Mexico Part 32: Our Home

We've moved into our new home here in Mexico since end of March and I am finally getting around to posting some pics of the place.  We live in Zapopan outside of the "nicer" area.  You really can tell a significant different from our old area to our new area.  In fact, I feel like I live in "real" Mexico now.  We are still safe where we are and I feel like the kids have a new freedom here.  We live on a flat road, which makes bike riding more fun and we can actually get some usage out of our radio flyer.  We live inside a gated community with guards.  However, once you come into the coto, we live within another gated community.  It sounds confusing but basically, even though we live in a huge neighborhood, we still can enjoy the perks of living in a small neighborhood.  If that makes any sense.  I don't ever lock my car or front door, and my neighbors, especially the ones to the right of us when you look directly at the house are the nicest people ever.  Their daughter is even our babysitter.  There are only ten houses in our gated neighborhood.  I was told that these were the model homes for the entire community of homes here.  It has three bedrooms, two and a half baths, a small backyard, and a "den" at the top of the stairs.  The storage isn't that great here but we are managing.  One of the things I love about my new neighborhood is that we are only five minutes away from church and Eva's school starting in the fall will only be one minute away!  After driving a total of almost two hours to take Eva to school and pick her up, I CAN NOT wait!

When we first saw the house it was painted a faded yellow.  Actually, I was the only one to ever see our house until the move in date when Matthew finally saw it.  I can't believe he trusted me.  Anyway, once we moved in we realized they painted it BRIGHT orange.  At first we are kind of freaking out, but then I decided to embrace it.  We live in Mexico.  How cool is it that we can say we live in an orange house!?

Our neighborhood

 Living Room

 Dining Room and Kitchen

This gives you the general idea of the layout when you walk in the door.  We have a tiny yard in the back.  

 The playroom that is right next to the yard in the downstairs portion of the house.

The upstairs leads to this den.  We don't use this space too much except for my desk, laundry and River's bed.  As you walk up the stairs you have the kid's room to your immediate left, the bathroom, our room straight ahead and Matthew's study/my sewing room to your right.

 The catch all room.  But, it has the softest carpet :)  Matthew spends all his time in this hot room.  

 The Master Bedroom

The room where the kids sleep.  I need to do something about the decorating.  Elijah sleeps in a VERY girly room.  

Well, there you have it.  Nothing spectacular but I have finally realized something with this move.  This is home.  Oregon has now become the place where we vacation and visit mam and pap, and nana and grandpa.  I have realized that home is where my little family is.  I feel blessed to be able to live together here in Mexico on our crazy adventure.  It has brought us closer as a family and we have made some amazing friends.  

Mother's Day 2012

You have got to love Mother's Day here.  The kids always perform some cute performance at school and of course you get a homemade gift from your child.  This year Eva made a a bag that she hand embroidered herself with the help from one of the teachers at school.  She also made some soap for me.  What was funny about this years gift was that she couldn't give up the bag.  It was one of those, oh, I made this for you mom  but I am going to keep it in my room if you don't mind, sort of gifts.  Gotta love the five year old mentality.  In our new ward, they had a mother's day celebration too.  Mother's Day here is always on May 10th, so our relief society activity wasn't on the exact date, but the bishopric and primary put together a cute program.  The kids sang, minus mine, because I had no idea she had to be there.  The activities start at 7:00ish and by 7:30 mine our in bed, and I don't really like to drag my kids to late activities because I know I am the one that pays for it the next day.  Anyway, that stunk that she couldn't sing for me.  She was really looking forward to it and practicing all day the Sunday before Mother's Day, but she didn't even notice she didn't sing for me.  Maybe because she had already done it so many times.  I guess I will no for next year.  Bring your kid to the mother's day activities in the evening.  Then, that night they had a surprise all woman mariachi.  It was one of the neatest things I have seen, but I have nothing to prove it with because of course, I had no camera.  Boo!  
Something cute I saw on pinterest around mother's day was a little quiz titled all about mom.  I gave one to my own kid because I thought it would be cute to see what she said and here is what she came up with...
All About my MOM
My mom is 30 years old.
My mom weighs 30 pounds. [Yikes!]
My mom's favorite color is all of them. [She has no idea what my favorite food or color is]
My mom's favorite food is all of them.
My mom always says "be quiet cause I'm talking on the phone."  [Ouch! In my defense, I don't like it when they decide to scream or want something when I pick up the phone.  Clearly, she knows that now.]
My mom cooks the best almost everything.  I love it. [Ahhh]
My mom's job is make dinner, take me to ballet, help us clean up, help Elijah get dressed, you help me sometimes turn on the tv.  That's pretty much it. [sheesh, no wonder I am tired every day]
My mom laughs when they say funny things.
If my mom had time, she would love to finish dinner or do something on the iPad, or watch tv. [she might be more right than wrong]
My mom and I like to work on homework. [not really, I don't like doing homework with my own kid.  We clearly need to think of some hobbies for the two of us]
My mom really loves all the family. [oh good, she doesn't think I have favorites]
I love my mom because you help me so much and because you help me turn on the tv and you help me take a bath. [oh the things that are important to my Eva]
By Eva (age 5)

Eva and her friend Luna

Eva's teachers, Miss Danny and Miss Adriana

As I have gotten the privilege to spend more time with my kids I have realized how much I love to just be there for them.  I feel blessed to run them around wherever they need to go, pick up after them, feed them, clean them and teach them what it means to be a good kid.  Of course they aren't perfect, and they drive me crazy more than 50% of the time, but I still love them to pieces.  When you are growing up you think your own mom is crazy, but now I realize that everything my mom did for me was because she loved me the same way that I love my kids.  I am thankful to my Heavenly Father for letting me be a mom to two of the cutest kids I know, but of course I am biased.

Elijah's 3rd Birthday

My baby turned 3 on May 2nd.  I can't believe how fast time flies.  He was such a good, little kid when he was two.  Now it seems like whoever said it was terribly two's was way off.  I, on the other hand, no that it is really supposed to be the terrible THREE's.  Alright, so he hasn't been terrible everyday, but he sure is starting to find his little personality.  It's okay, we are managing the little guy and he makes a nice addition to our family.
On April 30th we celebrated Elijah with a Mickey Mouse birthday party.  I gave him a choice between Elmo and Mickey and he picked the mouse.  A couple months ago he was really into Sesame Street and then it was replaced by Mickey's Playhouse, so I wasn't surprised by his choice.  We had little friends his age invited to his party, with their siblings of course.  My sweet friends, the Hiatts, we kind enough to let me borrow their coto pool house to celebrate Elijah.  It was just perfect.  Similar to last years party, in a lot of ways, but the kid won't even notice.  I struggled with even having a party for him in the first place.  We aren't exactly rolling in cash.  But when miss Eva talks about having four birthday parties this year, I figured, Elijah has to have at least one!  Here are some pics capturing the event.

Okay, so this was the best picture of Elijah so I had to use it.  But man, do these little kids make me laugh.

He was so excited when the pinata came out.  He was literally jumping for joy.

The instructions were, once the candy falls out, everyone grabs ONE bag.  Elijah missed those instructions and grabbed FOUR.  He was so PROUD of himself.  The truth is every time we go to a birthday party there are huge kids there and he is lucky if he gets one piece of candy.  Well, on his own birthday he got all the candy he could have dreamed for.

Eva and I made these little cupcakes.  Recipe was from pinterest, of course, and the cupcake liners were the labor of Eva and I cutting them out and punching out circles.  When I was almost finished I realized, why in the world is my cricut not cutting these things out!?

Later in the week on his actual birthday we had an intimate family birthday party.  Something cute about Elijah.  If you would tell him, "Happy birthday Elijah!"  He would turn around and tell you "Happy birthday papi."  Or whoever he was talking too.  We thought it was funny.  So on his day, we just had more leftover cupcakes and a little gift from mom and dad.  It made me realize how kids are content with just one thing and don't really need too much do they? He was pretty excited about his batmobile.  And frankly, so was his dad.

Sorry for my camera skills.  Guess I should have used a flash.  Anyway, I can't believe that as he gets older, he still is just as messy.  I don't know why he eats his cake and icecream, like a dog, but for whatever reason he thinks that is the only way you can.  In Mexico, or Mexican families, have a tradition of "mordida" which translates to "bite."  My Eva has been to enough birthday parties to know that it is a must on your birthday.  That day, after we were done singing, she started chanting, "mordida, mordida" and Elijah, obediently went down to take his bite.  Once he was on the cupcake Eva helped by faceplanting his face into the cupcake even more.  We laughed and Elijah loved it.

This is for you Elijah:

I mostly just call you Elijah.  Although lately you have been hearing me call you hon too.  Doesn't make your daddy too excited since he doesn't know what his special term of endearment is anymore but I just can't help it.  In fact, one day, I was calling for your daddy, saying, "hon, hon..." and you kept saying "que mammy, que?"  Made me realize your dad was right.  Your daddy calls you Elijon, since a lot of the Mexicans here can't say your name quite right.  That nickname actually comes originally from Eva's little friend, Luna, who would call you that.  Most people say your name Eliya and some just flat out call you Elias, the Spanish way to say Elijah.  

We are still working on the talking bit with you.  I am starting to think that slow and steady wins the race with you.  You have grown leaps and bounds in your communication.  I probably can understand you the best, but that is because I am with you the longest.  You understand both English and Spanish really well.  Understanding language has never been your issue though.  You are pretty lazy when it comes to speaking.  And if you are tired or feeling like a "baby" you resort back to babbling.  Instead of saying, you are all done with something, you say, "Uh, I don like it."  And even though everyone makes it a point to talk to you only in Spanish, you still turn around and speak a lot of English, or you mix the languages when you speak.  My favorite part is when English speaking children come over, they use their Spanish to speak to you.  It is adorable.  If we ask you your name, you can tell me, "Eliya" and if I ask your age, you stubbornly say "uno." You understand the idea of counting, and you try really hard.  But most of the time it goes something like this, "uno, do, cuato, CINCO."  And every morning you ask, "donde ta uh queque?"  To which I reply escuela, but you turn around and say, "oh, ahkay, scool."  And after your breakfast you always asks, "uh, now, watch uh movie?"  If you notice a trend, it is because there is one.  You like to say uh almost before any statement you make.  And one more for the books, I love it when you cover your nose when you realize something is stinky and you say, "uh stinky, mom."  Usually, it's your own feet!

You don't really nap anymore.  Every couple days if you are having a rough day, a lot of crying or whining, you get to take a nap, and if I let you, you would probably sleep for a long time.  But, if I do, then we have a problem at night that you don't want to go to sleep, so you only get to take short naps when you need them. Currently in the heat, you sleep in undies only and you don't seem to care for clothing much.  Probably because your head is so large.  You mostly wear polo shirts with buttons for that reason.  When we put your clothes on in the morning, you fight cause you don't want them on.  You tell us, "I don like ah ropa."  But at night when it is time to take them off, you fight that too.  You are sensitive to hot.  You would rather take a bath with cold water than warm even.  We are still trying to figure that one out.  

You love to climb and wrestle on top of people.  Lucky for you, Eva doesn't seem to mind.  You can play for a real long time with your little cars and trains.  You like to take them with you to the kitchen table and are content playing with them there.  You are pretty good at sharing when asked nicely to do it.  And you still have a fascinating over pinatas.  You can still find anything and turn it into one.  A string with a bucket and River's leash are among your favorite inventions for a pinata.  You are creative and quite the little problem solver.  The other day, I told you you couldn't have these packaged juices out of the fridge.  You were upset, but walked away and went into the play room.  You then proceeded to grab your little scissors and open the package to get your little juice container.  You were so proud of yourself, and I was so impressed you figured that out on your own, that I let you have it.  You like to chew your "chique," and you still love your fruit.  You have also found a new love for the iPad, which for you is an "iPie."

Elijah, you will always be my sweet little boy.  For now, you can never do wrong, and I hope so much it stays that way.  You know how to work me.  If you know I am upset, you forget the sorry, and move right to the "love you mommy" and it almost works every time.  I don't know what my life would be without you.  You are one chill kid, and for that I will forever be thankful.  And even though your daddy doesn't like it too much, you are still my hon.  And with that, I love you to pieces hon :)  

Mexico Part 31: Middle of March to Middle of April

Holy moley.  It has been TOO long.  So much has happened since the last post.  First, I hit the big 3-0.  I don't know how it happened but the good news is I still don't look a day older than 16.  Haha.  So, I suppose if anything, I have that going for me.  Matthew was sweet and organized some of my good friends, that are still left in this country, to come over to our home and celebrate me a little.  Then about a month later, my birthday present came.  My good friends who went home for spring break brought back a keyboard Matthew ordered for the family and I.  I am excited to learn how to play the thing.  When Elijah was in the womb, I started taking lessons.  Then, life happened and I had to stop.  But, now I am looking forward to taking the time to learn.  

                    

Among the biggest things that has also happened is that we finally moved.  I am happy to report that we are happy in our new home.  It is smaller, of course, but it is just what our little family needed.  It is WAY more manageable to clean.  When your home is full of tile, you want the smallest amount of surface area to clean and now it is just what I have.  Even though it is smaller, we still get to have four bedrooms, and a nice big den at the top of the stairs.  We even have two and a half bathrooms, so if any of you are thinking you can't visit now because our place is smaller, wrong, we still have the space for you.  With the move, we decided we would bunk our children together and it has been one of the greatest decisions we could have made.  All of Eva's wants/needs before bedtime disappeared.  Part of the reason for that is because Elijah is so easy to put down so now Eva has no excuse but to cooperate.  Plus keeping them in the same room made the transition to the new home easier since no one had to be "scared" about sleeping in a new room.  I will have to post pics of the new place soon.

Easter happened around this time too, and spring break.  We got two weeks off, which, I personally would have died for when I taught, but when you stay at home, it can appear like a long time.  However, the timing was perfect.  We had just moved into our new home, so I took time to get it set up the way I wanted, sleep in, and relax whenever there was time.  It is amazing how dead the city can be during spring break.  It is a nice welcome.  Easter was chill.  We went over to a friend's house.  Friends become family here.  We had an amazing spread of food.  In fact, I think I even mentioned to my friend, that we did pretty good without having out parents around to do most of the work for us.  And of course, she baked, and her baking is always yummy.

Mexico Part 30: Middle of February to Middle of March

Where to begin.  I feel like I am so behind and for my children's sake I have to do a little rewind.  February 14th was almost an entire month ago but deserves to be talked about.  I took Eva to school in the morning, only to come home and have Matthew show up with two set of roses.  He can be so sweet sometimes, even though he swears up and down he really doesn't like the holiday.  Well, I do, and so we had a little fun with the kids and threw them a little party.  My friend, Vanessa, made the best sugar cookies, and the kids had fun decorating them.  We had some pizza, red punch, red jello...everything was perfect.  The kids had a blast playing around the house, and I had awesome company.  All the friends left, minus, my friend, Anjane, who stayed with me because our hubbies had planned out a special night in for us.  It was cool to see the boys make our dinner: yummy walnut fish, with a salad, the best baked potato I have had here in Mexico, and bread.  It was the works.  We even ate by candlelight and iPad fireplace.  They even planned out the music we would listen too.  Conversation was awesome and it was a night I won't soon forget.  Matthew outdid himself this year.

Fast forward a little and we are in March.  It has been about two weeks now and I am happy to saw that my little Elijah is potty trained!  I was starting to think it would never happen.  If anyone remembers I had Eva trained a week after her second birthday.  Elijah?  Well, two months before his third birthday.  They say all your children can't be the same, and that is the truth.  It all started about three weeks ago when I decided to pull off the diaper when we were home.  I wasn't having any luck and I was getting pretty stressed because he was peeing all over the place and he didn't care if he was sitting in his own urine.  But, fast forward a week, and all of a sudden he was telling me "peepee mama" and we would run to the bathroom and he would go.  Every once in a while we have our accidents but they are starting to be less.  Yesterday we were at church and I decided to send him in underwear.  Last week I was too scared and put a diaper on him.  Well, he was sitting in church, crouching, and all of a sudden I hear him quietly say, "peepee mommy" and I take him and we run out of the sacrement meeting.  I run him into the bathroom only to find that he went half in his underwear and shorts and the other half in the toilet.  Lucky for us, I had an extra outfit, so I went back into the chapel, left him in the bathroom naked, and changed him into a plaid pair of shorts that definitely did not coordinate with his plaid Sunday shirt.  Oh well.  At least we had something to change him into.  I have had my fair share of nuggets in the underwear incidents, urine in my hair incidents (boy urine can shoot, I tell you), and encounters with my bleach spray, but I am happy to report that it is official, my boy is potty trained!

I think it is so cute how he plays with his trains on the floor like this.

In other news, we are moving.  With the financial situation the way it is, the government cut our loans, so we can no longer live better than we were living in the states.  Bye, bye, swimming pool and tennis courts, and beautiful homes...we are moving over with the "poor people."  I really think I should hit myself, because I am being so mean.  So, now if anyone ever decides to come and visit me, you will get a real glimpse of Mexico.  Okay, it isn't that bad.  I am actually excited to move into our new place.  It has a great park, the kids will be able to ride their bikes in front of our house (which they haven't been able to do very well in this place), we will be really close to Eva's new school for next year, and Matthew will be close to the hospital he will be at next semester.  Not to mention we will be paying half of what we are paying in our current place!  I will post pics of our new place soon.  The landlord said I should get keys this Wednesday, and as soon as I have internet in the new place, we are moving over there.  For now, I have been taking the kids to the pool everyday that I can, enjoying it while we still have it.  

Eva has been saying some cute things lately.  Here are a few of them.

• First, we were at the pool the other day, and she had her arms out and said to me,"Look mom, I'm floating."  Then I said to her, no Eva you're swimming.  Silly girl figured it out on her own.
• Eva can be such a pain when it is time for bed.  She does anything and everything she can to get out of going to bed.  So, Matthew said to her that she better go to bed or he was going to spank her bare bottom.  Well, Eva grabs her teddy bear and says, "This bear's bottom?"  We about died laughing.
• Way back in Sisters, she asked if deer were supposed to walk on the road.  And we asked why she wondered that.  She said, "Why are there signs on the road letting deer be on them."
• The other day when we were listening to Pandora she said if the song was from Mary Puttins. (aka Poppins)
• She was telling Elijah the other day that poop and pee go in the toilet.  Then she proceeded to tell me that that was why Jesus gave us toilets.
• Eva was in the bathroom and I hear her say,"Mom, Elijah has to see me go poop so he can learn huh?"  Meanwhile, Elijah is saying, "Oh WOW, queque!" (Elijah's nickname for Eva)
• And while listening to Pandora she says to me that you have to sign up your passport (aka password) and then you get music.
• And lastly, she always says pouldn't for couldn't.  When she goes in the pool she needs her gobbles instead of goggles.  And we do get spiritual around these parts, but it is mostly wondering why we pray before we eat and why we have to go to church.

Gotta love children.

Mexico Part 29: Eva's Open House

For the last two years at Eva's school they do an open house where they invite the parents to come and see what your money is going towards.  They show us a little snippet of the English program and a little snippet of the Spanish side too.  Eva will be done with this preschool at the end of July and we can't believe how far she has come.  She is learning her numbers pretty well, grasping simple addition and subtraction, counting by tens up to 50 real well, and of course learning to read and write in Spanish.  It is amazing to see your own child learn.  The other night, Matthew was amazed at how well she can read.  Of course, she still needs fluency practice (totally said by the teacher in me) but it's neat to see your baby reading.  Back in October I was a little concerned and mentioned to the teacher that I understood they were reading in cursive but was worried she didn't recognize regular script.  She told me not to worry, to give it time and that I would see that she would sort it out later.  Well, Eva totally has.  She recognizes most letters in script now too.  It's cute.  Sometimes when she is reading her little phonic readers (these) she asks me what sound the letter makes because she is unsure of some noncursive letters and then keeps reading.  Eventually the goal will be to teach her myself to read in English, but for now, I am just letting her get good and one and when she can dominate it well, we will start with the other.  Well, that morning of the presentation Eva was not feeling well.  I mentioned in the last post that Elijah had been sick, well Eva didn't seem to get it as bad as Eli, but she got something.  Anyway, she came and laid in my bed, all sad because her tummy really hurt.  It was the saddest thing.  At one point we were going back and forth about whether or not she was well enough to go to school.  She had a low grade fever and I flat out told her I didn't think she could go and that maybe I could go another day and visit her school by myself without the full blown presentation.  It broke my heart when I saw her trying to be strong and not cry and ask me who was going to play "mother" in the presentation that they were going to be doing.  She can be so sweet I tell you.  I actually teared up.  I am a big baby.  To make a long story shorter, we decided that she was okay to go and that as soon as she didn't feel well we were going to be coming home.  Turns out she did well and we left before lunch time.  The cool thing about this story was what happened the following Monday.  Eva came home from school and told me that the teachers all said how impressed they were at Eva for coming to school even though she wasn't feeling super because she had a responsibility that Friday in the presentation.  And then, all the kids and teachers clapped for her.  That made quite the impression on Eva.  And frankly, on her parents too.

Eva read that word during the little presentation where they were decorating cookies.  The word is Nutela.

Do you see that face?  We get that look often.

Mexico Part 28: It wasn't the water that made Elijah sick...or was it??

My last couple of weeks have involved vomit, diarrhea, more vomit, and yes more diarrhea.  It has not been fun to say the least.  Elijah caught a nasty virus that made him sick for about two weeks.  I think it is finally over, thank goodness.  There were days there where I thought I would never stop doing laundry, or using the bleach to clean his mattress.  I never thought a little guy could explode so much, but now I realize nothing is impossible.  The funny thing is it all started the night that I had taken the kids to McDonalds earlier in the day.  At first we thought it might be food poisoning except that no one else got "this mysterious food poisoning" but Eli.  I was at a relief society activity and Matthew texts me about 30 minutes into the activity letting me know that Elijah had thrown up and he couldn't believe that it was happening on his watch.  That night Matthew had to spend the night with him because he was literally coughing up vomit in his sleep.  The kid was so out of it he would have slept in his filth if you would have let him.  The next morning it slowed down a bit, but then when we thought he was getting better, a new symptom moved in.  It got to the point where we couldn't leave.  Well, before we learned that lesson, we went out with some friends when we thought he was feeling better, and that night, at the restaurant mind you, he threw up all over the floor.  It was HORRIBLE.  But, now, after being patient, the kid is eating like he hasn't eaten in two weeks.  Which, I suppose he really hasn't.  It is just crazy to see how a little body knows how to take care of itself.  And thankfully, no one got his nasty bug.  Talk about a blessing.
So, it wasn't always that bad.  Prior to the two weeks, the kids one night decided to have a dance party.  They actually enjoy having one often, but this one involved dress changes.  I came upstairs to hear the music playing and see Eva dressed like this (she had her ballet shoes on too)...

And then of course, Elijah had to get his "dance attire" so we had these wacko kids running around the room dancing in their swim clothes.  I suppose it is these funny moments that make the not so funny moments bearable.