My dirty little boys

It started getting hot again around a month ago, so when Alan comes back from preschool we have lunch and then we go out to the backyard so that the kids can play in a shaded area. So I thought about sharing with you a little bit of our everyday playing.

I remember before I had kids I imagined myself having a couple of girls, having their hair cutely done, wearing pretty dresses and bows on their hair. Now that I have two boys, the image of my kids is soooooo different. They are nothing else but my lovely dirty little boys (not all the time of course) and I love them so much for that. I never imagined how much fun it would be to play "the boy way".

Alan and Eric love going in the sand and rolling on it (Eric trying to eat it), playing with dirt, and with any living creature (bugs mainly) that they find in their way. Eric is now refusing to wear a bib when eating and of course he thinks he can do it all by himself, so between the fun that they have playing and getting dirty and not wearing a bib. I find myself changing their clothes at least twice a day. Especially Eric, he loves turning on the hose in the backyard and getting himself soaked.

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My way of looking at the situation now is: the messier they get the more fun they have, and I actually love looking at their little feet all dirty and then washing them off. It is so fun to watch them playing with water, dirt, boats, airplanes and then going for a jump on the trampoline. You guys have to watch the video of Eric on the trampoline, he was eleven months back then and he loves it:

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I think the trampoline is getting too small for Alan, but he still loves bouncing on it. Lately what he likes to do is jump for a few minutes and then lies down on it and puts his feet up on the bar. He puts his hands on the back of his neck and relaxes for a few minutes and then back to jumping.

Anyway, even though the kind of fun I have with my boys is so different than what I had expected, I enjoy it so much and I'm so greatful for being able to experience being mother of two little fun boys. It is a lot more fun than what I could've ever imagined.

Boys' Birthdays

Last Saturday we celebrated the boys' birthdays. Eric is now one year old and Alan is four. For those of you who don't know this, Alan and Eric's birthdays are only one day apart, and that's only because Eric was born in Dubai. If he would've been born in the US like Alan, he would've also been born on March 2nd because of the time difference. Anyway, we threw a birthday party for both of them since they pretty much share the same friends.

Lately, Alan is really into Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, so the theme for the party was Mickey and it ended up being really cute. It's amazing to see how even though we're so far away from where Mickey Mouse originated, we were able to find all the decorations, plates, cups, napkins and even balloons with the Mickey Mouse theme, not to mention all the other themes (e.g., Winnie the Pooh, Cars, Spiderman, Princesses, etc.).

Sixteen kids (and their parents of course) came to the party , and we had a great time. We ordered pizza, and my neighbor Kathy and I made a cute Mickey Mouse cake that ended up taking forever to make. I was afraid I wouldn't even have time to take a shower before the party, but it was worth it. The cake ended up being really cute and Alan loved it. I hope Eric liked it too, but since he can't talk yet I'll just have to take his smile as a yes.




We played some games as part of the party. I wanted to have them play the egg and spoon race, but I figured eggs are pretty messy. So I asked Justin to get me some lemons from the store. However, when he got back home he said they didn't have any lemons, and he brought the weirdest fruit I've ever seen. It's the size of a lemon but it kind of looks like an avocado, and when one of them fell down and broke it looked like nasty boogers on the inside (I didn't dare try it). The kids also played with a parachute thing that they would move up and down. They played Ring around the Rosies with it, and they were hypnotized like half an hour with that thing without even needing any assistance (which is so nice when you're trying to be a good host).




I also made a Mickey Mouse pinata, it kind of looked like the classic Mickey because I didn't find any skin-colored paper for the face and I was afraid to paint it and ruin it, but it really turned out OK and it was fun to make. The kids loved hitting it and of course getting the candy once they broke it. We also filled up a bunch of balloons with water and the game was supposed to be to make a basketball shot with the balloon, but they ended up just popping them on the street as fast as they could.




I loved having a party for the kids. I think this is the first year that Alan "got" the concept of what a birthday party is, because at two he had a party with a few little friends but I think he was still too young to understand what was going on; then at three he was at the hospital waiting for his brother to be born, and the only cake he had was the one that the hospital gave me for dessert. But this time he actually got to have fun and blow the candles with Eric by his side. Every time someone would say, "How old are you now, Alan?", he would answer, "I'm four, and my little brother Eric is one year old."

I'm so grateful for having my two boys. I love staying at home and being able to be with them all the time (even though they are both so high maintenance). Justin and I just can't imagine our lives without them we love them more than anything in the world.

FOUR TEETH

Our little Eric has four teeth now!!! Two on the top and two on the bottom. This is the only picture in which you can barely see the four of them (if you click on the picture to make it bigger you can actually see them). I thought I would share it with you guys since most of you haven't seen him with any teeth at all. I can't believe how much he's growing and how fast time has gone by. He'll be a year old in a couple of weeks, I just can't believe it!!!.

A children's museum without children

During Alan's winter break from school we went to the Discovery Center which is a children's museum that is five minutes away from our house. We hadn't been there in a while because Alan has been going to preschool, so we decided to go one morning and we got there and we were the only ones there. They actually had to turn everything on when they saw us coming in, so I thought maybe we had gotten there way too early (at noon), but no, they open the museum at 8:30am.

We were there for three hours and no one else came in, I still can't believe it and can't figure out why more people don't take advantage of this place. It is a really nice children's museum and it's super cheap; it was less than three dollars for both Alan and I to get in. Even though there were no other kids there, we had a lot of fun.

Alan loved getting on a helicopter and said he was flying to abuelitos's house. He drove a white "BMW electric car" that he absolutely loved and drove on the track for like an hour. Since there were no other kids there, they let him do whatever he wanted. They also had one of those pianos on the floor that you can step on; Eric loved walking on that too and listening to the sound each key made.



I tried to get Alan to build a house with some big foam shapes that they had, but he wasn't too interested in my project. He was more interested in driving a big boat by the water games, which were by the way Eric's favorite. He ended up being soaked, so we had to go back home to change him.





It's so fun to have kids and play with them and see them learn as they play. I thought having Alan at home again all day during winter break was going to be hard. But we ended having such a good time. Eric loves playing with Alan and misses him a lot now that he's back in school. We miss him during the morning, but at least we have him back in the afternoon.

Rain, rain and more rain!!!!

So, a month ago, the government of the country decided that they would pray for rain..... I guess their prayers worked (of course I think global warming had more to do with it than the prayers, but anyway...), a week after that we got so much rain. It was so fun, our street was completely flooded and Alan and Justin decided to have fun with it.

They put their swimming suits on and they were kicking the ball on the water, playing with Alan's boats and running all over the water. All of the kids here had so much fun, since it barely ever rains in the country. I felt bad for Eric because he and I just stayed inside the house watching Alan play outside, but the water was too cold for him to play. It ended up rainning for a whole week, it was really nice to have a little bit of a change in the weather, it was kind of like an oasis in the middle of the desert.

WELCOME 2008!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe we're almost at the end of January and I hadn't even posted pictures of New Year's Eve until now. I'm so bad at updating our blog, but one of my New Year's resolutions is to update it more often, so I hope I really become better at that.

We decided to welcome in 2008 at Planet Hollywood just like we did last year. The thing is that they have a themed party every year, they organize lots of games for the kids, and it's super laid back, so we don't have to worry about the kids being quiet at a restaurant. Last year the party's theme was Disney characters, so the kids had to dress like their favorite one. When we made the reservations for this year we looked up Planet Hollywood on the Internet and the theme was the same, so we thought Alan would wear the same thing as last year. However, I thought that it was weird that they would have the same theme two years in a row, so I decided to check it out on the morning of the 31st and the description for the party was different this time. At the last minute they changed the theme of the party to a Pirate one. As you can imagine, this isn't a country where kids dress up a lot and they barely sell any costumes, so I thought we wouldn't find anything, especially a pirate one and having to find it so fast. But we ended up going to this toy store where they had a really cute one, so we were all set.

We had a lot of fun. Alan became friends with a cute two and a half year old little girl dressed up as a princess (she didn't hear about the theme on time) and they were just playing and laughing all night. The girl's dad (in the picture) ended up being exhausted because they wanted him to spin them around and the little girl wouldn't let any of us do it. It had to be her dad, so we felt so bad for him, but he was really happy to see how much fun they were having. Alan participated in different games they had and ended up winning the costume contest. Eric had a lot of fun playing with a bunch of balloons that they had and watching Alan being silly playing and dancing with his friend.

We hope this year keeps being as fun as how it started and we hope this year brings lots of blessings, health and love to all of you and your families.

Have a very Merry Christmas

I can't believe Christmas is gone and we're already a few days into the year 2008!!!

I love the feeling that the Christmas season brings with it. I love having a Christmas tree and lighting it up every day. We love decorating the house and making Christmas cookies. I think the thing that Justin misses the most about not being in the US for Christmas is knowing that it's cold outside and being so warm inside the house sitting by the fireplace. So this year he recreated that feeling by downloading a video that shows a yule log burning. It was so cute, because it actually made it feel like it was cold outside.

Our neighbor Cathy invited us over to her Christmas Eve open house. Her house was so nice all

decorated for Christmas; she made so much food we couldn't believe it and everything was so yummy too. When we got back home the kids opened a couple of presents and then were off to bed because we were hoping that Santa would show up that night....and of course he did.

I remember when I was little the only day of the year that I was happy about waking up early was Christmas Day. I remember waking up like at 6 or 7 in the morning and running downstairs to see what Santa had gotten for me. I would feel so tired from staying awake till 2 or so in the morning the night before, celebrating Christmas Eve, but the excitement of getting to see and play with my new toys made all the tiredness go away (at least for a few hours).

I thought at Alan would feel the same way and would wake up early that morning, but I guess he's still too little to get that whole feeling. Eric and him ended up waking up at around 9:30 and we hurried downstairs to see all of the presents. I think Eric's favorite part of getting presents was the wrapping paper; he loved playing with it. Alan liked his presents too, but he specially LOVED Eric's presents, which doesn't really matter since Eric is still too little to realize which ones are his. However, Alan's favorite present was one that was actually for him. He got a really big train that stops when it gets to the train station and it makes sounds as it passes through different tunnels and stuff. It is so much fun to have our little boys and look at their big eyes shining with happiness when they looked at the presents they got.

On Christmas Day we went out to have lunch at a hotel and it was really fun. The restaurant was next to the beach and they had an inflatable castle where Alan jumped the whole time. Actually Justin and I didn't even get to eat together; we would switch to take care of the kids, so I would go eat a full plate, then Justin would go eat and we spent around 3 hours like that (taking care of kids and eating by ourselves). It was a lot of fun though, it is really nice to see the kids having so much fun. We just didn't have the heart to ask Alan to go in and spend an hour and a half having lunch (especially since he's not a big fan of eating, as most of you know).

It was so nice to hear from our family and friends and hearing how they spent their Christmas Day. My favorite part about Christmas is that it's so easy to be happy and to forget about all the bad things that happen in the world and just focus on how blessed we are to have love in our lives. I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas as well.