Happy 8th Birthday Big Girl!

When did this happened? Natalia is 8 years old! Hard to believe that she already is 8. Someone...please make time stop. It's going by way too fast.

Tuesday evening, the day before her birthday, Papi and Mami came to Beaumont to help Natalia celebrate. My parents offered to take her anywhere for dinner and she chose...take a guess...Chick-fil-A (like mother like daughter). Later, they went to Barnes & Noble.

The next day, Natalia was supposed to go with Daddy, before school, to play tennis (like they have been doing once a week for some time now) and then out for breakfast, but she was way too sleepy from the night before. So, Daddy cooked her a special breakfast and I made her some chocolate covered strawberries and cherries (her two favorite fruits).

Papi and Mami brought her McDonalds for lunch, per her request of course. Later, they picked Natalia and Carson up from school and they went straight to Chuck E. Cheese to continue celebrating. Will they ever get tired of Chuck E. Cheese? ~I'm really not sure...

Immediately after all that, we headed to Sartin's for some bbq crab! Natalia's favorite! After all you can eat crab...we ended Natalia's special day at Marble Slab!

O.K. so all that was good, but then Grannie and Papaw hosted a little family party at their house on Saturday night. We had hamburgers, fruit, chips, cookie cake, ice-cream and lots of toppings. The kids enjoyed the slip and slide and just spending time with their cousins Solomon and Tytus.

And finally, Natalia celebrated her 8th Birthday with her friends from her soccer team, school with her bff, Hannah! What fun time they all had. Every girl got the piece of their choice and painted it however they wanted.

Natalia & Hannah (BBF)

Oh yea, and this is a photo just to show you that yes...Natalia has a mom. I DO exist!

A Wonderful Mother's Day

What a much needed fun and relaxing day I had. Perfect way to celebrate Mother's Day. Woke up to Dave and the kids preparing breakfast. They made the most delicious pancakes I've ever had, scrambled eggs, chocolate covered strawberries and Natalia prepared my favorite cup of coffee.

Immediately after, the kids presented me with gifts. Natalia gave me some bath salt she made in her science class and Carson made me a paper flower arrangement along with a sweet card.

The night before Mother's Day, Natalia and Dave were plotting...

Come to find out, this is what they were talking about...

Aww, how thoughtful! My own homemade Kindle! Natalia was able to keep the secret, whereas Carson...well, let's just say he has to earn his way back into Daddy's circle of trust!

But, guess what!? Later that morning, before church, I found a real Kindle under my pillow. I couldn't believe it!!! In reality, this is my Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and Birthday gift. Apparently, the kids didn't know about this surprise (you know, can't really keep a secret just yet). So, I asked them all to sit on the couch because I wanted to read to them from my "Kindle". I wish I would have taken a picture of Natalia's face when she saw the "real" Kindle for the first time. She could not believe that I actually had a "real" Kindle in my hands! She could not even talk. She was so surprised. Needless to say, I have not been able to use it yet. She got to download the very first book and read it all day long.

After church, we went to Papaw and Grannie's house for lunch and then we got to relax at home and at the bookstore before we went for a special dinner at Carrabba's!

Yikes! Has It Really Been That Long?

Can't believe how quickly time goes by...has it really been that long since I've blogged? C'mon! I have to do better than that. Not because I think there are many people out there that are dying for me to post something, but so that my grandfather, aunts, uncles and cousins who live in Guatemala can, at least, be a part of our lives through this blog. So...I'm hoping to do a little better and what better excuse than Dave riding the MS 150!

About a month ago, Dave decided to sign up and do something he has been wanting to do for a while now. His friend encouraged him to ride the MS 150 with his team, so Dave went for it. One week before the ride though, it was questionable if he was going to be able to ride it. During one of his training rides, something got in his eye and it looked pretty bad for a week or so. Then the following week, he went riding and came back with a lot of pain on his right hand. He went to see the doctor and he told him that he looked more like a swimmer and should think about changing sports. Oh, but this did not stop Dave! The morning before the ride, Dave decided to go for it...

I was on my way to San Antonio with the kids when all of a sudden, I get a text on my iPhone with a map telling me where he was. Come to find out, he was only about 15 miles from where we were at the moment, so I decided to take a little detour and meet up with him. Well, that little detour added about 5 hours to our trip, but the kids had a blast being able to see daddy ride.

Break point at Fayetteville Texas

After seeing Dave at the finish line for the day at La Grange Texas, we headed to San Antonio. We met up with my parents at their stores at the Market and while they were working, we decided to party at Fiesta, which is going on this week. It was crazy!!!! Not very kid friendly.

After all that "partying" I had enough, so I went home while the kids and my parents went to see my parent's possible new store which is located right in front of the Alamo. While there, they decided to take the kids on a carriage ride.

The next day, we headed to Austin to see Dave cross the finish line! There were thousands of people. It was so much fun being a part of this. We found a great spot to cheer Dave on.

Good job Dave, we are so proud of you!!!

Books, Books and More Books

Wow, it has been so long since I've blogged! What's up with that?  But I'm back and I'm committed to keeping a "journal" of our everyday life.  It helps keep my family in Guatemala and San Antonio up to date with our milestones, etc. So bear with me...

We've read so many books lately. Here are just a few...

I think this might be Carson's favorite so far. He enjoyed the book so much that he MADE me go and buy his friend Ella (from school) a copy.

(Like father, like son...that's the way Dave started to trick me!

~Of course, we were MUCH older! Ella has said she wants to get married, but Carson is non-committal at this point.)

Another great book we enjoyed was "Where The Red Fern Grows."  Since reading this book, Carson has been letting us know that he's saving his money to buy two hound dogs. It's a very, very sad book. I had gone to the grocery store the night they finished reading it. While shopping I received a phone call from my children crying hysterically. At first, I didn't know what was going on! Finally, I realized that they had finished the book and they were devastated that both dogs had died. The funny part is that they didn't even cry when they watched the movie. That just goes to show you that the movie is never as good as the book.

We also read..

(This book inspired Natalia to be Dorothy for Halloween this year. The plan was for all three kids to choose a character from the Wizard of Oz, but the boys wouldn't go for that nonsense :0(

(Are they old enough to make those decisions anyway?)

and...

As a matter of fact, these last two books Natalia finished reading on her own. According to her, I wasn't going fast enough.

It's just so fun being able to sit as a family and read. ~So, why not grab a book and start reading...you'll be hooked!

In addition to our family reading time, Natalia loves to read on her own too. Here are a few from her collection...

The American Girl books - The Kit series plus these two mysteries:

She also enjoys The Magic School Bus books!

About Time

What a beautiful day!  The weather was perfect and the attitude was too!  Natalia finally decided to learn how to ride her bicycle without training wheels.  I thought this day would never come...

But watch out!  She is still learning to turn and stop, so you better get out of her way if you see her coming...

And if there is anything in front of her, she is in big trouble because she still doesn't know how to stop...

So very proud of our big girl!

Yay!!! I Now Have Internet!

Yes, you read that right. I have Internet!!!!!

Now, if I could only find time to blog :-(

Carpe Diem

Today was full of surprises!  

We woke up all excited because we were so looking forward to going to Katy to celebrate Sarah's 3rd birthday party.  All of a sudden I received a call from Hetal to let me know that the Pinkalicious party was cancelled!  ~What?!  Well, little Sarah had fever and she had been throwing up.  Poor girl, hope she gets better soon!

So...what to do, what to do???

Right after lunch, we headed to the San Jacinto Monument.  Yay, I've always wanted to go there - we see it every time we drive to and from San Antonio.  So you can't even imagine how excited I was.  Once there, we read a sign that said the parking for the Monument was full.  There was traffic everywhere - it took 20 minutes to go about 2 miles.  What?!  We didn't understand why there were so many cars.  Seriously?  Everyone had the same idea as we did????  We kept driving and finally understood what was going on when we saw this sign:

How is the one day we randomly decided to visit the monument the anniversary of the battle fought there (April 21)?  Oh no!  I was so bummed.  I didn't even try to convince Dave to park the car and enjoy the festival because I know how he feels about crowds.  All of a sudden he said, "why don't I drop you and the kids off here and I'll go and find a parking space."  I couldn't believe it!  Everything was working out great, right up to the point when I asked about the battle reenactment.  They informed me that it had been cancelled because of the rain.  ~I just couldn't believe it!!!!!  A few minutes later, Dave called me and said, "hey, why don't y'all hurry and we can go on the ship before it starts raining and it gets even more crowded."  It made total sense to me, so the kids and I started heading towards the ship.  All of a sudden, we see Dave walking back towards us.  It had just started raining, and was getting ready to storm.  We just decided to leave all the fun for some other time.

I'm truly surprised how well we all took the change of plans. We just seized the day!

An hour and a half later, we ended up at Houston Williams Water Wall.  Once again, I can't believe Dave agreed!  When I asked him if we could go to see that big Water Wall, he looked at me and said, "do you really want to see that wall?  Is just a tall wall."  I am so glad we went.  Call me wired, but I LOVED it!  I'm really glad I saw it.  I mean, I would not plan a special trip to Houston just to see this, but if you are in the neighborhood, hey why not?

Then, it was dinner time!  Time for some Greek food at...

Now what???  Hey, why not a baseball game?  Sounded like a good idea!  So we called the ticket office and set off for Minute Maid Park to watch the Astros versus the Brewers.  Total costs - $17 (the kids got in for a $1 a piece)!  The kids had a blast.  Carson was the veteran of the group, having gone with Daddy last year, and he let everyone know about the huge playground at the park.  Needless to say, they were all concerned about when we would go and play on the huge jungle gym.  Also, all Carson wanted was for someone to hit a baseball out to right field (which was where we were sitting).  And Lia was more concerned about the PINK cotton candy than anything else.  Luke just kept playing with the bleachers going up and down.

Ah, it was so nice to finally have something go as planned.  We decided we would stay and watch the game until the 7th inning.   Then we would sing, Take me out to the Ball Game during the 7th inning stretch and head to the playground.  Why we thought anything would work out as planned, who knows? As we walked up to the playground, the kids excitement began to build!!!!  Yay!!!!!  

Yes, you sure read that right, "closed at end of the 7th."  Needless to say, we didn't get a chance to play :0( ~What a disappointment!  But we still chose to seize the day! 

As appeasement for missing the playground, Dave saw someone eating a funnel cake and decided to get everyone a snack.  Funnel cakes are his weakness, P90X or not.  As we watched the cake being cooked, Dave's mouth started to salivate.  Then as the cake was getting close to being done, the employee designated to remove the cake from the oven realized it was too hot to remove with his bare hands...so he did what anyone else would do.  He grabbed the towel he had been cleaning out the grease vat with and lifted the cake out with ease.   Literally - Dave has towels he's used for staining wood that looked cleaner.  Needless to say, Dave didn't eat funnel cake, but the kids did get popcorn.

 Here they are waiting for Daddy to get back from getting the car for us.  Still having a great time even though things today didn't go as planned.