This Land is My Land

and this land is about to be their land as well.
In 19 days we will be boarding a plane with 6 suitcases, 4 carry-ons and 3 "personal items" and headed to Arizona to start the next phase of our lives.

This Saturday we will have a massive garage sale in a country that has no clue what a garage sale is and disperse of all of our wordly goods. I am too busy to think about how I "feel" about it. Mario wants to price everything super high due to emotional attachment. Gabe tries to "prender"=vender=sell everything for 2 pesos to anyone who happens to come to the door. He's totally into the whole sale idea. Lucia is busy eating any bits of paper that happen to fall to the floor.

So if you have any clothes/dishes/beds/furniture/kitchen items/appliances/toys/etc that you're in the process of eliminating from your home, we'd love to take it off you hands! Oh, and a nice, economical place to rent for a few months? oh, and a car to buy? oh, and a job for a not yet licensed but very experienced physical therapist? we're looking for all that as well.

And now you know why I haven't updated my blog header photos - impossible to get a decent one of the whole family!

Gabe Turned 3!!

Last Saturday Gabe turned 3, and requested a farm animal themed party. Here is the photolog in reverse order since I am no longer able to change the order of pictures in blogger. Can someone please help me??
Here we are tired but happy after a long and beautiful winter afternoon playing outside.

The kids pinning the tail on the horse. All played, except Gabe who refused to wear the blindfold. My handsome boys - the younger of which didn't get his hair combed for the party because his father was in charge of dressing him while I went ahead to set things up. oh well. Gabe ADORES his dad, and is sad every.single.day when he wakes up in the morning or from his nap and his dad is at work. And he loves to tell anyone who will listen that now he's big and plays golf and football (soccer) in the grass with his dad.

Gabe hitting the piñata.

Blowing out his candles while I hold back Celeste who blew them out the first time around.

So happy we are singing to him!

Running across the basketball court with their pinwheels. They were supposed to be decoration but made a great activity!

Cupcakes decorated with farm animals accompanied giant suckers, white chocolate covered popcorn, number 3 sugar cookies and mini caramel apples on the party sweet table.

Gabe and Roque in the fantastic barn my niece Vicki painted on the giant piece of cardboard I found in a dumpser in front of my house. I made little beanbags for them to throw through the windows at each other and the kids had a great time.

The dessert table with the piñata and the souvenir bags for his friends. I made little coloring books and we gave them to the kids with crayons and modeling clay.

I am 3!!! (his thumb is up you just can't see it.)

This was my fridge the day before the party - the door wasn't closing properly so I called the repair man, and he had to remove the door and take it with him to fix. So I baking and preparing for a party with a fridge covered in cardboard. nice.

The kitchen table more or less looked like this the whole week previous to the party - and every day Gabe asked "is this for my party"? "are Roque and Felipe coming to my party at the church?" "can we have my party today??" "can I see the candy inside the piñata? just a little bit? Can't I just eat one piece mom??" anticipation. it's the foundation to appreciating the moment!

The Days of Our Lives...

What we've been up to:

After 5 years in Argentina, my National Identity Document finally arrived. Mario asked if I want to stay now that I can open a bank account. Um, no.

I decided to take advantage of Gabe's desire to help and started giving him chores. He's responsible for putting away the silverware and he does a great job - even distinguishes between the big and little forks and puts them in the right spot. He really wants to help wash dishes, but I try to avoid that due to the lake that appears on my kitchen floor afterwards.

Gabe likes to be just like his dad and wear a tie to church...and just like his mom and use lip gloss. He talks a TON and says the funniest things, but of course I can't remember them when it's time to blog.

Lucia had her first two teeth come in these last couple of weeks. They came in at the same time, which couldn't have been too comfortable for her. Here we are headed to church - with one shoe missing before we've even made it out the front door. That tends to happen a lot. Why can't babies keep their shoes on?

I've been trying my hand at crochet lately. I like it because it's way less mess than sewing. I don't have to get out my machine, set it up, cut out the fabric, have thread, bobbins, etc etc etc.
Also, you can do it anywhere - waiting for the doctor, in line at the bank - I just drop the yarn and hook in my bag and anytime I have to sit around I can keep working. But I don't love it so much because it takes FOREVER. This little dress of Lucia's was a vest that Susana gave her and I crocheted the skirt on and added the flowers. First I spent three weeks working on it and hated it so unraveled the whole thing, then I started over and it took me another week to finish it. A month.. Seriously? Do you know how many skirts I could have machine sewed in that amount of time??

Mario and I celebrated our 4th anniversary a couple of weeks ago. We had all these big plans to go away for the weekend, which changed into going to a local hotel for the night, which ended up just being going out to dinner. But it was nice to have alone time and I'm still married to the hottest and nicest guy I know.

One of the big reasons we didn't go away overnight is that Lucia is a TERRIBLE sleeper. She likes to nurse about every 2.5 hours - all night long. While I initially loved my quiet time alone with her in the middle of the night, now I'm tired. 6.5 months is a long time to go without good consecutive sleep.

So this weekend I got strict. I sent Mario and Gabe to Susana's house to sleep and made her cry it out. It's horrible listening to her cry - it breaks my heart. I go try and calm her, but I don't nurse her so she just gets madder and screams more than when I just leave her alone. The first night she cried an hour. Last night only 30 minutes, we'll see how tonight goes.

Lucia in the adorable sherpa hat my friend Stephanie made for her, and her little ruffle outfit I made (with the machine. waaaay faster.)

I feel like I've been busier than this, but I don't have any other pictures on my camera so that must be it!

Happy 1/2 Birthday!

Yesterday Lucia turned 6 months old. A half of a year has passed. I can't believe it. We've been going the rounds with dr. check-ups this last week. She now weighs 18.5 pounds and is 27 3/4 inches long. We went to the cardiologist on Monday and the two small holes in her heart she was born with have closed. YEAH! We're waiting for the results of her anemia studies to see how she's doing on that.

But whatever the studies say, she acts like a growing, thriving, funny, lovey baby. She loves to be in her "activity center" and won't even sit in the bouncer chair anymore. This girl wants to be up and on the move! She mumbles "mamamamamamama" all the time, so I'm guessing her first word is MA!

She wants to eat all the time. Not just nurse, although she would happily live doing nothing more, but she watches the food everyone else is eating so intently, and tries to grab at it. Her diet so far consist of: cereal/polenta - likes it, bananas - likes them but only room temperature, not cold, grated apples - not such a big fan, carrots - gobbled them up! Next we'll be introducing squash and sweet potatoes. With Gabe, I couldn't buy baby food in jars because it didn't exist here. Now I see it in some stores, but it seems so processed and gross compared to fresh food that I haven't even really considered it. Plus, I love that really quickly I just get to the stage that whatever we're eating goes in the food processor and she eats as well.

When she's on the floor she rolls and scoots all over the place, and she gnaws on everything. I'm guessing crawling and teeth aren't too far off. Man we love this little girl!

Cute new shirt I "made" sewing some flowes onto a onsie that I cut off into a t-shirt.

I seriously could spend all day making clothes for her!

chirlo...chino?

Esta no fue precisamente la escena, pero si', le di un chirlo en la cola a gabriel porque no se estaba portando bien a la hora de su siesta... horas ma's tarde hablo' con su abuela Annette y e'l le dijo que yo le habi'a dado un CHINO en la colita!!!! ja ja ja mario

orejas??!!! ears??!!!

estaba caminando con Gabriel (2 a. y 8 meses) cerca de la estacio'n de omnibus y senalando a un colectivo (bus) como el de la fotografia exclamo'!!!! MIRA PAPA: tiene orejas!!!!!! refirie'ndose a los espejos retrovisores.....muy gracioso

Easter Easter

I read a lot of party related blogs, and sometimes it makes me get crazy ideas and I start looking for reasons to have parties so I can use all the cute ideas I've seen. Thus the birth of an Easter party for Gabe and a few of his friends. Only a few, because the actual house-full-of-noisy-messy-toddlers is not the part I like. I like the prep. I kept it pretty simple, but still had fun.

A sampling: eggs made out of craft foam (can't buy plastic eggs here) finger puppet bunnies stuffed with candies and orange candies made into carrots.

Easter bags for all, little popcorn cups, and balloons strung with paper chain garland. All so cheap, easy and fun to do.

They decorated cookies with excess amounts of sprinkles. Gabe loves "cocinando/cooking".

Then we went to the lawn at the church where I had hid all the goodies and they had their Easter egg hunt.

Roque, Gabe and Felipe searching in the bushes.

All the kids with their goodies: Uli, Felipe, Roque, Gabe, Celeste.

Then we came back and they ate popcorn, had juice boxes and went home. Perfect length - fun party!

Then we went to Mario's sister's house for actual Easter, so I made more bags for the kids and just filled them this time. Gabe - Pilar - Franco

My cute babies on Easter Sunday, not in Easter outfits b/c we didn't go anywhere to show them off and I was lazy. I kind of regret it now.

With their cute dad. It's impossible to get Gabe with a clean face!
It wasn't a matchy-matchy Easter outfit, but I still thought Cia looked pretty stylish.