baptized!

Someone's excited about his big day! Sunday best and ready to get wet.


Proud big sister.


So this was his first time ever sitting in the service with us...he usually goes to the kid's class. It was really hard to sit still in the bouncy chairs.


Playing with his brother was much more fun. Add in two sprints around the auditorium with his dad right behind him, and I bet it was a great show.


This is Pastor Pete. Pastors must know about baptizing three year olds. They both came over and practiced picking him up and walked him through it before the service started. (But I think Diego must have forgotten all that fourteen minutes later.)


I am so thankful I passed the camera off to a friend. I told her just to shoot, it's okay if they don't come out. But she did an amazing job, given the lighting and blurry shots my camera likes to take.


Getting ready...


...not so sure about this anymore. He clung to me like a monkey, or maybe an octopus.


"Nooooo!"


Oh. It's really not that bad.


Add the lit candle, and it's great! Look at our grips on that thing. But it's amazing how a candle makes everything more special. I need to light more candles. "You are the light of the world."


We invited friends over for lunch after the service. I said small. I said informal. But when I realized people were actually going to come, I wanted to make it special.


This little wreath didn't take long to make. I ripped up white cloth, hot glued a stick cross, added some coffee filter flowers and then this cute little white dove I found at Michael's. Ripping cloth was the new lesson we learned for this party. You simply cut a small slit on one side then PULL! And it rips straight and even. Very fun!



I tried to do spring colors with lots of white. The bird cage was a great find from Michael's half off! I've always wanted one of those bird cages.

Love the dove. And the egg cups I found a couple of weeks ago at the antique store...I've always wanted egg cups, too, I don't know why.

Here's a closer look at those coffee filter flowers. Isabela made most of them. They are super easy with this tutorial, and you could even spray them with colored water to change their color.

A white mantel and more of those ripped sheets.

And buntings are all the rage right now...and I can't get enough of them. I just eyeballed some triangles I cut from green cloth, then quickly sewed them onto....ripped sheet. I ended up hot glueing them to the window...on purpose...there just wasn't a place to tie them to.

Diego had one little friend at his party that was just his age. They were definitely SO CUTE together. Well, first he bopped her in the head with a balloon, but then I guess he decided she would be fun to play with.

There were a lot of kids at the party, so we thought up a few activities. One was an Easter egg hunt...inside the eggs were ABC bible verses. Once they found an egg, they had to look up the verse in the Bible and read it to an adult. This was great practice in finding Bible verses.

The craft were these amazing empty tomb Easter plantings. A great pinterest find.

On Easter morning, you roll away the stone and the tomb is empty!

We waited three years to get him baptized, mostly because we just kept forgetting. But God's timing is great...coinciding with Easter and his birthday....celebrating with wonderful friends, it will be a wonderful memory for Diego!

saying goodbye

We had a visitor the other night...the night Diego turned three.

She came while he was sleeping, and snuck off without us hearing.

Can you guess what she took?

The chupi fairy took his pacifier to give to the 'new babies'. Well, really Diego gave his pacifier to her. We'd talked it up for weeks....when he turned three, he'd have to give his chupi to the fairy, and she would leave him a really great present.

We even took it for a test drive a couple of weeks ago. He said he wanted to leave his chupi for the fairy, so he snuggled up in bed without it. But a few short minutes later, he wanted it back.

Well, then came his birthday.

I didn't want the fairy to TAKE his chupi without him knowing...I wanted him to give it to her. He was ready, but placing them (he had two) in the dollar store bug catcher box sealed the deal. We left the box in the window and were eager to see what she would bring him in the morning.

He went off to sleep happy, and I was amazed.

But then he woke up at 2am. Crying and crying for his chupi. The fairy had already come...and left him a HUGE tractor trailer loaded up with cars...but giant plastic toys don't compare to something you've loved for three years. He was inconsolable. He cried the tears you cry when something's gone and you'll never get it back. I cried with him. I know that feeling. I've felt it too many times.

But thank you for daddies, who know that things won't always be this bad. He laid by him in the hallway as Diego pushed us all away, feeling the pain of loss.

An hour later, all was quiet and he slept for the rest of the night.

If you ask him about his chupi, he knows the fairy took it. But every now and then, he'll forget and ask where it is. There's been no more tears though. One painful night, and it's all over.

There's really no easy way around this. Babies without pacifiers cry when they're little, boys with pacifiers, cry when they're bigger. And there's nothing a mom (or dad) wants more than to be able to comfort their crying child.

It's hard to love something so much.

spiderman/zoo party

My perfectionist party tendencies are gone. I'm not sure how or why...but all that time spent pinning beautiful coordinated parties was really unnecessary.

You can tell just by that Martha Stewart tissue paper puff...it's poofed out. (Those things really aren't as easy as she makes them look.)


But it's much less stressful to simply accept help and enjoy the party instead of obsessing on the set up.

My aunt was so kind to let us invade her house and throw up cheap Walmart punch-outs and marker colored poster board all over her walls.


(I didn't even finish making the windows on the buildings!)


Just a random shot thrown in...but that's one giant pine cone!


We headed to the National Zoo before the party. Diego loves animals and we hadn't been there in awhile. (Yes, I have absolutely no style....that's the diaper bag the hospital gave me when Diego was born.)


We weren't there 10 minutes before Isabela fell down and bloodied her knee...that's blood on her skirt. They patched her up at the first aid clinic a mile away and she's still limping to this day.


Quick shot of the fam.


It turns out the National Zoo puts a strong emphasis on education about animals. Which was fine at the prairie dog tunnels...the kids had fun running through them and popping up to look for predators....but in general, the animals at this zoo are few and far between. Our local zoo is a little better for Diego's age...lots of animals, little educating.


I've been trying to be better about giving up the camera just to prove I was there, too. I really enjoy taking pictures, but I also want to be in them.


Juan Pablo stopped to get some bugs picked out of his hair.


The orangutan crossing was definitely the highlight.


If I was an orangutan, I'd stay out there all day.


Although, that is pretty high.


AND....this was the moment Diego had been waiting for all day. I had tried to sing happy birthday to him at the zoo, and he covered my mouth and said, "Not yet, Mom, not yet."


He was even prepared to do the "cake in the face" tradition from Bolivia. His brother and sister went easy on him, and I was so happy...I had worried it might end in tears. (I guess the cake might need a little explanation. It was an angel food cake and the cool whip never got defrosted...so thankfully, Leah Ann had a can of spray whipped cream. Apparently, it doesn't spread as well. It didn't taste like it looked.)


He squealed for each present (minus one, which I'm sure he'll grow to love).


It was a very happy day. Thank you family for showing up and celebrating with us!!

three

Three wonderful years.

So, what's it like to be three?

Favorite song: the ABCs
Favorite book: Llama llama red pajama, Go Dog, Go!, Ten Apples Up on Top, Bubble Bath Pirates...and the list goes on
Favorite restaurant: Chick-away (better known as Chick-Fil-A)
Favorite color: Azul (blue)
Favorite game: fighting bad guys samuri-style with any long toy
Languages: English, Spanish, and his own precious one where Ls are Ws ("I wook a monkey") and Ss are Fs
Favorite food: anything unhealthy, probably Doritos would be first
Favorite show: Go, Diego Go, of course!

We love you so much, Diego! Happy Birthday!

sensory bins

Sensory bins are all the rage these days. They're all over pinterest. And I have to say I love them.

The hardest part of making one is remembering to buy the bags of beans on your weekly trip to the grocery store.

But I'm not sure when these bins became such a must have for the preschool crowd. I know I never played in one growing up. And I think I remember one in a class, ONCE, for ONE of my older kids.

Times have changed. I've made three of these for Diego so far. One was kernels of popcorn with farm animals for September, one was shredded paper with all things red and purple for February, and now lentils with gold coins and green stuff for March.

I'm not sure about Diego, but Isabela and I have had fun playing in it.

heritage

Isabela's teacher assigned a fun project this week...to make a clothespin doll that showed her heritage.

She immediately wanted to do a Bolivian doll...she loves her Bolivian roots, and so do I. But I considered.... what if I had to do this assignment, what kind of doll would I do? My family lineage has been here in the US so long, there really isn't a trace of culture from another land. I sometimes just feel like a plain ol' American.

But it's interesting.... on any given night, I'm serving chicken fried rice, spaghetti, tacos, or couscous for dinner. I listen to latin songs, classical music, country, and a little hip hop every now and then. We've been known to celebrate Chinese New Year, St. Patrick's Day, and Dia de los Muertos.

And I think back to some differences from when I lived in Bolivia, how I stood out from others around me. The 'rugged individualism' that Americans are known for really is true. For the majority of us, we raise our own kids, cook our own food, clean our own house, buy our own groceries, drive our own cars, pump our own gas, throw our own birthday parties. We smile and say hello when we walk down the street (at least some of us do) or when we enter a store. We hug. We're orderly and fair for the most part. (Quick example: do you place your flatware in the carefully molded plastic holder, or throw them in the drawer not caring where they land? I had no idea there was even the option to throw your flatware in a drawer haphazardly.) I'm not saying others aren't any of these things or don't do any of these things, but just remembering back to some broad generalizations here.

I'm not sure how you'd show any of this on a clothespin doll though.

I'm glad Isabela has Bolivia.

So when we looked at the blank clothespin, all I could picture was her wrapping it in some Bolivian cloth and drawing a stick figure happy face on it. And I'm sure that would have been fine.

But a little pinterest search found us this precious doll with a great tutorial. (Isabela loves pinterest just as much as I do.)

Three trips to two different stores finally yielded the round wooden doll head that makes these things so darn cute.

I thought Isabela had cut the cloth for her dress a little too short, but it turned out perfect. Her doll is a Bolivian dancer and to us, it looks like her skirt is twirling up, just like in the parades.





Isabela went on to write the longest paragraph of her life for this doll...reinforcing the importance of how great it is when a kid is interested in what they're learning about.

And I learned that even plain ol' Americans have something unique and special to be celebrated, as well.

ratoncitos

The kids and I love to look at old family videos. It usually happens at night and they know I'll let them stay up a little later watching these memories.

We came across this one of Isabela and Joaquin when we lived in Bolivia. Isabela was 4 and Joaquin had just turned 3. I love to show them they really did speak Spanish!!

Listen to those sweet angel voices.



Here are the lyrics:
Somos ratoncitos
Queremos comer
Un rico quecito
Luego a dormir.
Cuando es de noche,
No salimos más,
Porque el gato malo
Nos quiere comer.
Miau, miau, miau, miau, miau!

the garden project

I took on a huge project this year. And it just goes to show you, if you just say 'yes', you really can do anything.

The project: starting a garden at the kids' school, a public school. Which, of course, is a great idea for any school and people will smile and say, "Good luck with that! The kids will love it!" And they know it's a lot harder than I think, and they wonder if it will really happen.

And as soon as I started looking into it, I began to wonder the same thing.

Going against me:
public school requires lots of approval
local businesses had 'helped' our school with gardens before and weren't willing to try again
my budget was pretty small, $500 which also had to be used for other school beautification projects throughout the year
my second ever project (Pansy day was first!)
I love to plan, but actually doing it is another story
oh, and most importantly, I do NOT have a green thumb

Last year's Pansy Day, having the Kindergarteners plant 183 pansies around the school, was a great introduction for me on how to organize and pull together a project. Remember Donald Trump's apprentice? I was always so nervous for those people and said at every show, "I'm glad that's not me! I hate to be in charge."

And then here I am.

I said, "yes, I'll do it," getting out of my comfort zone, and now it's really happening!

The foot work was done last year. That included trying to figure out the best spot at the school for sun, water, teachers; I visited another school with an established garden and they offered me a manual to help us get started, along with some wise words of wisdom, "It's okay to start small."

Of course, God placed some great people around me to actually get us in to action this spring. A local farmer, a friend of another PTA member, had expressed interest in starting a garden at the school. I was given his name, and thankfully, he was more into doing than planning. He tilled a spot his first day out there. (OK. So I hadn't approved that spot and we had to scrap that idea...lesson learned.)

But here we are, spring right around the corner and we have five beds ready for planting. They've been tilled, composted, fertilized, and anything else you can do to them. So the farmer says we'll be able to stand out there and watch the seeds grow, they'll grow so fast.


We're putting up a compost bin, a rain barrel, a fence, and I'm imagining wind chimes and little garden statues that will make it fun and whimsical for the kids. Here's my pinterest garden board to see my grandiose ideas. And it needs a gate...what kid can resist a garden gate?


So last week, I was trying to think of a way to get the kids involved now, and I thought of giving the teachers "seed kits" to start growing in their classrooms. They said yes (another surprise to me) and then I had to figure out what these seed kits would be!

The easy part...we reused the perfect little pots from Pansy day...I knew I'd saved them for a good reason. And a squirt bottle for watering.


Twenty-five bags of dirt for each class...that's 125 bags total...Diego helped me pour and count.


I added a calendar for March and April to note when they sprout, who's watering, etc., a poster on what they are growing, and a visual on how to plant seeds. Add the seeds and some labels and it became a kit!


Five kits ready to go! If they all sprout, I think we've outgrown our garden already! Maybe we could have a plant sale?

season project

Joaquin loves projects.

Once he gets through the whining, crying, and frustration, he does a great job.