i blinked.

hi.  it’s been a hot minute.

i don’t know why i so completely lost my blogging mojo.  it’s not like there hasn’t been anything to talk about, like during lockdown.  i have no excuses…but maybe this post will make up for the long absence.

okay, so let’s take it waaaaaaay back to november 2024.  thanksgiving day, to be specific.  so with a whole new family to celebrate holidays with, the old lady and the old man have had to figure out how to divide their time amongst all of their loved ones.  and for thanksgiving, with the timelines that they were working with, the best option for seeing us was at breakfast time.

looking back, i remember thinking that she was a little fidgety but didn’t really think much of it.  and then she handed me a lottery scratcher and said “here, play this and see if you win anything!”

really, i should have recognized the utter weirdness of this scenario immediately, but like most significant moments in my life i was completely clueless and just stopped and did what i was told.  and then - well, look for yourself:

it took a few seconds for it to sink in, but as soon as it did the goosebumps hit.  my baby…having a baby!  

when i was finally able to put words together again, i got more details.  she’d tested a month ago, and then i remembered that i’d gotten a random voice mail from kaiser about that long ago confirming her ob/gyn appointment.  again - i’m so clueless and never see shit coming, so i’d just brushed that off figuring that she was just going in for an annual checkup.  she handed me a small wrapped gift to open, and it was this:

you’re probably wondering, did i cry?  well, hell - is water wet?  come on now.

the hub broke out a bottle of champagne to celebrate and handed it to the bean (of all people, heh) to open. with a little help from the daddy-to-be, they got it open and we toasted to the amazing, awesome, wonderful news.

about a month later, our household grew as the happy couple moved in with us - on the old man’s birthday no less.  their living situation had shifted without much notice and coming here was their best option.  it’s been an adjustment for all of us, but i gotta admit that i’m happy to have all my chicks under one roof.  it won’t last too long with the bean heading off to college next year, so i’ll just enjoy it while i can.

anyway, we were all sworn to secrecy as they weren’t really ready to share the news with anyone outside of immediate family yet.  but of course, from that moment on it was all i could think about. like, i went to pick up our annual family photo ornament and ended up standing in the middle of the hallmark store, weeping as i gazed at this one:

it’d been years since i’d browsed through barnes & noble for baby books, so i had fun picking out a few to give them:

before we knew it, i found myself picking up a cake from our favorite bakery for the gender reveal - not a party because that isn’t their style, but rock-ell and her hubby came over to decorate the room and celebrate along with us.

the parents-to-be had us wait outside while they cut into that cake so that they could share that moment together and then we rejoined them, we found this:

YESSSSS BRING ON THAT BABY GIRL!!

time flew by, and it was fun to watch my daughter go through all of the stages of pregnancy.  she was still working at disneyland, and these tear ducts kicked on again the first time she came home in the maternity version of her uniform (or “costume,” as they call it at the happiest place on earth).  and then this happened:

the week before she finally got to start her maternity leave, we had her baby shower.  it was co-ed with a “berry sweet” theme, which was really fun to play with.  it was a lovely afternoon, hosted by rock-ell and the bean, and as much as my child hates to be the center of attention i think she had a good time.

i think these might be in my top 3 most favorite batch of cookies i’ve made, like ever.

and while she protested a little, i managed to get her to recreate an old photo from my baby shower when we were expecting the bean…only this time, it’s flipped around.

a couple of weeks later, the hub sent us a message in our group text, asking if we were interested in going to the dodger game the next day.  shohei ohtani was pitching, and we love going to games whenever we can so we all said yes.  it was an afternoon game, so i figured i could still go to my sunday boot camp class and even have breakfast with my friends afterwards before going home to get cleaned up and head to dodger stadium. well…

when my alarm went off, i glanced at my phone as i always do and found some texts from the kids from earlier that morning.  turns out that the old lady’s water had broken and they were already at the hospital waiting for confirmation that it was time to get checked into labor & delivery.  HOLY SHIT.

i debated for awhile, trying to decide if i should still go to my workout.  and then i woke the hub up to tell him, and that’s when i remembered that we were supposed to go to the dodger game.  lol forever.  but after trading a few texts with the old man, i went ahead and drove out to pasadena for boot camp and breakfast - because honestly, what else was i going to do?  it’s not like i could help with labor.  i knew they didn’t want anyone coming to the hospital until after the baby was born, and so we ended up just going about our day.  and at the gym, we were celebrating our friend dailygluttony’s birthday:

it was SO WEIRD to be at dodger stadium, just nonchalantly watching a baseball game knowing that the old lady was in full-on labor a few miles down the road.  just so frickin’ weird.  but when she’d answered a text earlier that day i knew it was safe to ask for her blessing to go (which she happily gave because she knew it would be a good distraction for us). and duh - i checked my phone obsessively for updates the whole time.  we still managed to have a good time though:

and we bought this in one of the merch shops:

the dodgers won that day, by the way.  it was a blowout - beating the washington nationals 13-7.  heh.

the bean had told us about a dream they’d had just the night before, involving their bestie and the baby being born at 9:30pm.  wanna take a guess at when the little miss finally made her entrance into the world?

yup.  at 9:26pm on sunday, june 22, 2025, we were overjoyed to welcome the newest member of our family - weighing in at 6 pounds, 11 ounces and measuring 20 inches long.  and a full ten days early!  after a couple of days in the hospital, they came home to this:

also, in case you were wondering, as long as i have a choice in the matter i’m not going by “grandma” because oh god no.  it took a little while to figure out what my preferred name would be, but i finally settled on “mimi.”

they’ve chosen not to share photos of the little miss online, but i am allowed to show you tiny hands and feet:

the rest of her is incredibly adorable and sweet, and i cherish every chance i’m given to cuddle her and watch her make funny faces.  she’s two months old now, growing and changing every day, and OMG smiling and cooing.  the first time she smiled at the hub i thought he was going to melt into a big ol’ puddle.  and every time she smiles at me - well, i’m sure you won’t be shocked to know that i tear up a little.  like…every. single. time.  hell, i’m tearing up right now just picturing her in my head.

i’m grateful beyond words that mom, dad and baby are happy and healthy.  the old lady and the old man are wonderful parents, very hands-on and very attentive - but i wouldn’t have expected anything else.  the three of them are the cutest little family, and i’m so proud of them all and happy that i get to be a small part of their everyday life.

welcome to the world, little miss.  we’re loving every second we get to spend with you, and can’t wait to watch you grow up.  we love you oh so much.

january dumpin’

i know, i know.  i’m terrible at blogging these days, even though i still take pictures of everything i do with the intent of sharing here at some point.  and now that pandemic is damn near five years old i really don’t have any valid excuses other than pure laziness.  eek.

and here we are, already halfway through february and i just barely got through my 2024 recap post in one piece.  and so i’m going to try something different and attempt to do, at the very least, a monthly roundup of what we’ve been up to.  we’re always doing stuff that really do deserve their own posts, so i’ll try my best to get around to doing those more frequently.

new year’s was really low-key for us this time around - we didn’t go out, didn’t throw a big party, but there was a good reason for that.  due to a whole host of crazy circumstances, the old lady and the old man moved in with us.  it’s a very full house now, and we’ve shuffled things around a lot, but honestly i love having all my kids under one roof. i’m not sure that teddy shares the sentiment, though.

i got really tired of constantly putting my readers on and taking them off and dropping them because i’d push them to the top of my head.  and so i ordered my very first pair of old lady progressive glasses.  i still can’t get used to them and aren’t wearing them all the time, but they’re cute:

here’s the 2024 family christmas ornament, which i didn’t put a photo in until i was packing up all the decorations.

part of the shuffling around of all our stuff led us to finally redo the garage - the open beams have been drywalled over, all of the walls are painted white, epoxy coated the floor and while you can’t see them all here yet, there are cabinets on every wall now to hold all of our stuff.

boot camp continues! we celebrated our first anniversary with matching shirts that made our trainer cackle out loud.

do you remember the elaborate birthday parties i’ve been lucky enough to be invited to over the last couple of years - costumes required, gorgeous home and grounds, full-on dance party, great food?  the theme this year was disney, with the birthday girl dressed as maleficent from “sleeping beauty.”  for her grand entrance, they’d gotten the man who’s the voice of disneyland to record the announcement.  it was incredible and (obviously) my favorite of her parties so far.

the hub took me to a local costume shop to find something to wear.  i knew there would be a ton of princesses like cinderella and snow white, minnie mouse, you know.  but when i spotted a queen of hearts costume, i knew that was the one for me.  and as predicted, i was the only one.

look at her cake!

i tried to put teddy in a cute kirkland doggy hoodie and he was not having it.

i tried a class at a nearby studio called the method lagree - it was kind of like a reformer pilates class on steroids.  i was pleased to find that while it was a pretty tough workout, my bootcamp training served me well and i was able to hang with the rest of the regulars.  don’t ask me if i’ve been back since, though.

the old lady and i had a fun afternoon at disneyland for the kickoff of the lunar new year festival.

i had some fun outings with my friends.

we went to eataly for lunch one day with the kids, and then to philippe’s for some delicious french dips another day.

i had a self care evening and scared the dogs with my face mask.  ahahahahahahaha.

and then i scored a ticket to the jennifer hudson show for a taping that several cast members from general hospital were appearing at.  they’ve already aired the episode and i totally got mike wazowski’d - i was always just across the aisle from the audience members they showed onscreen.  d-oh.  i still had a great time though, so that’s all that counts.

and that was my january!  bring on february fun!