Memory Monday

Can you tell how much Alexandria loves it when Papi gets home? She's the first to jump into his arms and give him a big hug. Some years he makes it home for Christmas, some years he doesn't. The year he played in Mazatlan he came home for Christmas and this is how he was greeted. But the best part was we got to go back with him.


By the way, guess who just got back home . . .

Isabel's Shenanigans

Naps: This used to be the easiest time of the day until one day . . . she learned to climb out of bed all by herself. The little smartie. Actually, it took her awhile so I knew it was coming. But, come on stripping because Mom won't take you out? Now that's just going to extremes.

Then I've told you before about the pacifier wars and you know if the girl has got to keep it I'm glad she understands it's nice to share:

with her sister, with her brothers and with the dog.

Memory Monday

It's just me and my boys but they were so much fun. Alexandria was the photographer for this picture. They were just over a year old and so cute!

Papi and Me

I got tagged!

Papi and Me

1) Where did you meet? I always tell people we met in Scottsdale and that his friend introduced us, all true. End of story. But it's been almost 15 years ago, so I think it's time to come out with the whole truth. We met at a drag queen club after hours. Is that bad? His friend grabbed me and said his friend wanted to meet me and he introduced us. I thought it was kind of fun having to talk to him in Spanish because I had high school level Spanish and thought I could speak it. Basically we communicated through other means.

2) How long till you got married? 3 years and 9 months later almost to the day.

3) How long have you been married? 10 years in March

4) Your favorite feature of his? His MUSCLES, biceps, triceps, delts, oooh . . . I just want to eat them up.

5) Your favorite quality of his? His total willingness to sacrifice seeing our children grow up just so he can provide us with everything we need.

6) Does he have a nickname for you? When we first started hanging out I was "la mormona". We still have some friends that only know me by that name. But now I'm "mami" (said mommy).

7) His favorite foods? Rice, rice, chicken, oh and rice.

8) What are his favorite sports to watch? duh!

9) When was your first kiss? June 1995

10) Whats your favorite thing to do as a couple? Umm . . .maybe we'll skip this one I mean do you really want me to go there?

11) Do you have kids? This only confirms my answer to the previous question, 4 in 5 years.

12) Does he have a hidden talent? He's so good at using what he has to make or fix anything. I'm sure there's a word for this I just don't have that big of a vocabulary. He replaced a toilet with only a screwdriver.

13) How old is he? A few years older than me. But like I'm going to tell you how old we are. I already came clean about where we met.

14) Who said I love you first? HE DID!

15) What do you admire most about him? How far he's come. He grew up in the Dominican Republic in the sugar cane fields. He carried a machete to school so he could eat sugar cane for breakfast along the way because that's all there was. He used to play baseball using the rubber flaps off of big truck tires for a glove. They made there own baseballs out of whatever they had around. And now here he is supporting a family of 6. We have two cars and nice house. He's come so far and that is what I most admire about him, his ability to succeed even when all odds were stacked against him.

16) What is his favorite type of music? I'd have to say the older merengue, not the new merengue house stuff but the good classics. And he likes country. :) What latin do you know that likes country?

17) Do you think he will read this? No, he doesn't read the blog. He just looks at the pictures. I usually tell him everthing that's going on anyway.

18) I tag: Anyone who is as in love with their man as I am with mine.

She's a HE!!!

7am the alarm goes off. I get Alexandria up and tell her to start getting dressed. All of a sudden we hear this awful noise. It sounds like a cat is dying and wailing at the top of it's lungs. The dogs in the neighborhood start to go crazy and the animal cries again. I already know what's happened. I've had my suspicions but from what I read online you should never assume until you hear it. I pull a sweatshirt on and find some shoes. Alexandria comes running in my room, a little scared. "Mommy, did you hear the noise? It sounds like a bad person outside!"

"No," I let her know, "we have a ROOSTER!" Oh yea one of our chickens, that when it was born was supposed to be sexed by a professional sexer that has a 98% success rate to make sure that it is an egg layer, turned out to be a crower. Little "Roxy" as the kids so lovingly named her, is now "ROCKY". His first little crow although loud was really not pretty. Our neighbors are going to love us. A live alarm clock. Unfortunately, this alarm clock will be going back to the feed store unless, any of you know someone who would like a free rooster. And I think I'll be going to bed early tonight just in case he decides to make his alarm go off earlier than my digital alarm.

COCK A DOODLE DOO!!!

Family Time

Star Wars has never been one of my favorites. In fact I've never even seen the new ones. But since the boys are so in to Star Wars right now we've started the Star Wars Marathon. Mostly because I want to know what they're watching and what they love so much about it and also because family movie nights are fun. We get popcorn, white cheddar, caramel or butter flavor. We pull out the sleeping bags and blankets and just hang out as a family.

Tonight was family night. I took this idea and ran with it. The kids and I acted out different times when they obey and when they don't obey. Alexandria did one sneaking food from the fridge while I'm in the shower and not looking when she crosses the street. She's really the only one that acted anything out. Isabel tried but didn't get far. But they all had a good time watching me act like them.

Memory Monday

This has got to be one of my favorite baby pictures of DJ. He didn't get any teeth for the longest time. It kept looking like they were coming in but they took forever to finally break through the gums. So this was his big gummy grin. I just want to eat him up.

New and Improved Hand Washing Technique

See Grandma, all you need is a dog. Problem solved.

Quotables

We still have our computer in the garage. One morning after AJ woke up he was wandering through the house looking for me when he heard something out in the garage. Next thing I knew AJ is peeking his head out of the garage door with his lightsaber. I was on the computer. He looked at me relieved and said, "I just thought there was a monster out here." Our little jedi was going to beat that big bad monster using the force I'm sure.

Isabel is getting so big and talking so much. I love how she pronounces some of her words as all one word. I think my favorite is "habit, Mom, habit?" Translation: Can I have it Mom? All this big kid stuff but she still considers herself the baby which I guess she is in our family. It's just funny most kids want to be big kids, but she wants to be a baby. We had the following conversation today.

Me: Isabel, why are you so cute?

Isabel: No, mommy, no, k?

Me: Ok, you're not cute. Then what are you? Pretty?

Isabel: No (big emphasis on the "n" sound)

Me: Then what are you?

Isabel: Baby, mom, baby

Okay, I'd love to keep her for my baby, at least for now.

What is going on?

"Mom I have another reason." She's still trying to talk me out of going to lunch at school with her tomorrow.

It all started because I thought it would be fun to go meet her for lunch at her school for her birthday. Apparently though, I'm not cool enough for lunch which I don't understand at all because I AM cool enough to work in her classroom? Plus she's in first grade. Don't first graders like to have their parents at school? I did. But maybe I'm just way out of it now. So I asked her to give me a reason why she doesn't want me at lunch. Her first reply, "because five boys sit across from me and Courtney and we don't want them to." What??? I think it's more like five boys sit across from her and Courtney and they do WANT them too. Where did this girl come from? So I told her that wasn't a good enough reason and if that's true then she should be happy to have her mom there because then they won't sit across the table from her.

Then I asked her if she was embarrassed to have her mom there. I mean come on why would she be embarrassed of this? Okay so maybe, but I promised I wouldn't make any faces the whole time. And she still doesn't want us there. So I pulled out the power card, I'd bring lunch from COSTA VIDA, her favorite place. That almost worked for about 5 minutes but now she's still trying to convince me to NOT go.

Ha! Too bad for her. I'm the mom and now she really has my curiosity peaked. So guess who will be showing up at school tomorrow for lunch.

**EDIT** 1/7/09 - This morning she was crying, begging me to just make her a lunch. She didn't want me to go eat with her at school at all. But I held out and showed up with a nice bag of food. She ran to us (me and Isabel) and gave us a huge hug. No cries, no worries. We ate and had a great time and then she left. After school I asked her how was lunch and the only answer I got was I don't know. Girls!!

Memory Monday

It was a hard life. Papi was playing in Mazatlan during winter ball so we *had* to go see him there. It was probably one of my favorite places that he's ever played. We stayed in a hotel right on the beach. We walked out the back door to swimming pools and beach. It was the year that Isabel was born so we only went for about 10 days. I had a newborn, 2 two year olds, and 4 year old when we left. Luckily, we could take Aunt Whitney with us. I loved it there and would have stayed the whole time if it would have been a different year.

Gun Training for Little Tykes

I have no idea how to start this post because I'm not a big fan of guns, never really have been. But my dad and the rest of my family, well, they could start their own militia. Yea, better not to mess with the Snells. So we always have to make a trip to the desert when we have family in town. Whitney and Juan are here now so you guessed it, shooting here we come. Alexandria was a pretty good aim. AJ absolutely loved it and really wants me to get him his OWN "shoot gun". (Not likely!) DJ was just along for the ride, but I think he liked it too.



Then there's Isabel. Maybe it's because she's too young but I like to think it's because she's my daughter. She really didn't have much interest in shooting the guns.
We had lots of trips to the desert when we were growing up. Oh yes, here's the picture to prove it. Ready, Aim, FIRE!

Bowling

It's been forever since I've been bowling but the family called today and asked if we wanted to go so I piled all the kids in the car and we headed to the bowling ally. The first game was fun, kids were doing well we were having a good time. Plus, I miraculously scored a 142. Second game was terrible, kids were ready to go home and I was too. But we still had a fun time. Here's Alexandria showing off her bowling shoes.

Happy Birthday Alexandria!!

She's 7! We had such a fun birthday party. She's a New Year's Baby so we counted down to her birthday and 2009. This could become a yearly tradition. This year the theme was High School Musical. Grandma gave her a HSM dance mat. We watched HSM 2 and the girls gave us a great show.

Then it was 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Happy Birthday Alexandria!!! Oh yes, and Happy New Year!