free food

What are you willing to do for free food?

Apparently, we will do anything.

This year, July 11 was the day to dress like a cow for a free Chick-Fil-A meal.  We usually spend the morning making our costumes, snipping paper, string, and cardboard and leaving the house an art room explosion to get to Chick-Fil-A before the crowds....never quite beating them.

Diego always loves dressing up, and this time we decided to turn him into a Texas Longhorn.  See that spot on his shirt shaped like Texas?  Juan Pablo pointed out that that was a bull, not a cow...but I was sure they wouldn't care.

Joaquin made his own mask, and we all agreed it looked more like a goat than a cow.  And Isabela does the same thing each year....she gets too embarrassed to wear her costume in the car, so she takes it off before we get there....and then can't get it back on right to wear into the restaurant.  

They ask me each year, "Are you SURE this is the right day?"

It was.  The restaurant was full of black and white cows.

I decided at the last minute to make a costume of my own...literally the kids were buckled up in the car, and I ran back inside to make a quick mask.  Friends we ran into at the restaurant didn't even recognize me.

Later that day, we stopped by 7-11 for their free slurpies...no costumes necessary.

Would you be willing to dress like this?  What is the craziest thing you've done for free food?

little Carmie

Carmen is proving once again that even after having four children, I know absolutely nothing about parenting.

In my early days as a first-time parent, I remember wishing that there was a manual written on exactly what I needed to do and when.  If some expert would simply tell me what to do, then I would do it and be the best parent that I could.

And one evening, in the dark of night, while the world slept and mothers (and fathers) paced the floors trying to console crying babies, I realized that there WAS a manual.  The only problem was I had to write it myself.  Each parent must write their own manual by learning their child's likes and dislikes, their expressions and sign language, their habits and traits.  You write the "how to" manual for your own children each and every day you spend with them.

The rest of this post is all about Carmen...who we quite often call Carmie.  She's developing her own personality so quickly, we don't even realize it.   The baby we thought would never walk, now takes five running steps before collapsing to the floor like she's sliding into home plate on her belly.  She lives life to the fullest, like her brother, Joaquin.  

And she's got two favorite ways to communicate...the word 'eh?' which means absolutely anything, as in:

Carmen: Eh?

Me:  You want your beary?

Carmen: Eh. (nodding her head yes)

or

Carmen: Eh?

Me: You want to go outside?

Carmen: Eh. (nodding and pointing to the door)

Her other option is the ear-piercing scream that will leave you momentarily deaf in one or both ears.  And just as a warning, she has no qualms about doing this in public places.

Carmie loves to climb into chairs.  Sometimes she teeters right on the edge of it, as babies often do,  scaring everyone around but herself.

And she still loves her chupi (pacifier).  She HATED that thing as a baby and never used it...but I'm a glutton for punishment and kept on trying.  Pacifiers are always more for the parents than the children, anyway.

Carmie is a prayer.  See how she has her hands clasped in this picture?  She will do this at dinner if we've forgotten to say the blessing.  Thank you, Carmie, for the gentle reminder.

Carmen loves to play with little figures, like her brother, Diego.  She picks them up and makes little sounds...something between a roar and shooting and crunching sounds.  Kind of like the letter 'X' over and over again.

And she's a happy soul.  (Although I feel like all I hear is crying and screaming all day, the pictures tell a different story.)  And passersby always come away smiling, too.

Here's another little tidbit about Carmen: if you have it, she wants it.  I guess that one's probably in most baby manuals.

Carmen loves music.  Her dance ranges from a cool head nod and clapping to squealing and whole body wiggles.  I think she gets that from her sister.

She's got traits from all of us.

But she's still unique.

That's what is amazing about children.

I just came across this anonymous quote:  "Children are great imitators so give them something great to imitate."  

Our work is cut out for us.

world cup games

One of my favorite activities for the kids during summer is to create your own board games.  We've done them for school projects, too.  It's a great way to learn about something by researching it to create questions and make the game more authentic.

You may remember:

Hurry Up Hedgehog or The Lost Dogs .

With us getting so into the World Cup this year (I surprised myself that I could sit for two hours straight not wanting to miss a minute), I thought it would be a great way to learn about some countries.

We made our games just before the semi-finals.  I let the kids choose two teams each and gave them two days to make their own games without any help from me.  I really didn't want them to talk to each other, either, because their projects always come out very similar if they do.

These pictures are of Isabela showing Joaquin how to play her game.  She chose Argentina and Germany before we even knew they'd play each other.  Joaquin had Brazil and The Netherlands.  And...foreshadowing...both of their games had little paths that led to goals and you had to answer questions along the way to advance.  Isabela put magnets on the bottom of her goalies so you could try to block your opponent from shooting their cotton ball into the goal.  There were some technical difficulties with them and they kept falling down which was a frustrating them at first, but then we realized they were just like the real goalies!

Isabela wanted to draw pictures on her board representing the countries.  There was a city, cows, and orcas along the ocean for Argentina...and pretzels, mountains, and castles for Germany.

The question cards were cute with little flags covering up the answers.

We have plans to make a board game for one of our favorite books we've listened to together this summer:  Gregor the Overlander.  But now they've gotten into the Divergent series so maybe we could use that instead.

Have you ever made your own board games?

the fourth

I love this smile.

Joaquin likes to work on his smile sometimes in the mirror.  It's so funny.  Most of the time, I'm like, "No. Way. Don't do that."  He's cheesing and flashing cool hands and it's hilarious.  But this smile is sweet.

Carmen really enjoyed the parade this year for the fourth of July.  She clapped and waved.  She's a waver.  To everyone.  When we go jogging on the trails, she flops her hand back and forth until those passing are smiling and waving, too.  I love that one-year-old wave.

The boys stood on the roadside for the candy.  The rules had changed this year.  No throwing candy...it had to be handed out.  I must be getting old.  Things just aren't as fun as they used to be.

But don't tell this cutie.  A plastic fireman hat is fun to play with no matter what politician is advertised on the front!

No fireworks for us this year, either. Yes....we're definitely old.  We go to bed too early for them to even start. We lit a few glow sticks and called it a night.  Easy, relaxing summer.  That's the goal, and we're sticking to it.

summer has begun

This view pretty much says it all.  But I'll elaborate for the fun of it.

Uncle Shep plays keyboards in a band and invited us to a party at his friend's house in White Stone on the Rappahanock River.

I wouldn't normally go that far with the four kids by myself (JP was down and out with a back injury), but we hadn't seen him play in like.... forever, and he said the two magic words:  pool and beach.

That's Aunt Beth with Carmen.  She got passed around a bit and didn't get crabby until the evening.  Good job, little baby.

Aunt Beth is always so thoughtful.  She brought a bag o' squirt toys to entertain Carmen.  She loved that blue hippo.

The kids headed straight for the pool when we got there.

Joaquin had to test out the limits of the diving board....to him, a pool without a diving board is not a pool at all.

This is the amazing view from the living room window of the house.  Diego was a little scared of the diving board at first....

....but that didn't last long.

I found my little spot of heaven pretty quick.  Imagine a steady, gentle breeze, waves lapping on the shore, music in the distance, kids happy, eyes closed.

It was a most perfect spot for a hammock.

Isabela spent most of her time on the pier.  She caught five fish and loved every minute of it.

This is a croaker.  It makes a sound like a frog when it's out of the water.  Very cool.

The kids found some pieces of a crab and saved them.  Several days after the trip, the car strangely started smelling like fish.  Don't save crab parts in a ziploc bag and leave in in your hot car during summer.

Diego was fascinated with this magnolia bloom.  He's such a naturalist.

Carmen jammed out to the music....

...and crammed potato chips in her mouth.  

(It's good they don't make bathing suits like this in my size.)

There were bushels of crabs, shrimp, salads, and watermelon.  Yes, it was one amazing party.

The kids left asking when we could come back.  That's when you know it was good.

Thanks Uncle Shep for a memorable day!

And thanks Aunt Beth for loving on us!  What a great start to our summer.

raise the roof

What is he doing on the roof?!!

Juan Pablo's dad, the architect, replaced and raised the roof on our shed while he was here, with plans to turn part of it into a chicken coop.  Unfortunately, he had to return to Bolivia earlier than planned, so this is pretty much what it still looks like.

I don't let the kids play on it, but they got away with this stuff with dad and grandpa, so I thought I may as well document it.

Joaquin's new stunt is called the endo.  Pedal fast, then slam on your brakes and be prepared to fly high.

These two are hard to watch sometimes.

mess

Summer's here.  Life's going to be a little messy for awhile.

I did make a summer list of fun stuff to do.  But this year, it has stuff on it like whistle with grass, watch clouds, family talent show...

Nothing too big or too much work.  This summer will be about slowing down.

I also made a jar of 'I'm bored' activities with Diego's help.  Lots of scraps of paper cut up, just pull one out and no more boredom.  But so far, they pull one out, say, "I don't want to do that", and put it back.

Plus, Joaquin just informed me tonight that the reason we're almost late for vacation Bible school every morning is because of the chores we have to do before we leave.  Fine.  Let's not do them.  I'm tired anyway.