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.

Busy days are happy days

Our days tend to go by faster and happier when we are busy. Not a surprise, right? This has been one of those weeks that we've had a lot going on and have had a blast. Ricardo has even been home for dinner two nights this week which is such a treat. In fact, last night he was even home in time for us all to play a family board game before dinner, which just tickled Diego with excitement.

On Monday we went to visit Dollina and Nathan for playtime and lunch. Dollina is an amazing cook and we had a fabulous Indian feast. I lost track of how many dishes she prepared, but each of them was so special. Diego stuck with green beans and rice, but did take little nibbles of everything Auntie Dollina served him. We had a nice time and Alexia kept right up with the boys, doing everything they did.

On Tuesday we had our regular playgroup with our dear friends, but my camera ran out of battery as I tried to snap a picture of all the kids so I will have to wait for someone to email me the photos they took. Jana and her family moved to Rome, GA this week so it was our last playgroup with Jana and MaraKate for awhile. We will miss them dearly, but are so excited that they are only going to be an hour away so we still get to visit them on a regular basis.

Yesterday (Wednesday) we kept Gwen's three kids for the day and had a fun day with them. Diego adores Asher and showers him with the cuddles the second he walks through the door. They have a blast together - reading, making tents, having pillow fights, wrestling, talking, painting. It is really sweet to see how a 3-yr old and 7-yr old can have such a special friendship. Alexia and Hartley had a lot of fun together and even wrestled together after seeing Diego and Asher do it. Very cute! Having five kids sounds daunting, but the more I keep the Halsey kids, the more I realize that it really could be doable :)

Today we went to church playgroup and enjoyed a nice time of play and fellowship. We were supposed to go out to lunch with a friend, but she had to cancel. Diego was really excited that we were going to go to Chik Fil A so I still took the kids out to lunch. I really love taking the kids out to lunch when it's just the three of us (of course I love when Ricardo can join us, but that rarely happens). When it's just us, they behave wonderfully, they eat all their food and are just a pleasure to be with. We enjoyed our meal, played in the playground for awhile and then bought an ice cream cone to eat on the front terrace. As we were walking to the car, Diego spotted a rosemary plant and was very excited to stop and smell it. Some of my favorite moments as a mom are those in which I can pause with the kids and really enjoy God's creation together.



Diego and Nathan finishing off their jell-o after lunch. Notice Diego's is GONE. He inhaled it. It is only the second time he has ever had jell-o so it was a big deal for him!



The boys painting with water colors



Alexia also painted, but had a special chair, next to Auntie Dollina and I.



This was hilarious. The boys said their watermelon slices were rocket ships and they ate them as pictured above. There Alexia is just checking those wacky boys out...



...but of course she had to jump in and do it along with them!

Where's the bunny!?!?

Alexia playing "peek a boo" behind the curtain

An early morning art project

I showed her how to use this as a telescope with her eye. She tried and it wouldn't make it past her nose!

The big kids waiting for lunch to be ready

After lunch we had a quiet reading time for 40 minutes. Diego and Asher sat on the couch and read...

...and then relocated to the playroom.

After reading time we had some pool/sprinkler time and then watched a video. Before I took the babes down to do puzzles in the playroom, I had to snap a shot of the 5 of them together in the bed. Precious!

We've had two wedding photos sitting on our floor for almost a year now. Ricardo decided yesterday was a good day to hang them up, but of course he needed a helper!

This was a sweet moment to see our son hanging up our wedding photo!

Alexia was quite the little worker as well.

Whenever Diego has smoothies in the mornings he complains of getting really cold. I had to take a picture of him wearing a sweater at breakfast, in 80+ degree weather!

Diego gets a sweater so Alexia does too!

Diego loves to take pictures with the camera. Considering our camera is quite large, I am sometimes impressed with the pictures he takes. This was a cute one from this morning.