Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Monday, November 5, 2012
pink or blue?
We brought back something else besides souvenirs this summer...there's a baby in there!
And now it's time to place your bets.
Today we find out what we're adding to this picture...shall it be a boy or a girl?
I'll let you know if we get ten guesses in the comments! So...will it be pink or blue?
And now it's time to place your bets.
Today we find out what we're adding to this picture...shall it be a boy or a girl?
I'll let you know if we get ten guesses in the comments! So...will it be pink or blue?
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Kings Dominion
Time to play a little catch up.
Always on the look out for a good deal, this year we decided to go with Kings Dominion passes for next year, instead of Busch Gardens...with one bonus, we could go one time before it closed for the season in November.
This decision was met with lots of protests from the kids...."I hate Kings Domion!", "I won't be able to ride Alpinegeist!" Ummmm....have they ever been there before? No. Even with the promise of lots of fun, they were reluctant.
I actually worked at KD when I was a teenager....one hot summer when I literally could find nothing else and waited until July to finally buckle and say yes to a friend that I wanted a job there. Making music videos of groups of people lip-sync-ing their favorite songs...it was my first experience using special effects and I faked my way through it. It's not there anymore.
Anyway, all anti-Kings Dominion words were silenced as soon as we pulled up and they saw the colorful roller coasters looming over the trees.
It was decked out for Halloween. And we knew to get out of there before dark when the zombies would come out.
It's not called the Scooby-Doo roller coaster anymore (I guess 'cause Snoopy took over the place), but Diego braved it with daddy before he knew any better. Juan Pablo said he was wrapped around the handle bar like a boa constrictor. That was the last coaster for him for the day.
(Can you spot JP, Diego, and Joaquin?)
After that there seemed to be a major car theme going on....95 baby!
Race cars.....the ones with the rail going down the middle so you can't go off the track....
Bumper cars....definitely a pro at this now.....
And a real driving school where you can go wherever you want....looks like he's one-arming it now.
Even the big kids got in on this one. Wow, Isabela you really are growing!
Turns out Isabela and Joaquin can even ride some all by themselves now....there they are on the Avalanche in the Suisse car. There were absolutely no lines for anything all day, so they got to ride things multiple times. I remember when I was little, you had to stand in lines for at least 45 minutes every time, just for your 45 second thrill. Times have changed.
Diego and I downed an ICEE while the others rode stuff.
Here's some unusual advice...."Always take candy from strangers."
Since it was Halloween, they had little pirate giveaways for the kids. Love Isabela's triangle head!
But these two pirates sure are handsome!
And there's little ol' me trying to get in a picture, too.
It took some convincing to get them to go in the foam bubble pool....Diego never did give in.
But he does love those giant characters....even if he's never heard of them.
By next year, I'll definitely have to read them some Peanuts comics.
That's one tall pirate!
Joaquin was drawn to the giant stuffed animals like usual. They look fun, but really they're not.
Diego and I stayed on the slower ones...although I'm not great with heights either. I was ready to get off this ferris wheel after the first go-round, but it just kept going. Diego even started contemplating ways to jump off of it so we could go on something else.
And his favorite...the merry-go-round. His horse always wins.
So in the end, the kids loved Kings Dominion. I think they even said it was better than Busch Gardens. Me...I noticed it was like comparing Walmart and Target. I'll always be a Target girl myself.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
fall carnival 2012
Last Friday was our school's annual Fall Carnival. That means we have to prepare Halloween costumes a little bit earlier than Halloween.
I love to go the homemade costume route. But on an early October trip to Walmart, Diego and I saw this blue ninja costume and that was exactly what he wanted to be. I couldn't beat $9.99 so we bought it. And he wore it almost everyday since.
If you ask him what he's being for Halloween, he'll say, "An azul minja with one sword." Yes, that's minja with an "m"...and he does have more than one sword, but that's what makes it so cute, right? The swords were actually an add-on of $7.00, but definitely worth it. I did make the headband...it says hi-ya. Just a strip of a t-shirt tied around his head....the one it came with was 10 sizes too small and cut the circulation off to his brain.
One aisle over, we found this beautiful Cleopatra costume. Again, it's hard to beat $19.99. She tried it on as soon as she got home and fell in love with it. It was comfortable and beautiful. We added the cute little black kitty cat and the Elizabeth Taylor eyes. It turned out there were a lot of Cleopatras at her school, all store bought costumes, and all somewhat different.
Joaquin was another story. I bought him two costumes from the store. The first was some scary pumpkin thing. He tried it on, and it just didn't fit right (thank God). The second was a werewolf. Again, he tried it on and I actually burst out laughing. The face mask had been all smushed up in the package and stayed like that on his head. He looked like someone had punched him in the nose.
I had wanted to make him one the whole time and he was dead set against. I threw out every idea possible, and he shot them all down. I even bought fur fabric to turn him into a werewolf, but it ended up being itchy and he just couldn't wear it.
We were down to a week before the carnival, and he still didn't know what he was going to be. Then I ran across this amazing costume on the web. (definitely click on the link.)
I read through the whole post and the comments. That cool head cost her $50 and was way to complicated for me to make. But I knew I could do it with poster board I had stashed under the sofa. So I set to making it when Joaquin was fuming about not having a costume one night...I told him to trust me and he'd love it.
And he did! It cost us next to nothing and was so easy to make! It's really just two pieces of poster board cut for the head and painted like the wimpy kid. The black mouth is mesh from an old ballet skirt Isabela never wore. Very soft on his face and easy to see through. The tricky part was figuring out how to get the mask to stay on his head. I ended up hot glueing a skull cap hat to the inside of it, so he just put the hat on his head and it's in the right spot every time.
The book is a box I made out of poster board with the cover printed off extra large from the computer. I cut and pasted the image together. He can actually put his candy in the box when he goes trick or treating.
So we finally made it to the carnival...which is all about playing games and running into friends and teachers.
Seeing the wimpy kid in school just cracked me up the whole night. And there definitely was not another wimpy kid at the carnival.
At one point, we stopped in the cafeteria for pizza. I caught Joaquin trying to eat a piece of candy through his wimpy kid mouth and thought that was hilarious. I made him pose for this shot.
There were a lot of ninjas in school that night, but Diego was one of the smallest. Turns out those swords are pretty strong. JP said he dueled it out in the gym with another ninja and ended up breaking the other kids' sword. He was very sorry.
Isabela caught up with her best friend at the haunted house. Cleopatra and a zombie prom queen...two very cute girls.
Joaquin informed me this is third year in a row that he's won the costume contest. I'm not sure how that keeps happening, and it sure makes Isabela mad. She won in Kindergarten when she was the Man in the Yellow Hat and hasn't won since. Her grade always has some stiff competition. But this year was different...she loved her costume so much, she didn't care. No tears shed this year. But she's already planning for next year.
Check out our costumes over the years:
2007 a princess and a cowboy
2008 Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat
2009 a Spanish señorita and Darth Vader
2010 an owl, a lumber jack, Mrs. Claus, an Elf, and Santa
2011 a ghost, a witch, and a skeleton
I love to go the homemade costume route. But on an early October trip to Walmart, Diego and I saw this blue ninja costume and that was exactly what he wanted to be. I couldn't beat $9.99 so we bought it. And he wore it almost everyday since.
If you ask him what he's being for Halloween, he'll say, "An azul minja with one sword." Yes, that's minja with an "m"...and he does have more than one sword, but that's what makes it so cute, right? The swords were actually an add-on of $7.00, but definitely worth it. I did make the headband...it says hi-ya. Just a strip of a t-shirt tied around his head....the one it came with was 10 sizes too small and cut the circulation off to his brain.
One aisle over, we found this beautiful Cleopatra costume. Again, it's hard to beat $19.99. She tried it on as soon as she got home and fell in love with it. It was comfortable and beautiful. We added the cute little black kitty cat and the Elizabeth Taylor eyes. It turned out there were a lot of Cleopatras at her school, all store bought costumes, and all somewhat different.
Joaquin was another story. I bought him two costumes from the store. The first was some scary pumpkin thing. He tried it on, and it just didn't fit right (thank God). The second was a werewolf. Again, he tried it on and I actually burst out laughing. The face mask had been all smushed up in the package and stayed like that on his head. He looked like someone had punched him in the nose.
I had wanted to make him one the whole time and he was dead set against. I threw out every idea possible, and he shot them all down. I even bought fur fabric to turn him into a werewolf, but it ended up being itchy and he just couldn't wear it.
We were down to a week before the carnival, and he still didn't know what he was going to be. Then I ran across this amazing costume on the web. (definitely click on the link.)
I read through the whole post and the comments. That cool head cost her $50 and was way to complicated for me to make. But I knew I could do it with poster board I had stashed under the sofa. So I set to making it when Joaquin was fuming about not having a costume one night...I told him to trust me and he'd love it.
And he did! It cost us next to nothing and was so easy to make! It's really just two pieces of poster board cut for the head and painted like the wimpy kid. The black mouth is mesh from an old ballet skirt Isabela never wore. Very soft on his face and easy to see through. The tricky part was figuring out how to get the mask to stay on his head. I ended up hot glueing a skull cap hat to the inside of it, so he just put the hat on his head and it's in the right spot every time.
The book is a box I made out of poster board with the cover printed off extra large from the computer. I cut and pasted the image together. He can actually put his candy in the box when he goes trick or treating.
So we finally made it to the carnival...which is all about playing games and running into friends and teachers.
Seeing the wimpy kid in school just cracked me up the whole night. And there definitely was not another wimpy kid at the carnival.
At one point, we stopped in the cafeteria for pizza. I caught Joaquin trying to eat a piece of candy through his wimpy kid mouth and thought that was hilarious. I made him pose for this shot.
There were a lot of ninjas in school that night, but Diego was one of the smallest. Turns out those swords are pretty strong. JP said he dueled it out in the gym with another ninja and ended up breaking the other kids' sword. He was very sorry.
Isabela caught up with her best friend at the haunted house. Cleopatra and a zombie prom queen...two very cute girls.
Joaquin informed me this is third year in a row that he's won the costume contest. I'm not sure how that keeps happening, and it sure makes Isabela mad. She won in Kindergarten when she was the Man in the Yellow Hat and hasn't won since. Her grade always has some stiff competition. But this year was different...she loved her costume so much, she didn't care. No tears shed this year. But she's already planning for next year.
Check out our costumes over the years:
2007 a princess and a cowboy
2008 Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat
2009 a Spanish señorita and Darth Vader
2010 an owl, a lumber jack, Mrs. Claus, an Elf, and Santa
2011 a ghost, a witch, and a skeleton
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
a new adventure
There are two things that will definitely make Joaquin happy (and many that don't.) But the first is 'food'. He comes home from school starving, after I pack him a lunch fit for two. Then five minutes after dinner, he's raiding the fridge again.
So when we realized that our Saturday evening service at church offers a table of lovely food to snack on, that easily became our go to service. We arrive a little early so the kids can play on the playground...then head in to grab a plate of food, and I try to hush the kids' loud chomping if they haven't finished by the time the service starts. I don't think you're actually supposed to be eating during the service, but we've never been reprimanded.
And the second thing that makes Joaquin happy is 'gifts'. And luckily, third graders at our church are offered a special gift...their very own Bible. Joaquin was thrilled because Isabela had gotten hers last year, and how unfair is that to have to wait a whole year for your own?
But he was also a little nervous...having to go on stage in front of everyone....which always makes him extra well-behaved. *mom, smiling*
When he got back to his seat, he opened the cool Bible box to reveal this Bible:
The NIV Adventure Bible. I believe there was an audible gasp from both of us as we thought how cool this Bible looked. He spent the rest of the service opening and closing the box and flipping through the pages.
Recently, we'd started doing a children's Bible study called Long Story Short. (I highly recommend it...the lessons are less then 10 minutes and pretty interesting.) We do them at night before bed. And although Joaquin baulks at it most nights, he loves to open his Bible and find the right passage to read. They both use their own Bibles, and each read the scripture for the evening...they have different versions, so they sound a little different.
If you're interested in this Bible study, here's a link: Long Story Short.
So in Joaquin's eyes, it looks like our church is on the right path.....food and gifts.
Thank you to our church for encouraging our kids and leading us toward this new adventure!
So when we realized that our Saturday evening service at church offers a table of lovely food to snack on, that easily became our go to service. We arrive a little early so the kids can play on the playground...then head in to grab a plate of food, and I try to hush the kids' loud chomping if they haven't finished by the time the service starts. I don't think you're actually supposed to be eating during the service, but we've never been reprimanded.
And the second thing that makes Joaquin happy is 'gifts'. And luckily, third graders at our church are offered a special gift...their very own Bible. Joaquin was thrilled because Isabela had gotten hers last year, and how unfair is that to have to wait a whole year for your own?
But he was also a little nervous...having to go on stage in front of everyone....which always makes him extra well-behaved. *mom, smiling*
When he got back to his seat, he opened the cool Bible box to reveal this Bible:
The NIV Adventure Bible. I believe there was an audible gasp from both of us as we thought how cool this Bible looked. He spent the rest of the service opening and closing the box and flipping through the pages.
Recently, we'd started doing a children's Bible study called Long Story Short. (I highly recommend it...the lessons are less then 10 minutes and pretty interesting.) We do them at night before bed. And although Joaquin baulks at it most nights, he loves to open his Bible and find the right passage to read. They both use their own Bibles, and each read the scripture for the evening...they have different versions, so they sound a little different.
If you're interested in this Bible study, here's a link: Long Story Short.
So in Joaquin's eyes, it looks like our church is on the right path.....food and gifts.
Thank you to our church for encouraging our kids and leading us toward this new adventure!
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
halloween crafts
There's so many Halloween and fall crafts out there, who knows where to start?!!
Here's what we've been working on lately.
Jack-o-lantern paper plate:
Diego painted the orange and glued the face on, and I think he even cut part of the leaf hands out. He often gets tired of a craft three minutes after we start. Boys.
Bat Stencil:
Here we used a bat stencil I cut out of a cereal box (see box left on counter) and sponge painted it on black paper. This didn't turn out as cute as I thought, but he had fun seeing the bat image after we peeled it off. Again, this lasted about three minutes.
Owl collage:
Somehow, I ended up doing most of this one. He did like gluing the pieces on, but I did most of the tearing and cutting. Definitely a joint effort.
And my favorite...handprint spiders. He loved making the spiders, but we had to let it dry and he didn't want to come back to do the sparkly webs so I had to add those on myself. I still think they're so cute.
Halloween Calendar:
Diego loves, loves adding each day onto the calendar. These numbers are from Counting Coconuts and she has lots of printable theme calendar numbers. The felt pumpkin sounds like a good idea, but Diego's not really into it. Isabela and I have changed it a couple of times though :)
Haunted houses:
And I even tried to get the big kids involved. I told them to use some shoe boxes and turn them into haunted houses however they wanted. Sounds fun, right? Joaquin ended up throwing a HUGE fit out of frustration so I said, "Fine, Joaquin, just don't do it." Then he disappeared for about ten minutes and came back with this. I thought it was pretty cool.
Isabela, as is custom, still hasn't finished hers. I'm not sure how long we'll have black scrap paper laying all over the house.
Here's what we've been working on lately.
Jack-o-lantern paper plate:
Diego painted the orange and glued the face on, and I think he even cut part of the leaf hands out. He often gets tired of a craft three minutes after we start. Boys.
Bat Stencil:
Here we used a bat stencil I cut out of a cereal box (see box left on counter) and sponge painted it on black paper. This didn't turn out as cute as I thought, but he had fun seeing the bat image after we peeled it off. Again, this lasted about three minutes.
Owl collage:
Somehow, I ended up doing most of this one. He did like gluing the pieces on, but I did most of the tearing and cutting. Definitely a joint effort.
And my favorite...handprint spiders. He loved making the spiders, but we had to let it dry and he didn't want to come back to do the sparkly webs so I had to add those on myself. I still think they're so cute.
Halloween Calendar:
Diego loves, loves adding each day onto the calendar. These numbers are from Counting Coconuts and she has lots of printable theme calendar numbers. The felt pumpkin sounds like a good idea, but Diego's not really into it. Isabela and I have changed it a couple of times though :)
Haunted houses:
And I even tried to get the big kids involved. I told them to use some shoe boxes and turn them into haunted houses however they wanted. Sounds fun, right? Joaquin ended up throwing a HUGE fit out of frustration so I said, "Fine, Joaquin, just don't do it." Then he disappeared for about ten minutes and came back with this. I thought it was pretty cool.
Isabela, as is custom, still hasn't finished hers. I'm not sure how long we'll have black scrap paper laying all over the house.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
hi-ya!
Really there's nothing that makes you feel more like a grown up than taking your three kids on a trip all by yourself. All of that responsibility has the potential to sap the fun right out of you.
The kids have been taking TaeKwonDo since February and are pretty darn good, I think. And last weekend, they went to prove it at their first TaeKwonDo tournament. But JP had to work, so it was up to me to make sure they arrived at American University in DC at 8am on Saturday.
Luckily, we have family that lives less than ten minutes away from the campus. Well, we really have most of our family up that way, so we headed up Friday to visit. The hardest part? Having the three kids shoulder to shoulder in the back seat of JP's tiny car (since he needed my van). It was just like in the movies, or an episode of The Middle, "She's touching me! He's playing with the window! He won't share the pillow!" Definitely, nightmarish.
There was an exciting nighttime drive through downtown DC, too. One wrong turn and it added about 20 minutes to our trip. And have you ever driven around Dupont Circle? I'm definitely not qualified to do that again.
But we made it and had a great time seeing family. I'm not sure they were so happy to see us...the kids were pretty wound up in all the excitement and put on quite a show everywhere they went. I'm used to most of it, so I just had to laugh it off when the wide eyes of onlookers would dart over to me to see my reaction to the boys' jumping and falling. Yes, boys are different than girls.
On to American University. We arrived on time, and I had fun reminiscing to my college days...American was probably my second choice university back then. Oh, the road not taken.
The lobby had two giant colorful statues...a donkey and an elephant. Diego was taken with the donkey. Foreshadowing for November? Who knows.
Here are the kids practicing their routine. They were SO nervous, not knowing what to expect. The gym was huge, but really there weren't as many people watching as I had imagined...it was mostly parents, not olympic trial onlookers.
And they won a medal for every event. Not a dollar store medal, either...a nice heavy keeper. Makes it worth the money we forked over for the tournament.
You can tell by Joaquin's expression just how nervous he was. I remember being that nervous for every ballet performance I ever did. It never got easier for me. I hope it won't be the same for them...that they'll grow in confidence and be able to try for anything their heart desires.
The medal ceremony...really just a quick picture on the podiums. Not the Olympics, but pretty close!
And Diego behaved well for the several hours we were there. A cup of play-doh used up a good 45 minutes.
The trip home was the same as the trip up....more complaining and whining... only double since the nerves had worn off.
But I'm almost as proud of myself as I am of them. We were on time. I didn't lose anybody. Nobody got hurt. I may have been sapped and I received no congratulations, but my medal is stored in our memories. I don't think the kids will forget their first tournament, and I'm pretty sure I won't either.
The kids have been taking TaeKwonDo since February and are pretty darn good, I think. And last weekend, they went to prove it at their first TaeKwonDo tournament. But JP had to work, so it was up to me to make sure they arrived at American University in DC at 8am on Saturday.
Luckily, we have family that lives less than ten minutes away from the campus. Well, we really have most of our family up that way, so we headed up Friday to visit. The hardest part? Having the three kids shoulder to shoulder in the back seat of JP's tiny car (since he needed my van). It was just like in the movies, or an episode of The Middle, "She's touching me! He's playing with the window! He won't share the pillow!" Definitely, nightmarish.
There was an exciting nighttime drive through downtown DC, too. One wrong turn and it added about 20 minutes to our trip. And have you ever driven around Dupont Circle? I'm definitely not qualified to do that again.
But we made it and had a great time seeing family. I'm not sure they were so happy to see us...the kids were pretty wound up in all the excitement and put on quite a show everywhere they went. I'm used to most of it, so I just had to laugh it off when the wide eyes of onlookers would dart over to me to see my reaction to the boys' jumping and falling. Yes, boys are different than girls.
On to American University. We arrived on time, and I had fun reminiscing to my college days...American was probably my second choice university back then. Oh, the road not taken.
The lobby had two giant colorful statues...a donkey and an elephant. Diego was taken with the donkey. Foreshadowing for November? Who knows.
Here are the kids practicing their routine. They were SO nervous, not knowing what to expect. The gym was huge, but really there weren't as many people watching as I had imagined...it was mostly parents, not olympic trial onlookers.
And they won a medal for every event. Not a dollar store medal, either...a nice heavy keeper. Makes it worth the money we forked over for the tournament.
You can tell by Joaquin's expression just how nervous he was. I remember being that nervous for every ballet performance I ever did. It never got easier for me. I hope it won't be the same for them...that they'll grow in confidence and be able to try for anything their heart desires.
The medal ceremony...really just a quick picture on the podiums. Not the Olympics, but pretty close!
And Diego behaved well for the several hours we were there. A cup of play-doh used up a good 45 minutes.
The trip home was the same as the trip up....more complaining and whining... only double since the nerves had worn off.
But I'm almost as proud of myself as I am of them. We were on time. I didn't lose anybody. Nobody got hurt. I may have been sapped and I received no congratulations, but my medal is stored in our memories. I don't think the kids will forget their first tournament, and I'm pretty sure I won't either.
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