The Jones Girls

I have to say the city of La Habra had the cutest bugs for Halloween!!  Savannah was the queen bee, Amanda was a butterfly, Miranda was a bumble bee and Maryssa was a lady bug.  I made all of their costumes.  They had cute too too’s.   They looked so cute!!

We took them trick or treating in the neighborhood at about 6:00pm.    I went with them for about 20 minutes than I ran home to give out candy.  They were with daddy and got back at about 7:30.   They came back with boat loads of candy!!

I would say we had about 120 trick or treaters visit our house.    There were some awesome costumes.  Some teenagers came to the door and one of the girls was a pick and was holding a shot.  She said she was “Swine Flu”.  I cracked up and had to take a picture of her.  Too funny!!

Today we attended the La Habra Moms Club Children’s Halloween and costume party at Vista Del Valle park.  I did most of the planning for the party.   My friend Angela did the decorations and my friend Corrie helped me plan the party as well as do some of the activities during the party.

The girls dressed in the bug costumes.  They were so cute, but Miranda kept tripping on her tutu and at the end of the party it was ripped, so I will have to fix that.  Poor Maryssa skirt was drooping so I will have to tighten the waist in her tutu.   Maryssa had a tough time during the whole party.  She cried during most of it.   She has been having a lot of meltdowns lately.

My friend Julie was hanging up the ghost pinata for us.    What a lifesaver Julie was!!

The first game we played was a age appropriate scavenger hunt.   WE had treat bags filled with goodies for the kids as their prizes.   The kids had to find certain things and then bring it back and trade it in for a treat bag.    We started with the 1-2 year olds.  They just had to find a little plastic pumpkin.  then we did the 3 year olds.  They had to find a little plastic pumpkin and a crayon.  then we did one for the 4-6 year olds.   They had to find a plastic pumpkin, a pencil,  and a crayon.  The older kids 7 and up had to find 2 plastic pumpkins, 2 pencils and 2 crayons.    All of the kids had a blast!!

We had lots of yummy snacks.  Angela made an incredible haunted cake!  I didn’t have time to eat it but my girls gobbled it down.   I made rice crispy treats with candy corn on top and I made homemade pumpkin pudding and brought whipping cream for the mommies to eat.  They loved that!

We did a pin the nose on the pumpkin.  The prize winner won a gift certificate at Red Robin for a free kids meal and a free sundae.  Corrie’s daughter Madeline won that.

Then the kids lined up and did a costumer parade around the park. All of us moms had candy and the kids accepted candy from all of us.   It was so cute.

They we all gathered around the pinata and the kids whacked away at the pinata.    It took all of the kids and then a couple of moms to finally break open the pinata.    We had about 40 kids there!!

What a fun Halloween party we had!!

Today I planned a really fun costume parade for the senior citizens at the La Habra Community Center.    

I baked over 70 peanut butter chocolate chip muffins yesterday.  I tell you, this is the easiest recipe and tastes like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup in a muffin..totally delicious.  I put each muffin in a bag and put a personalized sticker that said Happy Halloween, Hugs from the Jones Bugs.   

It was a difficult morning for me .  I had to get all of the girls in their bug costumes and at the Community Center by 9:30am.  I was 10 minutes late.    There were other moms and kids from the La Habra Moms Club  joining us . 

We were introduced and the kids got a standing ovation from the senior citizens…there were so many smiles, laughter and true cheer beaming from not only our children, but from the senior citizens themselves.     It was so fun!!  I think my girls stole the hearts of everyone…their costumes were truly darling.

Tonight was Savannah’s school fundraiser at McDonald’s.    The truly neat thing about this was the teachers and principal were helping out in the kitchen cooking the food!!  Savannah’s teacher, Miss Tarbell, was cooking the French fries.    McDonald’s gave 15% of all proceeds of all sales to our school from 4pm-8pm.  Very generous of them!!

Thank goodness Cliff went with me.  There must have been over a hundred people in that restaurant and 50 of them were in the play area.    It was packed!

We were suprised and happy to see Vanessa and her mom with her girls there.   Her girls, Tiffany and Stacey also go to Savannah’s School, El Portal. So we all sat together.

 I ordered Happy Meals for the kiddos and got some food for Cliff and me too.    The girls were no way interested in food…they wanted to PLAY!!  And play they did!!   

We lasted about an hour there and then headed back home,,,with LOTS of uneaten food that was the girls lunch the next day.

Today we went to the Halloween Pumpkin Patch and Carnival at the Puente Hills Mall.    I negotiated a great discount rate with the owner for our La Habra Moms Club…$5 per kid for 5 rides and a free pumpkin.   Normally the prices are $3 per ride per kid and $2 for a pumpkin.  I basically saved $20 for each kid…a good deal for certain.  So all of the La Habra Moms were thrilled to go to this event.

All of my girls had way too much fun.  They went on a ferris wheel for toddlers, a couple of bouncy houses, the swings ride where 2 girls got to sit together for each swing, and feed and pet all sorts of animals at the petting zoo-baby pigs, a baby calf, goats, sheep, chickens, etc.    Then the girls picked out their pumpkins and we took lots of fun pictures with the cute Halloween backdrops around the pumpkin patch.  The weather was a perfect 78 degrees and we all had so much fun.  We will decorate the pumpkins next week at the park with all of our friends.

Today I took Amanda to see Dr. Wright @ Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.  Getting there was stressful.   Apparently, every road in La Habra is getting repaired and they are re-doing every ramp for every sidewalk in La Habra because apparently a few years ago when La Habra put handicap curbs on all of the corners, they didn’t follow the handicap guidelines and didn’t make them wide enough…nice mistake…costing us tax payers millions of dollars for this stupid mistake.  Then the onramp for the freeway has been closed for 6 months with no end in sight.    Long story short, I had to drive side streets to get to the freeway which tacked on an additional 40 minutes of driving…Nice!! (NOT!!)

I forgot to mention, there was an appointment fiasco yesterday. The appointment desk called me and tried to reschedule my appt.  I told them no way.  My appt was made 4 months ago back in June and there is way too much involved to rearrange things in such short notice, and besides this appt was critical to find out if Amanda needed to have another surgery on her thumb.    They told me Dr. Wright switched from mornings to afternoons on Tuesdays.  They said they would have a supervisor call me back.   Well, a supervisor called Cliff’s cell phone, not our home phone and when I talked to them and asked them why they called his cell phone, they were rude and told me never mind.  Ok, now it was time that I called the manager of orthopedics…I am pissed.   So I speak to Shawn and he proceeds to tell me that my appt was changed from 11:15am to 2:15pm.  I told him no one told me and I would have been waiting up there for 3 hours when I checked in at 2:15pm.   This really pissed me off and he was embarrassed that  I was not told about the rescheduling time.   I told him could come in at 3pm after I picked up Savannah from school.   Then he told me not to bring the other girls to the hospital due to the H1N1 virus..oh great…   So now I had to find a babysitter in super short notice.   I called Sabrina and thank goodness she was able to babysit for me.   So we were all set…

Anyway, I get to Children’s Hospital and of course the parking lot is full.   I don’t want to be late for Amanda’s appt so I do the valet parking for a whopping $10 – no choice, just did it.

We checked in and they informed us Amanda needed to go get X-rays for her right arm, wrist and hand.  So we are waiting in line and finally get out of X-Rays in about 40 minutes.   We go back to the waiting room and then get called in to see Dr. Wright.   By now it is almost 4:30pm.   We see Dr. Wright 20 minutes later. 

During our whole time at the hospital, I am constantly sanitizing our hands and making sure Amanda minimally touches anything with her hands and not put her hands in her mouth, nose and eyes.    We had to hit the bathroom twice for potty breaks so hand washing was at a premium too.  I was trying so hard to avoid this H1N1 virus.

Dr. Wright evaluates Amanda and tells me the best music to my ears.   She said Amanda had huge progress since June and her range and use of her arm, wrist and new thumb have exceeded their expectations.  She said no additional surgeries are needed and we go back in a year for a check up.  Hopefully we are done with surgeries.  Yahooie!!  Praise the Lord!!  

We happily went on our merry way and joined the gazillion evening commuters and got home at 7:30pm.  

Way to go Amanda!!  You have been through so much and you are such a trooper.  Time and time again you have shown your courage, strength, and drive to live.    You are forever my joyous chld and my true miracle baby.   l love you my precious.

I planned a fun activity for the moms and kids with my La Habra Moms Club at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.  We had a huge turnout, about 30 kids and 15 moms.

This time it was mom’s turn to have fun – making caramel apples!! The kiddos got to do their all time favorite dip their marshmallows in chocolate.  Rocky Mountain as always, was very gracious to us and offered us a steal of a deal buy 2 caramel apples, get 1 free!!