Centre Stage Inc. presents "A Night of Broadway," at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Nov. 4 and 5, at Arcadia Christian School, 1900 S. Santa Anita Ave., Arcadia.
Tickets are $15 each and includes dessert, coffee and drinks.
Proceeds will benefit programs offered by Centre Stage Inc., a performing arts school in Monrovia.
For more information, call (626) 297-4768 or visit www.centrestageinc.com.
The "design-your-own" Scary Face Pancake includes an oversized signature buttermilk pancake with a whipped topping mouth and strawberry nose, served with two mini OREO® cookies and candy corn on the side to allow kids to create their own Halloween hotcake.
Are you brave enough to go?
Admission is free.
This is the first in a series of six high quality and culturally-sensitive health seminars offered by AzusaCares, and co-sponsored by Assemblyman Roger Hernandez (D-57th District), Mayor Joe Rocha and Azusa Renew. Hernandez, by the way, sits on the California Assembly Health Committee.
For this first seminar, speakers include Dr. Scott Bledsoe, clinical psychologist at Azusa Pacific University; Andrew Levander, director of residential services at David & Margaret Youth and Family Services in La Verne; Claudia Shields-Owen and Christine Estrada-Lee, school psychologist with the Azusa Unified School District.
No carts, no bags, so I grabbed a box and one of those disposable shopping bags and was off. Didn't even make it to the electronics section because the line snaked round and round the aisles all the way to the back of the store. No thanks!
Found most things on my list save for two: a Polly Pockets toy set and a dump truck, both discounted to under $10. Never mind, I say! I joined the checkout line and made conversation with my fellow shoppers, finding a discarded dump truck along the way. Victory!
Fiesta hours are 6 to 10 p.m. tomorrow, Friday, Oct. 8; 2 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 9, and noon to 7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 10. Weather promises to be just beautiful and perfect for wandering the fair grounds.(I'll be there working the hula hoop booth on Saturday, Filipino food booth on Sunday and trying to keep up with the kiddos the rest of the time.)
Admission is free. The church is celebrating its 75th anniversary by the way, so come help celebrate a bit of local history too.
Holy Angels is at 370 Campus Drive, in Arcadia, right across from the mall. For more information, call (626) 447-1671.
But for some reason, the first birthday has become an excuse to throw a huge, all-frills-thrown-in affair. I'm guilty of this. At Firstborn Son's first birthday in 2002, we threw a humdinger of a home party for 100-plus people with the requisite jumper, tables groaning with food, a clay art artist who made little clay souvenirs for the guests, a snow maker machine, cotton candy machine, sand candy table, oh, my head hurts thinking about it now!
For Wonder Boy, we scaled back a bit but still brought out the invites for 100 closest friends and family, the jumper, the balloon artist (Steven Ming, love him! who also does the Monrovia Family Festival every Friday) and goody bags for every child.
From the party supplies and decoration, to food and drinks, the fun stuff (pinata and fillers, jumpers etc.) each party easily cost about $1,000. Remember, we had about 100 people at the house! You really have to think why you do this (for us, it's great to get everyone together.)
I love her voice, her easy smile, her cute do and effortless style. I love her wisdom and subtle humor. I am thankful for her kindness.
If you see her around town, it would be easy to think, "I could never be like her," "her" being that kind of mom of who is chic and so well put together, maternal and calm, the mom who never raises her voice after calling her children three times (usually to get these hypothetical children to pick something off of the floor or get out of the car while you're holding the car seat with the baby in it as well as a heavy purse.)
Karen (it doesn't feel right to use her last name in the usual journalistic style), is a mom, wife, daughter and Buddhist priest and teacher. Meeting Karen after reading her book, "Momma Zen," I realized that yes, I could never be like her. And thank God. That's not the point. I can be me. (And why do I suddenly hear Sammy Davis Jr. singing in the background?)
Karen lives in Sierra Madre, in a beautiful home with a century-old Japanese garden that invites serenity. She also does laundry, and picks up after the dog, teases her husband about his new flat screen TV and worries about her daughter and our material world. I know she gets angry and frustrated too, but she has a deep perspective that helps me out every time I visit her site.
Mine include going through that stack of magazines on the desk and cleaning out my purse (down to the crumbs and gooey things I didn't know were in there.) I also make a list of New Year's resolutions that pertain to me (lose weight, be more cheerful, don't yell at kids) but these get sidetracked soon after the second encore presentation of the Rose Parade.
Enter Robert Mahar, self-appointed grand poobah of the Junior Society, of which I am a proud member. The society is "dedicated to the proliferation and advancement of better than average kiddie culture and design," which means I get a weekly e-mail on everything from Halloween pumpkins to arts and crafts projects and sales on unique children's items. I love it. (www.juniorsociety.com)
Mahar, of Los Angeles , is also proprietor of the online shop Mahar Drygoods which offers artisan-created goodies for children and grown-ups who like vintage stuff (count me in). Suffice to say, I'm a Mahar fan, so when he pointed the way recently to a unique campaign, I listened.
He calls it "pay-it forward/random acts of kindness/secret Santa love."
Last week marked the second annual World Wide Christmas Toy Drop organized by the Toy Society, am Australian-based group that makes handmade toys and leaves them in public places to be found and given homes by strangers. The project has attracted people from the Netherlands to Greece , Guatemala to Japan .
Their blog is at www.thetoysociety.blogspot.com.
"I've become a regular visitor, reading about the various 'toy drops' in places near and far and loving the accounts by those who have discovered and given homes to these toys," Mahar said. "It's such a simple act of kindness and some of the discovery stories are really moving."
Last year, more than 100 toys were made and dropped and the numbers for this year will be out next month. Mahar made his contribution by making a red and white sock elf featured in his shop.
"I left him hanging from the fencing that surrounds a child development center playground in my neighborhood," he said. "The Toy Society has downloadable labels that read simply, 'Take me home, I'm yours!' and a letter that explains the project and encourage the finders to report back and let them know the toy has been claimed."
Mahar said people are so ingenious and thoughtful, "not only in the creation of these handmade toys but in their drop locations - everywhere from the safety seat of a frozen shopping cart to the toy hanging out in the manger of a nativity diorama. I can't tell you how much I love this idea."
Me too.
Don't hate us because we don't have Christmas lights at our house.
Actually, the three little trees in the front yard have had lights on them all year, and Hubby will connect extension cords to them this week in hopes that not too many mini bulbs have died since last Christmas.
But I've had to say goodbye to my vision of those same trees festooned in lights (I like clear ones) because, 1) I'm not the one doing the light hanging and 2) Hubby says we never have enough lights for three trees. The choice boils down to lighting one tree well or all trees half-brightly.
Between you and me, I think the energy shortage lies with my erstwhile decor-hanger and not the light supply, but we love him anyway.
To all of you who decorate their homes to the rafters, those with motorized snow globes and lit-up Nativity scenes, candy cane lanes and reindeers on your rooftops, bless you. We who spend many a holiday evening cruising neighborhoods, stalking the best decorated streets, thank you.
I love that KOST has kicked off its holiday music 24/7.
I'm ready to decorate the outside of the house this weekend (hoping Hubby will find time to bring all the Christmas stuff down from the garage eaves!) And I've printed out our Christmas gift list (counting family, friends, the mailman, teachers etc. the list has grown to three pages!) Our family celebrates three new babies this year, with one more due Dec. 8. (What recession?!!!)
I don't say, "I'm the mom, that's why," although Hubby tells the boys he's their boss. To which my boys reply, "Yes, but Mama's YOUR boss." Indeed!
To stop the "he touched me" "he's looking at me" and fighting in the car, I don't threaten to turn the car around. The boys are mortally afraid of losing privileges and their most beloved toys (these days that's Bakugan, and if you're not a parent of a boy, you wouldn't understand.)
Anyway, just for fun, I counted how many times I said "Be careful" to both boys in one day. My total was 16. Really have to learn to let go a bit, hmm?
Nursing covers (my favorite is Bebe Au Lait's Hooter Hiders in cream eyelet) are one of those mommy things that makes having a baby more fun and convenient, right up there with the Boppy, pacifier covers, a good baby carrier and anything that helps baby sleep.
Elementary parenting stuff made cool.
After three kids, I know I don't have to have those pee-pee teepee covers to avert diaper changing geysers (a tissue or napkin will do just fine), nor do I need the $1,600 Louis Vuitton diaper bag. (My sister bought me a cute Petunia Pickle Bottom one at 75 percent off from a store that was closing. Otherwise, my old one still works.) And no, my little one will not be wearing a $190 checked Burberry dress.
But every year, there are new products and baby items out there that make parenting easier and/or just more fun.
The byword of all things baby these days is eco-friendly, so items boast about being green and free of chemicals, solvents, and other yucky stuff. Think hypoallergenic, all-natural, organic, and sustainable. Another byword (at least for me) is affordable. But if it works, I will pay more for it (Wonder Boy had sensitive skin as a newborn and the Mustela line of baby products was the only one that worked for him.)
What are some of the newest products making waves these days?
Phoebe, without missing a beat, tells him, "Well, let me help you. Give me Frank Jr. Jr.," and Frank says, "Oh no, not him! He's my little guy!" and proceeds to list all the great things about each child (Leslie and Chandler...OK, I had to look this up! I really don't know all the kids' names offhand.)
Ah, here's a synopsis: "Frank reappears in a later season and tries to convince Phoebe to take one of the triplets, because he claims to have not slept in four years. For arguments sake, they discuss which of the children Phoebe will take. She asks for Frank Jr. Jr., but Frank decides that Frank Jr. Jr. is too funny and that she can't take him. She then asks for Leslie, but he says no, because she is the only one who knows how to burp the alphabet. Phoebe then suggests Chandler, to which Frank replies, 'Oh, no, no, you can't have Chandler, no. No, no. She's my little genius. I got big hopes for her. She's gonna be a doctor or a realtor.' He then realizes that he has run out of children to give up and that he loves his children way too much to ever give any of them away.
In the end, Frank realizes once again how good he has it.
A Hershey's bite-size bar after lunch.
Half a Kit Kat shared with Wonder Boy for an afternoon snack.
Reese's peanut butter cup inhaled while making dinner.
Life is super sweet for all the parents indulging in the fruits of their kids' Halloween labors.
All this brouhaha over Baby Einstein may anger some parents. Some may throw out all their baby DVDs and LeapFrogs. I say something a wise friend told me when my firstborn was days old: "Follow your instinct."
The people at the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood claimed victory in their campaign against Baby Einstein (a Disney company) because Baby Einstein (to avoid a class action lawsuit, I presume) released a statement announcing it was going to begin issuing refunds for its Baby Einstein videos. Buyers of the DVDs can return them to Disney for $15.99 or exchange them for other products.
Nowhere did they admit, though, that the DVDs have no value.
Young Patrick:
You're my best girl and nothing you do is wrong,
I'm proud you belong to me;
And if a day is rough for me,
Having you there's enough for me.
And if someday another girl comes along,
It won't take her long to see,
That I'll still be found, just hanging around
My best girl.
Mame:
You're my best beau, you're handsome and brave and strong,
There's nothing we two can't face;
If you're with me, whatever comes,
We'll see that trouble never comes.
And if someday another beau comes along
Determined to take your place,
I hope he's resigned to falling behind,
My best beau.
Mame And young Patrick:
And if someday when everything turns out wrong,
You're through with the human race,
Come running to me,
Mame:
For I'll always be
Your best girl...
Young Patrick:
My best girl!
She smiled.
Not at me,
but she smiled, a quick, sweet upturn of her mouth, bow-shaped little lips
slightly open, lifting her chubby cheeks every so slightly, streaked with milky drool.
Baby No. 3 is only six weeks old, but I swear she smiled at her Papa 21 days after her birth day. She had just been fed (by me) and changed (by me), when I handed her over to Hubby so I could wash my hands. Hubby had just launched into his patented up-down-bouncy-dance-of-sleep when I looked over and saw it.
She was looking up at him adoringly with her wide, almond-shaped eyes as he spoke in singsong to her. Then she smiled, the look filling her face, her two hands clasped under her chin.
Hubby and I saw it. And though I didn't run to get the baby book so I could document the milestone like I did with Firstborn Son, we remember. (Hubby reminds me both boys smiled at him first, too.)
Now Baby smiles with increasing regularity (but never slow enough so I can catch it with the camera.) She does it most after a feeding, when she's just drifting off to sleep. She'll turn her head to one side, eyes drooping, eyes fluttering open, then closing again, then opening one more time before she sinks slowly into sleep, usually with one hand curled ladylike beside her cheek.
The smile comes soon after that, like a door's been opened in her sleep and she's happy to enter it. Who's greeting her at the threshold? I always wonder. Sometimes, the smile is followed by a golden giggle, a sound so sweet I want to play it over and over should I ever get the chance to record it. What's so funny? Could I get in on the secret?
You can read all about baby smiles during these earliest days being nothing more than an inborn behavior, just a reflex, or (you've heard this one before), "just gas." We're told babies don't really smile at you until they're at least two months old, if then.
Never mind all that.
But we've settled in as a fivesome nicely, methinks, two weeks into this new gig. Baby is sleeping RELATIVELY well, except for one night this week when she woke up at 2 a.m., and 3 a.m., then 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. She sleeps for three hour stretches and isn't much of a crier. She stops wailing as soon as anyone picks her up.
The boys ADORE her. They kiss her so much we have to ask them to stop. Wonder Boy wants to help with everything: fetching diapers, turning on her crib mobile, wiping her drool. Firstborn reports on her every achievement to anyone who will listen.
I am doing much better after the C-section, able at last to get up and down the stairs but still on pain medication. My brother-in-law reminded me yesterday not to drive if I'm on meds even if I'm not drowsy or sleepy as it can be considered drunk driving. Didn't think of that AT ALL! I will have to stop taking the meds then if I have to get behind the wheel, hmm?
