A Long Break

This is why I never promised that I'd be regular on here...I just went months without posting anything!

We are doing well.  I am almost 34 weeks pregnant now!  The time has really flown by this time, I guess having 2 other kids to keep you busy helps.  We found out awhile ago that it's a girl, and we have decided to name her Selah.  We are still thinking of middle names.  I will have to write another post about her name. 

For now, here are a few pictures of what we've been up to lately.

Oh, Sammy loves Tball!  This was his first game...they are only 4 years old but they sure look like professionals with those uniforms!  Sammy even has to bring his own bat and helmet.  He picked red (his new favorite color) for his helmet.  It's a little big because the "tball size" was too small for him.  It said it should fit up to 7 year olds, but it was way too tight for Sammy's head!  He had to get the big kid helmet.

An action shot- the quality isn't that great, but I love this one!

Emma got bunk beds from my parents for Christmas.  Checo just added the top one, for awhile Emma just had the bottom one in there.  This picture was the first night I tried to put them to sleep in there together!  Emma kept talking to Sammy and he got really frustrated because he wanted to really sleep.  He ended up moving back to his own bedroom.  We tried the next night and it didn't work again.  But on the third night, we put Emma to bed first and after she was asleep, Sammy crept in there, and he slept on top the whole night!  They've slept like that for 3 nights now!

Writing in shaving cream- they loved it!

Emma's soccer team- she's number 2.  She didn't like it very much, so I stopped forcing her to go!

I just found this on the camera...Sammy took it of himself and I thought it turned out pretty good!

 

Emma's Dance Class

The "Turkey Dance"

Emma has been taking dance classes at the community center for a few months now.  I finally brought my camera last week and took a few pictures of her.  You can't see her face, sorry- I didn't want to get up and walk to the front of the room and distract all the little dancers.  

This particular week, when we arrived at the class, Emma noticed that all the other little girls had tutus on and she did not.  She got sad and tears started forming in her eyes (the things little girls get sad about!).  She wanted to go home to get her tutu, but I reminded her that she wore hers to bed the night before and peed in her bed, so her tutu was all wet with pee- that's why she couldn't wear it that day.  That didn't help, she was still sad.  The mom sitting next to me, noticed Emma's sadness over being the only one without a tutu and she offered Emma her daughter's skirt that she wore to class.  It looked just like a tutu and Emma didn't know the difference.  She slipped it on and ran out to the dance floor!  

Practicing their dance for the Christmas recital- it's December 7th if anyone wants to come!

Doing the turkey dance

Tap dancing- oh, how they love those LOUD tap shoes!

No more training wheels!

This is the first time I've tried to put a video on the blog- I hope it works!  On Saturday, Checo decided to take Sammy's training wheels off his bike.  It only took a few tries and Sammy was cruising down the street!  

I know, it's not very safe for Sammy to be riding down the street without a helmet on, as he's learning to ride a bike without training wheels.  He grew out of his old helmet and we are going today to get him a new one.  Don't worry!

Emma's Drawings

Emma's latest creation.  Aren't the little smiley faces cute?

Thankful Banner, Face Paints, and a Baby!

The other day, I found this cute idea on Pinterest to make a "thankful banner".  The kids love it and look forward to every morning when they get to add something they are thankful for to the banner.

Here is our banner, hanging between our dining room and living room  

Remember Emma's face painting a week ago?  Well, we were at Walmart one day buying those miniature clothes pins for the banner and Emma spotted the face paints and she excitedly said, "Mommy the special paints for faces!"  I had told her we would buy some of the special paint for faces when she wanted me to repaint her Hello Kitty face with watercolors last Saturday.  She didn't forget! So we bought the face paints and I tried to replicate the Hello Kitty face.

I am not artistic at all....drawing and painting do not come natural to me, so I must say, I was kind of proud that it turned out looking somewhat like Hello Kitty.

Sammy requested Spiderman.  This was my second attempt- I watched a little tutorial on YouTube for this one.

And last but not least, I am pregnant!  How was that for creatively announcing? I'm 16 weeks pregnant today.  We are so thankful that God has given us another baby!

"Touch a Truck" and Hello Kitty

We went to and event called, "Touch a Truck" this morning.  There were over 20 different trucks and pieces of construction equipment for kids to get on and explore.  I forgot to take my camera, so I don't have any pictures of the actual event, but it was pretty cool.  Sammy's favorites were the garbage truck, fire truck and the tow truck.  

Emma didn't really care about all the big trucks, but there was free face painting there, so we waied in line for about 30 minutes so she could get her face painted as Hello Kitty.  The lady did a really good job and it looked really cute....until Emma started crying because the horn on the tow truck was too loud.  She has always been really sensitive to loud noises, and while we were waiting in line for Sammy to get in the tow truck, a little boy thought it was really funny to keep honking the horn over and over and over.  Emma didn't stop crying until we were leaving.  Then she got sad because she realized she cried so much, her tears ruined her Hello Kitty face.  She cried so much she fell asleep in the van on the way home. 

Back at home after crying and sleeping in the car....the leftovers of a Hello Kitty face

Our Couches

We bought new leather couches when we moved to Mexico back in 2009.  But after a couple years of enjoying our "leather" couches, we realized they weren't real leather.  The "leather" started cracking and peeling off and it was obvious that we got ripped off.

We bought them at a pretty big furniture store in Monterrey and the couches were advertised as leather, and our receipt even said "leather" on it.  So thanks to my good filing skills, I still had the receipt 3 years later and Checo called the company and told them about our couches.  They basically said there was nothing they could do because it had been over a year, and there were no returns.  Checo kept telling them that it didn't matter that it had been 3 years; they lied about what they sold us- they told us they were selling us leather couches and it turned out they weren't leather.  They didn't budge.  But Checo didn't give up- he kept calling and emailing the manager.  Checo was even nice about it and gave them options.....either refund us the full price we paid for the couches, exchange them for real leather couches, or have them re-upholstered with leather.  We weren't getting any answers and it was obvious they weren't going to do anything.

Then one day when we were visiting Monterrey, Checo and his dad took the couches to the store and walked them up to the show room and left them there.  They told the manager that they weren't going to take them away until they refunded our money or did one of those other options I mentioned above.  The manager was a little flustered and told them they couldn't just leave the couches, but they did it anyways.  They walked out of the store and left the couches there!  I told Checo I wished I could have been there to see that action happening!  So a few days later, the manager emailed Checo and told him they couldn't have them re-upholstered, but if Checo got an estimate for how much it would cost from an upholstering company, they would see how much they could give us toward that.

So, in order to save you some time reading all the details, we ended up getting money from the furniture company (almost the full amount of what we paid for them) to have them re-upholstered.  We were happy because we really didn't know if we would get anything out of them. Checo's persistence paid off!

And now the moment you've been waiting for.......


BEFORE

It sure wasn't fun vacuuming up little pieces of fake leather everyday.  Ok, I didn't do it everyday, but I should have.

AFTER

The colors didn't turn out very good in this picture, but it's a dark brown with a green and cream stripes.

We only had the love seat re-done for now.  Only because after being couch less for about 2 months while we tried to get the company to give our money back, I really wanted to have a couch to sit on instead of waiting another month to have it re-upholstered.  So Checo brought back the full size couch in September and the love seat just came back with Checo yesterday! So I am still vacuuming up little pieces of fake leather in case you were wondering.  

Here it is...the big one in our living room today.  Sammy was my couch model.   I know you can just ignore the mess all over the floor.  I thought about cleaning it all up before I took the picture (or at least throwing it off to the side), but then I figured I'd let you see the "real life" of what it looks like around here most days.  Aren't you happy you get to see our messes?

So here's my lesson learned in all this couch fiasco.  It's been over a year that we've had just the love seat to sit on, and at times, no couches at all.  And you would be surprised at how frustrated I've been at times.  I've complained too many times to Checo that I just want a place to sit that's comfy.  But when I stop and think about how much I really have, compared to how much most people around the world have, I have NOTHING to complain about.  Yeah, it might be uncomfortable sitting on the floor in the living room, but there are people that don't even have a living room.  There are people we know that only have a mattress in their one room houses- their living room is also their bedroom and their dining room.  It's easy for me to get caught up in material things, but that isn't what really matters, those things just distract me from the most important things, which are people and God.  None of the things we have here on earth will go with us when we die, so it's important that we invest in the most important things and not get caught up in what we have and don't have.  

P.S. Checo: Since I know how much you love carting our couches back and forth between Texas and Mexico, do you want to take our big couch back next time you go and get it re-upholstered?