sock hop

Juan Pablo put on his blue suede shoes once again for the annual father/daughter dance at Isabela's school. He said it was much better this year...Isabela actually danced with him.


I made her a poodle skirt to go with the theme. Luckily, she wasn't the only one with one on....but she LOVES this skirt. I used the tutorials here and here. It was really easy.


I've made Isabela a dress before, it took days...it was from a pattern...and once I was done, she didn't like it. There's nothing like these blog tutorials with pictures, and hints and detailed instructions....definitely much easier than a pattern.


This was the first time I sewed with elastic....the trick is to stretch the elastic tight while you're sewing it.


The scarf was just an extra piece of the skirt material...the headband Juan Pablo rescued from the goodwill pile at his work.


She's asked to wear it everyday to school since...I think that's a good sign.

batman

been taking care of a sick baby.
hopefully he'll be back to his crime-fighting ways real soon.

V-day, take two

Our morning out lead us to the mall, full of stores that I no longer recognize. I don't think I've actually been inside the mall in a year. We happily followed Diego's wandering trail from ride-on car to ride-on car without a quarter in our pocket.

But yay! to Qdoba for adding a little spark to our date. They have a special today... buy one, get one if you kiss somebody. Kissing in public...wow, I think it's been awhile! :) What a great meal.

I headed home after that with a sleepy Diego and was able to finish all my valentines.



And crepe paper up the kids' doors.

They're gonna love it.

Juan Pablo's valentine has a cute poem I found in Spanish. Some are way too deep for me, but this one was short and sweet.

For a glance, a world,
For a smile, a heaven,
For a kiss, I don't know,
What I'd give for a kiss!
(Gustavo Adolfo Becquer)


Happy V-Day, times two!

valentine's day fizzle

I started February off with a great bang.

I had found this cute idea to give Juan Pablo 14 days of valentine's leading up to the big day. I've never really celebrated V-Day. I Just thought I'd try something different this year.

One of the days involved me waking up early and making cupcakes. Another was a jar with 10 reasons I love him...(and I was happily able to find ten.) His favorite was the "how's about you give me a shot this valentines" attached to a nerf gun. He said it was the best present he'd ever gotten.

Well, the last three days I've been too busy and too tired to leave any little treats or notes behind. I'm not sure if he even noticed. I mean sometimes I left them in front of his face, and he never even saw them. Plus, I'm pretty sure gift giving is not one of his five love languages.

Then I had great plans early this morning to block the kids' bedroom doors off with red crepe paper...I've always wanted to do that...so they'd have to break out of it to get out of their rooms. But Diego woke up at 4:30am and when I got him back to sleep, I decided to just sleep myself.

I did make muffins for breakfast and heart shaped sandwiches for their lunch, but I didn't finish their valentines cards and Isabela was disappointed.

I guess when you say you're organizing your time better, this is bound to happen.

On a brighter note, Juan Pablo goes in late today, so Diego and I have the whole morning with him. We're going to turn this day around!

Happy Valentine's Day!

inferno

Quick update to the fire post I just wrote about.

Life is so full of lessons. And sometimes you're not sure which lesson you're learning.

Did you ever read the part in the Bible about God leading the people of Israel by a pillar of fire by night? It's quite possible we witnessed this last night.

I had finally finished cleaning up a bit inside and decided to take Diego out with me and sit by the warm fire Juan Pablo had been tending.

He loves to fill me in on how many leaves and dead trees he's burned, so he told me he had just burned one of the bushes we had pulled (two years ago!) and I glanced at the fire and didn't see a trace of it.

Me: "Wow. It's completely gone."

JP: "Yeah, it burned really quick."

Me: "Burn another one. I want to see."

Ooohh, I wish I'd never said that.

He goes over and drags back one of these huge, twiggy, dried up bushes that have been sitting out there so long, they've become part of the landscaping.....and he throws the whole thing on the fire. The reason we pulled these bushes up in the first place was because they were TOO BIG. So this giant dead bush is now spilling over the edges of the ring by several feet, and it's mounded on top of the fire about three feet. Juan Pablo is stepping on the root ball to keep it steady.

I watch its spindly branches quickly light up and then my jaw drops open as a blazing pillar of flames shoots about thirty feet in the air... taller than our house. The flames are racing up like someone poked a wide hole in the ground, and a geyser of hot lava was trying to escape its years of captivity. Diego was sitting in my lap saying, "Oh my God." I was frozen in my seat, unable to take my eyes off of it, but repeating, "I'm scared." The winter branches of nearby live trees were in my line of sight, and I could only imagine them catching fire and the whole woods flaming up. And there was nothing we could do but watch in awe and pray that it would all end quickly and peacefully.

I kid you not ....that bush was gone in four minutes flat. Juan Pablo and I just stared at each other with the most astonished looks on our faces. Really, we were speechless at what we had just witnessed.

Isabela came out just as the fire had completely calmed down, oblivious to the whole thing, "Nice fire, Dad."

Lesson (among others) learned: Don't throw giant well-seasoned bushes on your fire.

I'm just glad we didn't have to learn it the hard way.

fire

If you've seen a steady stream of smoke signals rising from behind our house, this would be why.


Juan Pablo's Christmas present from me. A fire ring. And this will go down in history as one of the best presents. Ever.


He's always been a great fire starter, except for the first time. Our one-bedroom townhouse quickly filled with smoke. The flue was open, but the air outside was so cold, it was pressing the hot air back into our house. We learned then that you need to hold a lit piece of paper up the flue to get the current flowing in the right direction.

But the ring is SO MUCH BETTER. It's gotten us outside for hours at a time. It's helped get rid of mountains of leaves that still clutter every corner of our yard. And look at the kids just chattin' round the fire. I've NEVER seen them do this.


Juan Pablo got wise and started filling our big, blue, unused baby pool full of leaves to throw onto the fire. The fire roars up and sends little sparks floating off into the air, fizzling out in a few seconds.

Every now and then, he gets a little too enthusiastic, and turns our warm fireside into a giant bonfire.


Last night, I was reading a little local newspaper we get in the mail each week. It said the State Fire Ban goes into a effect February 15...no burning after 4pm. I told JP, "It's a good thing we get this paper!" He replied, "It's a good thing you read it!"

puddles and shadows

Well, it started out with a HUGE downpour and blustery, wintery winds. Outlook not so good for us to skip over winter this year. But sure enough, the sun came out and we were able to do this:


Our yard and driveway have some great holes for rain puddles. There's also some tiny ones that always sneak up on you when you're chasing the kids around the yard...they make you almost twist your ankle as you fall to the ground, so watch out for those.


This one might make a great ice skating rink if we get any really cold temperatures.


I've been doing much better at balancing my time lately. I've started working part-time (just a few hours a week), the house is straighter, I'm still hitting the gym, and I even had time to put up a bulletin board at the kids' school and do some crafts with Diego. I credit this to leaving Facebook...and this is from a self-proclaimed non user of it. I can only guess that reading what other people were doing wasted my time and motivated me to do less. I do still wonder what everyone is doing, which is weird. I never thought about it before, and I imagine it will pass with time.


Diego thought his 'guys' might like to take a dip.


Joaquin was never really into action figures...but I'm thinking Diego might be getting some for his upcoming birthday. Yes, THREE is right around the corner.


Diego had an observer while he was splashing around in the puddles. At one point, Kitty had jumped down on the side mirror and had her paw outstretched.... claws and all.... trying to brush Diego's hair. He was oblivious to it. Whenever we go outside, she always appears out of nowhere to tag along and play. I love that about her.


I set up the timer on the camera just so you could see how I spent part of the day. Chillin' in the porch swing. Nothing better.


So it seems the little fellow saw his shadow after all. Doesn't he always see his shadow?


I've been a real slacker in the craft department with Diego lately. So we did two to make up :)

I was shocked at how well he cuts! I've been letting him play around with scissors and cut scraps of paper, but nothing with lines on it. He was able to stay on the line I drew and was all smiles when he opened it into a heart shape. And this boy can glue, too! I taught him by saying, "Squeeze, dot, squeeze, dot, squeeze, dot" so he squeezes it while it's in the air, then carefully dots it onto his paper. This groundhog was supposed to be just a head, but he was having so much fun he wanted to add a body and feet.

Happy Groundhog's Day!!