Olympic Influence

Talia and Fernando watching the games together
Though the Olympics are gone, our family has noticed several residual influences. Our DVR allowed us to record and fast forward hours of events in order to capture the unique and entertaining. Some favorites are: Race Walking with its swaying hips and incredible heal toe action, Rhythmic Gymnastics showing us all that hula hoops and ropes can be graceful appendages, Synchronized Swimming ok actually synchronized anything to name a few. Martin Short clip is funny but the "I know You" part doesn't compare to the flips and lights coming from the real deal.

Some fun family moments:

To feel more apart of the host country, we went to Panda Express. Nothing says China like Americanized gooey "Chinese Food".

We held our own mini Rhythmic Gymnastics with a children's lawnmower and inflatable sprinkler ball. You can judge for yourself the quality of performance. (Tiago is singing Life is a Highway from Disney's the Car Movie and Mia is making up something fun like she often does.)

Caverns

With an ad boasting temperatures of 68 degrees year round family fun minutes from San Antonio, one wonders why we took so long to get to the Caverns. The ad was misleading in several ways. The temperature was 68 but living caves are loaded with water and its natural offspring of humidity. No bother, it still was refreshing to be out of the sun and active.
Family fun? Well, Fernando and I really enjoyed learning about the intricacies of living caves like the fact that constant dripping water helps the cave to grow with minerals and such. Or the water in the cave is fairly clean dripping from the rocks and well all took a risky sip. The kids on the other hand were bored and were confused why we drove and waited almost an hour for our tour of a cave. Talia was equally unimpressed and slept most of the time.

I only now realize the frustration of my parents when they dragged us off to some "exciting" place and we didn't even try to enjoy it. I guess frustration isn't the word. The feeling is one of "next time we'll just pull out the hose and run around the backyard for good, cheap fun". I also want to point out that our new high school graduate tour guide was sporting the latest fashion and was apparent every time she bent over which felt excessive. Whomever decided that thongs should be visible any other place besides one's feet was mistaken. Even the one young and single guy turning away in disgust.
Complaints aside, I am glad we went. This earth is too amazing to miss. Besides, how often can you see a waterfall underground?

Not Slippery When Wet

A few days ago, I made a ridiculously long trip up to the San Marcos outlets in hopes of buying some school clothes for Mia. Unfortunately, most of our options were spasmodic tie dye wonders and too short of shorts. I wasn't about to let the funky trends ruin my trip. We stopped in at toy store and purchased some exciting water toys: A large beach ball that shoots water from three separate holes and the classic Slip and Slide. We managed to waste several hours perusing other stores and eventually made it home. Side note. Fernando usually comes home around dinner time everyday. The outlet day he some how was magically off at 2 pm. Bummer. I did have my cell phone, but I don't think it has been charged in weeks. End of note.

We have had many opportunities to utilize the ball of wonder including in some spontaneous "Olympic Events" (to be posted later). Today though, we pulled out all the stops and the slip n' slide for some crazy fun. Determining the front yard to have the greater slope, we busted out the slide to find no instructions, and only 4 of the necessary 8 pegs. I say necessary, but without the instructions, how could one really be sure. At this point, there was no turning back. While setting it up, I got a strong whiff of poop. I took some investigative looks and sniffs to discover cat droppings very near our site of slipping (and on my big toe. . .I am somewhat to blame since I didn't have my contacts in). I attempted complete removal using a jimmy rigged, short noticed, my kids need to get on the slide pronto technique. Didn't work. I hosed it off as best I could and tried to think open thoughts.

Time to slide or so you would think. The water was spraying everywhere but the slide and even I couldn't muster enough speed to get a good slide (yes, I did try a few slips which wasn't a modest idea with my white BYU shirt!) Did that stop anyone?

One Small Step For Each Tovar, One Giant Step for Our Family

It seems like everyone is experiencing little change in our family. Fernando is using screws not only to wire his first surround sound, but in operations on people who strangely could use a few screws here and there. He even has been watching TV. Mind you it is the Olympics and Phelps is incredible to watch, but still Fernando has never been a TV watcher.

Mia, well her life is about ready to go topsy turvy with school starting in a few weeks. She'll be sporting a new hairdo. She has been growing it out in hopes to have in touch her knees. This self proclaimed goal wasn't championed by her mother. In fact the near daily struggles to get her to brush her hair made cutting it even more desirable. Lucky for all, Mia really loved my hair cut (and color. . .wait a few more years little girl) and liked the idea I had been planting in her head for months now to donate her hair to those who no longer had any. Locks of love will be receiving some beautiful hair. She has made a funny comment her hair.
"Mommy, I cant swish my hair anymore. See, it's short here in the back and gets taller in the front." She tried swishing like she had before with her pony tails, but alas. . .no more swing. I confess that although I loved her hair, I'm digging the ease of this new do. We've decided she can grow and donate all she wants.


Tiago has found the real use for his pull ups. We won't go into much detail there, but oh what a good challenge this has proved to be. He has everything down, but just won't self initiate the process. My favorite is hearing him sing "Life is a Highway" as he washes his hands. I want to make sure the soap gets rubbed on long enough to wash away any potential bugs.


Talia is crossing off developmental markers all over the place. Not only has she quite the dexterity with her hands, she has found her toes, her tummy, and a beautiful set of sounds. It's funny when she rolls over. It is almost like her body forces her to do so and then she protests via shrieks. She will often roll over in her sleep and wake up with a sense of betrayal. Other times she loves the new perspective.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

One of my favorite church videos is "Out of the Mouth of Babes". Nothing too different from any primary teachers' comment portions of their lessons on Sunday (which I will observe more frequently now with my calling as Primary Pianist). Aside from the silly comments, there are several precious testimonies shared. This morning we had our very own movie moment. Mia and Tiago were finishing breakfast while I was doing the dishes. I began singing a primary song I learned on Sunday about Christ's baptism. Mia and Tiago then began talking about when they will be baptized and the Sacrament. Tiago told me about how the bread represents His body. I gave the affirmation he was looking for and then he added "Jesus loves me. He wants to give me hugs and kisses. Jesus want to play with me." I often think about how much our Heavenly Father misses His precious children and how much our Savior thinks about all those He suffered for. As an imperfect mother, I know how much I long for my children. I am sure that Heavenly Father appreciates all the tender touches and expressions of love we share with one another. His vicarious way to be apart of our physical lives. The reality of His love is so apparent in the loving interactions I witness from my children.

Stream of Thought/Not caught be spell check

I sometimes go back and read old posts of mine as well as the comments Every time I do, I notice several typographical errors, run-on and incomplete sentences, and even a couple of sentences that I have to read over and over again to figure out exactly what I meant. You see, blogging comes during rushed moments when I know I should be doing something else. Thanks for reading and muddling through the incoherency. And yet, I will probably have many a more instances when this problem will occur. Just to let you know.

That's gonna leave a mark

Why is it that during the most inopportune time, disaster strikes? Picture it. . .me home alone with three kids and Fernando is on call. This is a very common scenario so let's spice it up some. Add into the mix two neighbor friends whose mom is doing her RS Presidency duties. These kids are good kids, but I wasn't ready for the influx of energy. Some how in the short hour or so time I was babysitting, Tiago supermanned himself from the couch to the end table (must be made of kryptonite seeing as how is gashed right into his eyebrows). I was unable to witness this since I was assisting a naked friend into the bathroom. I had a surround sound of screams. The little neighbor shocked to see Tiago's bloody brow, Mia concerned that they were showing their sacred body, and Talia, getting bad vibes from the whole situation, added her own unique yelps. Strangely, my biggest concern was that he would have to have stiches and that would equal a painfully long visit to the ER.

To hopefully avoid this predicament, I phoned another neighbor who is a Doctor and he came right on over. One of the many bonuses of living in our neighborhood is that every other house has a doctor of one kind or another. Diagnosis: call Fernando so he can sneak out of the hospital with some Dermabond and be done with it. He kindly paged Fernando who contacted us. Just then the other mom came home. Poor her. I had to explain how her child had a little potty accident and that we had to leave due to Tiago's accident. I could only imagine what my face looked like as I was trying to remain calm and collected.

Just as the doctor ordered, Fernando bonded our kid's head there by getting a magical chance to see daddy and avoiding the ER at nighttime. The next day, Fernando had hopes of stitching it up, but the Dermabond wouldn't budge.