Bento Update

After obsessing about Bento for so long, my plans took a slight detour given that Tessa decided to arrive one day before the first day of school! I had to let that go for a while, but I think I'm back on the Bento Bandwagon now. Arturo thinks it's a waste of time, but I have to say that I'm having fun with it... Here's what the girls ate for lunch this week:

Monday - Little Person Sandwich, Grapes, Babybel cheese, and Carrot Flowers:

Tuesday - Cucumber Heart Cutouts, Homemade Fruit Jello, Turkey and Cheese Rollups, Grapes

Wednesday - Hardboiled Egg (shaped like a star), Dried Mango, Triscuits and Cheese, Broccoli

Thursday - Canteloupe Hearts, Grape Tomatoes, and Rice (with Lox and Cream Cheese tucked in the middle)

A Day in the Life

A day in our lives... Emma and Alexa playing together while Tessa sleeps nearby:

Love My Girls

Another reason...

...why Arturo is an awesome Dad. (Besides the fact that he clipped the nails of all my children from birth until about 1 month ago)

Arturo has taken on the task of sewing/ironing on all of the patches that Emma has earned from Daisy Scouts. Here he is, adding on the latest one!

Bath Time

The honeymoon stage isn't quite over yet - Emma and Alexa are still asking to help us with various baby chores, such as giving Tessa a bath. Unfortunately, Tessa doesn't have quite the patience required and she hates getting a bath!

Sweet Times!!!

After Emma's party at the bakery finished, we decided to take home a handful of bags of icing, leftovers from the cupcake decoration part, in assorted colors.

As the girls insisted on eating the icing I suggested the idea of painting themselves with it, trying to avoid having them consume all that sugar. They loved the idea and one day right before bath time, we let them free...

In the beginning, they took it slowly, squeezing a little at a time and trying to create some designs.
When they got confident with the task at hand, they went all out with the icing, covering themselves completely and the tub became a canvas to express their art.

Needless to say I can only post a few and resized pictures of the mess they created as this is a "family blog".

They loved it all except the part when we had to clean up, which by the way, took a while to do.

Big Sisters

Emma and Alexa really are embracing their "big sister" title. They keep asking to help us with Tessa.

Alexa finally got to change her first diaper, she was really careful and thorough; we'll see how she does when she has to change one of the "explosive" ones.


Everyday Emma insists on holding Tessa, she is sweet and tender. She loves talking to Tessa to soothe her when she is cranky.

Off to school

This year we decided it was time for a change and enrolled Alexa in a Montessori school. So far she's really liked it.

Here she is on her first day of school...

Emma's 6th Birthday Party

For Emma's birthday party we headed to Amphora bakery in Herndon, where the children get to become pastry chefs.

First things first, get a chef's hat and decorate it. You need to look good!

Next item in the agenda, cookie decoration: use markers, glitter or paint (all edible) to create your masterpiece.

The problem is, many of those ingredients, never made it to the cookies...

To change the pace a little bit, they got an aerial overview of the bakery, where they got an explanation of how things work

The master chef, gave the kids some tips on cake decoration and finished decorating Emma's cake in front of all of them.

But Alexa was the one that got the most out of it as she had the best view of all!

Emma is so proud of her finished cake.

Now it's cupcake decorating time, choose your icing color and let imagination fly!

Cake time!!!

Little did we know when Emma was blowing her candles of all the chaos that ensued when the first slice of the cake was cut!! It was a chocolate cake, a bakery error! Emma just happens to hate chocolate cake.

In order to make it better the chef brought a vanilla cake, just as she had requested, and decorated it in front of her.

Which she got to enjoy at home the next day... (Note the candles 5+1, as the #6 candle was somehow lost in the confusion)

Piñata time!!!, we couldn't do it the day of her party as the ground was wet and soggy, so one day after school, we just had the neighborhood kids come and finish the birthday festivities by helping her break the piñata.

Now I need to think of some ways to slow down some of the little baseball players as it's becoming too easy for them to break it, we'll see what happens next party.

Even Tessa took a turn swinging the piñata stick!

Tessa, Welcome to the World!!

The girls and I barely had time to settle after returning from a week in Mexico, when Tessa decided it was the right time for her to be born. This was a little surprise as it happened a couple of weeks before we had expected it to be.

At 12:30 am on Sept 7th Fran woke up suddenly and said "I think my water just broke" to what I incredulously replied "you think?" and calmly went to check on the other 2 girls.

When she confirmed the news, we went into "panic mode" as we weren't ready for this yet, no hopsital bag, no camera, etc. We scrambled to get what we needed, and more important, wake up friends (thanks Mary Kelly and Ginny) to help look after the sleeping girls and finally rushed to the hospital.

By 1:45 am we had managed to get her settled in the delivery room;


Tessa was born about 1 hour and 15 minutes later

After both ladies were cleared by their respective doctors, Mom-Baby bonding time finally started...

By morning, Tessa was calmly asleep, getting enough energy to withstand the visit of her sisters

Emma and Alexa have been great with Tessa, they were so happy to finally meet her after all those long months of wait. They treat her like their little doll, and even have decided to take turns changing diapers! I'll take that anytime!

There had to be some Dad-Baby bonding time too....

And finally we came home...

Here are the 3 sisters, seems to me they are masterminding their next mischief together. I'm sure they will get their mission accomplished.

Relax time... Life is soooooo hard

Followed by a visit to the spa, can it get any better than this?

Is it time to eat yet?