Update

Here goes a quick update:

Velani started 1st grade and is loving it. She has made new friends and is doing really good in school. She was moved to an advanced reading class and is learning many things. She has also been testing my patience lately and I guess it's just a stage she is going through. We got into it once because she wanted to ride her bike to school and I explained to her why she couldn't. Another day she threw a tantrum after she missed the bus and I took her to school and decided she would cry and not let go of me and told me she didn't want to stay in school while her friends and teachers watched (her teacher eventually just took her and I left)!

Jahvel started his rotations and is now on his second one. He didn't get to see much on his first one, but is now seeing 55 patients in one week instead of 1 month!!

Mia stays home and is learning some simple addition and has been doing "homework" and loves it. She gets to help me out with Adan a lot.

Adan is such a boy! He loves exploring and getting into everything. That little guy only takes a break when he naps and eats and then he goes at it again. He has the cutest smile and I just can't get mad at him when he leaves a mess all over the house. He is "talking" a lot more. He loves it when daddy comes home and greets him at the door everyday. He loves imitating words and sounds. One day I sneezed and he had to do the same....he's pretty funny!

Me, I just had a baby 2 weeks ago!! I am thrilled to finally have him and to be able to hold him in my arms. The pregnancy was GREAT! The labor was a little different, but still good. I am feeling good, sleepy at times, but good. We had sisters from church help with meals for 2 weeks!! It felt great not having to worry about making dinner, but the funny thing is they all brought us some type of chicken. We had fried chicken, cooked chicken, marinated chicken, shredded chicken, it was all good, but still a little funny! My friend Nichole helped me a lot with the kids also. She came and took care of the kids from 8 am to 8 pm on the day after Ian was born, while I was at the hospital and Jahvel at his rotation. She is GREAT and I can't thank her enough. The day after I was released from the hospital she came to watch my kids, including Ian, while I took a long nap!!!

Ian was born on September 30th at 10:30 am and weighed 6 lbs 6 oz and measured 20 inches. He is just perfect. He feeds every 2-3 hours during the day and every 2 hours at night...lucky me!! He did take a little longer to come than Mia and Adan, but because he was tangled up with the umbilical cord (around arm and leg). He is quiet and when he is awake he just looks around. He had a little problem nursing and latching on because of his jaw, it would make this popping sound and you could see how it  would pop in and out, but I can tell it's getting better and haven't noticed it anymore. Ian was blessed at church on Sunday the 14th of October and his abuelitos and tios Nora y Fernando and cousins were able to come.

So I think I covered most of it, but if there's something I missed or left out it will go on a different post.

Summer is over!

I know it's not officially over, but once school starts and our vacation/fun is over then it is OVER!

It has been a pretty busy summer and we have enjoyed it soooo much! So many things happened that I will try my best to keep it short and yet, include everything although, that might not really happen because I love to share too many details, but let's give it a try.

So after all of our kids' parties we were secretly getting ready for our long trip to Dallas! We wanted to surprise our family because we knew they wanted to see the kiddos and we really wanted to see them so we thought we would give them a nice surprise. We had this planned since the beginning of May and let me just say that it's hard keeping a secret, but it's do-able. My dad had been visiting us every so often so when we told him that we wanted to spend a couple of weeks down in Dallas he agreed to make another trip to pick us up and take us to Dallas, but before that he took us to Atlantic city. It took us a while to drive out there, but once we got to the hotel we put on our bathing suits and went to the beach. The girls played a little in the water, Adan didn't like it, and then we walked the board walk, went to the fair and played some games, Jahvel and my dad took a helicopter ride and later had dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. The following day we spent all day on the board walk and went to a really cool mall, saw a water fountain show, ate and at night saw the fireworks off the beach. They were really cool and the kids enjoyed it. We then made the drive back home. The next day we made our long surprise drive to Dallas in dad's 18 wheeler. The girls were so excited and we practically watched movies and slept all the way. We did stop to have our meals and the kids were actually really good. Adan would sleep in his car seat for a while and then he would play on the bed with his sisters. What a fun experience for them! When we finally arrived around noonish we stayed at the taller and I really wanted to see the family, but a surprise party for Andres had already been planned for that evening. I must say he was genuinely surprised and I think it went pretty well. There was food, cake and even a pinata! The following day I surprised grandma. I called her and pretended like I was in Philly and told her that I wanted mole the next time I saw her and she said she would make me some and then we rang her doorbell and surprised her. Begue wasn't home so we hid and when Begua sent him to their room for her "medicine" we surprised him, too. We planned to get the rest of the family together by inviting them over for lunch with the excuse that Andres got a raise and lunch was on him. When they started to arrive we hid in Braulio's room and stayed there until everyone arrived and then we did face time and said hi to everyone and later came out of the room and surprised them all. We spent 2 fun weeks with the family doing all sorts of things like shopping, swimming, garage saling, picking up my mom at the airport, GNO at the Gaylord, outlets, movies, baby shower, 50th anniversary at Texas Land and Cattle, a surprise birthday party for me at Chuck E. Cheese from my day, and a birthday breakfast on my last day with mom, bro and sis in law! I got to fly back home, but boy was it tough with the kids. My flight got delayed and then changed to a direct flight, but delayed again because of a thunderstorm and when I finally got to the philly airport at night, my luggage was missing! I got it delivered the following day. We then drove the next day to the Hill Cumorah pageant in New York with the kiddos and camped out in the car after it was over. We also spent some time in Philly going to historic places before moving away. What a great summer this turned out to be. I really needed a vacation like this one.

Almost 2 weeks later I flew with the kiddos again! Our vacay was not over yet, we were going to spend about 2 weeks with mom in St. George! But I really don't want to fly solo with kids again. This time we left early in the morning and again my flight got delayed and the kids were not that well behaved especially Adan who was just all squirmy and loud. I had to take the kids to the restroom and change Adan's diaper in a small confined space during some turbulence... not fun!! When we arrived they had taken my stroller with the rest of the luggage and so I had to use a wheelchair to put all of our carry on and later the kids sat on top of all that. We spent some quality time with Begue, Begua and mom. We went to watch Aladdin at Tuacahn with the kiddos, which was way fun!! We got to visit my in laws and spend some time with them. We also did some shopping, swimming and garage saling while we were there. Adan actually learned to walk at mom's house!! Jahvel finally arrived and we spent a couple of days there before heading to our new home in Idaho Falls.

3 Birthdays

I noticed that I haven't blogged about any of the birthday parties we've had around here. So let's start off with the first child:

 Velani turned 6 years old on April 25th. On the day of her birthday we (daddy, Mia, Adan and I) went to her school with some yummy, gluten-free-jello-poke-cupcakes she helped me bake the night before and sang to her. Her teacher was nice enough to let us stay for about 10 min. while she helped pass out the cupcakes, sing to her and eat them. All of the other parents would just send them, but I wanted this to be extra special for her and for me so I had to just do it! We also celebrated later that evening with her "big" friends for cake and ice cream and she got some presents from them, a really cool one from her "mom" and she even received some from her aunts all the way from Texas! That really made her one happy cookie!!  On May 5th we threw her another party, because the weekend before that Jahvel had his PA olympic games, which they won, but this time with a few selected friends. We had a hard time deciding what to do because our place is little to fit everyone she wanted to invite from her school and there aren't really any nice parks around here with grills, some tables and shade so I remembered that on one of  my birthdays my mom took some of my friends and I to celebrate at a restaurant (Planet Hollywood) and I thought why not do the same? I asked her and she agreed! She really wanted to go to Mc Donald's, but that wasn't going to happen! She finally decided on Chili's. Only 2 out of the 5 friends she invited went, but she had a good time. I was happy that she was happy. I baked her a gluten free brownie and we sang to her and then she opened her presents. I even made some goody bags for her little friends so it really did have that party feel! I can't believe she is now 6!! That girl needs to stop because I'm not quite ready for her to grow up any more. Love her so much, she is a very special girl and I think she's too mature for her age and she needs to chill a bit and enjoy her childhood.

Did you see the slices of cake she cut? and I didn't take pictures of the presents she got from all of her aunts, but thanks for the 3 wii games, scavenger hunt board game and the Mega mind movie.

Moving on....

Adan's birthday was on June 17th and he turned 1!!! Now that was a very fast year. My little boy is all grown up, sort of! He has been such a good boy and I love him so much! It's amazing how much they learn and accomplish in just a year. Since his birthday fell on Father's day we sort of had to also celebrate Jahvel, too, but the attention was still more on my little baby. I had to have dinner and decorations and take lots of pictures of him. We really missed throwing him a big party with all of the aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and great-grandparents, but because of this long distance it wasn't possible, but we know you were thinking of him on his special day! So we invited our close friends again. They have been great in just being there for us on these special days and we thank them a lot. We had hotdogs, chips, fruit, potato salad, drinks, cake and ice cream for dinner and dessert. He didn't know what was going on, but he sure did enjoy digging into his cake and getting all dirty! He doesn't know about gifts, but I enjoyed them, I looooove clothes...I mean he loves clothes :)

Mia turns 4 tomorrow, but we had to celebrate her birthday early because she wanted some of her friends to be there and because it's the summer many go on vacation. I invited some friends and their kids from church. I made some chicken fruit salad croissants for lunch with chips and fruit on the side.  I also baked some gluten free BTS or pineapple coconut cupcakes (better name for kids) and a small cake for her, they turned out better than I expected especially the cake! The kids made a monster puppet craft and I read them a cute bug book, too. She opened her presents and had a really fun time. Who says you have to have lots and lots of friends and presents to actually enjoy a good birthday?! She was really happy and that's really what counts. My little Mia isn't so little anymore, but she's skinny and the way she talks still feels like she's my baby! I think we will do a little something for her again, but it'll just be us this time (update: we took her to a yogurt place and then to Barnes and Noble upon her request).

P.S. Now you know why we celebrated early! We would be on vacation and weren't going to be able to celebrate on her day. We loved spending time with my dad and in Dallas with the family.