Butterfly Garden Birthday Party.

Dear Amalia;
    On Sept 2, 2012 we will celebrate your Big 2nd Birthday. We are going to celebrate it in New York City at grandma's house. It is a big deal for me to celebrate your birthday because we did not celebrate your first birthday since you had open heart surgery and eye surgery. That is why we wanted to make your Second birthday special and decided to take a road trip to New York to be around family and friends who wanted to meet you. I decided to go with the theme of Garden Butterfly because you are my butterfly princess, everyday you blossom and show me that you can fly with time. Your smile is like a garden of beautiful flowers its vibrant and colorful. I wanted you to wear a beautiful dress but a dress with meaning, therefore I decided to do it myself and because you do not like hats I designed and created your hair birthday fascinator.  I wanted every little girl to feel like butterflies so I bought butterfly wings and for the boys I created frog sun visors. I wanted your birthday table to have little butterflies and frogs with delicious goodies. I made sure you had a pinata and I was so lucky to find a butterfly pinata. Your food menu consist of lasagna made by me, baked ziti made by your aunt Yliana, some delicious rice with vegetables, rice with green pigeon, Shepard's pie made by Margaret, potato salad with carrots made by your great aunt Rosa, green salad, roasted chicken made by your aunt Yolanda, pork roast made by grandma, chicken stew made by grandma, Italian bread everything was so good...Your favorite was lasagna! We also had a table with all kinds of cookies and raspberry M& M, skittles and cake pom pom made by Karen La Paz.  What about your cake? your cake was unbelievable beautiful Karen La Paz made your cake it was so beautiful and soooo delicious..the filling was Guayaba..Karen said it was her first time creating a Guayaba cake filling and it was soooooo gooood.  She did an amazing amazing job. She decorated just like the theme. We had balloons and some pink, green and white tissue pompom that I also made as part of your decorations. Your cake table was decor with a pink ruffle skirt on top of a white table cloth with white tulle adorned around with butterflies pin in the center and on the two ends of the table. On the top of the table there was a pink lantern, pink, green stripped fun straws and the frog sun visors for the boys. I also placed your butterfly wings on the table. You looked so beautiful and you enjoyed every ones company...Everyone was smitten with you but after a while you became tired and went to sleep; no worries everyone had an amazing time.

It was time to try the dress on..and you looked so beautiful.

Since your birthday was a Garden Butterfly theme your ensemble was not complete without the wings.



The Front View





The Back View



Everything looked so festive.



The cake that Karen made for you.

Beautiful tissue flower handmade by Margaret's mother

Food description tags.Thanks to Margaret for creating them

Boys frog sun visor

because its cute to have a pink lantern.

 A party would not be complete with out games. I wanted a "pin the butterfly on the flower" kind of game, however I did not find one. My awesome friend Margaret created such a beautiful "pin the butterfly on the flower" and she also created for the boys "pin the frog on the Lilly pond." The kids had an amazing time, sadly I was so involve with the game that I did not take pictures.

                                                              "Pin the butterfly on the flower"

This is some of the wonderful family friend who attender your birthday party and who love you so very very much.

Butterfly girls

Big brother Ethan wearing the froggy visors

Butterfly Sophie

Butterfly Katherine and Ava with their parent.

Pinata Time

Everyone had such a great time. We could not sing Happy Birthday because you fell asleep but we definitely had a great time.

Happy Birthday my beautiful butterfly!

A family Reunion

Once we arrived in NYC we headed to time sqaure just to soak up the livelihood and energetic feeling New Yorker have. The air had a mix of different ethnic food that made you hungry even if you were not hungry. We were headed to my hometown BROOKLYN... We arrived and the hugs of my parents felt so good and to see their smile was priceless. Amalia well what can I say she is princess that celebrates everything in Life..she applauded, blew kisses and put on that big smile that only she knows how to. My parents did not know how to share Amalia and Ethan they were switching babies like they were playing musical chair. Hugging them and kissing them since it has been a year since we all saw each other. My father had me sit in his lap as If I was the four year old little girl, but now that I am a mother I understand him;  our children will always be our little ones and never to old to sit in our lap. He kept givng me compliment that I looked so beautiful.

Amalia and Grandma (My mother)

A couple of hour later my sister, niece, nephew and brother came by my mothers house and the fun begins. My sister never changes she is the little sister that will always dig in your luggage, closet , drawer just to see what might fit her and try it on and persaude me on why it looks better on her..Lolol...so we did what we always did when we get together get dressed up and strike a pose.....We went to my moms room and put on dads hats.





The Family pictures and my dad funny face.

I was observing every little corner of my house because everyroom has a memory. I just stare and my mind goes back to that time giving me a bittersweet feeling because as much as I love my family, I have one of my own to make memories with. Love you guys and miss you dearly!

Road Trip and Birthday Party Planning Part 2.

The time came for us to take our nice long long long road trip to NYC. I packed my car and off we went..I was so excited because I have not seen my family in a year and planning Amalias birthday party and getting to see so many friends and family I had a ball of excitement in my stomach..I made sure I packed fun activities for the kids... I packed flash cards, coloring book with crayons, books and my Ipad where they can watch movies..and to my surprise my kids rocked..There were so well behaved. I packed food to eat, packed, crackers, cheese, coldcuts, cereals, homemade food that was able to be eaten at room temperature and a cooler full of water, juice and yogurt. We embarked at 12:26 midnight grabbed my thermo of fresh coffee and played some music and off we went. One of the coolest thing about roadtrip is being able to see the sunrise and sunset it something about such setting that makes me feel alive and blessed. Once we arrive North Carolina it is a tradition of ours to have a hearty delicious breakfast at Crack and Barrel..I love there pancakes, I have tried to mimick it and I have failed. I can eat there pancakes all day! Ok, back to the trip.. Amalia liked their grits and Ethan well he had a bit of our breakfast plate, some of pancake, some steak, eggs, hashbrowns and biscuit.. Yummy..

After a delicious breakfast..back to the car to continue our road trip. Seven hours straight of driving we decided to stop at a rest area and sleep for a while because we were all tired.  We did not sleep much it was just an hour to two hours because we just wanted to arrive already...We drove and drove and stopped and rested and drove until we saw the destination sign: Welcome to New York and it felt like we drank 5 cans of Redbull because we were all so energetic and the adrenaline kicked in and I was able to feel the New York Life Style...seeing people with their fashion statement, I can imagine someone selling something in the corner, the cars honking, the lights at nights, I felt ALIVE! We drove through the Holland Tunnel and

                                           
like Emeril Lagasse says "BAM" we are in the heart of NYC...