Church retreat and little bit more

Last weekend we went on our church retreat and it was awesome. Ricardo flew in from London on Friday afternoon, we loaded up the car and hit the road around 3:30pm. We arrived at Cohutta Springs, which is a beautiful conference center on a small lake, about 2 hours from home. We checked in to our hotel room and got lost finding our friends for dinner so we ended up having an improvised picnic on the lawn for dinner...

After dinner, we went to the hotel room to change clothes, attended the welcome session and then headed down to the bonfire at 9pm. Here Alexia is on Pastor Pete's shoulders, on our way to the bonfire. We roasted marshmallows and enjoyed smores. After the fun, we headed back to the hotel where all five of us slept in one room. It went much better than we had expected. The first night, I slept with Diego and Ricardo slept with Alexia. On Saturday night, we put Diego and Alexia together in the one bed and they thought that was the coolest thing ever. We all slept well since we went to bed so late both nights...we were pooped!

It was a wonderful weekend of important teachings, special fellowship with friends and a true reflection of what God's church is.

We had free time all of Saturday afternoon...can you guess what Diego spent hours doing during that time? Yep, playing soccer! He played with the big kids and had so much fun. He even scored a goal which was a big deal for him since he was half the size of a lot of the other players!

And Alexia had a group of big girls that were loving on her all afternoon. Here she is with Emma and Avery, having a blast!

So excited to go for a canoe ride!

Diego was part of a wonderful Children's program. They spent all of Saturday morning, part of Saturday afternoon and part of Sunday morning together. After the church service on Sunday morning, they came in to sing songs and share the memory verses they had learned. Diego is in a white shirt, on the left side. He really enjoyed his special time of learning about God's word, spending time with his friends and making new friends.

We missed Addie's birthday party so when both daddies were out of town, we went over to their house for dinner. We had our own little bday celebration with her and enjoyed brownies. The kids had a blast playing together and May and I enjoyed spending the evening together.

A butterfly princess with a gun...doesn't get cuter than this!

We have so many pictures of Diego and Alexia in this same bouncy seat. A Lopez family classic!

I had to snap a picture of what our mornings look like. Every morning Diego and Alexia sit up on the counter top to have smoothies and breakfast. Diego seems to be having a growth spurt because his appetite has really picked up. For breakfast he has a smoothie (milk, banana, blueberries and flax seed), plain yogurt with honey and half a piece of toast. Alexia usually has half a smoothie and half a piece of toast with peanut butter and banana. They stay up on the counter until they've finished their meal and then head down to get changed and cleaned up. This is the only time of the day that they get to sit on the counter and it's become a fun morning routine.


A different view so you can lil' Marco's place during breakfast time. I can't believe in just a little over two months, he'll be having his own meal!

We've decided to homeschool Diego for pre-K year and we started our program last week. The curriculum is called "My Father's World" and we love it. The first 10 days are about creation and learning about what God created on each day. I will have to take a picture of Diego's "creation book" that he made. Alexia has been able to participate in the daily lessons and enjoys coloring. I will do a separate post with more details about this curriculum and why we chose it and what we will be learning this year. It is very exciting! As you can see, Alexia decided to come to the table with her wings on...

...and the next day she decided she needed to do school with her sunglasses on :)

A friend of mine came over for lunch a couple of weeks ago and she has a sweet baby. Felicity is two months older than Marco. They were so cute on the floor together.

I have been working on this post off and on all evening. The kids are all in bed now and I am heading up myself. My friend, Gwen and her kids are arriving late tonight to spend a few nights with us. Her father will be with them tonight so he will sleep in Diego's bed. We put a sleeping bag on the floor of Alexia's room for Diego and they were thrilled to sleep together...until Alexia realized she was going to be stuck inside the crib and he was going to be on the floor. So, Ricardo took the mattress out of her crib and put it right next to Diego on the floor. We just peeked in at them and Diego has rolled out of the sleeping bag and Alexia is as snug as can be in the middle of her crib mattress. We'll see how the night goes...!

An afternoon at the fair

I am so sorry for the lack of posts lately. I don't think we have too many readers who check in on a daily basis, but I know those who do and I know you've been eager to read about your great-grandchildren, Abue. We hope you are feeling better Abuelo and we love you!


Had to start by sharing this adorable picture of our super-happy, super-star, super-chubby baby. He is just amazing and brings us countless smiles and cuddles every day! We love you Marco!

Ricardo left work early yesterday and we headed to the North Georgia state fair. With traffic, it took us an hour to get there, but the kids were so excited that we were going to the fair that they didn't seem to mind the long drive. Diego remembers when we went to the fair last year so it is so fun to repeat a tradition that he has memories of! He remembered that last year he could not do the bumper cars or go on the Ferris wheel...but this year he could! We had such a blast and decided not to look at our watches and to leave after we felt we'd played enough, regardless of the time. We split up for a little while and I took Alexia on the carousel (two times) and the nemo ride (two times) and Ricardo took Diego on the ferris wheel and bumper cars. Marco came with us girls and was as happy as can be, in the baby carrier. We had dinner, cotton candy and headed home around 8:30pm.

Diego LOVED this jumpy thing.

Heading up to what Diego called "The playground" It had a rope ladder, bridges, slides, etc all set up like a maze. Alexia was nervous doing it all, but Diego cheered her on and waited for her after each part.

A very happy mom and her kiddos

Alexia LOVED this Nemo ride. I love the smile of excitement on her face here.

Diego was excited to experience what all the hype was about after Alexia told him she had gone twice.

The big kids got tired so we let Diego ride in her stroller, she rode in Marco's stroller (yes, that is the car seat) and Ricardo carried Marco in the baby bjorn.

Watching the elephants on our way out.

Marco needed to nurse before we left and Alexia sat behind me and hugged my neck for a long time and it felt so sweet and so special. I loved having her little arms wrapped tightly around my neck.

Everyone happy and tired after a ton of fun at the fair!

(I will be doing some "catch up" posts to share pictures from the last two weeks)

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.