Mother's Day and 9th Wedding Anniversary

For the 4th year in a row I got to wake up to the delicious smell of a special Mother's day breakfast that Madison and Daddy made for me...:-) I got nice cards and a prenatal massage which I'm really excited to use in a few weeks...:-)

After the morning service we quickly got ourselves over to one of my favorite restaurants "Cafe Hiro" for our Mother's Day lunch:-) I almost always have to order the Cod Roe Spaghetti but this time I forced myself to try something new and went with Roasted Scallops with Mushroom Risotto. The Calamari Fritters with Parmesan cheese that we got as an appetizer were sooo delicious!

 Our meals came with a yummy salad and a carrot soup.

 Dave's Pork Cutlet Curry

 Roasted scallops with Mushroom risotto.

 We got Madison a side of rice and this fried chicken but she didn't want it so Dave and I each tried one but we were so full the rest had to go to waste:-( It was really good though!

Wednesday the 15th was our 9th wedding anniversary so Dave and I took off work at the last minute and decided to go on a day date to Venice Beach for lunch and a stroll...:-) We were worried that Madison would not want to go to school when both of us were around to drop her off but she knew we needed to spend some quality time alone and happily got dropped off at school in the morning so we were very proud of her:-) and the fact that she loves going to that school really helps!

My boss who is a true Californian and knows a lot of cool eateries recommended a restaurant called "The Tasting Kitchen" but they are not open for lunch during the week so we went with her #2 recommendation of a place called "Gjelina" on Abbot Kinney Blvd in Venice Beach. We headed there right after we dropped off Madison and strolled the street with a bunch of privately owned little shops... On that day we might have found THE BEST gelato shop called "Nice Cream" with THE BEST gelatos to offer... They make ALL THE GELATOS fresh in the morning so we were the first gelato customers of the day since we were there like 10:30 in the morning! We tried Strawberry and White Chocolate which we don't have a picture of but trust us they tasted sooooo good, it was so creamy and amazing flavors of real strawberries and white chocolate! I've had a lot of gelatos in my life although I've never been to Italy yet, it was by far the best I've ever had:-)

After the most amazing dessert we picked up some interesting things to bring home to Madison and got in line for our 11:30 lunch at Gjelina...

I had my heart set on the avocado/beet salad thing that I saw a picture of on yelp but since their menu is very seasonal it will be another reason to come back to this place some other time...:-)

I love fries so we had to order the Pomme Frites...

   

Then the berkshire pork meatballs in amazing tomato sauce which we dipped our fries in!

     

 Wood roasted cauliflower with Garlic, Parsley and Chili was so delicious:-)

  

 By the time we got our pizzas we were pretty full so we ended up taking a full pie(combined two pizzas) home for dinner:-) I got the hen of the woods mushroom pizza with beet greens and Taleggio and Dave got Blanco which has mozzarella, Parmesan, Fromage Blanc & Castelvatrano Olives.

 

Since I never get to see how she naps at school and because we missed her so much we went extra early to pick her up... Most of the kids that get to school by 8 apparently takes their naps the longest so among such a loud noise that is going on in the classroom 5 or so kids were still deeply asleep when we got there including our M... I would say she has a prime spot for her nap. Thank you Madison for letting us have a lovely day to celebrate our 9 years of marriage:-)

 

Thank you  Dave for the diamond studs, I love them! and you are welcome for biking/triathlon suits:)

HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY MADISON!!

This year, Madison's birthday fell on a Wednesday so her 4th birthday started with a birthday party at her school...:-) We got some healthy snacks for the party using our brand new Costco membership and I stayed for the party to take some pictures and videos...:-)

Madison's friend, Koren, helped her decorate her birthday crown the day before so she could wear it at her party and after singing a few songs promptly at 9:00am, Madison picked two friends that she would like to sit by at her party... 

Frozen Yogurt Tubes were healthy, but mini chocolate chip muffins and apple juices... 

Probably not...:-p

Anyhow Madison had a good time at her party and the rest of the day...

When I got home we had dinner and her special birthday cake before we went to Church for the Wednesday night Bible class. When we got home it was late but we hid some of her presents so she could at least open some before heading to bed...:-)

California Kleins do love Ice Cream Cakes:-)

 

We were impressed with how good she can blow her candles now!  Our little angel is growing up!

I'm not sure but I think these gifts are from G-pa & G-ma Klein since they just gave us a check to buy her gifts so we picked a half dozen different things from our Amazon wish list...

This one is called the Fairy Tell Tales I think...  you pick about 5 cards and make up a story with those 5 things in it:-) It will be a good practice for her creative brain.

This one is a V-Tech Princess game that allows her to work on her letters and other activities...

The next day(Thursday) she got to open gifts from Uncle Robert, Aunt Holly, Cousin Carter and Cousin Grant and part of gifts from G-pa & G-ma Klein...

I totally forgot to take pictures, but once again we hid all the gifts(this time in her play area) and she got a really cute Melissa and Doug Beading set and Melissa and Doug Jewelry Box that she can decorate with jewels and glitters from Uncle Robert and Aunt Holly... 

The next day(Friday) she opened gifts from G-pa & G-ma Klein and Jiiji & Baaba...:-) The main gift that we decided to get on behalf of Linda and Steve was the baby set since she never got one before and she will have a baby sister soon so it seemed like the perfect timing... She loved it and while Dave and I worked outside she kept walking her in her stroller she already had back and forth it was super cute to watch! She got two new pairs of sandals from Jiiji & Baaba and even though they were a bit too big still she put on the Minnie Mouse sandals and she has been wearing them everyday ever since...:-)

You may be wondering what did we get for her!? Well 10 days later we are still waiting for it to arrive... No, not the baby sister! A furniture of sorts, but I may have to take a break right here and go do some complaining...:-) 

Done! so 11 days later thanks to the stupid Pottery Barn Kids we are still hoping that our order will arrive sometime in our life time to give her a comfy reading chair...:-) 

* Update: we had to cancel our order since they changed their shipping date for the 4th time to June 11th and we will not be supporting the business for a long time because of it...

During our last visit to Disneyland we picked up a necklace for her to give on her birthday but totally forgot about it, well while organizing the office today I came across it so we probably can give it to her tonight...:-)

Here is the pic for your pleasure:-)

On Friday I took off work and prepared for Madison's 4th "Princess in Training" Birthday Party:-)

I wasn't sure how much I could get done with my big belly, but more focus on cooking and decorating and less on cleaning meticulously kind of helped and we only had to stay up until about midnight to get most of the preps done...:-)

Here is the party invitation for the guests of honor...

The banquet hall...

 

The morning of the party we surprised Madison with the banquet table all decorated... She is so far away so I'm sure you can't see her reaction but she was genuinely surprised and loved how the whole place looked...:-) so it was totally worth staying up late for!

This huge coloring house was a gift from the Idaho Kleins last year and we attempted to use it once but Madison wasn't into it so we just kept it in our closet but boy was it a hit for all the guests! They all picked up markers and colored until their hearts desired!

Madison's close friends from her school, Amelia on the left and Tessa in the back... Tessa's dad loves taking pictures so he became our official historian and took most of the amazing pictures at the party so I could focus on other areas that needed attention... Could not have done it without him:-) Thanks Noel!

If you were not coloring up the house you were getting all pretty-ed up for the princess training... We had a nail station, a tattoo/stamp station, an accessory station and a hair station under the make over canopy but it was a super windy day and we had to move the hair station to inside the house...

At one point Dave stepped in to help with the accessory station but as you can see he was born to do this job...:-)

 

Here Madison is refusing a special birthday princess tiara we got for her... Sigh...

When all the girls were pretty jeweled up it was time for the princess training!

First all the princesses practiced how to curtsy as it's a very important part of princess etiquette... Madison loved to watch Princess Sofia so she knew how to curtsy(kind of...) I was filming this and could not stop laughing at how she does it... even funnier when the girls go ahead and copy her especially Aliyah, so super cute!

After the curtsy practice they practiced walking... Instead of a book we used a stuffed mickey mouse and do a walking relay... All the girls did such a good job and we were very impressed...:-) One of the princes gave this one a try and he did good, a very prince like walking...:-)

  

After the walk girls carried a tray of tea cups and a tea pot with actual water in them... Again perfection, no spills!

I somehow did not hit start recording so I have no videos for you here... sorry!

Their final training was to get dressed and walk down one by one to receive a princess certification and be seated at their assigned table... Here comes Princess Madison of Long Beach:-)

 

Everyone seemed to find their seats successfully...:-)


Princess Tiana had opened up her restaurant to host a princess banquet for Madison that day...


In the kitchen we set up all the foods but I totally forgot to take pictures of our food table that looked pretty nice with all these food labels for the guest kings and queens...

Madison quickly realized that the pearly decorations on the rim of their royal goblets were edible:-) SUGAR!

 

If you know Dave you know that he makes us stick to a certain schedule so we got the cake out pretty much right after lunch and not like 3 hours later like most people do here...:-) I was telling Dave that I really hope Madison did not finish that huge piece of cake all by herself...:-) We will never know...

Happy Birthday Princess Madison!!!