Hats and Glasses

I'm not sure why, but Emery loves to wear hats and glasses.





And, I just noticed that in one of these pictures she has food on her face - even when she is not eating... Well, it's no secret that she loves her "ummies"... and another she has a runny nose. It's like I don't keep my kids clean or something.

News! What Is It???

Thats right, it's another girl! We have decided on the name Ayelén Joy. Ayelén(pronounced AH-YEH-LEHN)is a Mapuche Indian word - the mapuches are one of the native indians from Chile. It means "to smile", or the word for a smile. So, we thought it would go great with Joy.
She's cute!

Superfluous Pictures

Nothing important. Just superfluous. And, by that I mean completely unnecessary, unnessential, and unneded. Just thought I would share a little bit of my world with all of you - my day to day life. Like...

My addiction to Starbucks. I just had to have it today! A Grande White Chocolate Mocha and a chocolate criossant...


Emery eating baked beans, and posing for a picture for the very first time... (Look closer. It's all over her!)


Kyla just being herself...


My goofball sister. No explanation needed...



I've always wished to be a gifted and talented writer. To have my words shape and pursuade generations. But there is no eloquent way to write about my life, except to just share it as it is. No pretty words or fancy speech...It is what it is...full of sticky hands and faces, bruised knees, temper tantrums, and dirty dishes in the sink. What can I say - but that I love it!

Kindergarten and Reptiles

Well, it's official. Kyla started Kindergarten. Most of you know that we have chosen to home school our kids in order to open up more doors of opportunity for them in the future. I am actually really surprised that Kyla took to it so well. I was expecting more argument, and some displays of her strong will, to not complete her work. But, she seems to be growing out of some of that, and is finally ready to learn. She was so excited to wake up last Tuesday, open up her Hannah Montana Backpack, take out her "ABC" folder and her "Number" folder, and to complete something from each folder. During the week, we played ABC games, worked with colorful manipulatives, and made a project with glitter glue for the letter "Gg", of course. She is excited to show Mauro her "Finished Work" folder each day when he comes home from work. Grammy and Bumpy each got to see it, as well, when they stopped by for a visit. She even wanted to get books about reptiles, this week, on our weekly trip to the library. So, what did Papi bring home for her on Friday that he found at the job site? Yes, you guessed it - a snake - a juvenile gopher snake, to be exact. She was very excited! Yep, so yippee - we have a pet snake. Well, at least for ten days until we release it back to the wild so that it can eat again. Cause, their is no way mommy is going to feed that snake dead mice that I have defrosted from my freezer!!!!! I about died when I read up on that. No way am I going to have dead, frozen mice in my freezer! Since "slivery", as Kyla has named him, is still a baby, and quite small, I am hoping, for know, that crickets will suffice... Yikes! Anyhow, it has been a great week, and I am looking forward to many more.

Mauro's Parents

We had a great visit from Mauro's parents. They left to fly the 12, 000 miles back to Chile on the 30th of August. We spent some great time camping at Putah Creek at Canyon Creek Campground and we took a 3 day trip to Fort Bragg and spent some wonderful time at the beach. Great memories!

One Fat Lip

We had the pleasure of our first Emergency room visit on Thursday night for an accident. (We've been before, but not for blood and such.) Emery fell from her sister's arms after being bounced and tossed in the air. Sissy thought that it would be fun... Emery bit her lip so hard that it was pouring blood and swollen at least 3 times the size it should be. She took the whole incident really well. She only cried from the pain of initial shock of it and during the clean up at he bathroom sink - and then she was done. What a trooper. I thought for sure she would need stitches. And, as it turned out, that although it was deep, it was not quite deep enough for stitches. (You can only see the swelling and the bruising of her lip in this picture. The laceration is on the underside of the lip.) And since it was right below the line of her lip (in the dip between lip and chin) the ER Doc said glue would work just fine. Thank goodness!!! I did not have to sit though the trauma of stitches. I probably would have needed to have taken a sedative for MY nerves. And, as for Kyla, after some necessary "punishment" for breaking the rule of picking up her sister, and numerous lectures from her Papi, she learned a new word - CONSEQUENCES!!! When you do bad things, bad things happen. (A good lesson for us all to remember, by the way.) We always said this would happen, and now it did. Kyla has promised to never pick up her sister again, or throw her, or bounce her, or anything henceforth similar...We'll see how long that lasts...she was pretty upset and scared for her little sister, however. I think the lesson will stick this time. (She also promised that she would never pick up her "baby brother" without our assistance, as well. Yes, she wants a brother. We'll have to wait and see in about 5 1/2 weeks - at or around week 20. But she is convinced it's a brother.)

Day Trip to San Fran

We took a day trip to SanFran with NaNa and TaTa with my sister Holly as the tour guide. We took in the highlights, Baker Beach, Crissy Field, Museum of Fine Arts, and the Japenese Tea Gardens. It was a lot of fun to do the actual touristy type of stuff.



Baker Beach. I thought you could see the Golden Gate bridge from here????? Oh wait..I think I see the bottom of it, right there in the corner??? Typical summer day in Sanfran...


Emery never looks at he camera - so I guess this is the next best thing -potito...


We found this cute little girl on the beach...