Beach Babies Part I – Sand Sans Sun

As you probably gathered from the title, we went to the beach on a day when we thought it was going to be sunny (well, it was sunny when we left for the beach!) and then wasn’t. But we had fun anyway. Here are a bazillion pictures from that day. They were all so great I couldn’t pick!

This picture deserves some explanation… I told Vince that we were going to get into the water (I meant… wade in the water). I turn back to pick up pebbles, and the next thing I know, Vince is at my elbow, “Will you take off my shirt?” he’s asking me. What? I turn around to tell him “No” and realize that he has completely stripped down to only his shirt (the only thing he doesn’t ever take off by himself). So this picture is me frantically carrying him back to our blanket where he had left his underwear. There were people all around. Oh my goodness, how embarrassing. Well, he gets naked to get in the bath tub, I guess he figured it was the same thing!

 

This picture needs a comment as well – there is a little crab exoskeleton on that rock I am holding up. It was kind of cute… and creepy… and a little gross. 

Graduation

This is a pretty old picture of Vincente teaching Joseline how to really crawl. She did the army crawl for so long we thought she’d never learn how to do the all-fours crawl. Well, she did, and now she’s pulling herself up to stand, and crawling/climbing up anything she can. She’s not really interested in cruising much, but that’s okay, she’s only 9 months old.

It’s actually nice to have a baby who does everything at about average. Vince figured things out way too fast for me.

Announcements

I have a few announcements to make:

1.) I will be running a half marathon in 2010.

2.) I have moved my food blog, and I have posted the recipe of my Zebra popcorn thereon: A Word of Wisdom

3.) I have created a blog for my daily scripture study. I was just putting it in a word document, but I thought it would be neat to make it a little more public: My Soul Delighteth

4.) Well… I think that is all. Oh yes, I have discovered why I haven’t been able to post pictures, so give me a little while and I’ll have probably 100 posts with lots of pictures. I’ll give you a little index when I’m done :)

Christmas Part V – On Christmas Morning

I wake up bright and early… 

On Christmas morning, we did just that – woke up bright and early. Well, not exactly bright – but early! Joseline and I have matching ribbons for our hair now!!

We had friends over to spend Christmas morning opening presents – the Wildes. It was a fun time and we ate yummy scones and played with Christmas presents all morning.

 This is cute little baby Ethan wearing Joseline’s santa hat. Of course, his head is about twice the size of Joseline’s, so it didn’t fit very well! And Ethan loves Russ. Of course, most babies love Russ. But Ethan loves Russ, and Russ loves Ethan, so I guess the feeling is mutual. Look at that cute little chunk of a kid!

 

I guess we wore them out!

Christmas Part IV – Traditions

We’ve started a few family Christmas traditions this year, seeing as this has been our first Christmas completely alone. (That sounds sad, but really it was a happy thing! We enjoyed being able to do our own thing for the holidays).

Tradition #1 – gift giving – we give four gifts (and then a bunch of little stocking stuffers) – something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read. It worked really really well this year. It simplifies gift buying and helps us to focus on the real reason for the season – the Savior and His ultimate gift to us.

Tradition #2 – Caroling – our picture above was taken by our neighbors (our first stop caroling). We made up plates of cookies and took them to all the military families who were staying around town for Christmas. It was a lot of fun, and my personal favorite tradition.

Tradition #3 – scone breakfast – Russ came up with this one. In Isaiah there is a prophecy that Christ will eat butter and honey to learn to choose the good and refuse evil. So we made fried scones for breakfast on Christmas morning (I made the dough the night before) and ate them with butter and honey. They were absolutely delicious!

Tradition #4 – Nativity Play – we acted out the Nativity (in Portuguese, of course!) I played Mary, Joseline played baby Jesus (although she freaked out when we put her in the “manger” – aka, the toy box), Vince was Joseph, a shepherd, and a wise man, and Russ was the narrator, shepherd, and wise man. We plan to get more involved each year, as our kids get a little older. But it was lots of fun to start this year with our tiny kids!

Tradition #5 – music program – so we didn’t actually do this one this year, but we will start next year. We want to put on a music program each Christmas. I will play piano, violin and sing, Russ will play the trumpet, we will sing Christmas songs together and have a jolly time celebrating the season with music!

Tradition #6 – The Nativity Song – we also didn’t do this one this year, and we probably won’t start doing it until Vince is in Primary (so in two years). We are going to incorporate music into our Nativity play. We’ll make sure to take videos and post them :)

 

I think it is really important to have some holiday traditions with you family. What are some of your holiday traditions? Where did they come from? What traditions do you want to start next year?

My New Normal v 4.0

Stupid Live Writer isn’t letting me post pictures… AGAIN. Grr… I think I know what the problem is, but I don’t know how to fix it 8-o Posting pictures using the blogger “new post” thing just takes so much longer! I am thoroughly annoyed.

Anyway, back to my new normal!

I have started trying something new, and it has been really working.

I typed up a checklist of all the important things I need to do every day, listed in order of importance. I figured that having a routine is good, but most of the time, each day is different from the next, and if I don’t have some way of making sure I get the important things done, I feel like I’ve wasted a whole day, even if I have done most of the important things. I put the checklist in a page protector and I use a dry erase marker to check things off each day. That way I can just keep using the same list every day, because this list of things doesn’t change. I did leave room under “errands” and “budget/planning/misc” to write in specific things that need to be done, like grocery shopping, etc. Since I don’t grocery shop every day.

Some examples:

Scripture study

Exercise

Read scriptures to Vince at breakfast

1 load of laundry

So, during the day, I just go through and check off things as I get them done. It’s much more simple than having to write up a “to do” list every day, seeing as my to do list is about the same things all day long every day…

This also helps keep me motivated, since I don’t feel like I have to do any of the items in any particular order. Granted, I listed them in order from highest to lowest priority, just to give myself a little direction, but it’s okay if I have to (or want to) skip to something at the end. Maybe something that I haven’t been getting to for a few days.

Anyway, today is day 4 of the checklist, and so far it has been GREAT. I feel more motivated to get things done because I have a visual reminder of what still needs to be done that day. I also feel accomplished at the end of each day because I have a visual reminder of all the things I have done. So instead of feeling worthless because all day every day I just clean the house, do the dishes, do the laundry, feed the kids, and run errands, I can feel like I’ve actually been DOING things, because there they are, staring me in the face from the side of the fridge.

If trying to make up a daily routine isn’t working for you, maybe try prioritizing your life and writing it down in a checklist.

Maybe I’ll post my entire checklist later.

Normal is starting to feel a lot less lame. :)

Christmas Part III – D Co Christmas Party, and Santa

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the left, Joseline in my arm waiting to see Santa at the Delta Company Christmas party. On the right, I think Vince is telling Santa what’s up. He never really said anything coherent to Santa, but hey, it was his first Santa visit where he actually knew what was going on.

   Joseline wondering who the heck is behind that beard

Vincente “Aaaah, yeah – a present for me. This red suit guy is pretty awesome!”

Christmas Part II – The Light Of the World

When we got home from picking out the tree, Vince was exhausted and fell asleep on the couch. Joseline helped decorate. Okay, so mostly she just played in the decorations and stared at the Christmas lights.

A few weeks later we put up lights outside. Russ just climbed up on the roof (we have a pretty flat roof – no need for peaks in a place where it never snows) and stuck them to the gutter with these cool little clippy things we bought forever ago. We bought those our second Christmas and this is the first year we have ever put them on our house. This happens to be our 5th Christmas. Yeah, so we’ve been busy the last few years.

Vince loved that we put up lights outside (he was awake for that part, and even helped). We had to string the lights under the kitchen door and plug them in where the toaster oven is plugged in because there are no outlets outside (actually, I found out a few weeks after Christmas that there perhaps are outlets outside… but I guess it doesn’t matter now…). Well, one day Russ used the toaster oven and unplugged the outside lights, and didn’t plug them back in. No big deal, because we try to unplug them during the day anyway. We went out to run errands and got home after it started getting dark. Vince got out of the car and realized that the lights weren’t on outside and flipped out. Seriously, he had a total meltdown until we plugged the lights in. He was so excited to help put up the lights that he wanted to make sure they were turned on at night!

  

Christmas Part I – Tree Shopping

 

I watched a little boy for a friend this fall, and she paid me in gift cards. One of the gift cards was for Home Depot, so that’s where we got our Christmas tree. We decided on a shorter one so we could put it up on a stool to keep it out of reach of the little munchkin named Joseline. Unfortunately that didn’t work perfectly, but that’s okay, what are kids for anyway if not to demolish your perfectly decorated tree.

Russ brought fruit snacks for the drive over, and we found the perfect little noble fir for about $20. We’ve talked about getting an artificial tree next year. Probably after Christmas when everything is marked down. We’ll see. We keep going back and forth. We love the real tree, but… hmm. Although I did see someone write that they have lots of land so they buy a Christmas tree with the roots still intact, use that for their tree during Christmas, and then plant it on their property after Christmas! I really like that idea. When we buy land we will surely do that!

I am a Builder

Vincente’s new favorite pastime is building with his blocks. Russ and I help occasionally, but he has become really good at building towers himself. We use all his blocks. The letter blocks, the IKEA blocks, the little shape sorter blocks. He knows that the triangles go at the top to make a roof. Well, I guess they don’t have to, but for him they do.

Here you can see two towers. The one on the left either Russ or I started, but only the first two layers. Vincente built the rest, decorations and all. Like I said, he is getting very good. The one on the right Vince did all by himself. That’s probably why it doesn’t have a very good foundation. Wow, you could get all kinds of allegories from that one. “The Allegory of the Building Blocks” – I think I’ll have to write a post about that someday.

  

Hiatus

Wow, I didn't realize it has been so long since I last posted. Well, this isn't going to be a real post other than to let you know that we really are still alive, and it might just be after the new year when you really hear from us again. Actually, that's not true, I think I will post some Christmas pictures once we get our Christmas tree and lights up. Life has just been a little crazy, but we're doing well - I promise.

Once I get back into the swing of things and figure out how to structure my life again, I'll post some cute pictures of the kiddos. They are getting SO big. You won't believe it!

The Next Mozart

I was in the kitchen cleaning when I hear perfect chord progressions coming from the living room. What!? I thought. Vince playing chord progressions?! When I peeked in the living room, I saw Vince plinking around one-fingeredly on the piano… somehow he had activated a “chord” function on the keyboard. And here I thought he was some kind of child prodigy. Nope, just my sweet little Vince enjoying himself. But that’s prodigy enough for me.

Joseline, etc