Pictures

I have a bunch of random pictures to share (mostly from my mom and Alex's visit) so I am going to let this just be a photo post. Hopefully I will be able to write a bit more tomorrow...!


How could I not let this be the first picture! Look at this beauty of a boy! :)


On Friday afternoon the kids and I were waiting for Ricardo to get home and we were a little bored so we decided to learn about colors. I pulled out the food coloring and showed the kids how mixing primary colors makes secondary colors - they LOVED it!

On to Grammie's visit...

We went out to dinner to La Fonda Latina for their welcome dinner. We had a great meal and then walked next door to a new frozen yogurt place. Here is everyone enjoying their yogurt!


The kids requested cupcakes days before Grammie's arrival so this activity was on the top of the agenda. They made wonderful banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting - they were delicious! Here they are mashing the bananas.


Lining the cupcake pans


The finished product. Alex did an amazing job of rolling out gumdrops to make these beautiful decorations.


Passed the taste test!


Bowling was 2nd on the agenda. They had such a blast when Ricardo and I took them in the spring and were so excited to go back. I love this picture of Alexia sporting her bowling shoes!

They were the ONLY people bowling that morning!

Taking a break to enjoy lunch.

I still have not captured a great picture of his adorable smile, but this gives you an idea of how cute it is!

We call Alexia our "puzzle master." She has mastered these 48-piece wooden puzzles to the point where they're barely challenging for her anymore. My mom had the brilliant idea of dumping out the pieces to all three puzzles and having her sort through and do all three of them simultaneously. She loved it!

We had a surprise visitor one evening - Mary Caroll. Mary is the lady that we bought our house from and she is a sweetheart. She lived here for 35 years and raised 7 children here. She had not met Marco so she stopped by with a gift for him and was so excited to hold him. She used to love to tell us how much she had prayed that God would bring a young family to buy her house. She was heart-broken to sell it and was afraid of builders tearing it down. She fell in love with us when she met us and was so excited to know that our children will be raised here.

My mom and Alex got us completely hooked on rummy. We played it many times during the days with the kids and then my mom, Alex, Ricardo and I played it every evening. Diego blew us away with his skill. In case you're not familiar (I wasn't)...you have to line up sets of 1,2,3,4 of the same color or 2,2,2,2 of different colors. You can take tiles from sets that are already on the table to complete your set. Anyways, Diego was making his own sets out of tiles on the table the third time he played. He asked to play it over and over and we were thrilled to see how fun it could be for him to practice math skills!


We went to Mellow Mushroom for lunch on their last day with us. We had such a fun and special week - thank you for everything ladies! We miss you!

Here are some random pictures of the week before:

Diego and Caitlin busy coloring/tracing pictures

The Grahams had been out of town for several weeks so we were excited to have them over for lunch as soon as they returned. Oliver and Alexia are adorable together and Laura says that Oliver has a crush on Alexia...SO CUTE! They held each other's hand and jumped from the stairs to the pillows about 55 times.


Diego didn't jump from the stairs...he flew!


May and her kids were also out of town for several weeks and hadn't even met Marco so we went to their house for lunch and enjoyed catching up. Addie was so excited to hold Marco!

I love that Alexia and Dillon are now part of the big kid table!

Today we had a playdate at a new friend's house. She has three boys similar ages to our kids (except her youngest is 10 months old). Her oldest boy's name is Tripp. This afternoon, Diego said "Mami, vistes como Shrimp y yo estabamos jugando con la arena?" (Mami, did you see how Shrimp and I were playing with the sand?) He was calling him SHRIMP! My belly hurt becuase I laughed so hard. I can't believe he hadn't asked my why the boy's name was shrimp!? It was fun to see how he also cracked himself up!

Soccer!

We've had a lot going on the last week so I apologize for not writing! My mom and niece, Alex arrived last Wednesday for a week-long visit and we had a wonderful time. We had not seen Alex in four years so it was so special to have her here! She is 16 and the kids loved her!
I will upload more pictures and write more soon, but wanted to share pictures of Diego's big day yesterday...! He had his first soccer practice and LOVED it! He had been anticipating this day for weeks and would talk about it many, many times a day. Ricardo took him out on Saturday to buy cleats and shin guards and I almost cried when I saw the cleats...they are just the cutest, little soccer shoes ever!!
He did awesome during practice and made many goals. He has practice every Tuesday at 5:45pm and games are on Saturday mornings. I can't believe we are already at this stage, but it is so exciting! Alexia will be starting ballet in September and is just as excited about that!
Hard to believe that summer is ending and fall will be here soon. I will be homeschooling Diego this year and have been spending a lot of time researching options and deciding what materials we will use. I will write more about that too...! On to the pictures...


Headed out the door...so excited!


This was Alexia as she walked down the stairs to head out the door. I just had to take a picture! She was having a very serious conversation with Cami and was chatting away.


GOAL!


And another one!


Baby Marco hung out in the baby bjorn the whole time. He was a little fussy until he fell asleep.


Girlie girl excited to watch her big brother play soccer. My mom made the necklace and bracelet for her and she now wears them everyday.

Alexia hanging out with Alex near the field

A quick hello!

The rest of our week last week was a lot of fun. On Wednesday we went over to Tia Paty's house for lunch and stayed for almost 5 hours. Marco snoozed off and on and Diego and Alexia had a blast with Caitlin.

After lunch, Tia Paty pulled out the art supplies and let the kids paint and color to their heart's content.

The adorable artist! It is so much fun that Diego and Caitlin now enjoy Alexia playing with them and the three of them have a blast together.

Caitlin and Diego doing puzzles on the kitchen floor.

On Thursday, Vanessa and Brittany came over for lunch with their darlings and I can't believe I didn't pull out the camera. With so many little ones (Brittany has a 1-yr old and Vanessa has a 2 yr-old and a 6-month old), we were quite busy and did not have a quiet moment!

On Friday, Lucy and her kids came for lunch and we had a great time. Archer is Diego's friend from Sunday school and is just a few months older than him. Winnie is 2, but Alexia was sweet with her and had a fun time playing. At one point, Archer and Diego were having a sword fight and Archer said, "Diego,why don't you talk very much?" Diego likes to take his time warming up and is not a big talker at the beginning of playdates. They had a blast being boys, having sword fights, playing cars, pretending to fight and just being silly. We let the kids have a "picnic" in the family room and Lucy and I enjoyed our lunch by ourselves in the kitchen.

Not a great picture, but a fun action shot of their "picnic"

On Friday night we had blast doing "Family game night." I will explain what that is in another post, but it ended with pizza out at Mellow Mushroom and Ricardo and Diego finishing the night off playing chess. Yes, that's right...chess! The boy can play chess. I cannot play chess and my 4-year old son can! We taught him how to play checkers a few months ago and he is so good at it and beats me all the time. Since he had picked that up so easily, Ricardo decided to teach him chess and he amazed us with the ease with which he has learned it. Wow!

Another huge accomplishment this week is how much more he is reading. We have casually been working on reading for several months now and he is getting better and better. This week he read 5 books all by himself. Of course they are very simple books with small words, but it was absolutely amazing to sit next to him and watch him read...all on his own.

And lil' Marco has been busy working on his neck muscles. Here he is during "tummy time", doing his best to get that head up!

Precious boy. Oh, how we adore this baby!

Tuesday

Today we had a great playdate at Ruth's house. We have a nice routine of a weekly playdate and I am so thankful for my time with Ruth, and for the time that our kids have together. Ruth is a treasure and I always leave her house (or send her off from mine) feeling encouraged and with some new bits of wisdom. (Thank you dear friend!!)


Marco with his buddy Callen, who is just 10 days younger than him.


Big brother and big sister wanted to be the ones to show off their baby brothers!

Baby swap!

Before Marco was born, Ricardo and I sat down together and wrote out a list of things that we could do to simplify our lives since we would be a busy family of five. One of the items on the list was "Get Diego to eat real meals." The first half of this year was extremely busy for Ricardo at work and we rarely ate dinner together as a family. Diego and Alexia were used to eating simple meals like salads, yogurt, veggies, etc. So on those rare occasions that Ricardo was home for dinner, I would prepare a meal for us and serve the kids something different. About three months ago we told Diego that we were going to expect a change in his eating habits. At that time, I told him that in July (when he turned 4 1/2), he had to eat more foods and try cheese again (he had been on an almost year-long cheese strike). He was so against cheese that he would only eat pizza crusts and would not touch any part of the pizza that had cheese on it. We slowly introduced string cheese which was a huge hit and now he is eating entire pieces of pizza and macaroni and cheese! Tonight was a big test of how far he has come. I served pork tenderloin, quinoa and raw broccoli on his plate for dinner. I knew he would devour the raw broccoli because that is one of his favorites...but he devoured everything else and even asked for seconds of pork! Ricardo and I couldn't believe it...we were SO thrilled! The secret to the success of the meal is that I had prepared him since early this afternoon that we would be having pork for dinner and he had no choice but to eat it. When we sat down for dinner, he did not say a word, he just picked up his fork and dug in. Well, not true, he asked for a second fork and then dug in. Explanation: Diego is what is classified as a "Separatist eater" He separates his food and does not like one thing to touch another. So much so that he asks for one fork for his vegetables and one fork for his meat. I know this is crazy, but if that means he will eat everything on his plate, then two forks it is! You may ask where Alexia stands in all this fuss...she is an awesome eater and eats most anything...makes her daddy a happy man! :) I think it is a first-born thing, but Diego does much better when he is prepared for things in advance. If we would have expected his eating habits to change from one day to the next, we would have been faced with a lot of frustration. By giving him plenty of notice, we were able to expect more from him and have been pleased with the results. We still have a ways to go, but we're getting there...!

2-month checkup

Marco had his 2-month checkup today. We praise the Lord that he is a perfectly healthy little boy. Well, not so little, but he's a perfectly healthy boy! :) He weighed 13 pounds, 8 ounces which is in the 90th percentile. I forget his length and head circumference measurements, but will post them once I dig the papers out of my diaper bag. He did great through the whole checkup, but absolutely wailed after he received his shots. Poor baby...I felt awful. Diego and Alexia were with us and were not phased by his hysterics because I had warned them. After all three shots, I picked him up and nursed him and he calmed right down. The trip to the doctor was not only not so much fun for Marco, but it wasn't much fun for me either. We had a rough morning at home with a lot of misbehaviour so I was not looking forward to taking the kids with me to a 1:45pm appointment, right when dear Alexia should have been sound asleep in her crib, taking a nap. I never tell the kids that if they behave well, they will get a treat, but I was desperate today so I told them that if they were good we would get a milkshake on our way home and watch part of a video at home. No milkshake. No video. They were not awful, but they were not listening well and kept bickering with each other. I was short on patience and did not want to tolerate any amount of disobedience. To give you an idea of our morning: while I showered, they each sat on the floor in their respective rooms and cried and cried and cried. Every morning they get to sit on my bed and watch a video on my laptop while I shower. Today was the first time they have ever lost that privilege and they were devastated.
This is the good thing about posting more often and not trying to recap a whole week in one post. I am able to share the reality of our days and not just try to quickly recap the fun happenings. Our days are not all about play dates, games, laughter and fun...they also include spankings, time outs and tears!
So, on to the pictures...


The doctor let the kids listen to Marco's heart which was so neat. Diego said he couldn't hear anything...

...but Alexia said she could.

Before our morning took a sour turn, we read a bible story and did a craft to go along. We made crowns to pretend we were good kings who followed God.

I poured some rice on a pan and let Diego practice writing his letters which he enjoyed.

On our way home from the doctor, I told the kids I am thankful that tomorrow is a new day!

I know I said I was going to try to update more often, but it is much easier said than done! We had a great week last week. Since Marco's birth, we haven't really had a "normal" week. We've either had company, Ricardo was able to go to work late/come home early, Ricardo had some days off, Diego was in sports camp every morning, etc...so last week was our first week back to "normal," but I'm not sure what normal is anymore! We started the week off with very few plans, but ended up filling our days with fun. On Tuesday morning I took the kids to Jeronimo's which is a bouncy house place and they had a blast. It was the first time that Alexia went off with Diego and really enjoyed it. They have lots of seating and comfy couches so Marco and I hung out on the couches while Diego and Alexia had a blast flying down the slides and jumping in the bouncy houses.
On Wednesday Patricia and Caitlin came over around 12:30 and stayed until close to 5:00pm. Patricia and I enjoyed hanging out and Diego, Alexia and Caitlin all played really well together. Alexia adores "Tia Paty" so she put her down for her nap and Alexia was thrilled that she was still here when she woke up!
On Thursday we had more friends over. Katie and Megan came over at 10am with the their kids (minus Henry) and the kids had a lot of fun playing in the pool. Diego and Luke were a little wild in the pool so poor Ella Ann was not very happy with them. Luke and Ella Ann are starting full time school this fall so it is sad to realize that we won't be able to have weekday playdates with them until next summer. Katie and Megan had to leave before lunch, but Ruth and her kids came right at lunch time so it was so much fun to let the fun continue!
Diego went to sports camp Friday morning and loved it, as always. Ricardo was able to take advantage of "summer Friday" at the office and came home at 1:00pm which was such a treat. We had a nice afternoon together as a family and then headed over to Megan's parent's house to enjoy an evening of swimming and pizza.


The kids ask to hold Marco many, many times every day. He is so laid back and enjoys being in their arms. Sweet baby!

Rolly polly boy at 8 weeks!

Playing Zingo with Caitlin

Eating peaches with Caitlin

Eating peaches...again! The kids loved munching on juicy peaches before running to the pool.

L to R: Luke, Diego, Ella Ann, Rane and Alexia

This picture cracks me up...Diego went overboard!

This is at Megan's parents house on Friday night. We set the kids up on blankets in the family room to watch Cars while they ate their pizza. Can you find Marco?! He is on the left arm chair, sound asleep. Dave, Megan, Ricardo and I enjoyed our meal at the dining room table, uninterrupted...well, for a little while anyways.

Have you noticed a pattern? Diego almost always has his lips glued to Marco's hand. He loves giving him kisses!

This is supposed to be Marco's playmat, but Diego and Alexia insist on playing right by his side. Sweet moments.

I have to give an update on Marco's sleeping. He is doing awesome. He goes to bed right around 8:00, nurses at 3:30 and sleeps until 7:00. Diego and Alexia did not do so well at night until after they were 1. What a champ!

Some cuteness from Alexia:

Alexia was acting up in the car and kept calling my name, but I was trying to ignore her so I wouldn't lose my patience. She said "Mama, when I listen to you, talk to me!" Of course she meant to say "when I talk to you, listen to me," but she got it backwards. Diego and I both cracked up!

Every night we have a family devotional time. We pray, read the bible, sing songs, memorize bible verses and review catechisms. After we closed in prayer this evening, Alexia stood up and said "Yo senti a Jesus en mi corazon." (I felt Jesus in my heart)