Oakland Temple

Last Saturday we decided to attend the temple with the kids. The Elders Quorum, along with some of the Young Women, from our ward volunteered to watch the kids while we attended the temple. It had been a few months since Newel and I had gone and it was much needed. After our session, we ate lunch with the other families and cleaned up. Then we (our family) went to the visitor center with the children. Interestingly, I felt like the important work I was doing on that particular day wasn't for others, but for my family. I felt that it was really important to have brought Arden to the temple. While we were walking around the Visitor Center, there were paintings of Christ and Arden knew some of them, and others, he was impressed by them. Of all the things he saw that day at the VC, what he talked about were the pictures of Christ, not the amazing view from the temple, or how he had fun with his friends. I often question myself, am I doing enough? Am I teaching my children good principles? Am I sharing my testimony about the Savior with them? I hope so.

Maya and me

I was going through my pictures the other day and I noticed that I don't really have any pictures of Maya and me. I'm usually the one behind the camera, so I don't take pictures with her. Here are a couple of pictures from last week that we took.

More Mischiefs

Arden was taking a bath when I went to get things ready for him for bed...when I went back to the bathroom, this is what I found. He had dumped about half of the bubble bath soap in the tub. I've always wanted a tub full of bubbles, just like in the movies; now I know it requires a half bottle of bubble soap.

Getting Advanced

We bought the exersaucer about a month ago and when I first put her in it, she could barely sit up straight or touch the toys around her. As you can see on the video, she loves to play with it and keeps herself very entertained.

Arden's Mischiefs

It's amazing to me how creative and mischievous Arden can be. Here's a clip Newel filmed of Arden. One of his classmates made a bag of treats and chocolates for the players of the basketball team. Newel received a treat bag, and shared some of the chocolates with us; and said he would save the rest for later. However, Newel went upstairs with Maya for a little bit (to change her diaper, I think) and this is what happened...

Champions

A couple of weekends ago, Newel and the basketball team went to the MBA basketball competition in Washington DC. They competed against the other MBA schools around the country and won first place! Newel said he had a really fun time.

The Friend

Tia Idalia and Dirk brought this cute little "sandman" as a gift for Maya. It was love at first sight. However, I didn't imagine she would like it so much. She loves to cuddle with it and it's he sleeping toy. I'm always worried we'll lose it. It'll be hard to replace it.

Interaction

I've had so much fun watching Arden and Maya interact with each other. It seems like Maya only has eyes for her big brother and all of the goofy, funny, and silly stuff he does and says. Arden of course still has his moments where he likes to harrass his little sister. I didn't realize I was going to say, "stop poking your sister," so early on. I didn't expect to use that phrase until they were older.

Special Olympics Volunteer

Newel volunteers for an event called Challenge for Charity (C4C) . It's a competion with other MBA schools. In order to qualify to play in the sports/events at the end of the school year, the students need to volunteer their time (12 hrs, I think) throughout the school year in non-profit organizations. Newel likes working with the Special Olympics. At this event, they hiked the Dish. It's a 3.7mile hike around a couple of giant Dishes. It's a good hike, but it's a killer if you're hiking it with the kids, and pushing them in their stroller(lots of hills). Anyways, Newel invited us to go with him, and we hiked it with Tamaar, one of the competitors. It was a beautiful sunny day. We sweated, got to know Tamaar well, and had fun.

Hidden Villa

A couple of weeks ago the Biz-Kids group went on a trip to Hidden Villa, which is an organic farm, where people, especially children can get their hsnds on farming and learn more about where food comes from. We didn't book a tour of the farm, since it was last minute planning, but it was a lot of fun! Here's Arden playing with his friends Elise, Daniel, and Ellie in a hut thingie.

Arden on top of the gate starring at the cows.

Throwing pebbles at the stream. What a fun pass time!

"Here chicky-chicky chicky." I reminded Arden of all of the times he chased the chickens at my parents house in FL, and how he used to collect the eggs. We went to the hen house and found eggs, but we were not allowed to collect them, just enjoyed looking at them.

PU! Stinky Pigs!

During this adventure, Maya was so good! She looked around and even took a little nap.

After touring the farm, we ended our trip by having a delicious picnic with our friends.

Hair cut

Arden is such a funny guy! At the beginning of the month of February, I had given him a hair cut, and he wanted me to take his picture with his new hair cut. Here he is modeling with his "rocket."

Tortillita

When I was little I remember my Tia Luisa singing this song to me. I enjoyed it a lot. I also sang it to Arden and now to Maya. It's unfortunate that I didn't record Arden as much as I have recorded Maya, but I guess I do more recording with Maya since we live away from our family and it's a way to keep in touch with you all.

Maya's check ups

As you may know Maya measured and weighed the same as Arden the day they were born. They were even born on Wednesday afternoon. However, comparing their measurements since their birth, they're quite different:

Arden:

July 28: 7lbs and 5.5 oz measures: 19 ½ inches
1 week later: 6 lbs. 14 oz (about)
6 week check-up: 9lbs. 2oz measures: 21 ½ inches
2-month check-up: 12lbs. 10oz (75th percentile) measures: 22 and ¾ inches (50th percentile) also had your first 4 shots. Ouch!

3-month check-up (about): 15lbs. 5 oz.

Maya:

September 26th: 7lbs. 5 oz. Measure 19 1/2 inches

1 month check up (4 weeks): weight 9 lbs 11 oz. (65%) height: 21 inches (47th%)

2 month check up : weight 11lbs. 12 oz (74th %) height 23 3/4 inches (92th %)

4 month check up: weight 13.9lbs (47th %) height: 25 1/4 inches (83rd %)

I asked the doctor why such a big change in Maya's 2 to 4 month weight, she said breast fed babies aren't as big as formula fed babies. And basically that's as big as her percentiles will probably get. Arden was both (formula and breast), therefore bigger measurements. Maya also spits up worse than Arden did, but if I was so worried about her weight, I could start feeding her cereal. I think I'll wait a little longer before I start feeding her cereal. I've done really well nursing her exclusively, that I don't want to mess it up.

The picture is of Maya and Arden at her 4 month b-day. And she's such a big girl playing in the excersaucer!

Hiking

Here are some pics of us hiking. Our first and successful attempt at hiking was a couple of weeks ago. The first picture is of the kids playing hide and seek.

Then, this past Friday, we went again with our good friends, Abbey, Ellie, and baby Kevin. The kids were really well behaved. On our first hike, we kept the older children distracted by having them find trail markers, and every time they found one, we would reward them with pistachios. On Friday's hike, there weren't any trail markers, but we happened to be on a trail were horses are allowed...and where there are horses, there's horse poop. So, to keep the kids distracted while we hiked (they don't have the attention span we have...we gotta keep them entertained somehow), we would have them find horse poop and when they would find one, they would get pistachios to eat...it was a lot of fun. At one point, Arden told Ellie she couldn't look for poop, so Ellie told her mommy..."Arden says I can't go horse poopooing."

We definately plan on going on more hikes.

Here's also a photo of Maya with her pal Kevin. They like being around each other.

Recent Video Clips of Maya

Maya Sleeps:

Grabbing the basket:

I have a series of clips of Maya trying to grab this basket. This clip is of her holding the basket for a while and plays with it. It was neat to record her being so concentrated on what she was trying to do.

After playing so hard, our little princesa got tired and here she is, starting her serious cry.

Pre-school Adventures

As some of you know, I've been doing pre-school at home for Arden, with some of his friends from the MBA program and church. Here are the kids learning about the letter 'P.' They dressed up as prince and princesses. They learned about things that started with the letter "P," had a craft project, and also ate some letter P snacks (popcorn and pretzels).

A few days later, Arden was playing dress up. He usually likes to dress as a jugador, a luchador, a super hero, or Darth Vader. However, on this day he was playing dress up, I asked him what he was going to be...he said, "I'm a luchador...I don't want to be a prince or princess."

Last week, they learned about the letter "R." On this picture they're watching themselves on TV, after being recorded when they pretended they were in a restaurant.