Sunday Dinner

FINALLY, we had the Calls and Clarks over for dinner. Yeah! We had such a wonderful time chatting it up and enjoying Kelsey's delicious caramel dessert. Mmmm! Once again, I am so so so grateful for my friends and family. The Brenners and my M-I-L (mother-in-law) were also able to join us. But they are regulars here. We played with the babies while the men roughed up the older ones outside. I prepared a dinner that was a replication of one that Yanet made for us on Noche Buena (Christmas Eve dinner), its a tradition in the Ririe family, and I love having her here to guide me. I love that my kids are growing up with the rich cultures of both sides of their hispanic families. They get to eat platanos fritos and maduros, carne puerco, mofongo, pollo fricase, congri, cuban sandwiches, and much much more from the Cuban side. Then on the Mexican side they get arroz con pollo, enchiladas, carne can papas, carne guisada, carne picada, flautas... and the list keeps growing as I hit my mom and Yanet up for more yummy and traditional recipes. I love you guys!

100 Year Anniversary of the Humble Masonic Lodge

Saturday was a pretty special day for the Masons that belong the the Humble Lodge. They had a wonderful pasta dinner with salad and tiramisu that was prepared by the lodge chef, who also works for the Kingwood Country Club, it was yummy! The coolest thing for the members and officers was getting to meet the Grand Master of Texas, not to be confused with Grand Dragon. Mia and Bash were a BIG hit! The Grand Photographer of Texas (Don Comedy), put him $2,000.00 camera down on the table in front of me and said "I'll trade you my baby for yours". He asked if he could hold her then asked another member of the lodge to take their picture. It was too cute. He said he raised two girls himself and thats why he holds baby girls close to his heart. How sweet!

Learning Spanish

Ok, so when Bash was younger, the pre-school he went to was teaching him Spanish, because we never kept up speaking to him in Spanish at home, he just stopped speaking the little that he knew, and then eventually started telling us, don't talk to me like that(in Spanish.)We are going to now try again with Mia, only now, we will speak it at home, and maybe, just maybe, Bash will have to learn. So here is Mia singing Los Pollitos Dicen ("The chickies say"), and Colores (specifically red, blue, yellow, white). I love how on certain parts when my "scary" voice goes up, she gets really exited and tries to sing. These are songs Bash used to sing and had forgotten, now he's starting to sing them again while we are teaching Mia, so maybe there is hope! Oh, you'll have to scroll down to my music player and pause the music, I know its a drag but it's worth it.

Easter 09 - Arrival / Corpus Christi

Boy were we happy to see some of my family waiting for us to arrive. Bash, Mia and I had to make the trip alone, as John was still working nights, but we said our prayers and thankfully we arrived safely and in record time. No, I was not speeding, I like to think of it as Divine intervention. Well, my lil "Sicily girl" was waiting to meet her new cousin. Her mommy, the beautiful Michelle, and my nephews Stephen and Tony were also there. Mia also got to meet my mom's dog Emily for the first time, I wouldn't say they hit it off, but in later pics, you'll see they really started bonding.















Mia eating bananas, (while her daddy was gone)heehee, and taking a bath in my mom's sink, I refused to pack the whole nursery ie. swing, changing table, bath tub. We did take the bouncer however, and it was a lifesaver, and we made due without the other things and see, she survived.

Easter Morning 09

Mia needed a SNACK before pics



Sicily with her basket



Mia




Dont you hate it when your kids fall asleep on location?



It's really heartwearming to see my nephew Tony, holding Mia. Tony was raised by my mom so he lived with us most of my life, and so he's more like a little brother to me. I remember when Sebastian was a baby, Tony was only 10 years old and he used to stay with me and play with Sebastian. He'd make him laugh so hard. Now he has his own family, and I'm sooo proud of them. He'll be graduating this fall, after overcoming all the challenges he has faced, I couldn't be more proud. I love you Tony Balony. Remember my the old song I used to sing to you? "Its Tony Hey Tony Balony Marony, the Tiger..."

Easter at the ranch

Well, John and I had been praying that he would somehow be able to make it down to Corpus for Easter. Thursday went by, then Friday, then Saturday, and I just as I was about to lose hope, he called me Sunday morning and says we finished this project, and my buddy and I are on our way down. I was soooo exited! So, I drove to pick him up in a town about 25 miles from my moms house. Yeah, we got our daddy back just in time to celebrate. Only, he'd been awake for the last 16 hours, so we let him sleep for about 5 hours and then he was good to go. We took a few pics of the kids opening their baskets. For some reason, I was just not into baskets this year. I think maybe because we didn't know if John was going to be able to make it. So, I decided to combine Mia and Bash's basket. Bash was cool with it because the only two things in it that were hers were a sock monkey and Horton (from Horton hears a Who). Then we headed to my dad's ranch for some more festivities.








Ahhh the ranch. Literally, as soon as we pull up and the car doors open, Bash becomes another kid. He wears these crazy rubber, slicker type boots, and then disappears into the wild. He takes off on the four wheeler or the cabota, and then just out of the blue we'll see him walking around with some kind of rifle or pellot gun. Its too funny, then when we finally do catch up to him he's drinking all the Sprite he can like a little savage. He's our lil Rancho Boy!
















How pathetic, these little outlaws trying to look tough, but they are holding AIR SOFT guns that shoot soft pellots. Nice try boys!








This is what happens when you don't wear protective eyewear..."you'll shoot your eye out"







My dad built this super cool saloon lookin patio



My dad also built this cross Sat. night out of old railroad ties. The sun set down on it just beautifully, it was truly breathtaking.




It was really difficult to leave my dad, before we left I stopped to give him one last hug, and his tears just came streaming down. He squeezed me so tight and handed me a CD that he'd bought for me after he heard this song. It is by Darius Rucker, the lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish. Its about a man who is struggling with the idea that his daughter won't be a baby forever. Its that second song on my playlist called "It won't be like this for long" if you want to hear it, just scroll down to the bottom of my blog.