Grandma Brown comes to Town.

About two weeks ago Grandma Brown flew all the way to Houston from VA and spent one week with the other Browns then a week with us or almost a whole week.  The day she came in Dan took a couple of the kids over to Steven's house to say hi, I had to stay home to wait for Tristan to be delivered from Cub Scout Day Camp and also was entertaining a couple of the YW from the ward so I could not leave home.
We patiently waited for our turn to come and have grandma over for a few days.  The kids were so excited and Victor happily gave up his room to have Grandma stay there and he went to the office.  He practically moved in with his Legos, books and many other things.  We picked her up on Wednesday so she could spend the night with us and the plan was for her to go with Steven and Amber to downtown for the 4th of July.  We felt we needed to have her come over that night and try to spend as much time with her as possible and we are glad we did.  We had to go over to the church for mutual for a little while but then we went straight home and had a nice visit with her chatting and also watching some TV with her, she always loves to see what new show we are watching or what movies are new to our collection, that's something Dan and her have in common, they love TV shows and movies :)
The next morning we had planned on going out to eat breakfast with her but our first option was opening late so we ended up going to Denny's instead and so did the rest of the town is seemed.  The place was packed but it was worth waiting a little bit, the food was as usual very good.  We took pictures with my phone so I don't have to share on here.

Shayna as always being helpful with Kahlan.

Grandma at Denny's (this pics were taken with my cellphone...)



After "brunch" we went back home to wait for her to be picked up and off she went.  We stayed home this year for different reasons, I know it would have been fun to hang out all together with Grandma but we know our limitations and how our kids do in hot, crowded spaces and since miss Kahlan is like the Energizer bunny, neither Dan or me wanted to spend the whole time chasing after her in such a crazy place.  I am dying to go back to Houston to see the fireworks but we will wait until she settles down a little bit more.  Last year we went to Kingwood and that was insane, the kids complained the entire time about how hot it was and we literally melted over there.  We still managed to have fun, we had some yummy food, made patriotic cupcakes and then went out to play with sparklers.  The kids got to watch the neighbors fireworks and Kahlan as expected freaked out the entire time which made us feel our decision of staying home was a good one.  Grandma came back really late but it gave me the chance to clean the carpet in the living room since it got some blue icing on it and it had to be cleaned right away.  The rest of the time we spent mostly just hanging out, having a good time. Saturday morning we went to the movies with her and took Victor along to watch "The Lone Ranger", which was entertaining but I am seriously tired of all the computer animation in the movies these days, I wish they woulds just do movies the old fashion way when things were still believable....
it was a fun movie in the end.  After coming back we took Grandma to the Lake Houston trading days which was about 3 minutes from our house, it used to be set up as a flee market but now has a fancier look.  It is indoors and the items they sell are more expensive.  It was still fun walking around.  Sunday we went to church and had a nice afternoon, I took a nap while the rest of the family watched a movie together.
On Monday we took her to the Harris County Mounted Police place to feed the horses which is something she had not done before, the kids had fun and I think she was impressed with the place.  She treated the kids to McDonalds on the way home and spend the rest of the day hanging out.  She also offered for Shayna and me to go shopping for a little while so we could spend some quality time together and that was unexpected and nice.  Later on Shayna babysat for us while Mom took us out for dinner, we went to a Chinese Buffet that we all like a lot, stuffed ourselves silly and then went home.

(I will always remember this pic, this lady is so into her hair and takes such good care of it, never leaves the house without her cap, so cute)

It was a very nice visit and I am glad Dan got to hang out with her mom a little bit, I am glad the kids got to make some more memories with her, specially the little walks they took every morning.  I can see how Mom has changed since the last time we saw her but she still stands strong and keeps moving, that is something I admire in her.  It was so sad to say goodbye and before she left she said the nicest things to me.  I know she loves me and I love her, really hope that she felt welcomed into our home and that she felt loved by our little family.  I hope it wont be long before we see her again.


One of the best moments for me, her taking the time to read with Aaron, she was very happy to sit with him for a while.

I made a promise to take pics with the family members that come to visit my family.  Too many regrets of not having enough pictures with them!!

The kids and Grandma B.

Pioneer Clothing.

A while back my sister in law Tashia called me up and asked if I would be willing to sew the pioneer clothing  her daughter Savannah had to wear to the Trek.  I was so excited to do it because I have had this patter in my collection for a long time and wanted to use it but never got around to do it.  Long story short, after working on it for about 2 or 3 months, it took that long only because things kept getting in the way but it was finally finished.  I sent it out on a Friday and she got it the next Monday.  They called me all excited to let me know that it was perfect, right size, length and everything.
Now can I just say that holy cow pioneer clothing is so incredibly expensive.... I visited a few websites to see what the best style for the fabric would be, what not to do and to stay as real to the pioneer thing as possible.  I found a site that did just one dress for $150.00.... crazy!!!
I ended up doing one dress, an apron, a bonnet, bloomers, one skirt and one top.  I am really happy with how they turned out but mostly happy that they liked it so much.  Shayna was my model for the outfits because I really wanted to see what they looked like on somebody once they were gone.  Since Savannah is way taller than Shayna we sued a stool for her for the pics....
This was a very exciting project to work on.

 So the pattern for the bloomers was kind of funny.... I tried to find something that was as close as what they actually wore back then but they hand an opening in the back, I ended up twiking the pattern some and closing up the back but I had to used an elastic waistband instead which makes it a little bit bulky in the end but it solves the problem of having a giant opening back there...

 Here is the top and skirt, they were not pioneer patterns but I found some cute patterns on sale and I adjust the skirt one so it would have enough fabric to have that look and the top was perfect with the short sleeves. I am sure they didn't use the short sleeve that much but Tashia thought it wold be better since it gets really hot and I have seen some of the trek kids wearing short sleeves too.

 Here is the outfit all together with the apron and bonnet.

 And last but not least my favorite item, the dress.  It was so cute.  Apparently the pattern I had was used and it was old so when they cut it it was for a size 8 and I needed something smaller, again some adjusting had to be done but I had her measurements and just kept going back to them often.  The collar was not even matching the neckline so I had to create a new pattern piece for it and that was a new experience for me.  I was about to give up and go buy a new pattern but I made it work. The bonnet is awesome.

 I added a couple of buttons to the top to make it look cuter :)

Summer time!

School is out, is hot outside.... yeah it is summer time!  We have been enjoying our lazy days so far, well not so much other than we get to get up a little later than usual but we have been busy busy busy.
As soon as our summer started we already had stuff planned for Shayna and Tristan, she had to go to girls camp two weeks ago and it was for 3 days, somehow I got involved into coming to the "Beehive Retreat" (they didn't have real camp this year because the older kids are going to Navoo) to teach a sewing class, I had no ideas what was in store but I signed up anyways because I wanted to help and they couldn't find people to come do it.  So I signed up for two long days, since Dan could not get days off work I found a couple of wonderful ladies to help me those two days and they watched all 4 of my kids for about 5 or 6 hours.  I am so grateful to them for their help and still need to bake some goodies to bring them over.
So the sewing lessons were schedule to last one hour and thirty minutes which was crazy because the project lasted about 30 minutes all together but I got to meet some wonderful sisters that are in our stake and they are wonderful people. I also had a little bit of a trial during the second day but I will blog about it another time.
I got to see Shayna and the rest of the beehives there, it was fun to spend some time together with Shayna at camp.  The second day went a little faster and I got to eat lunch with my Shayna and her friends, didn't  bring my camera because I thought Shayna would be embarrased but I did manged to take a pic with my phone... took some convincing buty it worked.
Anyways that was the second week of June, last week it was Tristan's turn and he went for the first time to the Day Camp for CubScouts, no I didn not sign up to be a volunteer but I did end up driving one of his friends the three days that they went and his mom drove them back home the three nights so that was really nice.  His older sister came and spent two days with us while his brother was at camp and Shayna had a blast hanging out with her, we took her to the pool and had dinner together.  The last day another one of her friends joined in the fun and Shayna was in heaven.
And now we are getting ready to recive Grandma Brown who will be spending a whole week with us starting Wednesday.  the kids are really excited to see her and spend time together.  We area planning on taking her to some parks close by, to feed the police horses, maybe to the movies and watching movies at home but mostly just hang out.  It will be fun.
So far we have been able to go to the pool regularly and it is really nice to see Kahlan getting a little bit more brave in thew ater, this year the boys are getting braver in the water too. We have been working on little projects and big projects, reading books, watching our favorite shows and just bonding time with each other.  Of course they drive eahc other nusts and me too, sometimes I go hide in my room so I can keep my sanity.
I feel so much happier this year because last summer was kind of a bummer after my surgery and we didn't get to do a lot.  My goal is always to make the kids happy and I think we are doing a good job so far.  Stay tuned, who knows what adventures we will have.

 

 Shayna at camp with her friends.

 Tristan working on his bucket to take to day camp.

 Shayna did a little picture on it for him.

 On the way to day camp, three fun days for him!!!

 Playing with the Playmobile guys.

Call 911

You know how you watch TV shows and there are people that say that phrase?  Yeah that was me Monday around noon after having done everything I could to help Kahlan while choking....  It was needless to say a nightmare and so scary.

I wrote this whole thing in Spanish when it was fresh in my head and so I will translate it now so everyone can understand it.

Monday morning was filled with big plans for the kids and I.  We were going to work on some crafts and finish our chores and have fun but first I needed to go to the gym in the morning.  I started by cleaning out the laundry room and when I was done I didn't feel like going to the gym anymore so instead I told the guys I would go to the store and get some things we needed.  Then I didn't feel like going to the store and instead I played ping pong with the guys for about an hour.  We did have lots of fun being silly but then I realized it was time to get lunch ready for them so I told them I would go take a shower first, my plan was to leave Shayna in charge and do a quick run to the store but on the way to the bathroom I felt like calling my mom, so I did.  We were on phone for about 10 minutes when I heard the kids screaming, but the screaming wasn't like their normal "mommy Victor is bothering me...."  it was like a very frightening scream so I got up and ran downstairs with my mom still on the phone after than I just remember that everything happened in slow motion, my cell phone was on the floor and I could hear my mom asking me what was going on while I kept asking what was wrong with Kahlan who was at the moment on the floor face down and having what I thought was a seizure.... I turned her over and she was not responding at the time, mean while the kids explained to me that she was walking just fine and then she fell and never got up again.  When I turned her over her eyes looked so empty and her body was motionless, while on the floor she was moving really weird so I thought that maybe she had drank some cleaning supply or dishwasher detergent but I keep those out of reach so nothing made sense until she finally open her mouth and I saw a huge chunk on meat that she had stolen from Victor... then I reacted fast, I took the meat out of her mouth and made sure there was nothing obstruction her airways, she still wasn't responding so I asked Shayna to go ahead and call 911.  I saw my cell phone and remember my mom was there so I just told her I had to go because Kahlan was not OK, Shayna handed me the phone and I started talking to someone on the other side and asked them to send an ambulance our way because my baby was choking and she wasn't responsive at the time, they stayed with me on the phone for a while and kept asking me question and giving me advice on what to do, eventually Kahlan regain control of her arms but her eyes were still kind of weird and her legs were not working yet.  She was holding on to me so tight and very faintly kept saying "help me mommy"... just thinking about it now makes me all sad because I was trying to do everything I could to help her and keep her from dying.  The paramedics showed up ad started to look at her and by then the situation had gotten more stable, she was still not 100% herself yet and they told me she needed to go to the hospital so they could make sure that everything came out and she didn't end up with an infection of some sort.  She had thrown up some while I was holding her and I thought it would be wise so I asked Shayna to go with her in the ambulance and I drove right behind them in the car with the rest of the kids.  

Meanwhile I had texted Dan some of the information letting him know that Kahlan was having some problems and then to let him know we were on the way to the hospital, he never responded but then 10 minutes later which is when I was getting ready to leave he called and I broke down crying explaining what was going on, his reaction was something that I am used to, he got really quiet and asked a few questions and then told me to keep him updated, when I told him that it was all my fault and to forgive me he told me to not blame myself.  I felt so alone but at the same time I knew things would be OK because my kids had done something really special.  While I was on the phone with 911 they all went away, I didn't know where they were but I did notice them come back after a while and now I remember one of them saying it's going to be OK mommy, we said a prayer, I think that's the thing that really made everything all better, their special prayer, their faith in God and knowing that by going to him right then things would work out.  The drive there seemed like forever and I manged to call my mom again to tell her what was going on, she was also freaking out and blaming herself but I realized then that if I had not been on the phone with her and gotten in the shower that Kahlan would have probably been dead by the time I got downstairs.

Once we got to the hospital I had to deal with the incompetence of people and their unkindness or willingness to help, the front desk people would not let me go back because she was not in a room yet, I kept telling them that she was only two years old and she needed me, her sister was with her but she is also a child, she told me to leave her alone to finish her work and then she would help me.  I approached her twice and she still would not let me in. Then ten minutes later a nurse came out with my Kahlan in her arms and asking who the mother of the child was, the kids and I all jumped and ran to her, she looked so much better since the last time we had seen her and she was so happy to see me.  I broke down again, but mostly because she seemed OK and we were finally together.  Shayna looked so scared still but we were all together and things would be fine.  They told me she threw up again on the way to the hospital and so it seemed that everything came out and they were going to keep her under observation for an hour. They finally put us in a room and kept coming back to check on her, eventually Dan showed up and when he did I lost it again.  I let it all out and explained to him exactly what happened and how the kids had been a good help and how they did everything just right, helping me, praying, calling 911.  The nurse told us that we saved her life and we were all her heroes.
While talking to Dan he then told me how he was feeling after getting my texts and how scary it was for him not knowing what was going on. His cellphone had been off all morning and when he turned it on all he got was the messages (this was right after the first ten minutes had gone by). After talking to me he went back to his desk but couldn't just sit there so he talked to his supervisor and tried to explain what was going on and kind of lost it in front of her and she understood so she told him to go ahead and go straight to the hospital.

I can't even begin to explain what it feels like, to come so close to having a child die in your arms and to see the life escaping from their bodies, it is the most difficult thing to deal with, I know I prayed out loud to my Heavenly Father so many times in those few minutes, I know I begged him over and over again to let her stay with me.  Those ten minutes were the longest minutes of my life and I don't regret anything I did during that time, I wondered afterwards if I had exaggerated by calling 911 but I know in my heart that it was necessary and she is alive today because of the steps we took.  I also know that if had not listened to the whispers of the Spirit who kept me from leaving the house more than once and who kept me from taking a shower when I wanted to, things would have ended really badly.

I couldn't understand why if she was choking she was acting so weird but then it finally hit me that the oxygen was not getting to her brain at all and she was loosing control of her body because of it.  We have been blessed so greatly and she seems fine now, there was no damage to her brain or anything, she is one lucky little lady or should I say one blessed child!!! 

Dan and I keep talking about it, and keep feeling grateful for our great kids and how they were so good that day, grateful for so many blessings in our lives and grateful for our precious little Kahlan who has brought so much joy into our lives and we all know that life without her would be so different and sad. 

You think that by having 5 kids this would be a regular thing, having kids choke... well sure they have all choked on things before but never like this, Kahlan takes the prize.
And so I take a lot from this experience but mostly just a big reminder of how precious life is and how much we need to be alert to listen to the Spirit when we are prompted to do something or not do something. 

Top Shot (The Brown Family Version)

Have you ever watched  Top Shot?
It is such a cool show and we got hooked about a year ago I guess.  We are currently watching their latest season which is the Top Shot All Stars and they brought back a lot of the of finalist from previous seasons to give them another chance to proof who the best shooter is.
The show basically has lots of challenges for two teams and they most help each other win these challenges or one by one their team mates get eliminated.  The challenges are awesome and they use all kinds of weapons, from rocks all the way to canons and grenade launchers.  Once one of the teams is down to like two or three members they put them all in one team and then the competition changes to individual challenges.  I have to tell you that the kids really get into this show every season and gets them excited, we all pick our favorite contestant and root for them until the end... unless they get eliminated earlier.
So Dan had this cool idea of doing our own Top Shot contest at home.  I love it when Dan gets into things like these because it brings out the child inside of him.  He gets super excited and comes up with a big plan, he kept sending me text messages with the list of items we needed for the competition.  We got all the stuff together and over the weekend we surprised the kids.  We got the shirts, which I embroidered with the "Top Shot" words on them (all these items were found at our local dollar stores), we got foam plates, soda pop cans and balloons for shooting targets, a big bear for our bow and arrow part of the competition and apples, we also got marble and rocks to throw at targets.  We already have a nice collection of BB guns so we didn't purchase any of that, we have a sling shot and a while back we got our bow and arrow set.  So as you can see we were pretty equipped for our Top Shot competition.  The show is sponsored by  Bass Pro Shops and they give out gift cards to the contestants after each elimination challenge, to the one that wins of course, so Dan thought it would nice to get a Bass Pro Shop  gift card for the winner, the rest of them would get a box of candy and after the competition our plan was to take everyone to the Bass Pro Shop store that is closest to us, since we had never been there before.

Needless to say the whole thing was so much fun and the kids were pretty excited with each challenge, we adjusted some of the rules so the little ones had a chance at wining but in the end our winner was Shayna, she did awesome on the last challenge which was to shoot a water balloon with Victor's awesome BB gun that comes with a scope, this was supposed to be the hardest shot of the day.  She did perfectly and she scored the last 5 points to win the game with a total of 16 points, Victor came second with 15 points, Tristan had 13 and Aaron had 4... of course he was devastated but we all cheered him up and Shayna even gave him some money as a consolation prize :)
Here are a few pics of the event, one of the kids favorite events was them being pulled by Dan on their wagon and shooting at the same time, Victor and Tristan were the only ones that got points on that one.  We had so much fun that we will be doing this every year.
The trip to the store was good, lots of things to see and be amazed by, the set up they have is really great and entertaining.  Shayna ended up buying a new gun for her, air soft of course and it is pink.
I was just happy to see my kids bond with each other, lifting each other up during the challenges and also enjoying my husband being a great dad to his kids doing something they all enjoy. He doesn't get to spend a lot of time with them but when he does he does a great job and I am glad the kids were able to appreciate all the effort he put into this.  I love my family!!!

 Kahlan tried  really hard to be part of the whole thing but for safety reason we didn't let her shoot... and sometimes she sat quietly watching the whole thing, other times she would sneak behind us and went to try and grab the targets.

 Victor trying to get the big bear...the bear was not harmed by the arrows and is now living in Shayna's room.

 Sibling love is the best!!

 Aaron  getting a wagon ride.

 My handsome boys waiting for their turn.

 Victor in action!!

 What the apples looked like after the competition.

 Victor making his last shot.

 We had a blast shooting there, fun fun fun!

 My kids loved the store, can you tell?

 Even Kahlan found a camo 4 wheeler.

 My little Daniel Boom.

My Rant for the Week!!!

So once again I feel the need to vent on my blog.  It is my blog and I think this is the one place I am allowed to say and express how I feel.  Recently someone I have known for years and recently came in contact with through FB said some insulting things on there.  I respect people and their post and usually try to stay away from saying things when I know it will create a problem and even when I do believe that we all have the right to say what we feel and think I also think that the moment you say something to insult someone in particular then you are crossing the line.  I have seen a lot of people say really mean things on there so I have hidden them and that way i stay away from reading their insults or "smart remarks".  My life is so much better that way and he will soon go into that list. The best thing is that they don't even know it.
Anyways, the reason why I got so upset, not mad just upset and annoyed and I guess also really really hurt is because I absolutely know it was directed to me and my brothers.  Earlier that day I had commented on my brother's post about his kidney stone, he posted it in English and I joked about it in English too, we do this sometimes because he has friends who don't speak Spanish so I know they get annoyed when they can't understand.... then this guy came out and posted about he gets really annoyed about people who have left their country and are quick to adopt the new traditions from other cultures  and and forget about theirs, also how they speak to their own relatives in their new language (really???? could you be any more subtle???) He went on and on about how we forget where we come from and how our kids don't learn our own language and how we don't teach them about our traditions and culture, their heritage.....
He said so many things but these are the ones that really got to me.  My reaction was to write to him and simply ask him nicely to think before you say something like that because you never know who you might be offending with your words.  I mean the detail of his post was just awful and my brothers felt the same way, even my mom.  These are people that I knew growing up, they knew my parents over 30 years ago and we had a good relationship but this is how they want to treat us now, just because we are far away????  I don't think so.
My words to him were written our of anger but out of hurt.  I am OK now and I think the whole thing was just ridiculous now but I don't regret saying what I said to him, specially after noticing that he came back and posted more comments saying how he doesn't regret from saying what he said because he really wanted to make people rethink their actions and oh yeah by the way he didn't want us to think that his words were directed at us at all....
Lots of people got offended by his words even his mother in law who told him to mind his own business and stop saying such mean things since she also lives in the US and didn't feel comfortable with his comment.
The thing that bothers me the most is that people from my country are always so quick to judge anybody who ends up living here in the States, it might be a cultural thing but for some reason they always talk trash about "us traitors", they always think that we all come to look for riches and to live the American dream, which is not my case at all, you can not generalize this kind of stuff since everyone has a different reason of why they are living here now.  It is so hard to live so far away from the people you love, from the things that you were used to your entire life.  I came here because it so happens to be where my fiancee lived at the moment and this was the place where he could make a life for both of us, but we often talk about how much we would love to go back and live there, is it the best thing to do for our family?  Probably not and that's why we stayed here for them.  Do all my kid speak Spanish? NO, but we have a reason for that, it is not an excuse but things happened like the speech problem that my son Victor had and that made a big change in what language to talk to him.  His therapy was done in English 100% and I could not figure out how to teach him both languages when what he needed at the time was to learn how to speak.... so you can't say that it was because I wanted to become an American and forget about my culture because it was not like that.  I don't regret making the decision to teach my son how to speak his native language, he will live here, he goes to school here, why would I let him become a handicap at school?  He speaks just fine now and you can not tell he ever had a problem.
When it comes to teaching my kids about my culture, that's easy, they all know about my traditions because we live them every year, I tell them all about it.  We eat the food that we eat back home as often as we can and they love it.. they rather eat frijoles (beans) and tortillas every day.
I tell them that they have Mayan blood in their veins and they love that, they are growing up loving both cultures and are proud of it.
I also pointed out to him how hard it was to become officially an American and the reasoning behind my decision and why it took me as long as it did (10 years).
This whole thing just reassured once again of what Dan tells me all the time, people are stupid.  Why on earth would you do that, why would you go out of your way to offend people and then pretend that it wasn't meant to hurt anyone?  What is really hard to believe is that we are members of the same church, the same faith that teaches us to love one another and to not judge one another, he really needs to humble himself and rethink his words.
It makes me think of all of the things I have said and done and I don't even know when I have offended people.  I really need to remind myself of that so I don't fall in the same place.  I just wish people would try to be more like Jesus, the world would be a better place.

One month left...

I am getting close to my wight loss deadline and I am not sure that I will hit the numbers I was expecting.  I have to say that this last month was kind of depressing because I was not able to get rid of any weight at all.... yeah I hit a wall again.  But not to worry I am not giving up yet or should I say I am not giving up ever!!!
I don't want to feel like a failure or like I am not capable of achieving a big goal like this one.  I have worked really hard and I know that, Dan knows it, even my kids know how hard I am trying.
The important thing for me is that even if the deadline comes and goes it doesn't mean that my progress will stop there because it wont, I have another deadline by the end of the year but that one is a little different. I am really excited with the progress that has been made so far.  Love seeing my legs and how much better they look and feel.  I am so happy that a lot of the Sunday outfits I once used as my only choice, are now ready to go in a bag to be donated because when I put them on they are just so big on me.
I know it doesn't look like it has been a lot of weight that was lost but somehow there is change and I love it.
Now Dan will probably get annoyed at me for writing this, but he has finally made the decision to go back on my healthy diet, he is doing great and just in the last 3 weeks he has lost 10 lbs.
It gets me excited to see him working hard too, he is using his dumbbells again and I can see and feel the result too.  I am really happy to have his support and now to be part of my progress as well, pretty soon we will be a skinny couple again ha ha, but most importantly a "healthy and fit couple".
Bring it on June, I can do it!!!!