Chinese New Year

In honor of my brother who was born the Year of the Rat*, we enjoyed a little festival at our local library. We loved the performances. I totally am excited now for the 2008 Olympics. We watched these kids from ages 6-15 do a Lion Dance,

Chinese wu-shu, and, a Chinese yo-yo demonstration. These amazing children started with a string between two sticks. Then they put a strange contraption resembling two heads of a toilet plunger put together onto that string and started flinging it around. Check out this video for a better idea.
Mia and Tiago got a chance to try doing the yo-yo stuff and did pretty well for first timers.

As you can see, it was a lot of good times and all for free!


*(may be that's why I fought so much with my brother as children since I'm a monkey and supposedly those two don't mix. This statement should clear me of any misdeeds that I have failed to repent of in regards to my relationship with my brother)

Valentine Fun

The day started off cutesy with heart/ I love you pancakes with raspberries. Tiago even got a few banana slices. Then it went down hill from there. I was fine, but it was "boring" for the kids. Mia even told me so. We tried to make it special at night with a little Italian takeout. Unfortunately, the food wasn't a hit. The icing on the unmade sugar cookies (well at least my idomatic phrase can be valentine's appropriate) was the very perfect note that Fernando left for me on my pillow and my nothing I gave him in return. I had big hopes for this year, but didn't take the time or effort to do anything about that desire. Good thing I have another slew of holidays coming up in March and many a birthday's in April to work out this regret.

Jenga=Dangerous

Every night of the week in our house has a theme.* It started with the easy FHE on Monday and movie night on Friday, but has since evolved into many nights (ok 7 to be exact) of family together fun. Saturday night is game night. Each week brings a chance to try our hands and minds at a new game. We even have tried playing RISK with the kids. Fernando and Tiago against Mia and me. We passed on world domination and played the more succinct "Mission" version. I actually prefer it to the world domination since it's more suspenseful that way. This last Saturday we introduced Jenga. Some of you might remember the game. It's quite simple. Stack the blocks up and pull out one at a time until it falls. Fernando kept the interest high when he made one simple comment while I was taking my turn. . ."Dangerous". That sealed the deal. Each turn brought more dangerous moves. Everyone had their own technique. Fernando and Mia took the careful poking to find the loose block. I tried to see which block would bring a downfall upon the next person's move. Tiago did this bait and switch type grab that never failed. Enjoy the little clip.


*For those who wanted to know:
Sunday=Service, Monday=FHE, Tuesday=Tickle/Toy Night, Wednesday=Learn a Hymn (picked by Parents)and sing favorite church songs, Thursday=Book Night (we are currently reading Stuart Little), Friday=Movie Night (picked by the kids), Saturday=Game Night

Covert Operations

Tiago showing me how mad the gorilla was.


Fernando came home earlier than expected today with many bags full of sugary delight, but more about that later. He shocked us even more when he claimed that the temperature outside was park worthy. We threw on some fleeces and went out the door. I brought the camera to catch any action since I really wasn't up to running around. The kids putzed around the park while I waddled behind encouraging more activity then I was displaying while Fernando studied in the car. When I was about ready to load everyone in the car, Fernando saved the day. With his usual high energy, he was scaling playground sets and flinging down twisty slides. The kids were squealing and running after him. After a few games of tag and hide and go seek, Fernando took them adventuring into the woodland near the park. I caught up with them planing to sneak up on some set of logs. Tiago had the left flank to man and Mia was to surprise attack from above. Dad's are the best!

May Be Not

So as an addendum to the previous post, I did try the vacuum trick and it was very successful. It didn't produce the earring, but it did eliminate any sorrow for losing it. You see the vacuum technique probably works best when done as soon as the item rolls down the sink. I attempted the retrieval several hours after said incident occurred. The vacuum was able to pull up lots and lots of various colored and smelly gunk that was caked all over my sink pipes. This in turn (surprisingly several turns) made me think. . ."once I do get the earring, is there any amount of sterilization that would help me comfortably put that earring back into my daughters ear?" and "how can I explain to my daughter why her ear had to be amputated after I insisted on putting a bacteria ridden piece of jewelery in her flesh?" The vacuuming stopped and I ran the water in that sink just for future protection of my own body. I could just see me thinking how easily I could get it out if I would just open the pipes. So I bid a happy farewell to the earring. I have a theory though. I think that the water flushing through the pipes still didn't dislodge that earring. I think the gunk has claimed its next victim and gratefully it wasn't my face while removing the pipes.

So, it's not what I would have choosen. . .

Today a real tragedy. While I was busily cleaning Mia's earring holes in her earring-less ear, I heard "Uh-oh" followed by a unmistakable clinking of metal on porcelain. Well if I was a better writer, you would realize that Mia's less then a year old earring fell down the bathroom sink. I gave a little speech about that is what happens when we aren't being careful which really was for me in two ways. First, I was the one who gave the earring to her to look at knowing full well that it is so easy to drop and secondly, Mia was already giving me the speech about how it was ok we could just get it out. Luckily, I have this hidden part of myself that feels like I can figure out any problem whether I have experience or not with it. Ok, it is only lucky sometimes and more often then not it causes bigger problems in the end. For example, I was finally sick of looking at all the ghetto bug screens in all my windows and did a little refinishing of the screens. The screens look great, but I was being sloppy on my last window and didn't lock it in place all the way. This was done despite that whispering notion to do otherwise. One gust of wind later and I spent the next hour carefully chipping out the broken glass from the window frame. Back to the earing. . .I immediately jimmy rigged this flashlight with tweezer set up which got Tiago enthralled. He was already holding a mechanical screwdriver and was looking for action. I wiggled and pried to remove that sink stopper thing and stared down the disgusting abyss called pipes. I know that it is still lodged in there, but I just didn't like the idea of gooping my sink or self for that matter with the primordial gunk residing down there. I locked the doors to the bathroom in hopes of preventing anyone from running the water and ran to walmart to buy some replacement earrings. I was already having a hard time swallowing the fact that we lost some cute historically important expensive earrings, but having to pay to re-pierce them was really unbearable. The poor lady at the walmart jewelery counter got more then an earful of my plight and pointed me in the inexpensive, but non-irritating section of little kid earrings. I did my best to highlight all the options that I thought would be tasteful when Mia saw them. . .jumping dolphin earrings shining of gold wonderment. I swallowed my pride (not that there is anything wrong with gold dolphin earrings) and bought them.


I still can't pass on trying to retrieve that lost earing. Luckily I found this on the internet and it looks like a good first try before we bust out any wrenches. Check it out. It will be mine.

Pine Wood Derby

Friday night has become movie night in our house. It's the one time a week that the kids get to watch a movie. This particular Friday we got the inside tip to head to the church for a little pine wood derby action. Mia felt a little jilted by having to postpone the movie until we opened the doors to the gym. The scouts had transformed the gym into a magical raceway. The deal was sealed for Mia when the treat table came into view. I was strangely excited to be there myself. It happened to be my very first derby and all the hype I have heard about derbies made it more thrilling than it should be. I was surprised that no one had named their cars. I tried to help come up with a few names, but everyone seemed more into speed then names. For Tiago, it was all about the cars and speed. Plus there were three cars designed like Lightening McQueen.