Road Trip!!

We are heading out on a mini road trip this afternoon. We are attending our church family retreat this weekend and we are really excited about it.
Ricardo has been in London all week and returns home around 1pm and if I am finished packing by then, we will hit the road shortly after. I had intended to do some packing last night, but couldn't' put my book down so the night escaped me. I am reading For the Children's Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School - awesome read! So, it is 9:00am and I need to get packing!!!
We've had a great week. It has been really busy without Ricardo here, but the Lord has sustained me and carried me through. He has provided me with an abundance of grace in areas like cooperation at bedtime, peace and security in the house at night time and joy and patience with the kids.
We are so excited for Papi's return and to spend the weekend with our church family! We will have plenty of pictures to share when we return!

Catch up

I did a few posts yesterday to catch up, but still have a few more pictures to share:


Alexia started ballet last week, but I didn't get a good picture so here she is at her 2nd ballet class today. She loves it and does so well. There is a 4-yr old and two 3-yr olds in her class so she is quite a bit younger than everyone else, but she keeps right up with them. It is precious to watch all of her moves and to see how into it she gets.


Two Fridays ago, Ruth and I decided to spend our day together (we try to hang out once a week) out and about and we headed to the Yellow Daisy Festival at Stone Mountain. Here are all 6 kids loaded into Ruth's van. Alexia and Keona are in the back seat with Callen in the middle and Marco was in between Diego and Anjuli.

It is still hard to believe that there are 6 kids between the 2 of us! We had a great time at the festival and the big kids especially loved running around and exploring all of the fun.


We treated everyone to gelato and Alexia took her sweet time enjoying her treat and was dripping blue down to her legs by the time she finished.


Our friends Jen, Jake and Alexander moved to Florida this summer. Jen and Alexander were in town for a wedding last week so we met them at Chik Fil A for lunch on Friday. Alexia LOVES Ms. Jen and jumped in to her lap as soon as she finished her lunch. We had a great time hanging out!

Alexander is 5 so Diego thinks he is hot stuff and had a really great time playing with him too.

These are from early last week when we went over to visit Gwen and the kids. Asher was so excited to hold Marco and was really sweet with him. Of course Diego was happy to show off his baby brother!

Adeline had to get her cuddles too!

Gwen and the kids spent the night at our house last week and Hartley and Alexia were absolutely adorable together. I wish I would have taken more pictures of them because they were hilarious. Here they are playing with their baby dolls in Marco's car seat.

Diego and Alexia are in a tough stage of (what seems like) constant bickering. Alexia lashes out verbally at Diego and he lashes out physically. The main cause of their fighting is Diego wanting to boss her around, so she gets upset and says something ugly to him and then he gets frustrated and hits her. I feel like I am playing referee a good part of the day, everyday. I have decided to just embrace this stage and know that it is normal for siblings. I am trying to take advantage of the "teachable moments" and get to their hearts in the midst of their frustrations with each other. I have always appreciated their sweet moments of getting along, but I appreciate them now more than ever since they are not the norm like they used to be. The other day Alexia didn't want to nap and Diego asked if he could go to her room to see what she wanted. A few minutes later I walked in to find that he had pushed the ottoman next to her crib and was reading a book to her. It's hard to tell in the picture, but she has her chin cradled in her hands...so sweet!!

Marco is still our star baby! He is getting cuter and chubbier by the day. He loves to watch Diego and Alexia's every move and is very entertained by them. His giggles melt us all to goo and we find ourselves making all sorts of silly sounds just to get him to cackle at us.

Navy vs. Green

Diego had his 1st soccer game last Saturday, but Ricardo and Alexia took him (since I was away for Gwen's bday) and they didn't have the camera. So this Saturday was the first game that I got to watch and it was awesome. I can't believe we are already at the stage of Saturday morning soccer games! I was filled with joy watching my big boy out there on the field. It was a reminder of how blessed we are that the Lord has given us healthy children. Diego scored 2 goals and played like a champ.


This picture was taken before practice last week, but I love how he looks like such a big boy and is so excited to be playing soccer.


Below are a series of photos from the game on Saturday:

Alexia and Marco, Diego's best cheerleaders!

Argentina vs. Germany

Today I was getting dinner ready while Alexia and Marco had their naps. Diego went downstairs to practice soccer in the living room. He had a goal set up at the fireplace and a goal set up at the stairs. He would dribble the ball back and forth, back and forth, scoring goals for each team. He was Argentina and the other team was Germany. Every once in awhile he would say, "Mom, the score is 14 to 25" then a few minutes later he would say "Now it's 17 to 28." He was keeping the score of both the teams and having a blast. He was so into the game and even broke a sweat with how much he was running.

Girl's weekend away

My friend Gwen turns 40 this week so we had a weekend celebration for her last weekend and had a blast. She had some friends spend the night on Friday night, but Marco and I joined the group on Saturday morning. It was so much fun to take it easy, go on walks, eat yummy food and have lots of cuddle time with Marco. We spent the night on Saturday night and four of us stayed up until 3:00am! I nursed Marco before I laid down so that he was sure to sleep in and sure enough, he slept in until 7:45. We had a yummy breakfast together, cleaned the house, went out for coffee and went our separate ways at about 2pm on Sunday.

We went to an awesome coffee shop on the Chattahoochee river on Saturday afternoon. After enjoying our drinks, we took a stroll down to the water for a little photo shoot. (Gwen, the birthday girl, is in the purple dress).


Marco hanging out on my lap while we had our coffees.

We had a really fun dinner at Gwen's house on Saturday night. 3 friends in this picture just came for dinner and the rest of us spent the night.

At another great coffee shop on Sunday afternoon.

Asheville, North Carolina

We decided to take advantage of the long weekend and we headed to Asheville for two nights. Ricardo was in London all of last week so it was a great way to spend some special family time together...


We hit the road around 9am on Saturday morning. The van has a DVD player, but we've never used it since this was our first road trip in this van and the rule is that it can only be used for road trips. So, the kids were thrilled to watch a movie and to use their headsets (so the rest of us didn't have to listen to Curious George!)
The road trip went really well. We only stopped once for gas/nursing and made it there in about 4 hours. We stopped at a cool hotel downtown to have a light lunch/snack and then headed to our hotel to check in and get ready for an early dinner downtown.


Here's lil' Marco all dressed up in his new jeans and new sweater, ready to hit the town Saturday night.


All three kids ready to go!

We went to a fabulous vegetarian restaurant and had a delicious meal. Ricardo and I were so grateful that we can still enjoy a fun dinner out, even with three kids! The three of them behaved really well and enjoyed the outing as much as Ricardo and I.

Of course a yummy meal has to end with a yummy treat! We walked for a little while and came upon a cute ice cream shop and enjoyed our treats!

Sunday morning started off with breakfast and then straight to the hotel pool for a swim. We took it easy and didn't have a rush in the world, which was so nice. Marco is still not on a strict daytime schedule so he just went with the flow and we decided Alexia would skip naps for the weekend so that allowed the days to be totally flexible. After everyone showered, we headed to the store to buy goodies for a picnic and drove up the Blueridge Parkway and found a neat little spot to enjoy our meal. The picture above is a photo snapped from the car as we were enjoying the gorgeous drive.

After lunch we drove for awhile and then headed to a hiking spot which was awesome. We "hiked" for about two hours and we were the only people on the trail. It was glorious. Marco slept the whole way, except the last 15 minutes. Alexia had a special ride on Papi's back and only walked for the last 20 minutes.

Diego barely walked, he ran most of the way!

Alexia loved running too!

Diego dug his "claws" into the dirt.

We were all tired after the hike so we headed to the hotel for dinner and were all in bed by 9:00pm.

Ricardo took the kids to the pool on Monday morning while I packed up the bags and let Marco have a nap.

We went to another wonderful restaurant for a yummy lunch. The kids enjoyed salads and french fries...

...and Marco hung out on the bench, as happy as can be.

The highlight of the day was a visit to The French Broad, a chocolate lounge. Oh wow! It was fabulous! We ordered a piece of chocolate cake, carrot cake, a brownie and a 32oz french press coffee for Ricardo and I to share. We had the best seat in the house and hung out here for over an hour. Before we knew it, it was 3:30pm and we had to hit the road to return to Atlanta. We arrived home around 7:30 and everyone was wiped out. Diego and Alexia had a yogurt for dinner and were sound asleep in no time.

Diego reading

Here is Diego reading his "Bob" book a couple of weeks ago. Now that he knows his phonics, he is able to read simple words on his own. We will be beginning a reading program next week to teach reading more formally. Enjoy!

(This was right at Marco's bedtime so you will hear him fussing in the background) :)

Marco's new buddy

Diego's friend, Stella was born just 6 weeks after him and Lily and I used to get together with our babies often while she was on maternity leave. We had special times back then, but since she has been working we have not been able to hang out often for the past few years. Well she had a baby boy just 12 days after Marco and is on maternity leave until January so we are excited to get to see more of them now! They came over for lunch yesterday and we had a great time. Diego, Alexia and Stella had a blast together. Marco and Nico had some playtime on the play mat, but were not amused as you will see in the photos.

Diego had soccer practice in the afternoon which he loved. Of course I am biased and I think my son is just as coordinated and athletic as can be, but I was seriously impressed with how he was kicking the ball. They put jerseys on half the team and had a game. Diego dribbled the ball from center field, all the way down, dodging other player's attempts to take the ball and scored an awesome goal. When practice ended, all the kids literally slumped down to the ground in exhaustion. Diego was not ready for it to end and took a ball and dribbled it up and down and up and down the field all by himself until I had to call him to get off the field because another group of kids was arriving for their practice.


When we put them down, Nico cried...

...then Nico stopped and Marco started. I have a picture similar to this one of Diego and Stella hanging out on the playmat together.

These two were on the go the whole time so it was impossible to get a photo of them. (Diego's sheets were in the wash so excuse the messy bed!)