August Mendez Update

'Cause I want to hurry up and get this update out to you guys, this month you're gonna get just a photo update. Don't worry, we have a ton of photos for you anyway!

Fourth of July was freezing here. So, we went to the mall, ate McDs, and took the kids to burn off steam at the arcade with the new neighbors. Can't get more American than that, right? LOL

Abby with her Happy Meal

On a ride at the arcade

Oh, and this is my little couch potato in training!

We had a two week "winter break" from school in July, and during that time we got our first snow!

Look at that little pouty lip stick out. Just like she's saying,

"Can't YOU make them stop this nonsense?"

We also spent a lot of time at the playground when the weather was good.

And Joel reminded me we haven't really shown you guys alot of sightseeing type shots. So here is a beautiful one of the snow in the Andes.

Lily still isn't walking on her own yet. She's not really sure she sees the point, especially when she has three adults in the house who are there to wait on her every whim and take her where ever she wants to go. (Really. She will take her finger and point where she wants you to take her, and woe betide you if you don't comply. Wooowee.) She is cruising around hanging on to things just fine now, though.

This is a picture of her "crawling" by sitting on her bum and pushing herself along. She's surprisingly fast.

And finally, here are my two snuggle-bunnies. Don't you just wanna eat them up?

That's all for now.

Love,

Julie, Joel, Abby, Lily

Lily Turns 1!

My little baby turned 1 year old. I'm still heartbroken that she's growing up.

First, a picture of the birthday girl.

So for Lily's birthday I had complete brain block. Couldn't think of a single thing that would be "perfect." We finally settled on one of those entertainment companies here in Santiago that will come to your house and do all the work for you. Worth every penny. All I had to do was to provide the food. We did salad and lasagna, and cupcakes. Easy-peasy.

First, was face-painting.

Then games and stories. Don't ask me why the entertainers showed up in a Princess Fiona from Shrek outfit, when we specifically asked for no costumes/characters. Lily was terrified and wouldn't get near them. Thank goodness the other kids didn't care.

Then, Lily started to get tired, so we skipped ahead to the cake. Yup, I made the cake all by myself! Thankfully, it was for a 1-year-old who didn't much care about the aesthetic value.

In hindsight, crowding around a very sensitive little girl who was overly tired and singing and clapping loudly was probably not the best idea. Completely freaked her out.

So, after that, we put Lily down for a nap and the party continued on without her.

We had a pinata for the kids to open.

And the entertainers did a puppet show. I was quite impressed that they tried very hard to speak English to the kids.

Once, the party broke up and the last family went home, Lily finally woke up from her nap and in a much better mood. And definitely ready to dig into the cake.

Here she's playing peek-a-boo with me while I take pictures.

Stuffing her face as fast as she can, just in case I change my mind.

And just look at this cute little happy face. Gotta love this girl!

Love,

Julie

Abby is 3 Years Old!

Abby had a FANTASTIC birthday week! (Oh, and we had quite a bit of fun, too.)


First, I made cupcakes and took them into Abby's classroom for snack time. By the way, if you ever need to make cupcakes, DO NOT use a box of Chilean cake mix. N-A-S-T-Y. Honestly, it makes me want to hurl. Luckily, I had a couple of boxes of American cake mix and icing left. The teachers were amazed at how good they were and wanted the recipe. God Bless Duncan Hines and the good ole USA.

So I hung out with Abby's little friends for a bit, and learned faces and names. I loved that the teachers made Abby go around the table and hand out the cupcakes to her friends herself.

And this is an awful picture, but here is the poster I had to make for Abby's class that day. Basically pictures of the important moments in her life. Birth, baby dedication, meeting her new baby sister, going on the cruise, that sort of thing.


THEN, FOR THE MAIN EVENT:

For months I had been planning this princess birthday party theme for Abby. Way back in February I had bought a ton of stuff while in the States. God Bless Michael's and Target and the Good Ole' USA. (Sense a theme, here?)


First, we decorated foam princess crowns with stickers. Stickers, 3-year-olds. Big hit.

Then we got little princess tutu skirts and each took our picture with a "real princess" (one of our neighbors).
Then, we colored princess pictures. Crayons, 3-year-olds. Can't go wrong.

After that, we decorated our cupcakes, and sang Happy Birthday. In English and Spanish.

So, Dad was manning the cameras, while I ran the party. Everyone had a great time, and I took a fabulous nap after cleaning up all the mess. Even Lily got in on the action.

That's the littlest princess in the house.

Okay, that's the Birthday Recap for Abby! Hope you all enjoyed it!

Love,

Julie

July Mendez Update

Hello all!

Okay, yes, I know that this a month behind. I'm completely to blame. Lately, I've been terribly overwhelmed by, well, everything. Too many things on my plate and just enough hours or energy in the day to deal with it all. So now, I'm attempting to play catch up a bit.

As another administrative note on this blog, I'm making a couple of changes. I will no longer be blogging about the girls individually each month on the date of their birth. It's just one of those to-do list items that has to go. If something interesting inspires me to write, you might get an extra post every once in a while, but that's about it. I'll be moving back to my once-a-month blog format because I think I can keep up with that schedule a bit better.

So anyway, back to updating about the month of June.

Joel wanted me to post this picture of his toy- I mean his car. It's a Kia Morning. Tiny little 4-door, but the gas mileage is FABULOUS. Like about $20 to fill the take every two weeks. Great commuter car, if you can ignore the "clown car" jokes. Seriously, I think we'll be looking for something very similar to this when we get back to DC.
And here is a great picture of the outside of Abby's school. Isn't it adorable? I can't tell you how much we love this school.

In June, they had a Father's Day celebration in Abby's classroom. Joel got to go and observe for a short while, plus work on an art project with Abby. Unbeknownst to him, the other dads must be engineers or something. Joel just thought the point was to have fun cutting and gluing with your kid. Nope the other dads were practically building trains and cars out of cardboard. Whatever. Abby had a good time. She still talks about Daddy coming to visit her school.
Lily really started to blossom during the month of June. She is a very caring little girl. She loves hugging everything. Here is a picture of her "loving" on one of the multitude of baby dolls in our house. She is great about "kissing" too, though you have to be careful she doesn't get overeager and bite your face off. The girl has SIX teeth and let me tell you, they HURT.
Here are a couple more Father's Day pictures:

This is the family on the way out the door for church.

After church we had a group of folks from our church over for Papa Joe's now world famous nacho dip (a hit wherever we live) and BBQ pork sandwiches. We never go wrong with that on the menu.

(Oh and those flowers you see on the table? Those were for our FIVE YEAR anniversary. I have no idea how that happened so fast. Amazing, huh? I woke up to flowers and chocolate by the bed, this huge arrangement downstairs, and went out to a swanky restaurant that night. It was a great day.)

And this is how we ended Father's Day. Why do I post this picture? 'Cause this NEVER happens. Lily never goes to sleep for Joel, only for me. And she just curled up with him and conked out. It's like a miracle. Or it could be the ESPN that knocked her out, dunno. Either way, way to go Joel!

And here is a random "hair" picture for you guys. We've finally convinced Abby that she has to let us brush her hair and put it in pony tails each day. She hates it, but we point out that all of her little friends that have them, and she doesn't like to be left out. As long as we let her play with Lily's hair while we do hers, all is well. (Note the little bow on Lily's head.) Lily's hair is growing in pretty well, though you can't see it in this picture, it's got little bitty curls in the back. She's gonna end up having much more frizz than curl, I think.

So, that's it for now! Enjoy!

Love,

Julie, Joel, Abby, Lily

June Mendez Update

Well, welcome to June, folks!

This past month was an active one for us. First, we took a week of from preschool and focused on potty training. And finally, Abby finally started to grasp the concept. I'm estatic to report that we are pretty much fully potty-trained! She's only had two accidents in the past week, one with Daddy and one at school (I don't count poop accidents that I didn't have to clean up, hahahaha)

Also this month was Mother's Day. Joel got me a gym membership for Mother's Day (and anniversary and birthday) and I've rejoined the ranks of the gym rats. I go 3-4 times a week now, and am really starting to drop the baby weight. Joel and I are also doing the South Beach Diet and that's helping as well.

What else did we do? Well, I got completely fed up with the idiotic layout of this ridiculous house and had an epiphany. And once I convinced Joel, we completely rearranged the entire house. The master bedroom, which was downstairs, we turned into the playroom. The old playroom we turned into Abby's room. And we moved our bedroom into Abby's bedroom. Yeah, completely and totally nuts. But, oh my goodness, the change in our house is amazing. I don't know if we just had bad fung shui before or what, but it just "feels" better now. The girls love their new playroom and almost never leave. I love that when the girls wake up three or four hours a night (yes, you read that right) I'm only making about five steps to each of their bedrooms, instead of trudging up and down the stairs each time.

Beyond all that, we've had a quiet month! We did take a short trip to the Buin (Santiago) zoo this month and that was fun. Abby loved the penguin in the seal animal show, and Lily was fascinated by the rooster in the petting zoo.

Here are a couple pictures from May:

Abby's "Brushing" Lily's Hair While Iris Brushes Abby's

A Very Rare Sight in Our House - Two Girls Sleeping at the Same Time

Abby Loved the Penguin at the Zoo. She Wanted to Take Him Home.


Lily's Already Trying to Get Mommy's Money Out of Her Purse.

Love,

Julie, Joel, Abby and Lily

Lily at 10 months

Well, the lens on our camera is broken yet again, so until we get it back, you guys don't get pictures. Sorry.

Because of my last post about Abby, the question of Lily's hair came up. And to answer all of you, she did have more hair than Abby did, but recently it's slowed down a bit, so I think quantity-wise it's about the same amount. Her hair is a different texture through; I think she might end up being more frizz than curls. Her hair sticks straight up and is just hilarious. I'm a good Mama though and wipe it back down for her.

What else is new with Lily? Well, she's mobile now. She doesn't really crawl, but she will scootch all over the house on her butt. And she's gotten pretty fast at it too. It really cracks me up. When she does get on her belly and attempt to crawl, it looks like what I call the "wounded Marine." She uses her elbows like she's crawling the through the mud, but only uses one leg - the other just drags behind like it's dead. (Don't worry folks, there's nothing wrong with her legs. She actually changes which leg she doesn't use from time to time.) Seriously, it's pretty funny to watch.

But it also means Joel and I spent this past weekend re-setting up all of our baby gates.

She's also standing up when we hold her hands now. She's not close to doing it herself yet, though. Hallelujah.

In other big news, Lily says Mama! Seriously! I'm loving every minute of that too. She says Dada and I think she knows that's Joel, but I'm not quite sure yet. Her other "word" is pointing to something and saying "da." As in "that."

She also loves to point. She will show you exactly what she wants and where she wants to go, and woe to you if you don't get it or take her there pronto. Cause that little girl has got a set of pipes on her, whoooweeee.

We went to the zoo this past weekend and Lily had a good time. She loved watching the animals - from a distance - and especially liked the rooster in the petting zoo. She made me chase that darn thing all over the place.

Well, I guess that's about all to say this time. She still doesn't sleep through the night, though it's getting a bit better. And she still only has two teeth.

Love,

Julie

Abby at 34 months

I've had this idea in my mind for a while now, but thought this month I would blog about a very big thing our house now . . .

Hair.

(Keep reading, there's a punchline coming.)

Just refresh all of your minds, Abby was a bit of a bald baby, no matter how much I was in denial at the time.

And here she is on her first birthday.

By her second birthday, I was just so thrilled that she had enough hair for me to put tiny little pony tails in. I think I had despaired of Abby ever getting hair. But slowly, it finally started to grow.
Here is Abby in September, when we arrive to Chile.

Now I don't know what Abby's been eating, but WOW, has she grown some serious hair. It almost even reaches her shoulders now. Hair brushes and all of those hair doodads are hot commodities in our house.

November

December

And here is a recent picture:

So, remember when I said hair was a "big" topic in our house? Well, this is what I meant. Look at what we wake up to every morning:

I hope you all enjoyed that chuckle, too.

Love,

Julie