We're back!

We returned late last night from El Salvador. We had an absolutely wonderful 11 days away. There are many pictures to share and stories to tell, but just wanted to post a couple of highlights. In the coming days I will try to do several posts with different stories/pictures from our trip. Ricardo's mom arrives tomorrow for a week long visit so we are looking forward to that and will surely be busy with her!

Alexia with Tia Dani (our sister in law)

Diego with Tio Robi

Ricardo's dad ("grandpa")

Ricardo's grandfather ("Abue")

A family ride on the "moto" at the beach



Afternoon coffee with special friends

Playing with Auntie Valeria and Auntie Mariana

My high school girlfriends and all of our children (with two more on the way)

Photo update

I am supposed to be watching a movie with Ricardo, Brendan and Noelle, but I decided to update the blog real quick since I won't have time this week. Noelle, Brendan and Alina flew down from New York to visit us for the weekend. Noelle is a dear friend from high school in El Salvador and even though we have remained close via phone calls and emails, it has been many years since we've hung out. It has been such a treat to have several days to take it easy, hang out, talk, reminisce and watch our lil' girls blossom their own friendship. Alina and Alexia are only 4 days apart and are having a BLAST together. Alina is just as much of a firecracker as Alexia so they just crack us up all day long.


Right before bedtime tonight, the girls decided to play in Alina's pak n play:

After church today we picked up some burritos at Willy's and headed to a park to swing, play and have a picnic:

On Friday morning, A & A were having their breakfast. Diego asked if he could pull his chair over and sit in between them. He loves having Alina here and is really sweet with her.

We put the kids to sleep on Friday night and the four of us had a wonderful dinner by ourselves.

The goods on the grill

A&A playing together in Alexia's crib









OK, this was a BIG day for us! Last Tuesday, Tio Diego was traveling from El Salvador back to Paris and had a layover in Atlanta. He was traveling on standby and was not able to make his flight so Ricardo went to pick him up from the Marta at 10:30pm. He spent the morning with us and the kids and I took him to the airport at 1pm on Wednesday. The kids were giddy with excitement when they woke up on Wednesday morning and I told them that Tio Diego was asleep downstairs. It was so special to have him here and we thoroughly enjoyed the few hours we had with him.

Last Monday was a very fun, but very sad day for us. We drove up to spend all morning with Taylor, Israel and Elijah. The Irby's moved to Bosnia on Wednesday for a long term mission and we're not sure when our next time together will be...hopefully within a year. We had a blast and really treasured our last morning together.

Last weekend we went to the farmer's market and bought awesome seafood to make sushi. Here is Chef Rick making the masterpieces:

Sorry for all the randomness, but I didn't want to leave anything out. We are heading down to El Salvador in a few days so I will try to post from down there. If not, there will be plenty of photos and tales when we return!

Diego's new moves

Fish sitting

We have been taking care of our friend's fish for a week and the kids love it! Every morning they sit up on the mantle to give him his tiny pebbles of food.

Last weekend Ricardo had a busy Saturday morning. Early in the morning my friend called to say she needed help with her kids since she had been in the hospital all night with her husband (side note: Travis was in the hospital for severe back pain, but is all better now). Since I was scheduled to talk at a women's brunch at church, I could not stay home to help Ricardo so he had four kids all to himself for the whole morning. I called as I was leaving the church to tell him I was rushing home to help him, but he said "Go ahead and do the errands you need to do...I'm fine." What a man! I did two quick errands and came home around 1:30 to find everyone happy and in good spirits. He even took pictures!

Alexia and Dillon (16-months old) enjoying their drinks together


Addie & Diego watching a video on the laptop

Alexia and Papa having a little dance party this past Friday:

I couldn't resist posting this picture of the most darling lil' face ever!

This lil' peanut has a lot of person in a small body.

Some fun Alexia stats:

- She still weighs 21 pounds (has not gained weight in 8 months, but is getting taller and taller)

- Her favorite foods are black beans, yogurt, chicken, fruit, tomatoes and pizza

- She says everything is "azul" (blue) or "verde" (green). If I ask her what color something is, she always says "AZUL!" But when something really is blue she says "Si! Azul. Si! Azul."

- She loves Dora and sings "D-D-D-Dora. We did it. Hooray!"

- She can count to three (so cute!)

- She loves, loves, loves her daddy and big brother.

- She loves to dance, especially with her daddy

- She loves to read books and do puzzles

- She loves to bug her brother

Some fun Diego facts:

- He weighs 36 pounds and I only write this because it is a BIG deal to him. He is always asking me how much different people and things weigh and gets excited that he weighs 36 pounds

- His favorite foods are pasta, salad, hummus, fruit, yogurt, ice cream, puffins cereal and anything sweet

- He just learned to write his name last week and is very excited about this milestone (as am I!)

- He loves to read book and do puzzles. He can do almost all the puzzles we have at home all by himself

- He loves to play board games (zingo, jenga, candyland, ladybug game, etc)

- He loves to sing

- Spanish is still his strongest language. His english is improving, but is not nearly as good as his spanish

- He loves numbers. He counts everything...how many puffins in his cereal bowl, how many birds on the bird feeder, how many stripes on his shoes, etc. He counts all.day.long

- He is shy

- He is a mommy's boy

- He is extremely strong, athletic, coordinated and fast!

A morning of games

Diego loves to play board games - some favorites are Zingo and Candyland. Ricardo and I pulled out Jenga the other night and had fun playing it by ourselves. I didn't think Diego would be ready to play it so I hadn't even thought about introducing it to him. Well, when Asher was over yesterday he wanted to play it so I thought it was a great chance for Diego to learn too. He absolutely loved it. I was really impressed with his coordination. He does such a good job at pulling out the blocks very carefully and placing them on the top ever so gently. We played it several times this morning and Alexia finally learned NOT to knock it over!
After Jenga, we played Zingo which is one of my favorites since Alexia is able to play with us.

Our first tower of the morning. It was going well until I decided to take a picture and...

...along came a little peanut to knock it down.

Below is a fun series of shots of our next tower:

And on to Zingo:

Notice how she has her yellow pieces on the right squares. I did not help with any of this. She carefully places them where they go and tries her best not to move what's already there. I think this grin shows how much she enjoys this game :)


Ok, so she does enjoy the game...but gets restless after awhile so she decided she'd rather just watch Diego and I play while she rested on the floor. She stayed like this for awhile. Funny girl!!


These pictures are from earlier this week. Diego loves painting with watercolors:

Painting fun

We had a really nice weekend this past weekend. On Saturday we took the kids down to the Chattahoochee river to wade in the water. We walked up and down for quite awhile and the kids loved it! At one point, Alexia slipped on the rocks and fell in, face first. She was FURIOUS and clung on to her daddy for dear life after that. We enjoyed a family lunch at Chik Fil A afterwards and then headed home for lunch.
The sweet Irby family arrived in the evening to spend the night and we had a great time. Taylor went to a friend's birthday party so Ricardo and I kept Josh up late playing Settlers of Catan. We had a great time and were so blessed by their time with us. They have such a dependence on God that encourages us and reminds us that God IS in control and God DOES provide. We had a very early morning on Sunday and headed to church for the morning. We all returned here to have lunch and to put the 4 kids down for a nap. As soon as the last child's head hit the pillow, Taylor and I escaped. We went out for a special coffee/cookie/gelato date and had a wonderful time. We returned to all four kids awake and full of energy so we took them outside to paint:

A failed slumber party

Sorry for lack of posts! Here are a few pictures from our slumber party with the Irby family. Josh, Taylor, Israel and Elijah spent the night with us last Saturday and we had great fun. We were excited for Diego and Israel to have their first slumber party so we put the blow up bed in Diego's room and tucked them tightly into their beds. 5 minutes hadn't passed when they were both calling out for us because they were afraid of the dark. Diego has never mentioned the idea of being afraid of the dark, but when Izzy mentioned it, he was convinced that he was afraid too. So we had to drag her bed out of his room and she slept down in the play room with her brother. They're all going to spend the night again this Saturday so maybe we can try again!


Diego and Israel enjoying their romantic table by the window


Alexia and Elijah enjoying the dining room table all to themselves


Josh digging into the delicious ribs that Ricardo bbq'd.


Josh and Taylor are amazing musicians. We have a CD of theirs that we listen to in our car, every day, every drive. As soon as we get in the car, Diego and Alexia say "Josh, Josh." Their favorite song is called "Lost and Found." We seriously listen to it at least 7 times a day. So, during our family devotions we always sing a song. Often times Diego asks us to sing Josh's song, but we can never get it right. Well, last Saturday was very special because Josh and Taylor were there to sing it LIVE for the kids. They LOVED it!!!


Ready to turn the lights off (and kick Alexia out of the room). Too bad this didn't last long!

Last week we pushed the two couches together in the upstairs living room and Diego and Alexia had a boat to play in. They would sit in the "boat" and play for what seemed like hours. Diego is pointing down to the sharks and telling me not to touch the water or the sharks would get me.