Proud Mamma

Ricardo had his Christmas program at school on Friday the 19th. It was simpler than previous years, but the last two years my child has become quite the performer. So here are a few pictures that really show how happy and excited he was. There were a few videos to go with it, but I've been having some technical difficulties so it'll have to wait.

Enjoy,

Random Photos - Alphabet Photos - B

So that I don't skip any letters in Sonia's Alphabet photo thing here is my entry for the letter B.


Don't they look so cute? Of Course in the second photo Adrien is ready to go, this has taken too long for him.

The pictures below are just some really nice ones taken of Adrien and yet again his interesting faces.




Enjoy!!

Halloween!

I know it's a little late, but we had a great time at K&E's annual Halloween bash. I know you all have already seen the family pics of us at that party, there are some, not necessarily of us that you have not yet seen. So I'm sharing them now:

Our lion tamer hosts did a great job with their costumes this year(as always), and of course baby Langston made a great lion. If you notice in the first picture here mom tamer is having a hard time with the little lion, but by the last, all he needed was his meal!

- My little darth vader, that was his costume, really enjoyed running around outside, and he looks a lot like his brother here.

He also had a fascination with the dead!!

Ricky's Christmas List

Last Week we went to target, just to hang out, that's what we do on weekends, hang out at Target. As we walked in I reminded Ricky that we weren't going to buy anything and he said that he just wanted to look for his birthday (December 7) so I decided it would be a great idea for him to make a Christmas list. He ran with it!! We went down every toy isle and he pointed out everything he wanted. I thought I'd be writing down everything, but he was surprisingly selective. The list is still long, but very detailed.



To tell you the truth I'd forgotten about this list, that I had decided would be sent out to everyone thinking of getting him birthday or Christmas presents, until Ricardo asked me yesterday if I had put a few items on my list. I said "what list baby?" - what a bad mom I am for forgetting his list already - and he said the one for my birthday, did you put...in it? And then I remembered.



So after the long explanation here's the list. All the items can be found at target (at least the one in Burbank, Ca), and I tried to be as detailed as possible (now if I only could read my writing):



1. Spike the Ultradino - Giant remote control dino that makes lots of noise, it's usually in a display case for trying out.


2. Little hard animal figurines from Schleich (there specific ones he requested):
2 Elephants - one with the trunk up and one with the trunk down ( he made sure I put both on the list)
Crocodile, Killer whale, and another whale that was labeled as a "right whale", but I think any other whale would do.


3. Dino rescue Mountain - Diego (not absolutely sure it's Diego, but I think so)

4. Imaginex Gorilla Mountain

5. Anakin Skywalker - Clone wars Action figure - Got for his Birthday (thanks to God Parents K&E)

6. Bashing Boulder Mine - Matchbox

7. Screaming Banshee - from the Cars movie - it's a Yellow giant car that eats little ones

8. Elefun Game

9. Spiderman's Hypersonic Spiderjet

10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Mini Motorcycle

11. Handy Manny - Lets go to work - Fisher price

12. Pat Pat Rocket - Little Einsteins

13. Transformer - Any he doesn't have would make him happy. He has bumblebee, Optimus Prime and Megatron.

14. Diego Buildable megabloks underwater rescue (this one has a lot of small pieces so if you can put it on the bottom of your list, I'd appreciate it)


OOOps, I almost forgot: when we went through the bathroom isle there were all these children themed bathroom things and they had a whole jungle theme ....did I mention Ricardo likes elephants?

There was a cup shaped like an elephant that he made sure I put it on my list and it's one of the items he asked about yesterday. It's one of these Toothbrush holding bathroom cups.

Ok I think I got it all.



Now because we didn't want to leave Adrien out, we watched what he was drawn to and wrote some things down (much smaller list):



1. Walkie Talkie - phone ( he likes phones)

2. Any play phone

3. Starwars sword

4. Fisher Price Learning vaccuum - he spent some time pressing buttons on this one.



But I know he'd be happy with wrapping paper and empty boxes, so with that in mind, enjoy your shopping!!

PhotoHunt #11 - Lazy

So it's been a long time since I've done one of these, but it's ok.

The Theme is Lazy and Adrien certainly enjoys a bit of laziness on a hot summer day.

Enjoy,

About us

Ok so my cousin tagged me for this thing, I'm supposed to tell you 6 little known things about me. This blog, however is about the whole family, so I'll try to tell you things about all of us.

This is a difficult task because everyone who generally looks at this blog knows just about there is to know about us. But I will attempt to surprise you, here it goes:



1. Jean-Marc and I (Paula) are sorta gaming buffs. I grew up playing computer games, the role playing kind, these magical adventures. And until the kids showed up, I would spend hours on the computer and JM and I spent lots of time playing with our PS2.


2. Between Jean-Marc and I, we speak 5 languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish, French and Haitian Creole. The boys unfortunately don't have grandparents around to speak with them in any of our native languages and only speak English. They do understand a bit of Portuguese, and some Spanish.


3. We love to travel. With both of us being immigrants, we have a traveling itch. And even though finances don't always allow us to go far very often, we still manage to travel with the kids.


4. We both enjoy Sci-Fi. Jean-Marc really likes Japanese Anime, and I'm more into the Sci-Fi Fantasy realm.


The last two will be specifically about the boys:


5. Adrien Loves to eat. He'll eat practically anything. Even if he's just had a full meal, if he someone having something else, he'll want that.

6. This one is very well known but it's about Ricky. Ricardo LOVES his dinosaurs!!





Hope you enjoyed learning a little about us, if you didn't already know.

Alphabet Photos - A

Ok so I'm not very good at following directions. The directions of this has to do with poetry and funny named poetry kinds, you can see the full directions at Creative Karina if you want to actually follow the directions, I'm just going to the picture part.

A - Apple. Ricky is eating an apple flavored icepop. Makes his mouth and area around the mouth all green.

And of course, I can't ignore my own personal "A" and that's Adrien, here he is getting washed up in the sink.

Lobsterfest

Today we went to Lobsterfest in the city of San Pedro. We went 2 years ago, but Ricky didn't really have fun then. This time, I think both Ricky and Adrien had a lot of fun. Of Course I had a great time; I could have used some more lobster and so could Jean-Marc but it was great, and it was yummy. Ricky rode on some of the rides, and we shared our afternoon with friends!! Here are some pics. Ok just one picture, had some trouble with the pics so I just gave up, for now...

PhotoHunt #10 - Beautiful

Ok so it's been too long, and I missed last week's photohunt. But here's a new one. I know I have a theme going here, and I'm sorry if you're tired of seeing lots of children, but if you haven't noticed yet, this blog has a lot to do with children.

My beautiful photo shows how blessed we are with all the children in our lives.

Our friends Karlyn and Eugene baptized their baby last week (he's the baby being held on the left by his oldest cousin) and these were all the children present at the lunch afterwards. From left to right: Langston(on arms), Kalil, Heidi, Jax(on lap), Kali, Adrien(on lap), Bleu, Kadar(back), Kaden, Ricardo, Kanye.

PhotoHunt #9 - Colorful

This week's photohunt theme, with which I'm late again, by the way, is Colorful! What's more colorful than children?? This was taken at Adrien's 1st B-day party. He and his friend Avari have birthdays 6 weeks apart and they had a party together. Enjoy:

Photo Hunt #8 - Dark

I don't have many pictures about Dark that aren't obviously dark. But what I do have is Comic-Con. JM went to Comic-con last month and there was a lot of darkness there. Here's just one picture of the Dark Place.

Funny faces

I realize that most of my posts have been about my little man, while my baby boy has been left out a little. So I decided it's time to show a little of what Adrien is about. This past weekend, I dubbed him "busy body" and "chatterbox". Yes, my 14 month old, won't stop walking around and touching things, and climbing stairs and getting into anything he can. While he moves around "busy," he chatters away in baby gibberish without a care about being heard or not. His "words" have definite sounds too, yesterday when I picked him up from the sitters he sounded like he was speaking in Spanish, when I brought him home the "words" sounded different, definitely more English. But what most distinguishes Adrien, are his funny faces. Above are some of his funniest and below are a few of his most recent expressions, Enjoy:

Photo Hunt #7 - Clouds

For this week's theme I was a little ahead of myself, however, I forgot to post it on Saturday so, I'm behind again. Go figure. But it's here it is. It was pretty rainy in Paris when we were there in March, see Pointed post for more details. Here's a Cloudy sky at the Louvre.

Photo Hunt #6 - Hanging

My baby came home last week on Wednesday night. I was very happy to have him home, and he was happy to come home. He had a great vacation. On Friday he went back to school and the teacher had him stand up in front of the class and tell everyone what he did during his vacation. He's been talking my ear off ever since. If he talked a lot before he went to spend time with his cousin, he talks even more now!!

For this week's theme I have a couple of pics of Ricky when he was on vacation. The one on top has his cousin Gabby making sure he doesn't fall and the one below shows him hanging from a pole.

Photo Hunt #5 - What is that?

This one is What is that...look???

I'd like to know too, but it's very funny!! Enjoy.

similarities

Today is Wednesday, July 16th, night number 2 without my first baby. Ricky is vacationing with my sister, and my parents in Massachusetts, without his parents. He's not missing us. I talked with him for about 15 seconds this morning, as long as we could keep him on the phone. Seems like he's having fun. Mommy...not so much. I have a constant yucky feeling in the pit of my tummy. The kind you get when you're young with a boyfriend who hasn't called you in a few days or one who's broken up with you...
So I've decided to take this opportunity to write about how much alike my boys look. See pictures below: Adrien and Ricky are eating blueberries on the couch, their favorite thing to do. Adrien is laughing because his brother is laughing and everything that Ricky does is good for Adrien. Except for the age difference you can tell how alike they look, and it's not because of the red shirts.
Here's another.
Ok, so they're in their underwear, they're little, it's still ok. Again, there's not much explaining the similarities, just look at their faces.

Let me tell you though for similarities, looks are the biggest. Their personalities? Not so much.

Photo Hunt #4 - Support

This one I thought would be challenging to find a picture of the kids that I thought fit the support theme. I ended up finding a few some were a bit of a stretch, others a bit more obvious. I decided to go with this one. It's Adrien's first time enjoying the pool and daddy is supporting him in his endeavor, literally. Enjoy.

Separation anxiety

Hi, I guess this is my first real post on this.

They say children go through separation anxiety at about 9 or 10 months. Mommies have trouble the first time they leave their kids with a babysitter or their first day of childcare or the first day of school... My 4 year old did the 9 or 10 month thing.

I didn't cry the first day of childcare, no problem with the first day of school. I had trouble with the first overnight, with all the overnights. This is me to my husband "Do you think he's ok? Should we call to find out how he's doing? What if he won't go to sleep?" I have trouble with nights out, I leave them all day, do it at night too??? Just seems like such punishment even though he cries leaving the person's house when I pick him up.

Now, this weekend I'm taking my first baby, my 4 year old, all the way accross the country and leaving him there for a whole week (I'm tearing up just typing this)...And even though he'll be with his cousin, who he refers to as his "sister" and his Tia who was his childcare for almost a year, and I know he'll have so much fun and not think of me until time to go to sleep...seeing what I wrote above can you see how hard this is for me??? It's torture and I don't even know why I'm doing it...actually writing this, if I hadn't already bought the tickets that I can't return, I think I'd change my mind...

If it's so hard for me, why am I doing it, you say? A couple of reasons, first because it is so hard for me. I need to get over this separation enxiety thing, and if I practice on the kid I know will not have a hard time with it because he is attached to his tia and his cousin, then it won't be so hard to leave them both, when we decide to take a vacation without the kids, which is what my husband has dreamed of doing since Ricky was born. As for the second reason, well that's the same reason reworded because I know he'll love it and he needs a little independence, he's kind of a momma's boy.

Stay tuned for how I'm doing while he's gone.

Photo Hunt#3 - Pointed

Ok, I've spent all week thinking about this photo hunt theme and I couldn't think of any pictures of the kids that made me think of pointed and instead of doing something metaphoric, I decided to show some pointed stuff. The pictures are from France. In March, I went on a trip, with 5 teens and another leader, from my church youth group, to a place in France called Taize. We spent a day on either end in Paris as well. Taize is an ecumenical community that has people from all over the world who come together for prayer and fellowship. So let me explain the pictures.
The above two pictures are of the most known pointed item in France, the Tour Eiffel.
This one is the new fancy contraptions (Pyramids) in front of the Louvre. We got to see some of Louvre, by the way, quite an experience, and another story.

These last two are from Taize. The background is the alter of the huge chapel at Taize that seats an average of 5,000 people a week, on the floor, 3 times a day.


It's an amazing place.


So here's my pointed story about France and specially Taize, a place, I believe young adults of all ages, if given the opportunity, should experience.


Faithfully, Paula

Photo Hunt #2 - Bright

In this picture, from front to back, Ricky, Ziya, Kali, neighborboy, Heidi (partially cut off).

Ok the photo hunt theme of the week is bright, I didn't want to go obvious with brightness, I was planning on having just the perfect picture of one of the boys smiling extra brightly, so I proceded to take a whole slew of pictures of Ricky, even got a few good ones of Adrien smiling, but none of them screamed BRIGHT! So I went to find the pictures that were really bright. This one was taken at the birthday party that Adrien shared with his friend Avari. It's a picture of the older kids at the party but it was a very sunny day and any picture I tried to take of them on the water, where it wasn't shaded, came out way too bright!

This is an exercise I found in my cousin Candidkarina's blog. She did it a while ago, but it's always a fun way to be poetic. Specially for those of us that aren't very good at being poetic naturally. So this is a little bit about me. I apologize to those who don't speak Portuguese for some of the words, but you'll still enjoy it. You can still ask me what the words mean and I'll explain! Click on the title below for your own template to this cool poem.


Where I'm From:


I am from Maria Cookies, from Ovaltine and Sopas de café com leite.
I am from the built from the ground up by Dad, house in a village in Africa, sounds of dogs barking and children playing, low light throughout the house and a soft breeze through opposite doors in an open barn-like living room and kitchenette.
I am from the botanical gardens, juicy flowers, black beaches, the long grass, forget-me-nots, days of rolling down the grassy hills.
I am from opening Christmas gifts at midnight on Christmas Eve and sharing a long dinner before, from Vovos from Portugal, and tios and cousins, and Grandma and Grandpa Melo.
I am from the computer games and programming and late nights with Dad.
From nostalgic songs that replaced lullabies, and Portuguese nursery rhymes.
I am from atheism with strong moral beliefs, learning about faith through the hunger for friendship, feeling the Holy Spirit invade me and never let go, struggling to accept Jesus within my logical brain.
I'm from Luanda, Madeira, Alentejo, and moving from place to place. From Muamba, feijoada, and mom’s steak and French fries.
From the Christmas nights of daddy dressing up as Santa Claus, the stories mom told us about Angola at the dinner table, Tia singing along with Cats and Dogs Christmas tunes “Woof Woof Woof, Woof Woof Woof…”
I am from drawers full of memories left behind, file cabinets jammed with pictures, albums of Polaroid’s portraying years of summer vacations.
I am from love and Family. Paula

PhotoHunt#1: Water

PhotoHunt

I'm Starting this blogging thing with an easy thing to do, just add a picture that follows this photohunt theme. So here's mine. It's my oldest baby, REM is 4 years old, and he knows how to have a good time in the bath. I was going to post a different picture of him, but we've recently changed computer and those pictures are on a disc somewhere. Enjoy!