A Sprinkle for Luke

This past weekend my girlfriend and I hosted a small baby sprinkle at my house for one of our BFFs who is having her 2nd little boy in just a few short weeks. Since my formal room is already black and white, we used that to our advantage and added gold for what turned out to be a very chic soiree! It turned out so cute! I especially love the silhouette in the frame.

Glowing mama to be! 

heads up - Central Market has the most delicious chocolate mousse cake

pick one up immediately!

the spread - fruit parfait (Pioneer Woman's recipe is really quite simple and delicious), bruschetta, chicken & waffles, bacon biscuits, mini quiche, bacon fruit, pastries, donuts, cake, 

and of course mimosas!

macarons and tea bags for favors; thank goodness for Trader Joes :) 

You can't beat $4.99 for a dozen

It's hard to believe sometimes our group of girls have been friends for over 10+years and some of us are having our 2nd and 3rd babies! It's true, quality is always better over quantity. Friendship is no exception. We can't wait to meet Baby Luke and add him to our growing brood of babes!

Hello.

It's me. I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet to go over everything.

Ha. All lame jokes aside, I can't believe I let all this dust collect here in my little corner of the internet. It's surreal to read my last post right before I had Greyson, and now, here we are - an entire year and some months later. I don't want to say toddler quite yet, but I have a walking running baby, who is pretty good at tearing up the house alongside his brother. I may be biased, but he is crazy smart and has the funniest and spiciest little personality. Hubs and I are in for a lot of trouble with this one, we can already tell.

2015  has been, for a lack of better words, CRAZY, and I was just completely burnt out by year's end. I wasn't so sure I wanted to even have a party for G, but I managed to pull together a birthday party for the little peanut and so glad I did. Second Child Syndrome is a real thing. I know a lot of people think birthday parties are all for the parents, and 80% of it probably is. Ok, probably 95%. But a little bit of cake and presents never hurt anybody :)

We did the traditional Vietnamese game for Greyson like we did for Caden. You are supposed to lay out some random items that represent potential careers, i.e ball for athlete, tape measure for engineer, etc. G picked up the ball first, but we thought maybe he just grabbed the closest thing to him. We tried again and he grabbed the screwdriver, which represented a mechanic. I gave him the thermometer on the 3rd try....so doctor he'll be! Third time's a charm, right? :)

Preparing For Greyson

The weeks are flying by and it's really starting to sink in that in a month or so I'm going to be a mama to TWO BOYS. Slllightly freaking out a little bit here. My mom thinks I won't make it past the first week of December bc I'm so huge (Thanks Mother. #typicalbluntAsianmom). I feel like I've forgotten how to take care of a newborn. So little, so squishy. I'm used to my rough and rowdy wild child that I'm more anxious about myself than how C will react to his brother. Is it really like riding a bike? REALLY? I haven't done anything since we're going to have so much going on with the move. I've washed some clothes and that's about it! It's true, 2nd child syndrome is a real thing.

This pregnancy has been completely different from my first. Caden didn't really give me a hard time outside of migraines, but this baby has been kicking my butt, literally. Compounded by an active toddler, my body is ready to shut down. Everywhere aches, I'm beyond exhausted, and I feel like my belly button will just burst open. The doctor says I'm measuring on the bigger side for how far along I am and he will probably be bigger than Caden. OH YAY. I feel kind of bad; little dude is probably so squished up in there. Somedays I feel like he's trying to kick his way out. Regardless of how crappy I'm feeling, I muster up all the energy I can to make our weekends and 1 on 1 time with big brother worthwhile before he's no longer my only child.

It's going to be a monumentally stressful time for me with the move, the adjustment of another dependent little human, the parentals all up in the mix, and the hormones, oh gawd, the hormones...I can already feel the beginnings of a melt down and mommy guilt building up in my toes, but I'm trying extra hard to take it all in stride. But deep down, I'M TERRIFIED people. I've already told the husband to have a plate of sushi ready for me to inhale at the hospital after delivery and if he knows what's good for him, he better remember! At least we're more fortunate this time around in that D's able to take 6 weeks off for paternity leave instead of just one with Caden. He'll be able to spend a lot of time with C and take a lot of my plate with the mounting list of things to do for the move.

Caden is not only ridiculously spoiled with our time and affection, but with his grandparents, I worry so much about how he'll feel. We've done all the books, the constant reminders that this is "his baby" to get him ready for Greyson. All signs are pointing to a sucessful transition so far, but I've probably just jixed myself  by typing that and putting it out there in the universe. Lately, he's been talking and playing with a teddy bear he has and you guys, it's so adorable. He shares his cars (unheard of), reads his books and sings w/ Teddy. However, D and I overheard him saying "Do you want a spanking Teddy?" the other day and we completely lost it. I guess Teddy wasn't listening and being a bad bear. :)

A lot of moms have told me that they just can't believe how much their hearts have expanded to love another child after their first and I guess it's something I'll just have to wait to experience. We've been so so blessed to have such a happy go lucky, confident, funny, handsome little guy I just can't imagine having another kid completely steal my heart as much as this one.

Halloween 2014

I hate Halloween. It's such a pointless holiday IMO. Maybe it's the fact that my parents never let us go when we were growing up bc of the irrational paranoia and fear they had that someone would try to poison the neighborhood kids aka my brother and me.

Clearly, it would be wrong of me to deny my son the tradition of Halloween. I'll let him decide what holidays to hate himself. Last year he was still young and didn't really understand the concept, so I must admit I was a little psyched he was so pumped about wearing a costume. I'm thrilled he's starting to expand his interests into things other than cars and trucks and happily obliged to Spiderman.

C was a regular old pro at trick or treating (although it took a few houses for him to understand he could only have what they gave out and he couldn't go shopping in their candy buckets lol) and I loved seeing him keep up with the big kids and not getting spooked at the scary houses.

I'm actually kinda looking forward to next Halloween. Greyson will be old enough to tag along so OBVIOUSLY I need to find matching costumes for the boys...and maybe Daddy :) I guess Halloween is not so bad after all.

[2012 - 1st Halloween as a baby dragon]   [2013 - mommy's Prince Charming/Dictator]   [2014 - Spider-Man]

Our 5 Year Anniversary

D. and I took the entire day off yesterday to spend time together for wedding anniversary. We didn't do anything exciting or romantic at all. It's so rare that we get to do anything with just the two of us, so all we both wanted was to have a whole day of nothing on the agenda, just to cruise around, run errands at our own pace without worrying about naptime, snacks for a hungry toddler (only snacks for a hungry preggo), and have adult conversation. It was pretty dang nice for a change.

I thought it would be fun to share 5 random facts about us on our 5 year anniversary!

• D. doesn't drink while I *can* be a complete lush. I may or may not be that girl at the office Christmas party. But honestly, his nondrinking ways have started to rub off on me, since I can't even rememer the last time I even had a buzz. It was probably pre-Caden! 

• While we've been married for 5 years, we were together for 5 years before that. I can't believe a whole decade with this guy has flown by. That doesn't include the few months we dated while in high school before I went away to college. I still tease him that he was my rebound after a breakup w/ an ex :)

• This man has the patience of a saint with me and I'm so thankful for that. Maybe it was my defense mechanism from failed relationships, but I had a really bad tendency to be ... just plain bitchy. It was to the point where my gfs and even my parents told me to snap out of it bc D. was so nice and frankly didn't deserve it. Ya'll that's love when someone sees you at your worst, and still wants to be with you! Recognize it!

• We are super impulsive people. We are definitely 'do it now, think about it later'. For example: I got into a fight with my dad about somethign random and was so pissed and wanted to move out. Instead of cooling off, lettting it blow over like a normal, rational person, we decided we wanted to move in together. My parents are old school, so Dat went and bought me a ring so we could live together! Makes sense and totally not hasty at all, right? We had a nice and long engagement though :)

• We are major homebodies. What is cabin fever? I literally could spend a week inside the house and not step foot outside if we were fully stocked on groceries and had the interwebs. Hubby is just as content as long as there's cable TV and Clash of Clans to play. 

Our server brought us apple cider instead of champagne lol

anniversary selfie or should I say us-ie

Texas State Fair - 2014

My parents worked 7 days a week, almost year round when my brother and I were growing up. It was a typical childhood for immigrant families, work hard...and well, work hard. We didn't have any family vacations until much later on in our pre-teen years, and going out was just my dad taking us all out to eat lunch on Sunday afternoons. However, one place my mom always took us was the State Fair once a year when it opened in the fall and is a fond childhood memory for me.

As a Dallasite, the State Fair became an annual tradition of ushering in the new season with ridiculous fried foods and overpriced rides and carnival games. I love it and we've been keeping that tradition w/ Caden and soon Greyson!

feeding the animals at the Children's Barnyard - I was surprised they had zebras and a baby giraffe along w/ farm animals

I've never seen an alpaca before! such a funny looking creature

a ham for the camera as usual

cute farm area for kids to learn how to be be a farm hand; their chores like milking cows, collecting eggs, and harvesting vegetables earn them money where they can go to the general store!

C & Daddy were in heaven at the car show - such a boy!

Daddy & C selfie on the rollercoaster - my little man had no fear this year!

one last ice cream before we head out!

Playroom Inspiration

We really wanted a dedicated playspace for the boys in our new home (even though I'm sure toys will be strewn everywhere regardless) so we are making the upstairs loft area into their special area. One of my favorite rooms to decorate was Caden's nursery so I'm really looking forward to making this a cute and functional space they'll want to spend most of their time at.

I'm loving the look of a black and white room with colorful accents. I'm still debating on a chalkboard wall. While it's cool for kids, it seems like a such a mess and pain for Mom to keep clean.