A E I L S

I was just writing names on rubber bands for our large family gathering in Albany next week. As I got to my family, I realized that my daughters have almost the exact same letters for their first name.

What do these letters spell?

A E I L S

+ h = S h E I L A
+ b = I S A b E L

This is how our football Saturdays begin

Both MJ and Joey are having a great time with football this year. We've figured that MJ is the only player on his team to run for a touchdown, throw for a touchdown, and catch a touchdown pass. MJ is on the light blue team. He is the center this play and wearing a navy hat.

Here's the touchdown reception.


And this was just a few plays later

Happy Halloween

What's happening in Ashburn?

I've been having so much fun reading all the posts from the other families and enjoying all of your pictures, I realize we haven't posted anything in awhile.

Our fall schedule includes Mon - CCD class I teach at St. Theresa (Joey is in my class), Tuesday - MJ baseball game and football practice, Wed are FREE, Thurs football practice for MJ and Joey, Saturday football games from 8:30am-Noon. I love Wednesdays because we have nothing to do! Mario and I are coaching Joey's team this year and having a lot of fun with it. Isabel and Sheila seem to go enjoy all the action.

We also really enjoyed the ND gamewatch that so many family were able to make. We were especially happy that Aunt Raquel and Alfonso as well as Aunt Loli joined in on the fun. Aunt Loli shared many amazing clothes with me (THANK YOU!!!) and visited with us on Sunday. She was so generous and bought the kids very fun gifts of bubbles and some wooden games that they all really love. Aunt Loli, we had such a great time with you!

Also in this slideshow is a picture of Isabel after our ER visit. In hindsight the situation is not so terrible, but in the moment it was a bit scary. Very long story made short - I thought Isabel may have swallowed a water balloon and her abnormal cranky behavior, drooling, and "twitching" made me think we should check her out. After 2 x-rays and a few hours she calmed down and we felt that at worst she swallowed it but it probably reached her stomach and she would be fine.

Also back-tracking to September pictures I don't remember if I posted but they were exciting occasions. MJ's first day of first grade. And Joey can ride his bike without training wheels!

Too many pictures to comment on, but at least now you are a bit caught up on what is going on in Ashburn.

Time for piano lessons?

MJ participated in Piano Express last week. It was a piano immersion from 9am-2pm M-F. He definitely learned a lot in the week and since he's been home on Friday he's been playing more and "writing" his own music.


He advanced himself through the workbook and got to this more challenging (and recognizable) song where he needed to play both his left and right hands simultaneously.



So, piano lessons are expensive. I know we'll eventually pay for them. I already seem a bit overwhelmed by our fall sport commitments and was thinking I could maybe order the primer level piano books that his instructor said he uses and try to go through the books with him myself. I have no training in the piano, but I can read notes to sing. Mario thinks I'm nuts and he's probably right. MJ certainly enjoys this and I'm happy to say his love of "getting it right" through video games is translating into getting it right on the piano. And you can be sure I'd rather him spend an hour playing the piano than playing the Wii.

So, here's our little guy trying to be like Uncle Francis!

Random July photos

I just love this picture of Isabel

Half Bath

We enjoyed the result of the upstairs bathroom so much, we jumped right into the next project. I was really happy to find the original pictures of this bathroom from when we moved in. Man, this house needed a makeover! We definitely stretched our imaginations to see its potential...and now we are finally making that a reality.

Upstairs Bathroom Remodel

I appreciate the cool collage that Mario made with the bathroom remodel pictures, but I wanted to post them this way so that if you wanted to view them bigger you could. Mario also did a great job of copying the angle of my before pictures exactly - although, I may not have picked the best angles in the first place. You'll just have to come visit us to see these in person.

A recap of May

Seeing as we are well in to June, I am going to recap May (minus Mother's Day, Luke's ordination, and our bathroom renovation). First a note, after the ordination and being embarrassed by Sheila's hair, I've made an effort to try to do something with it every day. As soon as she pulls it out, I'd do it again. After a week, I think I successfully trained her to be vain. (great)

I think I have captions for most pictures...these are the events:

Joey's first football team and game
Mario's second football season
Trip to Charleston, SC for a wedding
Hanging out with the Hanson family
Field Day at St. Theresa
Ashburn Farm Summer Kick Off on memorial day weekend (games, food, fireworks, FUN!) Sheila was super brave to go on the ride and wanted me to spin it more. Many a kid got sick from it - we all made it off okay.
MJ's Kindergarten graduation

Happy Easter and 30th Birthday

Thank you for all the birthday wishes. I really had the BEST birthday! God perfectly planned my 30th birthday to fall on Easter - so that's really all I needed. Mario and the kids outdid themselves with treating me so wonderfully. Thank you to Tabitha and Babu for hosting Easter and Tabitha for making so many delicious meals for me (my birthday wish was to not have to think about food, but to eat until I was stuffed - so I was definitely at the right house). Mario made a superb cake, the weather was gorgeous...I really couldn't have asked for me. My other birthday desire was to take many pictures - Mario, who doesn't like to take pictures - doesn't realize how lucky he is that he got away doubling up on Easter and birthday pictures.

A few fun ones from the end of March

I couldn't let this picture of our sweet Isabel go un-shared. And while I was at it, I included a few more from the end of March and early April.



I think I have captions for many of these pictures.

That's my brother!

Bobby, you are awesome!

Stuff from March

Mary and Sarah are so inspiring. I really should be taking more pictures of Isabel - she is so very sweet! She is such a content baby. One cute thing she does which probably all babies do, I just don't remember, is that after she wakes up from a long nap, of course she needs to nurse. But after nursing she puts her arms up in the air and does this big stretch which is so adorable. It must be hard work to sleep all day and then eat. :-)

This slideshow includes Mario's 33rd birthday celebration (and my amazing idea that he needed sunglasses, even though he said he didn't need anything) and MJ's birthday party with kids from his class. He's never had a "friend" birthday party as we are usually so fortunate to have the Kazas come over to celebrate. The weather turned out to be beautiful for his sports themed birthday party. We made the football pinata and it was a big "hit" (oh, I am so funny). But really, we made it through 2 full rounds of all the kids taking turns at it, then had to bring out the metal bat! I really didn't think it would make it that long. It's amazing what newspaper, flour, and water can do! I really liked Mario's decorations for the cake. We were thinking even more extravagant, but kept it simple. I think it worked well. There is also MJ's end of the season basketball party and Isabel's 2 month picture. I was happy that I remembered to get 1 picture of her at exactly 2 months. For those who are interested in weight gain, Isabel remains at the 92% for height and 97% for weight (13lbs 9oz). She's 1lb bigger than Sheila at 2 months, so to me she looks pretty chubby - quite delicious.

St. Patrick's Day

Sorry I'm so late getting these up. We also had a very fun St. Patrick's Day. Shepherd's pie for lunch, and for dinner corned beef, green mashed potatoes, and cabbage (I'm skipping this next year and substituting asparagus or something). The kids enjoyed their green dyed sprite which they call the Leprechaun drink. Mario got the green hat from his teacher in school who is from Ireland. For dessert this kids cut out the shamrock jello shapes on their own and we also had green frosted cupcakes. Oh, and the green shamrock plant was from a student in my K RE class...such a sweet gift and it is such a nice decoration.

On another note - have you noticed that we have successfully brought back the name Sheila? As I'm typing there is an AT&T commercial- I think it's been running since the superbowl - and the girl the guy is supposed to be dating is named Sheila. I think I heard that name used in another commercial for a car. This is probably all because people have seen our Sheila running about, have realized how cute she is, and have now decided to use her name.

Isabel's Baptism

I know there are many other pictures out there from all the different cameras, so I'd love to get them together at some point. But here is a start.



Thank you to everyone who made Isabel's baptism such a special day. Deacon Luke celebrated a beautiful baptism, and we are thankful godparents Aunt Mary and Uncle Michael were able to take time from their busy schedules to be with us.

We were happy to have a crowd of beautiful families witness Isabel's joining the Catholic church. Let's hope we didn't also share too many germs.

In our traditional growing family picture - we have 2 more children to our group. The lighting wasn't the best, but the kids were all looking the right way and I think the composition was nice.

Happy St. Valentine's Day

Isabel's gift to me was being SUPER smiley when I picked her up from her crib this morning. And here are a few recent Isabel photos.

The Birthday

Joey says he had a really terrific birthday, and I'm glad that he is able to be so happy without the bells and whistles and over the top celebrating that I could have done. Simple blue decorations and a blue birthday cake made him so happy. For 2 months he's been talking about his chicken nugget, macaroni and cheese, and green bean dinner. I tried to negotiate a more exotic meal for him, but then realized that he was doing exactly what he should do on his birthday which is get the meal you really want to eat. Every other night, Joey is the last one at the dinner table trying to stomach down meals he isn't interested in. So, tonight, he got exactly what he wanted. Plus, I got the dino shaped chicken nuggets...yeah, I'm a good mom. Then we reminded him he hadn't even opened his presents. Seriously, he's just a happy kid.

He also got a special skype call from Daddy (who called on his lap top from the restaurant where he was dining in Tennessee). You'd think that we would do that more often, but this is the first skype call we've had with Daddy.

Thank you for all the birthday wishes and phone calls. Joey really does enjoy talking on the phone.

Joey Boy

Happy 4th Birthday to our sweet Joey Boy!

And here's a slide show with some more pictures

1 week old

I know some of you may have wanted another picture or two of Isabel, but I went a little bit nuts. We took many pictures the last few days, especially today, since she is now 1 week old. The best way to describe Isabel is sweet. She is just a happy little baby girl. All the love, attention, noise, etc around her doesn't bother her one bit. She sleeps so much, and still sleeps at night - and when she's awake she is pleasant... (please I hope I don't jinx myself).

Isabel coming home

These are a few days late, but I wanted to get them up, because it shows how excited these big kids were to meet their new sister.

In all of Isabel's 4 days of life, she has shown a very laid back personality. She seems to put up with most discomfort without a fuss. And of course, noise, love, and kisses from her siblings are all a normal part of her life.

Where did her name come from? We have liked variations of Isabel "God's promise" or "God is my oath" for 4 years (since before we had Joey). And Mario always liked the nickname "Izzy" which finally grew on me. We were slightly concerned with the popularity of her name now - but we had been calling her Isabel/Izzy for the last 9 months and just could not change. Isabel will reflect her hispanic background. There is a St. Isabel, but we also like to think her name references St. Elizabeth of Portugal - who to many Spanish people is called "Isabel".

Kiera "key-air-uh" reflects her Irish background. This was in the running with Maura - which I really like meaning "Little Mary" but we weren't sure about having Maura as a middle name so close to Suarez. Kiera has so many different spellings and a few different pronunciations. But they all mean "dark-hair or dark-skin". We're hoping she'll have dark hair and it looks like she may.



As for her birth story - it was not nearly as complicated as it may have seemed. Being 5 cm at 40 weeks 5 days, with GBS+ ...we decided to try for a breaking the water induction. I was already a little low on amniotic fluid, and with the few mild contractions I had, her heart rate seemed to dip a little (meaning the cord may be compressed)...this was a little worrisome. After 4 hours of not being in actual labor and waiting for things to pick up, we agreed to a "whif" of pitocin, which was all it seemed my body needed. They started the low dose of pitocin at 4:20pm, and Isabel was born at 6:37pm.

Isabel Kiera

Welcome Isabel Kiera Suarez
1/19
8lb10oz
6:37pm
20 in

MJ's 6th birthday

Mario had a very fun birthday celebration. We let him open one of his presents just after his yummy pancake breakfast (the Sonic Colors Wii game) which he was allowed to play far more than would normally be allowed. We were mostly relaxing all day as a family and played games together. Then we picked up Grandma Keppel from the airport who arrived in time for dinner, cake, and presents.

Mario and I laughed the whole time we were decorating the cake. Sorry to be a disappointment - we usually save the "fun" cake for bigger parties and have our Suarez family cake for our small family. But this one - requested to have white frosting and red icing - it just didn't work. I picked up the wrong type of frosting and it "bled" everywhere. Oh well... MJ liked it, and it tasted good.

We appreciated all the phone calls and blog comments. MJ felt like a very special boy on his 6th birthday. We're all a little sad that his sister did not arrive on his birthday, and it seems she really wants to take her time and make some grand entrance.

Happy Birthday Mario!

I'll never forget the day our MJ was born. He was such a sweet boy and still is. It is so fun to watch you grow older...we are proud of you big guy!