Midwife visit

Yesterday the midwives came for our final visit before the baby is born. I have only been having checkups with one of them so it was nice to meet her partner. Apparently she is very well known in the world of midwives and has 20 years of experience so that's very comforting. They were both so sweet and made me feel very comfortable. What impressed me the most about them is how gentle they are whenever checking me. I think I've gotten used to the 'grin and bear it' kind of checkup with the doctors on my other pregnancies as they're very rough so I'm happy that it's working out to have the midwives this time.

Thank the Lord everything seems to be fine, baby is in the right position and all we have to do now is wait for that special moment. Please keep us in your prayers, that the baby will come in the Lords perfect time and especially that there will be no complications so we won't have to go to a clinic at all. I'm really looking forward to having this baby at Home.

Have a great day!

I love Agnes!

And this is one of the reasons why. One of the activities we had over Christmas consisted of giving 2 people in the Home a 'love token' with the promise to do a kind deed for them sometime throughout December or January. Agnes picked my name & offered to wash the baby's clothes for me which I thought was a great idea as just washing it all was a big job.

Today I decided to use rest day to sort through, fold & organize it all to see what I have enough of, what we still need, etc. Then I opened the suitcase and found this:

It was all done for me! I was so happy. Everything was washed, folded neatly, packed in separate bags and labeled already.

I love the way Agnes is like this with everything she does. She will never do a job halfway. If she takes it she does it perfectly. When she cooks dinner she turns leftovers into the highlighted meal of our week. When she teaches the kids you constantly hear them singing new songs, quoting new verses or telling you about some fun project/experiment they did. You don't ever hear her complaining, even when both of her kids are sick & she hasn't gotten sleep in 3 or 4 days.

Thank you Agnes! We're so blessed to live with you.

Vacation #2

Chris & I just finished a few days of rest & vacation without the kids. It was so relaxing & we're very thankful to those who took the kids & made it possible for us to take time off. We have a wonderful Home! Following are pics of some of the highlights of these days.

Thanks to this wonderful woman we were able to go out to a very nice Argentine restaurant for dinner.
Simona was so sweet & provisioned a gift certificate for each of the couples to go eat there on their vacation. Thank you! We got some pics taken at the restaurant but I look so incredibly fat in them (and I'm not being bashful, even Chris said I shouldn't use them, Ha!) that you'll just have to be happy with these.

Chris at the 'Meson Gaucho'.

Something very nice was that our vacation happened to include the day of our 6th anniversary, January 23rd, so we were able to celebrate that. I wanted to say a special THANK YOU and I LOVE YOU to a friend who sponsored a very nice meal for us but wishes to remain anonymous. I don't know who you are but I want you to know that I/we felt very loved and really appreciate your gift. Thanks for such a sweet gesture of friendship.

We love you!

Chris and I had originally thought of going out to eat but then he came up with the brilliant plan of including our Home in our special dinner. So instead of going out to eat we went shopping and Chris made a wonderful dinner of BBQed meat, Argentine chorizo (YAY!), Caesar's salad, bread, chips & dip and ice cream with peaches & cajeta for dessert. It was so wonderful. We had a very nice time relaxing with everyone and it was also a different way to celebrate our anniversary.

Almost everyone except for Cel who's taking the pic & Manolo who is hiding his radiantly handsome face, don't ask me why.

Something else I really enjoyed was a trip to Taxco which we've been wanting to do for quite a while now. We've been in Mexico for 7 years and finally got to visit the 'silver city'. Cuernavaca is actually very close to Taxco and I'm happy we did it before the baby came as I realized that it really isn't such a child-friendly place.

An outside view of Taxco.

I must say that I didn't like the town half as much as I liked the markets and town of Tepotzlan, but I'm still happy we visited it. The streets are all cobblestone and VERY slanted. The silver markets seemed to be hidden away in very narrow streets, or maybe it just seemed that way to me as I'm so big & everyone kept bumping into my belly, heh. I didn't take many pics as it was very hot, crowded and we were more interested in getting good deals on silver and making sure my belly wasn't in anyone's way which was quite a feat but in the end we got some beautiful silver jewelry at very affordable prices for some very special people.

Chris on the bottom floor of a 3 story silver market. It was incredibly crowded.

Aaaaand, I scored a very nice anniversary present from Chris. I'd been wanting some of these for a very long time and I was so touched by the fact that he remembered what I liked.

The silver bangles Chris got me as an anniversary present.

That's all for now. Just 10 days till the squirm comes! LY!

A post (mainly) for Clara

Irene sent me some pics of their vacation in Acapulco. I wasn't there but there's some nice ones of our family that I thought you might want to see. Funny how there's always one or two of us missing when the rest of the family gets together.

Beautiful family.

Can you say 'awww'?

Haha, so cute! Can you imagine when Nico has one?

Everyone loves the tiny!

Mom looks so pretty here.

Caro, Nico & Irene.

Laury is getting so good on the guitar. While we were there she went out as the sole guitarist for their busking team with 3 other girls. I was so proud of her. Mom says she's almost done with her school too.

Dave "the foolish one", Nico, Irene with Arthur, Laury & Caro. Just you & me missing!

Aaron = #11

Just a few pics of Dave & Stephy's cute and tiny little man. He is grandchild number 11! He was so well behaved and so tiny! It was so cute how they had him in very few clothes and hardly wrapped because of the heat. I just can't get over how tiny newborns are!

He apparently sleeps very well at night. Such a good boy! His hands are so delicate and he's got Dave's cartoon toes.

Proud grandparents!

I love this pic!

Dave was so cute with the baby, he's all into him and talking about bottles and getting up at night, etc. Haha!

This photo was so hard to take. Danny, Irene, their kids & Nico came out the day before Chris & I left so we wanted to take a good pic, but it got late & everyone wanted to watch a movie & Dave was being sooooooo foolish. This is the best one of the bunch that someone got with our camera. We missed you Clara!!

The kids had so much fun with their cousins. We had a BBQ with them one night.

This is evidence of Nico's foolishness. We went over to their house & Nico decided to play a prank on Chris & dump a bucket of water on him from the balcony above the front gate. Of course Murphy's law never fails so instead of getting Chris the water fell on me! I was so shocked but it was ok cuz Chris got him back & threw him in the pool. Fun fun! It was nice to see Nico for a bit as we hadn't seen him in 8 months.

Relaxing at the 'abuelos' house.

Happy 6th Anniversary Honey!

I'm not good with words but I just wanted to say I love you!

Acapulco vacation with the kids

Thanks to the Lord and a wonderful friend who provided 2 comfortable apartments we were able to spend 7 happy days vacationing in Acapulco. We had so much fun! We spent time at the beach, got to visit the 'abuelos' & cousins, met the newest addition to our family, relaxed and enjoyed the week.

Even though I am 8 months pg, the trip wasn't so tiring as Chris worked overtime to make sure I got enough rest. He took over with the kids most of the day so I could enjoy the beach and then drove the singles we went with out at night so they could enjoy a little nightlife. He must've been so tired but he never complained! I have the best husband ever! I love you Honey! Thank you!

Fun at the beach!

Ben showing off his slimy snail. Daddy & Lily collected a whole bunch to use for projects at Home. They also found lots of small jellyfish in the water which was cool as we'd never seen one before.

Lily lost a tooth at the beach and asked if the fairy would let her ride a horse instead of put something under her pillow, ha.

The kids were able to ride the horses every time we went to the beach & they loved it! We even took their 4 cousins with us to the beach one day and a sweet man let all the kids ride for free. He gave Chris & I the reins and let us take the kids for a walk. So nice!

Fat belly on the beach!

Yup, I got a lot of stares but people were really nice and even complimented me for being out on the beach with such a big belly, heh.

A very nice man whom we'd met last year let us use his tents for shade, tables & chairs, boogie boards, brought us fresh coconuts and let the kids ride his horses all for free every time we went.

One day daddy took the singles to the beach without the kids and ended up getting a very good deal on a ride on one of these cool contraptions that I have no idea what they're called. He said it was a blast! Julie went on it as well and I'm posting her pic cuz I don't have one of Chris.

Daddy's foolishness.

Last year we met a very nice lady who owns an apartment that overlooks the beach. We hung out with her again this year and the kids had so much fun at the pool.






Daddy being a monkey.

Like father, like daughter.



My beautiful babies!

And you just have to agree with me that he is the handsomest of all the handsome ones out there!