My Little Wigglers

I love soil! And I love my worms. When I took a series of classes to learn about composting, vermicomposting and to become a Master Composter several years ago, we were told 'dirt' is the stuff that accumulates under your finger nails over time. Makes sense. We'd actually get called out and corrected if we said the word dirt if we were really referring to soil. . Soil, or earth, is something completely different. It's beautiful. And it's even more beautiful as well as rewarding when you make your own soil. My worms make what can be considered black gold. This stuff is not the same as compost. It's much more valuable and goes a lot further. What is it you might be asking? It is worm poop! Or you can call it vermicompost instead. But worm poop is easier to say.
My worm bin sits outside in the back yard. Inside the bin is a warm bed for the worms made up of dried leaves and shredded paper. Their diet consists of fruit and veggie scraps from my kitchen. Instead of the scraps decomposing in the compost bin, the worms eat it and what they poop out is vermicompost. In the summer, the bulk of my kitchen scraps go in the big compost bin out back. The worms still eat really well too, I just have much more in the summer months. By the end of summer, my compost bin is full and needs to rest and work it's magic so I have compost for my garden in the Spring. Kitchen scraps go to the worms during these colder months.

I harvest the vermicompost once a year, usually early Spring or late Winter when I start my garden seeds indoors. It's a little more difficult than compost to harvest because the worm poo has to be seperated from all the worms...and quickly because worms don't appreciate being exposed to light.

There's no good reason why I haven't introduced Esperanza to the worms yet...I will, and soon. And I can't wait!

Their home

Say hello to my little friend

Toy Rotation

Mom, you will be proud of me. After 17 months of you telling me to do this, I finally am. Before now though, I hadn't felt the need or even had much of a reason to do a 'toy rotation' for Esperanza. Christmas put me over the edge. Unfortunately the 'afluenza bug' got to me this year and Esperanza ended up with much more than she needs. I honestly believe that now there are too many toys around for Esperanza to enjoy any one of them as much as she should, or could. A kid really doesn't need more than a few toys to play with at a time right? I get overwhelmed and can only imagine that she feels the same way.

This picture is most of what we have, but I haven't cleared out the car (I know theres a bag of toys in theres) or figured out what to do with the bigger toys (rocking horse, doll high chair, the big plastic kitchen set Mando's friend gave us, toys that are outside, etc)

I made 3 sets of toys. Each set includes a different set of blocks, a ball, a plastic battery operated phone, a few other battery operated obnoxious pieces of plastic that play music or talk, a talking/singing stuffed animal, a wood puzzle, some other non-plastic musical toys (shaker, whistle, xylophone, bells, etc), and a variety of other random toys we have. I'll also divide up all the stuffed animals and dolls we have into each pile. They are all different toys and the idea is that they will be 'new' each time they are rotated and given to Esperanza, hopefully entertaining her for longer periods of time. Every few days, once a week, or whenever it seems like the right time, I'll put one set of toys away, and pull another out. Or maybe I'll even just switch one or two items at a time, not sure.

I do have a chest in the living room of things that will have 'every day' toy items which include a mirror, a flashlight, several play silks, an old cell phone of mine which has never lost Esperanza's interest and a few other things that are always interesting to play with.

Has any one else tried this with their kids and all their toys? Also, as your kids get older, what do you do with the toys that they've outgrown and aren't worth keeping to pass down? Donate to Goodwill, Teasure House, a friend, Free Craigslist ad...? Anyways, wish me luck!

Christmas 2009 - Part 2

After only an hour nap for Esperanza, we made it out of the house with a car full of food, gifts and everything else we needed for the day. First up, Christmas with Armando's family at his mom's house.

Even in the huge house that we traded for the one we're in right now, his family is crammed. I have memories of holidays hosted in the house we live in right now but it didn't seem that full for some reason. Must be because people get married and what was once one person becomes two. And then they have kids and two people become yet another beautiful family. The family grows and will continue to grow. We have almost 30 nieces and nephews. And now our nieces and nephews are having babies! That makes me feel old. Even though Armando and I have been married for only a few years, I've been part of the family for about 13 years now and have seen the family evolve. It's beautiful. That also makes me feel old. Thanksgiving & Christmas are the only two days out of the year that everyone is in one place at one time.

Armando and all his siblings (not including the ones who live in Mexico)

This is Selena. She's our niece and I haven't seen her for at least 4 years. She got big!

Our nephew Nino holding EsperanzaSanta made a special visit! Here he is trying to give Esperanza a candy cane And here's Esperanza holding on to me for dear life.

At least the older kids enjoyed Santa. Here is Hannah with Santa.

Celeste with Santa

Addy with Santa Me trying to convince Esperanza that Santa is nice (he's really her Uncle Chilly)

Our niece Marti with Santa (and with baby boy in belly)

Esperanza giving her candy cane to daddyThese are the only pictures I got of Esperanza by herself in her Christmas dress and adorable ruby red slippers/shoes

We ate a ton of food, the kids opened gifts and the adults did a white elephant exchange. We got some good group shots taken since everyone was there. I'm kicking myself for not having my camera when we did those pictures. I have no Christmas 2009 family picture of me Armando and Esperanza. I know there's one out there - Cathy, Lily or Chilly - please email me a copy if you got one? As the sun was setting, we packed up and left the house and this part of the family to join my family for Christmas evening at Cyndi's house in Portland.

My sister Cyndi and her husband Tony hosted a wonderful Christmas gathering at their house with a ton of yummy food. Geneva and her kids drove into town and met us at Cyndi's. My mom and George were there. Cyndi's mom, her sister and her sisters boyfriend were also with us. It was a nice and relaxing evening. We did some gift exchanges, the two little ones played and ran around the house in their cute matching jammies, the boys watched football and us girls chatted.

Geneva in her new boots
Antonio with a pellet gun! Dont' worry, it's not loaded. Handed down from my mom and once belonged to my dad who passed away many years ago.This is quite possibly the cutest picture ever! Roman & Esperanza in their matching 'Santa's Helper' jammies.Angelica with her new quilt my mom made herEsperanza riding Roman's electric quad. She got really good on it!

Of all the things Esperanza aquired, this has been her favorite - a simple balloon!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday! May the coming year be full of love and good health to you all.

Christmas 2009 - Part I

Christmas was amazing this year. It usually is, but it just keeps getting better because of Esperanza. Kids definately make the holidays more enjoyable. This year Esperanza was able to have fun, understand and be part of the season and all that comes with it much more than she did last year. She loved trying to sneak over to the tree to play with the ornaments, she helped me wrap gifts, she entertained herself with pushing buttons on the remote controlled Christmas tree lights, she danced to Christmas music, was able to open most of her gifts by herself & then was able to express opinions about prefering toys over clothing.

On Christmas Eve Esperanza opened up a few gifts. The first was the music table she fell in love with that her cousin Roman has (we had to get it for her). She did great opening it up! Both Mando and I were surpised that she caught on so quickly and got the paper off. We took it out of the box, put it together and let her dance and play with it for awhile. Then I wanted her to open up another gift. The idea was that if the first thing she opened up was something she loved, then she'd want to open up more. The next gift were her Christmas jammies. She got half way done opening them up, saw it definately was NOT a toy or anything comparable to the music table, and went right back to dancing. Eventually we got her in her cute jammies and managed to get her to open up another gift, a toy.

The music tableIn her Christmas jammies, playing with bath toys & water on the living room floor The first part of Christmas morning was slow and ralaxing. Since Esperanza isn't old enough yet to get super excited over Christmas, we didn't open gifts first thing. We lounged for a bit, ate breakfast and watched Esperanza dance to music in her jammies...then it was on to the presents!

Hmm, which gift should I start with?Trying to walk in Armando's new shoes
A gift to Esperanza from my aunt & uncle - Thank you!
Yummy toothpaste in the stocking!
After we opened all the gifts and Esperanza was tired, we got her dressed up and put her down for a short nap before we ran around town visiting family

Mija

Tonight as I was going through Esperanza's room, organizing her clothes, I came across this skirt and top outfit (I really wish my photo skills had been better for this picture)Armando's sister Eva brought it back from Mexico last year for Esperanza but it was way to big to even attempt to try it on her at the time. So, I put it away and kinda forgot about it until tonight. I had asked Eva when she went to Mexico if she would please bring back a colorful, big and poofy traditional little girls Mexican dress for Esperanza. She covered all my wishes and then some! After putting it on Esperanza and watching her run around the house in it, I was amazed at how much of a 'big girl' she looks lately. It'll fit her for a few years I think, so you'll see more and better pictures of her in this outfit in the future...FYI - Mija is Spanish slang for mi hija, which means my daughter

Festival Of Lights

This evening we joined my bff Val and her family on a festive outing to The Grotto. There were a ton of people there but it was still enjoyable. It's always a little scary when there are a bunch of people in one place and you have a toddler that wants to run away from you to explore. Esperanza loves kids who are a little older than her, mostly little girls. She'll follow them as if they are her big sister or something. If my eye is taken off of her for a second she'd be lost and more than happy to be part of someone else's family. I try to give her a little bit of slack so she feels some freedom, yet I also try to let her know it really isn't okay to wonder away from me. Val's youngest kid Carter is 3 1/2 and is just as happy to wonder away from his family too. Needless to say, we spent most of our evening chasing our little ones around. It was fun.

We did manage to catch a few minutes of a puppet show, take a few pictures, visit the small petting zoo, walk in then right back out of the sanctuary where the chior was singing, get some hot spiced apple cider and of course stroll (I mean chase the kids) through the paths lit with Christmas lights.

Here are a few pictures I took of Esperanza earlier today. She's growing up so fast and I'm super excited to see how she handles Christmas morning this year. Hopefully she'll enjoy it as much as I'm hoping for.

She loves these snow globes!

I love this picture

I re-introduced 'the potty' today. She just thinks it's a toy right now...thats good I guess