Guess what we found today...

Today was a low key day. We decided to just stay in and get some stuff, like laundry, done around the house. The kids played indoors most of the morning, until right before lunchtime, when we ventured into the backyard for some jump time and hitting the tee ball. While we were out, the kids went searching for bugs, and guess what they found?? Check out the pic. They actually picked up two, Joshua was the first to find one...a huge one, which he quickly proceeded to dismember. By the time I got the camera, Kateli had found the second one and was having fun holding it...she didn't want to share it. I was impressed that she actually carried it, and held the thing. I would have thought she'd shy away from it, but nope...she was up for it!

another collage

I'm on a collage kick right now, so here is one of our 3 1/2year old!

A simple collage

Look who just turned 2

I love my kids birthdays!! Today was Joshua's 2nd birthday!! I'm on a high all day long, and can't seem to stop calling him my "birthday boy". Their birthdays always bring back sweet memories of the day they were born--I remember it all and I think I go through the experience over and over in my head. Since this is birthday No. 2, I won't bore you with all the details of how I went into labor, what time I arrived at the hospital, when my water was broken and all that jazz. However, I will tell you my little boy was born on a Sunday afternoon, at 3:41pm and he was absolutely the most amazing little boy I had/have ever met in my entire life. He brings joy to our lives, and smiles to our hearts day in and day out. He's grown so much in the last year alone, and I can't wait to see what is in store for this next year! He is starting to talk so much, it's fun to hear him express himself now. He is sweet, and tender hearted. He loves his big sister, and wants to do all that she is doing, and wants to be everywhere that she is. He looks up to her so much, I keep telling Kateli she's got big shoes to fill being a big sister, because she is the one to set the example and to teach her little siblings.

We woke up the birthday boy with our traditional chocolate birthday cupcake, and the happy birthday song, along with the "mananitas" too. He got up with a huge grin on his face, although he wasn't too sure about the singing. As the day progressed and he received multiple birthday wish calls, the grin on his face and his expression grew more and more priceless. I have to apologize to everyone that called him, because he didn't fail to hang up on anyone shortly after the birthday song--I don't know that it was intentional, but it was funny that he did it each time after the singing was done--personally, I think it's just that the RED hang up button just sticks out like a sore thumb. For breakfast, we watched Joshua enjoy about half of his chocolate cupcake, which I was surprised by. He devoured last year's cupcake!! Then he moved on to some yummy fruit salad, and finished up with a yummy pancake face! Kateli was a great sport, she did complain a bit that she didn't have a cupcake but was soon calmed down when her brother decided to share some of his cake with her. She sang to him a couple of times with so much excitement and informed me that for her birthday, in "nomember" she wants a "married barbie"...we'll have to see where I find a barbie bride :). Anyway, we ended our day with a yummy dinner at Zio's where Joshua enjoyed the spaghetti, meatballs, angel hair pasta, and fried shrimp!! What a guy, he's only 2 and he eats like a big man! Above is one of my favorite pics that I got of him this afternoon. You'll have to come back in the next few days to see the rest of his birthday pics from this morning!

15 weeks and growing...

I have to admit that I have not been real diligent about taking photos of my expanding belly! I think this is about the only pics that I have thus far, and they aren't that great, but you can see belly a bit. I'm 15 weeks along, and am having a pleasant pregnancy. The first trimester was very similar to the other two, nausea hit when I went too long without a snack, so I had to have a bite to eat every 2 to 3 hours throughout the day. Something different though, I was not waking up in the middle of the night starving, and scarfing down a huge bowl of honey bunches of oats before being able to return to my slumber. In fact, this pregnancy I have not gained but about 5 pounds to date...with my other pregnancies I was gaining about 3 lbs a month...so that's a change, but still not indicative of whether this will be a boy or a girl. Just in case you are wondering, no, I don't want to find out the sex of the baby this time either. It has been so much fun to get that little surprise the day of, I love it! Although, with Kateli being so adamant about wanting a baby sister, who knows if I'll change my mind for her sake...I think maybe we would want to prep her for a baby brother in case that's what God is sending to us...but we'll see if we can convince her that it doesn't have to be a baby sister.

Anyway, here are the pics. THese are from our recent trip to Colorado Springs at the Garden of the gods.

Recent Vaction - A few "firsts"

We are back from our recent trip, which in my book was a family vacation. Technically, we just tagged along with daddy on a business trip and extended it by two days to spend quality time with family. It was packed with several FIRSTS for all of us...which I'll try to highlight!

FIRST flight for our entire family together, but most importantly first time our little man flew in an airplane! He's been spotting planes in the sky since I can remember, and happily says "momma, vion" every time he sees one...so I was excited to take him on a plane before he turned two. We managed to do that!!! He absolutely loved it--well, the take off and landing anyway. On the way out, he slept about an hour of the trip and on the way back he squirmed and talked and pointed, and laughed the entire way! Kateli, too, really enjoyed the experience. It was so much fun to listen to her talk about it, and ask tons of questions. She wanted to know why the plane had wings, and where its eyes were, and if it had a tail...and so on and so on. She was fascinated, especially on the flight back as we were on the very last row of the plane and she could see the plane's "feet"(wheels) retract, and come out for landing. She also enjoyed a movie each way. She didn't complain at all, and on the way back she was so comfy with the whole experience that she had no problem asking for drink refills 3 times!!

Our flight out on Wednesday was super early, but neither kid complained that we had gotten them up at 5am! We arrived in Denver close to 7:30am, picked up our rental, got a quick bite at breakfast, checked into our hotel room, and dropped off daddy at his office before heading out to visit our cousins in Fort Collins. I was so exhausted, and was glad that the drive was no more than an hour...we arrived and the kids were just ecstatic to be with their cousins. They were so comfortable with each other, and playing as though they'd seen each other everyday. It was fun to see that Kateli was not shy at all, and out of sight immediately after we arrived. For a sec I forgot that I didn't have to keep such a close eye on my kids...and then was reminded by my sister in law that Emma is 12, and Elliot is 10, so they could "babysit" their little cousins and I could relax. That was NICE! The kids played non-stop. Both Joshua and Kateli loved their dog, Lucy, a black lab that is so calm and good with little ones. We also got to experience chasing chickens around the backyard, gathering fresh layed eggs, and watching their garden's fruits. The chickens were a hit...Joshua would run around saying "duck, mom, duck" and squeal when someone came close to him with a chicken to pet! That evening we all drove back to Broomfield for dinner with daddy, and got to run out in the rain after a pretty good hail storm on our way out of the restaurant.

The next day, our cousins drove to us and we spent the late morning and most of the afternoon in the pool. It was overcast, and a bit cool in the morning but after our lunch picnic the sun finally came out and we got some warmer weather, which made the pool time much more fun. Then we headed up to the room, and the kids all watched Charlotte's Web. My kids were sad when the cousins had to leave to go back home, but I assured them that we would see them the next day and spend the night with them, either at their house or on a campground somewhere north of Fort Collins.

Daddy had taken Friday off of work, so we got to enjoy some family time together. We rolled out of bed about 8:30 am, and got dressed and packed up to go on our little excursion of Colorado. Our first destination, Colorado Springs, where we would visit the Focus on the Family site, and then head out to the Garden of the Gods. In the afternoon, the plan was to head back north to Fort Collins to meet with the cousins and then head out to the campground. So, it was a full day, but fun nonetheless. I, and the kids, both felt like we were in the car most of the day so we were relieved when we arrived at our final destination where we knew we wouldn't have to get in the car until the next day. Focus on the family was a brief stop, as we needed to give the kids a bit of a break and check out the huge slide on the property. Unfortunately, our kids are still too short to enjoy the big slide--you have to be 43" tall--but they had fun either way. They played and jumped around in the little kiddie room, and then wandered around the back room where there was a smaller slide for them, and an airplane that led to a fun underground tunnel! After the focus on the family we were off to the Garden of the gods, which fortunately was not too far of a drive from where we were. When we got there, we were mesmerized by the beauty of the site. It was amazing to see the formations of great red rocks, and it looked absolutely beautiful against a background of blue skies with white clouds. We had a little picnic and then hiked a bit. The kids loved it, especially Kateli who was intrigued by how we would be able to climb to the top of the rocks. She did come up with an idea though, and she was relentless about finding her transportation. A few weekends ago, the kids were watching Diego on the spanish channel, and Diego has a llama who helps him CLIMB, so guess what?? Kateli was enthusiastic about finding a llama on the grounds of the Garden so that it would help us climb to the top. Needless to say, we did not find a llama but we sure had fun listening to her talk about it, and watching Joshua enjoy picking up rocks and throw them with excitement.

The ride back to the Fort Collins was uneventful, except for the couple of times when the kids lost it. Luckily I had the DVD player charged up, and Kateli was content to watch a movie before falling asleep. Joshua on the other hand had just had it being in the car, and he threw such a fit that we had to stop and pull him out of the car seat for just a few minutes--poor kid! We arrived at the campground much later than we had anticipated, and uncle Dan, Tia Moca, and the kids had already set up camp--so it was like we were coming to a little camp resort!! We had dinner after a little bit of playtime near the river, and filling up a pail with sand. I think Joshua's favorite activity at the camp was picking up pebbles and tossing them into the river, he could have done that for hours on end--and he got excited with each toss! Kateli on the other hand, was full of favorites. She played near the water, she played in the sand/gravel with a bucket and shovel, she colored, and she hiked...she was content just to be in the company of any and all her cousins--although she may have gravitated a bit more toward Elliot, her only boy cousin. Elliot was an awesome sport and so sweet to her, she wanted him to hold her, or to hold her hand or to just play with her and he would do it with a happy heart. She also had lots of fun playing with Nora, and coloring with Lizzy, and she loved being carried by Emma! All in all it was an awesome vacation! We all had fun, and were sad to have to leave so soon. Hopefully we will all get together again sooner than later! Here is the first collage of pics that I've put together thus far. I have many more pics to go through, and I'll put a second one together, but for now enjoy!!

oh to sum up our firsts....First time for Joshua to fly, first time for all of us to be in Colorado Springs, First time visiting Focus on the Family, First time to go to the Garden of the Gods, First time to camp overnight....!!

Do they look older?

Cashing in on our CLUNKER

Sadly, we said our goodbyes to our dear 1985 Toyota Landcruiser this past week, and hello to a brand new Kia Soul. The "cruiser" as we referred to the dear ol'thing took us places, even as far as CO soon after purchasing the vehicle. Sure, it broke down on us Santa Fe, but it came back with a vengeance and was a fun car to drive, and ride in--even the kids got to enjoy it a few times; but we didn't know how much longer it would last. So, when the Cash For Clunkers deal came out, we/Dan jumped at the opportunity of getting a new car. Neither one of us has ever owned a brand new car, so this was going to be fun--a new car with barely any mileage on it, that we would get to break in. Daddy looked and test drove quite a few different options, and in the end decided on a Kia. He asked us all our color preference; I was leaning towards the alien green or the titanium, and Kateli was very definite when she said she wanted a "red" car. So, when Daddy came home on Tuesday evening with neither of our color preferences, Kateli was a bit surprised. I, of course, didn't mind that we were now the proud owners of two bright silver cars, but Kateli felt a bit differently. She didn't show much excitement when daddy pulled up, and when I asked her why she hadn't told daddy what a cool car he had brought, she replied "because that's not what I wanted. I wanted a red car"....she was so serious too!!! It was hilarious. She has now come to terms with the silver, and is enjoying the new car. Joshua, of course could care less what color car we got...he's just excited whenever daddy drives up in the afternoon, and anytime he sees the car parked outside. He squeals out "dadda car, car dadda"....

Here are a few pics to remember our old cruiser by!!!