Cheap Thrills

Today after dropping Christian off at preschool, Gabie, Jojo and I went to the dollar store to buy some cleaning products. I walked out with two bags and I only spent $9 and some change. What did I buy? Besides the toilet bowl cleaner and kitchen spray, I found a puzzle, two coloring books, a toy truck for Gabie, and a bag of bugs for Christian.

As you may know, Christian loves bugs, critters, and anything found in nature. On the rare occasions that I have taken him to the toy section of a store or to an actual toy store, he will scan the entire place and leave with a toy snake or a bug creature. That's it. His nana, my mother-in-law, is amazed at what Christian will get when we go the toy store. She will try to buy other things for him, but he's usually quite content with his small purchase. You can bet that makes this mother's heart sing.

And really, kids get so bored with what they have anyway so why buy things everytime you go to the store? If you do that then you get pestered to buy more things for them everytime you take them shopping. So not only am I practical, but I am cheap, er, frugal.

Take Lucas, our little bird. He is a wonderful pet, although he defecates constantly. Poor little birdy bird shall forever have his wings clipped because I am not going to like scraping birdy doo from all the walls, floors, and weasel heads that may be in the line of fire. What a fantastic steal he was -- $20 for the bird, cage, and birdseed! I certainly was not aware of such a sale the weekend we purchased Christian's birthday present. What a pleasing memory.

I left the bag of bugs that I'd found this morning on Christian's booster seat in the van. When he saw those creepy crawlies he was thrilled to pieces and you would've thought he had just gotten the best toy in the world. In his mind, it is. Cheap thrills, indeed.













Christian with a real firefly he caught in Nana and Papa's yard this summer















Christian & Sir Craptastico

Happy Birthday, Jojo Sebastian

Happy birthday, sweet boy! You're squeezable, lovable, and so mellow (for now). Thank you for coming into our lives. We all love you so much.

Jojo didn't quite know what to do with his cupcake, and it irritated him a little. Here's a video.

One year ago today I was in awe of this new little baby in our lives. I still am. Here are a photos from the day he was born and through the past year. We're such slackers -- with the first baby your camera is attached to the palm of your hand. By the time this third cutie came around, we were lucky if we had time to even find the camera. With Christian we had videos of changing his first diaper, to his first grin, to his first everything -- well, all you parents know how it is with your first little one!

Three little weasel boys

Happy birthday and many more, Jojo!

Johnny Cash and Dancing Insanity

I have a sick addiction to a certain TV show called 'Dancing with the Stars.' This madness has to stop. I just wasted two hours today and last night, and I may waste another two hours tomorrow night just to see Jonas Brothers play as Christian is excited to see this pubescent/post-pubescent boy band. If Christian was aware that CDs of their music are available, I would probably have to listen to it over and over. Let's keep that our little secret.

But why, oh why, do they not put actual latin music to the mambo and cha-cha since they are, after all, latin dances? Come on, Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby got Back" for the final mambo number?? No wonder the poor couple couldn't quite get into the rhythm -- sheesh! Oh, and I will never get the image of the new goth dancer & her partner star (she's living on the edge of Ballroom Dancing) either fox trotting or mambo-ing to The Cure. I'm pretty sure that's the second time I know of that a Cure song has been desecrated by 'DWTS'. My brother Sergio would be apalled.

Even Mike has been sucked into the madness. He just asked me who was eliminated as he was busy reading to Christian before bed. Isn't this football season? Oh, I remember. Football is on Monday nights and weekends. I get dibs on the big TV during 'DWTS', though. I have to say, sometimes there is actual latin music played to the latin dances and that's when I enjoy it so much. The show is a much needed respite after the long summer of hearing Johnny Cash tunes -- I promise, Aunt Patsy, to return 'Walk the Line' to you real soon. Gabriel can't get enough of singing those songs at the top of his lungs to anyone listening both inside and outside the house. He uses garden hoses, broken table legs (he broke them), and sticks as his microphone for his rather projectible (is that a real word?) voice. I have the movie lines and songs memorized. Gabie plays his heart out on the little red guitar, but when he can't find it he uses a teeny guitar that belongs to the Woody doll. He says he wants a "real guitar". Take a peek:

We'll have to sneak up on him to catch him singing. Your ears may ring for a while, trust me.

May you have a 'DWTS'- free evening tomorrow. I plan to, anyway. I'll only watch the last ten minutes to see who gets eliminated. Or maybe I'll see the half-time show with the Jonas Brothers to see what cheesy number the professional dancers end up doing with their music. Oh, forget it. I'll probably watch the whole silly thing and give you another report. Don't blame me if you or your loved ones get hooked. The show is one big heap of delicious insanity that gets me each season. One last request for 'DWTS': Please may there not be another Bon Jovi number thrown in this season.

They Played; He Coached; We Cheered

Today was a great day for Christian -- he scored two goals! That's Daddy up there; he's the assistant coach. Mike doesn't know much about soccer, but then, neither do the kids. This is Christian's second year playing and it has been good for him. He still gets a little frustrated when the ball is taken away from him, but he now knows to get back out there and try to take it back. Good game, striker!

He shoots, he scores! "Whooo--hoooo," said Daddy.

Jojo loves to swing...

Go, team, go! What's the name of their team, Coach? He says he doesn't know. Ok. Go, red and black team, go!

Sweet Sarito

Yesterday we received the news that our family's dear friend, Sarito, passed away. The last time I saw her was three years ago. That's a picture of Sarito, her husband, Mariano, and Christian. We are in the midst of planning our next trip with my whole family, and I had been excited about introducing my two youngest children to her. Although I attended my cousin Alberto's wedding in 2006, we were unable to go to northern Spain to see her last time. Sarito was a big part of our happy reunions, and it will never be the same without seeing her in the little village of Soto-Iruz.

Sarito raised eight children, and she was truly the heart and soul of her family. Everytime we saw her she would give us an update, "We are now 22 in the family!" My mom reminisced that that her life was like a novel. Without realizing that Sarito had such little time left in her life, some of her children were able to track down her long lost sister in France. They took her there for a visit last month. It was the first time she had seen her younger sister since Sarito was a child. Some of us need closure in our lives before our time is up, and we are happy that she got to have that.

We all loved her so much, and we shall miss our sweet Sarito always.

Lack of Z's and all those B's

After several days of losing sleep, I am a total wreck of a mom. Partly, it is my fault. I've been digging into an excellent novel, catching up on my news mags, and just staying up too late for my own good. The baby had been waking up a couple times during the night due to teething, but now Jojo is waking due to habit, I am sure. And then I end up getting up between 6:00-7:00 A.M. after having had too few precious hours of sleep because those are the younger weasals' waking hours.

By the time dinner rolled around the boys rolled their eyes for the hundredth time at the apparent filth I was trying to dish out to them. I'd had it. Last night Christian and I needed to work on his letter writing: B's this week. We worked and worked for an hour, and I got more and more frustrated as did he. I should've known when to stop, but no! Christian still did it and pushed through without a temper tantrum. It was I who had the meltdown and I should've just gone to bed.

So after our homework, Mike bathed the kids and I got Christian out of the bath and dried him off. After the horrible way I acted, Christian looked at me as I was toweling him and whispered in my ear, "I'm glad you're here, Mommy."

Kids can teach you a lot about forgiveness. Thank you God for letting me mother these kids, but please forgive me for being such a horrid person yesterday. Amen.

Ode to my Furniture

Oh, new night stand and sleigh bed frame --
how beautiful you once were
before the lotion and lovely gouge
marred your existence wrought
by the little weasel tot
running amock in our household.

And the lovely recliner which once
was a shade of beige and is now
a shade of caca and coffee brought on
by stinky, dirt-smeared hands of
one little weasel tot and the other jumping
big weasel with the blackened dirty
feet pretending to be Spider Man or
Kung Fu Panda --

And our third soon-to-be walking
weasel baby will soon add to the mess.

Yet, no one can do it like little weasel tot
who has also colored my caca colored stain-
smeared recliner arm with red marker
found in a drawer (damn) --
who somehow managed to break

Our beautiful glass of the coffee table
yesterday with his monster truck pounding
on the already cracked two-days-before top
of the glass
"Gabie did that!" "No, Christian deeed dat!"
with those fair-purchased
heavy magnets that weasel boy should have
hidden from weasel tot, but alas --

I digress. Oh, lovely coffee table, I shall miss
wiping the excess handprints off your beautiful
beveled glass face. Oh, how my weasals shall
miss being able to ride their mocoyos and trucks
and using the glass to balance as little weasel
baby tries to walk around the corner.

Now all we have
is a huge
gaping
hole surrounded
by
a useless frame.

Fair Scare

Yesterday my parents and I took the boys to the State Fair. It had been several years since I had gone, and we were excited to see the fair through the kids' eyes. The fun we had at the children's exhibit making ginormous bubbles, petting the animals, watching the kids dance and, at times, cover their ears at the loud music coming from Spanish Village. We watched the electric trains go round and round the city and mountains at the train exhibit. We ate corn dogs, funnel cake, and lemonade. We watched the unicyler juggle three fire sticks. It was a perfectly beautiful day in the upper 70s and it got cooler as the evening wore on. The best part is we had the fair practically to ourselves being a weekday.

On our way out Christian wanted to stop at the agriculture building once again to view the fish, turtles and other wildlife. We stopped to take pictures in front of the bobcat cage where a cute-looking, yet fierce cat was pacing back and forth. There are clear signs on these cages which state: "I bite". My parents and I were distracted for less than a minute, when suddenly we heard a gasp around us and as we turned we saw Gabriel had maneuvered his way behind the rail and was about to stick his hand into the bobcat cage. Just in the nick of time my dad caught him.

Little Gabe, you gave us such a fright. Grandpa says you're intrepid. This is the child who keeps us on our toes. He can climb tall bookshelves, he's not afraid of water fights at the pool with bigger kids, he can defend himself, and we still have not found much that he is afraid of. He is the complete opposite of his older brother Christian.

On the way out we stopped at the over-priced toy booth and they each got toy guns which light up and make loud noises upon pulling of the trigger. Gabriel shot at strangers innocently eating their fair junk on benches, while Christian got into a gun battle with kids wielding bubble-shooting guns. Oh the fun we all had, save for the little incident in the agriculture building.

We'd like to return with Mike next time -- they'll really have some over-the-top fun at the midway rides! That's the stuff this daddy enjoys doing with the kids. I have a feeling Christian, who is quite cautious, and I will be doing quite a bit of observing from the sidelines as Gabie and Daddy ride the sacks down the tall slides. I, for one, shall have another funnel cake and other fair goodies.

Keep it fun and safe as you enjoy your local fair.

Welcome

Hello!

So after yammering on and on about wanting to start a blog I finally have. This is a great way for our far away relatives and friends to keep in touch and see what we have been doing. I look forward to receiving your feedback and suggestions for this blog.

Hope you're all well!

Elena