Lily & Leo

On Wednesday, July 18, 2012, I celebrated a very special birthday, a super duper extra special birthday because it is my first birthday as a mommy!  I started my morning with tons of birthday wishes from my friends and family, and most of all my sweet baby Lily giving me a gift of her smile!  Khoa surprised me with a sweet (yet chaotic but lovely) homemade card, and both Luna and Lily signed it as well, tehehehe.  I them took a bunch of pictures of Lily in her pretty dress that I got her from JcPenny!  She’s so photogenic and I just can’t get enough of her adorable smile and big beautiful eyes!  After my paparazi-ing, we got everything loaded into the car for our fun filled day!  I was already in the car, Lily in the car seat ready to go, until Khoa told me he wanted me to come back inside for a bit.  He said something was suppose to arrive in 15 minutes, but as we waited, nothing showed up.  Turns out, he ordered flowers and birthday balloons, and they said they would deliver it within a certain time but they were late and had the wrong flowers and balloons so Khoa refused the order.  So that was a bust, but it’s ok, I was excited to eat at Goofy’s Kitchen at Downtown Disney!

We arrived at the restaurant at 1:36pm, and the front was all dim and no one was there…uh oh…turns out brunch ended at 1:30pm =(.  So we decided to eat at Storytellers Cafe instead.  Khoa told them it’s my birthday so they gave me a Happy Birthday Disney button with my name on it!  So everywhere I went, everyone wished me a Happy Birthday!  I ordered crab cakes, a margarita flatbread, and a very berry smoothie!  Khoa got the corn chowder, four cheese ravioli with asparagus with whole cloves of garlic, and a red trolley.  Everything was delicious, but the crab cakes really filled me up so I boxed up half my flatbread and poured my smoothie into a Disney to-go cup!  We then took Lily on a stroll around Downtown Disney so she can enjoy the music, scenery, ambiance, and window shopping, but unfortunately, she remained sleeping the entire time.  Regardless, I had to take pictures with her to document her first time at Downtown Disney!  She’s so close to Disneyland, yet so far…soon enough she’ll share my love for Disney and we’ll go crazy in the park haha!

After our stroll, we dropped her off at her Ong Ba Noi’s (grandparents) house where Khoa set up a convenient Pack ‘N Play for her to sleep and play on.  That thing really is awesome and cleverly designed!  We then went to go see Pixar’s Brave!  We had a little bit of time to spare before the movie, so we went to a Target nearby and I bought a cute dress that I couldn’t resist from buying and a bow headband set for our Lily pad!  We then went to enjoy the movie, and since the movie’s been out for almost a month, we practically had the theater to ourselves, it was like our own private theater experience!  The movie was really great and the visuals were so beautifully done!  The short at the beginning of the movie, La Luna, was amazing (and not just because of the name), my favorite so far!!  After the movie, I wanted to pick Lily up and take her to dinner with us, but we called Khoa’s mom and she said Lily was sound asleep, and told us to enjoy dinner just the two of us.  So due to the convenience of it, we had dinner as a couple, at the Napa Rose Restaurant (thanks Kat for the recommendation) also at Downtown Disney!  It’s a very fancy restaurant but the people were super nice to us and really made us feel special!  Khoa really liked our waiter, he had a memorable name,  Saucy (that really is his name!) and we found out he was expecting his first child soon!  Of course, we couldn’t resist sharing photos of our precious Lily to him and the couple next to us, who happen to be celebrating their 19th wedding anniversary!  Khoa was very chatty, that’s how we know all this stuff haha.  At dinner, we got this SUPER delicious side order of Truffle Mac N Cheese, I ordered the Angus New York Steak, and Khoa got the Filet Mignon.  For dessert I ordered the Blue Beach Crème Brûlée (crème brûlée that’s colored blue on top to resemble the ocean, with graham cracker crumbs for the sand, an umbrella and gummy candy for the sandals in the sand.  I realized later that I order dessert from the kid’s menu, because later I found out there’s a real dessert menu with more choice, but I didn’t care, I wanted my beach crème brûlée haha!  They brought it out with a candle and the words Happy Birthday written on chocolate on the plate! On the way out, we saw some neat vino Pixar bottles too!  Too bad I don’t drink wine otherwise I definitely would have bought one as a souvenir!

On Saturday, July 21st, Khoa threw me a very wonderful birthday party!  So of course, first thing I did was put Lily in her new party dress that she got from her party last week!  Doesn’t she look super cute?  She’s wearing the white bow headband that I bought her on my birthday too!  Khoa ordered catering from Famous Dave’s BBQ and we got tons of ribs, brisket, sausage links, muffins, buns, mac ‘n cheese (my favorite from there!), mashed potatoes, and corn on a cob!  They delivered to us and it was so great, they brought us serving utensils, wet naps, utensils, and ever packets of their famous BBQ sauce (Rich & Sassy and Devil’s Spit).  We will definitely order from them again in the future!  Later, Alvina surprised me with an AMAZING dessert spread from Extraordinary Desserts in Hillcrest in San Diego!  It was so nice of her she got me a macadamia caramel cheesecake, chocolate bundt cake, raspberry strudel, napoleon, and coffee cake!  Thank you so much alvina, I was so overwhelmed and amazed by it all!

Khoa then had me open presents but in the style of secret santa.  Khoa had everyone prepare their most fondest memory of me, and they took turns reading off someone else’s fondest memory and I was suppose to guess who’s it was.  Then that person would hand me a present, I would open it, and then go on with the next one.  The last one ended with Khoa’s fondest memory, and he of course wrote about our wedding day, and then he presented me a group gift that everyone chipped in for, which is a QVC gift card!  I’m going to have some online shopping fun for sure!!  The whole thing was really sweet and it really made me feel super special!  Even though the party was for me, I was just so excited to show off my little Lily pad!  Everyone just loved how calm she is and every time someone gives me a compliment about her, I just feel so proud!  Luna was also reunited with her play buddy Bobo too!  Steve brought him over to play with Luna, yay!  I love all my friends and family and thank you all for making my first birthday as a mommy a super special one!  Later that day we dropped Lily off with her grandparents again so Khoa and I can watch Ted.  It’s quite a funny movie and I enjoyed my time with Khoa!  I was so excited to come back to Lily though and when we arrived at the house, she really did light up her eyes and looked very excited to see us!  That’s so cute!

The next day Khoa took me and Lily to get brunch at Goofy’s Kitchen!  It was really fun to see the Disney Characters and Lily was actually awake during the entire time!  She was really happy and smiling and she was even moving to the music and all the characters loved her!  Goofy’s Kitchen is a buffet too so it was great to eat all the yummy food my tummy can hold!  The food was really delicious and there was such a wide variety to choose from.  They took our family picture with Goofy before you go inside, and as a souvenir, you can buy the large print along with 4 4×6 photos, and you get 3 famous recipes all in a cute keepsake folder.  They sure know how to make money, but hey, we’re celebrating so we bought it for memories!

I had such a wonderful birthday and I love and appreciate everyone who was a part of it in making me feel super special!  Even my cousin in laws (Chi Hai, Chi Ba, Chi Tu, Anh Hai Mike, and even Bac Ba) and Khoa all changed their profile pictures on facebook to a picture of me and them wishing me a Happy Birthday!  That was so sweet and thoughtful and I felt so honored to be in their profile picture for the day!  Most of all, I want to thank my love, my husband, Khoa for planning everything and making sure I’m always happy and spoiled, and for giving me the best present ever, Lily!