Vacation Bible School

We had a really good vacation Bible school week!  I'm still not convinced that doing VBS and then Mission Trip back-to-back weeks is a perfect idea...but it is sure nice to arrive at the July heat insanity and be already done with both. 

VBS is uniquely challenging at our church because we include as many from our preschool as we can.  Which means I might be re-writing activities or stories to accommodate even our 2 year old class who came to VBS for Bible and Crafts time only this year.  We also have to use rooms that are on 3 separate floors (they are perfect rooms for what we do, we just need to manage the upstairs/downstairs transitions).  Ever try getting 9 2-year-olds up and down 2 flights of stairs?  Some of them can handle stairs decently, but others don't even come close.  It is very easy to tell who has stairs in or near their home, and who does not.  

Music/Opening/Closing/Snack all happen in the Children's Center downstairs

Craft/Bible/Tribe Time all happen in the upstairs classrooms (2 floors up from Children's Center)

Recreation happened in Scott Hall or the playground (middle floor between Children's Center and upstairs)

Xaris, demonstrating that she is her mother's daughter in the "balance-a-sponge-on-your-head relay"

I love this picture of Xaris and her friend Amaya.  And Luke's expression in the background is pretty much dead-on for his character.  

iXy and mama

The big kids during music time

This was as close to a group photo as we could manage--I know we still had a few stragglers and volunteers still around.

The point of no catching up

I never got into scrap-booking, because I knew I would Never.Ever.Finish.

There would always be one more trip.  There would be photos from one more weekend.  There would always be one more thing to have to add, or it would create it's own scrapbook.  I can't even make baby books for my girls...they each have a box.  Their newborn hospital bracelets, umbilical cords, birth announcements, all the way up through school memories and keepsakes get dumped in those boxes...and whatever fits is what we keep.  (same rule goes for toys in the play room).

I kept all my rowing shirts from way back in high school/college rowing days...to make a quilt from them.  But back then I didn't have the time, nor the sewing machine, and it never happened.   Now I have the sewing machine (still don't have the time, but 1 out of 2 isn't bad), but those shirts don't mean as much to me anymore.  I've saved my mission trip and youth camp shirts, and I think that's going to be the NEW quilt (when I have the time)...but you know what the problem is?  There's always going to be One.More.Shirt....the next year's mission trip shirt.  The next camp shirt.  What if I make the quilt now, and then life changes after one more mission trip or something...and there's one little shirt left out of the quilt.  That would just be too sad.  And it would probably annoy me to pieces.  

All this leads up to something...blogging started to turn into that!

When there is always another event, another milestone, another weekend adventure, another birthday...for some reason I lose motivation to keep going (knowing that I'll never finish).  Oooooof.  There's probably a lesson in there somewhere.  

And it's not that I feel stress at trying to capture every single thing, or that I even want to....it's more like...it is no longer fun.  

But--the real thing is: I LIKED blogging.  I like posting what my nutso kiddos are up to, and remembering that we went on mission trips together, and all the things we do.  So, here's to blogging and trying to stay motivated even though I will Never.Ever.Ever.Finish.The.Story.   So aggravating.  But still worth it.  

Want some recent pictures?  

a couple weeks ago we flew to California to see Great Grandma and Gramama

and, to play on the beach with tias

very very very sandy little girls afterward

\

sweet sisters playing at airport while our flight was delayed. and delayed again.  we made it home by 2am.

silly second-born with 3 chupis in her mouth at once.
we need to be done with these...maybe after mission trip.

little sister watching big sister's ballet class.  posted this mostly to emphasize
HOW.MUCH.HAIR this baby has...fat fat fat braids.  and if it's not up in a braid or a pony, it's all over her face, such a ragamuffin!

iXy being "bad pharaoh"

and some milestones!  Xari's preschool graduation is tonight

and her end of year ballet recital was last week.  

iXy's words

ilane is coming around to the idea of speaking.  

while she was quicker to run, climb, and jump (definitely quicker to jump) than her older sister was, she has been much slower about adding words to her vocabulary.  Here are some of her words so far:

Mama or Mami   (me)

Papa or Papi   (ricardo)

Ka-Ka    (Xaris)   

--yes, this is unfortunately similar to the spanish word for poop.  But we are thrilled that she is saying her sister's "name" so, no matter. 

ameeeen (amen.  surprisingly, she says amen like X did at that age.  But, Xaris has been saying Amen properly for ilane's entire lifetime, so I find it amusing that they have similar babytalk.  Aunt Karyn might like this :)

Gajah (gracias--thank you)

Peeees (please)

No (we get this a lot)

Yay

Yeah

baby (her dolls)

lella or lelella (cinderella specifically.  or any of the ballet clothes, or the dress up clothes)

awa (agua--water)

numnum (eat or food)

GOL! (goal! always shouted)

mi (mine)

kacks (kaquita--the word we use for poop...meaning a poopy diaper)

Jeeek  (Jake.  of the Neverland Pirates variety)

Mamama (gramama)

dah dah (tayta)

boo boo (ouchie)

bapo or bobo (zapato--shoe)

bobo (baño--potty, or bath)

bobo (libro--book)

bobo (chupi--her pacifier)

bobo (pañal--diaper)

bobo (toothbrush or brush her teeth)

Iwa (i want.  example: iwa jeeeek means I want to watch a Jake show, iwa numnum means I want to eat, and iwa bobo means whatever the context indicates)

There are many other things that she calls bobo that we haven't figured out yet or haven't paid attention to. Her talk includes so much "bobo" I think it's just her go-to word for sounds she hasn't mastered yet. But for the words we DO know are indicated by "bobo", she will get very frustrated if we don't respond!

hello again

It's been too long.  

You know when you get to the point where it's overwhelming to think of where to pick up from and how much to cover from what I've missed?  yep.

2 of my friends (who don't know each other) have each committed to blogging once a week, and I just keep feeling like I should too, because that's the only way I would actually keep up with the posts I should be doing.  It's difficult though, because my laptop is getting slow and old (battery is dead so it HAS to be plugged in, and the hard drive is full *sometimes, making it difficult to upload photos from the camera, etc etc etc).  So it's not that I don't think about blogging, or want to update the blog, or even try at times...it's just more problematic than it used to be!  But, not impossible, and I want to keep documenting these sweet girls in our family, so I'm just going to have to commit.  

So, what has happened since the last time I posted?  

Xaris' Ballet Show

Xaris' Birthday party

Our REAL science day with the other Ricardos

Vacation Bible School

Mission Trip

Vacation Bible School at a friend's church

and then July happened--which was nice and lazy with swim lessons, lots of crafts, and a quick trip to Mexico!  

So, below are (lots) of iPhone photos from the events...and hopefully one day soon I'll purge the real camera of its treasures and post them.

 Making bouncy balls...science day!

 VBS at our church 

 Music time at VBS :)

 Brayden was baptized on Mission Trip!  

 iXy and her friend, Brayden on Mission Trip

 Screen shot from Mission Trip Sunday (when we come back and report to church)

 VBS at our friend's church

 And surprise!  It turns out one of our neighbors also attends that church, and were involved in the dramas at VBS every morning!

 Frozen Yogurt date with my beautiful girls

 We see this "smile" a lot...kinda fake, but it's what she does when we ask her to smile for a picture.  Or when she's trying to convince us that she shouldn't be in trouble for something naughty she has done. 

 darling

 Backyard splash day

 family movie night...I took this just because ilane looks SO grumpy!

Oh, did I mention she's in a big-girl bed now?  No more crib!

 And she's thrilled about it!

So is big sis

The beautiful firstborn concentrating hard on her crafting...

 

 Remember Marshall?  he's the son of our friends John and Debra (they and another couple and us all found out we were expecting our first at the same time).  Jack was born first, then a month later Marshall arrived, and nearly a month later came Xaris!  Below is a picture of Marshall and X when we celebrated 4th of July when they were 1. The above photo, nearly exactly 3 years later, when they were 4.  They just don't look the same age--X is on the scrawny end of the charts, and Marshy is on the top end of the charts, and you could probably fit every other 4 year old in between them.

Playing with cousins in Mexico 

 I'm a great-aunt!!  Holding my brand new (one day old) great-nephew Alejandro

 this little monkey wanted to climb and jump off of everything while we were there. 

 This past weekend some of Ricardo's high school friends visited from Michigan.  Their daughter, Julia is a week older than Xaris, and we had lots of fun playing and swimming with them!  She is another tall 4 year old, we lined up the kiddos like stair-steps!

Closing shot...because I have no clue where this photo is from or how it came to be on my phone.  Selfie?  Maybe her sister took it?  Anyway...here's our almost-2-year-old monkey, doing what she does best: being curious.