And he is 4...

Benji had a birthday a few weeks ago – we were still in Brasil – no one really were in the mood for a party, dad was in the hospital (b4 surgery) so we had a cake and just a couple friends over. He didn’t notice everyone had their minds somewhere else – which is good – and had a great time.


Benji was not allowed in Vovo Celso’s room at the hospital but since it was his birthday they got my dad on a wheel chair out to the hallway and they had a nice visit. Benji was sad to see vovo on his IV and being praying constantly that he feels better soon!



In Brasil is not easy to find donuts and when we do (Wal-Mart has them) they are awful! So I made homemade donuts for Benji – usually I just make little donut balls and they are yummie and cute – this time – since it was his birthday I tried making the traditional shaped donuts and it didn’t look very nice but it tasted very awesome! =)






In Cincinnati we had a cake before we left back in November – since Julio was moving to Panama, so these will be it for his 4th birthday celebration. The worst ever I ever done for him, the cheapest and still the one I think he enjoyed the most – go figure!
Cincinnati Birthday Party - Back in November (Not that you can really call it a party - we just had a cake a night during the week...)

Benji's school pictures arrived

And I’ll just feel funny giving them out to everyone, not everyone cares to have them – so if you want one or tow – let me know! =)

Two of a mother’s biggest fear

[This is an old post I wrote when it happened - two weeks ago and never had a chance to post, so I'm doing it today]

I bet I’m not the only mom who has fears like kids getting hurt with a rope, or on the tube – or loosing a child on a store, develop a rare disease and many others. Yes - There are quite a few on a list of a mother’s biggest fears.

I just got hit by two of them – that until last week were not on my list. And it was scary.

1. I was in the kitchen helping my Grandma with dinner when I heard Noah was shocking. I ran back to the living room and Noah was throwing up. Well – knowing our family you may know that barf one of the most common things that happens in our household, so I didn’t worry much about it – just grabbed Noah from behind to move him to the tile floor (cause he was throwing up at the couch and the tile it’s easier to clean)
And I think by doing that was when I actually helped him cause he spitted out a coin. A “real”, Brazilian money the size of a dime. That coin flew half way across the living room and Noah opened a big smile!

I breathed again too!

2. Well – I never care about little things laying around because the boys were never into putting things on their mouths. I have never ever seen them to such a think.
After a long time working on “ trying” to understand what happened finally Noah explained. My mom gave the boys an M&M container. Benji ate all of his and used the container as a “big bank” and put on his coins. Noah still had some on his. They would just open the container and drop the M&M right into their mouths – so Noah grabbed the wrong container and ta da! That is what happened!

And if that wasn’t enough for one week – a day later we are helping my sister to cut little paw prints for a school project she was putting together for her students. Benji had one of those kid’s scissors, plastics with a round edge – Noah tried to get it from him and when Benjamin was “reacting” he poked Noah in the face – that little kiddy scissor did a 2 inches long cut on Noah’s cheek, right under his left eye. It was so much blood I couldn’t believe it. It was so superficial but it must have got some little vase cause the blood was just coming out strong.

I tried taking pictures of his cut to post here but after it stopped bleeding you couldn’t even see anything. It looked like a paper cut. (And since this is an old picture – you probably notice Noah is ok in his latest pictures)

When you least expect – what you least expect. Scary sometimes!

Autism Awarness - Cool

We are back home.

Our flight left Sao Paulo late, and you won’t believe why! Two men, seating side by side at the economic class got into a fight, a cold and bloody fight because their arms were touching each other. =oO
All we saw were flight attendants running, blood, the captain, people – ohh, the craziest thing I have ever seen!
I’m still pretty shocked with how that man reacted and how some people just have such a short fuse like that…
I’m also very thankful that he wasn’t seating next to us.

That got us in Atlanta one hour later than expected and our 2 hours lay over now was just less then 1, we hurried like crazy to get to our gate. They were just booking us to the next flight when we got there – and did let us go in. Of course our luggage didn’t make to Columbus on that flight….

Once in Clmbs Dan noticed he had lost his wallet, all I had on me was 5 bucks and a credit card with 20 bucks of credit. For a little while I was very nervous and angry trying to figure it out how we were gonna get back home. Thank God I knew my debit card number by heart and the people in the parking garage were able to charge us with that and we had just enough gas to get home.

At home – we had the biggest and coolest surprise EVER. Dani & Tati had got us a box of donuts, beautiful flowers (I oolove love fresh flowers), balloons and they went GROCERY shopping for us!! Can you believe it? They got us milk, bread, a bunch of goodies, an awesome delicious rotisserie chicken and a take & bake pizza! It was so nice to get home and have something… specially since we had no $, cards or checks we couldn’t stop anywhere in the way home! =)
What a blessing! They were so guided by the Lord when they did that! =)

Our luggage didn’t get here until 3 am that nite, we were so tired – and just not long ago when I was looking thru the cabers to find something for dinner when Lina showed up with this awesome Spice Macaroni Casserole!!! How fun and special were those surprises!!! =))
Thanks so much girls!!! God bless you!

-Oh, and as for Dan’s wallet – we haven’t found or located yet, I sure believe it was stolen somewhere during the 5 hours we stayed with my family in Sao Paulo on the airport waiting for our next flight. The cards were canceled – we can get the same exact wallet for $20, it’s just sad cause we lost a couple of hundred dollars. =(

Dad

Dad had surgery on his back today and is on ICU - Sounds like everything went well, except now his blood pressure is a little high

Waiting for a miracle and another one happened...

So, from the beginning…

You may have read that 2.5 yrs ago when I was about to have Noah my dad was diagnosed with Colon cancer. He had 20 inches of his colon removed right the way and started chemo. Not too long after that they detected spots on his liver. The day of his surgery for that the Drs couldn’t find anything. We got our first miracle! =)
A year goes by and his lungs had a few spots – little but lots of them. The problem was that this made this cancer not operable this time. So lots and lots of chemo – changed medication, this time his hair fell off – he had different side effects. After 6 months of chemo his one big spot on the lung had shrunk however he had quite a few new little ones.

When we got in Brasil last December my dad was complaining of back pain, but since he works caring boxes up and down all day long we thought that this was the reason. He went to a back Dr. who prescribed physical therapy. He good and bad days… until last week, on Sunday it was bad – that night he never slept, around 5 am we took him to the E.R. where he had shots of morphine but still felt lots of pain.
He did a ton of test and since the pain never stopped. On Wednesday he took all test results he had to his oncologist, no appointment – just showed up there and waited until the guy saw him, and from his office he sent dad straight to the hospital, to wait for surgery.

We are waiting on a specialist – cause his Dr. that did his colon surgery can’t do any neurosurgery, so we are waiting on this new Doc. We being waiting since Wednesday; and I guess this new doc is the very best out there.
I don’t believe anything will happen until Monday or Tuesday. In the mean time dad is still at the hospital, either in a lot of pain or VERY medicated.
We go see him every day, the boys have being there, my grandma – his mom came from another state and we are here, praying and waiting.

I also talked to my grandpa for the first time ever - for me this was a miracle alone – (my dad's dad) My grandpa left my grandma when my dad was only 2 and they only got together maybe a half dozen times their whole life. This has being an amazing change for all of us. I never met Grandpa Jose but we talked on the phone twice yesterday.
It's being VERY important to my dad to reconect after 50 something years.
There are quite a load of mixed feelings. Sad for dad, happy for grandpa – happy to see dad without any pain but worried about how groggy he is…
My mom is a pile of worry – her bp is going crazy and I’ll be leaving back to Cincinnati in 3 days... and for sure is not going to be easy.

We are waiting on a miracle.

Did you see that??????????

Did you know Brasil now has an official Curling team??? I find this pretty cool news!

* Have you seing this comercial? Very cool!


* Aubrey Coleman (Cougars) steping on Chase Budinger´s face? Very painful!


* SO intresting!


* This poor little guy!!!!

Random photos from last week...

Last week we spent a lot of time with our extended family. Friday we had lunch and spent the rest of the day at cousins house. Last weekend too...
Dan was so impressed with how happy people are around here. Simple and VERY happy life! =)

We also spent a whole day at a market here in downtown Curitiba - like a farmers market where we found all kinds of fresh food. We got a aloe vera and a lavendar plant to Vovoh Fatima and lots of yummie food.

* Our hairy cousin João; such a happy baby!


* Boys looking for puppies under the car! (I can't make this pic turn around the right way - not sure why!)


* Just being himself - always happy and easy going Noah Bird


* His new favorite way to watch TV


Benji & Noah had so much fun with cousins Luiz & Baby João
* Ben & Luiz Gustavo - they are so much alike - it's fun to watch!


* Playing their violão - hours and hours of music every day! (pay attention to the knees - both boys with booboos on the right knee!)


* In the way back from Luiz's house they all crashed! Including Vovoh Celso

About Benji

Benji has being talking a lot about Jesus, questions like “why did he die?”, “How old was Him?” and comments like “I miss Jesus, He needs to come back soon”, “He lives in my heart, He lives everywhere”
So a couple of days ago Benji found a flute and was playing is so loud – all over the house and we could not even listen to each other. So at some point I asked him to stop [laying the flute for a while, he looked up and asked:
“Jesus, do you like my music? - Ok, thank you!”

He looked back at me and said “Jesus like my music – so I’m gonna keep on playing”

His pre-school teacher, Mrs. C sent us an e-mail, Benjamin was SO excited! He wanted to see Mrs. C in the web cam right there and show her how he can write his name. I think that hit him hard because for a few hours he was talking about going back to “Cinci a di”

He misses school a lot and it was so happy to get that e-mail! Every store we go in that has nick necks he’ll ask me to “Buy something to Mrs. Chilton, Mrs. Fair and Grant!”

He is surprising me every minute, coming out with new words in Portuguese and just being such a good almost 4 yrs old. He told his dad a saying in Portuguese today “Now it’s a good time to play, if you want to play, do it, if you don’t you can’t complain later on that you didn’t play”

He is in love with writting his name (I need to take a pic or scan his papers!) - also he is so proud to say his full name!!

a few more pics from the beach...

In the way to the beach...

The Ecovias are the roads that take you to the Coast here in the state of Paraná (I guess in other states too), they are tolled roads, and in the way to Caiobá we crossed the biggest area of Atlantic Forest untouched. They have the best outdoors ever and I didn’t take many pictures thinking for sure I would easily find them on Google. Well – I was wrong, I spent quite some time searching for it and nothing=oP
They had huge outdoors with all the animals you can find on that Forest – pictures of them and some information about a new animal every so often.

Also I loved their campaign to a saver way to drive. They had the coolest outdoors with a very nice font and sentences like:

“Once upon a time there was a drunk driver. The End”
“Once upon a time there was a driver talking on his cell phone. The End”
“Once upon a time there was a high speed driver. The End”

All the beauty around and the fun outdoors sure made the trip a whole lot more fun. Benji enjoyed looking at the “Marumbi” and other mountains...

The Gs at Caiobá beach

We went to the beach this weekend and overall it was great! The boys absolutely loved – Benji had a blast, Noah was not so sure at first but of course after all he wasn’t happy to leave. We were so lucky to get the greatest weather (maybe even a little too much sun for Dan & I). I can say everything was perfect and the boys will sure have the best memories of their first time at the beach.
The waves were a little too strong in my opinion – I felt down twice and busted out the biggest laugh ever!!! The ocean is awesome – the most amazing place ever! But to be honest I’m happier at the pool (at least when it comes to going with my kids) – The biggest sand box in the world it’s NOT a happy place for me (again – at least not with small kids) I can’t understand today how my parents ever did with me and my sister, little - for the whole summer or weeks at the time at the beach.
Salt – Sand – Sun isn’t a good combination to me at this time of my life.
I’m SUCH a pool person! LOL (Funny how things can change easily) And I sure was a bitch at the beach (not to my family – but to everyone else who helped to make my life harder)
Well-I must get it out of my chest – that people that doesn’t have kids should never make plans for people that does. Also – if someone wants to do something nice for you – first this person should make sure you want that! Don’t tell someone to “make yourself home” when you are imposing 600 rules and you want people to do things your way – at your time! Grrrr!
Phewwww! I sure feel much better….
But going back to talking about the good parts of it – I must say Benji made the coolest friend; Luigi, and his mom was very cool too. Also - as usual Kadu, Guga &Claudia were so helpful with the kids. Kadu I must say it’s a pretty cool friend. =)
I’m sure Caco got the coolest pics but these are the only ones I have on my camera to share right now:

* Dan & I


* Noah bird


* Noah bird again - always with his sunglasses


* Benji & my dad having all kinds of fun


* Caiobá

CWB Botanical Garden

Girls – tell me the truth

Be very HONEST:

Can you tell when I man has a crush on you?
Can he just be a very polite and gentle man and you are just getting the wrong message?

Do you think woman in general have this “ability”? The 6th sense?
Well – I don’t want to sound like – I’m not even sure how to describe – Like I think I’m attractive or something like that. I sure don’t feel good about myself these days and I don’t think I’m “important” as we would say in Brasil – but I do know I have good qualities and when I (seldom) take care of me – I’m “decent”.
Anyways – despite how I feel about myself there is this guy – a friend’s husband here in Brasil that makes me feel uncomfortable. I can’t even look at him – I just feel like that person is always thinking “how come we never met before we both got married”

It’s just SO uncomfortable and I can’t help it! I can’t even have eye contact with him and I feel so weird. Just don’t want to be around – talk or even see them. I can’t really explain – It’s just something you know. Does that makes any sense?
Did you ever feel that way???

The worst part is – that even though I don’t like this man at all – not even as a friend (as he is nothing but my friend’s husband) I do feel bad for him because she is just the most annoying friend I ever had!!!
I feel like I could even have a good conversation and a fun time with him – as friends – of course – but I just can’t!
I'm glad I only get to see them once every so many years (LNSOL)

Weird - weird…

Update on Bella baby..

Her mama pushed for 2 hours and 20 mins.... I guess she really didn't care much to come out that girl!!! =)

7lbs and 9 oz
We hope to have pics soon!!! =)

and a welcome too....

Isabella - by this time should be here!!!

Welcome baby girl!!! =)
We already love you SO much!!!!
More info soon - I'm sure! =) We are way far in Brasil but we are "in to" this birth!!! =)
awesome!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

ANGELAAAAAAAA!!!! =)

God bless you today and always!!!!
And when I'm back I want to go out to celebrate your day!!!!

Kareoke???? LOL

25 random things

Rules:
Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

1. I'm using these 25 things to relax because I'm really pissed off right now...
2. I'm dictating to my sister to fill this up while I get my nails done.
3. I'm not affraid of dieing but of feeling a lot of pain to die
* I'm back to typing so my spealling may suck *
4. I hate how all the sudden I became a drama queen! I used to be the most non-drama girl you would ever met. was it marriege? the kids? age??? bills to pay? still trying to figure it out
5. I love to read to my kids - but I don't think I do it enough
6.I have a food adction
7.I had 3 miscarrages before I had my two blessed boys
8.I love driving 5 speed cars
9.when I was 15ish my mom went back to colege and I stayed home with my sister every afternoon, she was like 8 or 9 yrs old- I used to make her walk like 5 miles to my boyfriends house and back - after we got back home she usually felt asleep and when she got up she always asked "did we go to your boyfriend's house today?" and I used to say "No - it was all a dream..." just so she wouldn't tell my mom
10. Im can be such a bitch when im mad - I usually make people feel like crap - then I need to call them and say sorry because i feel bad after all.
11. I want to go back to school in a near future
12. I always wanted 4 kids, but now after 2 I think I'm done
13. Absolutely love my friends and spending time with them. they energize me - also i can be the best friend u ever had - love love love being there for people
14. I want to work with children somehow...
15.I can't resist chocolate - ever
16. I tend to become obcessed about things pretty easily
17. I believe I did so much for my age and I can't believe how much more I wan to do
18. I wish I had more self control - patience - specially with money - kids and food
19. I consider myself very criative
20. I look 10 yrs older then my age and that sucks...
21. My husband it's the coolest guy ever- my best friend but when it comes to having fun he is like a 75 yrs old man - i dislke that
22. I'm couting the days, minutes and seconds to see my hubby
23. I love being a sahm and enjoy watching the boys grow - they are my life and when someone do something to my kids means more to me then when they do something to me
24. I'm afraid of my dreams - they usually mean something - are very very real and stick on my head for days...
25.I love to dance

... see - it helped - im way more calm then when i started this thing!