Baptism Message

I've been sitting here reminiscing with my blog tonight thanks to my SIL, Abby; she is at that awkward point in her pregnancy where she has important clothing choices to make-throw in the towel and wear sweat pants all the time, or try like the dickens to make her normal jeans work until the last.possible.minute (guess which route I took?). She's super cute, and super tiny (oh to be pregnant in my 20's again). She's had a sealed envelope in her house for several weeks now that contains the sex of their baby and hasn't touched it-can you believe the will power? I'd have ripped that thing open within 4 1/2 minutes.

If you've never read her blog-you should, she's an entertaining writer (getting her masters in journalism at Georgetown right now-smart girl).

Anyway, I digress.

I started looking back through my Pedro pregnancy posts and found this cute one-now, when I say cute, I'm certainly not talking about me 8 months pregnant-but the sweet little story about Juan Carlos (then 3- now almost 8!) and our dead turtle. I had totally forgotten about it.

That makes me feel bad that I'm not blogging more now-how much of this crazy period of my life am I really going to remember a few years down the road? So, I am recommitting myself to my blog-even if they are just lame little posts to remember the funny things my kids do.

With that in mind...

Today we attended the baptism of one of our friends' son. Our primary always sets out paper for those who attend to write a little message to the child getting baptized and then they compile the messages into a little book. Pedro, who can only write his name at this point, wanted to write something a little more meaningful, so he handed me the paper and pencil and asked me to write it for him. I asked him what he wanted to tell Andrew on his special baptism day and he said, "Tell him I love Santa."

Is that too cute?

The Best Christmas Present Ev-er

I've been trying to deal with the guilt that comes with receiving a new laptop from your spouse when you've purchased him an ant farm (albeit the best ant farm I could find).

You might be wondering how in the world I would even think up the idea of giving Guapo an ant farm (or why?). It's some strange appendage from his childhood-he has very fond memories of having an ant farm as a young lad. Whenever I ask him what he wants for his birthday or Christmas that's always the first (and only) answer he gives me (he's less than helpful in the present department). I've tried other ant farms before, but they were always a "disappointment"-ie lots of dead ants, no tunneling.

But, as I was struggling this year to stay within our tight Christmas budget (apparently so HE could buy the good gifts and get all the glory), I figured, "What the heck, I'll get him another ant farm."

Well, the ants arrived today in the mail and I got to put them in their new habitat:

I kept an eye on them for a few hours and there was no tunneling action going on; I was certain we were on the brink of another ant apocalypse.

But, lo and behold-check out what they've done this evening:

Pretty dang cool, huh?

The beauty of my gift is that it keeps on giving; according to the instructions, long after your ants have died, "their art lives on-a testament to the collective intelligence and industrious determination of this incredible insect...each kit includes a lighted base for showcasing your unique sculpture as a beautiful night light."

I'm sure it will end up in Juan Carlos's bedroom. Actually I'm hoping it ends up there as Guapo is threatening to put it on the fireplace mantle.

Have a great weekend!

First Playdate

Just to mark this day in history, Pedro (almost 4) had his very first playdate.

He went home with a little friend directly after preschool for a couple of hours. So, what did I do with all my free time? Well, I divided it basically between two activities:

1) pacing around the house not feeling quite right
2)worrying that they would get in a car crash while driving from the school to the ice cream shop, and then from their house to our house

I called after an hour or so to make sure he'd made it to their house and she asked him if he wanted to talk to me and I could hear him in the background, "No, that's ok."

He made it home safely and all is well (other than a bucket load of tears shed because I wouldn't take him immediately to Target to by a Lighting McQueen game for the Wii that he played at his friend's house), but I still feel weird.

My little guy is growing up. :(

What's Up?

I'm not even going to bore you with my excuses.

I'm just plain.old.busy. I don't have a maid or a driver any more and I do have 4 active kids so I'm just busy, busy, busy all the day long.

Christmas

Christmas was good. One of those where you decide ahead of time with your spouse that you're not going to spend a lot of money on each other. Yeah. I got Guapo an ant farm and some licorice, and he got me a new laptop.

I'll get him back.

New Year's

New Year's was good. We drove to Utah to spend it with all of Guapo's family-all 16 kids and 14 adults-and a huge snow storm that trapped us all in for a good 24 hours. It was lots of fun-our kids just love being with their cousins. And we have two new ones one the way-one is still an "it" but the other is a GIRL! There have been 9 boys in a row-Margarita was the last girl almost 13 years ago. So, that's exciting.

Cub Scouts

I was enjoying my calling as cub scout den leader a little too much-I think I told one too many people how much fun I was having, so I was released and called into a new Relief Society presidency (woman's organization of our church). Luckily, I was spared from planning monthly activities which would have made me a wreck the next two years, and was put in charge of compassionate service (keeping an eye out on those with health issues and such) and education (making sure the Sunday lessons are decent)-two of my favorite things, so I am happy. And I like the new president a lot, she and I have been running together the past couple of months. The other counselor is the re-gifter from this post- she's a cool lady, too (but I probably won't be giving her any gifts-unless I KNOW it's something she wants). I'm enjoying it, it's just a little more labor intensive than my weekly cub meeting and I miss the boys.

My House

I have stopped scrubbing the floors on my hands and knees once a week and washing eveyone's sheets once a week. Now I'm down to twice a month on those jobs and I admitt I haven't been in the kids' bathroom in quite a while-they are *supposed* to be doing that as one of their chores-but I have my doubts about it getting done properly. I just can't keep the house spotless without some professional help which I don't foresee happening (and I'm not saying I want it to happen). Oh well. I love having some time to myself in my own house-it's freedom for me (even if the floors aren't perfect).

Running

I am signed up to run the Ragnar So-Cal relay race April 14. What does that entail? Twelve women running a total of 200 miles in 24 hours of which I will be running 20.4 miles broken up into 3 legs. It's scaring the crap out of me (excuse me, I mean, horsefeathers). So, training for that is taking up a decent percentage of my free time.

Kids

Kids are good. Juan Carlos has this new thing were he is always going around with just one sock on, or one shoe on. Not sure what that's about.

Pedro calls hiccups, "hook-ups" which I think is adorable.

Margarita got a 4.0 her first semester of 7th grade-yay!

Julio is like a sponge for sport facts-I can't believe he's only been aware of American football for several months and he knows all the players, past Superbowl teams and scores, stats of all kinds-amazing.

Pets

Guapo installed an electric fence for Quakey today, and Tuesday he's going in to be neutered. Poor guy has some not-so-fun days ahead of him.

Kitty wants to only drink running water out of the bathroom sink-whenever I go into the bathroom there she is, begging me to turn on the water so she can drink from her water fountain.

Ronald is my good boy.

Hermit crabs make boring pets.

Winter

Even though we've gotten way less snow than normal here this year, I am loving being back in a 4-season locale. Love, love, love it.


That's all. Did I leave anything out?