Fun with shoes!

Bella thinking she's so big...

Lately Bella refuses to let us do things for her that she THINKS she can do for herself. Example A: She doesn't want us to put on her clothes for her. She sees Elias dress himself, and she's quite certain she can do it too. So, she has a gynormous fit and refuses to let us do it for her. However, her motor skills aren't quite in agreement, and she still struggles to get things where they're supposed to go...

"The shirt goes on the legs Mommy..."

"See? I can do it."

"Then- you put the pants over the head, and you're good to go!"

Elias at the zoo with Mamá

I have signed Elias up for 3 different zoo classes so far, and he's loved them! Each class for 3 and 4-year-olds has a theme. The first one was about what the zoo animals eat. The second one was about farm animals and the third was about animals that hop. Each class has a classroom activity then field trips within the zoo. He's gotten to feed the meerkats, brush the pony, and feed the wallabies! This time he rode the pony before class which was very exciting. During the "hoppity hop" class, he got to find eggs which had pictures of animals inside of them. He had to take them out, and decide which animals hopped. Since his eggs had the most of anyone, he won a prize which (since it was chocolate) he had to share with Mamá.

Dyeing Easter eggs at Nona's

This was the first time that Bella got to try her hand at dyeing Easter eggs. Not only did she try her hand, she completely dyed her hand- bright green. But here she is before all that happened...

Elias has mastered egg dyeing- he even tried the 2-toned look!

Not bad if I do say so myself!

I'll punish myself for you...

These pictures are funny. Elias got sent to "time out" for misbehaving. However, Bella likes to keep him company, even if she's not in time out. He starts off mad at having to be there...

but quickly realizes it's fun now that sis has come to join him.

Look at me- I won the "sister of the day" award!

The Egg Hunt with REAL eggs

Elias really enjoyed hiding the eggs this year, and preferred to hide them than to find them. He hid them with Nona and then with Papá

Bella got the hang of finding them really quickly. She would find 2 eggs and then experiment with the sound of banging them together... which resulted in egg salad for lunch.

Time spent at Nona and Granddaddy's house is always so much fun... and very relaxing for Mamá and Papá!

Easter pix!

At Grace UMC in front of the flowering cross.
Papá was participating in the service at Our Saviour Lutheran, so we missed him!

The 3 cousins cooperating as usual for a group photo. Here we are at Granny Weaver's annual Easter luncheon with all of Grandma Catherine's family. Always a large crowd and LOTS of food and fun!

Fun with Faces...

I can't even remember what they were eating, but all of a sudden the kids decided to pose for the camera. Elias is into making crazy faces for the camera. Gone are the days of a nice "cheese" to please mommy...

Bella's turn

Bella is all about posing for the camera...and she's still in the "cheese mommy, look at me I'm cute" phase. This time though she was distracted by the few drops of whatever she's eating left in the bottom of the bowl...

Trip to San Antonio

Andres and I went to San Antonio, TX for 6 days ALL BY OURSELVES...it was quite surreal, but nice and needed. Who knew San Antonio was such a great town, with so much to see and explore, and such FABULOUS food??!! Here we are with part of the group that was attending the conference in front of the Alamo. Memorials of this type are not usually my thing but this one helped me understand a lot of the history between Mexico, Texas, and the US. Very interesting...

The San Antonio Riverwalk is beautiful! You feel as if you've landed in Venice! There are miles of sidewalks to stroll by the river, boats come down showing tourists the sites...you can eat at a little restaurant on the side of the river, drinking a delicious San Antonio margarita and listening to some music. I highly recommend it!

Ain't we cute? Don't think we've had a picture of the 2 of us sans kids in years!

This is Melody who lives in Nebraska. Andres was there participating in a Lutheran church Hispanic/Latino Mission Developers training. Melody has a Hispanic church service in her small town in Nebraska every Sunday.

Ahh...la comida (the food)!

One of the best parts of San Antonio is its food! This is genuine Tex-Mex, since its Mexican inspired, but cooked by families who have lived in Texas for generations, or forever- considering Texas used to be part of Mexico. The Mercado area had all kinds of neat food booths, including one for roasted corn that you see here.

This girl is 14 years old and had an AMAZING voice- I put her on here because *Mark My Words* she'll be on American Idol and then I'll have a famous story of having heard her. I went up to her and told her she needed to try out for AI and I think she thought I was a stalker...but that's ok, us hardcore AI fans can take that.

Yummy....