Blogging Spree

I can't help myself....too many cute pictures to share!

Joey loves to hang out with Sheila.

MJ loves to make Sheila laught.

More of MJ's amazing creations. The little cars characters are from some show that reminds me of Bob the Builder which MJ found online. He's kind of obsessed with them right now. Both of these were models of the little yellow car on the left.

This was the newer model he made this morning.

Enjoying our Saturday

Mario found a frog while mowing the lawn on Saturday...the boys thought it was pretty cool.

We stopped our work to take the kids on a bike ride to the park nearby. I'm so happy MJ learned to ride without training wheels and is so fast and capable...he can really keep up. And here I was worried about not being able to haul 3 kids on a bike by myself. Sheila is a bit young to be in this carrier, but with Joey next to her, she was quite cozy and feel asleep in less than a minute.

I should have altered the lighting in this picture b/c it didn't come out well.

Sheila woke up and had a mark on her face, poor girl. But nothing keeps her down.

Mother's Day

I had a terrific Mother's Day and just wanted to share some pictures that Mario and the kids allowed me to take b/c it was Mother's Day and that's what I wanted done. At first I was just going to get a group shot, but then I thought I'd like one with each of the kids alone. I hope all of you mother's out there were given special treamtent as well. In the first two pictures, you can see part of our new wall that we built and a few of the shrubs and trees we put in.

Our front porch is changing (new rocking chairs from SAMS which we use a lot since we spend so much time outside). And this black railing is soon going to be replaced by 2 white wooden railings to match the porch. This is Mario's vision and he usually has a pretty good eye for things.

Having fun

The rain has kept our family inside, which I guess is alright since we are all sick again anyway. Just another cough/cold which seems so much like the one we all had last month. (I thought there were no tag-backs).

MJ, Joey, and Sheila have been giving us so many reasons to smile. We continue to be impressed by MJ's building skills. Is it normal for a 4 year old to create things like this with Knex? This is a car. A few nights ago when it was past the boys bedtime, I heard a familar snap, click. I realized MJ had drawn plans for something and then was trying to build it.

Joey continues to have the happy joyful personality we all assumed he had, but now he verbalizes it. My favorite word of his right now is "okay" and he says it a lot. And he always says it in such a happy way. Like tonight, after he got out of bed when he should have been asleep, I was less than happy, but his response to my stern, "Joey, get back in your bed" was "Okay!" We're also impressed with his reasoning skills, which I guess he's always had, just now he verbalizes his thoughts.

And Sheila is just a happy 5 month old baby. She's starting to smile when she sees a camera (as every Suarez baby should). I know I have some pictures, but I haven't put them on our computer yet.

It's a shame our slide keeps breaking. Good thing we have some handymen living with us.

MJ took this picture of Sheila and I. Could have been better, but not too bad.

Pictures!

I guess we actually have had our camera since Saturday. It's so small they put it in our mailbox, and we are bad about checking our mail promptly. Today was another hot day and we totally enjoyed it like a summer day (except that I was out doing some odd yardwork on a hot day, but it was good to get it done). We got a pressure-washer yesterday which I am so happy about. It successfully cleaned a patio set I got from free-cycle, so it was definitely worth the purchase. The boys played in the sprinkler while Sheila hung out in her stroller, on a blanket, or on the deck, and I did some work. Then we had some popsickles while sitting on our new teak rocking chairs (great deal from SAMS). We had dinner on our deck again (I see this happening a lot this year as the sun is shaded by the house and it just makes for a very relaxing and fun dinner). And then we enjoyed some more of the daylight hours playing in the backyard. It will be sad when Mario has to go back to real work and will travel every week. We are so spoiled that he doesn't travel AND works from home.


Some pictures from our after-dinner fun.




And finally, some before and after pictures of the work on the front landscape.
This is the shot the sellers took for the front of their house. Notice the very large foundation shrubs and trees on the corners of the house.

This is a sort of before picture... obviously, this was after the wind knocked half the tree down.

And here we are. Nothing big and crazy. You can see the walls we added (on the left of the house and on the right corner by the garage. I'll need to take a close up of them since we worked so hard on them). The plants are obviously small, but the goal is when they mature they will be of a good scale and won't cover the windows. The small dogwood was the same tree we transplanted from the backyard. It's blooming and appears to have survived the move.
One more close up to come.

Post without pictures

So, I think in my last post I mentioned how we lost our camera. A new one is on it's way, in the meantime it's been very hard to be without one. We've taken far more videos than usual to try to capture the cute moments. We've continued to work on the front landscaping and as soon as we get a camera I can get you a good before and after picture.

Friday was my birthday and I was very spoiled. Thursday night I cleaned like a madwoman so I wouldn't feel that I had to do anything Friday (my birthday gift to myself). I woke up to a beautiful and delicious birthday cake that Mario made for me. (That's usually my least favorite thing to do for myself on my birthday). Mario and the kids showered me with gifts throughout the day. The kids and I went over to my friend's house for our rosary group where there were more than the usual kids and moms. The weather was great and we all had a great time (and another cake). Mario returned from his short day trip to Charlottesville with our favorite sandwiches from the area so we quick had one of those before getting the babysitter for the evening. We went to a wine tasting held in our big community, met some nice people, had some good wine and a fun time. And I returned to a house of sleeping children. It was our first time leaving all 3 of them with a babysitter and she did a great job. I feel that I'm a pretty lucky 28 year old (except that I have no picture to prove that yet...but will soon).

So much to say...

I have composed this post several times in my head as there have been so many exciting things happen in such a short time.

Backyard Play Area:
It all started 2 weeks ago when Mario and I completed the play area in our backyard by shoveling and wheelbarrowing 5 yards of mulch to our backyard along with 1 ton of sand for the sandbox. (Wed April 1st) I hosted the rosary group among our friends here and some of the kids were able to enjoy that new playground. (Thurs April 2nd)

This is what the back corner used to look like (well, it was even worse and overgrown..all woodsy... the fresh new grass was what we had grown on our own last fall.)
The completed play area.
It's really nice having the sand box.

Retaining Wall:
We decided to build a retaining wall on the left front side of our house to help level and balance it with the right. We went with a dry stack method using natural fieldstone. We started with a bit of prep-work on Friday April 3rd. Saturday we continued to work on the wall. Sheila had a growth spurt and needed more milk, so when I wasn't hauling stone or nursing, I was eating and drinking as much as possible to feed her demands. The kids were actually really great in letting us get half the wall finished. That night we went to a small birthday party.

The kids helped outside sometimes, but also entertained each other well inside.


Joey is toilet trained:
I was determined to begin an official "3 day potty training" of Joey on Monday April 6th. So, despite our landscape being unfinished, I went ahead with my plan. I was completely amazed by Joey's success. Mario was skeptical of the plan and was not pleased with a half-naked Joey walking around for 3 days straight. However, he has agreed he cannot complain as it worked.

Sheila likes naps and can roll over:
Sheila and I have this agreement that she can sleep/eat/play whenever she wants as long as she is content. As a result, I just hadn't been keeping track of a schedule for her. So, starting with Joey's potty training on Monday, I thought I'd actually put her to sleep in a crib rather than let her nap wherever she happened to be. And it worked. I'm glad she can sleep just about anywhere, but happy to see she can also nap on her own in a crib. And Thursday night (April 9th) she decided to roll over. Sure, this is our 3rd baby to accomplish this, but it is still just as exciting.

MJ's bike without training wheels:
My original compositions of this email left it that MJ was just beginning to try to ride without training wheels. But Friday April 10th, I was able to watch Tony and Xavier while their new brother was being born. It was a beautiful day and MJ and Tony were out riding bikes with some neighborhood kids while the 3 little ones were napping. All of the sudden, MJ realized Tony was riding his bike without training wheels and he simply had to be able to do it as well immediately. So with a little bit of help, and a lot of determination I let go and he kept going! It was really great. That night, Mario worked with MJ even more and he continues to get more confident.

Sheila's 4 month check up:
This could have a post of it's own, but I learned she is healthy and doing well. I also took all 5 kids (mine plus the 2 I was watching) to this appointment. It was long, but the kids all did really well.

This doesn't exactly fit, nor is it a great picture of them, but I think Joey and Sheila look a lot a like.

A lesson that people are more important than things:
We captured all of these events on our camera of course, but Saturday morning, I realized that I lost my camera. (I am really good at this it seems). It was very painful to lose all those pictures and not have a camera for Easter, but it was also a great lesson for me to realize that people are more important than things. Plus, I will have to be much more careful with our next camera.

Not our Easter outfits...actually taken on Palm Sunday.

Easter:
I'll have to borrow some pictures from the Suarez family, but we had a fabulous Easter at Tabitha and Babu's house (the last huge party they will probably host at their current home as they are about to close on their new home later this week).