last night ryan, ellie and i had the great pleasure of meeting the newest member of our family, miss lillian grace <3

isn’t she pretty?

she was asleep when we arrived, so ellie made sure to tell us all to “shhhhhh! … baby, ny-nyyyy,” and then we each took turns holding her and passing her around and holding her again.

she’s so cute and squishy and has the roundest little head full of dark brown hair and we just love her to pieces already.

carerra had a bit of a rough labor, starting with contractions on sunday lasting through monday and then tuesday when she was finally admitted to the hospital in the early afternoon. she progressed quickly once she was there and pushed like a trooper after an epidural that turned out to be a dud — she said she “could feel everything.” OUCH!

but pretty little lily was worth all the pain and discomfort (easy for me to say, i had a c-section — bahaha!) and now she, mommy and daddy are resting comfortably at home <3 we can't wait to visit again soon.

welcome to the family, little one!

baby lily’s arrival is just around the corner (october 20th or somewhere thereabouts), so yesterday loretta, shirley, ellie and i drove out to manteca for carerra’s baby shower <3

it was held in a private room at this fancy recreation building of a really cute housing development. apparently someone knew someone who knew someone who lived there :) it was the perfect place for a party. the decor included lots of pink and diaper cakes galore, and carerra looked as beautiful as ever in her pretty satin dress and perfectly styled hair.

it was nice to spend a little time with the girls of the family. rodi and abby were there, as well, and we met a nice little girl named samara who was quite enamored with ellie (as was ellie with her). they had lots of fun playing together with balloons and … cherry tomatoes? :)

carerra got a massive pile of gifts, including frames, blankets, baby essentials and plenty of adorable outfits to start lily off on the road to becoming a fashionista. and while we can’t wait to meet her, we’re hoping she doesn’t decide to make an appearance tomorrow like someone did so soon after *my* shower ;)

thank you for a lovely afternoon, ‘rerra. we love you!

my dear friend stefany, care package assembler extraordinaire and one of my favorite people in the whole wide world, sent me a wonderful box of goodies for my birthday. it came alllll the way from texas and arrived right on time. she’s so good! :) out of all the super cute and thoughtful gifts in the package, my number one favorite is a book called someday.

inside the front jacket there is a description that reads, “a deceptively simple, powerful ode to the potential of love and the potential in life, someday is the book you’ll want to share with someone else … today.” and it’s true. i want to gift this book to every mother and daughter i know. it’s that beautiful. seriously, people, i cannot read this book (out loud or in my head) without crying.

the illustrations are simple line drawings painted in watercolor, and the story is told in one line on each page. you’ll have to read it yourself to get the full effect, but just to give you an idea, this is how it goes…

one day i counted your fingers and kissed each one.
one day the first snowflakes fell, and i held you up and watched them melt on your baby skin.
one day we crossed the street, and you held my hand tight.
then, you were my baby, and now you are my child.

and when that day comes, love, you will remember me.

yeah … turns out i can’t type it without crying, either. if you are a mother or a daughter or a grandmother, you should own this book. one day i hope to be able to read it to ellie without my eyes welling up with tears. until then, i just feel lucky to have it :)

thank you so much, stefany, i love you!

the lack family loves a good festival. we go to the pumpkin festival in half moon bay every year, we entertained the idea of going to the gilroy garlic festival this year (but we decided it was too far to drive), we’re thinking of going to the harvest festival in november, and on saturday we went to one we had never been to before, the hayward zucchini festival.

much like the pumpkin festival is for us, the zucchini festival is a tradition for our friends eric and alicia. we had never heard of it, but they invited us to tag along, so we decided to check it out. the first thing ellie saw was a pony, so she was excited from the moment we entered the gates.

from there we made our way over to the food. ellie munched on crackers, ryan had a hot link and i had fried zucchini because – duh – it was the zucchini festival! and mmm, it was delicious.

then we browsed the different vendors’ tents, bought honey sticks, tried on ridiculous hats, and ryan took my picture next to a pile of giant zucchini :)

we tried to take a few pictures of ellie and brylie (future BFFs) together, but brylie wasn’t in the mood to pose. so ellie danced to the live music, we had a few more drinks and then we headed home <3

my only complaint is that there weren’t too many zucchini things are the zucchini festival. if i hadn’t gotten fried zucchini or found the big zucchini to take a picture with, we wouldn’t have seen a single zucchini! we still had lots of fun with the blum family, though. perhaps we’ll join them again next year :)

“when you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses…”

ellie’s very first cousin EVER, little miss lillian grace, is due to arrive in just 77 days …

… although you can hardly tell by looking at her auntie ‘rerra, who looks as good as ever!

on sunday we had the great pleasure of joining our friends jeff and carolyn at their daughter cerise’s first birthday party. it was hello kitty-themed and the birthday girl was dressed in her sunday best – a purple tutu and a hello kitty shirt, of course!

ellie had a great time running around playing with balloons and all of cerise’s cool toys. she was in such a good mood we even got her to wear a party hat for awhile :) oh, but the coolest part? hello-kitty tattoos for the kids!

cerise’s birthday cake was the pinkest cake i’d ever seen. and ooooh my goodness, was it delicious. i wasn’t going to have any because we were headed to grandpa alex’s birthday dinner after the party, but once i had a bite of ryan’s piece, it was all over. mmm, hello kitty cake!

thank you to the rubensteins for including us in such a special celebration. we had a great time!