Adios Escuela

Sad news, preschool is done for the year. Joaquin had a great year. He absolutely loved his teachers Ms. Debbie and Ms. Patty. You can see him posing with them. He also learned so much! He went from a squirrely kid to a squirrely kid who likes crafts and doing matching worksheets. He also got a chance to do some cool science experiments like finding out pumpkins float! Honestly he had such a great time. He would go to school, they would read a book about something and he would come home so excited. We would have to do some more research on the topic and learn even more so we could tell his teachers all the new stuff. They had a beautiful scrapbook they made for each of the kids with some really entertaining photos. And then they gave us a book in honor of all of the reading logs we turned in. 30 reading logs over the course of the school year. At 10 books a log that's at least 300 different books that we read. (Not counting all the repeats of favorites.) Woo-hoo! I hope next year will be just as fun. The only downside is now I'm stuck for a whole summer with a little boy who's used to a lot of stimulation both intellectually and entertainmently. He's already bored to tears. Oh Kid's Express we miss you.

El Dia de las Madres

I had the best Mother's day! Joaquin was very cute about the whole thing, having been prepared by his teachers at school. He made me a little plastic cross that he painted with 'special' paint and a beautiful card that I received on our special luncheon. He explained to me very seriously how the paper arms on the card were him hugging me. They also had a very funny page of questions they asked Joaquin about me. Apparently I'm 18 years old and my favorite things to do are laundry and take care of Jamie. The best was, Joaquin knows I love him cause I'm always hugging him. It was great. Then he convinced Daddy to buy me flowers for Mother's Day. Isn't he amazing? Then we had a nice meal with family that I didn't have to cook. My boys are great. In other news, we have a new truck! And Joaquin (despite the face he's making due to the sun) is super excited. It's great, compact, long bed, and with room to put both car seats in the back. Brought to us by the lovely Tia Lina. She works for chocolate. :)

Conceda Ceremonia de Cachorros, 2010

My little Cubbie finished his first book. One year of Cubbies down, one to go. And honestly he really did a great job of remembering verses. In fact he would get confused when I asked him to finish a verse I started because so many of them started the same way and he remembered them all. The Cubbies were all very cute, they're a huge club this year because Joaquin's year at church is the year of 10 babies and they're all involved. Honestly I think the Cubbie workers go home exhausted! They started the award ceremony with the little guys (always a good choice) and then had the Cubbies sing their theme song. They didn't warn them ahead of time that they'd be singing which sounds like a bad idea, but I think was a good one. Joaquin for one can totally psych himself out of things very easily. He was actually quite cute and one of the few Cubbies that did some of the motions. Here he is accepting his certificate for finishing his book and saying his review verses. They also got a little bag with some goodies (a little plastic airplane to put together and Cubbie Bear finger puppet) and a balloon. These helped us get through some of the rest of the ceremony, there were lots of older kids getting awards. Here's Aunty Boo-boo getting a kiss while trying to entertain (and keep quiet) Joaquin. When he couldn't sit still any longer and Jamie started getting tired, we went out into the courtyard to run some wiggles out and let Grandpa take pictures of Joaquin in his uniform. A balloon and a large space to run in are Joaquin's idea of super fun so cute posed pictures were out of the

question. My dad and I contented ourselves with candids of Joaquin's crazy antics. Of course once he noticed he was being photographed he wanted to stop an see the pictures. He won't pose for a photo, but he's attached to his image nonetheless. Sadly Joaquin's balloon flew up into the tree outside the garage on our way into the house and popped. Joaquin was very disappointed but was a big boy about it, telling me that he was sad but it was okay. He even reminded me of the time in Florida when his balloon flew away. (Can't believe he remembers that) He kept asking me, "Why did I let go?" Don't know kid, don't know. I can't believe he's so grown-up.

Pascua 2011

Yeah for Easter, my favorite holiday. Per usual, we dyed eggs. Although really we decorated for Easter a lot this year, and Joaquin spent many of Jamie's visits with her Dad wandering around CostPlus World market enjoying their decorations. So by the time we came to actually dying eggs we already had at least 2 dozen of them lying around the house. Still Joaquin was excited about the whole process nonetheless. Which is good since we need to have an excited little guy to give us all an excuse to have fun. This year's special eggs were two tone. We dipped one side in a color and then the other side in another. I even made a beautiful pastel-y purple by dying an egg blue and then red. Yeah for the only time of year we eat hard-boiled eggs. And since we made two dozen of them plus two

dozen plastic eggs filled with candies we were well equipped for the egg hunt. I don't have any pictures of his actual Easter outfit even though he was super cute. I ended up singing three services and then we had to prepare for Easter dinner at our house! So his cuteness slipped by without any marking. But I did put him in his new purple polo for the egg hunt at our friend's house. Purple is a total Easter color. It was great to have the hunt at Jane's house. Finally a year were Joaquin had some competition. Which was good because both he and Jane had turned some kind of corner this year and they were amazing at finding eggs. Although that's kind of a relief because there were an incredible amount of eggs. We had to convince Joaquin to slow down so Jane's little brother could find some. He actually got upset about it which was ridiculously ironic since he ended up with baskets full anyway. After eggs we made it a progressive Easter and trotted over to our house for dinner. Joaquin and Jane had a lot more fun than this picture shows, seriously. We wanted to eat outside in our beautiful yard but the weather turned icky so we all piled into our house. This required moving our coffee table to the garage and borrowing a card table from the neighbors, but we managed it. It was a great time. Hallelujah, he is risen!

El Hibiscus

The weather has been ridiculously cold lately, but we did have some warm weather in April. And during that brief moment, we did some yard maintenance. Joaquin helped Daddy move the hibiscus plant by squeezing into the gap between it and the wall and pushing the strap to Daddy. Sometimes being small has advantages He also had a great time digging the new hole while Daniel had to work at getting the hibiscus out of it's old hole. It was actually one of the first times that Joaquin has been allowed on the plant ledge for a significant period of time. Daniel was very amusing to watch as he would dig for a second, panic and turn to make sure Joaquin wasn't too close to the edge. He really did great and listened really well to Daniel's slight paranoid. But not even dirt to plan in can keep a boy's attention for too long, especially when it's getting hot. So of course when he got down, this is what happened. Really, how did people entertain children before running water? Maybe that's why they all wanted to live near streams. Nothing is more fun than a hose. Especially when you have the excuse of 'watering' the transplated hibiscus (it's nowhere near where he's watering in these pictures.) Makes me yearn for spring.

Biscochita

There's no doubt that my dog is a little unusual. She's definitely neurotic and very clingy. Having said that, Joaquin appears to be a little traditional. He had a ton of fun the other day pushing Jamie around so apparently he decided it would be fun to do the same to Chita. The twist is she didn't mind. I guess she thinks she should always be ferried around. Especially since Joaquin put down his soft blankets first. She

likes to sit on the softest cushion on the couch or bed so it's not a stretch for her to be carried around on a cloud of softness. What a princess.