2023-so far!

As always, life seems like such a blur looking back on these pictures! It's been a fun Florida winter. It's been a pretty warm one so it was fun to take a cold-weather getaway in February...more on that later!

Ricardo took a New Year's trip to Costa Rica with his brother for a few days. It was fun times back at home with 3/4 kids with ear infections 😭. But such is life sometimes- we survived and I'm glad they had a great trip! 

Ana turned 1 in January! She is our babiest baby and is the slowest to walk and talk and is content to be carried around a lot of the time! 2 months later and she's finally taking some steps but she's still happy to crawl most of the time. She is still the sweetest little thing and it's been fun to have a baby not soo eager to grow up!

She did not love eating her funfetti birthday cake but she loved Thomas' chocolate birthday cake a few weeks later, so she clearly has good taste.

Not a fan of the birthday hat:

Loves the robot vacuum though! She is always trying to play with it.

Thomas turned 7 a few weeks later! He is still Russell's BFF, world's biggest reptile lover, and the most cuddly little boy. He was looking forward to his birthday for the longest time and enjoyed every second of it.

Russell is the king of cardboard and made Thomas a frog for his birthday.

January babies!

Thomas had a fun birthday party with lots of friends!

Bounce house birthday parties are the best/easiest entertainment for these kids. Even Ana tried it out this time.

Thomas got rollerblades for his birthday and Caroline loves practicing while he's at school.

Some nice friends got us monarch caterpillars and we've had fun watching them turn into butterflies!

Grandpa came to visit one weekend and the kids had fun hanging out with him.

Had to try out the new custard place with Grandpa the sweets man. 

We took a trip to Utah at the beginning of February. Due to snowy weather in Texas we almost didn't make it there and had the longest travel day ever with 3 stops and lots of delays. Ana was great considering the circumstances and her tricky flying age. 

We came to see their newest cousin and they had so much fun meeting her! We also got to see my grandma and go to her belated birthday party. She is so sweet and we love her. I failed to take any pictures of the party though-oops!

We were also able to take the older 3 kids skiing since my mom was in town and watched Ana for us. They all did so well and it was a blast!

Caroline especially did so well, it was so fun to watch her.

We also went tubing with my dad and nephew one day and had so much fun doing that too!

Russell loves snow more than almost anyone and was in heaven the whole time.

Caroline and I went to the Utah gymnastics meet one night with some of my family and it was really fun! 

We got to see a few old friends on the trip which is always the best. Our dental school friends have horses and they hooked up the horses to tubes and pulled the kids around in the snow. It was so funny. The kids had such a great time playing together.

Thomas making friends with babies wherever he goes.

Baby blessing!

It was snowing after church!

Until next time Utah!

We've been working hard on our garden this year and have expanded it quite a bit, especially thanks to Ricardo's hard work building so many garden boxes and clearing trees, and rearranging the yard. He's a regular at Lowe's and they know him well.

1st crops of the season!

Planting lots of pineapple tops to grow our own pineapples: 

Valentine's day was fun and low-key. Ricardo and I made fondue like usual and the kids added to their never-ending candy collection, which drives their dentist dad crazy. 

Caroline wanted a unicorn box, Russell helped her finish it.

Other random snapshots of life:

This photo from a few months ago reminded me that Caroline took off her training wheels this week. She just said "I think I'll take these off today" and is riding like a champ. So different from teaching her brothers. :)

She loves tomatoes!

Ana was on a kick of crawling over to this toy and climbing up and putting herself in there. I'm pretty impressed she had the balance to be able to do it.

Another favored place to play:

Current obsession is Avengers. One Saturday when Ricardo and I were gone and Ricardo's mom was watching our kids Russell spent the entire day in the garage working on this. He is a unique child and impresses me every day. 

Sunday version:

New library book days are the best.

Will smile for food:

Caroline had her tonsils and adenoids out +ear tubes a few weeks ago. She did so well and we're excited for her to be able to sleep easier and to have less sickness. It's been a rough year for her. The recovery really wasn't too bad except she really didn't sleep well the first week or so. Otherwise, she was fine during the day and I was so impressed. Here she is on post-op day #2:

Her cute school class mailed her some get-well-soon cards.

We had a Mad Hatter-themed church party and my friend made this unbelievable cake. I wanted to save the photo because I'm just so impressed. She even made edible playing cards!!

Lucky me, Ricardo found a little snake in one of our trees and gifted it to Thomas. It lives in a cage on our back porch and he adores it. I hate snakes and would never in a million years have said I would let my child have one as a pet but it's hard to say no to that face.

Ricardo's dad wanted to buy his mom a Mazda Miata for her 70th bday (she used to have one years ago!), and so we stored it at our house for a week until her birthday party. The kids loved going on lots of joy rides.

We had a 70s-themed birthday party for her since she turned 70. 

She was SO surprised by the car. Fun moment!

Spring Break was low-key since Caroline still had some post-op restrictions. We did go to Orlando to see my parents one day and stopped by this cute nursery along the way to buy some fruit trees. The kids found some baby goats to play with.

St Patrick's Day breakfast-lucky charms and green smoothies!

St Patrick's dessert spread for a dinner party we had that night for Ricardo's family and some old family friends visiting. Gotta have the pistachio desserts once a year!

Otherwise, we spent spring break hanging with some friends, having picnics at the park, and doing lots of gardening. Oh-and going through at least 25 glue gun sticks for more cardboard projects for Russell AND Thomas-who has now caught the cardboard bug!

Now we're back in school for the home stretch, I can't believe summer will be here in another blink of an eye. A few last fun pictures to end with...

Caroline and Thomas often fight in the car when they sit by each other. Caroline usually starts it by teasing Thomas and he doesn't respond well. Last Sunday was particularly bad. I told them they both earned time out when we got home. As soon as I pulled into the driveway they said "look mom! we're not fighting anymore, so no more time out right??"

Ana having a ball at the library. Made me think of McDonads growing up and how dirty those ball pits were. Ah, the good old days! 

Happy Spring!