My one kidney wonder, Luna Pie, turned 1 this week. This little girl is magic, music, and magnificence all wrapped up in smiles and love.
San Francisco, CA.

I showed you mine, now show me yours.

Share your city/town/suburb/you name it! If you link up, please link back or post the Sundays In My City button either in your post or sidebar to let people know that other bloggers are sharing their communities too. Happy trails!

Grab the code from my sidebar.

My mother is visiting and as usual she came bearing gifts. You never know with my mother, sometimes she gets the perfect gift and other times her gifts leave you thinking WTF?!

Usually, I’m the one that ends up with the WTF gift while everyone else gets an awesome gift. Not this time. This time I got this watch:

And I love it! I have a thing for white enamel watches. She did however bring what I consider to be an inappropriate gift for Put Pie.

I mean call me weird, but I just don’t think that 3-year-olds should wear stripper shoes.

Oh and she didn’t just bring her one pair of stripper shoes, she brought her four pairs. Since Put Pie was really not into them, I decided to laugh it off, but if my mother shows up with a pole next time, I’m definitely putting my foot down.

And now your Friday Fortune Cookie
(don’t forget to add “in bed” at the end, if you are so inclined):

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. ~Spanish Proverb

Hosted by Mrs. 4444

Latinos, like bloggers, are a diverse and eclectic group. One of us certainly can not speak for all of us. Our strength and beauty is in our diversity. As a Latina and a blogger I would love to attend Hispanicize 2012. Why? Because it would be a great opportunity to mingle with Latino trendsetters in social media, public relations, advertising, media and filmmaking. Plus, I’m pretty sure I would be one of the only attendees representing the paper-bag-wearing contingent.  So it is with great excitement during this election year that I announce  my candidacy to be the official Latina Mom Bloggers Correspondent for Hispanicize 2012!

If I win, I promise:

• To keep you updated on what’s going on at Hispanicize 2012 regardless of whether you are Latino or not, because news is news and it’s valuable to all of us.
• Make you laugh at least once during my coverage.
• Represent all paper-bag-lovers with dignity.
• Show my actual face to the conference attendees.
• Have the time of my life.

Disclosure: This post is my entry for a chance to win Latina Mom Bloggers’ Hispanicize 2012 All Access Sponsorship. Wish me luck!

What would you become if you were to get out of your own way?

You can download a FREE PDF PRINTABLE version, if you’d like.

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I truly value humor? If you want to butter me up, tell me that I’m funny and you will have me wrapped around your little finger. I always say that if I were a superhero, my power would be the ability to make others laugh. It seems I don’t have to be a superhero to be able to do that. I’m fortunate enough to be able to inspire chuckles and laughter.

There are however some subjects that are just not funny. No matter how much I turn them over and try to find the humor, there just isn’t anything there to laugh at. Does that mean that I never tackle those subjects? No, of course not.

Today, at Miss Unlimited by Aiming Low, I am sharing something that is not funny at all. It is a difficult subject for me to discuss, but I think it’s important. I originally wrote the post in October and called it, Life is not Always Easy. It has taken almost 4 months to actually have the courage to publish it and I’ve changed the title. I would really appreciate your support as every time I think about the subject matter, I feel as vulnerable as a 10-year-old girl. If you have a moment, please stop by and read Men Should Not Kiss 10-Year-Old Girls. A kind comment would be appreciated. Thank you in advance and I promise to be funny again very soon.

Coco the French Bulldog and Apples the Cat are an adorable cooking duo that want to encourage you to cook with the children in your life.

Cooking provides excellent teaching opportunities exposing children to new terminology, the use of measurements, and chemistry. Not to mention the reward is a delicious meal.

Coco and Apples live within the “pages” of a delightful ebook created by a couple of friends of mine: Gisselle Barrientos and Raynard Oasay. As you can see, the artwork is beyond adorable and wonderfully engaging to both children and adults. This is the first ebook in a series that promises to be a great addition to any family’s kitchen.

If you would like to buy a copy of Coco & Apples Make Macaroni & Cheese, it is available for $2.99 in the following formats:

.epub format for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad HERE

.pdf format for PC or MAC computers and devices HERE

.mobi format for the Amazon Kindle, and Kindle App for the PC and MAC HERE

I am also excited to be able to offer two of my readers a complimentary copy of the ebook in the format of their choice. To enter, just follow the instructions in the following widget.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: The authors of this book are my friends. I received a complimentary copy of the ebook to facilitate this review. No other compensation was received. All statements and opinions are mine.

Randall Museum, I’ve shared photos from this location before. It’s a great place to take your kids for some free fun.
San Francisco, CA.

I showed you mine, now show me yours.

Share your city/town/suburb/you name it!If you link up, please link back or post the Sundays In My City button either in your post or sidebar to let people know that other bloggers are sharing their communities too. Happy trails!

Grab the code from my sidebar.

Happy Chinese New Year! In honor of the New Year we were fortunate to see a lovely performance at one of our local libraries.

Luna Pie and I really enjoyed the presentation, whereas Put Pie said she “like no part of it.” She seemed slightly terrified the entire time. I guess dragons and flying swords can go that to a 3-year-old.

It’s the Year of the Dragon, Baby! Get to procreating! Apparently, it is a popular year for having babies. Don’t look at me, I’m done.

A little over a year ago Luna Pie was born on the new moon during Chinese New Year, hence the name Luna Pie. My little Moon Pie will be 1 on February 3.

My mother thinks that Mexico has the best Chinese food. I wonder if that means that China has the best Mexican food.

And now your Friday Fortune Cookie
(don’t forget to add “in bed” at the end, if you are so inclined):

Just because you think you’re right doesn’t mean you are.

Hosted by Mrs. 4444

Sung to the tune of I Am Woman by Helen Reddy

I’m on my period hear me roar
My cramps are too big to ignore
As they spread their achin’ pain, it’s out of hand
I don’t have an embryo
So my lining has got to go
If you’re a man, you’ll just never understand

Oh yes I am grouchy
But I’m grouchy ’cause of pain
Yes, I may look paunchy
Look how much water weight I’ve gained
If I have to, I will eat anything
Don’t get me wrong
I am insatiable
I blame my period
I’m on my period
Make yourself invisible
Better move along

You have been warned!

I totally get why companies market to children. Children are easily smitten by ads and will nag their parents to buy whatever it is they want. Put Pie, my 3-year-old, is a sucker for advertising. In the evenings when I’ve put my younger daughter Luna Pie to bed and I’m DONE, I let the television babysit while I get on the computer. Periodically I’ll hear, “Mama, mama, mira…look. I want that. Peeze can I have that? Peeze?!” Usually it’s for a toy and I’ll answer with a “maybe” or “save your money and maybe you can buy it for yourself.”

The other day I heard the familiar, “Mama, mama, mira…look!” I look up expecting to see a make-your-own-stuffed-animal kit or something along those lines, but instead I see an ad for Life Alert and Put Pie has a desperate crazed look on her face and she’s pleading, “PEEZE MAMA, PEEZE. I WANT ONE!”

Apparently, Put Pie is worried that she might fall and won’t be able to get up. I started laughing hysterically which just made her even more adamant about her request.

Good going Life Alert, you have created a life long desire for your product in a 3-year-old. One day she will proudly sport your pendant.

Seriously, why is a Life Alert commercial playing on a channel that only shows cartoons? Strange and yet I remember the following commercial from childhood, too.

Finally, it’s raining in San Francisco, CA.

I showed you mine, now show me yours.

Share your city/town/suburb/you name it! If you link up, please link back or post the Sundays In My City button either in your post or sidebar to let people know that other bloggers are sharing their communities too. Happy trails!

Grab the code from my sidebar.

Random photos…Shall we say they are fragmented?…that never made it into a post, now have their moment on the front page.

And now your Friday Fortune Cookie
(don’t forget to add “in bed” at the end, if you are so inclined):

“I have to be as much diplomat as a photographer.” – Alfred Eisenstaedt

Hosted by Mrs. 4444

There are broken bits of crayons littering every corner of my home. Until they make unbreakable crayons or my kids get beyond the age of coloring, I’m sure there will continue to be an abundance of broken bits of crayons. Fortunately, those broken bits can be made whole again in a few easy steps.

1. Preheat oven to 250° and have a silicone baking tray at the ready.

2. Remove all paper wrappings from broken bits of crayons.

3. Place broken bits of crayon in silicone mold. I chose star-shaped molds because I thought the points of the stars would be useful for coloring, but you can use any shape you like.

4. Fill the mold with crayon pieces (you can separate the pieces by hue or just mix them up like we did) then place the silicone tray in the oven for about 20-25 minutes.

5. Once the crayons melt and turn “soupy”, remove them from the oven and let them cool. We put them in the fridge to speed up the process.

6. When cool the crayons will come out of the mold easily and you will be left with

a lovely constellation of colors. These multicolored ones change color as you draw…trippy dude.

From 8am to 8pm on 1/18/12, the plan was for this site to go dark in protest to SOPA and PIPA and dark it went.

And then 8pm rolled around and it stayed dark. WTH? I used the Simple Stop Sopa Plugin and it was supposed to do everything for me. Simple, right? It was until it didn’t work. All day the site was blacked-out, but I could still access my dashboard. Then at 8pm, the site was still blacked-out even though it was supposed to go live at that point and I could no longer get into the dashboard or any admin area. Yikes! I ended up going through the cPanel of my host and deleting the plugin that way and now I’m back!

If you are self-hosted and have the same problem with this or any plugin and cannot fix it via your dashboard, you can…

• Go to the cPanel of your host.
• Find the file manager or whatever it’s called on your host.
• Find the plugins folder located within the wordpress-content folder.
• Delete the offending plugin.

Anyway, I missed you terribly.

Warning: Total non sequitur ahead.

You know it’s flu season right? I got the flu shot this year and I still got the flu because it wasn’t the particular flu I was inoculated against. While sick I came up with some great ways to have fun. Stop by Aiming Low and read my post entitled, Infectious Fun. You’ll thank me the next time you are sick, okay you probably won’t, but you might get a chuckle out of it now.

Tomorrow UnknownMami.com will be joining websites such as MoveOn.org, Wikipedia, and Reddit by going dark as a protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) in the Senate.

I’m all for sopa like my nana used to make,

but SOPA makes me nervous. You are welcome to join the blackout as well.

To find out more you can read:

Wikepedia Blackout…

SOPA on hold…

See you soon!

For almost 3 years I’ve been blogging with a paper bag over my head. I have revealed myself and bits and pieces of my family through my writing, but I’ve never given you a good look at our faces. Until today!

This is what we look like in knit.

Pictures were “knit” with Knitted Cam App.

I live in a 3-story building with a wooden staircase in the back. If I step out of my back door and go up one landing, this is what I see.
San Francisco, CA.

I showed you mine, now show me yours.

Share your city/town/suburb/you name it!If you link up, please link back or post the Sundays In My City button either in your post or sidebar to let people know that other bloggers are sharing their communities too. Happy trails!

Grab the code from my sidebar.

Sometimes I crack myself up. A friend on FaceBook complained that she got sexually harassed by a guy on there, I responded…

Last week I go to the library with my two kids for storytime and as I’m settling in and the librarian starts addressing the kids I hear music playing and I’m thinking…

WTF?! Who’s playing music at the library? Seriously person, it’s the library! At least put on some headphones. I am so going to give you the stink eye when I find out who you are.You’re playing “Maneater” by Hall and Oates. Well, at least you are playing something I like. Still it’s really rude, the librarian is trying to conduct a class and she seems unfazed, but that doesn’t stop it from being rude. Hmmm…it seems to be coming from my right side…from the table right next to me…from the purse on the table right next to me…oh crap! It’s coming from my purse. Crap, it’s coming from my iPhone. OMG, I can’t make it stop!!! How do I make it stop? I’m just going to lower the volume all the way down… Okay, it’s gone. It wasn’t so bad. I don’t think anyone even heard it… Oh-oh here she comes, watch out boy she’ll chew you up…it is a catchy tune. 

And now your Friday Fortune Cookie
(don’t forget to add “in bed” at the end, if you are so inclined):

Never be afraid to laugh at yourself.

Hosted by Mrs. 4444

I signed Put Pie, my three-year-old, up for a dance class. Being a lover of footwear, the very first thing she asked was what kind of shoes would she be wearing. I told her that she would be taking the class in her bare feet. Excitedly she ran to her room and came back wearing her “bear” feet.

She couldn’t understand why I was laughing so hard.