Games and greens

I set up a fun letter game for Diego to play yesterday which he loved (Jana, thank you for the idea!) I hid all the letters around the living room and he had to place them on top of the corresponding letter on the floor. With each letter that he picked up he had to tell me the sound the letter makes and a word that starts with that letter. He did the capital letters in a breeze - it felt too easy...so, we decided to lower case letters...not so easy. He has known his capital letters for quite some time, but we don't work on lower case letters often enough so they had him stumped. He tried for awhile and enjoyed it, but didn't have the patience to make it through the whole alphabet. Today we worked on the lower case letters some more and we should have them done by tomorrow :)
Whenever Alexia sees the letters she sings, "A, B, C, la, la , la, da , be, de , go...." to the tune of the ABC's - very cute!
Excuse Diego's lack of pants in the pictures. He had just finished his quiet time and was not ready to get dressed. He always insists on doing his quiet time in his shirt and underwear.

Most of you know that I am a vegetarian. We do not raise our children vegetarian because Ricardo is a CARNIVORE. These children are after their mama's heart though because they love salads and vegetables. Diego's very favorite meal lately is salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Pouring his olive oil...

...then the vinegar...

...and enjoying his greens. The little things on the blue plate are crackers and hummus.

Alexia still loves black beans and here she is enjoying a black bean soup I made for dinner. On a side note, Diego does not nap anymore. He has a quiet time in his room, but doesn't sleep. He goes to bed at 7pm and since Alexia does nap, she gets to stay up until 8:00. Her usual routine is to have dinner with Diego (pictured above) and then sit down with Ricardo and I when he gets home and eat with us again. So, she ate a lot of what you see on her plate above and then when Ricardo came him this evening she had a second dinner with us. That reminds me that I didn't update on her latest doctor apt. We took her in for a weight check per the request of her doctor at her 18-month check up. We were excited to see that she has gained 1.5 pounds and is now at 10% for weight! This is a big deal since we thought she may have slipped to negative percentiles according to her weight on our home scale. Praise God for his protection of our little peanut!

"Cheers" to Auntie Paige. We had a video call with Auntie Paige yesterday (who is on bed rest in the hospital) during snack time. She was eating carrots and celery and the kids asked me for celery to eat with her. Since then, they have been on a celery kick and love crunching away at it.

After dinner Diego and Alexia went downstairs to play "Buruca" (dog pile). It was so adorable. They held hands, sang, rocked back and forth and then toppled over.