Juarez Adventures

Baby #4, Homemade yogurt and The First Day of Kindergarten

2011-08-08T13:13:00.001-05:00

We recently found out we are expecting baby #4!! We are thrilled and just so excited to find out what this baby is going to be. Anjali and Jaiden both insist that this baby is a boy. They say Rayna is already our baby girl so this one is "our boy". Too cute! I'm due on February 13th so we just might be having a Valentine's baby :)

I've been wanting to make homemade yogurt for quite a while now and I finally got up the nerve to try! So glad I did because it was soooo simple to make and very good. It's more healthy AND it is way more cost effective to make homemade than to purchase store bought. So this is our first batch...

We all love yogurt and like to use it in smoothies too so I will probably be making this quite often now! It's so good with fresh fruit mixed in!! I made it last night and already used it to make some muffins for breakfast.

We are homeschooling and today was Anjali's first day of Kindergarten!!! She was thrilled to be starting and we had a wonderful first day of school. Jaiden was just as excited as Anjali and was very involved in her lessons. Here is a pic we took on Sunday and I just had to post it since it turned out so cute...

So this is her actual first day of school pic...

Always being silly :)

Here she is working on her math...

Anjali got to choose our menu for today and she chose banana chocolate chip muffins for breakfast, tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and spaghetti with meatballs for dinner. She loves to help me make the meatballs ;) We are very excited to be homeschooling our children and thrilled about what this year holds for our family!!

Anjali's 5th Birthday

2011-05-20T23:32:00.000-05:00

Anjali has always been fascinated with horses and her love for them just keeps growing and growing! So for her 5th birthday Daniel planned with some amazing friends for us to camp out on their ranch!! They have several different animals and our kids had so much fun. Anjali is definitely a natural with animals. They would follow her around the pasture and she just loved it!

Making friends with the donkeys...

They loved her!! And she adored them...

Feeding the animals their dinner...

After riding the train at a park on our trip...

2011-05-20T22:55:00.000-05:00

Back in February we made a trip to Austin, Tx. Here's a few pics of the kids enjoying the parks :

Valentine's Day

2011-02-17T21:32:00.001-06:00

On Valentine's Day we made chocolate chip cookies and the kids had fun decorating them!

Valentine's Advent - Day #4

2011-02-17T21:09:00.001-06:00

Day #4 we made marshmallow pops! Similar to the cake pops I made for Anjali's 4th b'day but waaayyy easier. Still love the cake pops but these were fun for a quick treat! We stuck the marshmallows on lollipop sticks...

Then we dipped them in melted chocolate and decorated them with sprinkles.

Easy, fun and yummy!!!

Valentine's Advent - Day #3

2011-02-17T15:34:00.002-06:00

We are teaching our kids about saving/giving/spending their money. They have certain chores they are required to do simply because they are part of our family and some chores they can choose to do to earn a small amount of money. So on day three we took them to the bank and put the money from their piggy banks that they had saved into a coin counter. They loved this! They got to put all of their coins in the counter and take the receipt to the teller to get the "big" money. Then we took them to the store and got the toy they had been saving up for. They loved paying at the register with their own money! Anjali has had her eye on a horse for several months and she finally got it :)

Jaiden played with a Geo Trax train at someone's house recently and loved it so he has been saving his money for one for several months. He was thrilled to finally have one!!

Valentine's Advent - Day #2

2011-02-16T21:07:00.000-06:00

Day #2 we made stickers! We printed out our heart stickers on card stock...

Painted the back of the sheets with jello (2 Tbs boiling water mixed with 1 Tbs jello - let cool down a bit and then paint)...

Jaiden always has fun making a mess ;)

Rayna stayed busy painting with water. Anjali and Jaiden said she painted a horse!

We let the paint dry for a couple hours and then cut out the hearts...

Now you can lick 'em and stick 'em! They had a blast sticking them to different papers that they colored!

Valentine's Advent - Day #1

2011-02-13T23:08:00.000-06:00

This year for Valentine's I decided to do an advent for the kids. They decorated 5 envelopes and we hung them...one for each day of 5 days leading up to Valentine's day. Each envelope contains a love note for each child and a note explaining a fun thing we are going to do that day.

Day #1 was to make homemade Valentine's cards for daddy and Mica & Poppy. We printed an alligator design and they colored them...

...and cut out all the pieces.

We glued them together and filled them with chocolate candy!

Cowboy Roundup

2011-02-13T22:41:00.000-06:00

Last night we went to a Cowboy Roundup! It was at Storybook Farms and it was so much fun for the kids! When we arrived they had some cowboy "grub" for us to eat...grilled chicken, potatoes and salad.

We walked around and looked at all the animals and then they had a puppet show for the kids. That was Jaiden's favorite part!

They got to paint a horse shoe.

Outside they had a bonfire and a hayride...the hayride was Anjali's favorite part of the night!

Daddy/ Daughter Dance

2011-02-13T21:09:00.000-06:00

Anjali and Daniel went to the Daddy/Daughter Dance for the 2nd year in a row. Anjali adores her daddy. She always wants to sit by him when we eat and makes sure to know where he is sitting. She gets a little giddy when she finds out he is on his way home from work. When she sees him drive up she runs to the door yelling "Daaadddyyy!!".

Can you tell she was excited?! She just couldn't get out the door fast enough!

She looked so beautiful and I know she felt like a little princess. As I watched them drive away I got a little teary...my little girl is growing up too fast. I'm so thankful to have a hubby that is an amazing daddy. He treats our girls like princesses and they think the world of him!!

When they got back home Anjali said her favorite part was doing the Chicken dance with daddy :)

Catching up

2010-12-29T22:49:00.000-06:00

I can hardly believe I am finally posting after a year and a half!! Since my purpose of blogging is to record memories of our family adventures for our kids to have something to look back on I just couldn't bear to leave that gap. So here are some photos to give just a glimpse of what we did each month since my last post!

April 2009- We celebrated Anjali's 3rd B'day by taking her to ride a horse! Per her request :)

May 2009 - In a Military truck at Touch-a-Truck in downtown Opelika...

June 2009 - Playing in the fountains with some dear friends at the Botanical Gardens...

July 2009 - Helping daddy dig a HUGE tree root out of our yard...

August 2009 - Sweet sibling kisses :)

September 2009 - Feeding the ducks at Joe Tucker park...

October 2009 - Cheering daddy on at the Coosa River Challenge!

November 2009 - Rayna was born!! They were so excited about their new baby sister!

December 2009 - Jaiden had his 2nd Bday this month! Celebrating Christmas with cousins...

January 2010 - Loving on baby Rayna :) So much fun being a family of FIVE now!

February 2010- Daddy/Daughter Dance! Anjali STILL puts this dress on all the time and says she's going to the Daddy/Daughter Dance :) She loves her daddy!

March 2010 - Best buds!

April 2010- Celebrated Anjali's 4th B'day with a puppet show!

May 2010 - Picked blackberries...LOTS of blackberries! We made pies, pancakes, muffins, smoothies and several other things with them. So much fun!

June 2010 - Camping out with the Franklins! The fish in this lake liked nibbling on our toes! Ouch! Such a fun weekend :)

July 2010 - 4th of July celebration at our church...

August 2010 - Camping on the beach at St. Andrews State Park. Coolest place ever. The ducks would swim right up to our site, we could watch the ships coming and going (beautiful at night!!), see the fish jumping out of the water and they have an area in the ocean where the rocks make a natural kiddie swimming area. Love this place!

September 2010 - Our sweet Lil Punkin!

October 2010 - The pumpkin patch!

November 2010 - Celebrated Rayna's 1st b'day and Daniel's 40th b'day! We made a trip out to El Paso, TX to visit friends and spend Thanksgiving with Daniel's family. Our attempt at a family photo at Hueco Tanks...the sun was (obviously) blaring in our eyes!

December 2010 - Celebrated Jaiden's 3rd b'day! My parents get advent gifts for all the grandkids so they enjoyed opening an advent gift everyday up until Christmas! Spent the holidays with family...love seeing all the cousins play together!

Oh my how I LOVE my family and I'm so excited to see what God has in store for us in 2011!!

It snowed!!!

2009-03-01T17:23:00.009-06:00

We were so excited when we saw the forecast for snow today! It actually did snow...and snow and snow for hours! It's crazy because yesterday we had a tornado pass through and today we get snow! Daniel was at the fire station today so the kids and I played together. They built their first snowman!

This is blurry but the only pic I could get of all three of us!

This is our little snowman! About halfway through, Jaiden, who was only wearing socks for gloves couldn't take freezing little fingers anymore...poor thing! So we had to finish him quickly. We're still proud of our little snowman!!

We had so much fun playing in the snow! We don't see much of it around here, ya know;)

Austin, TX

2009-03-01T16:24:00.008-06:00

We went to Austin, Tx for Daniel's cousin's funeral....so so sad but it was wonderful to get to spend time with the family. We hadn't seen any of them since our visit to El Paso last March so it had been almost a year!

Papa and Grandma with Jaiden...

Anjali had a blast with her cousin Abigail...they played together so well! Here they are playing dress up...

Nicolette (Daniel's niece) and I were pregnant at the same time with both babies so Jaiden had a little playmate too...Hailey! By the way, sweet Jaiden doesn't look too happy in any of these pics because he was feeling awful. But he still had so much fun playing!

These are the shirts again that I made all the cousins for Christmas and we just happened to bring ours so we tried to get a pic with all the cousins there...

I love this pic of Hailey - so sweet...

Valentine's cookies

2009-03-01T15:35:00.004-06:00

First of all, look what my valentine gave me!! Beautiful flowers...everyone loves roses and daisies are my all time fav! He also left little surprises all around the house for me...like Reeses cups! Yum!

Anjali *loves* to help me bake and especially when we're baking cookies! She likes to do it all - measure the ingredients, stir the dough, spread the flour, roll the dough, cut out the shapes and put them on the cookie sheets!

She was so proud of how messy she got! You can't see it too well but she was completely covered in flour!

Her finished masterpiece!

Little Jaiden woke up from his nap just in time to eat a cookie...

We always have so much fun making homemade cookies and the great thing is they have the cookie cutters for every holiday!!

Playing in the yard

2009-03-01T14:27:00.004-06:00

The weather had warmed up for a few days so we took advantage of it and played outside for hours! We got a bubble machine recently and the kids love it!

My sweet, sweet little man...he melts my heart just looking at him. I can't give him enough hugs and kisses! He only says a few words (mama, dada, hi, bye, etc) but he communicates very well. He's very good at letting me know what he's trying to say. He loves to laugh and be silly and he adores his sister...

Anjali makes me smile all the time. She is constantly coming over to me and gently pushing my hair back from my face and saying "mama, I love you." How can it get any sweeter? She is so sweet to her baby brother and loves to share her food with him. She thinks it's so funny when he eats it straight from her hand...they will giggle forever together!

Our 2nd Christmas!!

2009-03-01T14:05:00.003-06:00

Much to their surprise the kids got a huge box in the mail about mid January. Christmas presents from Grandma and Papa!!! They were sooo excited to open the box and see what was inside.

They both *love* all of their gifts and had so much fun opening them! Thank you so much Grandma and Papa!! We love and miss you!!!

Our family business!

2009-02-05T10:45:00.011-06:00

So I'm about to open an online maternity & children's boutique and I was trying to email some pics to a friend of stuff that I've recently made/sold and I decided to put some pics on my blog! Everything is custom made and personalized. I'll post more about the store once I get closer to opening it but here are just a few examples of things I'll have:

Burp cloth...

Baby bag...

baby sling...

matching set of burp cloth, baby bag and sling...

guest towels...

burp cloth...

reversible A-line dress (this one has the applique letter on this side and monogrammed name on the other side)...

reversible boys one peice (this one also has applique letter on front and monogrammed name on back)..

burp cloth...

Nursing cover (for breastfeeding mama's!)...

matching set of burp cloth and nursing cover...

boys t-shirt with name and applique train...

I am having so much fun with this and I am very excited about opening my store!!

Bedtime Stories

2009-01-20T16:54:00.004-06:00

Yesterday Daniel had off so we decided to take Anjali to see a movie! This was only her 2nd time to go...her first being with Mica and Poppi and her cousins recently. We went to see Bedtime Stories. She loved it!

Here we are right before we left...

Mica came over to stay with Jaiden...they always have so much fun with her!

We stopped by the Dollar General and got all of this for the price of ONE at the theater!! I know, we went a little crazy with the snacks!

Daddy and his princess...she sat in his lap for most of the movie! Right towards the end she decided she wanted to sit in her own seat.

Me and my baby girl right after the movie...she lasted most of the movie and then had to go potty so I ran her out knowing it was close to the end and we got back as quick as we could only to see the credits rolling...ha!

Anjali and Daddy playing video games...

showing off our guns:)

We had such a good time and she did great in the movie!

The Little Home

2009-01-20T15:28:00.003-06:00

The other day Anjali had a wonderful idea to make a home under our dining table! So I draped some blankets and sheets over the sides and she got her little sleeping mat and pretended to go night night. They played in there for the longest time...they even made some soup for me in their little home;)

I had flashbacks to when we were little and my sister and I would make "forts" by draping blankets across from one bed to the other. We would put our big toys on the bed to hold the blankets on. I remember playing in our fort for hours!!

Daniel had taken the chair cushions off to recover them and Anjali and Jaiden jumped in and had fun with it! They make me smile all the time...I love how sweet they are to each other:)

My little helpers

2009-01-16T10:40:00.004-06:00

Anjali and Jaiden both love to help me clean! Yesterday I was cleaning the windows and they wanted to help so I got out their little spray bottle (with water in it) and a couple wash cloths and they helped me clean all the windows. They also like to help me sweep and vacuum and switch the laundry from the washer to the dryer. We got them a cleaning set for Christmas and I think it is the one thing they have played with everyday!

This is a cloth umbrella that I got when I was little and I remember playing with it all the time. My sister had one just like it and we would walk around outside with them and use them as sun umbrellas. Anjali loves it too and she has been playing with it non-stop the past few days.

She told Jaiden that it was raining inside so he needed to get under the umbrella with her!

Jaiden's first haircut

2009-01-16T10:20:00.002-06:00

We decided it was finally time to give Jaiden his first haircut...and we figured we would do it ourselves, I mean, how hard can it really be, right?!

This is him before...

Daniel trying to cut his hair...Jaiden would sit very still until Daniel would start to cut with the clippers and then he would turn his head really quick..ha!

So this is the finished cut...a little uneven and we didn't even touch the top yet but he looks sooo cute!!

So apparently most of our friends use lollipops to keep their kids still during a haircut...I think we'll definitely try something next time:)

Homemade playdough!

2009-01-16T09:50:00.005-06:00

The other week Mica and Poppi came over with Rhiannon's kids while Rhi and Sean were moving and I had them all make some homemade playdough. We split the dough up into 4 sections and they each got to pick their kool-aid packet. They had so much fun with this!

Mixing in the kool-aid...

They all started rolling balls and making snowmen...

Anjali's snowman...

Kassidy decided to make a shirt out of her playdough...

Here is Kade with his snowman...oh, and next time we will definitely separate the ingredients before we make the dough so we can mix in the kool-aid from the beginning - otherwise your hands end up looking like this:)

Sweet Kali Rose and Anjali making snakes...

They each got to take home their playdough when they left! We had such a fun day!!

2009-01-16T09:34:00.002-06:00

Both of our kids love to brush their teeth! So much that if Jaiden even sees his he goes crazy until we give it too him. So every night right after their bath they sit down on the floor for about 10 minutes and brush their teeth together...too funny!

The kids are at such a great stage right now and playing sooo well together. They love to get on their little cars and ride around the house...and around and around and around...

Train Station

2009-01-03T16:29:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago we put the kids in the outfits that I had just finished sewing for them and drove down to the train station to take some pics. We had been wanting to stop by since it is only like 2 minutes from our house and we knew it would probably make for some good pics. We were only there about 20 minutes b/c it was after church and before lunch:) but we were able to get some great shots. The first thing we saw when we pulled up was an old caboose parked off to the side so we headed straight over there. We will definitely go back for more pics!!

Cousins!

2009-01-02T15:34:00.000-06:00

Last week all the cousins came over to play and wore their shirts that I made them all for Christmas.

Ava, Kali, Kade, Anjali, Jaiden and Kassidy...

They couldn't sit still much longer...

Tickle!!

Anjali and Kassidy...