The Lupinators....

We are proud to say we are now LUPINATORS...

As you may or may not know, our Tita Christina, currently battles the autoimmune disease lupus. It is chronic, life-threatening, and can be disabling. The disease has caused our Tita excruciating pain from the flare ups of lupus, and has now also begun affecting her organs and everything else in her daily living. We are sad to hear that she is sick and want to help.

On Sept. 25th, our family will be walking with my Tita (Tita means Aunt) Tina. along with the rest of our "Lupinators" friends and family, in the Walk for Lupus Now in her honor to raise funds for the Lupus Foundation of America (LFA). No matter what, we'll always walk together because we are family.

The cure is out there and I hope you will consider making a tax deductible donation to this great cause, and help me reach my goal! It’s easy to do – just click on any of the links below to support me or my family and complete the donation process. I really appreciate your help!

http://donate.lupus.org/goto/teamlupinators

http://donate.lupus.org/goto/brianna

http://donate.lupus.org/goto/joseph

For those unfamiliar with Lupus: It is estimated that 1.5 million Americans have a form of lupus, an acute and chronic (lifelong) autoimmune disease in which the immune system is unbalanced, causing inflammation and tissue damage to virtually every organ system in the body. November 2008 marked 50 years since a drug has been approved for the treatment of lupus.

There is hope on the horizon, and with your help we can find better treatments and a cure.

Making a difference starts with one step. Thank you for taking this step!

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Catch us if you can...

Sorry it's been awhile since we posted any updates on what we've been up to...we've been so busy with all our activities. Where do we begin? We celebrated Joseph's 7th birthday party and Brianna's 1st Holy Communion in May. Mommy and daddy had a big party for us, with lots of giveaways for our guests, lots of yummy food, games, and of course, our all time favorite, a jumper with a slide. We had so much fun, but it was a lot of work.

Joseph had a pirate team for his birthday and Brianna had a Hello Kitty. It was soooo much fun.

There were also lots of school activities and family fun times that we had to attend to. It's amazing how mommy and daddy were able to keep up with us. Hopefully as summer break approaches, we can post more of our adventures, so be sure to visit us again.

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Brianna's 8th Birthday Celebration

It's finally here...my 8th birthday! I'm so excited. Mommy woke me up with a big kiss and said, "Good morning birthday girl! Look who's 8!" Hey, that's me! I'm 8! Time sure does fly fast. I got ready and put on my polka dot party dress.


After that mommy and I picked up my birthday cake from the bakery. It was a big pink cake with a little purple one on top. It had pink, yellow, and purple polka dots and a ballerina on top. Mommy added flowered shaped lollipops so that it will go with my party them. She had the cake especially made just for me.


Our party theme is "Sweet Treats!" Mommy bought lots of different candies and lollipops and we packed them in little white bags and also created an arrangement of candies in little clear containers, so our guest can help themselves to some candi-licious treats during the party! She also ordered mini sprinkled donuts (pink and white for the girls and rainbow colors for the boys) and wrapped them individually for each guest. My box label read: "Sugar and Spice and everything nice, that's what little girls are made of! Thank you for coming to my 8th Birthday Party. Here's a sweet little treat just for you. Sprinkled with love, Brianna" That was really cute. The giveaways really looks nice.



My party was held at a Chinese Restaurant. There was so much yummy food at the party! Mommy and daddy ordered so much food that everyone's tummy was full. I was excited to open all my presents, but I had to wait until we got home, because after the party, mommy, daddy, my brother, grandma and grandpa took us to ride the horses. Mommy's friend V and her kids joined us. I got to ride the big, fast horse again...this time though, it was 8 times around the track. Wheeeeee! That was fun.


Just when I thought it was over...cousin Cait, Ninong and Tita Che surprised me by coming over to my house. Cait gave me a giant Eeyore stuff animal. He looks sooooo cute! I can't wait to cuddle with it tonight. We had fun being silly and took silly pictures and played hide-and-seek with my brother.


I am so pooped out from all the fun I had on my birthday. Thank you everyone for coming to my party and for my gifts. I hope you had as much fun as I did. Let's do it again next year! =)

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Fun in the Snow

After all the rain that we've received these past few weeks, we're ready to play in the snow! Mom and dad ordered our snow gears, and now that they're here, we drove up to the mountains, to have some fun in the snow. Our family decided to join us and so Lola and Lolo decided it would be fun to have a snow picnic. They prepared lots of yummy food for us to bring to the snow: beef steak with potatoes, tamales, pork adobo, rice, beef caldereta, and lots of yummy sweets. They even brought hot cocoa to keep us warm! They're a regular girl and boy scout.


We had so much fun making a snow man and sliding down the hill with our board. Even mom, Tita Bern, and Lola tried it! Check out the video mom took of us sliding down the snow hill. Wheeeeeeee! Next time, we're going to attempt to ski! Oh, we almost forgot, we also had a snowball fight. It was all of us against daddy! =) That was a lot of fun!


Our snow trip was sooo much fun, except that mommy fractured her tailbone when she fell on the hard ice. She was helping our Lolo when he almost fell on the ice. Good thing mom was there and she took the fall. She's such a trooper! She'll be okay, but she will have to sit on a donut for a while (hehehe).



Our fun in the snow was awesome. We can't wait to go back to the snow again!

Here's a video of Brianna sliding down the snow!

Here's a video of Joseph's snow adventure!


Here's another video of Joseph's sliding down the hill!

Here's a video of mom and Brianna sliding down the hill!

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Horse Back Riding

We just wanted to share the exciting photos from our horse back riding trip on New Years Day. As you recall from our previous blog post, Joseph rode on the Medium-Fast ponies. He had so much fun when the horse galloped really fast. After the pony rides, he kept asking mommy and daddy if we can buy a real horse...I don't think our dog shadow would like that very much. As it is right now, Joseph tries to ride Shadow, but she won't let him.


Here's a fun shot of Brianna riding for the very first time the Big Fast pony. Her pony really went fast and you can tell from this picture that mommy took that she really enjoyed racing fast around the track. Her horse finished second in the big race. Brianna's next goal after she masters this big pony is to ride all by her self on a big horse on a horse trail, but that won't be for awhile.

It's so much fun to ride the horses. We can't wait for our next trip to the park so we can ride them again.

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Happy New Year...Welcome 2010!

We can't believe it's already 2010. It feels like it was only yesterday when we celebrated 2009 and now here we are celebrating another year. Mommy was off work on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, so we decided to start our day by having breakfast together. It's nice to be able to relax and enjoy each other's company, and not have to rush out. Joseph begged mommy if he can put in a little Wii time before we left. He sure loves his new toy.

We celebrated New Year's Eve at daddy's Godfather's house. It was sooo much fun. Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Danny, Annie and Kenzie and Kali were also there. There were others there too, but we can't remember their name (lol). It was so much fun to be able to stay up all night. We played games, like "Hot Potato," "Princess Bingo," "Dress up dolls," and "Fashion Show." We also watched movies like "G-Force," and "Avatar" as we waited for midnight to come.

Chela prepared lots of yummy food (ham, potato salad, rice, beans, shrimps and lots of deserts). She even blew up lots of balloons. Some of the balloons had money inside (quarters, dimes, one dollar and even five dollars), but we had to wait until midnight, before we can pop them. Jojo was smart. He scavenged for the balloons that had the dollar bills and five dollar inside, instead of going for the ones with the coins. Brianna didn't care which balloon she got...she just wanted to pop them. When the clock struck 12am, everyone cheered and said Happy New Year.

We all got to toast the new year with some apple cider...that was yummy! We felt like grown ups toasting with them. When everyone was done greeting each other, it was time for all the kids to pop the balloons and search for money. We went crazy popping all the balloons. Even the adults helped out. Joseph made $10 and Brianna made $3. That was sooo fun! Hope mommy and daddy will take us to the store soon, so we can spend our earnings.

After the celebration was done, it was time for us to head home. We got home around 1:45am. Can you believe we were able to stay up this late? We were so tired that we decided to sleep in until 10am. That really made mommy and daddy happy, cuz they were able to sleep in as well.

When we woke up, we watched The Rose Parade with mommy on TV as we ate some left overs for breakfast. Then, it was time to get dress and visit baby Joshua, so we can decorate his grave with New Year stuff. We bought him some daisies, a new year balloon and silver tinsels, It looked so nice. After that mommy and daddy took us to Griffith Park, so we can ride the horses. Brianna got to ride for the first time the big fast horses and Joseph rode the medium ponies. Brianna and Joseph had so much fun riding the horses. Joseph kept asking mommy and daddy if we can buy a horse and keep one in the back yard. That would be awesome, but of course, they said no. After the horse ride, we had lunch together and then we went shopping for some movies and a new game for our Wii. Mommy and daddy bought the movie "9" and "Harry Potter: Half Blood Prince," We had movie time at home and then it was time to play Wii Sport Resorts. It was sooo fun to play those games. We got to stay up way past our bed time again (10:30pm).



New Year's day was so much fun. We can't wait to see what 2010 will bring our way. We hope everyone had fun celebrating and we pray that everyone will have a blessed, Happy and Prosperous New Year.

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Christmas Blessings

We have so many things to be thankful for this Christmas....First we want to say Happy Birthday Jesus. We are thankful for having mommy and daddy, for our families and friends, and most of all for everything that Jesus has blessed us with. Our family is truly blessed that we have a beautiful home and that mommy and daddy were able to put lots of presents under our Christmas tree to give to our family and friends. We know that there are so many less fortunate families out there and so today and everyday, we will remember to always give thanks to God for everything he has blessed us with.

Christmas Eve celebration was held at our Grandma and Grandpa's home this year. We arrived to a house full of Christmas decorations, lots of presents and yummy bbq ribs, ham, and tamales that Grandma cooked. Today is the day that mommy and daddy will let us stay up all night so we can play games, eat lots of yummy food, and then open presents at midnight. We arrived back home around 1:30am. Our Santa tracker was on and we are excitedly anticipating his arrival so we changed into our PJs, placed the cookies and milk for Santa and off to bed we went.

After staying awake past our bedtime, we woke up bright and early Christmas morning (7am) so we can check if Santa stopped by...and guess what? He did. He ate the cookies we left him and drank all the milk! Santa left each of us a gift and filled our stockings with lots of treats. Brianna was excited to have received the Girl Tech Journal she asked for. The best gift of all was the Wii that Santa left us! We always wanted to have a Wii, and thanks to "Santa" we can now enjoy playing all the games it has. Oh...don't worry, we didn't forget to make and get a present for mommy and daddy. We made mommy and daddy a snowflake ornament with our pictures in it! They loved it.

Christmas Day celebration with mommy's family was held at cousin Caitlinn and cousin Chris' new home. Christmas Day was full of sweet deserts, like flan, fruit salads, turon (sweek bananas), cookies and other sinfully fattening snack foods. We stuffed ourselves with Honey Baked ham, lasagna, spaghetti, Portos Meat pies, Pancit, Ribs, and so many other yummy food. The sound of laughter filled the room as we played our yearly Christmas White Elephant game. We had so much fun opening really neat game gifts, as well as some gag gifts, like an onion, a potato, and a toilet paper. That was so funny!

After all the games have been played, it was time for the gift exchange. We are truly lucky that everyone was able to give and receive so many presents this year. It was truly a fun and magical day for all of us. We hope everyone had a very Merry and Blessed Christmas and may the New Year be a prosperous one for all.

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Thanksgiving Blessings

Today was a great day to give thanks for everything we have...our family, our friends, good health, and so much more. We celebrated Thanksgiving early by going to dinner with mommy's family last night. Cousin Amilie and Cousin Naomi was there, but Cousin Caitlinn and Cousin Chris couldn't come. We hope to see them soon.
On Thanksgiving day, we went to Daddy's Godmother and Godfather's house for dinner. Grandma and Grandpa was there too. Chela cooked a big turkey, ham, and all the trimmings. There was so much food and they were all soooooo yummy!

After dinner, Chela gave us homemade costumes that she made. We each got to dress up as Pilgrims. Too bad I didn't have my Pochontas costume with me. That would have been cool to have Pilgrims and Indians! Maybe next year we can dress up again.

We hope everyone took the time to give thanks to God for the gift of sweet life and for the wisdom of those who have helped us see it more clearly. We pray that your Thanksgiving was filled with happy moments, simple pleasures and grateful hearts. Have a blessed, safe and Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

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Happy 2nd Heavenly Birthday Baby Joshua

Guess what today is? Today is baby Joshua's 2nd Heavenly Birthday! Happy Birthday baby brother. We miss you so very much. Yesterday, Mommy and Lola made Joshua 3 birthday cakes made out of flowers, so we can bring it to him later on today. They look beautiful. We also bought some balloons so we can send them to heaven today, so Joshua and the angels can play with them as they celebrate his birthday.

We went to visit Joshua's grave today. His birthday celebration today was joyous and lots of fun. Even though Mommy and Daddy was sad that Joshua is not here with us, they were also happy that he is now with Jesus. Mommy and Lola did a great job making Joshua's flower cake.



It was so much fun to sing "Happy Birthday" to Joshua. After his birthday song, we released a lot of balloons to send to heaven. Everyone that came (Lola, Lolo, Grandma, Grandpa and us) each had a balloon for Joshua. Our balloons had a race to see which one will get to heaven first. It looks like Brianna and Joseph's balloons won. I bet Joshua and the angels had lots of fun trying to catch all of our balloons.


Please visit Baby Joshua's website to view all the pictures that we took. Happy Birthday Joshua. We love you and miss you!

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Boo! It's Halloween...

Horray! It's finally Halloween. Yesterday we had a Halloween Parade at school. We decided to wear our Halloween costumes from last year so that we can wear the new costumes on Halloween Day. Brianna wore her black kitty cat costume and Joseph wore his pirate costume. It was fun to see the other kids' costumes...We saw Batman, a ghost, and lots of princess. We even saw a mummy!
Today, we got up super early so mommy can dress us up in our costumes. Although we had to go to Catechism class today, mommy let us wear our costumes. Brianna was dressed as Pocahontas and Joseph was Spider-Man (the original Spider-Man and the Black Spider-Man). After class, we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa so we can start Trickor-Treating early! They didn't have any candies to give us, but that's okay, because they gave us $10 each. Whooaaa! That was cool. Mommy and Daddy said they will take us to Target tomorrow after church to pick out a toy. Grandma and Grandpa wanted to take us out to lunch, so we went to Islands. The servers were all in costumes. There was a fireman, a fairy, a gangster, and a gypsy. After lunch, we went home to get the candies ready for the Trick-or-Treaters. When the sun went down, Daddy took us door-to-door and the Lola and Lolo's house so we can say "Trick-or-Treat!" Mommy stays home, so she can pass out the candies to all the ghost and goblins.
When we got home, mommy and daddy looked over all the candies we got. Our buckets were soooooo heavy! Next year, mommy said we might dress up Denti and Shadow for Halloween so they can go trick-or-treating too! (lol) That would be so funny! Maybe they will get doggy treats! It was such a fun day! Time to got pick out new costumes for next year! Happy Halloween everyone! Hope you got lots of candies like us.

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