MARCELO TURNS FIVE!!

This little guy is FIVE?!?! Oh he makes me want to pull my hair out laugh every day!  He is pushing my buttons testing limits and I have to use every ounce of self control to NOT get into an arguing match with him making me a better parent.  Five is a fun age!  My patience is drained at the end of each day.  There! I said it!  Parenting a five year old [along with a 6 and 2 yo] is HARD!  That being said, I love my little family, and wouldn't change a thing!

I don't want you to have to read between the lines. You are a TOUGH COOKIE MARCELO!  But man oh man you are soooooooooooooooo cute.  You are super sweet too.

"Mami, I have to tell you a secret. [I lean in] You're beautiful!"

Although you try to use this compliment thinking it will erase any misbehavior, you also randomly say it and I just LOVE it so much!  On the other hand, sometimes you tell me "Im never telling you 'you're beautiful' ever again!"  LOL
Luckily, by the end of the day, I am always back to beautiful.

 
We were in San Diego last year for his birthday and threw together a beach party...which was AWESOME!

Again, we are in San Diego, but this year, we wanted to try something different.
We did repeat presents though. You loved your VANS, so we got you another pair...

You also got your first REAL tool set.  You love fiddling with papa's tools and have misplaced a few too many, so we thought this would be a great gift.  I can't wait to see what you will fix/build with it.

The real treat was surprising you when we pulled into Aquatica, Seaworld's waterpark.  Screams of excitement filled the car once they saw the huge water slides, and we knew we had made a good choice.

The ENORMOUS wave pool was a big hit as well, and also our home base. The park isn't that big, so hitting a few slides and then popping back to the wave pool was super easy.  We pretty much stayed together all day.

All 13 of us (only missing a couple cousins) had a blast and it was pure joy to see my little birthday boy so happy.  He sure loves a thrill ride, that is for sure.

He also love TAKIS [spicy rolled chips] which is why I added 5 of them to his birthday cake. LOL

He got a kick out of that. Something about San Diego and TAKIS go hand in hand.  Probably because their cousins introduced them last year, but we are going to keep them as "the San Diego Treat" (sung like the commercial).

The kids were ready for bed early that night.  In fact, Mateo was sleeping during the cake eating/birthday singing (despite Ernesto trying to wake him).

Happy birthday my little Celli-cell. I hope you had a great day.  We love you so much!!!

Summer is Here + DISNEY!

Well, school is out and we have been SWIMMING!!!

Marcelo had private lessons through SWAP, (which I highly recommend) and after 4 sessions he is floating on his back, swimming to the sides of the pool and going under water easily.  I think by the end of the Summer he will be "swim safe".

For Father's Day the San Diego Padres were in town playing the Braves.  This was a no-brainer way to celebrate. 

 I had not been to the new stadium, and boy was it awesome.  So many restaurants and cool places to hang out.  But of course we just parked ourselves on the cement. haha!

 By far the BEST thing that has happened so far this Summer is our family trip to Disney World.
My parents gifted this trip to us and my brothers family for Christmas last year and we were super excited to experience see what all the hype was about!?!?!

Bill and his family drove to our house and stayed couple nights to break up the drive.

 These little girls got along great!

Marshmallows were anticipated all day, but even after all that sugar they slept like babies.

 Look how Marcelo's leg is on top of poor Luke. LOL

 The next morning we journeyed the 7 hour drive to Orlando.

 UGH!  Papiiiiiiii, why are you buying this crap at a rest stop???  I packed fruit and such.  Guys, if you didn't know this, I have FOUR kids.

We met our parents, who were already in Florida visiting friends.  

There was a little "movie theatre" in the lobby of our hotel ALL STAR MOVIES! Our rooms weren't ready so the kids (mostly mine-ha!) ran around in the lobby and also caught some of the movie playing.

Yes, my son is biting his toe nails.  Eleanor noticed and picture-ass Barbie captured it.  That picture cracks me up, but not as much as this one...

 Her face says it all right?  I interpret it as  "Mom!!  Do you see what Mateo is doing?? GROSS!"

Needless to say, everyone was excited to put on the wristbands and get to partying! 

We hung out all afternoon at the pool.

Grandma put together little bags for all of the kids.
They each got jammies and Disney stuffed animal and some other little goodies.

I think the most special thing though was the "fanny packs" that she SEWED for the bigger kids.  So Cute!! AND functional!

This was a great time to present them with the beautiful thank you card that the kids worked on.

The next morning, bright and early, we were in the line for the shuttle to Hollywood Studios.
My mom did a lot of [Disney] blog reading before the trip and presented us with many tips she had read.  One of which was that everyone in your party wears the same color shirt.  I'll admit, at first I wasn't too excited about my mom's color choices. haha!  But boy did she nail it!
NOBODY WAS GETTING LOST ON ORANGE DAY!

It really worked.  You could pretty much scan an area and the orange shirts just popped out.  Ok mine wasn't a true orange, but it worked well enough.  Also not many people even wore bright colors at Disney, (accept other school/youth groups who color matched like us) See? Can you spot my mom?


On a related clothing note, of the 3 days were were in Disney parks, I saw one girl in a cute dress/outfit.  ONE.  Yes, everyone else was looking sweaty as hell in their t-shirts and shorts.  Including myself.
Yellow was the color for day two, and although not quite as "look-at-me" as the orange, it did the trick.

My normal Summer attire is a dress and I was going to be cute...Until the time rolled around and I realized, I don't have an orange, yellow or green dress. Haha
That's ok, the kids did all the looking cute.

I mean look at this YELLOW... cute enough that even aunt Jenny would say so.

We broke up day two in Magic Kingdom and went back to the hotel for a few hours after the 3pm parade extravaganza.

This was me walking back to the shuttle bus.

Yes, Marcelo is really sleeping with his head back like that. All three were OUT!

Day three was Animal Kingdom and maybe my favorite park (although I think Space Mountain was my favorite ride). It was also GREEN  shirt day!

Well, everything you hear is true.  It's a magical place.  The rides are fun, the workers go over the top to make sure you are happy, and the DISNEY APP makes getting around a breeze.

I am working on a video because between my camera and picture-ass Barbie's, we have sooooo many good ones to share.

Thanks again to my mom and dad for arranging this trip for all of us!  We had such a great time and these memories will last forever!

The boys are in British soccer camp this week and then we are off to San Diego! This Summer is going to be jam-packed of excitement.  Just how we like it!!