January Mendez News

Here's a photo recap of the month of December.

First, the girls at one of the birthday parties here. Notice the tattoos. Lily was a little freaked out by the "thing" on her arm. Abby, as you can see, was not.

Dangerous. Man, we are locking her up when she gets older.

And here we are trying to get the "perfect" Christmas picture with Santa. As expected, Lily did NOT like the stranger in the red suit. AT ALL. But, I thought he was the best Santa we've met so far. He talked to Abby before we got started and made sure she understood that even though he brought presents, that was not the real reason for the season. Go Santa.

Once we took Lily out of the equation, then Abby wouldn't cooperate. Sigh. So much for getting the ultimate Christmas card photo.


Afterwards, Abby went on a little Christmas train ride set up at the mall.

Yup, we're going to need to lock up this one too.


Here are a couple shots of Abby at another party, with kids from her school. They had this amazing play area for kids set up. She had a blast. None of the pictures I took of her in the bouncy house came out very well, which is a shame. She loved that thing.


And here is my other cutie-patootie. She's all about the accessories. Hats are super fun.


But as you can see, pants are apparently optional.


Here are some pictures from the Embassy Christmas party.



The girls got little baby dolls from Santa.


And Abby loved her ride on the fire truck.

Here are pictures from our real day of Summer vacation. (Our seasons are opposite the US, so we're in the middle of summer right now.)

First, there are Popsicles outside.


Lily is a Popsicle addict. Is there are 12 step program for that?

Then, playing in the pool when Daddy gets home from work.

Followed by an attempt to teach the girls Hide-and-Go-Seek. We'll have to work on that a bit more.


Finally, to end things up, a couple of us decided our kids needed to make gingerbread men. And of course there is no such thing as refrigerated cookie dough here, so we had to make it all from scratch. They didn't turn out to bad actually.



So, that was our month of December.

Love,

Julie, Joel, Abby, Lily

Abby's "Christmas" Pageant

Here are some pictures from Abby's "Christmas" program. We couldn't figure out why she was given the role of a snake. Apparently the pageant theme was The Lion King -- the little boys were the lions and all the girls were the animals in the kingdom.

Abby was absolutely fabulous. She knew her marks, all of her lines and what to do and say when. On top of that, she had a wonderful time up their performing. Made her mommy's actress-soul proud.

For those of you who remember Abby's exhibitionist Christmas pageant last year, this is the only pantie shot we got this year. Thank goodness. This school is a Catholic preschool.

These next pictures begin the "preschool mosh pit" part of the program.

And here for the finale, they all sang some song about stars.

Love,

Julie, Joel, Abby, Lily

December Mendez News

Yep, I'm late. Just running around like a crazy woman this holiday season!

But before we get into any of that, let me update you guys on November.

First, a couple of cute pictures of Lily. This month she decided she likes wearing heels. The little bugger walks in them better than I do, and she's 16 months old.

And here she is discovering the joys of Popsicles.

And now for our Thanksgiving extravaganza.

Being overseas, it's a bit hard to find Thanksgiving-themed decorations. So I'm forced to get a bit creative. Trying to include Abby in it this year, I came up with the idea of a Thanksgiving Tree. I bought these simple branches and we colored "leaves" and wrote what we were thankful for on them. The tree ended up much fuller than this, but I forgot to take another picture before taking it down!

I really like this, and think I will continue this from now on. Super cheap, meaningful way to celebrate the holiday with kids!

Then, I got the crazy idea in my head that it would be a great idea to do a Thanksgiving themed snack-time for Abby's preschool class. Abby's the only American in the class, and besides getting to share "her" holiday with her buddies, these little Chileans could taste good ole' American food that doesn't have the word McDonald's in the title.

What did they have? Turkey, cranberry sauce (from a can), Stove-top stuffing (yes, I made the awful stuff, but I wasn't going to waste the "good stuff" on three-year-olds), plain green beans, a tiny cornbread muffin, sweet potatoes with marshmallows and a tiny, bite-size pumpkin pie. What was the favorite? The green beans. Which took me 2 minutes to nuke in the microwave. Aaaaah, three-year-olds. The teachers were enthralled with the cornbread, as they had never seen anything like that before in Chile.

Then, that evening we hosted several people over for Thanksgiving Dinner. That was a ton of fun, actually.

Here are the girls all dressed up before company arrived. Before they decided to color their entire bodies with blue sidewalk chalk. (Yes, Abby and her little friend colored Lily as well. Whatever. After two days of nonstop cooking, I just didn't care anymore.)

Here's dinner. Cheeseball and stuffed mushrooms for appetizers. For dinner, turkey, cornbread dressing, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, sweet corn casserole, creamy pumpkin soup, cranberry sauce from a can (can't get cranberries here).

And here is dessert. Mini pecan pies. What I salvaged from what exploded all over my oven. Yup. Pecan pies can explode. Bet you didn't know that, did you? Our friends brought a pumpkin pie and apple pie that were scrumptious too.

Here is me with our friend and her little baby.

Joel took the day after Thanksgiving off, and we went to a vineyard for a tour and lunch. Great food, decent wine.

So those are our pictures for the month of November.

The girls are doing well. Lily is TALKING. ALL THE TIME. I can't even keep up with all the words she says now. It's totally amazing. Of course, it's all in Spanish still. Complete little Latina. And her weight is picking up a bit, which is good. I think the last time I weighed her at home she was around 21-22 pounds, which is what Abby was at this age. This is great, because we have been pushing to get her weight on. Once we figured out she had the dairy and soy allergies like Abby did and got her on the rice milk, I think that made a world of difference. We still fight the constipation issues with her constantly. I've got to have her drink prune juice or apple juice and eat apples every single day or we're in trouble. I know I should really take her in to get a check-up by a pediatric gastroenterologist, but I just dread dealing with those doctors again. Dread it.

Abby- well, Abby's in a phase. Terrible threes have finally hit. I thought we might miss them. But nope. One morning someone flipped a switch and BAM, there it was. Testing boundaries, defiant, talking back, sass . . . hmmm, sounds like a teenager or something, ha! However, the Dora the Explorer Christmas Special came on this week and it was all about a character that doesn't get any presents because he was naughty and didn't share, etc. and that has really impacted Abby. She is making a big deal of pointing out every single time she shares now! So funny. I think next week we might attempt to visit the mall Santa. Perhaps I can get him to drop some more hints about good behavior too.

On the good side, the girls are best friends and adore each other. They really play so well together, except for when they don't, of course.

Joel is working long hours at the office, and I'm working long hours here at home. Trying to ramp up my business, doing a massive amount of volunteer work, keeping the girls happy and occupied and doing the routine things like grocery shopping. I feel like I live at the grocery store sometimes.

Oh well, more news for you guys in other posts!

Talk to you all soon!

Julie, Joel, Abby, Lily

November News from the Mendezes

Well, we made it! We made it through the month of October! Wooohoo!

At the beginning of October, Joel went back to the US for ten whole days. It was very hard for us to be without our Papa in the house. We managed okay up until the next-to-last day, then everything went downhill really fast. But finally it was all over and that Monday morning we sat by the door just waiting for Joel to arrive at our door.

Here Abby and Lily color a "Welcome Home Papa" sign.

Daddy's home & so happy to see his girls.

After Joel got home, we took advantage of the great weather that day and headed to Piedra Roja, a community about 20 minutes past our house on a man-made lake. They have a nice little shopping area on a boardwalk, so we grabbed lunch and let the girls play for a bit.




And here are just some random cute pictures of girls:

Snuggling up before bedtime

Playing horsey with Papa

Lily has discovered the fun of playing with boxes.

Lily saying her prayers at night.

Julie, Abby, and Iris

Joel amazed at how fast the girls can destroy the playroom.

Abby and Lily playing in the dirt at a picnic. So much for the cute dresses.

Our house has also become the hangout place for the toddler crowd in our neighborhood. I don't mind too much, it makes the girls happy to play with their friends. The only thing that drives me bonkers is that Chileans don't seem to mind filling their 3 and 4 year old with Coke or any other highly caffeinated beverage. And then I'm stuck breaking up hair pulling and squealing fits.


So, it being October, we also got ready to celebrate Halloween! Here are the girls in shirts that Tia Lucy sent us.



And finally, the big event. Yup, Halloween Day. We almost didn't make it to the Embassy Halloween Party. We had emotional meltdowns in our house (only one of them mine). Even Joel will tell you it wasn't very pretty. But finally we all calmed down and got on our way.

Once there, everyone had a great time. I call these costumes "The Last Time Julie Has Complete Power Over What The Girls Wear For Halloween." Ah well, it was a good run while it lasted.

See, bribing kids with candy to behave really does work!

Lily was a very determined little girl. She went after that candy.

Isn't this just the precious thing you've ever seen?

And here is one last picture of my "Fall Fairy Princesses." Once I told Abby she was a Princess, she was more than happy to wear the costume. Whatever works, right?

Abby and Lily are truly adorable sisters with each other. They just love playing with each other, and Lily wakes up every single day from her nap, begging for Abby (who is at school). And Lily is the first person Abby asks for when she comes home every day. I love that. Abby's language skills are improving - her English is getting better and more clear, and she's starting to follow logic and hold real conversations. Lily is picking up new words every single day. She now says "Zapato" (shoe), "Pato" (duck), "Bate" (stir- it's from a Dora song), and "Dora".

One bit of final news. Joel has gotten a forward assignment after we leave Chile next year. He will be going to Afghanistan for a year, while the girls and I stay in the US. The current plan (until we change our mind, which seems to happen daily) is that we'll go ahead and buy a place in the DC area, and the girls and I will go ahead and set up the house and get settled and get Abby enrolled in a school district for kindergarten and all that good stuff while Joel is gone. He will get to come home and visit us at least three times during that year so that will be good. And it's a huge job opportunity and hey, the money is good too. And we feel like we need to bite the bullet and go ahead and get "our" unaccompanied tour over with now while the girls are small when it's our "choice." That's the life of being a Foreign Service officer, I guess. We'll all be fine, we just wanted to give you guys an update.

That's all for October! November is another whirlwind month. I'm busy busy with work (I got my CJSS Certification, by the way!) and Joel seems to be slammed with work as well. He's got another business trip to the US this month, and of course I get to fix my favorite Thanksgiving extravaganza meal with a couple of guests from our church. I'm also now the official Sunday School teacher for the 3 year old class, and then the girls are keeping busy just playing and running around.

Talk to you all later!

Love,

Julie, Joel, Abby, Lily