bonnie & jason

Santa’s little helpers

We visited Santa to tell him what we want for Christmas this year. While there, we took a few pictures. Amanda has a funny smile, Alissa is squinting to minimize the glare from the flash, and Ashley is purposely not looking at me.

The funny thing is the ones we paid for are even worse. Maybe next year!

Alissa’s fifth birthday party

We celebrated Alissa’s fifth birthday today with friends and family at Sweet Connections in San Bruno. Bonnie discovered it while walking past on the way to Alissa’s swimming lessons at La Petite Baleen. It’s basically an ice cream parlor with a room in the back but we were able to rent out the entire store for a few hours and let everyone loose with food and fun.

Speaking of food… the cupcake factory started up a few days ago and didn’t finish up until late this morning. Bonnie made red velvet, carrot cake, and chocolate cupcakes with either a chocolate frosting or a cream cheese frosting. All from scratch. With fondant flowers. And fancy sprinkles. They were a hit and now I can sort of appreciate how people get away with charging $4 for a cupcake.

Chocolate:

Carrot Cake:

Combined with the Red Velvet in the cupcake tower:

Bonnie also made sugar cookies with a “Happy Birthday Alissa” message imprinted on them.

Needless to say, the Kitchen Aid mixer got quite the workout the last few days. Speaking of working out, I’ll need to hit the gym to burn off all the butter, cream cheese, and sugar that I consumed while doing “quality control” along the way.

As for the party itself, we had almost 80 people between all the friends and family with kids around Alissa’s age. For entertainment, we hired a balloon-ist who played a few games with the kids and gave our prizes. And of course, we had to supply ice-cream to anyone who was interested in more sweets after partaking in the cookies and cupcakes bounty. Otherwise, we had bought the requisite Chinese fried chicken along with a few noodle and veggie dishes.

Of course, I can’t just leave the post with pictures of the cupcakes and cookies, so here are a few others from the festivities:

Next time, I’ll flex my bicep harder. Or wear a tighter shirt.

One of the games the kids played:

Ashley and Amanda enjoying the sweets:

Enjoying the balloons after opening presents:

Huey Photo Session in GGP

It was a nice day for some photography today in Golden Gate Park. We had planned on using the area between CA Academy of Sciences and the De Young but there was some kids fun run thing going on. But there are so many other great photo ops in that area so no big deal. Here are a few of my favorites:

The Three Amigo-ettes

Bonnie took some fun pics of the kids a couple weeks ago: