MEXICO

Mexico celebrated independence day on the 15th. They have been independent since 1810. We spent the day with friends eating and just hanging out. My kids love Mexico in reality it is their home. Josiah has spent more than half of his life here, Abigail all but the 1st 8 months and Hannah is actually Mexican and has spent all of her life here. I bought the girls mexican dresses and necklaces. They had so much fun wearing them and acting silly all day. One of Abigails favorite songs that she sings a lot right now is "Mexico, Mexico, rojo, blanco, verde pinta mi corazon!" - mexico, mexico, my heart paints red, white and green. Here are some pictures of them in their adorable outfits.

School uniforms

I have been intending on putting these pictures up for a while. Some of you have been asking about the kids school uniforms. Josiah has "dress up" day on Monday and Tuesday-Friday are soccer uniforms. Abigail has a uniform for three days of the week and then the other two days she wears a gym uniform.

Here is the picture of us getting out trophy when we won the mothers soccer tournament. We are actually working on forming a womens team that will play against other schools.

Crazy day

So, Cory has gone out of town for two days. He took the AIMers to Mexico City to get their visas.
When the kids woke up yesterday they all had colds. Abigail was also sick with Mexico sickness. She ended up staying home from school.

I spent a good chunck of the morning organizing Josiahs room - totally gutted out the room and reorganized it. I, of course, kept checking on the girls who were downstairs watching TV. After a FEW minutes of silence Abigail yelled up to me "Mom, Hannah got into the kitchen and is making a mess!". We actually have a child gate on the kitchen door so that children can't get in the kitchen. Recently Hannah has taught herself how to climb over the gate. This makes for a really big problem since I haven't really childproofed my kitchen or Cory's office on the other side of the kitchen. Past the office is the laundry room - with bleach and all kinds of cleaners. Then theres the door to outside. Last week I was upstairs and thought I heard Hannah outside, I looked out and there she was as happy as could be visiting with the neighbors in her diaper. We definately are going to have to do something about this.

Back to my story, I ran downstairs to check on what Hannah was doing in the kitchen. She was standing by the cupboard where I have all my spices and FOOD COLORING. She was standing with a circle of food coloring drops all around her. Her hands were covered in red and blue. I quickly grabbed cleaner and papertowels and tackeled the mess. When I was finished I went into the living room and realized that I hadn't even begun! They had made a huge mess. Now, I am wishing that I would have gotten the camera out and taken a few pictures. What I can conclude using my CSI skills is this: They (Yes Abigail was very much involved in this) took the red and blue food coloring and walked from the kitchen to the couch, then to the dining room table, then outside in the back and then to the front door. Of course the whole time with the food coloring dripping everywhere. They also found a package of black pepper seeds. They put the pepper in a bowl and then doused the seeds in food coloring. After dying the seeds they spread them all over the living room and dining room. If that wasn't enough they also got a few packets of Koolaid and a few of Crystal light. They opened them and poured them out on the floor!!! They did all of this in no more than 10 minutes. So I got it all cleaned up - thankfully we have all tile except for one area rug which now has blue and red spots on it.

So, I cleaned everything up and walked over to the kitchen sink. Since we can not drink the water we have to buy big 20 liter jugs of purified water. We have three of them which we store on the floor right next to the sink. One was still sealed, one was empty and one was 1/3 full. Well, I guess they also chose to put food coloring in the jugs!! So I got that cleaned up. Then this morning I took Hannah to the downstairs bathroom and found blue food coloring on the bathroom counter and cabinet. Once again I got that all cleaned up.

Cleaning this up made me realize why God never gave me twins - I couldn't have handled it!! Sorry mom for all the things Jessica and I did when we were little - the Desitin all over the room and ourselves. The brand new lipstick all over the brand new couch etc.

Here is Hannah standing infront of the gate that she has learned to climb.

Abigail stayed home again from school today but I don't think its possible for them to make another mess like yesterday!

GANADORAS!

For those of you that don't know Spanish Ganadoras means winners. Yes, they did allow me to play in the soccer tournament. Yes, we did win the whole tournament. There were only two games but we won them both. It was a lot of fun. The best thing about it was that I got to know other moms. I also was able to find out that they have all been receiving notes home saying that their child talks too much in class (you have no idea how good it was to find out that it wasn't just Josiah!). I actually found out that some have already had notes sent to the directors office! Wow, do I feel better. It really was a blessing to be able to get to know other parents.
So, on Monday morning we are to report at the school at 8 o'clock for a trophy ceremony! They want to present the trophy to us infront of the whole school (something like 1300 students). I will try and get some pictures to share with you. PS the men (Cory's team) lost in their first game.
Well, Aaron (one of our great AIMers) has offered to babysit tonight so that Cory and I can go out. I guess I better go get ready - just wanted to share the great news about the tournament and even better news that Josiah isn't the only one getting in trouble for talking in class!!!!

a little of this and that

So the kids have been in school for a few weeks now. I thought I would have so much more time to get stuff done around the house now that they aren't home in the mornings. I guess Hannah had decided the same thing. She had decided not to take naps anymore. I keep trying but all that ends up happening is she tears her room apart and has a really good time playing during "nap time". I then have more work to do that I had before nap time.
I keep thinking of things that I want to put on my blog but never manage to get it done. I wanted to let you in on a few cute? conversations I have had this past week.

Me "Josiah why are you acting like a kid!"
Josiah "Mom, I am a kid!"

Josiah has two teachers at school one for Spanish and one for English. The Spanish teacher had told me that Josiah had a problem with talking a lot during class. I talked to him about not talking while he is suppose to be working and that Miss Cati had talked to me about it. Then a few days later I got a note from the English teacher telling me that Josiah talks a lot during class and that I needed to talk to him about it. So, I asked Josiah what was going on. I had been asking him every day how he was doing about not talking and he said good. I asked him why he had been telling me that he was doing better but the teacher still wrote me a note. His response was "I didn't know I had to do that in English class too! I though it was just for Miss Catis class".
Details!

Me "Abigail you need to finish cleaning your room"
Abigail "My stomach hurts from all the cleaning I have been doing"
I told her since her stomach hurt she should probably go to bed without dinner because I didn't want her to get any sicker. (Don't worry she didn't starve and we had a really late big lunch that day)

The next day
Me "Abigail you need to clean your room"
Abigail "I think my throat is going to have Diarrhea" (bet you have never heard that one before)

I got sunburned at a ladies retreat two weeks ago. I was talking to a lady from my aerobics class about it. She assured me that she had the cure of all cures for burns. I was interested to hear about this since I use to work in a burn clinic. She informed me that I needed to collect Hannahs urine (she said urine from a young child). Then soak rags in the urine and wrap my legs (the sunburned area) with the urine soaked rags. The told me that I needed to sit with the rags on me until they dried up. Then keep soaking them and replacing them on my legs. She said I should do this for around 3 hours. She promised me that they wouldn't hurt or itch anymore after that! Personally I am too busy to find the time to collect my daughters urine and apply it on my legs for 3 hours. If any of you get burned and decide to try this method out please let me know how it works for you. Then I can contact the burn clinic and let them know about the new wonder cure.

We have another crazy weekend ahead. Both Josiah and Cory have baseball games. Cory and I are also participating in a parents soccer tournament at Josiahs school tomorrow morning. I just found a note and realized that we missed the meeting last night for those that were going to play. So, we signed up but might not actually play since we missed the meeting. We will show up and see what they say. Personally I wont be sad if I don't get to play. I have a pretty bad cold right now and anything more than sitting sounds stressfull to me.
Have a great weekend