Playing in the Snow

A couple of Saturdays ago, the day was really nice and we didn't have much to do, so we went to a hill at a school nearby with the primas.


It was a lot of fun. After playing in the snow, we returned home and sip some hot chocolate.

Maya's Hat

I only let her wear those 'hats' when I'm around...don't worry, Maya is constantly being supervised.

Last Day with the Romeros

This is almost a month old, but the day before the Romeros headed back to FL, we hung out with the primas, one last time.
We headed to one of the malls so the kids could go on the rides.
This was the first time Mayita rode on one of these rides (dump truck)...and she liked it!





Sorry guys, the trolley is full.

Maya and Mia playing so nicely.

It was a lot of fun. After running out of change, we headed out to our favorite playland for lunch.

This was Mayita's favorite ride.

Arden and B always hanging out...even if they barely fit in the helicopter.

B and B spending some quality time.

Playing in the Snow

The day after Christmas, three of Arden's primas spent the night for a fun sleepover. The following morning we dressed up in our snow clothes and went outside to play on the Fort. It was a nice sunny day.

Maya loved playing in the snow. She's such a dare devil, just like her brother. Her two favorite things were, going down the slide and getting pulled on the toboggan. She was so relaxed. When she was laying on the toboggan and for some reason I would stop moving, she would kick her legs, signifying to get moving.

This was one of the last slides we did that day. She started to cry because the sled had stopped moving. I believe we were outside playing for about 2 hours, and not a single complaint from Mayita...well, expect when I brought her inside because her glove had come off and I needed to get new ones to replace the wet ones.

Arden also had a lot of fun playing. We even got into a snowball fight with his primas. After playing in the snow, we met up with the other primas at a fast food restaurant, where they all had more fun playing in the playland.

Christmas

Christmas was great. It was hectic, since it was all of the White children with their children, which totalled to 14 grandchildren, with a new girl due in April...no, not me, my sister-in-law.

I guess it's best to make a recap of the events, so years from now, I'll be able to remember this.

Nate and his girlfriend Jessica were the first to arrive at The Commune, aka G-ma and Paka's house.
We hung out with them and had a chance to get to know Jessica, who happens to be a super way cool girl!
About 3 days later, HB, Karen, Jenny, and Mia (aka The Romeros) arrived at The Commune.

On that same day Mary and her family also arrived from NV, but didn't stay at The Commune...they stayed at Oma's a Opa's house, the other grandparents.

On Christmas Eve, or early afternoon, the entire family got together for the re-enactment of the Nativity, with a special play written by G-ma. For having so many people in the house, not practiced, it went pretty well. After the play, taking photos, including almost all of the cousins... except for Arden, who refused to be in the photos, some of the family headed to their other families for Christmas Eve events. The rest of our family enjoyed a lovely dinner.

After the feast, we played hung out, etc. The following morning was Christmas Day.

We didn't get to sleep in as much as we did last year. I think that should be a family tradition...sleeping in on Christmas Day.

Our children opened their presents. Maya wasn't sure what to do at first, but then she got the hang of it, and really liked riping the wrapping paper.

It was so nice and relaxing. Newel cooked breakfast, and then we hung out for a while...until noon time. Around noon the entire family got together again. It was a bit hectic, but it was nice to be with the family.

We had another yummy lunch...we had a lot of leftover soup from the previous evening, so instead of making a totally elaborate dinner, we ate soup again, and cooked a few extra things. It was good. After lunch, we played PAKAS. So, what is PAKAS? It's Bingo, but we call it Paka's in honor of Paka (my father-in-law). Instead of buying presents this year, Newel's parents decided it would be fun to play this game...and it was! It was so much fun. Everyone was very content with the money and the presents they won.

After the fun and exciting game of PAKAS, we ate some yummy desserts. And that was basically Christmas. It was a pretty good one.

Family Photos

It's been six years since all of the White children were together.

In order to commemorate this great event, we took photos.

They even dared to climb on top of The Fort.

And The Fort stood intact.

Thank goodness Newel is a geo technical engineer and was the designer of this structure.

What a great family.

Gingerbread Cookies

This was such a fun activity for Arden and me. After Maya went down for her nap, we tuned the radio to the Christmas music station, and Arden and I baked gingerbread cookies. We had all sorts of shapes, trees, bells, ginber bread girls and boys, Santa Claus, etc. Arden got really good at cutting out the shapes.

We baked a lot of cookies, so a couple of days later, we had a cookie decorating party with the Primas.

That was also fun. It was fun baking, decorating, and eating the cookies.

I really enjoyed that activity with Arden.

And the Primas also enjoyed eating the cookies as well.

What great artists!

The Base, The Fort

Around mid-December, Newel, the primas, and Arden started working on their snow base, a nice place for the kids to play, but they ran out of snow. About a week later we got more snow and the base was transformed into a fort.

Then, it became more extravagant. With the arrival of more snow, the guys (Newel's brothers) got serious, and filled the fort with snow.

Then, they built a slide...Mayita was one of the first ones to test it out.

After doing some test runs, building stairs, smoothening the slide, it was ready for action. I don't have a photo of the final masterpiece, since the architects of this project feel that there's room for improvement. Nevertheless, its been loads of fun.

Zoe's Award

A few weeks ago, I was feeling adventurous. After Arden's tumbling class, we got on the bus and headed over to the primas house. Last time we rode the bus was in Cali, but I didn't want to spend our Friday at home all day, so I worked up a bit of courage and headed to the primas house. It was fun. The kids liked riding the bus. Mayita didn't even fuss, which she does, whenever she rides in the car.

There was a special presentation at the primas school. Zoe got an award. Of course we had to take some photos and B and Arden even pretended to get their own award...what a bunch of silly kids.

Arts and Crafts

After Thanksgiving, we established a better routine during the day.

I've attempted doing arts and crafts with the kids. On this day, we tried finger painting. Arden really likes finger painting. Mayita, likes to eat the finger paint...so we stopped the ingesting of paint...luckily its washable and non-toxic.

After my failed attempt at finger painting with Mayita, we tried coloring with crayons.

By the way, Arden's new obsession are sea creatures. During the past month, instead of doing the planned arts and craft activity at pre-school, he gets his 'Big Friends' to make him many drawings and cut outs of different sea creatures. He plays with the cut outs for hours and hours at home. He can also tell me interesting facts about different whales, sharks, dolphins, etc.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving felt a bit odd to me. I want to start by saying that it was a good Thanksgiving. Arden's cousins from Nevada came and they all hung out. That was a lot of fun for the kids.

However, Thanksgiving felt odd to me this year. This was the third year I've celebrated it in UT. The previous two years, we were visitors for the holiday. This year I am living here. I found myself missing my parents and the rest of my FL family a lot. As a matter of fact, I've been missing them since around Thanksgiving, until after Christmas. I just wanted to be with them a lot. What has given me piece of mind is knowing that I'm going to visit them in a few months.
Newel started his new job in the beginning of November, so I've reduced the number of days I'm working significantly. With that, the children and I have been adjusting to a new schedule and new routines. We were also without a car for a while. We didn't need two cars in Cali, so we were down to one. Here we need two vehicles.

Also, coming to the acceptance that this is going to be my home for at least three years has been harder than I thought. Don't get me wrong. This place is great, there's lots of outdoor activities and nice people. So what's my problem? I feel that I wasn't given the choice to come live here. We had to live here due to the bad economy. I know it sounds petty, but I felt like my freedom to choose was taken away. I know it will be fine. As a matter of fact I'm starting to like it more. Also, I know we are here for a purpose(s), but sometimes, it's hard to see the light, when it feels a bit cloudy.
So, for Thanksgiving, I wasn't in a celebration mood. I'm grateful for many things...too many to list, but I just didn't feel like entertaining, cooking, getting ready for Arden to go on overload, etc.

As part of the festivities, Arden and his cousins launched rockets. They had a lot of fun...even though after a while Arden started getting scared of the rockets.

Overall, the weekend was fun and nice. It wasn't a big event like I thought it might be. I liked that it was low key. We had dinner with the Primas, Uncle D, and great-ma Olsen. After dinner, we headed over to Aunt Cupcake's house for dessert. We also had a chance to hang out with Newel's cousin, Craig aka Goyo.

Decorating the Driveway

I forgot to mention that after we got home from the park, we decorated the driveway with Thanksgiving drawings. It was fun to do some chalk art. It almost felt like summer.
I was impressed by was Arden's interest in writing. This was the first time he asked me how to spell his name and how to spell other words.

He hasn't shown any interest until recently...as a matter of fact, it's only been a few months that he's been practicing writing letters.

I had been encouraging him to write, with a writing utensil, for a while (like over a year), but he did not show any interest. Unless, it was making letters with pretzel sticks or spaghetti, so after much encouraging, I had quit. I figured he wasn't ready, but now, he's showing interest. I'm glad. After downloading these photos, I noticed that I didn't take a photo of his writing. Bummer.

Playground and Cousins

Around Thanksgiving...yes, I know it's the new year, but for keeping things in chronological order, I'm trying to do a catch up on the blog...I took care of the primas for a while. We headed to the park and of course I had to bring the camera. They are really funny. They love to pose for the camera.

We had a fun time at the park.

We played for a few hours and as we were getting ready to head home, I noticed my camera was missing.

We looked for the camera and couldn't find it anywhere.

I was getting sad that this might be the end of cousin photo shoots for a while...But, as we were getting in the car, an employee of the recreational center at the park, came over and asked me if I had lost a camera...what an angel! He showed up just in the nick of time.
We were so happy. I had given a silent prayer that we would find the camera, and it was immediately answered.

Drinking Juice

This clip was taken around Thanksgiving. For a while, whenever Mayita would drink from her cup, she would say, "Ahh." I tried capturing that moment, but as usual, whenever you want to capture those neat moments, the children choose to not cooperate...still, I thought she was cute.

Oruga Hambrienta

Arden loves for us to read him books. We read the same books over, that he's memorized them. Arden doesn't like to speak Spanish on a daily basis. So whenever we can, we try to find opportunities for him to practice speaking Spanish. One of the best ways is by reading stories and letting him 'read' along with the story.