Naomi And Chance Are Here

 Earlier this month, my sister Geneva drove the super long distance to Las Vegas, picked up our sister Naomi and her son Chance and brought them to my moms house. They will be staying here for awhile and we are so incredibly grateful to have them close.

George has been at the Vancouver VA rehabilitation center, recovering from an infection. Here's Grandpa George meeting Chance for the first time.

Chance talking and squealing 

Today Was The Day...

...Esperanza finally, FINALLY, finally, discovered that she enjoys being read to from books without bright colorful pictures on pages.

We frequent the library several times a week, and she always chooses books based on their cover. It has to be pink or purple, and it must include pictures of princesses, faeries, unicorns or mermaids. Most recently, she loves Barbie movies and books (Barbie was introduced to her by her dad - he can take 100% credit for this. He's even bought her brand new, in the box Barbie's! Who does that?!). Now, she wants a Princess/Popstar Barbie themed birthday party when she turns 5 in just a few months! I am painfully aware that when she knows I don't want her to like something, she just likes it that much more. So, I'm leaving this one alone and will pretend for awhile that I don't care.

Back to today.

Leaving the library, I always have an armful of children's books I want to read to her. She has her own lot of her choosing. Often, I choose childrens classics. Other times, I go by the cover too, a recommendation or review. Sadly, my chosen books always get returned to the library unread by us (aside from the books I choose for Ezra - he loves all books). Esperanza has zero interest in me reading to her, unless it's a book with a frilly cover and/or a story that ends with a prince rescuing an otherwise poor, helpless and lonely girl.

Today we made a break through!

She saw a tiny black and white sketch of a little rabbit and horse on a page in a book we have of short stories and she asked what it was. The Velveteen Rabbit. She asked me to read it. I read the entire story (so what if it was a condensed version and only a few pages) with her complete attention. She asked me to keep reading. I read The Ugly Duckling, Johnny Appleseed, Snow White, and Little Red Riding Hood (we had to get one princess story in). Later during bath time, she asked me to read to her some more. We had started Stuart Little (a longer chapter book version with very few black and white drawings) a few days before and read a few chapters, in several sittings. I read her 4 chapters while she was in the bath and would have read more but Ezra wasn't as interested as she was. While she was still very excited to see pictures when there was one, they weren't the focus of our reading. She was enjoying the actual story and creating her own pictures in her head. Whew. Maybe this is common, I don't know. I just know I am excited to expand our list and genre of overdue library books, I'm really burnt out on princesses.

SWS Field Trip, Easter, Bremerton and More

Despite all the activity my blog followers may see here, we really aren't a very busy family. Clearly, I blog about the things we do do, not the things we don't do. We mostly 'don't do' things though. There are those random times though that several things just happen to fall all in one week. That was last week. Esperanza got sick, she had her last week of swim lessons, her school had a field trip, it was Easter, Armando had an interview in Bremerton, we had dinner plans at a friends house and of course we had to sneak in baths, do laundry and sleep as well. So, we had a busy week. 

Esperanza's school, Spanish With Sarah (or SWS), had a field trip for all the preschoolers downtown Camas. We visited the fire station where the firemen talked to the kids about fire safety, what to do in case of a fire emergency and showed them all their gear and the fire truck. The kids, especially Ezra, thoroughly enjoyed this part of the day. It was fun and very informative. After the fire station, we toured the Library where the kids were read a quick story, we toured the basement and learned about how books get filed, then the kids got their very own library card! I was super excited about such a special moment: Esperanza's first library card! Next, we went across the street to the grocery store where they gave us a behind the scenes tour along with some samples of fruit and bakery items and some flowers from the florist department. 

Ezra's favorite thing to say now is Fire-------------------Truck. Seriously, he pauses about 10 seconds in between the words.

I'm SO proud of her for fitting all of name on the line! She knew this was a special moment and really took her time.

 Ezra helping me with some gardening. I transplanted my tiny vegetable seedlings into larger pots. 

 My dirt turned to mud. Ezra was really happy about that. Me, not so much.

 Bath time

 Our neighbor friends Marilee and Elijah eating lunch with us one afternoon

 Easter baskets!

Easter Sunday we had a little egg hunt here at the house for the kids. Lots of family came over to join in the fun.We stuffed the eggs with berries, grapes and stickers. We hid dozens and dozens of the fruit filled plastic eggs and a bunch of little Cutie mandarin oranges for the kids to find. The Cuties were a huge hit with Ezra. I successfully managed to keep candy completely out of our Easter festivities this year! No chocolate bunnies or colorful jelly beans. No one even missed it.

Esperanza passed her swim lessons! She is ready to move on to the next level. Hopefully we can do it in May.

Armando has been applying for a few different jobs recently. Now that he's done with school, it's time to work and pay back those loans. Easier said than done though. He's applied for a lot of jobs with no promising leads. Until recently. An old friend of his that is a director for a company in Seattle got him an interview with his company that is hiring a manager in the city of Bremerton. He had a few phone interviews, some email communication...then they scheduled an in-person interview. We decided to make a family trip out of it and spend the night and check out the town. 'If' he does get hired, we'd be moving there. It seems like a nice place: a small town feel mixed in with a lot of Navy ships and Ferries that come and go. I believe nuclear submarines spend some time in the area once they are ready to be retired, yet before heading back around to the Columbia River and up to Hanford, their final resting place, where they leak radiation into our Earth and The Columbia River (researching this pieced together just how seriously smart my mom was for keeping us kids from going into that river when we were little - imagine how much worse it is now though!). Just a little bit disconcerning, both places. Anyways, Armando's interview went really well and we'll know if he gets the job in a couple of weeks. The next day, we decided to take the Ferry for fun to Seattle rather than driving back the way we came. The kids had a good time taking the ferry from Bremerton to Seattle. Esperanza was a little confused as to why a big boat would be called a ferry when she is used to the flying faeries. Ezra couldn't get enough of the big boat hasn't stopped talking about it ever since.

It's late and I should go to bed before this little fella wakes up wondering where I am. Goodnight.