the hard way

We are having some work done in our house, and the kids were in the room watching the workers. Several minutes later, Joaquin come to me crying quietly, with his eyes shut, saying his eye was burning. I called Isabela out of the work room, thinking it must have been some dust that got in his eye.
I blew on his eye, and started to put water on it. I asked Joaquin, "What exactly happened so I know how to treat it?'

He said, "Well, I wanted to put some of dad's perfume on my neck, but it squirted in my eye." The truth.

So I flushed it as best I could with water. You should know, I heard someone go into the bathroom before all this happened, and I figured it was one of the workers. Actually, Joaquin had gone into the bathroom and tried to wash his eye out all by himself.

I had to laugh when I gave him this little lecture:

Me: We told you not to touch those things without mom or dad. So are you going to listen to us now, or are you going to have to learn the hard way?

Joaquin (in all honesty): I think I'm going to have to learn the hard way.

decisions

Have you ever made a decision and KNEW it was the right one? I mean really knew it. This past weekend I did, and it felt wonderful. Usually, I second guess myself, wish I had chosen the other option, realize I made the wrong choice...but not this time. We were all supposed to make a trip up to DC on Sunday to visit the Smithsonian museum. The night before, I told Juan Pablo, "I don't think Diego and I are going to go. Four hours in the car just to walk around all day is not going to be fun." Just saying that was a relief. And he agreed. So he and his brother, Isabela and Joaquin went...and Diego and I had the day all to ourselves. And I mean the whole day. They didn't even get back until 8:30pm.
So what would you do with a whole day to yourself? I cleaned a little. I definitely could have done more, but I wasn't going to waste a whole day to myself on something no one would even notice or care about. So I called a friend and we went jogging...I even got to use a real jogging stroller for Diego. Those things are heaven!! Although I wouldn't call myself jogging for the most part...some skipping, some really fast walking. Two miles on the open road is a little different from two miles on the treadmill. But it was great weather and fun to do with a friend.
Right now, I can't even remember what else I did that day, but I know it ended with a smile on my face and a peace in my heart.

How was JP's day you ask? The GPS got them lost on the way up there. They parked at the far end of the mall and had to walk miles before they reached a musuem. The kids were bored. They were all STARVING when they left the musuem only to walk to the closest McDonald's and have the building be closed. The jerk at the metro station wouldn't help them figure out the fare cards, so they ended up wasting $20 on one card. They drove back to Richmond and stopped by JP's job. As they were leaving to FINALLY head home, Joaquin took a dive into the sidewalk, scraping up his face.

Now, you tell me...did I make a good decision, or what?

a sesame street education

The other day in the car, Joaquin was telling us about a show they watched at school for the Chinese New Year. It was called Big Bird Goes to China. He was cracking up about these two guys that decided to dig a hole in the ground to get to China.

Me: Now you know, Joaquin, you couldn't really dig a hole in the ground to get to China.

Joaquin: Yeah, I know.

Me: Do you know why?

Joaquin (with complete confidence): Too many worms.

little sneaker

This Diego is a little tricky one. He loves to hide things in our shoes.


He hasn't figured this one out yet, but he's working on it.

first dance

They start them early now. Friday night, Isabela had a daddy/daughter dance at her school. I think it was part of a fundraiser for the school, with $10 wrist corsages and $20 photo ops. I left those details out when I told Isabela about the dance, so I figured we'd gotten out of any big spending... but I didn't think to mention it to JP. He ended up in the corsage line because that's where every one was...they said her name was not on the list, but not to worry, she could bring the money on Monday. Oh, well.

I hadn't thought much about what she'd wear, knowing she had this pretty pink dress that would look beautiful on her...except that it was TOO SMALL. Man, has she been growing.


Luckily, we dug deep into my closet and found this summery dress, and the perfect little shrug to match it.


Isn't anticipation the best part of the night?



Juan Pablo called me all upset close to the end of the dance...some mean girl was making the little group of girls run away every time Isabela came close. He dealt with it, and nobody got hurt. Although he said Isabela was crying...I think Cinderella had just stayed out past the curfew.

The next morning, she had nothing but happy stories to share about the night. Don't you just love the memories of children?

soup links!

Last week I was in the mood for soup. That is really ironic for me...I don't remember my mom ever making a homemade soup growing up...it was chicken and stars for me. Plus, when I first met JP, he ate soup everyday, and I couldn't understand why. I thought, 'Who wants soup everyday?' But now I get it...it's easy to make, there are tons of ways to make them, they feed lots of people, and with weather like this, they are delicious.

So here are links to three I tried this week...the first time I ever made them, and each one was delicious.

Irish Beef Stew...a must with St. Patrick's Day coming up. This was the most delicious beef I've ever had in a stew. You don't brown the meat before...plus I cooked the whole thing on top of the oven, not in the oven like the recipe said, and it still came out great.

Potato Soup...this is my favorite and very easy to make. I cooked the potatoes in the microwave and it was still delicious.

Tortilla Soup...I just made this one tonight. I think I halved the chili powder amount, and I didn't add any cilantro, but the rest was pretty much the same. Even Diego loved it!

Let me know how you like them if you try one of these.

translation, please

Last night was science night! Too late at night, if you ask me (which they didn't)...but the kids had fun going from class to class doing different experiments. It was a little hot and tiring for the rest of us...I dragged the whole family along, including Julio who is visiting from Bolivia for two weeks. Here's a funny conversation that was overheard:

teacher: See how one grape has bubbles all around it and the other one doesn't? The one with no skin acted like a sponge and soaked up the bubbles.

Julio (to Isabela): That's called permeability.

Isabela: What?!

Julio: Per-me-a-bil-ity.

Isabela (to the teacher, as if to explain): He speaks Spanish.

Lent

Tomorrow begins the season of Lent. It's is something I've never really observed...I don't think I've ever given anything up or even understood why I would need to. But this year, I'm thinking it might be something good to do with my children.

Some people make a calendar. You can see examples here.

Then I started wondering what the United Methodist Church has to say about Lent....and I found this great site that has activities and devotionals for families to follow each week.

And this article helped me understand a little better WHY we should take the walk through the desert...and hopefully, Easter will mean more to us than chocolate bunnies and Cadbury eggs.

frozen

Yesterday, we stopped to investigate our lake which has been frozen for most of the winter. We were wondering how thick that ice was. Don't worry....this does not end badly.
I was driving, so I pulled over to the side of the road while JP got out with the two older kids. Diego and I waited in the car.

I gave JP the camera, and this is the one and only shot he came back with.

But he said the ice was pretty thick. They threw a rock on it and it landed right on top...so they threw a boulder on it...it cracked but did not fall in!

So I'm sitting there watching in the rearview mirror as they are headed back to the car, and who should pull up with his lights flashing but a policeman. I think he was just being nice to see if there was a problem, but he did make my heart skip a beat.

a new favorite

I have another new favorite blog! If you want to see more beautiful photography, read more beautiful words about the love of family, and learn how to enjoy the small things in life, bookmark this site.

The first post I read was the birth story of her second girl. A must read. A tearjerker. A happy ending. It's here.

more valentines

Need another valentine idea? These turned out pretty cute.




They say "you shake me up" and have a handful of loose candy in them, like skittles or m&ms.

The original idea came from skip to my lou and we just improvised a little and added the words.

a day off

The kids have had plenty of days that look like the picture above. And today, it was finally my turn! School is in. Although, we've actually been doing school this whole time.
Sight words. Writing. Reading. Repeat.
I joked with them yesterday that I had actually taken them out of school and we were homeschooling again...that all their friends had been going to school this whole time. They had a shocked look on their faces. Well, I thought it was funny.
I don't know if it was "because" of our time homeschooling in the beginning of the year, or if it would have happened regardless...but they are both a little behind in the reading department at school. Of course, we read a ton of books in our school, but it was more me reading to them.

So here are some of the things we did this past week:

Old Maid with Isabela's sight words...we wrote each word twice on index cards and had one card with an old maid...then we dealt them out..the only catch was Isabela had to read each match that was found, whether it was mine or hers.

Menus! Isabela writes the menu for each meal and goes around asking everyone what they would like...I write the correct spelling above and she compares them.

We also tried dictation from a Dr. Seuss book.

We played a matching game with pairs of Joaquin's sight words on index cards. Another way is to have one set of the words face up, and call out the word to see if he can find it. After doing that once, he could read almost all the sight words when I used them as flash cards.

And Valentines!! Isabela started this all on her own on the first snow day...and it just kind of kept going from there. When they got tired of making one kind of card, they switched to another. Together they need to make 45! Now that's a lot of love.

sick!

It's amazing how you can be so sick one day and fine the next. The night before last, I woke up with the "throw up" bug. I had a fever, chills, aches. Juan Pablo's famous cure for this is homemade pedialyte.

1 liter of water
8 teaspoons of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt

But, he gave me this saying he had to go to work. I insisted he had to stay home because I couldn't even get out of bed to take care of the kids, but he insisted he had to go.

So it's true, moms can do anything, and I made it through the day. The two older kids watched movies all day, and Diego spent alot of time in his crib, took two naps with me, and played in Isabela's room for awhile.

Now, when JP got home, he had to run out to the grocery store. I suggested he take the kids.

His response: All three?!!

a precious boy

Do you see what I see?

the frame maker

My mother in law brought us a beautiful painting from an artist in Bolivia LAST YEAR. It was too expensive to get it framed at a store, and Juan Pablo said it was easy to make a frame. We finally did it yesterday!

We don't have an electric miter saw, so we picked up one of those yellow boxes at Lowes, along with the wood and nails. I didn't get a picture of Juan Pablo sawing it, but he got a good work out from it.


Here he is nailing the cloth onto the frame.


Finished! This is the mountain Sajama in Bolivia. Wikipidia says it is the highest peak in Bolivia. You can read more here.


Who put that lamp in the way? I think I'm going to need some new lighting. And I'd like to frame it out with some moulding. It's funny how one project just leads to another.

this boy is teething

Yes, that's a knobbed puzzle piece in his mouth. He was just crawling around the house and playing like usual with that huge "pacifier" in his mouth.

Three teeth and counting!

got a saw?

(pottery barn image)
My new favorite dream site is Knock Off Wood.

She shows you how to build amazing pieces of furniture just like the stores we all love.

Check it out and be inspired!

Lowe's, here I come!


(land of nod image)

olympics 2010

We are so looking forward to the Winter Olympic Games this year. I think our recent skiing trip is why it so exciting. We made these folders to hold things we learn about the games and there is a resource right here with lots of information, activities and printouts. I also recommend an interesting book called WOW Canada...after reading it, we'd all like to travel there someday.


Visit vancouver2010 for the official website.

tired?

So this is why I'm always so tired! I couldn't put it into words, and at first it doesn't make sense why a stay at home mom, with no deadlines, meetings, or office, would be busy and tired, and seemingly get nothing done all day. This article explains it well, and it's funny. Read here.

coupons!

I love this coupon thing! I got all these groceries from Kroger last week for $40 some dollars...saving 58% of my bill.


Now, I tried the CVS couponing...I spent $46 out of pocket, and saved $70. I got all of this. Now it doesn't look like much, but there's three packs of batteries, a big thing of detergent, lots of body wash, aspirin, among other stuff. I'm not sure if this one actually saved me much, because CVS is usually so overpriced anyway, but we certainly have things I NEVER would have bought if I hadn't used the coupons.


I did it at Food Lion last week, and did great... then went again to Kroger today, and didn't do as well as the first time, but still pretty good. However, when I came home, Juan Pablo told me not to go to the store anymore... since our cupboards are overflowing. We've never had this much food before, and I've spent less than I normally do.

So the best piece of advice friends have told me is this:

If it's on sale AND you have a coupon, that's when to buy it. Plan your meals around that.

hearts

Another super easy sewing project completed. I cut hearts out of the scrap suede I found yardsale-ing last summer....Joaquin arranged them in the order he chose...then both kids helped step on the pedal, and I just sewed straight through them, leaving a little thread space before I added each heart.


I really couldn't find a good way to hang them, since the hearts are vertical, but this is kind of fun. Diego was enthralled, laughing and reaching out to them every time he came in the room.

project completed!

I am the queen of finding a project to do and never doing it. But I've finally done one...and I did it in one day! I found some material that I had bought last summer at a yard sale and after seeing this great post about pillow cases, I thought this material would work great.

But I decided, after looking at my own pillow case for awhile, to make it just a little bit fancier than the simple pillow case.

First I cut two pieces about 10 inches long (and the width of the pillow) for each pillow case...then I ironed them with the edge turned under and then folded in half.


The pillow case is a long piece of material folded in half. I slipped each end into the cuff I made above (one for each end) and sewed it along both edges of the cuff to give it a little more detail. Then you pin the pillow case right sides together, and sew down each edge.


And here they are on my bed! Of course, I have nothing blue in my room at all. But I love my new pillow cases! I put a model on my bed and told him to smile to make the picture a little more interesting to others. It was really easy...so now I'm going to be on the look out for great pillow case fabric.

need color?

I know this goes against the rules of blogging, but I saw this cute craft on one that I read, and I can't find it now to link back up....just know that this was not my idea.
Anyway, if you need a burst of color in your home with all this beautiful white snow around us...try this out.


Fill your watercolor paints with water...using a straw by putting your finger over it is the best way.


Then fold your paper towel in half into a rectangle, then in half again into a square, then into a triangle three times.... and dip it into the colors.


Even Joaquin got into the action.


Hang and be amazed!

eight minutes

Having a plain, boring, ordinary day? All you mothers of small children, try to find eight uninterrupted minutes and watch this video. It sure made me thankful.