I have fingers and toes and I know how to use them...

well, sort of. Gabrielle has discovered her hands. She loves to grab onto her toes and feel them. And she loves to suck on her fingers. And she LOVES to stare at her hands as they wave in front of her face. She doesn't have real control over her hands' movements yet, but whenever they cross her line of vision, she will stare at them and track them with her eyes and just smile.


grabbing her toes

reaching for those toes

wow, look at those fingers in front of my face... I wonder if I can get them in my mouth?

Those are so interesting. I could watch them all day.

our kitchen floor

Alfredo has finished our kitchen floor except for putting the molding on. Doesn't it look great!?! He worked so hard. But it looks fabulous now, especially when compared with the before pictures down below.

It's beautiful and it is nice to have it done. Alfredo is so smart (in my opinion) to be able to figure these things out. He gets help when he needs it, but he has done lots of home improvement projects himself. I wouldn't know the first thing about building a deck or laying down flooring or taking out part of a wall. I'd have to pay someone to do all of these kinds of things if it were just me.

Ghost of Halloween Past

Halloween this year was fun, but there isn't anything that special to blog about. ... We carved pumpkins, dressed up, trick or treated, ate candy. So I decided to post pictures of the past four years of Halloween for your viewing pleasure. Look how much the girls have grown. And do you think Ella and Gabrielle look alike, or not? Michelle as a fairy at 17 months old... her first time trick or treating. October 2004

Ella as a turtle at 6 months old... October 2005

Ella, Michelle (as a giraffe) and I... October 2005

Ella as a giraffe and Michelle as Snow White... October 2007 (I can't find any pictures of Halloween 2006 at the moment... Ella was a poodle and Michelle was a lion)

Ella as a pirate princess... Rock on me, hearties! Rock on. Ahoy there, matey, let's go. Halloween 2008

Michelle as Hannah Montana this year... She was happy with her haul.

Ella, me, Gabrielle and Michelle (Hannah Montana)

el dia de los muertos

Because Michelle is in a bilingual program, they teach them about Hispanic (mostly Mexican) culture and traditions. They are learning about el dia de los muertos (the Day of the Dead) which is celebrated Nov. 1 & 2. It is a time when Mexicans remember their loved ones who have died. The students in Michelle's class were asked to make a little "altar" out of a shoebox to honor someone who has died. I showed it to Alfredo, thinking maybe he could help us make one about his dad who died when Alfredo was 11. All of Michelle's grandparents and great-grandparents and aunts, uncles and cousins are still alive except Alfredo's dad. Alfredo read it and said no way that it seemed wrong. It felt to him like it would be breaking one of the Ten Commandments "thou shalt have no other gods before me." Alfredo was raised Jewish, and while they weren't that religious, this is one commandment that he takes very seriously ... and sees quite differently than I do. In his opinion, it is strange and even somewhat wrong to even have pictures or statues of Christ (such as a miniature Christus) in your home. We have a couple but he doesn't like it.

So he felt like this shoebox "altar" (which is what the school referred to it as) would be wrong. I respect his opinion but disagreed. The kids aren't going to worship these boxes or anything. It is more like a little memorial or diorama. So I helped Michelle make it (well, really, I did most all of it) and as we drove to school this morning I told her about her great great grandma Della Young who it was about. She seemed pretty interested and asked several questions. I started thinking it could be the basis for a short Family Home Evening lesson. So tonight we had FHE and I asked Michelle to tell us about her great great grandma and I shared some pictures. Then they wanted to hear more about her and her husband. I talked a little about them, showed some pictures and talked about how we can be together with our families after we die and how grateful we are for temples. We sang "Families Can Be Together Forever" and ate ice cream as a treat because Della loved ice cream. I was surprised and pleased how much Michelle remembered about her great great grandma (who died when I was about 10 or so). I have not been very good about doing FHE but have been really feeling lately like it was something I need to do better at. It ended up that this school project was a good one for my little family. I am committing myself to holding FHE weekly now. Maybe I'll even type a brief post here (not like this LONG one) to hold myself accountable. If I know that I have to report on how it goes, I'm more likely to stick with it. Or at least I hope so.

kitchen construction

So the linoleum in our kitchen has been peeling up since we moved into the house. It is also sunbleached in spots and never looks clean and is ugly in my opinion. I've wanted to change it since we moved in. So we finally have the money to put a new kitchen floor in. We bought Pergo wood flooring last weekend and Alfredo was planning to put it in yesterday. Except he realized that the old molding was big and the new molding is small so he'll have to paint a section at the bottom. Also the flooring we liked doesn't match the cabinets we have. Our cabinets are fine--in good condition-- so he's going to sand them and then stain them to match the floor. And he decided if he was going to do all this work that this would be a good time to widen the kitchen doorway. He's always wanted to remove part of the wall to open it up a little more. (I wasn't sure if I wanted him to do this or not, but finally said okay.) So while we went to the zoo yesterday, Alfredo and our neighbor Adan, knocked out part of the kitchen wall, moved all the electrical wiring so the outlets could be moved to where the wall would now be, removed the boards there, and added drywall to close it back up with a much larger entryway. So now, after two days, I have a much larger opening between my living room and kitchen but no new kitchen floor. That, I guess, will have to wait until next weekend (I HOPE!) I think it will look really nice once it is all done. But I also think that I don't ever want to tackle major home remodeling in my future. I would go crazy if my house was torn apart like this for very long. I'm impressed with Alfredo's willingness and ability to tackle projects like this. He got a lot of help on this one from Adan, but I wouldn't even try it. I'd hire someone to do it for me if I didn't have Alfredo! Here are a couple of shots of the work in progress. I'll add more when it is finished.
I know this is a terrible picture, but my kitchen entry is now much bigger than it was.. you can see the new drywall on the top and edges. There is dust everywhere.

Here is the old linoleum with parts peeling up under the sink... ugly!

boo at the zoo

Yesterday the girls and I went to Boo at the Zoo, Hogle's annual trick or treating event for kids. We got there about 12:30 and stayed for 3 hours. The girls wore their costumes: Michelle is Hannah Montana, Ella is a pirate princess and Gabrielle is a turtle. They did a little trick or treating but we only got candy from the spots where there weren't huge lines. We ran into our friends the Skadals while we were there. So we all went on the carousel together. The girls were thrilled to see Jackson, Olivia and Savannah. My girls love to see the "three babies" (who are 3, just like Ella, but we still call them the 3 babies... I'm trying to break us of that habit.) It was a beautiful day. The temperature was great and the girls had a lot of fun. I must admit that we saw very few animals. With so many people there, most of our time was spent getting candy, going on the train and carousel and playing at the playground. We did see the cats though. The tiger was the most active I've ever seen. It was pacing around, swimming, then hopping out of the water and pacing some more.

Sorry this picture is sideways, but here is my smiley, happy Gabrielle dressed as a turtle.

The beautiful tiger pacing right next to the fence.

Pirate Ella and Hannah (Michelle) Montana

she laughed

On Wednesday night, Alfredo was playing with and talking to Gabrielle and she suddenly laughed! It was her first (and so far only) laugh. It was so sweet. We're looking forward to lots more laughter with her around.

(This picture has nothing to do with her laughing, but I just thought it was cute.)