Mother's Day morning

The morning started off with a yummy breakfast (prepared by me because really, it's Mother's Day so I couldn't deny all of my mothering duties!) :)  

The family presented me with precious cards and a lovely present that I was not expecting.  Here's the little photo shoot that captures the love :)

(Lucia was having her pre-church morning nap so she missed out on these pictures)

Date night!

I post these pictures and share this special moment because I want to remember this.  I want our children to know this and remember this.  I want to remember how my husband celebrated every date night with me, how he expressed his love and appreciation of me with sweet details.  How he decorated our tables with candle and flowers, cranked up the music and would buy a bottle of Veuve Cliqout because....because......because.....why not?  Why not celebrate NOW!?  Why not celebrate these moments in life that are here and now and available to us.  

These pictures are from our date night this past Friday and it was just wonderful.

This is a classic date night meal for us - salmon and tuna on the grill with special salads on the side.   This was the table as we were grilling and before it was dark enough to light the candles.

Candles are lit!  Fish is coming off the grill...

Ricardo is in the distance, lighting the torches.  I'm telling you, these details don't happen at the fanciest of restaurants! 

The meal is served and we're ready to dig in!

The plate full of delicacies 

(I need to add here that as we were delighting in our time together outside, wars were raging inside.  The children were allowed to have a slumber party, but it got later and later and later and nobody was falling asleep.  Skin was scratched with pinches, kicks were given, feelings were hurt and 2 out of 3 melted in a puddle of tears.  By the end of it, Marco was sent to his bed, Alexia was allowed to fall asleep in our bed and Diego was allowed to sleep on the floor of their room.  Alexia was just crushed and sobbing and Ricardo carried her to our room, prayed over her, lit a candle for her and let her fall asleep in our room and then carried her to her bed after dinner.  I think we had put them to bed a bit before 7:00 and it was not all said and done until well after 8:30.  Yes, life goes on as mom and dad are on the back porch :)

Happy birthday to me!

I had a super special birthday with my peeps.  It started off with a full morning at Field Day at Heritage.  I took the littles with me and we cheered the kids on, helped out where needed and just hung out.  It was a lot of fun.

Alexia was on Team Mexico so I painted her flag...

...and Diego was on Team Scotland so he needed a flag too!

All lines up to do the potato sack race

I'm not sure what the boy is doing, but I love this action shot that a friend sent to me.

After field day, we headed to Krog St market for an amazing lunch and a dreamy bike ride on the BeltLine.  There is a Greek place in the market that has delicious food so we all really enjoyed our lunch.  

We had a pit stop for fresh juices along the way and a pic with these cuties :)

I think I calculated that we rode about 8 miles and Marco went the entire way on his bike.  He was a CHAMP!

Lucia fell asleep in the buggy that I pulled her in and really enjoyed the ride.

Since it was a Friday we did not want to fight the traffic home so we decided to stay down there and enjoy dinner at a wonderful Mexican restaurant attached to Krog St Market.  They serve authentic Mexican Food made with local and organic ingredients - a match made in heaven for me!

Here is our attempt at a picture with my 4 kiddos!:

Happy Birthday to Ricardo!!!!

Ricardo's 41st birthday was last Tuesday and we had a super special time celebrating together.  His birthday request was a family game of golf and a dinner out.  We asked D and A's teachers for early dismissal for them and picked them up at 12:00 and headed straight to the golf course.  We left Lucia at home with a babysitter since there was no way she could've handled this outing!  We had a quick picnic lunch in the club house and then hit the course:

Making sure to stretch before the game

Alexia was adorable!  She loved playing and did her very best.  She hit every hole from tee to green and did great.  

We were pressed for time to get home to relieve the babysitter and pick Lucia up for our dinner reservation so we only played 5 holes, but we had a lot of fun!  

As you can see in the picture, Marco now loves to practice his swing, everywhere he goes.  

Lucia presents to you our dinner destination!  Fogo De Chao

This little munchkin handled our 2 hour dinner like a champ.  She chowed down on pao de quejio all evening long!

Birthday selfie :)

This boy ate his body weight in meat....actually all the kids (and daddy!) did!

We have a walker!!! I took the crew on a walk yesterday and the kids love to ride around a cul de sac close to home. I let lucia walk around, but as soon as I wanted a picture of her, she sat down!

We rode about 8 miles on Friday (for my birthday!!) and this champ was amazing! He kept right up!

Ricardo took marco on a golf & sushi date today. The bigs, lucia and I biked/walked to the library this morning, had a panic lunch in the backyard and now the bigs are loving their reading time!!!