Houston, we have a tooth!!!

Maricela finally has a tooth! It's her top right one. We first noticed something there last Saturday (April 21) but then I thought maybe it was a kankersore because it was just a little spot and I couldn't really see a tooth. But, the last three days she's had a runny nose and a fever, and yesterday we were finally able to feel a tooth. The other girls all started getting teeth around 6 months and had at least four by Maricela's age. And none of them ever got a fever while teething. Also, they all got their bottom left tooth first - the top right was the last of their first four. And it's Maricela's first to come in. So this has been a little bit different teething experience for us. I've been trying to get a picture of it, but she doesn't want it touched, she doesn't want anyone to come close to her mouth, and every time she has her mouth open and I think I can get a picture, her hand gets in the way, or something else. So I'll keep trying.But we're pretty excited that she finally has a tooth. Hopefully it won't take the rest of them very long to come in, cause she really likes to eat food, but it's hard when she can't chew anything up.

Funnies

Here are some random things the girls have said lately that have made us laugh.

• I had poured some milk into my cereal and then realized that the milk wasn't very cold. I checked the fridge and saw that the temperature thingy was turned to "OFF". So I turned it back on and then when Keith came home a few minutes later, I told him about it. All the kids were in the kitchen with us, listening. Keith said "It was probably one of these monsters that did it." To which Elena replied "Probably it was me...cause I did it." We just started laughing.
• Also, Elena likes to call us "mother" and "father". I don't know where she got it from, but she's been calling us that for a few weeks now. "Mother, can I do this? Father, can I have that?" It sounds so weird to me to hear mother and father instead of mom/my and dad/dy. So we started calling her "daughter", and the funny thing is, she's not too fond of that. Oh well.
• Elena also gets "very" confused with "really". As in "I very want some candy" or "My toe very hurts". She's so silly.
• The other day Elena was dancing around like she had to go to the bathroom. Keith told her to run to the bathroom before she went in her pants. She said "I don't have to use the bathroom. I just have a song in my head."
• This is a little bit of potty humor (pun intended), so don't say I didn't warn you. Amya used the bathroom and then called me in to wipe her. There was a lot of "stuff" in the bottom of the toilet and I said "Amya, you sure did a lot today!" And she replied, "No, I just borrowed some from Elena. She forgot to flush."
• Téa likes to tell people "I love you this much" and she holds up her hand with her thumb and index finger right together, like she's crushing a bug or something.

Okay, for some reason I'm having a hard time remembering silly things that Amya and Téa have said. I'm going to have to think about it some more.

Taylor and Maricela

Jenny and Taylor came over to visit yesterday. When they got here, we realized that the girls were wearing the same outfit (they got them as presents from Memmie!) We thought that was cute and took some pictures of them playing together. They really liked watching this monkey go around; they kept trying to catch it!

poser

Here's a page I did of Elena, making a lot of silly faces. I swear that girl is just like her daddy.

better sister

I forgot - I made this scrapbook page today and wanted to put it up. We had been taking a walk together and Téa was really into holding hands. Amya and Elena had taken off without her, and she stood next to me yelling, "Hand, Nena, hand!" I was able to get pictures of Elena running back to take Téa's hand, and then leading her away to catch up with Amya. I love my sweet girls.

2nd grade teacher

Has it really been a month since I last posted? It doesn't seem like that long. I have been so busy though. We started our spring field experience last week. I don't have a partner this time around, so I had to plan everything and put it all together myself. So it's been really hectic. But I'm having a great time. I'm teaching in the first grade Spanish class at Amya's school. She'll get to be in my class this week, but because of spring break, I'll only get to teach her for two days. But that's okay.

I have some other really exciting news that I can't wait to share. My school is starting to offer internships. What that means is, instead of doing student teaching during the senior year, you go to summer school and then teach all during your senior year. The class is yours - you are the teacher. There are people assigned to help you, but you're the one in charge. I had thought about applying, but then decided not to because I didn't think it would be something we could handle. Keith told me to go ahead and apply though, he knew how much I wanted it, and said that we could make it work. So anyway, we had our interviews on Friday. I interviewed with the Provo school district, then had an hour wait til I interviewed with the Alpine district. I thought that my interview with Provo went really well and I was happy with my answers to all of their questions. I had asked them when they would be letting us know if they would pick us or not, and they told me within a week. While I was waiting for my Alpine interview, another girl sat with me who had also interviewed with Provo. She said that they had told her that she would know by 4:30 and not to worry because she had interviewed well. After she said that, I just knew that Provo wasn't going to pick me. They had told me that I would hear in a week cause they were going to send me a "sorry" letter. So I was pretty upset. But I went in and did my Alpine interview. When I came out, there was a Provo lady waiting for me, and she told me to come with her because they had a few more questions for me. I thought that maybe they wanted some clarification on some of my answers to help them make up their minds or something. But as soon as I sat down in the room, she said that she'd like to offer me a job!!!!!! I was so excited, I actually said "shut up" after she said that, cause I just couldn't believe it. I'll be teaching 2nd grade next year!!!!! I still can't stop smiling, I'm so excited. I just can't believe that I've been given this opportunity. This is something that I have wanted to do my whole life, and I'm gonna get to do it!! I just wanted to share that with you guys.

Now on to the girls. There's not a whole lot of new stuff going on. We're just plugging along. Amya's doing great in both her English and Spanish classes. Elena is continuing to try and entertain us at all times, every day. Téa is so cute - she follows Elena around and copies everything she does. She's also started copying us too, so basically anything that is said in this house is said twice - once by us and once by her. Ah - a new development. While I was typing this, Keith yelled to come down and see Maricela trying to crawl. So I went down and sure enough, she was trying to get somewhere. She didn't move, but you could tell she was trying to. So hopefully she'll be crawling soon.

Other than that, there's not a whole lot going on. I'm going to try to be good and post more. Cross your fingers for me. :)

first toast

I told you she was an eating fiend....

Night at the Museum

We took the girls to see Night at the Museum Monday night. They were really excited to get out and do something fun. As the movie was starting, during the opening credits, Elena said (loud enough for everyone in the theater to hear)

"I not sure I going to like this movie!"

Everyone in the theater started laughing. She is so silly. And she ended up liking it. All the girls liked it. It was really cute and fun.

Long time no blog

I'm sorry I'm such a slacker at blogging. I just get so behind in my schoolwork that this is the last thing on the list, with cleaning my house coming in second to last. ;p Our ward just split today, and now we'll be meeting at 1:00. I hate 1:00 church. It's right during nap time, it's feels like the day's almost over afterwards, etc. But, it could give me a chance to get caught up on the blog on Sunday mornings. So hopefully I can stay on top of it.

Here are some things that have been happening lately:

• Maricela is an eating fiend. She wants to eat all the time. She LOVES refried beans. (I wonder who she got that from?) The other day we were at the pizza place and we could tell that she wanted to eat. I didn't think that pizza would be very good for her, so I went to the store next door and got her some teething biscuits and some of that dry toast. She ate one of each while we were there! She's also tried baby cereal and some baby foods, but her favorite by far is beans.


• Jenny told me yesterday that Taylor's two bottom teeth have started coming in. She's two months younger than Maricela, and Maricela doesn't have any teeth yet. I don't really care that she doesn't have teeth yet (that means she can't bite me) but I also have that "Why doesn't my kid have/do this/that?" feeling. Do you know what I'm talking about? I mean, I know she'll get teeth and everything will be fine, but I also wonder why didn't she get them first. Silly, I know.


• On that same note, she STILL does not roll over. She's six months old and can't roll. At her check-up, the doctor asked me if she was rolling yet, and when I said that she wasn't, he said "Yeah, the big ones usually don't". I laughed at that. None of mine were ever quick roller-overs.


• BUT, she can sit up! She can sit really good on my bed and on the couch. When you put her on a hard surface, she falls over faster, but she can stay up for awhile when she's on something soft.


• We had Maricela's baby blessing on Feb. 4th. (That was also Keith's birthday.) We had been waiting for my dad to come out, so he could be here for the blessing as well, but we just couldn't wait any longer. Keith's brother was teasing him that after he blessed her, he could just put her down and let her walk off the podium, we had waited so long. Keith's sister Iva has a baby, Dominique, who is four months younger than Maricela. We were able to do both the blessings together in our ward. That was pretty neat. Here's a picture of the two little girls.
  
  


• Amya is writing like crazy. She's constantly making books and writing stories. Last night she wrote two pages in her journal titled "About myself". She wrote down things like her favorite color, favorite tv show, favorite foods, etc. I am so proud of her and all the learning she is doing.


• Elena is as crazy as ever. She loves to make people laugh. The other night she said something silly (and now I can't remember what it was) and I started laughing. She realized that I was laughing because of what she had said, and she repeated herself about five more times, just to make me laugh more. She is such a comedian. After I stopped laughing, Keith was telling her that he's the jokester in the family, she can't try to take his place.


• Téa is getting smarter and smarter. We checked out a library book called The Water Hole (an awesome book if you're looking for something to read with your kids - by Graeme Base). It has different animals hidden in every picture. Téa is so good at finding them, and then remembering where they are. She loves to get it out and point out all the animals to us. I think we'll be buying it, cause she'll be missing it after we return it.


• I just found out my student teaching assignment for this semester. It's in Amya's first grade Spanish class. I'm excited but nervous at the same time. I was not expecting it at all (all of the assignments for this semester are supposed to be in Salt Lake). Amya's really excited. I'm just a little nervous about teaching in Spanish - I might mess up. I guess we'll see how it goes.


• One more thing, last night I was doing homework and Keith left to set up chairs at the chapel for ward conference. Usually the girls are pretty good when they're downstairs by themselves, so I thought I'd be okay to work on my homework a little bit longer. When I came downstairs about 20 minutes later, I heard the girls in the bathroom. I went in there, and saw that Amya had drawn a bath for all of them, Maricela included! All four girls were playing in the bath, with Amya holding the baby. She was so proud of herself for getting the girls clean for church, but I was a little scared. I'm lucky that nothing happened to the baby! She's such a good little helper, but sometimes she goes a little too far! :)

Hopefully this was enough of an update for you. I'll try to get some pictures up and if I'm lucky, I'll be back again next Sunday.

beautiful smile

Here's a page I did today of Elena. I LOVE how she was smiling in this picture.

Random Pics from the dub-v

I just wanted to get some pics up. Since our camera broke, we didn't take as many pictures as we normally would have. I'm tellin ya, Keith goes crazy with that thing. He took 393 pictures Christmas day, before he dropped it. Imagine how many more we would have if it had been working for the rest of the vacation! So we don't have pics of paintballing with Robert, or going to the Huntington High basketball game (they're ranked #3 in the country, by the way). We don't have pics of us playing games with my brother and sisters, or my girls playing with them. But we had a great time, and I'm sure that we'll remember it without the pictures.

Maricela really liked my dad's beard.


Here's Sally and Ben with all the kiddos.


Here's Memmie, Amya, and me. (Don't I look like a giant?)

This is my mom, Jan, and Kara.

And here's my dad asleep with Maricela. Did you spot the puddle of drool she left on his shirt?


That's all for now. I hear the baby starting to fuss. Oh, I added some more pics to the West Virginia recap post, so be sure to go back and check those out.

West Virginia Recap

We were able to go to West Virginia for Christmas and we were so excited about that. We hadn't been since last Christmas, so it had been awhile since I'd seen my family. No one (except my immediate family) had seen Maricela. We were long overdue for a trip. We got in on Christmas Eve and stayed until January 4th. It was a nice little break. We got to hang out, see the fam, do fun things, forget about school... It was great.

Christmas Day we opened presents at my Mom's, then had a great big turkey dinner. Later that night we went over to Memmie's (my Mom's mom). We had a huge Italian feast and then opened some more presents. Grandma (my Dad's mom) came with us and we all had a lot of fun. However, Keith dropped our camera halfway through the night, and it broke. We couldn't take any more pictures for the rest of the trip. Luckily, Amya had brought her camera, so we did get a few on some other days.

The girls made out like bandits!! They were so pleased with all their presents and have been playing with them non-stop since we've been back.

These first three are pics of the girls opening presents at our house before we left. Amya asked Santa for a journal for Christmas (we thought that was pretty cool) and she was really excited to get it.


Here's Elena getting yet another princess dress. I think the count is up to ten!

Here's Téa with all her loot after it was over. She was excited to get a dress-up dress of her own.

Here's Maricela opening a present. She was really into the wrapping paper. ;P

Elena got a pair of Princess roller skates from my mom and dad. She tried them out on the carpet for about 5 minutes, then said she was ready to go outside and try them on the street. Um, I don't think so.

Uncle Ben got Keith a Tevya hat for Christmas. In case you don't know, he's from Fiddler on the Roof. Keith had never seen it before, and then watched it one day and was SO into it. He wanted to be Tevya for Halloween, he said we needed another daughter because Tevya has five daughters... So Ben was really excited to give him this hat. I'll have to take a picture when Keith dresses up like him.

While there, Keith and I went to 2 Marshall basketball games with my Grandma. Marshall's basketball team has been losing quite often, but they won both the games that we went to!! That was pretty exciting. And we got our picture taken with Marco (the buffalo).





My dad has lost some weight and while we were there, he put on a little fashion show for us. He was trying on all his old disco clothes. That was pretty funny!

Keith got sad while we were there. Amya got a CD player from my mom for Christmas and she was listening to it all the time. Then my sisters showed her this website to play games on, to make money to "buy" things. I don't know. Anyway, she was on that constantly. Keith was sad cause he realized that she's growing up.

Well, Keith's calling me to come down to help with the kids. So I'll be back later to add the rest of the pictures. TTFN!

Happy Birthday Téa!!!!!

It's only a month late, but better late than never, right?

Téa had a great 2nd birthday. It was really laidback. We didn't have a big family party, cause it was SO busy. Her birthday is Dec. 3, so it was right before finals for me, and also getting close to Christmas. I didn't have the energy (or time) to throw a huge party for her. But I don't think she cared. Hopefully after next year I can do better parties for her. I don't want her to be one of those kids who felt like their birthday wasn't as important because it was so close to Christmas. Anyway, enough rambling. Here are some pictures.

She's been trying to use the potty lately, so we got her some big girl p*nt*es. She just wears them over her diaper though.

Her big present from us was a little trike. She gets so jealous when the other girls are outside on their bikes and she's not. I saw this little one at Target and had to get it for her. She can pedal backwards, but she needs to practice going forward. :)

My mom sent her a box full of little presents and she was really excited to open that and see all the things just for her.



Téa is SO into coloring right now. She draws on everything (including our walls). My mom sent her some crayons and a coloring book, and I think that was one of her favorite presents. She went right to coloring and spent about half an hour on the floor, filling in her new book. So cute!

After opening presents, we went over to the farm for dinner. Bonnie, Keith's mom, Arax, Aria, Iva's family, and Noel's family were all there. I took a cake over, and while we were singing to her she decided that she wanted to taste the cake.


Obviously, that became her piece! All in all, she had a pretty great day.

Oh, and did you notice the giant bump/bruise right in the middle of her forehead? I don't remember now what happened, but man! It seems like that girl has a new bruise every day.

Smile

What? A new post? I don't even think I can believe it myself. I got a new version of Photoshop (CS2 to be exact - yippee!!) and this is the first layout I've done while playing around with it. I'm going to do some updates in a few minutes, but I wanted to get this posted.

The quote says "Nothing prepared me for your smile."