How the kids fared...

Sometimes by the end of the day after watching all 3 kids I start to think they look like this! This is why I worried immensly about Grandma Zimmerman watching all 3 of them on her own.

But you know what she handled it like a pro and the kids were GREAT!!!! I'm so proud of them. Harmon missed us but he kept telling everyone "Momma in Puerto Rico" and he really was sweetheart. Cally just watched TV. Rachey... well she was a little bit of a troublemaker. She moves so quickly now it is hard to keep tabs on her. She was disappearing all the time and trying to put EVERYTHING in her mouth.

I'm sure my Mom saw little tails and horns occasionally but I am so grateful that for the most part she had so much fun w/them. We are really lucky she is such a daring women and lets us have some one on one time! Also I must give my big brother William who lives with them a big shout out as well, he helped a lot too.

We are home

Sorry I've been MIA! I have had the WORSE COLD since coming home :(

The trip was so lovely. It really is so hard for Chris and I to connect these days. When we first got married it was all fun dates, romance, etc. Now it is poopy diapers, demanding work, piles of laundry, crying babies, and long sleepless nights. Don't get me wrong we still do dates and flowers but it is hard. It is hard to connect sometimes and just sit and talk. We are trying but it doesn't come easily. We do a childless trip each year. They are normally not this exotic (one year we did Boulder City in a No Tell Motel) b/c it helps us reconnect.

We did reconnect. It was cute b/c people kept asking us how the wedding was and thought we were newlyweds. So far a few days being home we are trying to make that time to talk about non-kids and non-work topics and do a lot more kissing!

The view from our hotel room

The actual trip itself was so lovely. We got upgraded for free to an oceanside room and despite some lost luggage the first night everything went well. My family is Puerto Rican so it meant so much to see where my Mom was from. We even visited her childhood home! We saw an MLB game, got messed up w/a riot at the capital, and visited a Rain Forest. It was hard at times for me to get around b/c of my RA but Chris was always patient. The best part was sleeping in though and laying on the beach. Chris speaks much better Spanish than I and since I am part Puerto Rican the locals quickly adopted us. It was so neat to really learn so much about my culture and it makes both of us determined to raise our kids w/it. I want to start cooking more of the native foods (rather than nightly Bertolli or DiGiorno... heck we are not even Italian) and Chris is learning Salsa dancing at the local Puerto Rican dances with me. At this rate we are going to raise some little Borinquenos yet!!!!

The above picture was the rain forest and the below is the street my mom grew up on.

On vacation!!!

It is so funny b/c I've been
meaning for a whole week to get on the blog and share some cute stories, funny stories, and the usual setbacks BUT with trying to get ready for vacation I've been so busy and tired it never happened :(. But all our work is tied done, the kids are at Grandmas, and now we are at the airport going to San Juan Puerto Rico for the week! I'll miss my babies... I'm worried sick about Rachel especially with her stranger anxiety. But we need this time. I need a break and so does Chris.

If I've got time we will post pictures during the week. If not, hasta la vista and talk to y'all Sunday!!!


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Location:Convair,El Paso,United States

My husband the kill joy!

So for Father's Day today all my husband wanted was a vacumn. So I got him a vacumn, renewed his favorite magazine, and used a gift card to get him a new pair of gym shorts that were sorely needed. His reaction to the shorts are "this is awesome but I think I'll return it so you can get something for yourself". UGH!

So than I planned for a really nice dinner w/homemade Chile Rellenos and beans. But his reaction was "that is too much work for you... I'll just grill something".

I had to practically hit him over the head w/a frying pan to make a nice breakfast for him.

It is funny b/c he hates the fuss. He does this w/his birthday and all his other "days". But if I don't make a big deal he would be crushed. Oh well, the man is an enigma!

Father's Day Stow Away...

Chris and I have a big difference of opinion. He LOVES PF Changs and while I like it I prefer going to Pei Wei b/c it is the same food but cheaper and faster. So he has waited a year to go to the real PF Changs. Today for an early Father's Day gift we set up babysitting w/my Mom. Unfortunately right when we were leaving Rachel started fighting w/Harmon. He wanted to play w/his train set that Gualita has and she wanted to eat the train set. So we went ahead and took her.

She slept well through out lunch and was well behaved; except for losing her hair bow (thus the no bow pic taken above). Afterwards we stopped at Academy Sports for some Father's Days gifts. That is where she had a BLOW OUT that ruined her yellow dress so Daddy changed her diaper and cuddled her into the store just in a diaper. There he picked her out a new Longhorn dress and even ran her through the check out scanner like merchandise when it was time to leave (all the ladies around couldn't stop laughing). It is sooo cute to see this amazing daddy/daughter relationship. They are inseparable!

The most poignant moment though was when I turned around and saw a little girl that was around 18 months and it HIT me... her and Cally are my last babies. This is it for me. I am going to miss having a tiny baby SOOO much. It made me glad we had those moments w/Rachey today. It made me happy that I started taking the kids out one on one and also all together so we could have some good quality memories. Now I keep asking Chris... can't the kids all go to Puerto Rico w/us? He say NO! and he is right b/c we need the one on one time. Nevertheless I will miss them though! I will miss this time w/my small babies... even when they crash dates and blow out diapers ;) We can't turn back the clock but we can enjoy every moment!

We need a life...

There isn't much to do when you have 3 kids in 2 yrs. One thing we have learned though is that it is important to get everyone out of the house. Today we sunk to a new low... or should I say Lowes! We toured Lowes for over an hour and we only made it through the kitchen section :p The funny part is that Chris and I have TOTALLY different tastes so all we did was argue who has better taste while Harmon opened up every fridge and oven in the section (and I followed him closing them). The twins loved looking at all the shiny things. It was sad b/c we ALL had so much fun tonight but it makes me think, compared to our Vegas days MAN our lives have turned quite mundane.

In other funny news tonight I realized we look at Real Estate WAYYYY too much. B/c of the family business we often drive through communities at night scoping out everyone (another sad sign that we need real hobbies). It isn't a large town and tonight we passed by a community that we scope out often. Every time we pass Chris always goes in a scary voice "VELOZ" the name of a competitor. Well tonight before Chris even said anything Harmon (who according to Early Intervention has less than 50 words) shouts "VELOZ"! I guess our next goals will be to teach him key terms such as "Target Consumer Group" and bigger competitors like "DR Horton". At this rate Harm might be a Super-Intendent for us by age 12 ;)

Poppa don't sweat it!

Tonight I walked into the bathroom after organizing the kids outfits for the next day. All the kids were hanging out w/Dad watching him brush his teeth. So I go in there and Harmon is ripping apart the stuff on the sink while Rachel is happily playing in a GIANT puddle of spilt shaving cream (right after I just changed her for bed) and Cally was just taking it all in bouncing in his excersaucer. Of course I go "Oh no Rachel is playing in shaving cream" and Chris was like... "so"?

I think Dad's have this magical gene to just not sweat the small stuff. When I was attending class at night for fun last semester it NEVER mattered what random time I came home the house was always in CHAOS. But you know what the house never burnt down and everyone was healthy and happy.

It makes me think when I harp on him for things like: "Cally needs a new onesie b/c he peed all over it" or "no Harmon CAN NOT eat Pizza for the 2nd meal in a row today". That perhaps Chris knows the true secret to happiness as a parent: "don't sweat the small stuff".

Welcome to Toys R Us of Las Cruces...

I think Geoffery the Giraffe has VOMITED all over my living room!

I know I've shown pictures of my family room before but it doesn't do it justice! I will take more for a future date. Right now to make matters worse we had to put down a foam floor on our tile to keep Rachel who is learning how to walk from hurting herself, so it now looks like a daycare center.

YOU CAN'T WALK IN THERE. I clean, my wonderful Nanny cleans, DH cleans... but as soon as we put everything up the babies or Harmon takes it out. We are trying to teach Harmon to clean it up but he takes out things faster than I can get him to put the last thing up. Obviously I need to work on this more!

So Chris has a plan... we need a bigger house. I think that is his solution for everything (after all he is a builder). I dunno if we will move again soon or not... it is possible. In the mean time we need to keep working on teaching Harmon to help clean up after himself and live w/what we can't change.

I just keep reminding myself one day I will have a gorgeous living room all pristine and perfect but no small babies playing in their excersaucers and no little tiny hands reaching for me w/a book. What a sad day that will be!

The Game Show Network

I'm not a big fan of kids watching TV. My mother only let us watch TV when it was Saturday morning cartoons and occasionally one show after school. Otherwise we watched what the adults watched which was either news or TV-Novelas.

So with Harmon about 2x a week we let him watch TV that normal kids watch: Dora, Sesame Street, etc. Other than that we encourage playing outside, playing inside, reading books, helping out, etc. By some sort of kismet accident though Harmon got addicted to TV anyhow. It all started that Harmon noticed Daddy and I like Jeopardy at night. He started going around the house humming the tune. Than he started liking "Wheel of Fortune" and learned letters... he always shouts "E" anytime they call out a letter. One day my Nanny put it on "Deal or No Deal" while they were all eating lunch. Suddenly Harmon took interest and so it sort of became a tradition. At 12:30 he just knows it is coming on and starts shouting "Deal Deal". One day we missed it at getting home late from gymnastics and he cried on the floor shouting "Deal Deal" and refused to eat lunch. Than Daddy realizing that this was something both of them could get into they started watching it on night on the Game Show Network while he fed the twins. Now it is spilling over into "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire". He also likes "The Price is Right" in the mornings but not as much as the other shows.

We need to stop this from escalationg... or one day he might run away to Hollywood and turn into Howie Mandel. I wonder if they have Game Show Addicts Anonymous?

You always wake up...

This week has really been difficult. It has been one of those weeks when you really feel the cosmos are aligned against you. Nothing tragic happens but it is 900 little things that all go wrong or are twice as hard to do. Worst, we really are having difficulty w/Harmon and Rachel co-existing. Now that she is so mobile (she is cruising everywhere) Harmon really feels threatend so he is either always chasing her down stealing each toy she tries to play w/or just doing desperate bids for attention. It is killing my last nerve!

Last night Chris told me he is going golfing early and leaving the house at 5:30 so I would need to wake up early w/the kids (the twins have had this lets party at 6 am and than go back to bed at 7 when Harm wakes up). We were going to bed really late. The kids had been fighting mad the whole night and just wouldn't go down. I just knew today would not be fun. I just didn't want to wake up this morning. I didn't want to deal w/everything.

But than I woke up. Granted I was in a bear of a mood but I did what I had to do and survived. It wasn't an easy day but good things happend and I'm still alive. Hopefully tomorrow things will get easier. If not Saturday is coming and I may just go into hiding for a few hours (I need to get my hair cut anyway).