One Year Older

Vince and Joseline’s birthdays are ten days apart, and Vincente’s birthday falls on or near General Conference every year, so birthday parties don’t happen all that often for them.

This year we partied while Papai was in Paris on a French immersion.

While we were taking these pictures

he was taking these pictures

Renae and her kids were down visiting for spring break so we had the entire family there for their birthday. The cake is always a highlight, although Joseline was a little worried about all those people singing happy birthday to her.

She perked right up when it was time for presents. Especially the gift from Jordan to “Joshasilin”. In some world, that spells “Joseline”. I really can’t fault them, though. It’s a hard name to spell, even if you go with the traditional “Jocelyn” spelling. Which to me is even harder than the way we spell it. At least our way makes a little bit of orthographical sense…

In true form, Jordan gifted several of his old toys.

The duct tape covered Nerf ax was a big hit (and still is).

And I am pretty sure Jordan’s gift doubled our stuffed animal collection.

Good thing I made that zoo.

They now have Nerf guns. I’m pretty sure every kid needs a Nerf gun.

The “big” Grandma/Grandpa gifts -

Bumblebee transformer for Vincente. He’s been begging for a “big transformer” since his cousin Sam got one last November for his 5th birthday. He originally asked for Optimus Prime, but I’m pretty sure when he saw Bumblebee all he could think about was how incredibly cool he was that he now had a real transformer. Whoa.

Joseline’s big gift was a bike. She was not incredibly thrilled about it and although we got her to ride around for a little bit she really didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Hopefully she’ll grow out of that.

Happy Birthday, Baby!

 
Today is my sweet Joseline’s 2nd Birthday! We went to IKEA last night to buy her a “big girl” bed for her birthday. She has been asking to sleep in Vincente’s bed for the past few nights, and so we decided it’s about time. We bought this bed in the black pictured below.  It also come in white, but the white looked dingy when it got scratched up, so we went with black. It fits our tastes. We hope Joseline will like it! I’m sure she will. I also love that it is wider than a normal crib mattress, because she’s starting to look cramped on the crib mattress. We’ll probably be getting Vincente bunkbeds for his birthday. We’ve been meaning to get bunk beds for a while, but we haven’t because, well, probably because we are lazy. But since it’s his birthday, and we got Joseline a bed (ironically, her mattress is bigger than his now) we feel we should probably upgrade our 4 year old into a twin mattress.

For her birthday, I blew up some balloons and put them in her crib before she woke up this morning. We were going to get some helium balloons from the party store last night and then tie them on to her crib this morning, but I think she actually enjoyed this more. She was actually HAPPY when I went to get her out of her crib. Joseline is pretty crabby most mornings, so this was a nice change. And she spent a good 20 minutes or so playing with the balloons before they moved on to something else. We’ll do the helium balloons for Vince, probably. It would have been fun to switch her beds in the night while she was sleeping, but we probably would have woken her up.

We’ll have cake and ice cream for her tonight for a party, and eventually we’ll have a family party with Russ’ family for both her and Vincente (their birthdays are 10 days apart).

Happy Birthday, Joseline!

(below: Joseline’s 1st birthday – she has so much more hair now!)

They Say It’s Your Birthday

Since Russ was unavoidably detained this year on my birthday, I threw myself a birthday party and celebrated with the kids. The morning of my birthday we picked up balloons, a cake, and a pot of Gerber daises.

Around dinner time I fired up the grill, and set up the webcam to capture the experience (for family history sake – and so Russ could feel like he had been there). Earlier I had put together a play list of great birthday music (including that birthday song by the Beatles). We danced and BBQ’d (in the rain!) and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

I grilled hot dogs for the kiddos and chicken for me, and then grilled some bell peppers and potatoes. I should have bought skewers, but oh well – you live and you learn. I have to say for my first time on the grill by myself I did a pretty good job!

     

24

No, I’m not talking about the TV show. I’m talking about my age, as of 3 am this morning.

Yes, it’s true – today is my birthday. It came quietly, and it’s going to go quietly, like any other day this year – mostly because no one really knows where I am, and the only people I have around me are my 3 year old, and my 1 year old. Birthdays don’t mean a whole lot to them. I did tell Vince it was my birthday today, which seemed to make him happy. And then I asked him how old I was... that stumped him.

I plan on picking up a cake and candles later today, and for dinner we’re going to fire up the grill (if it would stop raining... just perfect... a rainy birthday).

Anyway, a friend suggested that I blog a “self portrait” for my birthday. Now, I don’t think I’m particularly interesting, and I don’t even really know what “self portrait” means – so I’ve posted a picture of me, and maybe I’ll talk about the significant things that have happened to me since my last birthday.

- We’ve moved... three times...
– Russ finished a 18 month long Chinese course (thank goodness)
– I started tutoring for tutor.com
– I chopped off all my hair (twice)
– we got two little puppies, who have been a blessing and a curse...
– we found a house (cross your fingers)

Basically it’s been a stressful year, and hopefully the stress level will go down as 2010 comes to a close... not likely, but we’ll cross our fingers for it...

A Fun Fourth

These pictures are a little late, but I’ve been busy since I got home. 

Everyone hanging out on the cool grass. The weather was actually not terrible (considering the temperature hovered around 110 degrees practically the whole time we were in Tucson). Me taking pictures, as usual.

A little video of Joseline throwing poppers. I think the one in this video didn’t actually pop (the pop sound is probably from one of the other 20 poppers that were being thrown) but she got a kick out of it anyway! And she did get a few to pop.

Russ and his cousin Aaron shooting “popper” guns that shot confetti. We originally were trying to light what we thought were wicks on all the fireworks... then we figured out that they were actually just confetti popper type fireworks... doi. So, we had a noisy 4th of July, but not a fire-filled one :(

Us hanging out on the hammock (which we were breaking 8-o it as already broken, we just broke it a little more...)

 

Independence Day Cakes

Ingredients:

- white cake mix

- 16 oz. heavy whipping cream

- 4 T. butter

- 1 c. sugar (granulated or powedered)

- 2 tsp vanilla

- 1 pint strawberries, rinsed and sliced

- 1 tub blueberries, rinsed

- a bunch of kids who want to decorate cakes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just bake up the cakes, let them cool, make the “whipped frosting” – which is basically whipped cream with a little butter to make it a little thicker. I didn’t take the time to find a really good whipped icing recipe, so I just kind of made it up as I went along. It tasted great. And I didn’t measure anything at all, so, you know... I just kind of made up some measurements right now on the spot.

If you look at the top right hand picture above, you’ll see that the second cake started out as a star – but then there were extra strawberries and blueberries, and since the smaller kids were “in charge'” of the star, it ended up just being a pile of fruit on top of a cake. Delicious.

Toney working on the “star” cake that ended up being a fruit pile cake.

Joseline “helping”

Vincente “helping” (my kids sure have odd ways of helping out in the kitchen, don’t you think?)

 

More independence day pictures for your viewing pleasure:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

The hand with the lighter is Aaron. Silly man.

One Year Older

Joseline turned 1 on March 23! She’s growing up so fast. Still not walking, but she’s my little sweetheart. She is so precious and snuggly and such a good eater (she ate that whole mini cake above. Probably in under 5 minutes)!

Grandma Shirley bought Joseline a pretty green Easter dress for her birthday (turns out I have two Easter babies!)

After church (and before the cake madness) we did a photo shoot of Joss in her pretty new dress.

 

We tried to get a few pictures of Joseline with her cousin, Annie, but I don’t think we ever got them to both look at the camera at the same time. I tried to get Joseline to walk – as you can see, she does a great job holding on with one hand.

She didn’t really like the feel of the grass on her feet, and kept trying to inch toward the sidewalk.

I am in love with this little girl. I’ve been listening to the General Young Women’s broadcast on my iPhone, and I just can’t help feeling so blessed to have this beautiful baby in my life – who will one day be a beautiful young woman! I feel very privileged to be the mother who will get to sit with her at the General YW meetings. To be the mother who gets to teach her to pray and to love Heavenly Father. I am in such awe of this beautiful little girl. I just want to be the best mother for her and Vincente. They are a precious responsibility that Heavenly Father has placed in my hands. I can’t do it without Heavenly Father, I know that for sure. Good thing He’s with me in this child-raising thing.

     

How does being a mother make you feel? Do you counsel with Heavenly Father every day, pleading with Him to help you be a better mother? Do you feel His strength with you as you strive to be a better mother?

Happy 2nd!

Yesterday was the official second anniversary of our family blog. I am pleased to say that I wrote more posts in 2009 than I did in 2008, and I hope the trend will continue. I hope all of my readers enjoy reading about our family and our exciting adventures.

This year is going to hold a lot more adventure, so stay tuned! And if you have a family blog (or any other blog!) that isn’t on my blog list (see the right) please let me know so I can keep up on your family, and comment on your blog, too!!

Oh, and my blog goal this year will be to label my posts. I’ve been pretty bad about that since I switched to Window Live Writer. But I will be better this year!

Happy 28th, Papai! (and happy 23rd, Mamãe!)

After Joseline’s 6 month check up last Wednesday (yes, Joss’ half birthday is Papai’s birthday!), we wanted to surprise Papai for his birthday with cookies for his class. Well, the nurse took a little longer than expected to get Joseline her DTaP vaccine, so we didn’t get over to Russ’ class until about 10:50, and he gets out at 10:45. His motorcycle was gone. He went home for lunch, not knowing we were coming to surprise him.

Anyway, we went to a little playground on the post to wait for him to get back on post so we could give him his cookies. I figured that by the time we got to the house, he would be already on his way back to class.

I called our house phone about when I thought he would be there. The conversation went something like this:

Papai: Hello?

Me: Hi, honey!

Papai: How did you know to call me at home? (he had lost his phone earlier in the week, so I hadn’t had a way to get a hold of him)

Me: We’re sitting outside your classroom.

Papai: Oh! Well, I’ll pack up my sandwich and come back

Me: Okay, we’re waiting at the park across from your class.

Papai: Okay, see you soon.

What I didn’t realize was that “we’re waiting at the park across from your class” sounded to him like “we’re parked across from your class.” So we saw him drive right past us. I even flapped my arms like a dummy. But he didn’t see us.

The end of this story is happy – we finally met up outside his classroom, and ate really yummy frosted chocolate cookies. It was a pretty fun birthday party for Papai. And Vince loved playing at the park.

The family eating dinner at Olive Garden in Salinas (thanks, Mom and Dad Rowley!)

We didn’t get pictures of our family at The Fish Hopper in Monterey, but we also went there to eat (thanks, Mom and Dad Werner!)

Our birthday week was perfect -

Tuesday, my birthday, we got a sitter and went out to the Monterey Farmers Market. We ate burritos, quesadillas, and tamales. They were delish. Then that evening I got to have a girls’ night. It was fabulous.

Wednesday, Russ’ birthday, we did the whole surprise-that-ended-up-not-being-a-surprise. Then we went out to Olive Garden in Salinas. On the way back, we picked up Russ’ birthday gift at Walmart – a workout bench – decline, incline, and flat bench. So now Papai can do his workouts at home!

Friday we went out to The Fish Hopper. I had a scrumptious salad with all sorts of fishy food on it, Papai had fettucine alfredo (of course), Vince had spaghetti and meatballs, and Joseline at some bread.

Our birthday week was nice and quiet this year – just our family. And it was really nice.