cramming it all here.....

ok so I was going through some of my recent pictures and thought I would blog them. Didn't realized that I've past through a lot of "occassions" around here without posting/blogging and they've all added up. So to warn you this post is going to be lllloooonnnngggg!!! But don't worry, there's a lot of photos so you can feel that you were right there "celebrating" with us....
Are you ready??? Here goes....

Preschool Graduation
For the last day of preschool, we had a little "graduation". This was more important to the older kids that are going into kindergarten in the fall. That's why I wasn't too upset when Maddie refused to wear the white shirt (graduation gown) and do the little "graduation" walk. Marcus didn't care for it either, but I insisted he get with the program and this is his demeanor the whole time...


The teacher, Mrs. Hom, impressed me at how much time she spent talking about the achievements of each kid while she hands them their certificates. Her thoughts on Marcus was that he's improved in listening and doing the project but also very impressed at how much he loves books.


Now this was blurry, but I like how Maddie smiled right at me. A very rare occurrence.


Lolo's birthday party

Lolo is tagalog for Grandpa. We call my dad that so the little kids can distinguish Grandpa Tolman from Grandpa DeLeon. Anyways, he had his birthday the day before Father's Day and we went to his house for a little celebration. It was also the last time we would see our Tita Eileen and Jeleen before they leave to go back home to the Philippines. Here's some pics from that event...

Marcus and Lola (my mom). I really like this pic cause Mom's eyes are not squinting (she does that a lot) and Marcus is smiling. Precious in my books!!!


Gary surprised me by his desire to learn more about photography and asked if he could play with my dslr. So with hesitations (wink) I let him. These are some of his shots...




If you know our family, my picture with the magic mic won't surprise you. It's like a norm that if there's any gathering at the DeLeon's, karaoke is bound to happen. LOL

And here's the birthday guy showing off our gifts to him....We got him two movie gift certificates and a sugar free candy pack (sugar free cause he's diabetic).


Carino's Dinner

Then after we ate at my parent's, we took our little family to Johnny Carino's in Downey. We wanted to take Amanda for a pre-graduation and pre-birthday celebration. She's staying at her mom's for the next two weeks so we figured we have to get on with the celebration early.






Ok so I'm not a professional food critic but eversince cooking, I've come to have a certain appreciation and interest on how foods are made. My take on Carino's food- it's ok. Not that great as what Mitch has made it to be. We had the bowtie pasta dish and it was hohum. Not enough complex flavor to make me salivate although the Lasagna that Amanda got was very tasty with it's sausage filling instead of the normal hamburger meat. Plus I tasted their "italian soda" and didn't really see any BIG difference to the reg. sodas. Just a lot more frizzies.

Father's Day
Mitch got a lot of candy for father's day. As always my ward gives the father's big old candy bars while they give the Mom's a book and pot of flowers. (cough)mom's like (cough) candy (cough) too!!! The kids made tie's filled with candie's in Primary.


ok just a few more, you're almost to the end....
Amanda's graduation
On Monday, Amanda officially finished high school What an accomplishment considering she had a rocky start with school. We're just very glad that she's past this hurdle. Now we got some crappy seats and I don't have a long zoom lens so here's the best I can do.


I blurred this one so you can focus on the little, itty, bitty girl there receiving her diploma. ;)


And here she is, closed up....


and the family...


It's getting hot in here......
Southern California sure started the summer season a few days early. To cool off, I brought the kids to the Cerritos dolphin fountain, across the library and city hall. At first they didn't want to touch the water....


Then after a while, they realized it's so much funner if they actually got wet!!!


And before you know it, they were running around the whole thing....


Can't beat a cooled off little girl's smile


Then we ate our lunch under some fun trees. These trees are cool cause they're like mini play places. The kids got to be monkeys. hehehehehe.


Oh my do you see the curls in this little girl's hair!!!


And finally a shot of what we had for dinner tonight.

Amanda's at her mom's and Mitch went on a scout trip so the kids and I decided that we would have breakfast for dinner. They had fun doing the opposite game.

So there it is. If you got to this point without yawning or actually falling asleep, you guys are AWESOME friends and family.

Take care and have a happy weekend. Now off to use my night wisely. Off to play with paper. ;)

Grace