frugal father's day

We're trying something new around here lately.  The dreaded "B" word....budgeting.

We've never been big spenders, but we're good at nickel and dime-ing ourselves to a zero balance.

This was my old budget: spend until JP told me to stop...then make-do until we had more money.
That doesn't leave much room for savings or emergencies.

So this month we got tight.

All extra spending is out for now.  We can buy gas and groceries, and that's about it.

Every now and then, one of us breaks the rules, but for the most part it's been a fun experiment at not spending a cent.

So what to do about father's day?

Basically, it comes down to using what you have.

And believe me, we ALL have enough stuff.  We just have to be creative with it.

Joaquin's gift was a planter...that is supposed to look like his dad.  If you grow something like grass, or clover in it, it will look like hair.



Thanks to That Artist Woman for the great tutorial.

Working with clay is really hard, and Joaquin usually ends up in tears, so I helped a lot, especially getting the pieces to hold onto the pot.  But when we had finished there was some left over clay, and he decided to make an angry bird.... all on his own.  He used the same techniques, and it turned out great.

Joaquin always seems to do better when there are no directions to follow.



Isabela made the sweetest sewn book for Juan Pablo....ten things she loves about him.  She sewed it herself, after I printed off the cover.  And I left her on her own for the ten ideas and spelling.  There's a few interesting words, but it's all decipherable.


This was my favorite page..."you are brave"...with daddy getting a spider.  He's good at that.


And Diego's gift was really made by (shhh!).....me and Joaquin.  But so fitting for his love of matchbox cars.


Does this look fun after a hard day's work, or what?  The front of this shirt said  'I love Hollywood' so I  crossed out the Hollywood and put Dad, instead.  All the kids signed it, and we tried it out this morning.

There's a great tutorial at The Blue Basket for the street pattern...I used her same design but with sharpies instead of fabric paint.  Very easy!


Our original plan was to head to the beach for the day, but the pool turned out to be a much better option....free, close, quite empty, and the most relaxing day we've had in awhile.  It almost felt like Mother's Day!



Most of us break the bank with one trip each summer (I know we are), so being frugal right now just makes sense (cents?).  I think that's something most dad's would appreciate.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!  

aloha

School is officially over.  Whew!

That was a busy week of partying.

Full of ice cream floats....



...arm wrestling....



.....and the limbo.



Diego was a little over it by the second party.  He found a ruler and played air swords by himself.  I guess he lost.  (He loves to flop on the ground and play dead.)


Joaquin just loved his teacher this year.  She was soft spoken and calm...quite the opposite of me, but everything I aspire to be.



We turned to pinterest for our teacher gift this year.  Suncatchers made from melting plastic beads in the oven.   (If you try this, be forewarned, I'm sure toxic fumes are emitted when this plastic heats up....evidence: stinky smell and small headache.  Be sure to turn on fans and open all windows and doors and whatever else you can!)





Together, Joaquin and I made a set of notecards with the oh so cute hedgehog and an apple.



Those sunglasses say it all....aloha school, aloha beach.

our favorite spot

Diego and I hit the local zoo one more time last week.  Can you tell he likes it?

We may even go again this week before the kids get out of school.  The zoo is right next to the school....you can even hear the lions roaring on the playground...if it's quiet, ha!



The flamingos are one of the first animals to greet you at the zoo.

The word flamingo reminds me of the Spanish dance flamenco, although I don't think they are related in any way.  At Isabela's old latin dance school, I used to hear people call the dance flamingo, as in, "Go in to your flamingo class."  It used to bother me so much, but actually flamingo in spanish IS flamenco, so I guess those people weren't that far off.



This parrot said, "Helro!" to us with a similar scooby-doo accent.  And another one nearby whistled 'Whu-woo!', the 'you're so pretty' whistle.  I was happy.



My favorite bird of all time...the toucan.



This zoo is full of beautiful birds.  This peacock came to check us out while we ate our sno-cones.



And this one was proudly strutting around with a rock in his beak that he had found.



The monkeys are the second best thing at this zoo.  Most people probably go for the white tigers and to feed the giraffes, but in my old age, I prefer the amazing colors of the birds, and the huge variety of monkeys that they have.

Just look at the piercing stare of this lemur.



And the grandfatherly wisdom of this bearded monkey.



And the cleverness of this hungry monkey looking for a little change in diet.



We grabbed our usual sno-cones and decided to take the train this time.  This zoo has a train ride that takes you to a 'secret' part of the zoo.  We had always wondered what was back there....



....it turns out it's a free-range African savannah.  The animals are free to walk right up to the train!

This ostrich was busy drinking water from that tube in the ground.



There were many types of herd animals back there, mostly gazelles and goat like animals.  Nothing dangerous, I imagine.



These were the only ones curious enough to come right up to the train.



The guide pointed out these ostrich eggs sitting right on the middle of the ground.  Did you know the male ostrich is black because he sits on the eggs at night and the female ostrich is gray because she sits on the eggs during the day?  The tour guide told us all kinds of neat facts like that.



Diego and I hope to get a lot more use out of our zoo pass this year.  Maybe we'll be brave and try the sky ride next time!

fútbol

Another first for us last weekend.  Our first ever soccer tournament.   Best advice...get there early to find a parking spot.



Juan Pablo has been Joaquin's coach for two seasons now.  They both love it.  Joaquin gets to spend extra time with just dad and Juan Pablo gets to play hattrick in real life.  He used to be quite addicted to that game.

A fun warm up of monkey in the middle.  I know, it's unusual...but the whole tournament was, too.

They were somehow registered to play U10 which meant this team of six and seven year olds was playing against 10 year olds.  Juan Pablo sent five out on the field for the first game and the ref said, "Coach, it's seven on seven."  

Uh-oh.

We only had eight players on the team.

Those kids played their hardest.  The parents cheered the loudest.  We lost every game, but couldn't have been prouder.

Joaquin is normally upset when he loses.  But it's hard to be sad when your team is made up of your best friends.  


Sideline activities included lots of drawing...Here's a nice one Diego did of Isabela.  Looks just like her.  See the two legs and two eyes?



Diego figured out a way to play soccer all by himself.  He kicked down one way...ran down and got it, then kicked it down the other way.  But they spent most of the game huddled up under the quilt.  I love that Isabela and Diego got quality time together, too, because at home it's usually boys against girls.


I'll take a soccer tournament over a swim meet any day.

medical mystery...cure is socks

We have an undiagnosable medical mystery on our hands.

If you're curious, here it is:

Joaquin, age 7, wakes up in the middle of the night CRYING about his feet hurting.  It doesn't happen every night...it actually hasn't happened in many months, but it happened two nights ago which is why I'm mentioning it.

It probably started happening when he was five.

Back then, I thought he had a bone or stress fracture.  It seemed to happen when he'd done a lot of jumping or running around the day before.  We took him to the doctor, I think they even did Xrays, despite him being able to walk and jump fine...but they came back normal and so they said it was nothing.

The other night, I gave him Tylenol and jumped on the Internet, while JP massaged his feet to see what I could find.  I was shocked that lots of people have had the same thing happen to their children, and no doctor seems to be able to tell us what it is.

There were several suggestions of things that have worked to help alleviate the pain....so we tried two of them.  Tylenol, obviously, but wearing socks was the other.

Yesterday, Joaquin informed me the socks worked in about five minutes.  I'm thinking the medicine just kicked in, but for now we're sticking with the socks.

JP and I had a small discussion at the dinner table about it last night, as well.  His idea is that the AC affects Joaquin, maybe when his feet are sticking out from the covers.  (The AC is the culprit in another of our medical mysteries...Isabela used to throw up in the morning if her belly got exposed in the middle of the night.  Strange...one throw up, and then she was fine.  We made her tuck in her pj shirt to her pj bottom.  Cured.)

I am, of course, hugely skeptical.  I've slept in AC all my life and never heard of either of these two things.  He noted, of course, that I sleep in socks and pjs.

So maybe he's on to something?  Any thoughts?

children's museum

It's been awhile since we've been to the children's museum.  The older kids had outgrown it a few years ago (although, I'm not sure how that's possible because I love everything there) and Diego had never been.

So it was time for a day trip.... just him and me!

Ohhh....chickens!  How fun is this egg run?



We have eggs just like this at home...maybe I can make one!



Fishing in the boat...this was fun until he started swinging that pole around like a sword.  Time to move on.



The outside area is my favorite part....musical instruments everywhere.  Sand, water, and....




....snails.  I'm loving snails right now.


Back inside, we hit the always busy apple tree!  Despite there being some school field trips there that day (there are always schools there!), Diego had his side all to himself.



Which one should I pick first?!



Such a cool car to work on.  Too bad I couldn't hire this guy to do the work on my real car today that's in the shop!




Cashiering has to be the one aspiration of all children.  He knew just how to scan the food and which buttons to press.



Stop the ambulance!  Can't! My legs are too short!



And look at this huge contraption!  I don't remember this before.  But definitely one of our favorites.



First you stuff the scarves into the hole.




You'll feel a nice cool breeze... then woosh!  They whip around in the tubes and come flying out from above somewhere.



Try to catch them before they hit the ground!



So much fun...I wanted to knock all the kids down to catch one, but I restrained myself.



Quick ride on a dino on the way out.



Three is a perfect age for the children's museum! Everything's new and exciting.  I love three!