Yeay Papa!!!!!!!!!!

Ricardo is a star! He fixed my computer!!! Yeay!!! Now I can upload some photos and hopefully get better at updating the blog more often.

We had a wonderful Valentine's weekend. On Friday we went on a really fun date, dinner and dance! Our church sponsored a dance with live band and it was a lot of fun. We went to dinner first with some friends and then headed over to the dance floor. We actually danced several songs and had a great time. We even got to dance to our wedding song!

On Saturday Ricardo and Diego got up early to go buy muffins, coffee and a card for me. We all had breakfast together and then our friends, Aaron and Helen came over to watch the kids while Ricardo and I went out on a date. We had never gone on a date during the day and it was wonderful. We went to a special place for a delicious brunch and just loved talking, laughing and spending our time how we wanted to, not how a baby and toddler want to! My Valentine's present was an envelope with cash in it. Sound impersonal? Totally not. I love to shop, but have a hard time spending money on myself and so don't buy myself new clothes very often. Well there was a post-it on the cash that said "For GUILT-FREE shopping." So after brunch we headed to the mall to do some shopping which was great. We returned home around 3pm and the kids were happy to see us. We split up in groups and the guys went to do an errand and the girls (Helen, Alexia and I) went to the grocery store and we did a BBQ and had a special evening and a yummy Valentine's dinner.

I'm trying to think of some fun stories to tell about the kids, but just can't think of any right now so I will finish uploading the picture and hopefully be back in a couple of days with more pictures and some stories.


Diego reading a book with Aaron & Helen. He loves them both and gets so excited when they come over!


A new favorite activity - collecting and playing with sticks in the backyard.


On Friday, Sofia came over to decorate Valentine cakes with Diego. I think they ate more frosting than they put on the actual cakes. They loved it!


Making sure the frosting is on there just right.


Meanwhile, Alexia was playing with Albe in the yard. She was furious that he approached her while she was playing on the bike and this is her throwing a fit because she wants him to get away. Quite an attitude!


After Sofia and Albe left, Diego and Alexia sat under the table and ate all the sprinkles that had fallen on the ground. Bad mom? Maybe. But they were lovin' it!


See...she was as happy as can be!


My hip chic :)

Alexia is learning to eat with a fork. She is doing really well, but it makes mealtime much, much slower.

Diego and I enjoying hot tea and cookies together

Patiently waiting for her meal. This girl still eats like a champ! Most mornings she eats two eggs, half a piece of toast with cream cheese and fruit...lots of it.

Diego loves to eat his grapes off the vine. He ate this whole bunch of grapes.

We have started to do some "school." Diego gets so excited when it's school time and is really into the activities. We do coloring, cutting, pasting, tracing, etc.

It's COLD!

Before I begin I have to say that it is FREEZING in Atlanta. Somebody at bible study this morning told me that is was 5 degrees with the wind chill...yikes!

I spent awhile this evening trying to clear up space on my computer and was overjoyed when it finally allowed the camera to connect and the photos to upload...until it got to image # 56....and the dreaded message popped up "disk full...blah, blah, blah." So, I was able to upload a handful of pictures from the past week, but not all the ones I was hoping for. I especially wanted to share the pictures of Diego and I drinking tea together this afternoon. He had his first cup of hot tea and really enjoyed it.
We've been having a lot of fun lately. It seems like it's birthday season so we've attended several birthday parties (I have great pictures from one of them, but they're stuck on the camera) and we've been more creative with our time at home. Diego and Alexia have painted and/or colored every day for the past two weeks and love it. Alexia has finally learned that the markers and crayons are not for eating. She was finger-painting yesterday and kept sticking her green/purple/orange fingers in her mouth, but finally realized how nasty it tasted and opted to keep her fingers on the paper.

OOOHHHH!! BIG NEWS!! Can't believe I didn't start with this....Alexia is walking!!!!!!!!!! She started to explore the challenge of walking last week and is now walking about 80% of the time. It warms my heart to see her exploring the world from a new perspective. Diego is a little sad about this because he cherishes the fun they have when they crawl together, but we tell him that we have to be proud of her and be thankful that she is growing up.

The following pictures are in a random order, but for times sake I am going to leave them as they are...


If you know Ricardo, you know he LOVES to BBQ. He would grill out every night if he could. This is a display of our meal from this past Saturday...one of my personal favorites!


Diego and Alexia having fun on the lil' tricycle. Diego pushed Alexia around the yard for awhile, but then decided to hop on for a ride.



Alexia devouring one of her favorite foods - hummus!

These kids are crazy about blueberries and can finish off as many as I put in front of them. They sat on the kitchen counter last week and ate to their hearts content...until they were all gone!

Diego enjoying his new found love for water colors! Thank you Katie and Ella Ann!!!!!

Diego's birthday party!

Finally, here are pictures of the big party on Monday! We had a blast and Diego was so excited to celebrate his birthday with his friends. The theme of the party was Cars (the Disney movie) and everything was McQueen and Mater related.

After all the friends arrived we played for awhile and then had lunch. We had chicken from Diego's favorite restaurant (Chik Fil A!), fruit and salad. The kids did so well standing around the little tables we had set up in the living room and happily ate their lunches. After lunch we ventured out to the cold to hit the pinata! The concept of the pinata was new to most of our friends so Diego had to show them how it was done. Some of the girls were even scared to hit it, so cute. It was a big hit and we had a blast with it. We then went inside to have cake and open presents and play some more before everyone started to get sleepy for nap time.

Ricardo took the day off of work so it was special to have the whole afternoon together. In the evening we went to La Fonda for dinner and we started a fun tradition. We spent the whole time at the restaurant talking about the past year. We told Diego stories of all the trips we'd taken and we talked about special memories which he really enjoyed. He kept asking us to tell him more and asked a bunch of questions. It will be a lot of fun when the kids are older and we can enjoy this tradition on their birthdays.

Enjoying lunch!

Notice how the moms are shivering - the kids didn't even notice the cold with the excitement of the pinata!

Quite a swing!


Showing off his suckers

"Happy Birthday to you"


Diego and Bennett with their cheeks full of tootsie rolls

This is Diego having to do whatever Papi does!

Enjoying salmon and asparagus off the BBQ last weekend

Diego turns THREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today we celebrated our superstar's THIRD birthday. Amazing!
Seven of Diego's buddies came over for a party this morning and we had a blast. Diego was on cloud nine all day long. I will upload pictures tomorrow, but just wanted to make sure to say Happy Birthday Diego today!

Baby Cayden

Some of our best friend's had a baby boy last Friday and we are pleading for prayer for this precious boy. He was born at 32 weeks, weighing 3lbs 11oz. He is still not breathing on his own very much and is in a very delicate situation right now. He had an MRI done this morning to conclude whether or not he has any neurological problems. Please pray for peace for Scott and Paige, wisdom for the doctors caring for him and health, strength and recovery for baby Cayden.

You can follow his progress at http://hirschhaps.blogspot.com/

Friends

My friend Jessie and I have been exchanging childcare lately. Her children are almost the same ages as Diego and Alexia so they make a happy foursome. It is a wonderful way to get some things done during the day without children (like yesterday I went to the doctor for the first time since Alexia was born!) She even watched our kids for us last Friday night so we could go to Cirque Du Soleil on a special date and it was spectacular!!

Here are some pictures from last week when we had Sofia and Albe for a morning. I even fed all four children lunch at the same time and survived! :)

Sofia kept saying "You have to fix my heart. You have to fix my heart."

I was so pleased that Sofia and Diego contently played legos together for a long time. They made a great team and built some awesome structures.

Quietly sitting together is rare for them, this is usually what they're up to - being wild!

Meanwhile, Alexia and Albe tumbled around on the pillows and had their own share of fun:

Happy New Year!

It's crazy that this is the first post I've done in the new year! Where have the first two weeks of January gone!?

So not to delay a post any longer, I will upload some pictures and try to write a post soon...!


Ricardo bought fireworks for New Years and Diego was just giddy with excitement. In the next picture you can see the line-up of all the ones they set off together. It was so cold out that Alexia and I were inside when these pictures were taken. The boys had a blast!

We had a special New Years dinner at a friend's house. They have 4-month old twin girls and Alexia decided to be silly and hang out in the bouncy seat.

Ricardo and Diego assembled a gingerbread house on New Years Day and really enjoyed their time together.

Diego decorating the tree with ornaments.

They LOVE sitting at this table in the morning to play their pianos together.

I babysat my friend's 3 children last week and this is what our family room looked like for several hours: Alexia and Hartley (also 1-yr old) playing with the new play kitchen, Asher (6 yrs old) and Diego running around like wild and Adeline (5 yrs old) reading a book on the couch. Whew! I don't know how mothers of 5 do it!

Alexia and Hartley were so cute together!

I know that after 2 weeks of not posting, there should be more..but I still have pictures on my camera to upload. I will try to update again this weekend. Thank you for your patience!