Family time, special time.

Saturday was a nice day to go for a walk, we went to our favorite place... the Arboretum. We took a bunch of pictures since the kids were trying out their walking sticks for the first time. We started working on these walking sticks since last year but after receiving the bad news about Grandpa we kind of stop working on them. Theirs area all done so now I only need to finish Dan's and mine. The kids really enjoyed the walk and we went on a new path, it was a very long long hike but they all made it all the way to the end. My mom came with us and she enjoys walking too and last week we out walking every morning, so nice to enjoy a walk through the trees and hear the birds sing, it is the best thing.
I love it when Dan can join us our trips to the park, it makes a difference when he is there and the kids enjoy showing off all their crazy stuff.

Dan and the kids making good use of their walking sticks by blocking the road :)
Above is a picture of a creek, we love the trees that are in the middle of it, they look cool.


Here is a pond that has a little boardwalk around it.
I liked these flowers all in a row, they are cute.

Another flower picture, I love my new camera even if I can't take good pictures it does a great job.
This one is probably my favorite pick of the day. I love the blossoms.

Victor is 8!!!!!

Now I feel really old, having a 10 year old and an 8 year old sure makes it seem like we are old timers now.
Victor had a wonderful birthday party even with the rain pouring down on us. We had planned some outside games and a BBQ Guatemalan style but Dan did not let the rain stop us and he stood out there for a while grilling while holding an umbrella the entire time.
Victor has two friends from our previous ward and we invited them and their families to come over for a late lunch and games. One of my friends was sick so she could not make it and my other friend's husband was sick he stayed home too. We also invited Steven and Amber since they are the only family around here and so we had a great crowd.
The theme for his party was "The Legend of Zelda" an old Nintendo video game and Victor really likes and so we had some games to go with the theme like sword fighting, bug catching and the kids had fun shooting arrows with a crossbow. They all had a chance at winning some prizes from our treasure chest.
As party favor we gave the boys swords and the girl got fairy wings and a mask. After all the games Victor opened his presents and I think this year he scored big time. He got a new bike a couple of weeks ago and he got his new set of scriptures, he had been waiting for them for a long long time and he LOVES them. Dan and one of his friends got him some Legos, he got a Sorry game, a book, the second season of the Thundercats and I am sure I am forgetting more but that's probably pretty close.

We also had a Pinata shaped as a treasure chest and that didn't last for very long but it was still fun.




We had a cake afterwards and then everybody went home.
I am so glad that he had fun with his friends and family and was willing to have the little people join in the fun.
We love Victor very much and are so proud of the kind of person he is, he is a loving, caring and very smart boy. He has been taking the discussions with the missionaries for a while now and it has been an eye opener for me to see how much knowledge he has of our Heavenly Father and his plan, and how he shares all that information with them. We are so proud of him and his decision to get baptized and we know he is ready for it, we can hardly wait. His baptism will be April 10th and it just can't come soon enough for us.

There is something about my kids growing up and turning out to be great kids that gives me some sense of accomplishment, but in the end it is all them, they are the ones making their decisions and choosing the right, as much as Victor drives me crazy some times, I love him even more and makes this family much more special.

Ha ha!!!

I just realized that I posted about gardening the same day as last year so I making March 12th my gardening day every year from now on :) at least while we live in Texas.

Gardening season is here.

Or so I hope. Living in Texas I have come to realize that you learn as you go. Last year I tried really hard to make my tomato plants grow but with all the rain they soon died, they drowned. I think I fixed that problem by drilling a bunch of holes on the bottom of the planters and hopefully that should work. I planted tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, parsley, cilantro and cucumbers, they are all in planters. Eventually I would like to build myself a big raised box that can go all across the one side of the fence and make it easier to keep it from the fire ants :)
I also worked on taking some weeds out of my flower bed and putting in some more mulch. After working really hard for 3 hours in the backyard I am ready now for some relaxation time... yeah right. I will keep my fingers crossed so my plants can survive this year.
Oh yeah my mom is coming tomorrow so I am also getting the house cleaned up a little bit. Pictures of the garden soon.

Staying active.

You have read about my loosing weight ordeal before and how I was trying to keep eating healthy and all that good stuff. I have to say that during the pregnancy last year I pretty much started to gain weight for no reason at all, I wasn't eating that much more or anything but the weight just kept going up and up and up. I have been really good at eating smaller portions and doing my basic three meals a day with a occasional snack between meals. I have been doing my active (PS3) exercises when the kids are at school and I have a couple of work out videos but those are a little easy to skip for what ever reason. Recently I started walking at the park that is close by the house and it is kind of nice because I do it right after I drop the kids off at school and it is just Aaron and me for about an hour. I can never go for more than an hour and that allows me to walk two miles at least. Still I see no improvement in the weight loss. But I am not getting discouraged. I presented Dan with a plan that will eventually help him too, a treadmill. I did my research and found out that Walmart sells a good treadmill for under $500.00 and it does basically what I need it for. All I want to do and can do is "walk" because of my bad knees but that is all I want. I bought a pedometer last year and it came with a little booklet that had information about how you can loose weight by eating healthy and walking 10,000 steps a day. I have not been able to reach that goal everyday mostly because Aaron wont let me, he can only be in the stroller for so long and then is off to the playground. At home I was walking in place but it doesn't feel the same. Finally I convinced Dan about buying that treadmill and after going to different Walmart locations I found the treadmill, we went and got it last Tuesday, I put it together with a little bit of help from Dan, I just needed his strength :)
The treadmill works fine and I am able to put it away during the day so it is out of the way and the kids can't kill themselves on it. I have been working out everyday with exception of Saturday and Sunday and I feel great, more energized which is a great thing.
Now the plan is to still go walk at the park for an hour, let Aaron play, then come home and do 40 minutes on the treadmill and I will be doing 10,000 steps a day.
I can't go to the gym because I feel embarrassed by working out in front of people, I used to go to the gym back home with my mom and we were lucky to be the only two people at the gym every afternoon but there is something about how I see my self in work out clothes that just doesn't make me feel good about myself, so I rather just wear sweat pants and old t-shirts without getting looks from people. I know I am weird.
I am also hoping that by my kids watching me exercise constantly they can also join in the fun and learn that it is good to stay active, not that I have been a couch potato or anything.
A couple of weeks ago as I was doing a Pilate's work out Tristan and Aaron kept telling me "you can do it mom, keep going" as I was flat on the floor not being able to move a single muscle, I actually finished 40 minutes of that work out thanks to them.
So wish me luck and hopefully we will see some results soon.

My mom is coming.

We are so excited that my mom will be here by Saturday. We knew she was going to make the trip sometime this year but we didn't really talk about dates or anything. She is planning on staying until November, that is if her health allows her. The kids have grown up a little bit since she left and now Aaron is talking up a storm, he is funny though because he has been asking me to talk to him in Spanish lately, he knows his Abuelita does not speak English. All my kids are very excited and Saturday can't come soon enough for us.
We are also super excited that she will be here for Victor's birthday for the first time and his baptism next month. Lucky Victor will have his two grandmas with him on his baptism day.

Hurray for mothers!!!

Life back then and now.

So a friend of mine had a status on Facebook that brought back so many memories from years ago, by the way Trina if you happen to read this I really did not get offended by your status :)
When we first got married Dan was working for United Airlines and from the start he got stuck with the night shift, he worked for them for a little over 6 years and I think he only got a day shift maybe for 3 months. When we didn't have any kids it was fine and I adjusted to it, then Shayna came along and sadly she had to adjust also to our crazy life. We did not own an extra car back then and I did not know how to drive anyways so I always stayed home with Shayna all the time. The shopping had to wait until Dan came back from work and then the three of us would go over to Walmart in the middle of the night. I remember walking around and people looking at us like we were the most evil parents in the world for taking a little one out so late. We got used to those looks too. Shayna was such a good baby that she never cried when went shopping or usually slept through the whole thing. When we moved to WV it was the same but I had no friends and the night trip to the store were usually done a little later since Dan schedule kept changing every three months. Dan used to get Mondays and Tuesdays off most of the time so we could not do our shopping on Saturdays and he was always so tired after he woke up since we went to bed around 2 or 3 am. He used to wake up around 10 or 11 if Shayna and I were super quiet and then he would have lunch with us and then leave for work again. We tried to do as much as we could together on his days off but somehow we were always tired. After we moved back to VA and had Victor and Tristan in the mix we were able to get a minivan from my sister in Law Heather and that made the difference for us, I was able to go with the kids to the store and the night trips stopped. We still had the issue of keeping the kids up until midnight at least so they could sleep in a little bit more and not wake Dan up in the morning. We were pretty good about taking naps during the afternoon to make sure the kids were rested. It was a strange life I know, not everybody can deal with that and it was not our choice, we just had to deal with it but I often wondered what we were going to do when Shayna had to start school and that is when things changed for us big time. Since we were so so so poor back then I had to work part time and Dan and I got to see each other for a couple of hours during the week, then we had the opportunity to sell our house and move to Utah, as much as we loved VA we knew the change was a good one and it would bring a new life for us and the kids. And it did. We moved there and Dan got a day time job, no work on weekends and a normal schedule, so after 6 years we became a normal family with a normal job and I got to stay home (for a while) with the kids.
I did work in Utah for a while and it was the night shift, it was the only option for me to be able to stay home with the kids and avoid daycare but it was draining my life away. When my mom was staying with us she used to watch the kids for me while I slept during the day and then I would go to work at night, it was only three days a week but it was hard. When we saw the chance for us to move again, we saw a light at the end of the tunnel and decided it was the best for us. Now I am here staying at home with kids, don't have a job and I only stay up at night because I like it. I don't mind working and if I had to do it again I would, specially now that Dan is in school and we know that some day he will graduate and we will have to pay that loan back, we don't like owing money so I would probably get a job to help pay it down quickly. Hopefully he will be able to get a better job after he graduates.
When I look back on those days it makes me happy because we were a happy little family, we had all we needed and life was good, we are still a happy family but things just kind of got a little bit complicated and we worry about different things now. I would not change anything though, we have learned so much from our experiences and are glad of the progress we have made after all these years. Life is good!!!