Gabriel is Four!!

• Gabe turned 4 two days before cousin Olive's first birthday, so Lindsay and I decided to have a joint, circus-themed party. We recognized that to the kids all our planning and decorations would not matter, but that made it fun for us, so we did it.


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  Lucia with cupcake all over her face.




• We worked like crazy to get our backyard done before the party. Then we decorated, we had personalized water bottles, animal ballon making kits, otter pops in little bins all over the yard, a photo booth (which no one used) and a delicious dessert table. It turned out adorable and we had the best time planning it.
  


• Mario was not so amused by all the planning (and a mild amount of pre-party stress) and swore that he is taking Lucia away on her next birthday so I can't have a party.
  
  
  
  Gabe blowing out candles while Lucia watches.


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  Some things I want to remember about my four year-old Gabe:


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  He loves his sister. They are finally starting to play together and it is so fun to watch. Of course she still annoys him sometimes when she doesn't understand how to build a good ranch out of blocks, but he is very protective of her with others.


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  He LOVES everything cowboy, and tells anyone who will listen that he is a cowboy, that he can ride a pony on his own, and he likes to wear his jeans, boots and cowboys shirts everyday, even when it's 110 outside.


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  He likes to be in control. He tells me I'm not in charge of him, he's in charge of himself. He has such a *STRONG* personality and at times it's trying, to say the least. But I know if he gets on the right track in life no one will convince him to do anything else!


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  He loves his dad to make up stories for him at night and sing him songs. Mario and I both just kind of make up lyrics as we go along, and Gabe often interrupts and says "no, what I want to happen is..."
  

• He loves his cousins and extended family. He would go to Nana's house everyday if he could. He loves his Brampa, and all his tias and tios.


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  He is an absolute fish. He would play in the pool all day. Swim lessons were a complete failure, but he already dives in head first, swims down to the bottom of the pol to get dive toys, and loves doing cannonballs.

with friends Allison and Daniella on our new swingset.

He is very alert - you can hide nothing from him. We've had some very funny conversations lately about body parts and the differences between boys and girls.

He likes everything sugary and has become a rather picky eater, even though he used to eat anything and everything. It's annoying.

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  He colors inside the lines, and has started writing random letters, although he can't identify them correctly. He counts well and does simple addition.


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  He loves to get into my makeup, and he knows he's not supposed to. The other day he snuck in my bathroom and painted his nails and when I asked him what happened to his nails he said "nothing mom, Jesus just made them this way".


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  It's getting harder and harder to get him to speak Spanish. He'll still do it with his dad, but he just tells me "mom, just speak English, okay?" But this is important to us so we keep insisting...Mario introducing terere to our friends the Hidalgo's and the Larrietta's


• TJ - Gabe's best fremeny from preschool. They always want to play together and all they do is fight.

Lucia spent the whole night grabbing otter pops and finding different people to open them for her. "Treat" she says and she holds them up, and someone always helped!

Our favorite baby Olive in her adorable circus skirt. Gabe and Lucia both adore her and the three of them play together great. That alone would make it worth living here, but thankfully we like way more things about living in Arizona than I ever would have imagined.

Happy Birthday Gabe - we love you!

All We Do Is Play

A little update for the record books...
My kids are getting bigger and funner, as well as funnier, every day. I love the things that keep them little, like that they are both totally and completely emotionally tied to their blankets. I smile every time I hand Lucia her blanket and she squeals in joy and shoves it in her mouth and bites it. Gabe's blanket provides untold calming, and he likes it to be cold, he says so he can scratch it better??? The other day we looked and looked and couldn't find it anywhere. It was a total mystery. Eventually it showed up in the freezer...he forgot he stuck it there to make it cold enough. This Arizona summer is going to be hard on blanket temperature maintenance.

Gabe's preschool participated in a trike-a-thon to support St. Jude's Hospital this month. We went to watch him ride, and stayed to read stories in his class and eat pizza with him afterwards.

With his friends from preschool, AJ and TJ.

Riding their trikes around and around!

Uncle Josh wants to love on Lucia, and Lucia is not too sure of this big dude with facial hair. He came with a tractor to redo our patio and we're soooooooo happy!

Lucia loves books. She likes to sit on the fireplace and set up the books standing in front of her to just sit and stare. It's hilarious. He vocabulary is slowly budding. She'll now say "narni"=nariz=nose; "jew"=juice=any kind of liquid beverage; "shew"=shoe. The other day we took Gabe somewhere and when he got out of the car and not her she began wailing loudy "adfrbkllker GAY adlkjfnfdalkj GAY blelbhelblehoi GAY!!!!" Clearly not happy that Bage was going somewhere and she was not!

Gabe had pijama day at school, and insisted on wearing his favorite pijamas - the ones I made him for Christmas that I made poorly and are too small. But he's cute anyways.

He is a complete cowboy. Loves his boots, and always wants to rope EVERYTHING. Lucia wasn't so into sitting on the horse while he pulled it around, but he insisted.

We went to Cave Creek for the day with Lindsay, Matthew and Olive, and Gabe made buddies with a fellow cowboy boot wearer.

just because she's adorable.

Cave Creek is the total western town, and it was fun to visit.

Of course Gabe wanted to sit on the horse, even though it didn't go anywhere. all day. seriously, 5 hours later this horse was still sitting in the exact same place.

This was my failed experiment. The beginning of February I met this old Italian man picking olives from the trees all over our neighborhood and I stopped to talk to him. He told me they were delicious and I just had to hang them from a tree in an old pillowcase, covered in salt. I went home and the internet verified this method of curing olives, so I did it. I took the kids out, we picked tons of olives, I made a cute bag to hand them in, and we covered them in salt and hung them...for a month or so, shaking them up every so often. Then we took them down, washed them, and soaked them in water, changing the water every day. After about three days they were rotten and I had to throw them all out. I'm not sure what went wrong??? I was so excited for my olives...I guess I'm back to buying them at the olive bar in the market for $$$$$.

Even though it's just a big patch of weeds, we've been playing outside in the yard a TON. WE got some old boxes and made a play house and painted it. Lucia mostly just ate the paint, but Kallie, Birdie and Gabe painted and played.

I got extra stars on my mom chart that day for creativity and fun with my kids!

All business, No pleasure

Mario needed to go to LA this last weekend to attend a preparation class to take his physical therapy exam. I offered to stay home, I really did. But he didn't want to go alone, so I sacrificed and went with him. And while he sat in classes all day long, I had a nearly perfect weekend.
Saturday after he got out of class we went to the Getty center. I forgot how amazing it is. The gardens, the architecture, and after all that, massive amounts of great art as well. Better yet, Friday's after 5pm you get in free.
Mario as art outside the Getty Center.

I perused Montana Road and oogled everything in Jonathan Adler.

And I hiked in Palos Verdes. It's so beautiful there, how had I never been there before? looking back up from the bottom.

I started at the top and hiked down to the water. (Catalina Island in the background)

We also drove past the little house I lived in on Overland when I was young and single.

And visited the Oakland LDS temple.

I love LA - I'd forgotten how much. All the fantastic little neighborhoods in Westwood, Santa Monica, Manhattan Beach. All the beautiful hiking, walking on the beach, little cafes, and great stores. Too bad the traffic is HORRENDOUS and living there is rather price prohibitive.

oh, and Mario felt his class was well worth it. If he needs to, I suppose I could make the sacrifice and go again...

Free Culture

Our county provides limited free entries to a variety of museums through something called Culture Passes available at your local library. My amazing friend Linsey and her bucket list of activities for her family to complete has inspired me to seek out more interesting and cultural activities for us to do, and the Culture Pass seemed a great place to start. When we popped into the library last week there was one available for our local contemporary arts museum, so I snached it up and Gabe and I went on Saturday.

Gabe really loved the plant beds out front and their great colored rocks.
He also loved the horse sculptures on the stree before we got in.

And he did reasonably well in the small but very nice three room museum. Perfect size for his attention span. All in all it was a great little outing for us and a nice introduction to the world of art. I always dreamed of taking my kids to museums (a dream only the childless would think of!)

Gabe is growing and saying funnier/sassier things every day. He learns quite a lot at preschool that isn't strictly on the curriculum. The other day, I did something he didn't like and he told me "If you don't stop that right now I'm going to tell Brooke (school friend) to come and put you in a cage." ok. apparently Brooke has been threatening the other kids with cage time and they have been impressed with the idea.

But then he came home yesterday and told me "mom, The Lord is my friend and I need not be afraid, it's in the Hebrews book." I LOVE LOVE LOVE his Lutheran preschool.

The other day we were walking home from preschool and he just stopped on the sidewalk and sat down and told me "I just need to sit a minute, and then when I get up I won't be angry anymore." He hadn't manifested anger, but apparently was giving himself a little timeout.

He sometimes likes to say the prayer at meals, and always gives thanks for his cousins, the horses, the cows and ropes. The other day Mario told him to say the prayer in Spanish and he said "I can't, because then I can't pray for the ropes." I guess ropes aren't part of his Spanish vocabulary.

He calls cow horns "corns". He loves the movie Flicka and the cartoon Dora. He is completely sweet and completely terrorizing, in equal parts, with his little sister. He likes to be in charge of everything, and no matter what you offer, he will say no, just to let you know he's not going to be pushed around. It's very tiring finding creative ways to make him think he came up with every idea. When I start to get exasperated he'll say "mama, I love you." and I totally love him back.

And So This Was Christmas...

By some strange aligning of the stars, we have had a totally calm and pleasant Christmas season. I finished all my shopping on black Friday, we don't know anyone besides my family so we had no parties to go to, and my Christmas cards were mailed by the first week in December, so we just relaxed and enjoyed the holiday spirit the rest of the month.
We did a lot of driving around, looking at lights. Did you know there is a club for people that like to build model trains and that use their entire backyards to set up tracks and tiny cities and landscapes? And two weekends in December they open their homes to the public and we got to see their miniature worlds. It was very cool (pictures are unrelated, as I am challenged in the rembering to bring the camera and use it department)

We went to see the temple lights a few times, once with our friends the Wilson's, which made it that much more fun. Aren't these boys adorable? (seriously, only cold night of the year.)

We also drove around lots of neighborhoods and visited other festive sights. We didn't make it to any of the shopping centers that had artificial snowfall at night. Don't know why we missed that. We did go to a local Lutheran church's "walk through bethelem" which was complete with hummus to taste and a real donkey in the manger.

I made new pijamas for everyone to wear on christmas eve- a tradition passed down from my mom.

We opened family gifts on Christmas eve while we were together - Gabe is modeling his new boots from Jimmy and Allison, while trying to figure out the rope.

Lucia got her first baby doll, also from Jimmy and Allison. She is adorable and pats it's back and puts the pacifier in its mouth.

Mario got his first pair of althletic pants that are actually long enough. Did you know it is almost impossible to find jogging pants in long sizes? xxxxxxl, no problem. Large/tall, don't make them. He is undefeated after his first two tennis leagues, and I thought he may need them when he plays in the cold january nights coming up. We have a deal, if he plays 41 games undefeated - Federer's record - I'll take him to Italy. (makes us both care about his tennis games!) He's 15 - 0 right now. Think he'll make it?

Gabe was totally thrilled by every gift. It was so fun. Here he is checking out hungry hungry hippo.

Lucia is trying out her new slide.

While we consciously do NOT want to promote a future of "cowboy" for our son, it's what he loves right now, so his Christmas seemed rather centered around those things. He was beyond thrilled that santa got him a truck and horse trailer.

Us coming down the stairs together at a very reasonable 8:30am. I love the look on Gabe's face as he excitedly tells me "look momma, Santa came!"

We truly have had a wonderful holiday season, filled with peace and joy and time to reflect on the meaning of the savior in our lives. One highlight was a visit to the temple with a large number of the adults in my family. I am so blessed to have the family that I do, who taught me that the God and his son Jesus Christ had done all that they have and continue to do, so that I and my family might have JOY. We hope that your holiday season has been filled with happiness and joy that will continue throughout the coming year.

Quotables

Gabe just got out of bed and came a told me "el viento paro mama, quiero el viento"
-"the wind stopped mom, I want the wind"

Confused, I followed him back to bed where he pointed to the heating vent. He wanted the heater back on.

Pre-Holiday Wrap Up

Living in the desert has it's benefits. And a day so hot a jump in the pool sounds good in the middle of November is one of them. All the cousins were over to play this really fun game where they ride around a tennis court on their bikes, and Lindsay and I try to hit them with tennis balls. They got hot, and wanted to jump in the pool so I rounded up swim ware and they went running and jumped in without testing the water. Their screaming and Khloe's near-drowning experience due to being too cold to swim deterred Gabe. But he jumped in later and came out crying from the cold. Remember I said jumping in the pool sounded nice, not that it actually was a nice idea. Gabe continues to ADORE his cousins, and talks about them non-stop. Or maybe it's just that the talking is so non-stop I sometimes don't know if it's about the cousins or not. Seriously. non-stop talker this one. Just tonight they were trying to play a game with him but he wouldn't stop talking long enough for them to explain how it works.

Lucia is hilarious and I enjoy her so much. She's getting quite verbal. About two months ago she delighted us with her first word: tickuh = tickle. Yes, that was her first word. Her next words in order of arrival are: gieb (Gabe - she calls him non-stop throughout the day), no, and finally, ma. Yes, "ma" was her FORTH word. I'm only mildly insulted. Now she comes up to me and pats my legs and calls "ma" and expects to be picked up immediately. If not, she lets out a shriek. Not a yell, not a cry, a true glass-breaking shriek. I don't really know what to do about it, so I just pick her up. I'm creating a monster here, I know.

But she's funny and adorable and generally content and good-natured most of the time. She likes to suck on toothbrushes, pull all the toilet paper off the role, climb up the stairs but not down, and will eat anything, including the German cabbage dish that my family makes for Thanksgiving. She goes to bed easily but doesn't stay asleep so well. She pulls the bows/flowers out of her hair and then looks at me and says "no no no no". Does she think the flower is called "no no no no" Is she confused that it is supposed to stay in as adornment?

Misty, Ashley and I took the kids to Bass Pro Shop where they had free pictures with Santa and Christmas crafts. Fun afternoon, and we didn't have to buy anything (nor was I tempted!)

Gabe goes to a Lutheran preschool. At first, Mario and I were a little worried about indoctrination taking place that was not inline with our beliefs. But I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. I love that at shool he talks about doing what Jesus wants him to do every single day, that he learns new bible stories, that he prays before snack time, and that their Christmas pageant was not about Santa or snow, or reindeer or anything secular, but was a Christmas party for Jesus, where they learned the cutest songs to go with the theme: "Jesus is my Best-est Friend". The program was adorable and surprisingly, Gabe stood on stage and sang every word to every song and was great. We totally thought he would see us and come running off the stage, as he remains VERY attached to us and afraid of new people/situations. But he didn't, and we were thrilled.

Gabe, as part of his complete adoration of his cousins, is obsessed with being a cowboy. He plays with horses and cows all day long and makes them corrals our of whatever is available. He tells me "mom, be nice to me because I'm a cowboy." I respond, "Gabe, I'll be nice to you because I love you." His English is amazing - he's totally caught up with other kids his age, and now we're worried about reinforcing Spanish at home. A few funny things he says: Mom, I wanna "moshu" something, instead of "show you" something. I'm not sure if it's just like dyslexia, or if he's confusing show and monstrar, the Spanish equivalent. But I don't correct him because I think it's cute. Also, when we finish a book instead of saying "the end" he says "bien" hey, it almost sounds the same, easy to confuse.

Lucia looooooooooooves her blankie. When she first gets it after not having it she shoves it in her mouth and does a little dance of joy. Then she grabs it with her right hand while her left thumb gets popped into her mouth. I'm sure there are a thousand other little things I want to remember about my kids right now, but of course I don't remember them when I have time to sit down and blog. But they are funny and smart and totally challenge me every single day.

Mario continues to win all of his tennis league games, study a ton, and sneak in a golf game when he can. I participated in my first Black Friday shopping spree and loved it. I got pretty much all my holiday shopping done and now am free to enjoy the month of Christmas parties, concerts, lights, etc. Saturday we hiked to "hole in the rock" and are excited to enjoy the outdoors beforethe heat drives us in again. We're thinking a trip to Havasupi in the Grand Canyon is in order in May. Want to join us?