Happy Birthday Lucas!

We had a fun birthday party for Lucas - our 7 year old! Wow. How did that happen? I'm enjoying each year with my Lucas more and more. Here we are at the cake and icecream time - and I decided I didn't want to spend the money on paper goods so I got a $5 rain gutter and lined it with tin foil and then put the icecream, whipped cream, chocolate sauce and peanuts up and down the "pigs trough". The kids loved it. And I'm sure there were absolutley no germs spread at all.

And here we are with our "Mad Scientist - Mr Vazquez". We did some fun experiments with the kids and they enjoyed the science experiments for the most part - until my dear husband got a little too excited and went into a little too much detail about molecules and atoms and their eyes started to glaze over ...

Time for some games! ...

It's kind of hard to out hop Lucas ...

And here's the birthday boy on his actual birthday eating pancakes on the "You are special" plate. I'm looking forward to journeying with him the next 7 years! Here are a few words that describe Lucas: energy, movement, friendly, legos, reading, soccer, extravert, wiggly, fearless ... that's my Lucas!

Next topic - New Soccer Season!!

Marisa joined the soccer ranks this time and is proud to be a "Bumblebee!" It is hilarious watching a bunch of 4, 5 yr old girls playing soccer. They clump together in one huge group with the ball somewhere in the middle of the huddle. They push (or at least Marisa does) and move the huddle up and down the field and the ball kind of moves along with them. Marisa is more interested in making friends with the players on both teams then kicking the ball, so unlike her brother, her shoes are unscuffed when she comes home.

Go bumblebees! :-)

I'm a soccer mom now!

Where to begin?

Finally! It's only been a month since I've posted! I didn't realize summer vacation could be so NON relaxing. We had a great week vacation of tent camping. (Yes, great and tent camping can be used in the same sentence.) We packed in a lot of sight seeing. Here are my twins at Mono Lake about 30 minutes north of Mammoth.
We spent a day at Yosemite hiking with the twins. What an amazing view! The altitude about killed me, but I did the 3 mile hike! I'd like to say I lost 10 pounds hiking ...

The beauty of the great outdoors!

And the camping food! Victor is a great camping chef. Bacon, eggs, toast and grits never tasted better!

And of course what would camping be without smores and smore and smore and smore!

We liked our camping spot. A rustic campground by a little river we waded in one afternoon. Actually the water was so cold, Victor used it to soak his sore knee in inplace of an icepack.

And we can't go on any roadtrip with Victor finding some offroad trails to check out his 4 wheel drive.

We were very thankful for the chance to go on vacation. Victor just started working mid July, but they gave him a week off because of all the probono work he did for them in June and beginning of July.

Miscelaneous Summer Fun!

Beware this is a long post! This is what I get for not blogging more often.
Marisa was thrilled to be a twin with me this morning at our "aloha meal" at church today. I'll enjoy it while I can - that won't last! We had roast pig and other Hawaiian fixings. It was wonderful! Here's the pig!

Lucas and Marisa got all kinds of prizes from doing the summer library reading program. One of them was a free "Messy Sunday" at Sammy's Woodfired Pizza. We devoured it in about 3 minutes.

Lucas' favourite activity this summer so far has been Mandarin Camp. Here they are at the end of the first week showing the parents what they learned. Amazing what kids can learn at this age!

Face painting at a birthday party! She meowed all evening.

Legoland! We've tried to go every other week. Marisa was THRILLED to be chosen as a volunteer for this show. She got to shoot a pretend bow and arrow at the "jester".

Legoland! Lucas and Marisa LOVE legoland. I don't mind it either!

This is our new traditional "beginning of summer" dessert. A mud pail with worms. I found the jello "sand pail" in the grocery aisle by the puddings. It's chocolate pudding with cool whip and crushed oreos on top and in the middle. On top put gummy worms and the shovel. Yum!

One of Marisa's favourite past times - painting. She's calm and quiet for usually a good hour or more. This particular painting disturbed me when she told me what it was about. She asked me if I thought the brown flower she painted was ugly. Of course I responded "No, Marisa, its very beautiful." She said "No it's not. It's ugly and the other flowers are laughing at him because he's ugly." Hmmm, what's going on inside her little head? We had a little chat after that about beauty and being mean etc etc.

What child doesn't like to help daddy dig and plant flowers? New rose bushes are being planted here. Notice the two wheelbarrels. :-) Lucas' little red plastic one, and the other larger black one.

FINALLY!!!

I finally know where I'll be living next month and the month after that and the month after that and Lord willing, the month after that. YES - after 13 months of being unemployed Victor finally found a job! He found out today that the construction company he was working for (pro bono) the last month or so got the job they did a proposal for. That was the requirement for him to be hired. The job unfortunately is in LA by the airport. So, no - I won't be moving, but Victor will be. He'll be up there probably M-F for the 1st 3-6 months or so. It's probably a 1 1/2 -2 hour drive depending on traffic. He will need to help them find more construction projects or they won't have work for him for very long so hopefully he'll stay employed! But it's a good feeling! We are very thankful to God for His provision!

The Lava Flow

I said to myself "They're playing so nicely this morning, I think we'll stay at home all morning since they're being so good." I was enjoying all the happy noises I was hearing from their bedrooms instead of the normal screams and bickering. Then I walked by the door to Lucas' room. Books, lincoln logs and train tracks were flowing out. Should I look in?

Lucas informed me there had been a lava flow of books ... I was good though. Instead of getting mad, I got my camera. I thought 10 years from now, I'll be wishing my only problems were a lava flow of books.

I made some money on them though. At first I told them they had to put all the books back themselves, but then I realized that "Oh no! They might not put all the books back exactly where they belong and then that would REALLY mess up my anal brain." So I made them each pay me for every 5 minutes I had to work putting the books away. I could get rich if I keep this up.

Summer is Here!

Summer is officially here when you're eating corn on the cob! Yum!

Summer is here when your mom gives you "summer school homework". Poor Lucas. He enjoys workbooks, so I take advantage of him and make him "play school" with me. I always get to be the teacher though. Marisa complains too much though, so she gets to play Barbies instead. The first thing Lucas does some mornings is grab his Math book and do a few pages. Father's side of the family obviously.

No wonder Marisa's starting to get scared at night. Look what we found her reading one night when she fell asleep! She's obviously not my daughter!

My little baker in training. Last Saturday we actually made 2 different kinds of rolls. Marisa enjoyed kneading the dough and watching it "grow". It's been fun baking with her lately. I guess since I can't play school with her, I'll eat with her instead. The sacrifices we make to be good mothers.

I wish I had my camera!

This is for you locals. We had a nice family outing this afternoon to a new park in San Elijo. It's called Double Peak Park and its on top of the highest peak you see looking towards San Elijo. It has AN AMAZING view of San Marcos, Vista, Escondido, and the ocean. YOu feel like you are on top of the world. There is a neat tiny playground with some man made rocks to climb and ropes to climb on. There's also a neat teetertotter that looks like a bench right at the parking lot. L and M had a blast. To get to the park, take Twin Oaks up to San Elijo and turn right on Double Peak Road and take it all the way up to the clouds.