estrella, the lover of babies and children

so jessica is kind of obsessed with the kids and shows this blog to anyone who is within 10 feet of her whether they like it or not. on occasion, she’ll find someone who actually doesn’t mind it so much.

her friend, estrella, is a lover of kids and babies. i will never understand it, but whatever. anyway, she insisted on coming over to meet margot and iggy.

margot sometimes needs a little warm up time, but estrella wanted instant love. how does one get instant love from margot? chocolate cake. chocolate cake with an “M” on it.

margot warmed up and even made her a necklace.

here’s a family photo!

but although estrella loved margot, her real obsession is iggy. thankfully iggy loved her too, even though he’s playing hard to get in this picture.

so thanks estrella for obsessing over our kids and thanks jessica for being a margot and iggy evangelizer!

week of insanity

posted by jenny

omg. i cannot believe the insanity of last week. i'm still recovering…

sunday was easter and i didn't take any pictures because i'm an
asshole. we went to vonny + mario's to eat and have an easter egg
hunt. martin had been training margot all week as last year she
only got the one egg and was happy with that. this, apparently, was
not acceptable to my dear husband.

i do have pictures of  special eggs martin's grandmother's caretaker
MADE for margot. she takes care of her everyday for a few hours and
they are so in love with each other.

Eggs

NanaMargot

monday we went to westminster to have vietnamese food
and meet up with my UC Riverside friend christine, her husband
brian and their 6 month old rea (pronounced ray).

also there was my UCLA friend who you see here often, karen and oooju.

my first time in westminster did not disappoint!

ChristineIggy

GroupPic

DadsAndGirls

BrianReaOooju

tuesday we visited another UC Riverside friend and former
roommate johanna, her husband brad (another UCR friend), and
their kids, annika and nico. hazel and lucas joined in the fun too as
brad and hazel have an old scrabble rivalry.

we went to the long beach aquarium. margot loves it there and if it
was closer, we might have considered getting an annual pass.

being with brad and johanna makes me feel like a fucking midget.

AquariumGroup

annika loved margot so much that she decided she wants a baby sister.

AnnikaMargot

LucasMargot

HazelIggy

FeedingLorikeet

on our way home, this is the best shot i could get while driving.

AquariumAftermath

wednesday martin and i went to the accountant's office, but
margot went to bob baker marionettes with lola! their first outing alone
together besides church.

her cousin's aj, lea, kaitlyn and emma came along too.

LolaMargot

MarionetteGroup

Marionette

TheGirls

margot got really scared during the show, but really, who can

blame her. it's dark and there are some scary looking puppets.

that night we hung out with regulars bill and jessica as well as
comic nerds derek kirk kim and jason shiga.

JasonDerekIggy

jessica decided to finally touch baby uggo. it's no secret
that margot is still her favorite. iggy will forever have issues
with this. thanks jessica!

JessicaIggy

bill made us steaks the size of my head.

MargotSteak

thursday lucas, hazel, margot, iggy and i went to the LA zoo.
hazel and i usually don't see each other that often, so to see her twice
in one week is awesome!

lucas loves iggy so much that he always says he wants to take
him home.

IMG_2749

IMG_2752

friday we were supposed to have a playdate with grace and
christian, but we were so exhausted from the week that we stayed
home and took long naps instead.

saturday was john's opening at GR2. first we ran into mason
at curry house.

IMG_2759

then to the show…

IMG_2761

IMG_2765

where we also saw ina and mars, a fellow koripino/filirean baby.

IMG_2762

whew, i'm exhausted just writing about it. i'm living up this maternity
leave to the fullest…

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500 days of summer

posted by margot, diction taken by papa martin

June started out gloomy, and stayed that way for most of the month.
When it rained, we got in some umbrella practice. Do you like my fobby pajamas?

fobtastic sleepwear

July was all about zoo trips with my baby pals. Here's round 1 with Myles and Hannah.

stroller posse

Round 2 with Lucia and Eloise. Spent barely 2 hours there, and we're on the verge of passing out! Guess we're not as young as we used to be.

zzzzzzz

Took one of our semi-regular trips to Nickelodeon to hang out with my older friends.
They have jobs and don't need to wear diapers. Actually, I think the bald one still needs them.

Dave & Chris

me and ‘Ca —> BFF

I also went on a bunch of playdates with my valley friend, Hannah.

Like, omigod…gag me with a spoon!

In July, LA became a sweltering desert, so we dressed accordingly:

"The Staff of Ra shall be six kadams high."

After defeating the Nazis and recovering the Ark of the Covenant, we celebrated by going swimming:

hooray, no more nazis!

…then caught up on our summer reading:

yay, comix!

Then we wrapped up July with a visit to Travel Town to check out the trains:

me and Be-ooo —> also BFF

August is upon us, and we've been getting back to nature.
Went hiking with Christian at Griffith Park. It took us 45 minutes to walk about 40 feet. It didn't help that we picked up every stick and pebble along the way.

soooo many sticks….

Went to the beach at Palos Verdes.
Gregory showed me how to fly a kite a la Charlie Brown:

kite eating tree

…and Emily picked out hermit crabs from the tidepools for me, which I promptly returned to their habitat.

back ya go!

Pal Dylan and his mom, Heseon, beckoned me further out into the water, but I refused. I'm a toddler. That's what we're good at.

nope, gonna stay here

And lastly, papa keeps mumbling something about a thing called the "economy" going into some place called the "shitter". I don't know what he's talking about, but he said we might all be living in cardboard boxes under the freeway soon. Sounded fun to me, so I thought I'd get a head start:

brother, can you spare a dime?

Oh yeah, before I forget, papa and mama also keep telling me that I'm going to be a "big sister". I have no idea what they're talking about. They're turning into crazy people. All I know is that mama is constantly tired and eating a lot of Subway sandwiches. And they keep shoving this picture in my face:

what the heck is this?

And papa's a lot grouchier than normal, I wonder if this has anything to do with it?….

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fun with bee and adjka

Posted by Jenny

bill and jessica try to come over often as they were very
upset when margot forgot who they were.

now, margot knows them both by name, and it’s the first
real names she knows!

since the weather has been nice, we’ve been spending a lot of time
outside. here’s bill and margot chalking up the walls and driveway

ArtistAtWork

ChalkingWithBill

and here is bill being mean and withholding. look how she says and signs “more”.

ugh. how they grow so fast…

bill and jessica have been coming so often that she asks
about them almost every morning. but i’m not going to tell them that.
bill and jessica who??

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Auntie Flasher

very soon we will have to ban milk jugs from margot’s crew. she is a
bad bad influence.

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all tomorrow’s parties

i know i know. it's been a while since i updated! but i have a
good excuse! first it was margot's parties and then we were
in new york and then i was motion sick and then i caught a
cold and i'm just now recovering. so GET OFF MY BACK!

margot, as you already know, turned one! so we celebrated
multiple times.

the first was a friend's party, as in MY friends with babies. lots
of babies. not a lot of pictures because i was stressed and trying
to talk to people, but of course this meant i hardly talked to
anyone.

yay, i’m one!

we tried to give margot cake (hazel insists we more like
forced her), but she wasn't into it.

Aidan and Lea helped blow out candles

help blowing out candle

the one picture we did get is of luc and lea. get it, LUKE AND LEA??
luc(as) (aka "the professor") took the time to explain the storyline of
star wars to her. how nice.

conversation between martin and lea:
lea: everyone calls me princess lea because of star wars
martin: you mean, princess lea from the philipines?
[lea gives martin dirty look]
[martin chuckles to self thinking he is quite funny]

luc and lea

on her ACTUAL birthday, lola (martin's mom) brought some food and a little
margot sized ice cream cake. very nice mellow first birthday!

lola and margot

margot’s cake

THEN it was margot's korean ddol. during the party, margot was supposed to
pick from a number of items that is supposed to predict her future. she picked none.
apparently she will be nothing later in life. yay. so excited. for those of you wondering
she eventually picked a book, which means she will be studious.

margot in a hambok

halmoni and haraboji

pressure is on

and if that wasn't enough parties, there's one more! because of their
fear of large groups of children and/or koreans and/or filipinos, soul
stealer and milk jugs wanted to throw their own party. first, soul stealer
wanted to wear matching hats.

matching sherpas

then we went to our favorite pizza joint where we fought over the check.
they won because martin refused to join in the fun. boooo!

party up in here

i'm exhausted just writing about this. jeez. so glad that's over! hazel
has graciously agreed to plan all of margot's future parties as i don't think
i can do this again. kid's birthday parties are not for the faint of heart.

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the catch up

i've been really bad with margot's blog these days. work is really busy, and margot and martin and i have been sick so no time at home…

this is around 2 weeks of posts all rolled into one!

No on Prop 8
margot went to her first protest! martin and i thought we would lend our bodies (and margot's) to show our support for NO ON PROP 8. it was down the street from our apartment and it felt wrong NOT to go. we were joined by emily, gregory and jessica.

IMG_4415

click here to a link of this picture of margot and jessica and read the comment from johnny ryan. martin and i couldn't stop laughing for about an hour.

IMG_4441

i got tired from carrying margot so jessica decided to carry us both. (picture courtesy of gregory)

piggy back

i'm so glad angelyn included us in buying margot these baby headphones. with all the  chanting, bullhorns, singing, and whistles, it was utter noise insanity. but margot was able to sleep very soundly through all of it. (picture courtesy of gregory)

DJ margot

Jungleen and Noah
i finally got to meet jungleen and noah after cyber stalking her on lucia's blog. sometimes i need a baby fix, and no one's updated their kids' blog, so i have to look elsewhere. that's where i found noah's site and we have an incredible amount in common (jungleen and i that is, not me and noah).

i did take pictures, but can't find them, but look here. it was the meeting of the stripped pants brigade.

Lunch with my Art Center Homies
sarah finally came back from living in abroad in korea and since we were going to meet up anyway, figured it was a good time to bring the kid and introduce her to sarah and linda. mitch and vivian already met her, but that's when she was shriveled and kinda not so cute.

Gang

sarah, linda, margot, mitch, me and vivian.

Lucas' 2nd Birthday
lucas turned 2!! god, 2 years have gone by so fast. 5 seconds ago he looked like this:

BabyLucas

now he looks like this:

Lucas

we played with a buttload of kids and a parachute

ParachuteParty

here's margot playing with kennedy, or actually, playing NEAR kennedy.

Kenndy_Margot

and margot tried playing with duff. this is the look he gave her before he went in for the kill.

Duff_Margot

so she decided to play it safe and stick with who she knows best.

MirrorMargot

Chloe Birch
another art center homie, tiffany, gave birth to her baby girl, Chloe on November 17, same day as my mom and lucas! i was in the delivery room with her and after seeing chloe and hannah being born, i would like to repopulate los angeles. not that los angeles, or this world for that matter, needs any help, but somehow i would like to give birth to about 1,000 babies. is that wrong? anyway, mom, dad and baby are all doing really well and can't wait to see more pictures! i have some on her birthday, but not sure if i'm allowed to post them…

FamilyPhoto

that's all for now. i'll try to be better about posting so you won't have to read novel next time!

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babysitting @ Nickelodeon

Last week I brought Margot to Nicklelodeon so that I could pitch a cartoon idea of mine to some fancy execs. Jessica, not only helped me polish up my clunky stories, but also generously offered to watch Margot while I was in my meeting.

The night before both Jessica and I got really worried that Margot would freak out during my pitch, so I packed her bag full of all her favorite things (Lego cup, my ukelele, grapes, cheerios, etc.) just in case. It was all unnecessary. Margot was so comfortable with Jessica that she didn't even bat an eyelash when I stepped away for a moment to go to the bathroom.

 Later, while I was pitching, Jessica showed Margot off to all her friends saying to each of them, "Go ahead, you can pet her. She won't bite!" Jessica treats babies like pets apparently.

Bob Esponja, con Margot y Jessica

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Gay Dads at the Getty

Last Friday, I took Margot to the Getty where we hung out with Emily and Gregory. Emily works there and got us free parking, thanks Emily!! Here's Margot riding the tram that goes from the lot to the museum entrance. She's smirking at the roly poly dude behind her, he should've walked.

tram

We finally got to the top, where the big kids had a quick lunch while the little kids lounged in the stroller admiring their feet. See how her toes are all the same length? She gets that from her mom. Look at Jenny's toes next time you see her, it's pretty hilarious. (pic courtesy of Gregory)

feet

After lunch, Emily had to go back to work, so that left me, Margot and Gregory. We got some funny looks from people who thought we were a gay couple with their adopted kid. The coat check girl looked especially confused. Emily recommended the Merian exhibit, so we went there first. Maria Sybilla Merian was equal parts artist, adventurer and scientist; what an exciting role model for a young, impresssionable girl of 8 months, right? Well, Margot thought otherwise because the baby-who-never-naps decided that all this art and culture was borrrrring, and she fell fast asleep. I had to hold her head up because it kept bobbling around.

view_getty

We left the Getty, tired but inspired, and made our way to halmoni and haraboji's place, where we lounged in the backyard before dinner. Fabulous dress courtesy of Milk Jugs (aka Jessica).

lounging

Will Margot eventually be an artist or a botanist or an adventurer one day like Merian? The pic above seems to be saying "yeah right dad, this is what I plan to do when I grow up."

*martin forgot to mention that at the getty a woman said to him, "you
don't look like the dad". then she looked at gregory, paused, and walked away.

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shut your face

milk jugs came over to bring martin’s most favorite birthday gift (and
a gift for margot too).

Peanuts_snoopysnow_cone_maker

but she always has time for margot.

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