Last day of school and Titi's Graduation

Yesterday was Carlos and Titi's last day of school. Next August, Carlos will be in first grade and Titi in kindergarten. Carlos had a pajama party at school and he had fun. He loves wearing pajamas and he was very happy to be able to wear them to school. I went to his class and we said goodbye to his classmates and teacher. Some of the kids will be moving out of state, some to other towns and not everybody will be here next August. We made plans with his teacher to meet during the summer. We like her a lot.

Early in the evening Titi had her graduation from pre school at the local middle school's auditorium. Like last year, it was a big event. This year more children graduated and there were more people. We were not able to take good pictures since we didn't have good seats and Titi was on the second row for some of the songs but we enjoyed it a lot. The children sang lots of songs and danced very well. They sang in Hebrew, Spanish and English. We were very proud of our Titi. She kept waving at us from the stage, very cute. Mema, Grandpa and aunt Mimi came to see her too. We could not invite more people because they didn't have enough space for more guests. We had dinner and cake and got to see other families. We are going to miss this school too. Carlos and Titi will be going to Summer camp there and then will say goodbye.

Happy Birthday Titi

Today is our Titi's 5th birthday! We are so grateful for having her in our lives. She is a treasure.

She has been planning her birthday party for months. We had the party at a gym with all her classmates, cousins and Guatemalan friends. I think we had 31 kids! Mema, Grandpa and Aunt Mimi came and helped a lot. Titi had a great time (and Carlos too)! She got lots of presents and has been playing for hours. We gave her the High School Musical DVD. She has wanted to watch it for a long time and already knew all the songs. I am sure she will watch it a hundred times.

Carlos' End of School Year Party

Carlos had his party today. The teacher decided to have a water play party (that turned into a mud party) and I went to help. The kids had a wonderful time. A couple of other kindergarten classes were having parties as well and they were all envious of Carlos and his classmates. Their parties were boring compared to this one. The kids had pizza and cake and we had delicious salads.

Mrs. Christ is a wonderful teacher and we are going to miss her a lot.

Congratulations Beverly and Steven!!!!

Last night we went to cousin Beverly and Steven's wedding. It was a beautiful night, a really nice setting with pefect weather. It was great seeing everyone, specially Bev and Steven's parents. What a great thing to get married in front of all of your parents. Aunt Mary looked great!

It was held in a Middle Eastern restaurant and the food was delicious. They had a musician and even a belly dancer. We had fun.

We wish them lots of years of happiness.

Disney

We were in Orlando this past weekend. It was a lot of fun. Mema and Grandpa came with us and we were very happy because we got to spend lots of time with them. They are great and we love them a lot.

We got to see the Flower and Garden Show in Epcot and we loved it. There were flowers and topiaries everywhere. Carlos and Titi loved the butterfly pavillion and they made us stay there for a long time.

My favorite part was when grandpa and Titi sang "It's a wonderful world", together.

Sea & Air Show

Henny and family, We were thinking a lot about you last week. It is already a year since you were here! Time goes so fast! Don went to the Air & Sea Show by himself this year. The kids and I decided to stay home but we convinced Don to go and have fun. He parked the car in the same spot and says it was not as crowded as last year.

Happy Birthday Rich

Happy Birthday Rich!!! We wish you only the best. Hope you are having a wonderful day.
(Hi Marty!)

A day at the beach

Yesterday morning we went to Deerfield Beach. We met Nico, Carlos and Titi's friend from Guatemala, and his mom, Lolly. We had a great time. It was windy and it was not too hot so we were able to sit there for a long time. The kids played in the water most of the time.

Russian Cabbage Soup

Yesterday afternoon the kids and I cut the cabbage that we had been growing and I cooked Russian cabbage soup for dinner. I found the recipe in allrecipes.com. I think it was very good, we usually don't eat cabbage but I really liked it this way. Don liked it too. The kids would not touch it, of course.

Happy Birthday Don and Larry!!!!!

Today is Don and Larry's 48th birthday!!! I hope they are having a good day at work.

We had some coffee, milk, and cookies for Don in the morning and we will celebrate more tonight.

Today is also Lolly's 50th birthday! Happy Birthday Lolly!!

Don and Larry's Birthday Party

We celebrated Don and Larry's birthday this past Saturday. It was a great party, a lot of people came and I think everybody had a good time. There was even a guitar player. He was great and sang lots of good songs. Don and Larry sang with him and they did a good job. We had Italian food and everybody brought food and drinks. There was lots of beer!

Parties, parties, and more parties

Another weekend with lots of parties. We went to the party of one of Carlos' classmates, Friday after school. It was a pool party and Titi was invited too. They had a lot of fun. We spent most of Saturday getting ready for Don and Larry's birthday party at our house (I will write more about that in a separate post) and then had a lot of people over. Carlos and Titi went to bed at 11:30! We had 2 more kids birthday parties on Sunday but by the time we had to leave for the second one Carlos started saying he didn't want to go. He said "too many parties!, too much cake!" He really looked miserable and didn't want to go but since we had told his classmate we were coming I convinced Carlos we had to go to drop the present and leave. He didn't want to do it but we went anyway. This is the last time I RSVP for more than one party a week. The kids really get tired of going to so many parties. They love being home and don't feel the need to go out at all during the weekends. I love being home too. Don, on the other hand, loves being outside, he could go to 10 parties and not get tired :-)

Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter everyone! We had a great Easter. Carlos and Titi got up early to see if the Easter Bunny had come. They were happy with their baskets and they started eating candy way too early in the day. Later in the morning they had an egg hunt with the girls that live next door. They had fun.

We spent Easter Day with Mimi, Luke, Mario and the rest of the Morales family. Keri, Larry, Laura, Allie and Jennie came too. We had great food and like always, we had fun. The kids got Easter baskets from Mimi and Luke and Keri, Larry, Laura and Allie. They also had another egg hunt. Now they have so much candy!! We loved seeing baby Mario, he is so cute. He was wearing a tie!

Passover

We had the Passover Seder at our house yesterday night. It was the first time we had it so we had to learn a lot.

Carlos and Titi were very excited and they helped set the table and cut the apples to made the charoset. Mema then helped them set the Seder plates. Grandpa opened the wine and served it. They also brought cakes and cookies. Keri made brisket, chicken and her famous macaroons and I made matzo ball soup and vegetables. I think that Don did a wonderful job leading the reading of the Haggadah and Laura and Allie did great reading some of it. Larry was the Seder organizer and he carved the meat for us. It was a group effort. We were very happy to have uncle Izzie and aunt Mary too.

We surely missed Janie, Steven, Hailey and Andie. We are now more grateful to them for having the Seder every year at their house. It is a lot of work! We also missed Rich and Marty. We hope they will come next year.

Happy Birthday Mema!!!

Today is Mema's birthday! Happy Birthday Mema!! We love you!!! We hope you are having a wonderful day. We will celebrate it on Wednesday :-)

Seder at Titi's school

Titi's school had their Seder today. This is her last year at that school so it was kind of sad for me. She loves her school, teachers and classmates. After dinner, she found the Afikomen and was very proud of herself. (I was proud and happy for her too!)

Mud

Talking about mud. Titi loves playing in the mud and Carlos loves making it for her. They always pretend they are going to play in the swingset in the back yard and then I find them playing with the hose.

Concrete workshop

I had a great time yesterday. One friend from WebGarden wanted to learn how to make hypertufa planters and garden ornaments and I told her I would be interested as well. She was able to organize a workshop taught by another member, in Homestead, 1 hour 30 minutes away from our house, and I was able to attend. Don stayed with the kids all day so that was very nice.

We learned how to make concrete castings and it was a lot of fun. The teacher, Amanda, and the other women were hilarious and we were laughing the whole time. Amanda was wonderful, and she took us for a nature walk (where we stole cherry tomatoes from an abandoned garden and seeds and cuttings from everywhere), she picked a great place to have lunch and even gave us a completion certificate, saying we were now qualified to play in the mud.

A useless fact

Don knows somebody that sends him emails and jokes all the time. They are always white jokes so sometimes Don forwards them to me but he says that I don't read most of the things he forwards me.

This person emailed Don the following and to prove to Don that I read them I am going to post it here :-)


"On Wednesday , at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.

That won't ever happen again.

You may now return to your normal stuff".

A busy day!

We got invited to a luncheon organized in honor of Susana Luarca, a Guatemalan lawyer, and some Guatemalan Congressmen who were in South Florida. They have been visiting different parts of the USA to talk to adoptive families and to see some of the children that have been adopted from their country. Mrs. Luarca has been fighting for years to keep Guatemalan adoptions open and I had read many of her posts and has always been impressed by her dedication and enthusiasm. It was a pleasure to finally meet her.

Mrs. Luarca talked about the importance of keeping adoptions open and the uphill battle they face in their country due to the false information Unicef and other international organizations spread about international adoptions. We also heard one Congressman talk and I could see I was not the only one moved by his words. It was great to have the opportunity to talk to the other members of the delegation and to thank them for giving us the opportunity to parent Guatemalan children and to ask them to keep fighting to keep adoptions open.

We met other families with children from Guatemala. Most of the children were toddlers, Carlos was the oldest! He immediately became friends with the son of one of the lawyers and Titi played with the babies. They had fun.

We also went to a birthday party but Carlos and Titi were exhausted and wanted to go home early.