strider bikes

Our Easter Weekend

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By now I should probably re-name this blog “the week after blog”… given the fact that I NEVER post when I really plan to or want to… oh well, something for me to work on.

Here’s a quick snapshot and ton of photos of our Easter Weekend. Our first as a Party of 7! 🙂

FRIDAY

We had a long weekend as a family thanks to my awesome agency that closed on Good Friday. The day off allowed me to spend some great quality time with the fam plus run some pending errands like sending my car for a much needed tune up!

With time to spare after dropping off the car, we went Bicycle shopping for Nico. His birthday was coming up and although he loves riding his Strider, he has been seeing some kiddos around his age riding bikes with pedals and he had been asking for one….

After a good amount of research from Becca and a couple of phone calls, we were able to find out the bike we wanted was at a local bike shop. After checking it out, we decided to buy it.. It was more than what we originally were willing to pay for it but we ended up getting a nice solid bike he can grow into it for a couple of years and of course depending on the condition he can hand it down to Santi or Emi or Ale… God knows we have options! 🙂

Here’s Nico’s new bike! And of course now I got Nati asking for a new one for her…

After riding bikes and scooters, we went to pick up my car and headed to the Strider BMX track where they were hosting a fundraiser for a 4 year old kid who is fighting cancer! – Hearing stories like this is one of the saddest things for us. In many occasions we’ve discussed with Becca how no one is “safe”… you think that delivering healthy babies will get you to the other side but that is not true.. that is just the beginning.. Unfortunately, many things can happen down the road. Kids from all ages have been born 100% healthy and are being diagnosed with life changing diseases, conditions, etc. I certainly pray every night to God to thank him for our kids’ health and to ask him for continuous health throughout their lives. I know something like that will devastate me.

The night was a success.. I am not sure how much money they raised but there were a good amount of people and they had a 2^nd event scheduled for Saturday. We met our good friends there and the kiddos once again had a great time racing on their Striders.

SATURDAY

Saturday was Party Time! We took the kids to one of our friend’s 3 year old birthday party! It was a super cool party at a reservation that involved a presentation of animals that live in their habitat. The kiddos got to see snakes, birds, spiders and some reptiles! I was crazy impressed at Nati… she held not 1 but 2 snakes!!! That’s 2 more than I am willing to hold! Nico was more like me and did not want any part of it.. Santi did not want any part of it either but the snake gave him no choice… (I would’ve freaked out and screamed… Santi simply froze and keep an eye on that thing that was crawling on him… yikes!).

From the party we went to our friend’s house. They recently bought it and did some awesome renovations to the house and it looks amazing! We had a beer, I got peed on by Emilio (or Santiago… fyi, they look alike.. ), we hung out for a bit and then headed out to run errands to prepare for our Easter Sunday with Family.

EASTER SUNDAY

Family events are always fun for us. We love entertaining and having people over whether it is friends or family. This year we had my mom and dad (who was visiting from Colombia), my sister and her kiddos and some of my sister’s friends stopped by later in the day.

Our day started off with an Easter Egg hunt around the house… The Easter Bunny came in, ate some carrots and left clues that led to other clues to find the “hidden treasure”. The kids loved it. This year was special because Nati has been reading so well so she got to read ALL the clues! Nico was in charge of cracking the egg open and Nati would read the clues. They had a great time reading and finding them. The Easter Bunny brought Nati a new swim suit (which she wore later that day at the pool), Nico a Lego Movie and Santi a Word World movie. The babies got some new toys. Everyone was happy.

For lunch we grilled out some steaks, brats and had them with salad and rice. It was yum! We purchased the meat from a local meat shop and we are definitely going back!

Our lunch was followed by pool time! The weather was amazing. The water was still not hot enough for my liking but the kids did not seem to mind. It was the first time they got in this year and had a great time. Previous to Easter Sunday we had already declared this coming Summer “The Summer of Nico”. Our goal is to have Nico swimming before the summer is over! We’ll see how it goes…

And of course, before the day was over, we did the “official” Easter egg hunt. We had prepared 40+ eggs with some candy and small toys. We hid them around our yard and had the kids find all the eggs. It is always fun to see their excitement when looking for these eggs and opening what they got. Shortly after, we wrapped it up — everyone went home to prepare for the week ahead.

It was a blessed weekend. We are thankful we got to spend it together as a family. We hope everyone had a blessed and fun weekend as well.

HAPPY EASTER 2015!

The wheels came off… How we ended up our week…

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That’s right, after a fun week that included having the kids at the office, celebrating my mom’s (nona) birthday, spending thanksgiving surrounded by loved ones and even doing some Black Friday Shopping (I know… we thought we were crazy too – shopping with 3 kids and a pregnant mom), the wheels came off on Saturday and Sunday— Nati’s bicycle training wheels that is.

Yes! After pushing it off for so many weekends, we finally committed to making it happen this weekend. Saturday afternoon we decided to take the bikes out to teach Nati how to ride without the assistance of training wheels… This was the first time I had taught someone how to ride a bike, so it was a first for both of us and I had no idea how it was going to go down…

After removing the wheels and adjusting her seat, we started off with me holding the back of her seat. After a couple of rides in front of our house and reminding her to “keep her balance” (which I read after the fact is one of the worst things you can say when trying to teach someone to ride a bike – of course…) we took a break and when we got back into it, I held less onto the seat while helping maneuver the seat to correct her balance…

After a good 20 minutes or so, I was able to let go for a second or two at a time without letting her know about it…. (all while running next to her). Little by little we both got better at it and finally I was able to let go for longer periods of time!

When I was able to let go for probably 5 seconds and then stopped the bike, I was SO happy for her! I got on my knees next to her, high fived her and gave her a huge hug for her awesome accomplishment!! She was so happy. I was so proud. She was so proud. Truthfully, I was probably more excited than she was. 🙂

I still picture that moment. The moment where she smiled back at me and we both realized she now knew how to ride a bike; it will be a moment I will never forget. It was such a great accomplishment for both of us and I will forever cherish those few seconds when we cheered and held each other in celebration.

That moment also reminds me of how awesome and rewarding it is to raise kids. The thought of so many more moments like these with Nati and our other children fills my heart with joy and anticipation for the future.

Nati will be the one that will pave the road for the other kids and the one that will fill our lives with a lot of “firsts”. She is also the one that with her life experiences will teach us how to be better parents and be better prepared for when her siblings experience similar things growing up.

So Thank You, Nati. Thanks for that amazing moment, for the many more moments to come, and for helping us weave through the parenting maze. We love you.

Our Yard Sale debacle…and the rest of the weekend.

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Sigh… where to start..

I guess, first of all this whole thing went down because since we now know that our twins are boys and we have “closed the shop”, there is no need to keep hanging on to Nati’s clothes.

This led us to look for what we had…. Which led us to find 10 full containers in the attic (always fun getting up there in a hot day… NOT) with clothes ranging from Newborn to 4T. Pants, onesies, jackets, shorts, skirts, shoes, sandals, blankets, warm PJs, light PJs, matching outfits, non-matching outfits, etc, etc, etc…

After a couple of afternoons and nights sorting through all these things and “categorizing” them, we were finally ready – or so we thought. We did not realize we had that much stuff! We had 3 tables full of pants/shorts, another one with shirts and a third one with dresses.. We also had 4 containers full of onesies, pjs, matching outfits and about 50 pairs of shoes/sandals to lay next to the tables.

I know that for most people this may sound like a piece of cake… well, let me tell you, add 3 kids and a missing wife (gone for the day at a school venue prior to pulling the tables out on the driveway) and the whole thing was not that much fun…

But wait there’s more! The day before, Becca and I decided that it would be cute to have the kids sell cupcakes and water to our visitors AND that would keep them busy while I “worked the sales floor”….

So in addition to the whole tables/containers/shoes setup, we also had to setup their sales stand.

And then we waited… and waited… A couple of go-byers here and there… after a lot of sitting around waiting for customers, we realized that our neighborhood did not really cater to young families (the average age in my neighborhood is probably 70 – and that’s because a couple of young families have moved in…:) ) and most of the people that came by were older people looking for home stuff and every now and then for stuff for their grandkids.

We did get some customers and ended selling $100+ but we still have 90% of our stuff!! Now the task continues as we try to sell these things on Facebook groups and consignment stores… sigh… I hope all the time spent on this is all worth it at the end… definitely the time spent and stress associated with this yard sale was NOT! But oh well, we live, we learn…. It was our first and more than likely our last!

P.S – the neighborhood yard sale was the whole weekend.. we woke up early, got ready to make one final push… but… when I stepped out of the house, the streets were dead and no one had set up their yard sales… So, I turned back around and went on with our day.