testing 123

easter 2011

Another holiday is in the books.  Some pics from the day…

Saturday was our neighborhood Easter egg hunt – it was a bit of a rainy morning but it didn’t dampen our search efforts.  Marcus stayed home with the boys, both of whom are/were sick while Emi went on the hunt.

I was trying to get one last shot and she kept walking towards me instead of staying where she was.

Sunday morning the kids woke up to find their baskets (which, of course, I only took a pic of on my phone – oops – trust me, they were c.u.t.e.)

the boys got jaunty caps and some new rattles/teething toys in their baskets.  javier went to town.  p.s. – both bottom teeth are in!!!!!

easter outfits for the boys.  I totally missed the boat on coordinating outfits for the 3 kids.  oops.

at least my three men were coordinated! (the boys were just not feeling it at this point… look at poor andres’ face).

there was much wailing and nashing of teeth about the dress and the taking of pictures – hence the lollipop. don’t judge.

in no particular order…

I’m skipping around here because Javier is in the jumpy and about to lose his marbles, Andres is about to wake up, and Emilia’s show is about to end. TYPE FAST!!!!!

Last Saturday Ky came over while her parents went to go look at houses.  Marcus took the boys to the Y with him which left me alone with the two girls.  It was so EASY.  I couldn’t believe it.  They did really well making cupcakes and having tons of fun… with no fighting!!!

trouble.

like emi’s attire?

and then, because I couldn’t resist… and stumbled across this pic the other day…

who the he** are these girls?!?!?!?!?!?!

my peeps

One of the first groups of friends I made when I moved to Charlotte from Virginia was naturally the people at work.  They soon became known forevermore as ‘my TES peeps’.  Last week I had the occasion to reunite with some of my fave TES peeps as we said goodbye to our ‘fearless leader’ Smokey who, after 10 years and founding our school, is moving on to presumably less-stressful pastures.  Ozlem and I don’t work there anymore, but no matter… they’re still our peeps.

t & ozlem.

I feel I need to give some background on these next couple of pics.  On the first day of school Smokey ALWAYS dresses up as some kind of character – bike messenger, surfer dude, blues brother… and greets e.v.e.r.y. kid as they get out of their cars.  It got to the point where we would all try to guess what he was going to dress up as each year.  At this party they had life-sized “Smokeys” in various costumes.  As the night wore on, we couldn’t resist.

kermit, train conductor, surfer, ghandi, blues brother…

clearly we had gotten out of hand.

it was a beautiful (albeit blurry) night.

a meal

But first…

have a love/hate relationship with this picture.  love it, but hate that she looks like such a ‘big girl’… ugh.

dude.. I think something’s up.

We took advantage of having a couple pairs of extra hands around to give the boys their first bites of ‘real food.’  Yes, I’m still nursing them, and of course they still get formula bottles as well but I feel like they are constantly hungry.  I started with Emilia just after 6 months, but the ped says it’s okay to start at 5 if they are ‘ready’ (ie: can sit up supported…etc).  I was also hoping that as a secondary effect a little cereal would help calm down Javier’s reflux.  It hasn’t :(.

nice askew hat.

totally blurry picture but the look on poor andres’ face is priceless.  “dear god woman, what the he** are you feeding me… this is awful!!”

javier wouldn’t' even let me get close to him with it.  “woman… I hope you can cook better than this!” look how terrified he looks!

Needless to say our attempts at brown rice cereal have been a complete bust.  We’ve abandoned it for the time being and have moved on to banana (which Andres enjoys and Javier, shocker, hates).

familia corazon

While Marcus was on paternity leave (and we had someone else around) we actually got a couple of group shots.  Miracle of miracles.

man – getting a shot of all 5 of us looking in one direction (let alone happy) is impossible!

how unusual – I’m in workout clothes.

gotta love the boys in the background.

visita

Slowly… very s.l.o.w.l.y. I’m digging out from under a mountain several mountains worth of laundry and general Spring cleaning madness to start sorting through the stacks of pictures I’ve taken over the past weeks.

At the beginning of the month my brother-in-law, “Tio Equis”, and father-in-law, “Abu” came to visit and meet the boys.  A few shots from their stay…

both Tio Equis and Abu got v.e.r.y. used to toting the boys around.

Marcus took another week of his paternity leave while his brother/dad were here.  That, coupled with the lovely weather, meant a lot of time spent outside playing impromptu games of ‘football.’

Having her Papa home from ‘el trabajo’ made one girl very, very happy.

she cried the Monday he went back to work.