Two = Dos = Two!!

Gabe is "TWO" he will tell you if you ask in english and "DOS" if you ask in Spanish. It amazes me. He is funny, and energetic, and a little mischievous, and his intelligence and the way he connects things often astound me. He also LOOOOOOVES his mommy, and wants to be held all the time, and still gets incredibly jealous if I happen to be holding another child.
He likes to kick the soccer ball, whack the tennis ball with the kitchen spatula, throw the nerf ball, and have someone lift him to try for baskets with the basketball which is truly to heavy for him. He loves his books and can now complete all his puzzles without thinking. But his favorite toys are the cows nana bought him. Seriously, he LOVES the mama cow, papa cow, and baby cows. We have to stop in the grocergy store to examine every kind of packaging that has a picture of a cow on it.
He loves to sing and dance and comes home from preschool singing new songs I don't know. He blew out his birthday candles all by himself...3 times!

And his favorite part of his birthday party was eating the "cream" off the cupcakes. It's all about the frosting for this kid.
He loves his cousins, expecially Vicki and Pilar. And likes to repeat "ojo Paco" warning his uncle Paco that he's going to beat him at golf someday.

We love you baby Gabe!!!

Playing Catch-up

That seems to be my MO with this blog...

A couple of weeks ago we were experiencing unseasonably warm weather here. So we took advantage of it and spent the day at a kids farm nearby. It was fantastic. Gbe LOVED all the animals and it was clean and beautiful.

"zashy, Mingos!!!"

The woman working there came around an got really annoyed that everyone was trying to feed the horses bits of hay that were about, "We've told EVERYONE they are NOT to feed the animals! It makes them sick!!" Yet there was NOT ONE single sign anywhere saying not to feed the animals. We stopped anyway, I just thought their lives might be easier if they actually put up a sign or two.

They day after our visit to the farm, the cold came with a vengence. And that week was "preschool week" in Argentina (random holidays, whatever) so his school celebrated with special activities all week, culminating in a preschool birthday party/costume party on Friday. Since I am expected to be birthing around Halloween this year, I was happy to put emphasis on this costume extravaganza and made Gabe a costume for this event instead. Trying to learn from my failures of last Halloween when I conned my mom into sending me tons of feather boas and then spending hours hand sewing them into a parrot costume that Gabe refused to wear, I attempted to fool him into thinking he was just wearing "normal" clothes...with a small pillow velcroed to his back!

and thus I present Gabe the turtle.

He had fun at his party, and even wore the costume!!

In other family news without photos, Mario has almost finished the golf lessons I gave him before I left to the US (thinking he would use them all while I was gone and not annoy me with this demand on his time, but not so) and is loving them. He is now telling me he needs golf shoes.

I also just finished my first round as teachr for the Self-Employment Workshop that our church offers. It was quite an interesting experience and I liked it a lot. Now if only I can find more ways to make my ifluence felt on the merchandise available in Argentina!!

And like father like son... Gabe and Mario give a shout out to Uncle Matt before heading off to church last Sunday.

Deseret Towers, T-Hall, 1992-1993

I realize that by publishing that I am publishing my age...oh well. I feel like I've had a reemergence of BYU in my life lately. First, I went to women's conference and for the first time really since I graduated spent more than a couple of minutes on campus. Every young student I saw I thought I might know...and then I realized I wasn't their age anymore... Then I came home and the BYU dance group Living Legends came to Rosario to perform, so we hosted two of the girls in our house for two nights. There were super cute, and their performace was really excellent. One must have said "oh yeah" a couple of times, nothing too notable, but Gabe picked up on it and randomly looks at me throughout the day and says "Oh yeah. oh yeah, no hay mas oh yeah!" (no more oh yeah).
Then I reconnected with some old BYU friends from my freshman ward on Facebook. SO FUN. Really, I think someone should plan a reunion of our freshman ward, we had a great ward.

Other than that, we haven't been up to too much, so I will complete this post with some gratuitous photos of Gabe. Here he is at a friend's birthday trying to blow out the candle. He must be practicing for his birthday.

And in his Batman pijamas.

And sorry for the poor quality and sideways viewing (anyone know how to turn video?), but here he is demonstrating his early skill at golf...with a kitchen spatula and a tennis ball. All day long he asks to play with his "raquet, ball"! Mario is very proud.

Please Stop Talking - Pregnant Woman Present

For any of you not yet aware, our family will grow to four the end of October. That makes me just barely four months pregnant, looking slightly chubby but not decidedly pregnant yet. However, I reside in a place where people feel entitled to tell you exactly what they think about you at all times, so here are so recent comments I have been subjected to:

At the vegetable stand...
Vegetable wife: Are you pregnant?
Me: (completely dumfounded that someone would be asking me this while I am wearing a sweater and jacket) um, actually yes, but why would you ask me that?
Veggie wife: because your face has completely changed, so I knew you must be pregnant. Husband, She is pregnant!
Veggie husband: oh, how nice. You are going to have a boy, I know it, you don't need an ultrasound now.
Me: um okay (totally irritated, how does this almost complete stranger think he knows MY body??)

At church...
Me: Hi, how are you, I haven't seen you in a while..blah blah blah
church lady: oh look, your hips are getting really wide, that means you're going to have a girl!
excuse me?? I'm still in my size 6 jeans, maybe you're confused by the pleats in my skirt??

So apparently it's open season for commenting on my body/life/reproductive tendencies/etc. so feel free to comment away!

A Summary That Doesn't Do Justice to the Visit

The plane trip to get there best forgotten, Gabe and I had a great time visiting faimly in the US. Gabe learned lots of new tricks from aunts and uncles.

He spent lots of quality time with cousins.

We got to be matchy-matchy for easter (no fun with just one kid - I needed the cousins)

We got a taste of old western life at Josh & Misty's ranch, which Gabe absolutely adored.

My mostest wonderfulest friends came to visit and amongst eating, pedicures, shopping, long walks and visits to the Chihuly exhibit, I was brought back into the realms of current fashion, good parenting techniques, and pop culture. It was amazingly fantastic and I cannot even attempt to summarize it. Guess who's toes are whose??
I had lots of amazing time with my sisters (also Allison, not pictured). They had to outfit and accesorize me daily because I wasn't cute enough to hang out with them.

I got to go to Women's Conference at BYU with my mom, ashley, lindsay and misty. It was a great experience.

So, I'm ready to become a permanent resident again. Anyone have a visa and a job for my husband?

March Tides

Well, a month has passed and Gabe seems to be adjusting to preschool. Or at least that's what they tell me. Yesterday was the only day he didn't cry when I left him, and he's always crying when I pick him up, but they say he is great in the interim.

He talks a ton, I just don't know what he says. I don't know if they are new words in Spanish he is learning at Jardin, or made up words, or English words I'm not disciphering?? I'm sure it will all becoms clear soon enough. My favorite new word is "cac-lat" as in chocolate. He also loves to eat any kind of dough, like the above pictured pizza dough. Mario is totally grossed out by it and attempts to stop him, but I do not. He is so my son.
We've spent a lot of time this month joing to the park playing with the croquet set that Allison and Jimmy sent us for Christmas, however, I managed not to get a single picture of that.

Mario and I at a wedding.

And with the finalization of this document, I am now ready to travel to the US with Gabe next Monday to spend a month with my family. This is a travel authorization granting Mario's permission for me to take Gabe out of the country. This was the process for obtaining it: go to the courthouse and wait in line for a form-filler-outer. I don't know what else to call him. You cannot get this form on your own and bring it already filled out, this person must do it. He neatly writes all the details (Mario, id # xxx gives permission for Adrianne, id # xxx to take Gabe, id # xxx, determined to be their legal child by xx document, testifying that in book x of the city of rosario it is declared...to the United States of North America. I'm not lying, he literally added "north" because people here seriously take issue with the fact that we call ourselves "americans" in general.) Anyway, the form guy fills all this out, making little scribbles and lines through any space he did not write in should I try add information later or something. He then hand writes all of this information in a book, and notes on this form the number of the book and page, and Mario has to sign both the book and the form.

When this is done, Mario can go back to work and I go wait in another line to pay for this service. After I have paid, I wait in another line for the official lawyer of the forms section of the courthouse to sign and stamp the form. All that done, I then go to the bank and pay for a "seal". Once I have that paid for, I go to another place in the courthouse to get an authorization of legality of my document. There's some more stamping going on all the while.

Three hours and 8 stamps later, I am good to go. I am totally annoyed by this process, obviously, and know I could effectively streamline it should they ever put me in charge. But I'm also curious as to why the US doesn't require ANY KIND of permission for one parent to take a child out of the country. Is it just not an issue?? I realize that both parents have to sign the passport application, but after that, open season on abduction??

Pronunciation is hard!

Gabe loves fruit - basically any kind or variety. His current favorites are grapes and Craisins. Fruit in Spanish is "fruta" but that's kind of hard to say, so he tells me all day long:
- Puta, ma, puta
- Do you want some fruit Gabe?
- Si!!

That was the first bad word Lisa Marieiro taught me in Portugese when we were kids...I blush (and laugh) every time Gabe says it.