End of school year and Start of Summer

Kids, we are getting so busy down here in Atlanta GA!

The end of school year was crazy busy, making sure Nico wouldn't miss a day since they were practicing for the end of year festivities! It is May, and this also means teachers' appreciation week and May Crowning! Since Nico's school was so great at welcoming him in March and at loving and caring for him, I made sure to make his teachers and the whole school know how appreciative I was of each of them! May Crowning was a very sweet day and that also included Donuts with Mom, which Rebecca and Vicky tagged along, naturally! Each of you brought a flower to Mary! A white daisy!

Meanwhile, we made sure to take Rebecca to her school field day 1h20min away from home! Daddy managed to take the day off so he could go and help! It was a fun day for the whole family which made it very worth it! We then had lunch at a authentic greek/lebanese place close by where mommy had an appointment regarding our green card application, which is going smoothly, thanks to God. I also did some grocery shopping there where I got yummy Kinder chocolate, olive oil and tahini, which is yielding tons of yummy homemade hummus! I also want to make Haleu, which is a honey+tahini sweet I love from my childhood (my dad - your grandpa - love it so we learned from him to love Haleu as well!). Fortunately, the recipe is very easy and only requires a blender and a fridge!

In May we were still hitting the gym. Sometimes I would tae just Vicky and Becca after I'd drop Nico at school or sometimes, I would take them all on Friday mid day (since Nico didn't have school on Fridays), or daddy would take Becca and Nico, only, at the end of the day. That meant we continued to bring in bugs and to get a cold every other week, or so it seemed!

Mommy got very sick from a cold one week in May, right in the middle of one of daddy's business trip. When daddy got home at midnight, he convinced me to have an over the counter cold medicine
so I could sleep. I then took a tablet in the next morning and night, each. Two days later, it was opening day at the "White Water" water park. It was very fun, but hot.

Later that night, after a hot shower I started to notice my skin getting some kind of itchy rash. I didn't pay much attention to it and I went to sleep as I would normally do. Thanks to Rebecca waking up at 1am due to a nightmare, I woke up to put her back to sleep. But then I felt the rashes around my waste. It was dark, so I went to look in the bathroom and found myself completely covered in that bumby rash. I freaked out. That had never happened to me before and neither Dan and I knew what it was.

It was mother's day, 1am and I drove myself to the closest ER. After the usually long and dreadful wait, I was since by a kind and very diligent nurse. She knew right away I was having hives (I didn't even know what this word meant). After hearing my whole story she suspected it was an allergy reaction to the cold medicine I took a couple of days before and that the sun exposure and hot shower made it worse. I was also not drinking enough water and was feeling very stressed about a couple of issues! They gave me a steroids shot on the bum, and I got better in the morning. Luckily, I followed up with a doctor's appointment (also because I had other worries about different health issues) who took all of my concerns seriously, ordered bunch of labs and even a chest x ray, and nothing indicates a serious condition. My stress level got much better after that!

But back to Mother's day! It was a wonderful day which I felt very well taken care of by husband and kids! I got a very special breakfast with my favorite cinnamon rolls (actually, they are Aldi brand!) and I got cards, a beautiful, glamorous coffee mug (white on the outside and pink on the inside) which says "Hello Beautiful" in golden letters. I also got the first four CDs from Avril Lavigne and the latest from Taylor Swift. Since I drive some much I love to hear CDs from my favorite artists. Although I just now realize that Avril swears a bit on her songs, which I'm not comfortable about letting the kids hear it too. It's a bummer.

Still about my Mother's day, I received a beautiful rose at church and then I invited my friend Andreina and her three kids to spend the day with us since her husband had to work, unfortunately. We had steaks on the grill. The kids had a total blast together!

We entered Nico's last week of school and the prek graduation ceremony which was so cute and fortunately, quite uneventful! I am proud of Nico! I know he tries so hard to follow the rules and behave like is expected of him! He loves to make people proud! He also makes me happy! I love him so much! The pictures are great too!

Back in April Nico and daddy went to their first boys and fathers club, which happened to be the last one of the school year. I'm confident this will be a wonderful thing for them as the club resumes its monthly activities in August. The club also organized a family May pilgrimage to Mary at a local Monastery with some Opus Dei families! It was a great thing to do! We prayed a rosary - all the families together while strolling around the monastery grounds, payed a visit to Jesus in the Tabernacle, and then we had snacks in the courtyard. The kids had a blast playing together and the adults had some good conversations! It was very hot, but so worth it! Thank you God, for putting Opus Dei in my life!

And then Summer!!!

Usually I'm always a bit afraid of summer. But now that means I don't have to spend 3h in the car just so Nico can go to school four days a week and I don't have to homeschool Rebecca! Because of this, Vicky can also have a regular nap schedule which is tremendously good for the whole family. Summer also means I can go back to attend daily Mass - which far from having perfect behaving kids at church - it is still what helps me the most, granting me the graces I need which God so lovingly bestows on me, specially - I think - because He considers the sacrifice I make of bringing the kids with me even if I can't manage to pay much attention to Mass. God is good and understanding! And He loves kids at His House!

We continued to go to White Water and also to the water park inside six flags! During memorial weekend, we went Saturday and Sunday. On saturday - after the park - we had dinner at our FAVORITE pizza place, Blaze Pizza. You can choose any and how many toppings you want to your pizza and their passion fruit and coconut water juices are AMAAAAAZING! On Sunday, we went to Mass - like we always do and never missed a Sunday - went to the park and for dinner, we went to Chillis for a fajita/frozen margarita meal! What a fun weekend we had!

At the very end of May we traveled to Mableton for a playdate with friends! I met the newest addition and she served us a good lunch! I love this friend, her hospitality when I just moved to Georgia and our shared catholic spirituality! It's a very sweet family! We are going to meet them for another play date in July!

June has been busy with doctor appointments and visits to the closest splash pad! So fun and so easy to watch the kids! My kids are gorgeous, I cannot control myself sometimes!

As for upcoming events, we are so excited about daddy and Nico going to their very first camping trip.The Opus Dei boys club are organizing it and it has been tons of fun preparing for it already! We bought a tent, air mattress, flashlights, etc and we talk about it all the time! Let's see how it actually goes! =) Hopefully, the weather seems it will cooperate. Boy, it rained a lot this May in Georgia!

Still about summer plans, in June, Nico will start to have biweekly speech therapy and Rebecca will start Math Kumon. I think it will be great! And Vicky, how smart she is! I'm so impressed every single day!!! She kills me with her cute smile and facial expressions! I love this baby - not baby anymore - so much! Nico and Becca still love to read books so we've been going to the Library every two weeks and getting tons of books! They make me so proud! I think they are all VERY smart! God gave me too much responsibility granting me such bright and joyful kids! I always try to be a better mom (person) for them and for Dan! I know I have a wonderful husband and daddy to my kids!

We have a few more play dates laid up and Rebecca will attend her first Vacation Bible School on the last week of June! In June we will also have appointments to get the kids american and brazilian passports since we'll be visiting Brazil at the end of the year for 4 weeks mostly because my brother Marcos is marrying a wonderful girl, Mariani! We already bought our flights! We are SO excited!

The kids schooling for next fall is also set and we are excited for it!

What's new!

That's what is new in our family: new car, gym will be cancelled in 2 months and kids are going to a new school next semester!

Kids milestones or achievements

Rebecca: You finally decided to write letters to your friends back in Sioux Falls. A couple of the girls wanted to keep contact and be pen pals with you but writing was your weakest point and you never really got excited about that! But since we started homeschool with Connections Academy, you handwriting improved SO MUCH and also your storytelling! You decided on your own to write cards to your friends and it reads so well and it looks so good. I AM SO PROUD!! We are past the struggle to write now, I couldn't be happier about that!!!

Nico: you are finally adjusting to your new school! Teacher has been saying you are improving and I can see she smiles more at you now, meaning you once again showed people around you what a sweet and good boy you are even though you have your attention struggles! People love you, Nico! Daddy and mommy try so hard to keep you that way, away from the world's spoiling. On another subject, Nico, you are obsessed with grandma and grandpa for a good few months now! It breaks and melts my heart at the same time.

Vicky: you are sleeping better. I tell Daddy why you got better but he doesn't believe me. The reason is that I noticed how smart you are so I started having conversations with you before going to bed. I tell you "Vicky, please don't wake up tonight, let mommy sleep ok?". And every time we have a good convo you sleep better. Also, I changed a few things on how I nurse you before going to bed. I'm trying to prepare for weaning you out of breastfeeding sometime in the near future. And you got better from your cold. For now. I'll take what I have for now! On another note, you eat sandwiches like the big kids and that just baffles me since both Becca and Nico only learned how to eat sandwiches the right way around 4yo!!!

Weather is starting to warm up but I can tell it won't be as bad as Texas since I never ever spent a Easter in TX when it wasn't hot already. My friend also tells me that in GA it cools off a little bit in the evenings! That's something to be happy about as I was dreading summer in here thinking it would be as bad as in TX.

We are also so very excited about our trip to Brazil at the end of the year!! You kids cannot wait and me neither! I'm craving all the good things Brazil can offer and missing our families so much! Mom and dad will also try to get away for a few days just the two of us while family takes care of you because we'll be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary January next year!!

And that's it for today!!
xoxo
Mom

So kids....

So kids....

Back in Lent 2018 your mom had a different view on how she wanted to continue posting on this blog. And the new focus is that this bog will be a media of communication between me (your mom) and you (my kids), and  nobody else! Others are still welcome to read it but I'll write all future posts for you!

Becca, Nico and Vicky. What four months it has been since our move from South Dakota to Georgia. We sold our beautiful house in SD and we moved to a small apartment in GA. Let me explain it a little bit better.

We tried to find a a good house for rent when we were here visiting (during our house hunting trip), and we thought we had found it. But, long story short, after we were back in Sioux Falls, we learned about possible lead exposure in houses built before 1978 and mommy got all paranoid (you have no idea!) so we decided to withdraw our application. That's how we ended up living in an apartment. With 3 kids. And a crazy neighbor downstairs who would yell or sing at 2 or 3am at any given day. And who would also smoke all the time on the common halls while talking on the phone for everyone else to listen.

Meanwhile, we found out that the preschool we had chosen for Nico was not a good fit and daddy's 1h commute each way was really hard to endure every weekday. Also, about 2 months ago, your daddy got word of the existence of a direct bus to Emory from a couple of different park and rides (at another Atlanta's suburbs). All reasons combined, we had absolutely no more strings to continue living in that apartment other than to possibly avoid the hassle and the waste of money to cover the early termination fee and all the packing and unpacking - again - after only 3 months. But we had our minds set! We wanted to move out of there, as soon as possible.

For a month we started looking at the new found location of our interest. And two weeks before our apartment move-out date, we applied for a small but quaint rental house. And here we are now! Sleeping much better at night, not worrying about my kids dinosaur-like footsteps and noise before 8am, with lots of sunshine and desirable high ceilings. And an extra bedroom! And much more cabinet and closet space.

Sure, we had to deal with more than a few unpleasant details moving in to our new home like very dirty windows and floors, remnants of mice (we had now sealed all indoor and outdoors openings in the house so no more mice problems), a water leak, the dry up job of a restoration company and it's 5 industrial fans and a gigantic dehumidifier for 3+ days non-stop (can you imagine the constant noise?) and also the handy men putting the baseboards back on again. Finally, after 2 weeks everything was finally ok, the house was completely bleached, wiped, sealed, and in working order. And much quieter.

Daddy's new bus commute is wonderful and Emory actually pays for it to support carpooling initiatives. He listens to audio books on the way in and takes a nap on the way back. The closest catholic parish to us is full of wonderful homeschool families and we already met many of them and we were able to have multiple play dates. Kids, you look so happy here!

Speaking of homeschooling, Rebecca, you are doing GREAT! What a hard working, gentle, happy and smart little girl you are! You'll go so far in life, I just know this!! I'm always so very proud of you and I tell daddy this every night! I also tell you this in person often, maybe you will remember it.

And Nico, we found a new church preschool for you before the start of the next school year. It started on Monday and we are very hopeful this time! I'm also proud of you, Nico. This move hasn't been easy on you with so many changes and so much idle time on your own until now. But you are a sweet, good boy and you love to learn. You are very smart too, and everyone who gets to meet you says the same. You are extremely curious and inquisitive. You are my happy (and very agitated) boy! And you are always so hungry! I never expected this so early on, I thought it would only start in your teen years.

Vicky, you are also doing great. You love the new house. You love to dance (I still want to catch your signature dance move on camera). You love a good laugh! You have a great sense of humor. And how smart you are too, I'm always so impressed by you. Having two older siblings have taught you many things already. You are veeeery strong willed. But you nurse and act like a baby still. You still wake up at night once, most days. I don't mind much, to be honest. Although it would surely be nice if you were sleeping through the night by now.

We started going to the gym again, it was going great except that probably because of the new environment exposure we all got a cold this week. It feels so much like living in a big busy city going to the gym at 5pm or 5:30pm. But I actually get some prayer time in while exercising and while driving, I get dinner ready before we go, and you guys socialize and spend some energy out! They have a good kids room with lots of running space, climbing toys and balls. And once we are back home, we all take our showers before dinner and daddy is home by then! We all eat together, and before 8:30pm all kids are in bed.

We finally bought patio furniture for the first time ever! Daddy finally got a gas grill. We bought a hammock for our charming yard. Weather this past weekend was great! We enjoyed eating outside - steaks, broiled crispy potatoes, green salad and watermelon. I also made everyone my favorite s'mores (using peeps marshmallows and heating it up on the microwave).

Tomorrow is Nico's birthday!!! We were planning on hitting Six Flags on its opening day this season but the weather is not expected to be great. We are still going to have breakfast on a pancake house restaurant, we are going to take you to a toy store so you can choose something you really want. You been saying you want a car with a remote control. Maybe we'll take you for some indoor fun at a bouncy house place or something. Ah, I almost forgot to register that you been begging me to make you a rainbow crepe cake for your birthday. You saw the recipe for it on Tasty. And I also promised I would get you a Shutterfly baby book because you always feel so sad that Rebecca has one but you have not. It breaks my heart!

Now some pictures!

We went to visit Daddy at his new work for the first time on his birthday!

Vicky Mouse

Moving out of the apartment!

You two are becoming such good friends now!!

I knew you were trouble...

trouble, trouble...

The industrial fans....

the monster dehumidifier

This boy..... he drives me crazy but I couldn't possibly love him more!

Playgrounds in February/March? We are not in South Dakota anymore!

Our lovely backyard patio

Beautiful girls!

Troubleeeee

That's how she trows herself on the floor when she wants something but we are not giving in.

one more pic of our Georgia backyard

For now, that's it!!!
Love you, kids!
xoxo
Mom

The Story of Us - 9th Wedding Anniversary

In celebration of our 9th wedding anniversary I'm following up with the blog post entries from "The Story of Us" series. For you who are kinda new to my blog, almost every wedding and dating (meaning the day of our first date) anniversary I write a post about "Us", aka, Dan and I. It could just be a post describing our celebration, our actual moods and current state of mind, or the most popular, so it seems, a part of the story of us from the time when we were dating each other, and therefore, getting to know each other.

To be honest, I sort of debated if I should continue posting bits and bits of our relationship prior to our marriage because (finally) after nine years into it, I've realized how immature we were back then. Or maybe I should say: how much we've grown together in wisdom and experiences in the years that followed our wedding! So it feels kinda silly posting events from that time now.

But I was still thinking to myself if there was anything I still judged it would be worth sharing. And - in fact - there is! Maybe I should have posted about this subject a long time ago, before all of my friends started getting married but, never mind, I think it still can be useful to someone reading it now.

First, a little disclaimer, though. This post will be mainly directed to catholic and christian folks who try to live the virtue of chastity, and who care about religion in their relationships. If this subject doesn't interest you, feel free to skip this post, I won't take offense. In case you are just curious, be my guest, just try to keep in mind that you might not understand exactly where I'm coming from. There is a whole theology behind the reasons why some of us would desire being chaste in a relationship and there are many authors who did beautiful jobs writing books and books about this theme. From what I hear, The Theology of Body - from St John Paul II (our dear pope) is wonderful (although I've never perused it myself). Another suggestion would be all the books and booklets from Jason and Crystalina Evert. They even have videos! Everything is really easy to understand, makes sense, and it's very engaging. I truly recommend it.

That's all to say I won't be explaining the meaning and reasons for chastity in this post. Instead, I will tell you a story that happened between Dan and I, when we were dating.

Let's get to it!

_____________

In short, Dan and I briefly met one day, then we started chatting through MSN, then we met at a university campus party, talked for about two hours, we kissed, three days later we met again for ice cream, we had the "dating talk" and then we agreed we were starting an exclusive relationship with each other.

Dan was not like me. Besides being six years older, he also never worried about religion to a point where it would affect his daily life and decisions. This doesn't mean he didn't have any morals, but that chastity was not one of them. To be fair, Dan was the kind of man who would prefer steady relationships to casual dating, but like most of the people nowadays, he had a different view of what you are to do when you are dating someone. On the other hand, I am a practicing catholic and have always been, thanks to the grace of God and my parents' education. So for me, dating didn't include sex.

There. I said it. Sex. The story I will share will be about discussing "sex" in a relationship. And boy, that didn't take so long to happen.

We were one week into our relationship and we have gone to a drinking party (chopada). I know it sounds terrible, but chopadas are very common in Brazil, I'm not sure how it is in the US. It's basically a get together of a large group of people (like a whole class or even multiple classes in college) and there is an open bar. No, not everybody gets drunk. Yes, many do, but I would say that most don't. These parties can be pretty civilized, at least from my experience.

Anyway, we were in the Biology drinking party (Dan is a biologist now turned into a post PhD scientist). It was very early in our relationship so we were still talking a lot about many things (almost everything was new between us two) and I also met some of his friends in this party. I thought it was fun enough although I'm not keen to drinking much. I don't even remember if I had a drink, or none! When the clock hit 9pm or so Dan suggested we leave the party. I thought to myself: "Oh... well, ok! It's kinda early and I was having a pleasant time, but I guess I could go back home now." But - instead - I just said "yes" to him. He was driving me back and at some point, he asked me if I wanted to go to his apartment, which I knew it would be empty of other people so I immediately realized what his actual invitation meant.

I got very startled, because, believe me when I say this, I wasn't expecting him to be thinking that having sex was a possibility on our very first week together.  I knew he would hold different views than mine on sexual morality and that wasn't an instant problem to me. But to ask me that in one week? I replied with a clear and single-worded "no" with a couple of head shakes. Then I turned to the window and stared the whole ride home to the outside of the car completely muted. I won't lie, I felt a little offended by his question. Like, I knew he gets me. I knew that he knew, he must have known, I was a different kind of girl. Asking me that on our fist week together seemed a little out of touch, but the truth is that we hadn't discussed sex - at all - before.

Honestly, I had really hoped I would have had a bit more of time, before THE TALK. I thought it would take a month, maybe months and then we would eventually talk about sex. By then, I was hoping he would be infatuated with me enough to agree by my rules and not to leave me just because of sex (properly, the lack of it).

But no.
That's not how it happened.

On the next morning we met again. And I knew I had some talking to do. It didn't take much small talk for me before I said:

"You know........ I don't intend to sleep with you".

(Of course I tried to say it in a sheepish, "shrek-cat-eyes" kinda way. I wasn't trying to scare him off completely, you know?!).

Like that. Nothing else. And he actually said....



"ok".



And I concluded we were both done with the conversation. He was probably too afraid to say anything else at that time. Jokes aside, he was still processing what all that meant. After many years I asked him about it. Like, what was he really thinking inside when I said "no sex before marriage" and he just said "ok". He told me he thought that our relationship could not work because of this, indeed, but that it also didn't mean he wasn't going to try make it work.

I would say: "good processing, Dan!"

A lot of friends have asked me about how we had "the talk", or they would tell me how they feared their relationship wouldn't last if they openly told their boyfriends they wouldn't be having sex before marriage. To them, along with my story, I would also share with them what another friend of mine told me about her boyfriend's response to their first sex talk. He said that a man who would dump a girlfriend because of not having sex, didn't like the girl at all. These words came from a man, who was not religious at all. It is true as true can be. Because people can be very selfish in their wants and needs. And selfishness is incompatible with true love.

I think I will finish for now, but in another post I will tell the story of how Dan and I discussed religion in our possible future marriage, and how we discussed having children.

One of the very few pics we have together when we were still dating.
This was actually pretty close (4 months before) to our wedding day.

xoxo
Gabby