Big Event!

We missed this last year, so I put a reminder on Google calendar this year so we could make sure to sign up. Big Event is the Saturday when the college students at A&M volunteer to help members of the community, usually with yard work. Austin had a whole list for them this year including pulling up a dead tree, planting a new one in it's spot, weeding and mulching the flower beds and garden and pulling up the carpet and tackboard from Mariana and Gloria's room so we can tile when they are at camp this summer. We got 10 students, and they were a wonderful group. They worked hard, were friendly and were great with the kids even letting Gloria, Anastasia, and Cecilia help them! (Cecilia held the weed bag open and said, "thank you" every time a contribution was made. It was adorable!).
They got the whole list done exactly in the time alotted for them to be here. We are so thankful...it would have taken us weeks to get all that done!

Happy 5th Birthday, Sebastian!

We started baking and celebrating on Sunday since Mondays are a little crazy around here. He requested vanilla cupcakes, and I don't have a good from-scratch vanilla recipe so I went with a box. But it made crumbly fall apart cupcakes, so I turned them into cake pops and went with my trusty chocolate cupcake recipe. However, the birthday boy was not satisfied so in went another batch of vanilla which thankfully turned out. This little guy is just so sweet, so easy to please and has such few things he really insists on; I just had to humor him. We ended up with so many treats that we had plenty to share with friends and family and neighbors!
Thankfully I had plenty of eager decorators so I made some frosting and left the crew to do the decorating because I was really tired of the kitchen at that point. They did an amazing job!

 He was so happy with his gifts from siblings.

 Cupcakes, cupcakes and more cupcakes!

A sweet little story...as we were putting him to bed last night, Gloria and I started giving him lots of hugs and kisses and making a big deal about how they were our last 4 year old ones since he would be 5 the next day. He was so sentimental and started crying. It was so cute and sweet. Of course we felt terrible! :p
We are sure thankful for our sweet Sebastian!!!

San Antonio, here we come!

We were originally planning to do this trip over spring break, but we had some glitches with booking the hotel using travel points. By the time the glitches were worked out, the hotel had doubled in price! We decided to take advantage of homeschooling and just make a second spring break the following week. So after two days of school, we packed up and headed for San Antonio for 3 days of fun!
Sea World wasn't open Wednesday, so we spent our first afternoon at the zoo. I had an avid photographer who kept stealing my phone from my pocket to take photos of every single animal (ahem, Stephen). But I will just post a few favorites. ;)
 Black bear

 Copperhead

BIG snake!

 

This was moments before Mariana leaned too far forward and lost her sunglasses to the pond! :/

 Parrot

 Rhinos (We even had the privilege of watching one poop. Glad I'm not in charge of cleaning that up!)

 Hippos (I think this was the favorite animal of Sebastian and Cecilia. They were so in awe, we had to pull them away!)

 Komodo dragon

Mongoose exhibit. (We recently watched Riki Tiki Tavi, so fun to see them in real life)

 Green Mamba

 Stephen bought a souvenir snake

Day 2: Sea World Aquatica!
We spent the first day at the water park because the weather forecast was better for that day. It turned out to be perfect (after a few hiccups getting our passes straightened out and such).
 

 The water slides were amazing, and some quite thrilling. Anastasia and Stephen were so brave going on even the really high, crazy ones. I even skipped a couple of those. ;)

 

 Dolphins!

 Sharks!

I was planning to take this little one back to the hotel for a nap, but the park closed at 5 so we just plowed through, and she conked out in the car as soon as we left for the day! So sweet.

Day 3: Sea World main park!

 We hit the big roller coasters first to avoid the lines later in the day. Anastasia was so brave and rode every one that she was tall enough to go on!

 Steel Eel!

 Great White

 After lunch we went to see the Orka show since they may not have these creatures much longer.

Then Cecilia decided she was getting a nap this time so she fell asleep in the stroller. I stayed with her while everyone else went on Rio Loco.

She was tossing in the stroller after a bit so I just held her while she slept a little longer. Precious girl! She was a real trooper for this trip! 

 

After a few more roller coaster rides, we packed up and headed home. We are so thankful for such a fun, smooth trip and can't wait to go again!

Spring Break!

Lent started a few days before Spring Break. We had to split up for masses since Austin works farther from home now. I got the younger crew for 9:30am mass at the Catholic School.

 We took a trip to Lito and Lita's to visit with Auntie's and cousin's and to pick up Tia Becky's car which Austin is fixing up for Allia to drive! :0

 Mariana and I traded hair styling jobs while we all watched a movie together.

 

 There were a few days of beautiful weather, so we enjoyed lots of outside time soaking up the spring sunshine. Anastasia found some pretty flowers at the park.

We took one afternoon to have lunch at Austin's new office, and then he and the older girls went to a movie afterwards.
There were many board and card games, friends over, and lots of 4 square in the street!

 As a finale of sorts, we had two families of dear friends over Sunday evening. The girls soaked up some good baby time with little Lucy. She is so adorable!

 And I accomplished a few little projects around the house including a new photo wall upstairs. I have an 8 x 10 of each child at 2 years old, but I had no room in the old collage for Cecilia's new 2 year old photo as well as landscape family photos since we just don't all fit in portrait photos anymore. So I found some nice, inexpensive frames at Walmart and redid it. I am super happy with how it turned out! :)

All in all it was a really great week!