I love this snow!

We woke up to some beautiful snow this morning. The lighting was beautiful with the early morning sun trying to peak through the clouds. So I rushed to put my boots on and take a picture. Sheila saw me and immediately got her hat and gloves...so she joined me for picture time. The church is off to the right behind our house and I think it's cool that it looks like the light is coming from that direction.


The backyard...you can't even see the church through the snow covered trees.

When Joey woke I asked him excitedly about what was outside. He kind of grumpily said, "I don't like the snow on the cars, now I have to go brush it off." I guess someone in this family has to be practical about all of this.

Winter Fun

It's been awhile since we did a recap of our family life.

MJ has been drawing, writing, cutting, and creating many things lately. While this is very sweet, it has also led to some messy scraps of paper on the ground. We are proud of his creations and are happy he is learning how to clean up after himself. He's still having fun at school and his teachers say he is a very good friend and student. He had "Dad's night" at pre-school last week and it was very sweet. They went to McDonald's for dinner and then to the pre-school where they did a few activities and made a wooden piece of art. He said he really enjoyed hanging out with Daddy. MJ has also a recent fascination with cooking after watching the food network with us one Saturday. He has come up with some interesting sugar/water things, but when he tried to put milk and OJ and lemonade and bacon into a drink, we decided we should draw the line. So, tonight he helped me make some real dinner, and I think that was satisfactory to him.

We've been thinking that since Joey is almost 3, he should be rid of the pacifier. When we try to negotiate different ways of him handing over the one blue pacifier he has left, he says he'll do it and then of course we'd trade it in and get him a bigger blue pacifier. Blue, specifically light blue, is still Joey's favorite color. He wants everything to be blue, and if it isn't really blue, he'll pretend it is just to make himself happy (I bet you didn't know our silver Odyssey is in fact blue). I am making a conscious effort to have Joey be a helpful big brother and not just ask MJ to always help out. Joey likes it, but unfortunately this has led to unusual arguments where MJ and Joey fight over who gets to be the helper first. (sigh) Joey has recently decided that playing in the snow is an okay thing, this has made the winter so much better for us. He's been known to cry and whine when he is all finished playing in the snow, in fact, one time MJ, Joey and I were out last December, he cried nearly the whole time. Hey, he was the one who chose to sit on the hill instead of sled and have fun - I guess tough love works sometimes.

Sheila is still quite the climber. But she does have INCREDIBLE balance, so I find myself letting her sit on tables. I think this is a bad habit both she and I have to break. She's starting to say a few more words - but even without them is quite capable of conveying what she wants. She still thinks she is as old as her brothers and it is fun to see her play with them. Her adventurous spirit has carried over to the outdoors and she loves the snow. If she senses we are getting ready to go out, she immediately gets her hat and boots. We think she has a similar intense personality to MJ's. Of course, every child is different, but at the moment, we are seeing her similarities to MJ as a baby. We are a bit concerned with her small size, though I guess she is 75% and on track. We just had such huge babies before, we just don't know what to do with this normal size.

Here are a few pictures from the last few weeks. Last weekend we had a lot of fun beginning with some snow Saturday morning. All the kids had a ton of fun sledding on the hill behind St. Theresa. Then after a good nap, we took them all the the DC auto show. This seems to be an annual event for our family. Braving the falling snow proved to be worth it as the snow kept the big crowds away. It was so great being able to climb in and out of the cars without waiting in lines. The same snow from the weekend is still here now (and being snowed on top of even more). We made 3 snowman, got a picture, and then Joey and MJ tackled them. Did I share that video of Mario tackling the giant snowman? I think I should.

Sheila getting ready to go out in he snow.

MJ and Bumblebee at the car show

I guess this is her car.

This IS Joey's car, the last one he played in before we left. Notice it is light blue. He buckled himself in and says that he is talking on the phone. I didn't know this car had bluetooth built in to the seatbelts. It was sad, because Joey actually thought he was going to take a car home. So the whole time we were leaving he whined and cried about wanting his blue car (we stayed out until 9pm). They somehow were still awake when we got home and Joey said sleepily "I was just crying in the car because I wanted my blue car" You can probably understand why he now calls our Odyssey blue.

Happy Birthday Teresa!

We hope you have a fanastic day!

March for Life

My parents flew in Thursday for the March for Life. The threat of terrible weather kept my mom home to watch the kids. The weather was horrible when we left Ashburn but, quite wonderful in DC. I was happy to run into several ND friends, Luke, Anna, many Clavin extended family. We're sad Mario and I couldn't be there together as this is the 10th anniversary of our meeting at the March for Life.

In case anyone was keeping track of it, Fr. Jenkins (Pres. of Notre Dame) did come to DC this year for the March for Life ... my dad was also pleased to shake hands and exchange a few words with him. Hopefully, all of the other marchers were a witness to Fr. Jenkins about how important this issue is.

Mario's 5th Birthday

Mario thinks he had a pretty great birthday yesterday. He woke up to some fun birthday decorations and then had cheesy eggs and chocolate pancakes with cool whip and syrup for breakfast. We played for a little bit and got ready for Daddy to come back from London. Picking him up from airport was such a special treat and it was so nice to have our whole family back together again. When Joey and Sheila were napping, Mario and Daddy went to see a movie at the movie theatre. MJ says he likes hanging out with Daddy. We had a delicious dinner after Mario finally decided to have spaghetti and meatballs with peas and broccoli for dinner. And then presents and the Suarez chocolate cake! (with a few mint oreos crumbled on top) Some of his favorite presents were the Prep and Landing book and 20" doll of Lanny and all the kids liked his new Lite Bright cube (thank you freecycle!) Mario enjoyed all the birthday phone calls (and we are sorry if he was distracted...he had a very exciting day!)







MJ got Lanny for his birthday, while Joey and Sheila got Wayne and Magee for belated Christmas presents.I'm not sure what these crazy boys are doing, but Sheila has decided this week that she likes to smile for the camera.

Happy Birthday Mario!

Our little boy is not so little anymore. Happy 5th Birthday Mario! You are and always were very cute!

Our quick trip to London

I am a terrible mother who abandoned my 13 month old who I encouraged to sort of stop nursing... all 3 children on the brink of getting the chicken pox, with my mother who must be insane for taking on our mess...for 3 1/2 days. We left Saturday morning for London and I returned Tuesday morning, and everything went superbly well! The kids loved having my mom around b/c she actually pays attention to them. Sheila did give me the cold shoulder when I returned as Mario had predicted, but after a few minutes of holding her with her not looking me in the eye, she agreed to let me nurse her again and all was well.

Quick recap
Saturday: spend first 6 hours crying on and off for having left our children
Saturday night: arrived late, went out for a bit
Sunday: walked around a lot, Brittish Museum, found a CATHOLIC church - Westminster Cathedral, amazing Indian dinner
Monday: Mario worked in the morning while I walked around more: Trafalgar Sq, St. James Park, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben. Parliament, National Gallery; lunch with Mario's boss, Imperial War Museum (spent a long time there, I guess Mario likes history), ice skating outside of the Natural History Museum, then took the tube to the East side of London to see the Tower of London at night.
Tuesday: get up at 4am to catch the plane back home in time to see MJ's Christmas program which had been rescheduled due to snow before Christmas.

(It was worth it!)