Rants be like

1. Snow pooped 6 times last night. "Pooped" is actually a gratuitous description. It was actually more like "peed from his butt." Two nights ago, the poor fellow started crying loudly at 3 in the morning, so trying to be the cry-it-out parent that I am, I fell back asleep. A few minutes later I woke up to a silent Snow but a deathly scented bedroom. He pooped in his crate at 3 am and peed outside with Chad afterwards. Then yesterday he pooped a ridiculous amount of times, one of which occurring IN CHAD'S CAR (!!!!!!) after his shots. Poor guy! So with his apparently upset tummy, I committed to waking up to every little whine last night. I punched the poop clock at 11:45, 1:30, 3:45, 4:30 and then Chad took 5:00 and then his morning diarrhea at 6:00. Sheesh! Oh and let me tell you, picking up dog diarrhea is a real glamorous endeavor. It's reeeeeeeeal nice. We think it's a combination of the change in dog food, increase in the quantity of his food, shots and also that I switched from turkey to chicken when rewarding him. I think that chicken was bad. Woopsies, sorry Snow Snow! :(

2. This morning being a busy-around-the-house type of Sunday, Chad told Carter and Kota that they couldn't go knock on their friends' door to see if they could play. I told them that they had to wait about an hour - the neighbors could be at church or just relaxing. Anyway, what did the two of them do? They walked out into the street (!), looked left and right, then ran across straight to the other kids' door! I had Snow, so could just sort of walk behind them saying, "guys! What are you doing???" Without answering me, they knocked and asked their dad if they could play! The poor dad came out to find me standing their lamely with my puppy and told me that he would send the girls out in 15 minutes. GREAT. So then we HAD to go pick up the poop in the backyard. Next I didn't want anyone inside the house I had cleaned just minutes before, so every other second I was corralling the group into the muggy garage. The whole play date was sprung upon Chad and I - two humans who already had our hands full! I legitimately was like, "wth, kids of mine? Wth?" in my head. The neighbors wanted to play with Snow, but Snow didn't want to play with them necessarily. It was ridiculous! I was getting a little snappy, because come on! We couldn't believe the blatant disregard for our authority shown by Carter and Kota. Man! Anyway. At 11:00 I told the kids that IT WAS TIME FOR LUNCH SO SAY GOOD-BYE TO YOUR FRIENDS, then didn't even eat until 12:00. Look man, I'm all for massive play dates in and around our house at all times, it's supposed to be part of the packaged deal when one home-buys, but sheesh. It was not a cool thing today!

3. In the midst of the muggy poop-picking-up-in-the-heat and play-date-ridiculousness, I was experiencing some major Ladera Ranch FOMO. The Corona and IE love is real, but every once in awhile I'll get these major jabs of missing the LR. I don't know if it's family based, Ladera amenities based or just "the people of Ladera" centered, but man can it sting, my friend! I start thinking wild thoughts like, "hey, I know the Ladera HOA's are astronomical, but look what you get! They garden your own damn lawn! The pools! The 'complimentary' house painting! The checking for termite damage! The white people!" (That last one is kind of messed up, but hey.) Two other events spurred this round of LR FOMO: witnessing teenagers (not toddlers) at the lone Corona source of summer water fun: the splash pad; and having our on-ramp to the 91 blocked off the other day, causing a 55 minute wait just to get onto that stupid freeway. I don't want my children being 14 years old at a splash pad in Corona. I also don't want to mentally fight that freeway for eternity. Anyway, this is all truly crazy talk. I know I'll be over this in a few days, if not hours, but it is nice to know that I think us Cisneros's will only reside in either Corona or Ladera for the remainder of our lives as we know it. Hahahaha. Okay that was too dramatic.

Okay, that's enough. I'm done with my life rant. I think it's time to go take a shower to get ready for Chad's birthday BBQ at Grandpa Ernie's house. Wooohooooooo for my man's 27th! He's so awesome. Love that yard-lovin' man!

Pimp yo ride. Or yo house! It's Father's Day!

Saying that we over here are stoked on life would be a gargantuan understatement. Not only is it daddy's day for Chadly, but the whole gosh darn weekend has been amaze balls. We...

* had Grandma Cheryl over on Friday to spend the night on the cool new air mattress Amazon Prime sent our way for $10, allowing her, Chad and myself to drink Cupcake vino into the night under the twinkle lights I'm still overly obsessed with. Saturday morning I sat back, drank coffee, made my famous banana egg pancakes and watched Chad and Cheryl groom the yard. Thanks for the amazing bouquets, MIL!

* attended Dakota's first ever dance recital Saturday afternoon! Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. Let's just put it this way: the first number out on stage, this crazy amazing competition routine, I had to literally tell my face to stop almost-crying. "Reel it in Nicole, reel it in!!!" Luckily I got a hold of myself before Kota's sweet dance, which was the 6th one to perform. Gaaaaaaaaaah.

* then went to pizza with family, after which Kota told us (!!) that she wanted to go to bed, leaving Carter and Chad open reign on Batman video games and me to cuddle with Snow.

* next celebrated the amazingness that is F Day. I woke up with Snow this morning at 6:00, something Chad usually does. It was quite enjoyable out there alone with the doggy! Anyhoo, I made good coffee, set out his presents (beach chairs, a drawing from Kota and a craft Carter made at school! His other gifts were the added-onto twinkle lights and this magnetic screen thing we got for the kids and Snow), then of course concocted the banana egg pancakes, then we all got ready to go to where else but the man store, Mojo's for this espresso thing, and to get Mitzy washed. Once home, Chad installed the misters we got from the Depot! Gosh dangit, I love this damn thing called home ownership!

After that, I kept saying, "yeah babe! We're pimpin this place out! It's like Pimp Yo Ride, but Pimp Yo House! We da bomb!" I mean, it was serious. Gangster voice and all. 

So anyhoo, good times over here. Now we're about to tackle the weirdo window valance in the family room!!!! This deserves an extra round of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Wahooo!

Happy Father's Day to all of the dads out there, especially Chadly, Ernie and my own papacito. We love you so much!

Snow Snow is here!

Our baby pup is here, our baby pup is here! This little cattle dog boxer mix's homecoming has been in the works for a verrrrrrrrrrrry long time. Let me repeat: a. very. long. time. And according to a few facebook comments I got when we announced there was a new Cisneros in the bunch, I've  apparently been talking about him for longer than I realized (hello, friends I haven't seen in years who said things along the lines of, "FINALLY")! Haha! Needless to say, little Snow's arrival has left us beaming like crazy folk.

The facts! Okay, after we decided to go with a puppy as opposed to a 2 or 3 year old doggy, we thought there may have been a chance we would go with a breeder. We've been in loooove with goldendoodles for a good chunk of married life, so that was what we were thinking. The only thing was, those little dudes are pricey (for good reason! Total BA's, they are). In response to that, I follow a few rescues on Instagram, and have always loved the one we got Snow from, but just never thought that we would find a puppy at a facility, especially not of a breed we were interested in. Anyhoo, when I saw that Snow and his two sisters were going to be up for adoption on THE EXACT DAY we wanted to adopt, I showed Chad that the two breeds we both individually loved outside of goldens were going to be made available (cattle dog for Chad and boxer for me). I literally walked outside to where Chad and Carter were playing hockey, showed him my phone with Snow's picture on it and said, "these guys are available June 13th." Chad said, "alright, let's do it," and that was that!!!!

So anyway, on June 13th I went grocery shopping in the morning, leaving Chad and the kids to clean up the house. There was not one lonesome Lego piece anywhere. Barbie shoes? PUT AWAY! It was a small miracle - apparently it takes the adoption of a dog to get a house fully clean. Then I left the house at 10:00 to wait in line for our pup, with the adoption center not opening until 12:00 pm. When I rolled up, there were people outside camping waiting for their own pups. I texted Chad that elbows will be thrown if anyone is after our baby. Tackling an old lady was not below me. I took a seat at the end of the line next to a nice dad and his 9 year old daughter, who told me that I'm 6th in line out of 12 adoptable puppies, 6 of which being terriers that we were not interested in. It was a strange sort of torture. We were all being so polite to each other but judging by my own inner feelings of wanting to carve anyone's eyes out if they were a threat to Cisneros #5, I can only guess they felt the same about me. The dad asked me which pup I was interested in, to which I answered "Minnie," one of Snow's sisters. He told me that that is the pup his daughter was interested in. I let loose a nice fake laugh, then texted Chad that I may have to punch a 9 year old. 

Anyway, after sitting in that line for 2 hours studying the available puppies on their website, Chad and I concluded that we were A-OK with all of the larger breed puppies available that day (the 3 cattle/boxer babes or the 3 german shephard/newfoundland mixed bebes). So it was all good in the hood! Luckily the cattles got there first, and the three of us who were interested in them got to look before anyone else, even though we were numbers 4th, 5th and 6th in line. #4 picked up Minnie, then the dad told me that they were going to go with the other girl, which was completely fine with me because Moe (the name his foster mom gave him) was my favorite looking anyway! When I was creeping on his pictures pre-June 13th, I wished that he was one of the girls because we thought we were set on female, but after I held him like a literal baby for the hours after picking him up out of his crate, I was so happy for a little dude! He is so fun and awesome and freaking handsome with his cattle dog spots.

And then his name. We are crazy Game of Thrones people, and on the morning of the adoption, I told Chad that I thought if we did end up getting a boy that we should name him Snow, because any male dog of ours would definitely be a Lord Commander. Jon Snow and our possible boy dog would for sure be best friends. So he agreed, and when we got a guy who's foster mom had named him something which rhymed with Snow, we decided to make it stick. The next night we watched the season finale of GOT, an episode I was very much looking forward to so we can show Snow what a badass his best friend is. Well. Jon Snow was MURDERED in the last few minutes of the episode. MUR. DERED!!!!!!!!!!! I felt like an inferno was ablaze inside my body. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NO JON SNOW, NO!!!!!!!!" Literal crazy yells coming from us. As it was happening, I thought to myself, "wow, if anything's been learned from this show, it's to not become too obsessed with any one character," BUT STILL. The humanity!!!!!!! THE HUMANITY.

Ridiculous. Just ridiculous. But hey, I guess there can only be one true Jon Snow, a real Lord Commander if there ever was one, and we've got him right here at home with us. We are the luckiest!

Snow Snow was 9 weeks old when we brought him home. I will find out how much he weighs when we go in for his shots tomorrow and let me tell you, I really can't wait to officially nail down his breeds with a dog DNA test (that's really going to happen). He is just so darn amazing! Fur children, be plentiful!

^^^And I'm sorry, but does it not look like I just gave birth and Snow was placed on me for bonding? Hahaha kind of sick but based on my new fur parent feelings, it's pretty much the same thing. Haha!

6 year anniversary!

Well, gosh-be-darnit, this year's trip! It was so beyond mind-blowingly amazing, I didn't even know what to do with myself on the days leading up to departure from regular life into extreme luxury, I tell you. Chadly's amaze balls work gifted him a stay at the St. Regis in Monarch Bay and what did he proclaim on the day where he came home to tell me about it? "ANNIVERSARY TRIP, BABE, ANNIVERSARY TRIP!" After a straight 20 minutes of us hoop-hollerin' around our kitchen in celebration on that December evening, the weekend finally came where we got to experience it in all it's glory!

Being our 6th year of lovah-life, it was Chad's year to plan. He had a few surprises up his sleeve for our stay at the hotel, but the kids and I just had to do SOMETHING for him while he was at work. So Carter, Kota and I first hit up See's Candy on that Friday to pick up some peppermint patties to fulfill the traditional candy obligations of this year's anniversary, then went to Target where we got him a few doo-dads, including some twinkle lights for the backyard. Next we went home to string those bad boys and assemble the present, complete with Carter and Kota's drawings. We set out the fire pit from Christmas last year, something we hadn't done yet because we haven't found the perfect spot for it. In my mind, s'mores take precedent over perfect-fire-pit-placement.

Chad then came home with our favorite Italian food and surprised me with my FAVORITE candy from our honeymoon (I inhaled at least 65 bags of Maltesers over there in Paris and Belgium), along with the alcoholic bevs from our 'moon, and the four of us ate outside and roasted mallows until the sun went down. It was so lovely! Truly such a joy to celebrate in our first home.

After the babes went to bed Chad and I sat outside with wine and then moved the party inside to cut up the limes for what was to be our staple drink of the weekend: margs!

On Saturday morning it was time to bring the babes to my parents' house and light out, just the two of us! We went to sushi for lunch at the same place we had our first year anniversary, then headed to the super amazing beach resort. I mean, it was so darn cool. And hey! We even ran into a friend of Chad's from high school when we first rolled up!

Anyhoo, we grabbed our bathing suits, then left our luggage until we could officially check in. One very important thing in our bags was sunscreen. We totally got overcast burnt. We were red freaks after the first hour and a half of our fabulous trip, but hey, who cares when you're drinking a beer and admiring the scenery with your man! After arriving in our room following many hours of sunscreenless laying out, we got ready and headed to a beautiful rooftop dinner at Mozambique. We basically died up there in that corner table due to sense-over-stimulation. Great food, great company, great lodgings, great after dinner plans, great, great, great. Next we danced like hooligans to an 80's cover band where we gathered that we were the youngest people in the room by at least 25 years. It was awesome.

The next morning we took a little drive to explore Dana Point a bit, then headed back to explore the freezing cold resort, then took a two hour nap before heading down to the beach and pool where we, this time, used our sunscreen like maniacs. That night we went to Salt Creek Grill where we creeped on Alli who was our server, one of my best friends from Kindergarten. Then that night I slept for 11 hours straight. I'm not joking. 11 hours of sleep.

The next morning we unexpectedly picked up the kiddos early and brought them back for some pool time, then headed back to Corona in time for Kota's dance classes.

Last year, we wrote out our "before 30 bucket lists," and this year we came up with a sort of "family mission statement." Both occurrences were not planned, they just happened. Want to know what our super deep, very profound, philosophical, weighty family mission statement is?

"Don't take yourself too seriously. Have fun."

There it is! I know, you're wondering why you yourself hadn't come up with such a cosmic goal for your own life.

But really, the "don't take yourself too seriously" part of the whole thing really struck a chord with us while enjoying dinner at Mozambique. I think with being young parents, we went through this phase where we were both concerned that we wouldn't be taken seriously. Like we always were quick to explain our decisions or something. I was constantly concerned with my clothing: "Is this outfit 'mom-like?' I don't want people thinking I'm someone straight out of 16 and Pregnant or something!" The struggle was real! But anyway, we no longer feel like that. I don't know what clicked, but something changed mentally for us and now for reasons unbeknownst to me I want to go frame the term, "don't take yourself too seriously." Like in our house, it's all good in the hood. What an energy suck, taking yourself too seriously. We want to first live, not think about our small decisions so much. I want to raise kids with that mission statement and I feel like everything after it will fall into place after it.

Super cool!

BEST. ANNIVERSARY. TRIP. EVER.

It really, really was. Happy 6 year anniversary, Chadly!