YESSS. 

xo | cmd

Parks & Family & Forts & HOMEWORK.

This was a full circle kind of day. We started by waking up to this:

hahah.. ok? 

^ Apparently Stella wasn't cutting it for a stuffed animal... or 15. She's too much :)

The day went on and when I picked up my mini from Mindi's, we made flash plans to stop by the park.

♥

such a rebel.. 

she's officially too tall to walk under this without bent knees! 

Sydni took her first selfie with an exposed selfie arm tonight..

hahah ♥♥

Rob showed up for the last half hour or so before it started raining. Notes I made from tonight? Swinging selfies are difficult, especially when you're trying to capture three people swinging at separate intervals. Hah. Nice face, me.

welp. 

Back at home, I came to the realization that

Hey: It's happening.

Sydni has homework.

This week, it's the letters B & M on which they're focusing. Their homework?
Fill up the appropriate pages of their word books with cutouts of things that begin with those respective letters. Welp, we dove into B tonight and had a Blast doing it! ;)

she's a pro. 

On top of cutting & gluing, they've been asked to try and write the words near what they selected. Sydni flew right through that with no questions asked. 

whiz kid! 

Meanwhile, Sasha celebrated National Dog Day [today!] by pondering the reasons why humans cut up paper and stick it to other paper. At least that's what we're gonna wager she was thinking. She probably just wanted fed. 

sasha doooooog

Finished product! 

so, so proud! 

After homework, we cleaned up and readied for bed. We thought this was going to be routine, until Sydni insisted that she wanted a fort.

Yes, a FORT.
What did we do? We put our heads together and constructed a makeshift fort around the corner of her bed, which will do for now until we devise a more creative, more permanent solution [& trust me, we will].

Fort it is!

& ... zonked within 5 minutes.
winnnnnnnnn!

Who knew? I'm gonna start building towers if it continues to make bedtime this easy. Haha.
I vote a successful day.

Let's do it again tomorrow!

xo | cmd