Marielle Loren!!!

On Sunday the third of July, Marielle finally decided to join us. . . on her due date that is! She is the sweetest thing we could ever ask for!

She was 7 lbs 2 oz and 20 in. She has a full head of light brown hair, that I call blonde (in this house, that IS blonde)!

The girls and Juan are fighting over her constantly.

So far she is very easy going and only cries when she needs something. I hate to count my eggs before they hatch but I have a feeling she is one of those "good babies" I always heard about.

I swear Marielle is smiling at Annelise in this picture.

Annelise says that she loves her "the most", even more than Julianna or us!

Julianna wants to hold her all the time and is surprisingly gentle with her. She gives her sweet kisses and says "I love you Yariyelle"

Juan holds her for hours, and is CRAZY about her!

I am also obsessed with the little monkey!

She has made an impact on this house, but not in a way I was expecting!?!?

I was expecting a madhouse with no peace, but it has not been bad at all. She has made this family more loving!

We all LOVE you Marielle!

p.s. please stay sweet!

Butterflies and Bragging

Every Spring I visit my neighbors butterfly garden. They spend hours (retired) making their garden a magical place. I even gave them the iron arch that Juan and I got married under, and it has a coral honeysuckle growing on it!

Well I figured it would be nice for the girls to have a butterfly garden on the side of the play house, so my neighbor sent me to the nursery with a shopping list. . . no butterflies came! Next I went online and bought some caterpillars. At the same time my girl friend Jessica went to the lake and got FREE monarch eggs off of milkweed and had a completely different experience!

When our painted lady caterpillars came in the mail they were cute little balls of lint that did nothing. Then the very next day. . .they doubled in size!!! Julianna went crazy over them! Every morning she would run downstairs to see the "aterpillars".

Soon after , they were DISGUSTING!!! The picture can't even capture the digustingness! They are in this tiny urine sample jar full of their own poop, they are spiky, and they fight!

Once they went into their chrysalis they could be moved into the butterfly house (much better).

See the red stuff on the paper? That is what sprays when they come out of the chrysalis. Apparently the lovely monarchs don't do this.

Finally we had butterflies (4 out of 5). We would release them soon after they were done opening up. Although I wanted them to stay in my new garden, they quickly flew away to my neighbors garden . . .sigh. They knew how repulsed by them I was during the caterpillar stage!

Now comes the bragging!

Annelise has some artistic talents! I wanted to document them since my memory is terrible and I really do love bragging about my kids!!!

It all started with the ED Emberly books from her graphic artist uncle and now has spun into a real passion.

Next is her 3D art. . .

About a month ago she begged for some cheap modeling clay from the checkout of hobby lobby. I wanted nothing to do with the mess so I tried to encourage her to stick with a different craft, but she insisted. I let her have it because it was $1.99!

WELL I was wrong! She will stay at the table for hours creating these really cool sculptures!

Above is a butterfly on a flower.

Below is a birds nest with a snail on the edge. I gave her a toothpick for poking the eyes.

This is a snail again (she likes snails, I guess)

A crab.

$1.99 worth of clay and about 2 hours of productive quiet time!

WELL WORTH IT!

Next time I will buy the clay that gets hard in the oven. This is modeling clay and never gets hard. This is why taking pictures is so important!

Dancing Queen!

Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to dance ballet! Well I never did, but I knew if I had a girl that one day I would see if she shared my same dream!

So far Annelise LOVES to dance! She was so excited for her second recital in which she was going to be in two numbers. The first was the tap dance, and the second was the ballet. She definitely preferred the tap over the ballet.

We gave her flowers and a little gift bag with a princess crown and a necklace charm.

This was her and her friends running around dancing at rehearsal.

This year was sooooo different from last year. Her confidence in herself has blossomed, and that is what I was hoping for from taking the classes. I hope she wants to dance for many more years to come so I can live my dream through her... no pressure sweetie! besides I have 2 more girls and Julianna's love of music and dancing looks like we might have two little dancers!

The Good Life!

Years ago Juan was pretty surprised to find out I have never been to South Padre Island, so we decided to go there one day . . .

With the new baby on the way we made a decision that this spring was the best chance we were going to get for a good long while!!!

This is the view from the condo balcony. I was very scared of Julianna jumping off the balcony, so we booked the condo on the lowest floor available! I was smart for insisting on this because as soon as we arrived she pushed a chair to the rail for the big jump into the pool!!!

I know what she is thinking!

Oh we had a great time! I was super relaxed since we were in a small two bed room apartment with very little to clean! It made me realize that all the clutter in my house should disappear if I ever want to feel a fraction of that relaxation at my own home!

I also reconfirmed that I really love Mexicans!!! They are by far the most easy going people ever! I felt the same way we lived in El Paso !

The condos were filled with families from Monterrey and I had a chance to chat with some ladies by the pool. Most of the families had 3 or more kids and ALL had nannies with them. So out of curiosity I asked one of my new friends how much they paid for the nanny. My jaw dropped when she said that the nanny lives with them, cooks, cleans and does laundry for $150.00 U.S. a month!!! No wonder they are so laid back!!!

Easter

We live in a pretty awesome neighborhood! Every year since Annelise was one I have had the neighbors over for a little egg hunt in the backyard.

This was two years ago.

This picture was taken at Annelise's school Easter/Spring show. She really sang her heart out!

Happy Birthday Cupcake!!!

Over the weekend we celebrated Julianna's second birthday. I decided to stick to the "age plus one" rule and only sent out 3 invitations.

It was hard to leave a lot of good friends out!!!

I did it mostly because I am in my third trimester and feeling exhausted.

I almost did nothing!

I loved how easy it was to plan and execute a small party!

A little look back. . .

This picture was taken on Easter Sunday. Julianna was only 4 days old. Annelise was super happy to have a sister!

Thanksgiving 2009

Below is a picture of me about the same age.

She is "mini me"

She crawled at 6 months, then knee hopped at 7 months until 16 months!

Julianna's First birthday was close enough to Easter that it was a party/egg hunt. That party was 20+ kids, a bounce castle and 5 dozen eggs!!! It was a lot of fun!

I love this picture! She is about 18 months old here

. . .same for this picture!!!

Julianna has a serious sweet tooth, so I thought a cupcake party would be perfect for her.

I let the kids do the decorating.

I set up a hand washing station since icing can be pretty messy!

Thanks for the appetizer C.B. it was yummy!!!

The look on Julianna's face was precious! She did not realize the party was for her until she heard her name in the song!

Mrs. Erika gave her this super cute bathing suit, which she wanted on right away!!!

Overall it was a great day full of good food, good friends and good times!

Dear Julianna,

You are so much fun! You light up at the most simple things.

You love chocolate ice cream, good cheese, pickles and cookies (sounds like what I ate when you were in my tummy).

You hate to be told what to do, and almost all fruits!

You have some serious energy!!!

You can climb things like a monkey. You are VERY friendly to everyone, mostly men and elderly. You like to play with the typical "boy toys" such as cars, trains, and dinosaurs.

You love to draw, only if it's with a pen or marker.

You run away from me A LOT!

I now know why they have those leashes for kids.

You don't talk very clear, but I understand you. You can recognize all the letters of the alphabet.

You LOVE music!

You like to play with your sister, but I can tell you would rather play alone.

I am so happy to have you, because you challenge me everyday!!!

I love you Julianna, you really are a firecracker!

Love,

Mom

Disney 2011

My sister likes to go to Disney World every year at spring break. So this year when she had no one else to go with, I thought it would be fun to just take Annelise and

make it a first trip with my sister!!!

Annelise had a blast ... me ... not so much?!?! The entire state of Florida along with half the country was in Disney World that week!!! Oh well, live and learn! I still had a wonderful time watching her face light up!

Day one, Magic Kingdom!

We stayed from open to Fireworks!

Day two was Animal Kingdom.

We were so thankful to see a Rain Forest Cafe steps from the exit of the park, since our feet were killing us!!!

Day Three Epcot!!! I love Epcot!!! We started the day with a princess breakfast. She loved the up close interaction with the Princesses, definitely worth the $$$!

Epcot also has this building you can go in and meet Mickey, Minne, Goofy and Donald. She gave each one a huge hug first, then posed.

Last day MGM Hollywood! Not too many pictures in this park ... because I was beat!!! We sat down to eat a lot in this park! Annelise got on some pretty serious rides in this park! One called the tower of terror! She also rode roller coasters in the other parks! She is super brave! Both Juan and I are into roller coasters, we couldn't be prouder!!! I sadly was not able to get on the rides with her since I was 25 weeks (six Months), pregnant.

After four days of going from park to park we met up with my Uncle, Aunt and Cousins that live in FL. We had decided to meet at Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney. Ok, so it was Friday night in Spring Break, just guess how long the wait was ... 2.5 hours!!! So we meet at 7 and did not eat until TEN!!! I had to belly up (literally) to the bar and order nachos and food for Annelise. She was exhausted this last day , and I didn't make a big deal about her being a little whinny... she earned it!

Look at those sleepy eyes!

Overall a great trip and I can't wait to take all my girls . . .

when they are 10!!! (and in the Fall)