I had everything set up real nice. In my head anyway. For starters, we’ll have the fruit bowl with watermelon, grapes and strawberries and Tortilla Chips with 2 different dips. Creamy salsa and creamy spinach. For dinner, we’ll have BBQ chicken and pork & veggies kebobs, potato salad and fried rice. Chix and kebabs were marinated the night before. Potato salad was made the night before as well. Actually, even the fruit bowl was scooped and mixed together the night before. I imagined taking lovely pictures at all of them with our new Nikon D40.

Well, it didn’t turn out quite as I imagined it. As soon as brother-in-laws family got here, all of that nice set-up went down the drain. Kids running around, everybody were talking, the big boys were playing with the new camera, the big girls were catching up.

The simple dinner I planned never made it into the memory card the way I wanted to. Except for the Disney Princesses cake. And that’s only because I took pictures hours before the party. Thank goodness I did. We had a good dinner and a good time, we weren’t just able to document it. Did I tell you we had Disney Princess balloons too? I even decorated the table with white and pink table cloth. The plates, cups, forks and napkins were in the Disney Princess color scheme. Pink, Yellow and Light Blue.

And then the birthday girl started crying. I think she was stressed out from all the attention and the noises in the background. Like I said, she cried half of the time she opened her gifts. Taking pictures was pointless.

Things changed though during cake time. Nothing beats chocolate cake with whipped frosting and pretty colored sugary flowers.

Next year, I’ll have everyone stand in the corner until I’m finished taking pictures of everything or else no one is having their piece of cake.  And if anyone cries during the gifts, she’s going to her room. That is if I survive Terrible Two’s and I actually make the 3’s.

A few pictures at Flickr…

All the pictures are in the Nikon D40 camera and haven’t had a chance to upload them in the desktop so just bear with a few shots that I was able to upload this morning and 1 I took with my Nikon Coolpix L18. But yes, she’s 2 years old today. Her party was yesterday. She was having a bad day at her party. I imagine becoming a year older could do it..LOL. She pretty much cried half the time she opened her gifts.

She was just not having it. She was laughing when we started eating cake though. But of course…

(Images © Dexie Jane Wharton)

Click each picture for the 800×532 version…

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In about a week and a half, my son is embarking on another adventure of his life. He’s going to be a 5th grader. Will his first day be like when he started 4th grade? He came home with his 1st ticket of the school year from talking too much. That’s ok, coz he graduated in the honor roll But let me forget the fact that he’s growng too fast and that I just spent $400 for his school supplies, clothes and shoes 3 days ago. Wheww. Let me show you the most exciting thing he did this summer.

See, my husband is the heavy metal and rock blogger over at b5media’s Music Channel so he gets a lot of opportunities to see concerts. Some are given to him for free (as Press guest list), some, he has to pay for himself. On August 1st, Virginia Beach hosted a Mayhem Fest which btw he was thinking of going to from the beginning anyway but then a PR contact gave him 2 free passes. We took that whole weekend off for our Summer vacation (I still need to upload more pictures). Hubs and I decided that was a good opportunity for C to go see his first concert ever. Some of his favorite bands were on the list. Considering how hot it was, C did a great job. They did a lot of walking from venues to venues, waiting in lines for autographs and meeting the bands.

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And most probably your children aren’t either. See, while walking around the yard picking up tree remnants from the heavy rain and wind the night before with the kids and Hubs after dinner, Hubs informed me of the new shenanigan one of the kids across the street did which is why he couldn’t play outside with our son. The kid is grounded (again). I asked why?

“He was throwing rocks at his grandmother”

As shock as I was –of the action, not at the kid– I was actually able to say, “Well, that could get him grounded”.

My children drive me crazy, Oh My Gosh, I don’t even know how many times in the day, but I am very much assured that they will never throw rocks at anyone, let alone their grandparents. BabyE is only 2(almost) but I’m pretty sure she’s not going to be acting that way. Ever. She might roll her eyes at someone coz she’s trying to be cute but as long as her parents are alive, she’s not going to be throwing rocks at her grandparents (or anyone). C meanwhile is a sweet boy. He loves his grandparents. He loves to play board games with them, talk to them on the phone, tell them about his Bionicle Legos, the 20,000th time he saw an SpongeBob episode or how his parents keep teasing him about his crush on Miranda Cosgrove (iCarly), gives them hugs and kisses when he sees them, and tells them he loves them all the time.

Now I feel bad for even thinking they drive me crazy. Compare to the neighbor’s children, they’re freaking angels.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only Mother feeling crappy right about now. Go hug your kids!

Our Current House (rental), out in the farmland, middle of nowhere.

I just love it when Men, at least my Man anyway, makes plans…

HER : We really need to stop screwing around and get this going. I’d like to be out of here by late next year.

HIM : Next year?? you mean late THIS year, 2008, not 2009?

HER : I meant 2009

HIM : I was expecting to be out of here end of this year.

HER : December of 2008? You’re smoking crack. We haven’t even started looking at  a house. Our savings is nowhere near to what I am hoping for to afford a freaking down payment/closing costs/furnishings/moving expenses. (Although we have Military VA Loan on our side, thank Goodness)

HIM : You suck (well he didn’t say that, but it was in his eye rolling stare)

Seriously, finally moving into our own house is our plan. I didn’t realize my husband thought we could pack our things into a U-Haul and move into a house (that we haven’t found yet) in 4 months. If that was the case, I have to find a house by next week, apply for a bank loan, get the paper work done within the month of September. And then, spend the whole month of October and early part of November waiting for it to Close. And then move by December. Yeah, SURE! Like I said, we haven’t even found a house yet so I don’t know where he got the idea that we could do all that within 4 months. Unless of course he’s been able to stash $$K in some offshore account that I don’t know about.

THIS MORNING ………

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Here’s my errrr, microblog for today. In bullet style, coz I’m lazy. I could spam Twitter and Plurk and post them there but that might piss off a lot of people in my friends list.

• Hubs is playing PS2, right in front of the TV, no kids to disturb him. It’s been a looooooooooong time since he was able to do this.
• Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony was AWESOME!
• Looking forward to watching Michael Phelps and the Gymnastics Team gather their gold medals, respectively.
• BabyE’s favorite words are ” No No No”, “Stop It”, and “Ni-Ni-Night”, among other words
• Must.Finish.Back-To-School.Shopping.Soon

• Who in Politics is not having an affair?
• Bush maybe. He was too busy “startegizing”. Hehehe
• It must suck to be John Edwards right about now. Having an affair while his wife was going through cancer (dude, WTH?), and then having to eat his words about not having an affair. Geez…

• Hmmm, what to eat for lunch?