The Doodlebops!

It was a real big day for Makayla today to go see her favorite rock band "The Doodlebops"! She just loves them! She first discovered them on the Disney channel with her Daddy. Now she's hooked and can't get enough of them so Daddy got us tickets to go see them live at the Grove in Anaheim. It was a blast! Even Mommy & Daddy got into the music and we're rockin' out! What a show for my 1st big rock concert to see Dee Dee, Rooney & Moe!

Dododododododo, we promise to share, we promise to care........"The Doodlebops" flag & pledge! It lights up and is so neato!

Makayla posing in front of the fake "Doodlebops" before the concert. Can't wait to see the real thing!

Yay! Here they are, from left to right, Moe, Dee Dee, Rooney & even bus driver Bob! Again it was so much fun!

Storytime at the Library

Today Mama Arakaki took me to the library for my 1st storytime. I had so much fun and was a good little girl so I think Grandma said we'd go more often; except they're really crowded! They read to us an ABC book which has one of my favorite songs! Can't wait until I get to go again! Thanks Ngoai!

Rachael's 4th Birthday!

It's my friend, Rachael's 4th birthday party today at Pump It Up! What a neat place! I've never been there but I've heard lots about it and was so happy that I finally got to experience it! It was a giant play area with very big blown up slides and things for us kiddos and adults to jump around in. We all had a blast! What a work out I tell ya!

Entering Rachael's special play area for her party.

Here I come down the giant slide with Daddy! Wow!

The big group picture with all of Rachael's friends! She's got lots!

Here I am with the birthday girl! She's treated like a queen today! She's got her own Pump It Up queen chair! Here we ate pizza and had yummy birthday cake! Thanks for inviting me! I had a blast and hope you enjoyed your big birthday bash!

Scrap Expo

Today was the annual Scrap Expo in Costa Mesa. All us crazy scrap girls attend this big event and we mean it's a huge event with a lot of other crazy scrap book girls! After a day at the Expo we headed over to a store called The Red Bee and scrapped until the break of dawn! Midnight that is!



Here we all are in what we call our nerd shirts! We have two of them but the pink "SCRAPAHOLICS" is our latest line. So cute! The old ones are black and say "SCRAP QUEEN". We know we're dorks but we love it!


Badges on! Ready to go in a scrap shop until we drop!

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day it is! It's a mellow event for our family and we've created some family traditions since Makayla arrived. It's not really a day that Ryan & I spend romantically with just the two of us anymore. We spend it as a family and found this great little pizza parlor in Cerritos called Frantones where we get a heart shaped pizza, yummy pasta & salad. It's never that busy and we don't have to fight the couple crowds! Then we come home and have some sort of fun Valentine's Day dessert. This year it was a cute heart shaped ice cream cake!

Makayla snuggles with Mommy at dinner!

This big "Heart" pizza is all mine!

Oh, okay, I guess I'll share some with you Daddy!

We came home for dessert and had ice cream cake! Yummy!
I'm here with my new Hippo from Mommy & Daddy.

Mammoth

Ryan missed out on all the Vietnamese New Year's event to head up to the mountains. We don't blame him since Mammoth just got a ton of snow and this might be his one and only opportunity to head up there with the new baby arriving and all! Too bad Makayla and I couldn't go just to check out the snow this year but we couldn't miss the big family event already planned. Plus, Makayla really didn't love the snow last year and it probably wasn't a good idea for preggie me to be walking around the snow and ice and taking care of Makayla too while her Daddy was up in the slopes boarding away!



Ryan posing in front of all the snow at the condo they stayed at! Silly Goose!

Alan, Som & Ryan up on the mountains in all their gear! They look like pro snowboarders don't they?!

Binh's 39th Birthday!

After the Vietnamese New Year festival we rested a bit and then headed out to dinner at 7 courses of beef to celebrate Uncle Binh's 39th birthday! It was real yummy since we haven't had 7 courses of beef in a long time! Plus it was a perfect Vietnamese continuation from the morning and......the Watkins had never tried it either. I think the really enjoyed it! Happy Birthday Uncle Binh!

Here we all are again getting ready for the big 7 course feast of beef! Can't wait! It's so yummy! It's going to be the Watkins 1st experience and we hope they enjoy it!

No cake here so it's a new one, candle in a boba drink! Whatever works!

We all pitched in to get Uncle Binh a golf driver, he seems real happy except for this is a toy one that we wrapped up so he could go pick up exactly what he wants with the gift card.
Happy Birthday Uncle Binh! Hope you had a fun day with all of us for Tet & your big day!

Tet Festival

We spent Lunar New Year down in San Diego this year. Auntie Janai has made it a tradition where her family from Hanford comes down to spend this event with our family. It's a great time to learn and see the Vietnamese culture. The festival in San Diego was quite busy and down at Balboa Park. There was lots of food, people, rides and cultural experiences! We got to see a glimpse of the Dragon Dance and many other events throughout the day.

Here's the whole family all getting ready to enter the annual TET festival. The family includes the Ly family, Bui & Watkins Family.

Makayla high up on Uncle Binh's shoulders! She's going to get her traditional red envelope! Hopefully there's some good $$ in it for her piggy bank.

Yum, yum, Makayla eating her big beef stick! Lots of good food at this festival!

Makayla and her buddy Aidan enjoying the Tet festival. They're sitting & standing in front of a traditional Tet flower plant. Pretties!

Alyssa, Makayla & Alexis, the cousins all in their pretty traditional Vietnamese dresses! Such pretty girls!

Scrapaholics

The Scrapaholics are official today! I scrap with with my girlfriends once a month and we first started with being Scrap Queens, which we still are. We all have blingy shirts that say this and then we got tired of the same old shirt and made some additional ones in pink and named ourselves the Scrapaholics because we're crazy scrap bookers! Fun times every single month working on our photo albums! We're crazy since we usually spend the day cropping for at least 12-14 hours and we still can never seem to catch up! This month we were at a store out in Carlsbad called Ever After, one of the top stores in Southern California for scrappers! It was a giant store that had lots of stuff and nice employees! We'll be back there again for sure!

Here's part of our Scrapaholic crew sportin' our new shirts, me, Janai, Lucille, Anita & Stacy the early birds! Janai & Lucille, thanks so much for making those for us! You two are the best duo ever!

Peter Pan

I got to see a Peter Pan ballet show today at the HB library with my friends Mia & Rachael. We didn't really know about it until the last minute when Tara, (Mia's Mommy) called us to let us know that she had a few extra tickets and wanted us to join them. We had so much fun together watching the show and I was actually a real good girl and watched and wasn't to antsy. Then afterwards Uncle Mike (Mia's Daddy) too us all out to dinner at CPK. Daddy met up with us also since he had to work. Good times with my little girlfriends! Can't wait to do something like that again! Thanks for dinner Uncle Mike!

Makayla & Mia sitting like good girls in their theatre seats.

The cast of Peter Pan! Good job!

Makayla, Rachael & Mia playing outside CPK after dinner! They had fun singing Ring Around the Rosie together! The girls are just too cute when they're all together!

Chow Twins Arrive!

The Chow twins finally arrive today! Congrats to Ed & Grace on their new little boy Ethan and little girl Haley! What cute names! We are so happy for them that these two arrived nice & healthy since Grace had been on bed rest forever but she held onto them until they were healthy and ready! Can't wait to really finally meet them in person! Good luck with everything & Congrats again! Yay, more friends for Makayla to play with!

Superbowl XLII

This is one of Daddy's favorite days! Superbowl Sunday! The big game was between NE Patriots and NY Giants. None were really teams that my Daddy follows but we cheered anyways for Mommy's favorite, Peyton, but it was really Peyton's brother. Any Manning will do I guess! The whole Arakaki family came over along with my friend Rachael, Uncle Naters & Uncle Phil since they're the big sports fans too! It was a small get together but we had fun cheering for the underdog that won! Yippee!

Yummy chicken wings!

Daddy, Uncle Naters & Uncle Phil just veggin' in front of the TV.

Makayla and Rachael watching the big game too! Not really, but they had fun playing with all the toys!

Tet Flowers

Well, it's about a few days before the actual Lunar New Year. Ba Ngoai, Ong Ngoai and Mommy dressed me up in my traditional Vietnamese gown that Ba Ngoai brought all the way back from her last visit to Vietnam. We went to see the big Flower Festival. This is traditional where they show all these beautiful and really gorgoeus orchids, crysanthimums and many other traditional Vietnamese flowers. It was wall to wall flowers and smelled so nice. What a treat since we didn't get a chance to see them last year, so this was my first experience.

Vinny's 5th Birthday!

It's Vinny's 5th birthday party today at Adventure City in Anaheim. I'd never been there before, but I'm so glad Mommy & Daddy took me! It was so much fun with all the rides and everything. It was a perfect place for me since I was able to ride almost all the rides!

The Daddy's and their kiddos!

Vinny blowing out his birthday candles! I'm going to help since it's new for me and I've just learned how to blow out candles recently since my birthday was just a few weeks ago.

We tried on some crazy hats! I'm wearing the astronaut hat for Ong Ngoai since he works for NASA and Vinny's a radio head! We're silly!