Marisa is 6!

My baby girl is 6! Wow. Here is the beaming girl on the day of her bday (02/03/04). Great birthdate!
For her party I planned a mom's nightmare, and a child's dream - a candy party. I had a couple games (lollipop toss, candy bingo, and Pin the candy on the candyland game board ...) but the main event was the CANDY BUFFET. This was their "goody bag". They each got a bag that they had decorated, and were able to take 1 candy (or 2 or 3 depending on the sign on the container) from each candy dish. No candy was consumed at the party - I sent it all home. I'm no dummy.

Here they are going through the line ...

And the last few years I have had fun baking and decorating cakes for my kids' birthdays. THis year I did two (because there were 19 little girls and Lucas and a lot of moms and I was afraid there wouldn't be enough - but the real reason was I was just having fun decorating cakes and I couldn't decide which one to make!) The first was a Bubblegum machine cake.

And the 2nd was a Candyland cake. This one was fun to decorate as a family. (And I wouldn't be able to do this without my husband's help for sure! He's the real decorator.)

And the cake at the end. In this picture I'm saying "Is it over yet? Can someone please get these children out of my house?"

Visitors

Sunday morning we looked out in our yard and saw some visitors. Peacocks! Lots of them. There were about 15 I think. They live a couple blocks from us and come visit every once in awhile, but we'd never had this many at once. This one was the prettiest, but he never did show us his feathers. Oh well.



They even enjoyed the playground in the backyard. :-)

Coming up the stairs ...

Marisa is trying to feed them. We made the mistake of giving them some food and when we came home from church they were still here, along with lots of poop all over the sidewalk and patio! I wanted to send M and L outside to play but wasn't sure how mean or gentle they are ... so Victor got out the water hose to wash off the sidewalk ... and shoo them away. Enough excitement for one day. Now back to having clean sidewalks free of peacock feathers and other things ...

Come visit!

For those of you in the cold north east - I hear on the radio about the cool temperatures you're having. It's cool here too - only 70 degrees. Come visit San Diego! My children were in shorts and short sleeved shirts in school today!

Family Photo Shoot

My friend Kristen took some pictures of our family in November, and I'm finally trying to go through them and decide which ones I want to print ... there's a lot more, but I won't bore you with more ... here's my crazy family!

Marisa kept begging to do silly ones ...

... and more silly ones ...

That's my family! Sometimes I still can't believe that I'm really married and have children. I had cried and begged God for a husband for so long, and now I have one and 2 children! God is good. Thanks Kristen for the pictures! I like them more every time I look at them!

Good bye Christmas, Hello 2010!

Good bye Christmas tree! One last hug from Lucas this morning before it left the house and went outside to be ...

chopped up!!

We had a great first day of 2010. The day started with chocolate chip pancakes, and bacon. (There's always next year to eat fruit ...) I asked each member of the family what they wanted God to help them improve on this coming year. It warmed my heart to hear their responses. Marisa said right away that she wanted to obey the first time I asked her to do something. (Now if only I had enough faith to believe that could actually happen!) Lucas said he wanted to learn more about God and also love and obey the Lord our Father. I said I wanted to be more patient and kind and not get angry with them so much. Lucas nodding his head said "Yes, mommy, that's a good one." Thanks Lucas. You were supposed to say, "Oh no mommy, you don't have a problem with that!"

Victor slaved in the kitchen all day and produced a very tasty Puerto Rican meal. Very yummy. I look forward to this meal all year long! Sorry, I don't know the English names for the dishes, but we ate pernil, arroz y gandules, and mofongo and for dessert Tembleque. Doesn't that sound great? :-) The best part was the company we were able to share it with. My prayer partner Monica, and John and Jessie Robertus. Again, I forgot to take pictures.

Christmas!

Here's our month in a nutshell!
We started the month off visiting the mall Santa with our playgroup. I was really hoping Lucas and Marisa didn't inform all their friends that Santa is just a man in a red suit ...


... baking cookies ... I really relaxed this year and let them do whatever they wanted with the frosting and sprinkles. They did have some interesting cookies (or should I say lumps of frosting and sprinkles with bits of cookie?) What a good mom I'm becoming ...

... volunteering for Marisa's Kindergarten Christmas party. It's fun to see her interact with her school friends!

... I planned and ran Lucas' party so I didn't get any pictures of his. But Victor and I had fun watching the school's Christmas program on their last day of school. They have each class get up and perform things that they have been learning - like jingle bells in Mandarin :-). Here is Lucas' class playing a song on their recorders. (This is their dress uniform for special occassions. The everyday uniform is much more casual.)

... Christmas morning! 2 excited children in their new Christmas pj's!

... and now it's Christmas vacation - and Lucas and Marisa have to find something to occupy their time! So, they made a garbage tree! Actually, have been making a garbage tree would be more accurate. They have been adding to this tree over the past few weeks. Amazingly enough, Victor has actually not said anything, and is just pretending it doesn't exist.

... piano lessons - for daddy! Lucas is teaching daddy how to play the piano.

... and of course my angels ALWAYS get along. I found this note written outside on sidewalk chalk, supposedly written for her brother. I'm so proud of Marisa's ability to express herself and put words into sentences! Is it too much to ask that they be nice words? In case you can't understand Kindergarten spelling - it says "I do not like you."

... and last but not least ... no comment.

I LOVE IT!!

The other day we were driving behind someone with a movie playing in their van's DVD player. Lucas wistfully said "I wish we had a DVD player in our car." Half jokingly I said "But Lucas we have books to read in our car, that's much better! He was silent a minute then said "Yeah mom you're right - books are better than DVD's." I love it! It's worth it to not have a TV in our house! He LOVES to read!