Love-ly Things

Mario and my first Valentine's Day together I did 14 days of Valentines with a little gift/love note every day starting on Feb. 1st. I thought I was starting this great tradition I would do every year. It didn't even last two years. Waaaay too much work. But I still ocassionally have desires to do fun things, so this year I planned a surprise with two great couples to have dinner on the roof of Mario's mom's house.
I told him I had to go visiting teaching. on a friday. at 8 pm. and he believed me. (luckily our night didn't include "how well do you know your spouse" games.) a bit later the babysitter showed up with a note telling him to go to a certain place at an appointed hour. He looked at her kind of confused, and she told him "I'm here to watch the kids". He was in his bathing suit, just home from the pool, and asked him if he could go as is. She told him "um, you better shower and put on some nicer clothes, but I can't tell you anything more than that!"

The note sent him to the church to meet up with Leandro and Gabriel. There they found another note sending them to an ice cream shop, where they found another note informing them they had to sing a love song to the employees to get their kilo of ice cream. When the singing had been completed, the ice cream was delivered with another note sending them to Susana's roof top where we waited.

We had a great night, and I love my eternal valentine!

This is my love monkey, who is potty-training. sort of. I'm trying to to make too big a deal out of it b/c he's had some pretty big changes in his life lately, and is about to have more. It's working like this for us: naked = no problem going to the bathroom, not a single accident. Underwear or bathing suit = no need to stop what I'm doing to use the restroom, accident every time. Any suggestions?

This is my love baby who is now four months old and has reached a couple of milestones. First, I started giving her cereal and she LOVES it. She refuses to take a bottle and I felt like she was still hungry at times, so I just decided to start the cereal. Seriously, she can't get enough. Although based on the amount that gets all over her face/eyes/hands/clothes, I'm not sure how much actually gets into her stomach.

On the day she actually turned 4 months, she rolled over completely for the first time. Then she's annoyed because she can't roll back and who likes to face plant?

But could she be any cuter? We love her.

Destiny Fulfilled

A photo summary of our summer.

Lucía is getting very close to rolling over. I am not encouraging it because signs of growth and development make me sad. Gabe loves to help me in the kitchen, and loves every kind of batter, dough, etc. I don't mind if he dips his fingers, but we're working on it being just his fingers and not his entire hand.

Gabe is randomly in love with corn on the cob this summer, and asks for it at almost every meal.

It's official, Lucía is a major thumb sucker. I love it.

We've spent lots of time this summer playing in the water - either on our patio or at the local pool. Gabe can now hold his breath under water and float - it's time for swim lessons!!

Now to the real subject of this post, Mario and basketball. In Argentina there are no school sports, so people play for clubs. Mario played club basketball all growing up, as well as before and just after his mission. Then he had to stop and get serious about school. But his old club in Colon invited the previous championship teams to come play a "friendship" game.
There was just something about walking into the gym with my two small children and hearing the pound of the ball and the squeak of shoes against the highly polished wood floor that made me feel like my mom, hauling us to countless basketball games of my dad growing up. Destiny had come full circle.
Gabe wants to play too, even though the ball is too heavy for him to throw very high.