Keppel grandparent visit

My parents also came for a visit last weekend. It was a bit impromtu, but we had fun. Right away, my mom helped me shop at the consignment sale, we had our gamewatch. Sunday they watched the boys so Mario and I could go out on a date. Monday morning we went to Cox farms, and we got busy working in the afternoon. My mom helped me around the house, we put another bed in the basement guest room and moved our awesome murphy bed, my dad did some great yard work outside... and then they left. They have to visit again b/c I end up getting so much done!

First here is a picture of our family in front of our "new" house. Can it be new after so long?


MJ and Joey got an early present from my parents, b/c Mario couldn't wait to give the boys these Duplo legos. They were very excited about them (bob the builder theme).


We went to Cox farms on Monday... the weather was gorgeous...it was a little crowded b/c of Columbus day, but we had fun.





The next time they visit, we will be having another baby!

Over 2 weeks!

Wow, it's been awhile. We've been busy. So here are many pictures and I'll quick recap the last 2 weeks.

I guess big highlights began on Tues 10/7 when my OB/Midwife measured me and I was smaller than the 31 weeks I was supposed to be. Being small for dates is not good for a baby, so the next day we got to see Little T again. I was very happy to hear that she is growing fine (in fact she measures at 32 weeks...big like her brothers). So perhaps she is just tucked in there really well... much better news than she is not growing properly.

Late Wed 10/8 Mario's brother Micheal and sister-in-law Sarah and our goddaughter Maria arrived for a visit. We all got together at the Kaza's house Thursday night. 4 sets of Suarez married couples with their kids. Tabitha and Babu +7 kids, Mario and I +2 kids, Michael and Sarah +1 kid, and Mary and Ryan.

Michael with Maria (14 months) and Joey (21 months)

Actually, 3 of us were pregnant (Tabitha's baby Simon is about 1 month old now). So, here are 3 sisters-in-law all pregnant. Mary 5 weeks, Sarah 27 weeks, me 31 weeks (we took this while rushing out the door to the ER....more on that later).

Joey kissing Maria. We had a fabulous dinner and a little bit of fun, it seems Joey had too much fun. Uncle Ryan was swinging him around, as many uncles and dads do, but it caught Joey the wrong way and he dislocated his right elbow. This is called nursemaid's elbow, it happened to me by an uncle when I was about Joey's age. Sarah and Michael watched MJ while Mario and I went to the ER (again!) I was a little embarrassed to have to bring Joey back after his recent stitches. But everything is fine, it is an easy fix. I hope it doesn't happen again so I won't have to pop it back in.

Cousins at our house.
Friday Tabitha brought her crew of 7 up our way to play at the park. (She is really amazing). It was a gorgeous day!

This is so cute of MJ and Joey and they got in this position on their own.

Friday night, my mom and dad arrived for their visit (more on that later). Saturday morning, Sarah, my mom and I hit up the Catholic consignment sale. Mario was worried that we were gone for 3 hours, but we go some good stuff. Then we had an ND football game watch at our house (the Kaza's joined us as well).

Sarah and I had a picture like this with our little ones last year.

Joey and Catherine look pretty cool! Joey is actually 2 1/2 months younger than Catherine.

Maria was a trooper all day, and we asked her to take some pictures before she left. I was happy she got cozy with me.


The whole gang. Next time we are together, there will be 2 more kids!

Financial news

This is on my rare, boring posts. My company's CEO wrote a short paper on his view of the financial crisis. I think it's pretty good - didn't know if you'd find it interesting.

Dear Colleagues,

Last week as I was flying back from the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Tianjin, China, I wrote down my reflections on the current state of the financial markets. This 'white paper' reflects information and views which I formed following a series of more than 40 recent meetings with clients around the world, and discussions with a number of senior business leaders at the WEF meeting. I shared my thoughts initially with partners, and many within the firm may also have seen the note. However, if you have not had the opportunity to read it, the note has been posted on the firm website. Here is a link to the white paper:

http://www.booz.com/global/home/what_we_think/reports_and_white_papers/article/42506281

Please feel free to share this with clients and contacts.

Kind regards,

Shumeet

Staying Busy

We've been in our new house for 1 month now, and have already done a bunch of fixing up. The boys have been very helpful through the whole thing. We think they are quite happy with their bigger house, yard, and playground close by. The work that Mario and I have started seems to encourage "fixing up" games by MJ and Joey. They really love working with their tools. We've tried to maintain some sort of balance between work and play.

A picture of the boys after a trip to the church playground behind our house. (Their shirts are off to protect them from getting ice cream on them). Oh, and you can't tell in this picture, but for those who were wondering, his stitches came out last Tuesday and everything is healing just fine.

The boys can now add Home Depot and Lowes to the stores that they recognize by sight. It seems that on Saturdays we attempt to go out and shop in the morning to get all we will need for house projects before the ND game starts. Then the boys take late naps while we work and then watch the game a bit. Joey was a trooper for this long shopping experience, but just couldn't make it through Bed Bath and Beyond. (I'm impressed he could fall asleep like that).

MJ was really into the ND game this Saturday... well football in general. He begged us to play catch with him. It was a rainy day, so we had to play in our basement. First, I tried to see if he could catch a ball on the run (he basically ran the same route in front of me and caught the ball, but did it pretty well). When Mario saw his son could do this, he then had to have MJ run real routes. They took turns being the QB and receiver (and of course Mario taught MJ the approriate terms for everything). Whoever was the QB got to make the play and say hike. (I don't see how Mario can stop himself from coaching his boys to play football). After taking pictures and video, I hopped in the rotation so we could also have someone on defense.

This weekend we began our kitchen makeover which involved a new light fixture, pulls for the cabinets, new paint (trim and walls), new outlets, and window treatments. Mario did most of the work (someone had to keep the house in order) but we find that painting together gets the job done much faster. We still aren't finished with the hinges on the cabinets and we are having trouble finding the way to get the window treatments the way we want them. When I get a good before and after picture, I'll post it.

Meanwhile, today MJ tried out some of his photography skills. He took a couple dozen pictures (many of which were pretty cool). He seems to like to take pictures of his feet(?) Anyway, I liked this one, plus it shows off the new ceiling fan that Mario put in our livingroom.

Our first stitches

and hopefully our last. I'll try to make a long story short - basically I got a call from the water company this morning about our leak and was working on that while trying to keep Joey away from his nebulizer full of medicine. He fell, and I guess bumped the table nearby. Mario took him so I could finish my call, and when I was finally finished, Mario said he might need stitches. After a quick trip to the pediatrician, we learned he needed them. We were the only people in the pediatric side of the ER at 9:30am, and yet it still took forever. The boys were great (poor Joey did have to be strapped down for the 4 stitches under his lip) and we finally made it back home at 12:15. With all of the crazy things this daredevil does, he gets stitches for tripping in the family room? I can't believe it! It was just 2 days ago I saw him smash his tricycle into our minivan (all parties walked away fine). Joey's other favorite thing to do is walk around the house with a blanket over his head... no severe damage from that yet. I'm hoping this is our last experience with stitches, but I'm thinking it probably won't be.

Fun with cousins

The Kazas have done so much for us since we've lived so close, we were very happy to be able to help them a little this Tuesday and Wednesday by taking Peter and Tommy to stay overnight. (Mario was actually gone in Charlottesville then, so it was just me and the 4 boys). This "favor" for them, was really a treat for me. We had a fabulous time, and I cannot wait to have the cousins together again. The conversations these kids had were amazing, I wished I had written them down when they happened, but I do remember some conversations about which sized dinosaurs eat people and what a dryer actually did (MJ added that it makes clothes get dry).

They played very nicely together (for the most part), and I think it was good for MJ to see what it really means to be obedient, as Tommy and Peter usually did what I asked right away. They also called him out whenever he was being a brat. Today, MJ was like a different kid - it's like he understood me better. So, when this wears off, I must kidnap, err, babysit, the Kaza children again. And it must be overnight as that was one of the most interesting parts. MJ was so full of enthusiam at dinner time that he couldn't stop saying things like, "This chicken and pasta is DELICIOUS, don't you think so Peter? Oh, thank you Mommy for this delicious dinner!" And "This is such a fun sleepover!!!" After bath and books, I was all ready to get my boys up to their room to be cozy with the Kazas in the guest bed, but MJ wanted to stay with his cousins. I thought he'd sleep on the cushions I set up on the floor, but instead I found all three boys in the full sized bed in our guest room. And they slept great all night.



Both nights after dinner we enjoyed some play time at the church playground behind our house.

Tuesday went so well, I ventured out for some errands on Wednesday. We returned a few things to some stores and I even managed to shop for maternity clothes at Old Navy. Their treat for all of this was to ride the train around the mall.


In fact, the whole day was lovely except that we learned Wednesday afternoon that there is a leak in the main service line to our house (which may have been going on for 2 years) and it will cost between $4,000 - $10,000 to replace it. Who said owning a home was fun???

Well, anyway, thanks Tabitha and Babu for letting me watch Tommy and Peter.

Our new house

This is a LONG post!!! But it has been awhile, and so much has happened, we have to catch up. So, we've been here over 2 weeks, and I still don't have a good family picture of us in front of our house. We started up projects around the house even before all of the boxes were unpacked, so we've been keeping busy. Here is a picture of my parents and MJ in front of our new house when they came to visit last week.



Mario's first project was to mount the TV above the fireplace. This is the same TV we had from our townhouse, but looks more fun mounted on a wall. I'll have to take a better picture of it tomorrow.
This is the kitchen (of course) and below you can kind of see Mario's wall-mounted TV in the family room.

Next, he added the "hotel shower bar" as some may call it to our bathroom upstairs. There are 3 bedrooms upstairs and 1 bath (the main bedroom suite and bath are on the main level, which is kind of fun). This bar is only about $40 and really makes a shower seem bigger (we highly recommend this project).

Above is our "upstairs bedroom". The master bedroom on the main floor is where we keep all of our things in the closet and we mostly use that bathroom. It's actually kind of convenient to have all of that on the main floor with 2 kids. And then at night, we are upstairs for if the boys need us (me) at night. And as my parents can attest, the bedroom on the main floor becomes a pretty nice guest suite.


These 2 are from the upstairs bathroom. Mario would like to make-over all of the bathrooms some day, and we already have a double vanity in mind for this one.


We really want to make use of our .45 acre lot and so feel clearing out some of our woods in the backyard, seeding for grass, and building a fence are top priorities. MJ liked to help Mario a lot. After over 2 days of work and many fun hours with a chain saw, we realized we had WAY too much stuff to haul away and hired some people to come and remove our yard debris. They started today and should finish tomorrow and it is so exciting to get that finished. Then we can seed quickly and have Mario start on the fence. Meanwhile, Mario had more time to help me with projects inside. We'll get to that later.



Last week, my parents visited for a business related trip for my dad, but then 4 days of help from them. My dad shared his expertise and helped us take care of some mole crickets eating our lawn, as well as help us gather the new yard tools we would need for this yard. My mom really helped with just about everything, cleaning, unpacking, watching the boys, but her most exciting task was to paint the half bathroom on the main floor. She did an amazing job (as you can see). I almost thought I was allergic to paint as I was sneezing like crazy when she started. 2 days later, I realized I just had an annoying cold.


Half bath before and after. Great job, Mom!


So, I'm free to paint again...and that is what we did this weekend. I'm sorry that none of these after pictures are fully finished and decorated, but it shows the major impact of the new look.


Living room on the main floor.


Joey likes his new house, and wanted me to take a picture of him while I was running around the house getting these other pictures.


We admit with these projects, our kids have had a lot of play time on their own. We found that Joey "hid" all of the toys on the right in this sub woofer while we were working. Note - if you buy a speaker like this with a hole, and you have children, this may happen to you. At most, MJ put in 3 cars when he was a kid... we were impressed with all these blocks!