Mountain's Edge Snow Day

For all my local readers, you may not have heard about this yet, so here it is.

Snow Day is Saturday, Dec. 4th at Exploration Park at Mountain's Edge. And the best part is that it's free!

I Like Driving People Away from my Blog

Apparently I my blog is starting to be like the bubonic plague of blogs. Because people are avoiding it like the...plague. First of all, no one commented on my last post. Ouch. See, this is what happens when I stop trying to be entertaining and just write what is on my mind. And second of all, no one commented on my last post.

I am weeping. Ok, I am not weeping.

But seriously, where is everyone?? I am pretty sure most of you have nothing better than to wait around, refreshing the browser to see if I posted anything new. I mean really, it is not as if there was a holiday recently and you are all catching up on everything that got put on hold over the holiday! Oh, wait.

How to Spend Quality Time with Family

The Thanksgiving holiday was all kinds of awesome. There is nothing in the world like spending quiet, quality time with the people you grew up with - the people who know you better than anyone else in the entire world (except my husband, who uncanny with predicting how I will react to things).

Although Thanksgiving Day itself was a lot of fun, Saturday night seriously takes the cake for fun family nights. My mom and sister cooked an amazing dinner. In other words, I did nothing! Yay!!!

We also cracked open a few bottles of wine. I am not much of a drinker but when the mood strikes me for wine, I gets all thirsty-like. So glug glug glug. I had a couple reds. A few whites. Over the course of what was probably two hours, we had that delish dinner, drank up, and had a very engaging and lively conversation about life, religion, and... well...ok, it was just life and religion.

Ivy and Violet eventually decided we were not paying enough attention to them and pulled me and my sister Natalia away from la sobremesa (a Spanish word that refers to the period after the meal is over when you linger at the dinner table with friends and family, just talking and sipping wine). They wanted to play Hide and Seek.

And let me tell you - playing Hide and Seek is totally fun. And it is even more fun after 2 or 3 or 8 glasses of vino. After we played for a while I had to ditch the game because I was getting dizzy. Fortunately, I had already cut myself off when we started playing. Ok, maybe I did hide once with a glass of wine in my hand. I can do that, its my house, I am the boss, and there is nothing wrong with playing Hide and Seek while clutching your wine, as long as you do not spill.

Feeling all giggly and silly, we put on waltzes and danced around while Ivy and Violet bounced around us and off of us, like little pinballs. Someone had the brilliant idea of putting on Sardanas (traditional Spanish dances). We got into a circle and danced our little hearts out! It was the best fun I have had in a long time.

Side note- here is a very little known fact about me: I used to be part of a Catalonian dance group (Grup Dansaire) that did the traditional dances from Catalonia, Spain (Barcelona is where my mom's family originated).

Wanna see what my mom, my sister and I danced on Saturday night? It looks deceptively easy. Fast forward to the last 30 seconds to a better idea of what it takes. Also, before you start to mock me, you should know that it is incredibly fun! Plus its my heritage - that makes it automatically cool, suckas!



Here is more of the type of dancing that the Grup Dansaire did:



Wish there was a Grup Dansaire in Vegas!!! Woot!

Black Friday Sale

Hi everyone! Hope you had a beautiful Thanksgiving!

I have nothing much to say, except "Good Luck!" on shopping all those Black Friday Sales! I, for one, am going nowhere. This is a perfect day for staying warm and cozy and spending quality time with la familia.

I am going to start decorating for Christmas, do some crafts, and be as silly as possible with my family. What are you doing today? Braving the sales? Drinking hot chocolate and eating leftovers? Watching snoozeball? Are you still in a food coma from yesterday? Whatever it is, I hope you are happy and having fun.

Candyland Birthday Party

This weekend we had a combined birthday for Ivy and Violet, so that our families could come up from LA and help us celebrate. Along with our families, I invited my BFF from LA and my BFF from here in Vegas. Feel special, BFFs. It was only my family and YOU. Are you so, so honored?

Anyway, at the last second I decided to just go for a Candyland theme. I only had 2 days to plan it because up until 2 days before hand, I was totally uninspired. This is what I came up with.

Sugar cookie lollipops, made and decorated from scratch

Cupcake sugar cookies

Sugar Cookie gingerbread men, decorated like the game pieces

Gingerbread men, candy canes and the Lollipop Forest cutouts for the walls. 

I used different sized glass containers along these ledges and filled them with different candies

Fun signs

Violet trying to break into the candy...

...And she succeeded.

I made Ivy this "I Heart Candy" shirt using felt and a glue gun. Simple, quick, and cute.

The birthday girls. Violet's shirt says "100% Sweet". I totally didn't make that one.

Granted, my little theme is nothing compared to some of the other parties I have seen on various blogs. Now those are some Candyland themes done right! But for 2 days prep, I was perfectly satisfied with how it turned out.

The next party I am planning is for all of Ivy's little friends. This was a family affair, and now its time to work on something for friends. Violet doesn't get a party for her friends because... well, she is 2 and she doesn't really have any yet.

I am working on the invite for that party, the theme is Alice in Wonderland. If you are reading this and you have little girls who are friends with Ivy you will be getting your invite next week. If your daughter is friends with Ivy and you do not get an invite, then I am a totally thoughtless jerk and you need to call me out on it so I can get your invite to you!

Fun Thanksgiving Activities

Giant Ent-thingy. Photo Courtesy of MGM Mirage Resorts

Are you guys ready for Thanksgiving? Did you already buy your turkey, pull out your recipes, and tear your hair out just thinking about everything you still have to get done before Thanksgiving?

Take a break from the planning madness and get out of the house for a bit! My guide to fun Thanksgiving activities around Las Vegas is up at AOL City's Best -- check it out..

And here is one more that I just found out about this morning -- Color Me Mine at the District in Henderson is hosting a Kid's Black Friday event from 8am-11am for kids ages 6 and up.

Drop them off so they can work on painting Christmas gifts for the family while you go out shopping. They will watch a holiday movie, paint stuff, and they will be served a light breakfast including hot chocolate or orange juice, muffins, and cereal.


I don't know about you, but any time I can shop alone it is a great day!!

AOL City Guide

So. I am starting things up again with AOL City's Best. This time I will be writing a weekly article about family-friendly activities and events in and around Las Vegas.

I was a little hesitant at first because I didn't know if I would be able to generate content on such a consistent basis. After all, with the blog I just post whenever I have something to say. But after discussing things with my editor and getting a clearer picture of what they need, not only do I think I will be able to do it, I think its going to be pretty fun.

Fortunately for me, I will be able to sort of translate what I have already been doing on this blog and put it out there for all the world to see. Ok, maybe not all the world. But definitely a significant portion of Las Vegas families. In fact, the content I write for AOL just might replace my local reviews. Maybe. Still thinking about it.

Either way, if I link up to the AOL site, click over and be sure to check out what new and interesting things I have come up with. And, as always, be sure to give me some comment love. On my blog I mean. The AOL site doesn't allow comments. But I do. I love comments. I live for comment love. It is what nourishes my fragile writer's heart. If you do not comment and tell me that I am special I will shrivel up and die. If you do not comment and virtually pet my head, I will 1) try to crawl in your lap and beg for head-petties, and 2) I will suffer a thousand unimaginable sufferings.

I know, its pathetic. But I don't care, because I need it. And you are going to give it to me. Right?

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Right?????

SEO Basics - What is SEO?

I went to the SITS Bloggy Boot Camp on Saturday. Because I am a major airhead, I did not even consider the fact that Utah is an hour ahead of Vegas. Duh. So I got there an hour late and missed the whole lecture on Twitter.

The whole thing was very interesting, but the hands down best part was learning about SEO. SEO means Search Engine Optimization. It has been the mystery plaguing me for a while now. And it is ridiculously simple. Or at least the beginners version is simple.

Wanna know how to do SEO? (Am I violating any rules here by publishing it? If I am, let me know!) The very, very, very basics are:

~ Your blog titles should be the names of things people search on. Instead of a really funny and witty title, do something boring like "crafts" or "how to fly a kite" - stuff like that.

~ When you post an image, rename it as something easily searchable, like the above examples. Even if the picture has nothing to do with what you name it. Oh, and if the name has more than one words don't runittogether, because Google will read that like alloneword. You have to separate-each-word-with-a-dash, because Google reads dashes like spaces.

~ Only use 10-12 tags instead of all the creative/cool ones you thought up. Like my fave tags: "beating people with my opinions" and "humiliation of the day". Apparently not many people search Google for those. Instead I should be saying things like "parenting" and "potty training" and stuff that is relevant to my post but in a really boring way. Who knew!

Here is a more comprehensive explanation.

So from now on, forgive me if my titles and tags are uber boring. I am trying to increase my SEO!

Note to Self

I decided to time travel to the past to warn my past self of something. Here is the note I will leave for Past Me, from Future Me.

Dear Me from the Past,

I am coming to you from the Future to warn you. Before you start wondering, the answer is NO - you are not skinny yet. When that happens I will be sure to come back and let you know so that you can go out with a bang right before hand and glut yourself on chocolate and cheeseburgers.

So, Past Me.... here is the warning. Next time you decide to not to intervene when the girls start fighting, to see "what happens", bring the vomit bucket. Seriously.

You are about to have your peaceful morning disturbed in a big way. Ivy will be in front of the mirror. Violet will push herself in front of Ivy because she wants to "clean" the mirror with a wipe, a la Snow White. (Side note to self: buy stock in baby wipes, Violet LOVES to play with them and you will go through them like water. You will be totally rich)

Ivy will be upset and scream. Violet will scream back. Banshees will be envious of their screaming abilities. There will be pushing. There will be scratching. There will be more screaming, and some crying. It will look like a Black Friday sale at Target.

And eventually, when the screaming and crying hits critical mass, Violet will be so upset that she vomits, thus triggering The Great Vomit Incident of 2010. Ivy is notoriously for being easily disgusted, thus provoking her gag reflex. In other words, witnessing Violet's vomit will make Ivy vomit. All over the place.

So Me from the Future is here to tell you, dear innocent Me from the Past, that there are 2 lessons you must learn. 1) Do NOT wait and see what happens, just break them up! and 2) if you do let them fight it out, bring the vomit bucket along for the show. Dummy.

Much love,

Future Me.

The Devil Does a Jig at Amazon.com

Amazon just pulled the pedophile's how-to manual they were selling. Good. But guess what? The point is that you were willing to sell it in the first place. It's disgusting and so, so wrong.

They also sell, or have sold in the past, other very questionable material that covers a how-to for illegal activities - including how to smuggle cocaine. The devil is doing a jig over at Amazon if you would like to join him there. He big puffy sparkle hearts Amazon, you see.

You can read more about the sicko book here.

I, for one, am saying "LATER, SUCKA!" to Amazon. There are plenty of other online book, movie and random stuff sellers out there who don't support criminal activities.  I think I will just head over to one of them for my holiday shopping. How about you?

Hoodwinked: The Scam of the Century

Good title, right? Sounds epic, in my opinion. But that is because it is epic.

I accidentally stumbled upon a seriously awesome parental scam. It involves frozen fruit. And the words "ice cream". It's so easy, it's almost criminal.

I bought a variety of frozen fruit - strawberries, mango, and blueberries - with the intention of making smoothies for the girls, to up their fruit intake. To my surprise, they wanted to eat the frozen fruit on its own. Something about it being cold, or maybe the texture. They loved it.

So when they started clamoring for dessert after dinner one night, I offered them some "mango ice cream".

"Yes! Yes!" they clamored. And that was the start of something beautiful. Now, if they need a little pick me up while I am making dinner, I offer them "ice cream", which is healthy and doesn't fill them up too much. They also tend to get hungry again a couple hours after dinner. Again, I offer them "ice cream". So getting their fruits in has been a thousand times easier, they feel like they are getting something fun and tasty, and it requires zero effort from me!

I think next week I am going to try frozen veggies and see how that one goes over. Probably not as great as this one, but it is totally worth a try! I want to hoodwink them again. So, so badly. I'll let you know how it goes.

Dream Land

I have to tell you about my dreams last night. Wait. Don't run away yet! I know, usually when someone recounts their dreams you are thinking, "Holy cow, this person is WEIRD. And boring. When are they going to stop talking about this really long, insane, pointless dream? They lost me at marshmallow kazoo."

What, you don't think that? Well then you are better than me, and I am the only jerk who thinks retelling dreams is booooorrrriiiiiiiiinnnnnnng. Despite my thoughts on the topic, I never, ever stop myself from recounting my dreams to everyone else. Because my dreams are fascinating.

So the dream is that I was at Caesar's palace, and I was supposed to have my spa treatment at a certain hour, but we were leaving to go back to LA (I guess in my dream that is where we lived). So I was not going to have enough time. The spa attendant sent me to the spa across the street in a different casino for my mud bath. When I got to the other spa some friends were there, and we were trying to take pictures of each other before we went in so we could have a nice memory of our day. But the sun was really bright and kept shining in our eyes making us squint. So a large portion of the dream was us trying to get a good picture, moving around, trying different angles. We finally gave up and went in for the mud bath. It was awesome! And free. You know, because its a dream.

After that I went back to the original spa and had to follow some weird instructions about cooking in a metal bowl and how you cannot mix any meat in the bowl. Guess what - I totally put meat into the metal bowl because I just didn't care, and it wasn't my bowl anyway, so what if it got ruined? (Apparently in my dreams I am a real punk).

Ok.... I have to stop there. I guess that is a bit boring. You had to be there. Sorry for the pointless time suck. Oh, and P.S. - I was woken up by my head itching really badly in one spot, like if I had been bitten by something, and I totally thought "I have to blog about this." What can I say, I was still half asleep and I for some reason I thought it would make an interesting post!

So anyway now you can all psychoanalyze me based on my dream. Go!

Adrenaline Rush!

I haven't done one of these blog hops in a while, so here we go - Monday Mingle!

Its easy to do and fun to find new blogs, so head over there and link up.

In other news, there is no news. Although you come here to get your daily dose of adrenaline, today I must disappoint. The only one getting an adrenaline rush today is me, because I have a friend coming over shortly and I have yet to pick up the house or clean in any way, shape or form. In fact, I am still in my jammies. When I say jammies you are probably picturing one of those fleece jammies with feet. A onesie. But actually I have very proper grown up jammies. Its just that my vocabulary has been hijacked by my kids.

The point is that I am sitting here blogging. So as soon as she texts me to say she is on her way I am going to jump into a frenzy of activity. That will give me an adrenaline rush. It might even count as my exercise for the day. And that's my strategy for today.

La Vieja Inez*

I'm falling apart. Not mentally, because that were the case I would be running down the street screaming something really nonsensical and slightly disturbing. People would avert their eyes and think how sad it is that I am not locked up in a "safe environment".

I mean I am falling apart physically. I do not know exactly when these things started happening to me, but suddenly I have a list of ailments to rival that of my 101 year old grandmother. I think this means that I am not aging gracefully. Wanna hear 'em?

• I have a cold, which is mostly over except it seems to have moved into my lungs. I hate when stuff is in my lungs. At least if I had a parasite or something then I would have an interesting story to tell. Instead I just have a chest cold. Lame. I need a parasite.
• My right shoulder is in constant pain. Some time in the year after Violet was born my joints started giving out. Apparently sleeping on my side was too strenuous for my shoulder to take.
• Sleeping on my back gives me terrible lower back pain.
• I have lower back pain in general and for no good reason whatsoever.
• Every time I work out my knees start hurting pretty badly. I stopped running or working out for a week, and they still ache. My sister tells me its because I have not stretched my knees out before exercising. To which I say: there is no such thing as stretching your knees. So there.
• My funny bone is broken. I used to laugh far more easily than I do now. Even my courtesy laughs have diminished somewhat. Granted, this may just be a slight rut because it just started this week with my non-parasitic cold. I will let you know if my funny bone ever does heal.
• I get sleepy in the mid-morning and in the mid-afternoon. My grandma did too. 

Ok, so maybe that does not quite rival my grandma's ailments. But they certainly do not seem like they ought to belong to a healthy coughcoughwheezesneeze 34 year old chickadee in the prime of her fabulous life.

You know what? Ailments be darned. I am going to go work out. The only way to stay young is to do the healthy junk. I will let you know how that goes.

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I am back. That was a dumb idea. Now everything hurts more and I am exhausted. Note to self: suck it up and just be the old crone that you know you are. You already eat dinner at 4:30 pm and cannot make it through the day without a nap. Just embrace it.




* This title means the "Old Lady Inez". Its from a silly saying when you answer the phone: "Quien es?" (who is it?) "La Vieja Inez" (old lady inez). Its an espanol thing. Never mind. I thought it was appropriate to this post because of the topic of aging. This is a completely self-gratifying title because no one but me and mi gente understand it anyway. Sorry.

The Drunken Pumpkin

So on Friday I went to the Canyon Ranch Spa at the Venetian's Palazzo for my birthday spa day. It was great, Phillip took the day off so he could watch the girls while I went to relax. He wins the Husband of the Year award.

I had an AROMATHERAPY massage. I had to spell that all in caps so you can understand the hugeness of how fabulous that is. It was SO aroma-y and SO massage-ish, I loved it. They even massaged by eyebrows. That made me want to laugh.

Pinch pinch pinch, went the masseuse. I suppressed a giggle. Pinch pinch pinch. I held my breath. Pinch pinch pinch.

She really needs to stop now, I thought to myself. Pinch pinch pinch. I started to laugh, tried to suppress it, and ended up making a strange gurgle-snort sound.

"Andrea..." she whispered softly. "Are you doin' alright?"

Totally fine, dude, but you are massaging my eyebrows, I thought to myself.

Anyway, I met up with Gucci Mama there from Mama Still Wears Gucci. If you have yet to read her very entertaining blog go check it out. After our hanging out at in the Wave Room (ocean waves projected on the ceiling while you recline in fully tilted back armchairs), the whirlpool, the igloo, the sauna and the Saltwater Grotto, we got ready and went to dinner at Postrio.

When we got to Postrio I ordered a drink that is called the Drunken Pumpkin. Gucci Mama is so fascinating and the drink was so drunk-making that as I listened to her talk I slowly brought the martini glass to my pursed ready-to-drink lips to take a sip. Unfortunately I had a slight misunderstanding in terms of distance between the glass and my lips...and I slowly poured a sip down the front of my sweater instead of my lips. I am a class act, you know. The glass never even touched my lips, that is how far it was from my face.

Fortunately Wolfgang Puck was too far across the room to notice. Seriously, he was there! We were going to get our picture taken with him but we hesitated to run up to him like groupies. He disappeared from view.

I called the manager over and informed him of my importance as a local blogger. "Get Wolfie over here, please. I need a picture with him," I said. "I'm so sorry," the manager informed me, "He's already left. When you see him you have to catch him right away or he leaves pretty quickly."  I guess being groupies was totally the way to go. Lesson learned!

But as a consolation he sent over their Smores Cake and a couple of lattes, on the house. Its no picture with Wolfgang Puck, but you know what? I'll take it. Gucci and I downed that puppy like baby chicks eat regurgitated bird seed- we just opened up our throats and down down the hatch! Here are Gucci and I in all our fabulous post-spa glory:

I know. We are radiant. It's out of control.

Let Them Eat Cake

Halloween ended up working out quite well, despite my Halloween mojo being dead! We went to a Halloween party at my brother in law's house for the evening and then went Trick or Treating in their neighborhood.

Here are some pictures of our costumes.

Ivy reigns as Marie Antoinette

Violet is a cake, but since we didn't give her real cake to eat she got mad.

Here they are sitting together.

And here they are walking up to their aunt and uncle's house for the Halloween party.

So what did I finally decide to dress up as? Well... it didn't match the girls at all, like Phillip did with his princely cape. I pulled it together the day before Halloween by raiding my mom's house. Suddenly there was a big perk to the fact that they don't get rid of old stuff.

Side ponytail? Check.

Blazer with big shoulder pads? Check.

Bright forehead bandana? Check.

Frosted lipstick and blue eyeshadow? Check.

Tapered jeans tucked into scrunched tube socks? Check.

....Aaaaaannnnnd VIOLA!

I went as someone upon whom the 1980's had vomited.

Now that is scary. The sheer cruelty of 80's fashion continues to kill and maim unsuspecting Halloween-goers to this day. I have video of me from yesterday dancing some 80's moves but it was so deeply and shockingly 1980's that I passed out afterward from the horror. I thought I would spare you all nightmares for weeks to come.