Halloween Pictures

Pumpkin Pickin' at Family Christian Center. I love to see how Jayden react to the pumpkins each year. Jayden stuck to the usual. He moves the pumpkins from one pallet to another the whole time. Maya picked up a pumpkin and carried it around most of the time. And of course, they barely sat still for a picture.

There was a mini pumpkin patch set up at Jayden's school and Maya picked her favorite and loved on it the whole time!

This year, I let them paint pumpkins while I carved one. I also made a welcome home pumpkin for Antony and Ricardo.

Jayden loves to paint, just like his sister.

He's not much of a fan of the carving though. Yuck!

Maya on the way to meet up with Jayden's school on Friday morning for Trick or Treating in Downtown Clermont.

This was probably one of the only times I got him to wear his full gear.

Maya was such a cute pirate! I wish I could've gotten her curls to hang just right, but it was a miracle she even let me tie the bandana on her to begin with.

Last minute TV watching before Trick or Treating on Halloween Night!

Antony was so thrilled with the whole idea of Trick or Treating and caught on super quick. Before you knew it, he was saying Trick or Treat and Thank you!

Lucky me! I now have someone to loves to run around the house and take random photos of me. This was one of the best. Thank you Ricardo!

UPDATE: Reuniting a Family!

October 30, 2009: Praise God in heaven for all of our blessings! The boys boarded their flight today with no problems whatsoever. The flight arrived on time to Miami International Airport. We waited on pins and needles for over three hours for them to clear customs. We paced, took turns going to the bathroom, let the kids run around, made the kids sit down, strapped them in to the stroller, gave them every snack available in my baby bag, visited with the folks at the American Airlines ticket counter several times before finally, the boys arrived! So happy, so grown and so handsome! Thank you God, family and friends for all your prayers and support.

October 29, 2009: The boys are not allowed to travel out of the country because they don’t have a formal letter of consent for travel from their father. Are you kidding me? We did everything we could to get them on their flight, but it was denied. They will have to travel tomorrow. I called American Airlines to make travel changes. They waived their fees in lieu of the circumstances. At Enterprise, they also helped us with our rental arrangements. We will try again tomorrow!

October 28, 2009: Jerry travels to the capital with the family in tow. They arrive to the embassy and receive their visas, by the grace of God. I call American Airlines and purchase tickets for two! They arrive tomorrow, just in time for Halloween! Super thrilled!

October 25, 2009: Shannel travels to Honduras with her family to join her brothers for the final trip to the US Embassy.

New Construction Pictures

Ok, here are the long awaited pictures. I did take video of the framing, but then I never downloaded it from the camera. So, here are the stills.

This is my new laundry space. It's hard to see but in the back to the left, there is a tiny nook where the electrical panel is and that will house some sort of shelving to hold my stockpile items. On the ceiling, you can see my new florescent light fixture.
This is what I affectionately call my new TV room. This is where I plan to send the kids when the house feels cluttered and overwhelming. LOL. The huge closet will house my storage totes, gift stash and trunk. The TV/Entertainment center will be against the wall to the right and my futon will go against the opposite wall. In case of overnight guests, it will double as a guest room. I'm also planning on having all the games, movies, puzzles etc. go into this space.

This is Ricardo's room. He's got a great big closet and a huge new window. This room gets alot of natural light. I'm happy about that. It's not a huge room, but it's big enough. It's 8 1/2 x 10 1/2 so his twin bed, dresser, and night stand should fit with no problem at all. I have a desk for him, too!

A wider shot of the room!

UPDATE: Reuniting a Family

October 19, 2009: Our case is approved! Thank you God! All the kids have to do now is travel to the capital to get their visas. The can go any day from Monday through Thursday as long as they arrive at 9:45 a.m. I begin to call and spread the good news to the kids and various other family members. They plan to travel early next week. Wow, this is it! PS I just got my phone bill and I’ve spent quite a bit on calls to the embassy last month. Now I’m afraid to get next month’s bill. Yikes! Transaction cost: $58.39 Total spent: $3501.82

October 5, 2009: We receive confirmation that the documents have been received and the case is under review. We should have an answer in 2-3 weeks. This is torture.

September 29, 2009: We email the embassy for confirmation on the arrival of the package.

September 28, 2009: Our package arrives to the embassy.

September 25, 2009: Esteban’s cousin, Pablo, works on getting a hold of the birth certificates. He end up having to pay the lady off, but wasn’t able to pick them up right away because the ousted Honduran President snuck into the country and is holed up in the Brazilian Embassy. Round the clock curfew is in place for over 3 days. Finally, the country gets back to normal and Pablo is able to pick up the documents for us and mail them via DHL to the Embassy. Transaction cost: $81.99 Total spent: $3443.43

Weekend at Mari's

We spent the weekend at Mari's house and Jayden had homework to do so we sat all four kids down and put them to work! Here's Jayden tracing the letter "G".
Maya's coloring, but really she's more interested in peeling crayons.

Here are the boys doing their thing.

Don't be alarmed. We don't always put a pigtail on Sebi. We were laughing at the fact that Sebi's hair is so long. It got to the point where he started to look cute with the long hair. I think he looks like a little surfer dude and Mari put a rubber band in his hair to see how he would react. He actually liked it and was not pleased with Chooch when he removed it.

Updated Pictures

I have barely taken pictures in the past few weeks because I've been so sick. Here's a picture of Jayden at Downtown Disney. I'm not sure why Jayden was making such a weird face.
Here's Maya saying cheese.

Jayden could never pass up a water fountain!

Make a wish and throw your penny. He's probably wishing for candy.

My nephews came by for a sleep over. Sleeping arrangements worked out great!

Chooch helps with vacuuming!

Sebi too!

I'm always looking for ways to use up peanut butter. Here's my latest peanut butter cookie in the shape of mice. They were cute and tasty, but Jayden didn't care for them.

Here's me and Maya fooling around in the screen room. This was the best I could do. She kept insisting on shutting her eyes as tight as possible for the pictures.

Garage Project

We are so excited that the garage project is under way. This week, we got a little bit of the framing done. You can see where both doors will be. They are not where I originally had hoped, but they are where they best made sense to be. The wall will go down the middle. We moved the closets to the back of the room, where the garage door currently is.
One room is going to be a tad bit shorter than the other to make space for the electrical panel. Here's that spot. I hope to have some sort of built in shelf unit there to store all the stuff on my existing unit.

This is very exciting. The window is going in. Here's Pat and Esteban taking turns with the demo.

Here's the last bit left. Of course, there would be a rod in there making it even tougher to get out. Esteban takes his best shot.

Window is in. Here's the view from the inside...

Beautiful! I love it!

Now it's the finishing details...