Olivia and Daddy Singing over Breakfast

The most beautiful sound came through the air this morning as I was getting ready for church. If only I could have grabbed the camera in time to capture the whole thing.

Today I decided to make homemade tortillas. Deep down inside, I am a kitchen nerd who actually enjoys the process of making things from scratch. Some kids got in trouble for watching bad movies or calling boys late at night. I got in trouble for playing with my Easy-Bake oven... all night. Anyways, it was fun and I would really like to perfect the recipe. Tortillas are basically flour, baking powder, salt, Crisco, and warm water. The trickiest part is actually getting them to turn out round (as seen below). Fortunately, Alex stepped in and showed me how his Abuelita did it. Is it worth the time and effort? YES! You can compare it to homemade bread vs. store bought sliced bread... the store bought kind can work fine for you, but homemade is a special comforting treat!

Free Fun!

I am still learning the art of keeping a 2 year old entertained during the course of the day. Today, with Lamby and AJ in tow, we carefully selected some rocks from our yard, loaded them in Olivia's grocery cart, and headed down to the magnificent lake ... errr.. retaining pond (but she won't realize that until she comes home from college one day) by our house. When we got there, we threw the rocks in the lake. Yes, that's it. Then we did it again.

Do you have your favorite FREE FUN spots??

AJ's first haircut.... from DADDY!

No more sissy mommy scissor haircuts for AJ... Daddy pulled out the big guns tonight. Our little guy was blessed with a headfull of hair that can quickly get out of control. Mommy personally loves his fuzzy little head, but it did need a little attention. My only request... no buzz job.

Wow! AJ is not even a year old and he already plays better than I do ;) Keep it up Lil' Buddy!

“Campaña Evangelistica”

2007

What a rich weekend for Iglesia Bautista de Northside! The doors were opened for a special Evangelistic Campaign this past Friday, Saturday, and Sunday! By the end of the weekend, 80 different people representing Mexico, Columbia, Honduras, Argentina, and Guatamala came to at least one of the services.

2 of our members, Catalina and Deyanira

Left to Right: Pastor Oscar Galvan (our special speaker), Pastor John Stevens (Senior Pastor at Northside), and Pastor Alex Millan (Pastor of Iglesia Bautist de Northside)
AJ is playing with his friend Danielito

The Children's Program: It was a Hawaiian/Treasure Hunt theme (I know... so original :) The kids made sunshines with their handprints--- very cute!

Olivia always enjoys anything where a snack is involved :)

A Special Visitor

Check out this MONSTER TURTLE that crept into our backyard this evening. I was on the phone with my husband when I saw it. When I told him that there was a giant turtle in our backyard, he told me to catch it. NO WAY!! This turtle didn't look very friendly. Nevertheless, I did show a little hospitality and shucked a piece of corn for our guest. Do turtles even eat corn? This one obviously wasn't very impressed and eventually made his way back to the woods where he belongs.

Look at how FAT he is!!

Here is a video of Olivia enjoying our little visitor. She is shouting "The turtle likes it!!" (referring to the corn).

Sick Little AJ

The Creepy Croup

AJ was up last night with what I thought was a very bad case of congestion. I consider myself to be pretty reasonable when it comes to the kiddos getting sick, but AJ's breathing had me worried. I couldn't sleep. I stayed up as late as I could and checked on him, and then I got up in the middle of the night to check on him again. When I crawled back into bed, I was genuinely frightened that something bad would happen while I slept. Psalm 121:4 kept racing through my mind. "Lord, you never slumber or sleep... please watch over AJ while I do" was my prayer last night.

=

Today, I took him to the doctor. Of course, AJ was a perfect little happy baby that showed no signs of being sick (has that ever happened to you?). The doctor listened to his chest and heard nothing. He didn't even have a fever. I was told that my child just has a bad cold. This was still unsettling to hear because I knew how AJ sounded the night before, but he simply wasn't giving the doctor any symptoms to work with at that time! We decided to knock off a few immunizations while I was there so that the trip wasn't a total loss-- not that you WANT something to be wrong with your child just to make the doctor's visit worthwhile... you know what I mean. While his doctor was writing up the order, AJ coughed the most horrible cough of them all. "Atta boy AJ!! Show them your mamma isn't a crazy overreactor after all!" The doctor looked wide eyed at his assistant and said, "Ooooh that's the croup" and then cancelled the immunization order.

=

So... little AJ is on steriods right now and sleeping peacefully with a cloud of water vapor wafting above his bed. If you need me, I'll be camping out with AJ in his room tonight.

Olivia and AJ were invited to our neighbor's 1st birthday party today! Those cool shades came in Olivia's grab bag... along with "dum suckers"... yes, that's what she calls dum dum pops. She was so excited about her grab bag. She would open one dum dum and take a few licks, then open another and take a few licks. I let her go ahead and open all of them... it was her special little grab bag :) Now we have about 7 open dum dum pops sitting in a zip loc baggie on the kitchen counter.

Cover Your Mouth!

I've been a little behind on keeping my blog updated this week... not that there has been any less activity around here than usual. I have finally decided to sit down and make a concentrated effort to figure out FACEBOOK... so confusing still, but it's worth it to see so many folks that I haven't had contact with in years!

Olivia doesn't usually walk around the house in her undies and a big hairbow... she just had a spill, and I decided to wait until after breakfast to re-outfit her for the day. Why the picture?? I guess that this could be considered as her first science experiment... "How Far Can a Sneeze Travel?" My little darling sneezed Mini-Wheats all the was across the table at me. Can you seek all the little specks on the table?

AJ and a serious case of bed-head :) .. or is that just how I cut his hair?We had a Nemo picnic today. We all love pizza!
Here's a great tip that I received from my smarty friend (clue: her last name starts with Stein and ends with Bart) , and so I'm passing it along to you. Use a simple pair scissors to cut up the kids' food! I snipped that pizza down in no time!

AJ

AJ my sweet little boy!