Cheerleading Competitions 2008

These are pictures of Lauryn's second competition and Natalia's first. In Lauryn's first competition they won first place. On the second competition both Lauryn's and Nati's team took home first place trophies within their divisions. The trophy for Lauryn and Natalia looked exactly the same and the coach gets to take it home for a couple of days. Great photo-op with the trophy! The photo session was a success! If you are wondering where Anthony is...he doesn't do cheer competitions. I don't blame him. It gets very loud!


The third competition was held at the Sundome. The place was packed. It's amazing how these little girls come out in front of such a big screaming crowd and they aren't fazed. The shot above is of a small group of our fans/parents.
My four little ones were first. Natalia is the one all the way on the right. They performed in the exhibition category. They did an amazing job! I'm so proud of them.



Me and Natalia waiting for the awards on the mat.
Posing with their trophy. They were so excited! Another first place for my little ones. I don't have pictures of Lauryn on a digital format, but they also got first place for their division. They did an amazing job!




These are pictures of Lauryn's last competition. I was able to go down to the mat and take these pictures of their performance. They did an amazing job. It was the best they had ever performed this routine. It's pretty hard for their age and they compete in the advanced division. Lauryn is an awesome base. Her and Meagan were bases last year and make an amazing team. They are the ones lifting the liberty in the middle.
The end of the routine. Too bad I don't have the video, because the dance was awesome! They executed it perfectly.
The judges seemed to agree! Their hard work paid off! They won first place for their division and Grand Champions among all the squads in the 9 and under age group. There was about 20 teams and they got the overall best score. Great job girls and coaches! Thank you, Coach Patty, Coach Sheila, and Coach Kim for an awesome year!!

Halloween 2008

Here are some pictures of the girls at the pumpkin patch this fall! They had so much fun! Natalia picked out a small pumpkin and Lauryn picked out the larger one that we used for the Jack-o-Lantern.

On Halloween day, the pre-schoolers learned all the safety rules and put them to practice that morning. They went trick or treating to several places around the school. Their first stop was to the principals office. Her job was to open an M&M wrapper, nibble on a couple of M&Ms and then give that candy to one of the kids. They put what they learned to practice by not taking any candy that was opened. They also visited the media center, computer lab, etc...
One of their last stops was my class. When I opened the door I had been told to try to trick them to come in my classroom before I gave them candy. They did a really good job by declining my invitation. I gave them candy and they went on their merry way. Here is a picture Nati's teacher took of us afterwards.

After school that evening the church hosted a "Trunk or Treat". We cleaned out our pumpkin and Danilo carved a really intricate design. He did a really good job. By looking at it you can't tell that this was the first pumpkin he had ever carved! Here I am finishing Anthony's makeup.
Oooohhhh. Scary. I loved it, I'm really into vampires lately you know!

A picture of Kaylee, Natalia, and Jesse. Natalia wanted to be Aurora this year, but I found this costume and bought it right away! I just loved the wings. It's of Barbie Mariposa. As soon as she saw it, she forgot all about the other princess. Who could resist glittery wings?



Hannah and Lauryn posing as witches. Lauryn is over the princess stage and she wanted something scarier. I was not ready to let my girly girl leave me so I convinced her to be a fun witch by adding bright orange accents. She liked it.



This is the pumpkin Danilo carved. It won the "Scariest Pumpkin" award!!!!

Trying to catch up...this and that October 2008

It seems like just yesterday that I sat down and updated this blog. I'll have to do better in 2009! Well practice makes perfect so let's start practicing...

This has been a great year for us and we have been very busy with all the kids' activities. Football and cheerleading pretty much took over our life this fall. The season starts mid-July and runs all the way through the beginning of December. After the season is over we are drained, but looking back we are grateful the kids are busy making friends, competing, and learning new skills. I'll update this by event, so it can be easier to read. Let's get started...




Natalia felt really silly this day, it was after church and I was cooking or cleaning (notice the super cute apron Sarah made). We really got into it. Every time I see them, they bring a smile to my face. We have many more were these came from, but I would not be so foolish as to publish them on here!



These are other random pictures from Natalia's first season cheering. She really loved it and barely complained considering how early she had to get up every Saturday. Although it wasn't in my plans, I ended up coaching her squad. Since it's only 4-5 year olds, we had a tiny squad of 4 girls. We had the option of combining them with older girls to form a bigger squad, but I really wanted them to have fun and not feel pressure since they are so young. In the end, it was awesome. I practiced my patience, as they chased fireflies, and I received more hugs from little arms than I ever anticipated. It was a great bonding experience for all the girls in the family since Lauryn helped me make up their competition routine. I call Lauryn my assistant coach because at times she stepped in to lend a very needed hand...and all the girls loved her.



If there is one thing I dread every year, it would have to be science projects. I don't look forward to them, I stress out over them, I feel like it's my project every year and another thing on my to do list. This year, we picked an easy one for Anthony. "Does size matter? Will the size of a parachutes' canopy affect it's drag?" In the end, Danilo saw I was stressing out over this and offered to be in charge of overseeing this "simple task". I stepped aside and watched with amusement. In the end, he realized you can't put a board together in 5 minutes. It doesn't matter how many times an 11 year old boy says he has everything ready, he always means everything except the pictures, charts, data tables, and "oh, wait, everything still needs to be typed!" Here Danilo took a picture of Anthony letting go of the bigger parachute he made. Let's just say in the end it got done and everyone was happy ...he got A's.

Here is a project Lauryn did about music instruments. She was supposed to create a music instrument to play "Mary Had A Little Lamb" out of household products. Danilo took this opportunity to bond with his "baby girl" and helped her put this together. It was really sweet to see how he took her to Lowes, bought all the materials, helped her cut out the box, and took all the pictures. He is so good with the kids and knows how to make everything fun! She did an amazing job and presented it in class. She was really proud of it!


For Grandparent's Day, Natalia's pre-school hosted a grandparent's breakfast. Since our parents don't live in town, I went to her class. It's one of the perks of working at the school, it's really easy to be part of all the special events. They had a show for us. They sang songs and showed us everything they had learned so far. The teacher's had them make this project while we were there. It's amazing how they follow instructions and cut so well. Natalia shows me her project. A pumpkin patch were she cut great circles! Check out the faces! Too cute!

Back to school, Fall Ball and more.

So the summer came and went and now it's time for me to catch up on our adventures since then. When I say summer I'm referring to the summer vacation. So let me start by our back to school adventures! Natalia started pre-k and we are all extremely happy. She really needed to go to school. She had been asking me for more that a year and she was ecstatic!

This year I have all three kids in different schools, so we will see how that goes. Anthony started middle school, Lauryn stayed in Elementary and Natalia is in pre-k. The good thing about it is that I am working in Natalia's school so that helps by having to commute less.

So far everyone has adjusted very well to their schools and teachers. Particularly Anthony who started middle school and we all know what a difficult stage that can be. But so far, so good. He was also ready and couldn't wait to leave middle school. He is growing so fast!





Football and Cheerleading has also kept us super busy. We have practices 3 times a week and then Saturdays games. We stay almost all day this year since both girls are cheering and Anthony plays. They are all doing very well and I look forward to the games. It is steaming hot or pouring rain, but you gotta love it. I am coaching Natalia's team so that has been somewhat stressful, but everything is really coming together. Her squad had 5 girls but we lost one so we stayed with 4. Can you imagine trying to teach while they just want to chase the fireflies? It is really adorable though, and I get lots of hugs.

USF invited some local teams to one of their home games and we were able to go and walk on the field. It was a great experience for us and the kids had tons of fun.






Here are also some pictures of our day at Magic Kingdom! It was such an awesome day! The park was practically empty and we were able to enjoy the park with very little stress. It was by far one of our best days at MK. I was also very excited to be able to capture a picture with every member of our immediate family in front of the castle. I believe the most recent one we had of all of us together, Natalia was a baby...and it wasn't very good. I was extremely happy to be able to capture that moment.

Here are some pictures of our summer!



We went to Miami for the 4rth of July.
We got the chance to take pictures with abuelita and tio David.
Earlier in the summer we went to Disney. We tried beating the crowds, but they still came.


It wasn't too bad though, we had tons of fun.

We went to see Wilson play for Miami Beach at the police and firefighter games.

I had to take this picture so I can always remember when Natalia asked Lauryn "Lauryn, can I lick your fingers?". That was so funny!
Enjoying ice cream.



The kids at Cindy's house with Kaylee.
Saidy and Arcy came to visit!! The kids were so excited! We had a great time while they were here. We went to the temple, played family games, had FHE with them, and Arcy made a special dinner for us.
Danilo taught Anthony to mow and trim the lawn.
Maybe next year, he can start making money!
We played in the backyard with friends.
Natalia loves animals and insects. When I told her she had to let the lizard go, she hid it in her bathing suit. Eventually when she set it down so "it can go with it's family" it didn't move. She enthusiastically let me know 15 minutes later that the lizard must not want her family because it hadn't left or moved. The lizard must have opted for the heavenly reunion.