Our weekend!

We have had a wonderful weekend. It started on Friday night with Ricardo coming home from work saying, "What do you think about going out for date night?" My mom is always very gracious to offer date nights to us when she is here and had already mentioned to us that she wanted us to go out. We decided to leave her with Diego and Alexia and we took Marco with us. We went to a great Italian restaurant close to home and Marco was awesome. We definitely got some stares when we walked in with such a teeny tiny baby. He fussed for a minute, I held him for about 5 minutes and then he sat in his carrier the rest of the time. It had been a really busy week for Ricardo at work so it was really nice to have some time alone to catch up and enjoy each other's company. Alexia was awake when we left so Grammie decided to do something very special with her...paint her nails for the first time! She LOVED it and loves showing off her pink nails to anyone she can show.

On Saturday morning Ricardo and Grammie took the kids to the movies to see Toy Story 3. It was their first movie theatre experience and they loved it! Alexia fell asleep on Ricardo's lap near the end of the movie, but otherwise watched it and did great. I wasn't sure she would have the attention span for it, but apparently she did!

Being a mother to little ones, I have learned that they go through stages. Bad stages come and go...good stages come and go. Right now Diego and Alexia are in a wonderful sibling stage. Marco's arrival has brought them closer together and they have realized they need to play on their own more since I am not as available as I used to be. My heart swells with happiness when I see this stage that they're in and how much they are enjoying each other. In the picture above, they sat on the ottoman and played puzzles for quite awhile. When Alexia couldn't find the spot for a piece she would say "Diego, adonde va?" He would take it from her hand and proudly put the piece where it should go and she would give him a look of adoration.

We took Marco to church this morning so I had to dress him in something more than a onesie or jammie for the special occasion. I thought this little outfit was so cute!

Diego is beyond in love with his little brother. Today Marco was sitting in his bouncy seat and Diego was running upstairs to get a lego piece for grammie. As he was about to race by Marco, he slowed down, got on his knees, showered Marco with 4 or 5 kisses and continued on his sprint to the stairs. I think he gives Marco more than 100 kisses a day.

Today we celebrated Father's Day and gave thanks for the extraordinary father that Ricardo is. Every single day I am amazed that God has brought the two of us together and given us the gift of children. Ricardo is an awesome dad, in every way...the way he makes the kids laugh, the way he plays with them, they way he teaches them, the way he disciplines them, the way he provides for them, the way he sets a godly example for them...the list goes on. I pray that Alexia will marry a man just like her daddy and that Diego and Marco grow up to be husbands and fathers just like their daddy. He really is pretty close to perfect in my eyes!

Ricardo loves, loves, loves cupcakes so we made him cupcakes galore. We made chocolate cupcakes with fudge frosting, chocolate with marshmallow frosting and maple walnut cupcakes with ginger cream cheese frosting (Brownie, thank you for the wonderful cookbook - you couldn't have chosen a more perfect gift!)

Of course I would not have been able to do the cupcakes without Grammie. In fact, she did all of the work and did an amazing job.

Diego and Alexia shared the step stool to finish up the decorating this afternoon.

Ricardo took the kids outside to play in the sprinkler and pool before dinner and they all had a blast!

Our special Father's Day meal

A happy daddy with his three kiddos.