Here it is....

even the bunny looks scared!

Easter 2009

We had a great and busy Easter this year. Mackenna totally loved finding the eggs, so we went to a bunch of Easter egg hunts and parties. The first one was put on by one of may favorite children's boutiques, Peekaboo, in downtown La Verne. Mackenna brought her favorite friend from church, Coleman, with her and I brought my favorite friend from church, who just happend to be his mother, Michelle, with me. The 4 of us had a lot of fun (although 2 of us ate WAY too much candy...can you guess which 2 it was from the picture below)?That same night, some friends of ours invited us to a suite at the Clippers game and we brought Steve's sister Ashley with us (she actually watched/cared about the game while the rest of us just ate and talked, haha):

The next week was our annual Mom's Club Easter party/ egg hunt:

A few days later, my sister, mom and I took Mackenna and Hailey to get their pictures with the Easter bunny. These next 2 pictures are what I like to call, "the calm before the storm" because she looks so cute and precious in her little outfit, but once she caught a glimpse of the bunny...let me just say these pictures turned out even better than the Santa pictures from last Christmas. (I'll upload them soon-sorry):

The day before Easter, our city put on a big Easter egg hunt at a park across the street from our house. Steven was so excited to take Mackenna (and I was pretty burned out by this point) so they had a great time together. She is such a daddy's girl:Love this picture...priceless!

It was nice just sitting back and watching her collect all her eggs for once:
Easter Sunday on the way to church:
I made Easter dinner and had both of our families over. Afterwards, we did our last egg hunt in our front yard for Mackenna and Hailey. It was such a beautiful, sunny day and of course the cousins had matching "after church" outfits too. Thanks, Nana!

Spring Break

Thanks to my brother-in-law being in dental school, we still get to plan fun vacations with them during his spring break. This was the second year we went to San Diego and we had a blast. We started off with a day at Sea World, which has a cute Sesame-Street themed area with rides, play places, a little water park, etc. that was perfectly age approriate for Mackenna and her cousin Hailey. They had so much fun together.

We have a picture just like this one from last year:
Mackenna waiting to go on the Elmo ride:
Touching a starfish for the first time...loved it:

After a long day at Sea World, Mackenna and Hailey were perfectly happy playing in the hotel bed:
The next day we ventured over to Coronado (don't get me started about that bridge...I closed my eyes and screamed the whole way) and went to the Hotel Del Coronado and I thought it was SO creepy and old. This is a lame picture of me (excuse the beach attire and no makeup), but look at that chandalier and all of that dark oak. Such weird decor for a beach-front hotel. I totally believe all the ghost stories about that place after going there.
While there, we rented a couple of these bikes and toured around the island. Here's Steve practicing with both of the girls in the front of our bike-they HAD to ride together, but about halfway through started fighting over who got to ring the bell and we had to separate them:

We spent the rest of the time swimming in the pool at our hotel, which had some great waterslides and the best part (for Steven) was that Mackenna could go up the stairs and down the slide all by herself this year and he got to stay in the nice warm pool.We ate at the Brigantine (our fave fish taco restaurant), went to Seaport Village, visited Brad and Kirstie at their darling apartment (I think they are definitely two of Mackenna's favorite people), did some shopping, and just enjoyed a relaxing weekend away. Can't wait for next year!

I'm Famous

Not really, but I was on TV last night. A little clip of me smiling and clapping as Dancing With the Stars came back from commercial about halfway through. My friend called me early Tuesday morning saying she won tickets from a radio station to go to the results show taping and I was the first one she thought to bring. So I quickly found a babysitter (thanks Grandma Kathy), found something to wear (cocktail attire is not a staple in my wardbrode, I discovered) and hopped in the car with my friend Lisa and drove to Hollywood around 2pm. The taping took a really long time (4:30-7pm) but it was so neat to see how everything works behind the scenes and we met lots of people, including a few celebrities. Since Lisa won tickets, we got in the VIP line, they took us right in, and gave us front row seats!
I can't believe I've lived in LA all my life and this was the first time I've ever been to a taping! It's awesome because people like Kim Kardashian, Lynn from OC Housewives, and Jewel sat right by us. Our first encounter, however, was with Benji from So You Think You Can Dance. He sat right in front of us, so Lisa asked him if he ever took the job with Celine Dion and his response was, "No, I turned that contract down." She then told him it was my birthday (which in reality is on a Tuesday, but not for 3 more weeks, so he told me happy birthday and I went into celebrity shock and seriously couldn't think of a thing to say back to him. So I sat there and nodded like an idiot. Fabulous.
Then about halfway through the taping, I was walking back in after using the little ladies room, and Steve-O walked by. He seemed so nice and normal so I said Hi and he said Hi back then I told him what a big fan my husband is of his and he was very thankful. Such a nice guy! Much nicer than Benji, I think. If anyone else's husband is like mine and obsessed with Steve-O and Bam, you'll also appreciate the fact that Bam's parents were there in the front row (ya know, the ones who always get beat up on by their own son).
My last comment about the taping was that all of the judges and celebrities are so much smaller in person! The camera really does add 10 pounds! Bruno, especially, is one very little man. The pro dancers all have the most amazing bodies and are so ridiculously talented. They make them do all of their performances twice, back to back, and pre-tape them both times before the show ever goes live at 6pm. Then they do all sorts of costume changes during the live show to make it look like they just finished performing their routines. So funny!
Anyways, I'm so glad I went and we had a lot of fun. We went over to the Grove afterwards and had a wonderful dinner at Maggiano's and finally got home about 10pm. Can't wait to go to another taping!!

Another "I'm famous" moment came when my friend Jolisa came over and showed me that my blog post from Mackenna's 1st birthday was shown on a popular crafty mom's blog called thirty handmade days. You can see it here: http://thirtyhandmadedays.blogspot.com/2008/08/number-1.html
I had a couple other party planner bloggers contact me about her party, but it was fun to be noticed and blogged about.

So, I guess my 5 minutes of fame are up now that it's Wednesday morning, but it sure was an exciting Tuesday!