Back to school day

I have been waiting for this day to come for a long time and yesterday was everything I was hoping for. I can't help but to feel nervous every time they go to their first day, it was the same when Shayna started Kinder back in Utah and it was the same yesterday as I dropped her off at her 4th grade classroom. I just can not believe how big she is already. She was all about what to wear the night before and what shoes would go with the outfit she picked. Victor was just being Victor, you can never tell with that boy but I think he was excited. The first thing he did when he got in his classroom was taking all the school supplies out, I told him to wait but his teacher was kind and noticed how nervous he was and she started helping him. I think she looks really young but also nice.
His best friend is not in his class this year but I am sure he will find somebody to hang out with.
Tristan is a pro now, he didn't even say bye to me when he got out of the car, little guy with a huge backpack on his back. I have never had one of my kids go to PK and now this will be his second year, he has lots to learn but he is such a smart guy and I am sure he will do great. When we went to meet the teachers last Friday his PK4 teacher said that on his papers there were notes saying that he is "extremely smart" and she was looking forward to meet him.
I know I am their mother and that is why I think they are the most beautiful and smart kids out there, but that is my right as their mother, I love them all very much and love to see them grow and pray that will always remember where they come from and to be a good example to the kids around them. I pray for the teacher so they can always teach them what they need to learn and to be kind to those precious kids because they are in some way molding their lives.
Dan gave them a blessing Sunday night, he took them one by one in our bedroom and a had a little talk with them before giving them their blessing, then one by one they all came to me to share their special experience, I was crying the whole time, I don't know what he said to them but I am sure they felt the spirit as did I sitting on that couch looking at them. I know they will have a great year, their Daddy took care of that :)

After school yesterday we took the kids out to eat as a special treat, they picked a Mexican restaurant and it was pretty good, although their salsa was not the greatest... We had a fun meal talking and watching Tristan dance to Mexican music, Aaron drinking his soda and Victor asking if he could have dessert more than 10 times. Shayna was so full that she could not eat anymore and then we went home. I love making memories with my family. Hope everyone else had a great back to school day.
Poor little frog Tristan found in the parking lot, it was beheaded.
After school pic, Tristan was sad because he didn't want to hold Shayna's hand.

There were 6 babies and now there are 3

Some of you might know the story of the Stansel family who were pregnant with 6 babies, 4 girls and 2 boys. She found out she was pregnant and knew they were having 4 and then they were surprised to learn that there were six babies!!! She had to go into bed rest earlier in the pregnancy around 13 weeks for fear that she might not make it, since she lost twins during the last pregnancy.
They are in our ward and they seem to be a very nice couple. I was able to attend a very nice baby shower that our ward had for her and she looked so happy.
She could not keep the babies in anymore and around 22 weeks she delivered all six babies, since then the two boys and one baby girl have died and now they are down to three. I just saw her on Sunday and it is amazing to me what a strong woman she seems to be.
I have been following her blog for a while now and every time I read I can't help but cry. The trials this family are going through... the lost of the babies and they are still strong in their faith and you can feel it by reading their blog.
They are such a great example to me, I don't know them but they are in my prayers every night. Heavenly Father definitely knows who can stand this kind of trial and who is strong enough to deal with it. I keep thinking that if I were in that situation I would be a mess and could not help but cry 24/7 even knowing that our Heavenly Father is a merciful God. Death to me is just so painful and can't imagine what is like to have one baby die, let alone 3.
I will keep praying for them and even fasting, they need that right now, I can not go and talk to them, I would probably brake down and cry and don't know what to say, but I can definitely pray for them and their little ones. Please do the same, keep them in your prayers so they can bring those little ones home and discover the joy of being a parent. Here is their website if you want to follow their story.

http://stanseljourney.blogspot.com/

On a side note, my ward is a very special ward a different kind of ward. There are lots of family who have lost babies, a little girl died last year and there is another family who had to have a surgery done on their little baby inside the womb. It is interesting that this ward has had so many families going through things like this, they all seem very strong and close. I am thinking I can learn a lot from them.

Shayna's sense of fashion

I am a dork when it comes to fashion, I don't really know what is OK to wear, usually it is about what is on sale and what I can fit into. But when it comes to kids it is easier. I have always been able to get clothes for Shayna just fine, she is 9, soon to be 10 but she is small for her age, the best place for me to get clothes for her has been Family Dollar because they carry a lot of clothes that fit her since she has been in the 7-8 stage.
She has grown a little bit and nothing fits her, 10 is to big, 8 is to small and they don't usually have size 9.... so we both decided to try picking some patterns and I let her choose the fabric and coordinate it to make a few outfits. It has been a lot of fun and she loves dressing up for me to take pictures and so here are some of those outfits she came up with. The only thing I don't do for her is the shirts and her new favorite piece of clothing "the vest" which she must wear with every single outfit :)
The coolest thing about making her these outfits is going to Walmart and seeing something similar and then she goes "that looks just like the dress you made but mine is cuter" or "wow we did a good job picking the pattern" or something like that, she appreciates the hard work and I love her for it. It is also cool to know that I only spent $2.00 per outfit since the fabric was on clearance at Walmart, when you compare that to $12.00 outfits or more at the store it is great!!! We still have some more to make but I needed a break so I'll work on those next week.This is the same red jumper as in the picture before, she wore it last Sunday with the vest.

She put together this outfit for our Saturday outing and I think she looked very cool. This skirt is my favorite. And there is that denim vest again.

Time to go back to school.

Summer has been fun with the kids. We had time to bond, enjoy each others company, go shopping, swimming with friends, we went to parks, we did some school work which they enjoyed a lot, we even jumped on the trampoline in the rain and got soaked. I tried to make it fun, I let them get up late and play games, we had lots of picnics, read lots of books and played with friends. I am worn out and need a break, as much as I love my kids, I just can't hang out with them 24/7.
It is not that my kids are horrible, they are a little crazy I wont deny that, but today I feel like I ran a marathon or something, I am so tired and can not deal with having them at home all day long, is that too horrible of me? I know they grow so fast and all that, I know that I will miss the younger years, but if we all want to survive then I am OK with them going back to school.
I don't see school as a day care center or anything like that, they go there to learn and to deal with different situations, to learn how to be around other people and that is good for them.
They are also excited, their backpacks are ready and full of school supplies, they have all their back to school outfits and shoes, we just can't wait to go back to our normal routine.
I will miss them that is for sure, but I will love the time that I get to be alone (with an almost 3 year old) at home and doing my shopping with just the one child.
WE ARE SO READY!!!!

Lost and found

By now I think that I really fit into the category of being a bad mom, I have taken my kids to the ER a few times due to a dislocated elbow, broken arm, busted eyebrow, paint brush in the ear... I have locked 2 of my babies and a toddler in my car (two separate times)... they have run wild in the store and fallen many many many many times... and today to top it all off I lost Tristan at the book store and the worst part is that I didn't even know it.

The story: (I apologize for my long posts) We decided to have a movie night for Family Home Evening and went to see "Night at the Museum" which was really funny by the way, great clean and fun movie. After that we went to the browse the book store for a while. I don't like doing that with all the kids because if I were another shopper in the store without kids trying to look for books I would probably go insane looking at 4 crazy kids running all over the place and a crazy lady (me) chasing those kids all over the place. Dan and I were on our way out when I saw Shayna attempting to give Aaron a horseback ride and I told her not to do that in the store because he could fall. I trusted she wasn't going to do that and kept looking at some games when I hear Aaron crying as he is falling off Shayna's back and I see him hit the tile of course, everyone around me is looking and I just pick him up and give Shayna the evil look, I then ran out of the store as soon as I could thinking that all the kids were staying with Dan while I took the poor screaming child out of the book store. I get out and then I see that Shayna and Victor had followed me, I knew we were all together in the same spot and so I really thought that Tristan had stayed with Dan, after making sure Aaron wasn't bleeding and seeing how happy he was 5 minutes after, I get this weird feeling in my stomach and called Dan to make sure he had Tristan with him, when I hear him say "no", I panicked and was about to run back in the store when Dan informs me that he sees him and and they are coming out. I saw Tristan's sad little face and hugged him and apologized for what had happened. On the way to the car he tells me that he was really sad and he was crying and this nice lady was helping him look for his family. I just kept thinking how scary it would have been for my little guy to not see his mom or dad close by. I felt really bad and kept saying how sad it would be if I really lost him. The one thing that was good about this experience for him is that he told me that from now on he is going to hold my hand when we go to the store or let me carry him so he wont get lost again.
When I asked him if he had been scared he said "No, but I really missed you" it broke my heart. We were about to get in the car when Shayna yells "oh crap!!!" and then we found out that she left her little purse in the movie theater and we ran back to look for it, we found it and she was happy.
Believe it or not I do pay lots of attention to my kids when we are out and the fact that Dan was with us made me feel more comfortable about walking out of the store without even thinking twice that somebody was going to be left behind. It was only about five minutes but I am sure that for Tristan it was pretty scary and it probably seemed longer. My mistake was to not ask Dan and make sure he would stay with the kids.
Some times I feel like we moms need to be a mixture of an octopus and a lizard, lots of arms for each child and eyes that can see all around us.

Boys sleep over

This is a first for me big time, I have never done a sleep over with my kids and their friends before and I was a little bit scared and didn't know what to expect but Dan was able to be home Friday night and it went really well. I was advised not to entertain the kids or play games with them, to just let them have a good time playing games and I think they all had a wonderful night. His best friends are Dalton and Connor, they are all the same age and they are in the same Sunday class. Hope we can do this again soon :)

They had pizza and ice cream...

they played games...



They watched a movie and slept in their sleeping bags...The next day they had a nice big breakfast and

play with the Playmible guys which they thought were really cool.

Growing up

If there is one thing you need to know about me is that growing up was very different from the way kids grow up in this country.
Back home this is all I knew and grew up hating it. Lets start with the most painful memories:

School: I attended an all girl school during the elementary school years. The school was funded by some Israeli people and we used to get visits from the Ambassador and it was all very weird. My first grade teacher was super nice but then my mom decided to change teachers and I didn't like it, but the new teacher turned out to be really good and I learned to love her, Graduation day (6th grade) Maestra Orfelinda

but she was very strict. All the teachers seemed to be mean and had very strange ideas on how to deal with misbehaved kids. If you talk in class you have to chew on a corn cob, if you do more than that then you pick up you desk over you head and stay like that for an hour. You only get to go to the bathroom during recess and not during class (that is why I peed on myself one day... so embarrassing). One day I was sick and didn't want to go to PE, the teacher noticed my absence and looked for me, found me and punished me by hitting me with his metal whistle, I was so hurt by it and told my mom and the next day she came to the school to complain about it and said if it happened again she was going to sue the school or something... I never got in trouble with that teacher again. They had a Catholic class at the school and made us all sit there and listen to a catholic teacher, I was raised to respect all religions, but also wanted people to respect mine, I asked them to let me skip the class, but they wouldn't. I just sat there and learned their songs (which I still remember by the way). After 6Th grade I went to a Bilingual private school "Saint Francis", it was a scary experience since there were boys and I didn't know how to talk to boys. End of 7th grade, my cousin Sabrina and me

The school was new and there were only 7 kids in my class. I took English for the first time and I hated it. The English teacher spoke in English all the time and I had no idea what she was saying, I had to learn how to say "may I go to the bathroom" very quickly. The English classes were hard but I am grateful for it now, we took Spelling, Grammar, Literature and we also took French. After 9Th grade you get to choose a career. I chose to be an accountant, so for the next three years I devoted myself to study really hard and did internships 3 years in a row, that meant work full time during our school brake in November and no pay, but I did learn a lot. I worked for Chiclets Adams all three years, the last year was the hardest because I had to do it for 2 months, again no pay and a full time schedule. I went to an all girl school again Last week at school with my entire class, except my best friend who got really sick

and wore a horrible uniform (private or public school make you wear uniforms), there were 8 young ladies in my class and only 3 of us graduated (sooo not fair). The principal was a psycho. Happy day, my brother Nefi, my mom and brother Abinadi

After school I worked at our family company and went to the university part time, but then had to look for a full time job to help the family, so that was that. No more school for me since then and I miss it :(
Being in an all girl school I had no dances to go to, no prom, no boyfriend... no fun :(

CHURCH: Church was my life and I loved being in the Young Women program, my family and I were less active for 2 years and when we came back I was already 13 and felt out of place at the beginning but after a while the church people became like my family and that was all I wanted to do. I loved seminary and was very good at the scripture search meetings, I was the champion for the whole Stake and went to the regionals which was a very big deal. I ended up in 4Th place but my stake was very proud of me. Dances at the church were so much fun and I even went to a couple of Young Adults dances with my Young Women president (who was my best friend).
My friend Sandra and her pregnant belly, she was like my sister.

My mom was always there with me, which was fine but when the boys want to ask you to dance and your mom is sitting right by you, doesn't really work and they stay away. That happened many many times... that being said lets move on to DATING!!!

DATING: Not much of that going on really :) I didn't date because I was not allowed, my Mom thought somehow that being the only girl I was going to mess up my life by having a boyfriend or just friends that were boys, so I was not allowed to talk to any boys at all. As soon as I was seen talking to somebody I was going to be reprimanded right there on the spot. It was so embarrassing and frustrating... did I like any boys? Of course I did, I was a young woman and there were a lot of guys that I was interested in, but I had to obey my mother's wishes and didn't do anything about it. My mom didn't know about the boys I liked and she even thought that I didn't like anybody. I finally met somebody at age 17, my first boyfriend. I now understand why my mom let me go out with him, he was in the NAVY and was in Guatemala for a couple of weeks and then he left... yes my 1st boyfriend was a long distance relationship. The whole thing was a joke really, he was younger than me, he didn't really go to church that much and after he left we wrote for a couple of months and then I broke up with him. Two years later he came back and we saw each other again, this time he proposed to me, but I said no. By this time I had already met Dan and I think he was the reason I didn't want to marry him. My boyfriend left and a couple of months later and I broke it off for good. My skinny ex boyfriend, I was 20 at the time

BOYS THAT LIKED ME: It is kind of funny to think about this because I didn't date much but there were a lot of guys who wanted to date me. I wasn't really interested in them but for some reason they were obsessed with me. There was a guy who I know since I was little girl who had a crush on me since I was 16, he went on his mission, came back with the hope of marrying me and I turned him down like 3 times. He stated that he had a revelation and I was to be his wife... poor guy. He now is married and we keep in touch and laugh about the old days :) There was another guy who I thought I liked but after realizing I didn't it told him to leave me alone, he went on his mission, he came back and was after my little bones for years, I also turned him down like 3 times, even in the middle of the dance floor and after that I was known as the lady who left guys dancing by themselves on the dance floor . There was a missionary who just before he finished his mission was looking for a wife (I was 16), I guess he just wanted a Guatemalan girl, obviously that was not going to happen.

BEING A GIRL: In my culture it is so sad to see the injustice of being a girl. The "macho" traditions have been around for centuries and I was SO LUCKY to experience it. I am sure that my brothers don't think it was unfair since they didn't have to be the ones doing all the housework. From a very young age I remember how we girls needed to grow up to be a good wife so we were taught how to clean, how to do laundry (by hand), how to cook and take care of the boys. Meanwhile the boys played, played and played, didn't move a finger and it was so not fear. I don't mind learning how to be a good wife but the boys also need to learn how to do everything we do.

So I guess that growing up I hated my life, thought that my mom was so unfair and everything was horrible. I don't really think that way anymore, sure I wish that I could have had the experiences that were stolen from me. The opportunity to go out with friends after school, date a little, but then again maybe my life would have turned out a totally different way and I love my life now. I am grateful to my mom for the things that she taught me and I can take what I learned and teach that to my kids but one thing is for sure no MACHO business around here :)