Meanwhile.....

Yes, the kids started school on the same day that the moving truck came and unloaded! It was a little crazy... The movers were awesome though, and unloaded quickly and efficiently with Maya scurrying underfoot and me trying to unpack and point out which boxes went where at the same time. Here is our family room opening up to the kitchen-

The master bedrooms here are all on the first floor. I'm not sure how I feel about 3 kids alone upstairs? But I guess we will hear their footsteps if they decide to throw a midnight party!

Our outdoor patio and un-fenced pool (need to get that fixed quickly!)

Our garage. In Texas they apparently do not have basements! Oh no, where are we going to put all our "stuff" that doesn't have a place!?

The family room (I think they call it a den or gameroom) is upstairs, soon to be filled with toys I supposed!

The 3 bedrooms upstairs- first the guest room (like the wall mural?:)

Here is Vivi and Maya's before we moved in:

Me painting it *pink* the day before-

Moving day was better than Christmas for these kids!!! All their beloved toys that they hadn't seen in however many months!!! Maya went crazy for her baby!!!

Maya bebe! Maya bebe! Maya bebe! (repeated many times:)-

Tonito's room before moving in:

I just couldn't get it done in one day, but shortly after I painted the bottom a darker blue. It will eventually be the ocean in a pirate-themed room.

Unpacking boxes, but still unsure where the contents should go...

Still playing with bebe!

Moving Day= 1st Day of School!

OK, the kids deserve their own post about the first day of school!:) They could barely sleep at night, SO EXCITED about meeting new friends at their new school! They will go to one school (private preschool, very chaotic, loud, fun, creative) 2 days a week, and another school (old-school, parochial, disciplined, organized, very loving) 2 days a week with Maya. This is not on purpose, but simply signing up so late gave us few choices and I didn't want them to only be in 2 days a week (especially after 5 days a week last year!). I think they will benefit from both environments in different ways and be stimulated differently as well. Plus they have more opportunities to experience different people and different ways of doing things!

When it was time to get in the car Vivi started to get a little nervous, telling me that she was "shy" sometimes.

I couldn't find Vivi's backpack and asked her to use her carry-on instead (which she thought was hilarious). They got to pick out their own clothes, and Vivi told me "anything pink" while Tonito wanted "McQueen!"

Literally as we were outside taking the obligatory pictures, our moving van awkwardly parked in the culdesac and started to unload.....

The last days of Grandma and Grandpa's visit

The last couple of days we hit the Children's Museum, the downtown park, the climbing wall and Old Town Spring (an old railroad town that is now antique shops and boutiques). The kids had so much fun with Grandma and Grandpa and will miss them so much! They don't understand that we can't just drive over- actually they have asked me on numerous occasions if we could go over and play, and when I try to explain that we can't they beg if they can just go for a little bit:(. Poor kids. We'll be back someday!!! We really appreciate you guys for visiting us!!! :)

So proud of Vivi and Tonito! Vivi made it almost to the top!!! Tonito is doing much better as well!

Happy Birthday Maya (2) and Tonito (5)!

Our little boy is growing up!!! 5 years old!!?? I can't believe it. He is now really into pirates and is starting to like Spiderman (though he has never seen it nor have I read any Spiderman books.. how do boys know what to like!?) So Grandma and Grandpa got him some great pool toys for our new pool, and Grandma made him an awesome pirate costume!

Of course when you put on a pirate costume, you have to take out your pirate ship to play with (and say aargh a lot).

Opening presents

Maya got a beautiful Little Mermaid costumer from Grandma!!! At first she was scared of it (?), but when Vivi put on her princess costume, she convinced Maya. Once catapulted into the spotlight, Maya happily hammed it up and sang and danced Mermaid songs the rest of the night.

Her favorite song is the "aah-ah-ah, aah-ah-ah" from Little Mermaid, which has an infitite number of "verses" (ah-ah-aahs) that keep climbing the scale higher and higher. Fortunately the pretty necklace she is wearing around her neck plays that line over, and over, and over, and over, AND the battery has an amazing battery life! Aren't we lucky!!!???:) Just kidding. Sometimes the necklace gets lots for a few days:). But back to the adorable costume!!!! She is a walking and dancing doll!!!

Tonito got his pirate costumer and LOVES it as well!!! Here he is trying to look mean. Tonito will never be mean hahaha, he is too sweet.

Here he is again looking like a "mean" pirate:

The kids requested another fruit pizza instead of birthday cake. Can you find the M and T of blueberries?

I can't believe that Maya is already 2. I hate when cliches are true (life is short, kids grow up too fast). I wish I could slow down time.

Arboretum!

We like to visit arboretums or botanical gardens when we visit a new city, and since we hadn't been to our local arboretum yet, we decided to take my parents! It was over 100 with a lot of humidity, but fortunately the mini-hike was in the shade of some very tall trees:). After slathering on the bug spray, we wandered through the silent forest, sharing it with no other visitors (who else would go outside in this heat!?).

We got the kids little magnifying boxes where they could observe nature treasures. They chose seeds, flowers, roly-polys, and ants to squeeze into the little plastic boxes and then get shaken around like an insect martini as the kids ran from rotting tree trunk to piles of sticks.

Sweaty kids! But at least I remembered Maya's socks and shoes this time (she stepped on a fire ant hill last adventure and got bitten up terribly with her sandals on).

Walking through the swampy area

Finding turtles and bullfrogs hiding under the lily pads to escape the heat

Nature's balance beam

For lunch we went to Lupe Tortilla's Restaurant, that has an outdoor sand area for the kids! This is the best invention- why don't other restaurants (besides McD's) have play areas?? Seriously, others should make little play areas- build it and they (moms and kids) will come!

1) Play in the sand 2) Walk all the way to the back of the restaurant to wash our hands 3) Eat 3 bites of quesadillas 4) repeat 50 times until you skip #2 and your quesadilla falls in the sand. Then if you're Maya, go to step 3 again and repeat.