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Christmas is in the Air!

After gruling hours, I finally got my huge 9" tree up. YES!!!!! I seriously need to invest in a prelit tree cause having to string the tree with lights is exhausting, but then again well worth it. My mom came over to help me and donated her ornamets as well. Alofa atu MAMA!!! I so love my mom and she has such a keen eye at decorating. I was going to wait til husband came home and we could make it a family evenet but I wanted him to come home to cozy christmas home and not have to worry about anything except spending his time with his family and close friends. Plus, being stubborn and impatient as I am, I probably would make a fuss about how its not going my way.LMAO! We got word yesterday that he will be coming home to us the mid of next week. Butterflies in my stomach. lol. I have yet to tell Isa but will surprise her with her daddys arrival. Tommorow is Isa baby big day. im so excited for her and so is she. For the moment here is our other decorations for the house.

The chimney



My girls tree!

Our Countdown is here !

So Tuesday started our countdown to be with Daddy for the Holidays. We are so estatic and eagerly awaiting for his arrival.

Thanksgiving was awesome. Though he was not here, we have loving family that kept us busy. We have so much to be thankful this year! My list can go on and on. But we are mostly thankful for our family, friends and diffently our health. Pictures to come soon.

December is quite a busy month for us. Well for one, my baby girl Isalei will be turning the big 3. Cant believe where the time has gone. She is such a big and she seems to amaze everyday with her goofy personality. She is her dad in every way but a such a diva at times. (Totally blame on me). We are planning a big party for her at her favorite pizza place Peter Piper Pizza. So its going to be nuts on the 11th.

Her belated gift will be her fathers arrival just a couple of days later. I try not to tell her dates and when her dad is coming cause it just makes her question. At this age, she doesnt understand the whole deployment thing. All she knows is that daddy is at work and he is going to be gone for a long time. How can you make a 3 year old understand the world of war and the issue of why he is being placed in area where even our country doesnt know what we are fighting for? But this isnt an rant of politics. So ill end it there.

Lately, the weather in the El paso area has been on hiatus. Every other year the snow gods decide to grant us snowy holidays, and this year we were priveleged with snow two times in one week. Snow always reminds me of when I was a kid growing up in Germany. It was wonderful. Despite the wonderful snow, black ice and crazy drivers never mix well. Even when it rains people here dont get the concept of slowing down under extreme weather conditions they just keep speeding as if they are invisible. Pretty scary especially when traveling with young ones. YIKES!

Pictures from the Snow day




This weekend will be filled with some of our close friends birthday party so the hopefully the weekend and week will go by quick which means an even closer reunion with our man!

Husband in training!

Falling in love all over again

So its been a month and a couple days since hubs been gone. Its been getting easier as the days go by. To my suprise, on Friday my hubs surprised me with roses delivered to my work. My heart melted and made me fall in love with him all over again. It was a total moral booster. It made me miss him even more.

The ROSES!!!



Saturday was even better day cause I went to go out and see New Moon with my girl liz. Ahh...what a wonderful movie. Yes, I was sucked into the twilight addiction and must say that vampires are not my thing. So im totally on TEAM JACOB! Taylor Laurent did an awesome job but some of his lines were kind of quirky and made us giggle here and there. His character should of been a bit more fierce. But all in all his body was BANGING as well as the other wolf packs! Husband was pulling jealousy walls on me when I was ranting and raving about the movie. It was Hilarious.

Thanksgiving is in a couple days. Hopefully I can pull some pictures. Havent been in the picture taking mode. But cant wait for all the good food and family. The joy of the holidays being in season!

Miles stones just keep popping up

So my youngest just surprises me everyday. For one, we are parents to a sitter now. She still wobbles here and there but you can see her wheels turning to keep her balance going. Yesterday was not a good day for her though. She was on a cranky momment all day. Come to find out as she took a bite out of my hand that I could feel another bottom tooth arising. She looks so cute with her front teeth just making its entrance. Its awesome.

Here are some pictures: Enjoy!

Happy Veterans Day!!!!

Happy Veterans Day! Shout out to all the armed forces who dedicated their lives to fight for our freedom! You have sacraficed everything to make sure our country is safe and for that we appreciate your service. Especially my veterans! It runs in my family. Pop's, brother, and my love, Mike.

where has the time gone...

I have been on MIA status and in my death bed for the past week, well thats not fair to say my whole family has been on their death bed. The flu decided to pay our household a visit and literally knocked us out on our feet. What a great way to kick off the month of November. But thankfully we are good now and in recovery mode. A few coughs here and there but they are productive ones and good signs that we are recovering well.

But before all the catastrophic health issues began, we celebrated my nephew's 3rd the day of Halloween. October 30 is his actual birthday but we decided to celebrate Halloween with his birthday. What a great way for the kiddos to celebrate Halloween. I cant believe he is 3. It was just yesterday my sister was bringing the first grandchild home. What a joy!





Shots from his birthday n Halloween. Tamu decided he wanted to be batman and a dinosaur for his halloween Celebration. And I was some kind of Cheetah woman with adorable Tinkerbell babies.





Everyone is just growing so fast before my eyes. Especially, my youngest. This Past sunday she turned 6 months. Can you believe it she is 1/2 a year old. On top of that she is busting her 1st bottom tooth. How I hate teething.
Oh how I will tear when she turns 1 and my oldest turns 3 next month. Am I really a mother of 2. Its unbelieveable on what God has granted me.

My growing tot!





* sniff sniff * my babies are growing. Well daddy is doing great in his training and we got good word that he might be home for christmas earlier than expected.Crossing fingers. toodles

Our First week !

So we survived our first week! Phew! I thought I would be crying by Saturday cause I missed daddy so much. But pretty much over it and have to be strong for my girls. Isalei is taking it a bit harder cause she is not used to me disciplining her all the time. But we will get over this hump, Im hoping SOON! I hate being the the consoler and the discipliner at the same time! *sigh* The key is to keep busy, so this week I planned to get out to the park as often as I could with the girls. Ilyana was amazed at all the excitement that was going on in the playground. Could not get that girl to budge for a minute. Funny how I wasnt the only mom there. Im sure they had the same idea of trying to pass time by dumping their kids off at park just to have a lil silent times to themselves as they watch their wee ones play. HA!

As far as our weekend, on Friday my bestie, Bea invited me and my girls over for a greek themed dinner. It was great. Im always up for new things for my taste buds to get excited over and they were really excited once that food hit my mouth. Too bad I didnt have my camera for ones to see, hopefully on another date.

On satuday we went to a family friend birthday party at Incredible Pizza. A advance place of Chucky chesse. A bit pricey but the games are awesome. The food was not my cup of tea. Peter piper is by far the best pizza and game eatery in our household. Isalei had a great time, Ily not so much. She was on cranky mode and wanted to me and her nana to hold her constantly so the birthday party had to be cut short. I headed over to my mom's house to stay the night which ended up us staying til today.

That was pretty much it. This weeks is Halloween week and Tamu's birthday is this Friday so we going to celebrate on Halloween.

Here are some photos for you to gawk @:

Life on easy street....aint easy being a Baby



One day I will be on those monkey bars



Fun In the Sand



Day at the park

The parade must go on!

So Mike has officially been gone for 3 days. I am still in denial that he will be over there in less than 3 months since we can still be able to communicate thank goodness to cellphones and he is still in the proximity of the US and will be back in December to celebrate Christmas with us.

Before his departure, we both took time off from work to spend time together as a family. We were planning on making adventurous trips but a stay-cation was a better idea. It was great. We went to our fav stores to supposedly window shopping and hours later we come out with bags in our hands and our wallets empty. Lately, I have been so inspired to take picture of random things that hubs graciously bought me a new spiffy camera. A CANON POWER SHOT SX20 IS. I swear this is the best toy ever. He said that it would be great to feel our walls with great photos and keep me somewhat busy with odds and ends project.

Check out the cool photos:










Im sure you get my drift.... but the photos are awesome.

As the days came closer for his departure, everyone kept asking me how I was feeling. I really didnt feel anything. I was in denial that the day of him leaving would never come. Then it did.

We woke up early to make sure everything was in order. His bag. Check. His paper work. Check. We kid around the whole morning with the girls. It was wonderful. We were actually on time going out the door without a rush for once. If you know our departure, we are always on a rush and in a hurry to get out the door. We hit up some breakfast on the way and did some qtime in the airport. Then he started his speech with my eldest on how he wanted her to be a good girl and not give mommy a hard time. I tried really hard to hold back the tears but my emotions got the best of me and tear drops were rolling down my face. I kept telling myself to think of this as if he was leaving on his yearly annual training but I just didnt grasp that concept and all that can see was him training to be shipped overseas. It was awful feeling. But he got a hold of me and made his speech to me that I was a great woman and that I will do awesome holding the fort down while he is away. Which of course made me ball like a lil 2 year old. I collected myself before my oldest could see me cause I didnt want her to feel something was wrong. We exchanged our goodbyes and daddy hugged his lil girls for bit before getting on the escalator. My husband is a very strong man. Doesnt show his emotions to anyone esp me ...lol. But when it comes to our daughter it strikes him to the core. We waved as he went up and we were on our way to our car without our other half, daddy!

Mike is doing well and getting his training. He cant talk much cause of OPSEC reason and they are in and out of briefings throughout the day. But we miss him dearly.

Pray for us!!

We love you daddy! Come home soon!!!!

Samoa, we will remember!

September 29,2009

A date that will forever be remembered. Its on the news and people have been affected by this one way or another.

On Sept 29, 2009 , Tuesday morning, Samoa was hit with a 8.9 earthquake which minutes after caused a horrifying tsunami to follow. This cost many lives and left some parts of both Upolu(Western Samoa) and Tutuila(American Samoa) that were once known for its beautiful beaches and loving hospitality in ruins.

Being stateside you can only think of the worst and pray that your family is doing fine and were in a safe place during that terrifying moment. Hours later I was relieved to find out that my mothers family that lives in the village of Fagatogo was well and safe. Everyone was accounted for. But as I watched the news and read articles some families were not so lucky and the numbers of missing and those found dead were rising into the hundreds and my heart just crushed for them. I wept in their despair cause they were caught off guard with out any warning and those who did get warning were too late.
*** Samoa Aftermath ***

Being Samoan, we are from small islands that have big hearts. And we all came together to help our mother country because of this devastated event.

Today, Sunday October 4th.

clean up and help on the island is still being conducted as reported by the news. People are still trying to grasp the concept of what just happen and preparation for burials of loved ones are starting to begin. In Samoa, a mass burial and memorial service will be held on Thursday of those who were found and brought to the mortuary. Many of those who have found their loved ones have already buried them as seen in belows clip.
*** Burial in Samoa begins ***

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It just breaks my heart as a mother, daughter, and wife to see many of my people in despair. I feel especially for those children who were swept away and didn't have a chance. As a mother, I can only feel their pain to see their seed go.
*** A mother recounts her daughters lost ***

Helping hands all over the world are flowing into Samoa and Am Samoa to help those who survived this catastrophic event. Brother and Sisters of Samoa all over the globe are doing what ever they can to help.

If you want to give a helping hand you can donate to the following.



To my people of Samoa. We are Samoa. My love and prayers go out to those who lost loved ones and will be forever kept in my heart. Faavae le Atua mo Samoa!

These are our Stories!

So I decided that my other blog was starting to pry to much into my personal side of my life. So today marks the new beginnings of making memories of our everyday life.

Deployment count down



So yesterday, marks our countdown to Mike leaving us for 2 months to train for his deployment. LUckily, he gets to come back for Christmas for 10 days and then off he goes to fight for Uncle Sam for the next 9 to 10 months. Its devastating news, but being part of a Military family we have to expect this one way or another. Im already used to not seeing him for a whole month when he does his Annual training tour every year. This will only makes us stronger. I can only imagine what toll this will take on my little girls. They are such daddy's girl. Especially, my 2 year old. She is so strung on her dad. He has her so spoiled that Baby girl get's upset if she doesnt get her daily hug and kiss before he goes to work. So all we can do is ask is to keep him in your prayers.

***Baby girl with Daddy in uniform. Goooo NAVY!!!***


Some great events has happened these past few weeks.

Ilyana Baptism
On September 19, we had Ilyana baptised before the Catholic community. It was such a great day. Even Mike's dad was in town to witness this great event. Afterwards, we celebrated this joyous event with a big party at my mother in laws house.

*** Ily's Baptism Invitation.*** BTW (I did them through Walgreens Picture Card!)Awesome

*** BEING BAPTIZED***

*** FAMILY PHOTO OP ***



THE MUNOZ newest ADDITION
On Sept. 11, our dear friends Steve, Diana, and big brother Caden (CMAN) was gifted with a new bundle of joy, Madison Kayleigh Isabella. We were so estatic to know that her birth went well and her mother did an even greater job bringing her into this world. They are truly blessed and we cant wait to meet the lil lady bug.
*** SNOZZING RIGHT AFTER BEING BORN ***


*** 2 weeks old ***


Big Sis Lina Bday Bash

So to celebrate my sister's *21st* birthday. She decided to have her shindig at peter piper pizza. It was a blast and she was spoiled with a bunch of gifts and cake.