Kidzania with Friends

Last Sunday Bria, Tirza and I went to one of our favorite places, Kidzania, with the girl's friends! We had a blast! Kidzania is a little kid city where the kids get to do EVERYTHING! They work and make money and then can use it to do fun things. We all went back in the summer just after it opened. Bria best little friend's mom invited us to join them and it was such a fun day. I realize there are lots more pictures of Tirza and her friend, Marta than of Bria and Bea. That's because Bria is old enough to go off on her own and play. They have security bracelets and there are monitors you can use to track the kids so Bria and Bea just got to run off and do whatever they wanted all day, so fun!

Sahara missed out because she sprained her finger the day before playing soccer. If you know Sahara you know that she couldn't just simply move on and enjoy the day... so Mark took her to the doctor to make sure it wasn't broken. Truthfully I am not sure, from her perspective, that she actually missed out. She got LOTS of attention, and x-ray AND a splint and sling, oh and a note to take to school saying she couldn't write for 3 days, which meant more attention!

It was a super fun day for me... I got to spent the day with my friend too! Can't wait for the next Kidzania adventure!!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Bad Blogger

I know that I have been a really bad blogger lately... but here a a few pictures from last weekend, a little teaser... I will get more pics up soon. 

This is Sahara after a trip to the doctor for a sprained finger she got playing soccer. 

Bria being a baby nurse at Kidzania, so cute!

Tirza and Marta getting ready to play in Kidzania!

More soon, very soon!

Fresh Dough

We have stumbled upon a great thing...

Fresh bread dough from local bakeries!

Our friends heard that you could go to the local bakery and ask for bread dough, so we tried it with them last night for pizza crust. It was great, we are hooked. After we realized how good it was for pizza dough we made bread sticks to dip in marinara sauce, yum! We still had plenty left over so I woke up this morning and experimented with making cinnamon rolls- WOW so good and SO easy. We about made ourselves sick eating so much. I finally asked Mark to go whip us up some eggs to counteract the huge amounts of sugar we were inhaling. Tirza asked me what "these things, these cinnamon rolls" are, we haven't had them here so she doesn't remember them. 

We still have some left so I am going to make fresh rolls to go with our homemade pumpkin soup tonight for dinner. Another exciting moment was when my pumpkin soup actually turned out like they make it here, so good! Although, Tirza disagrees she still says that Eva's soup (Eva is the owner of the cafe accross the street where we eat dinner at least once a week.) is much better than mine:)

That was the exciting happening in our life this week!

Another Tooth Gone and Guilt Free Shopping

Bria didn't waste anytime getting the next top front tooth out! She came home from school with it just hanging by a thread and finally let Mark just take it out. It came out ahead of schedule, or so the late tooth fairy said, so we had a delay getting the tooth fairy to remember to come back and get it, oops:) She looks very cute minus 2 front teeth! 

We spent Saturday afternoon spending Christmas money, very fun! The girls had money from Umma&Babu, Great Grandma&Grandpa and Aunt Joy&Uncle Scott, they put it all together and basically got to pick out whatever they wanted:) Bria found the purple Princess & the Frog outfit at the Disney store as well as a notebook, two dresses and Hello Kitty tights.

Tirza went for the very fancy princess Tiana dress, she is such a princess and loves to dress up so when she realized she could pick out any dress up she wanted from Disney store she was thrilled. She debated a couple other toys but couldn't pass up the dress, it even came with the headband crown, wow!

Oh and she did get another little purple everyday dress too:)

Sahara went for the Wii game, she had a few other ideas but when she realized she could pick out her own Wii game she was set... apparently she had played this one at someone's house and just HAD to have it! She also picked out the Hannah Montana shirt:)

It was a blast to go to the mall and let the girls go crazy and get whatever they wanted! I did steer them away from a couple things, like rolling backpacks and blowing it all in a candy store but other than that they had free reign. Oh and Mark and I did try to convince them to put their money all together to buy the family Band Hero... We couldn't convince Bria, she's a tough sell, maybe next year:)

Tea Party and the Missing Top Tooth

Monday Bria came home from school minus one of her top teeth. It has been really loose for a few days and apparently a helper at school convinced Bria to let her take it out:) Bria is very proud of her new space and has moved on to the second front top tooth. I give it about a week!

I didn't know we would be celebrating a missing tooth but has planned to have a tea party with the girls when they got home from school on Monday. Bria got a pretty little fairy picnic set for Christmas and we hadn't yet used it "for real." Like with real food and drinks, so I made scones and we had a fancy tea party. 

Moving on...a new year

We got to bring in the New Year with some fun Portuguese friends, Carlos and Sílvia. 

The kids had a blast and lasted until about 3am! They played lots of Wii, ate treats, played with the other kids, made a band... lots of fun. We even saw a few fireworks out the window.

Tirza loved the Christmas singing toys, she played with them ALL night:)

Below is Lindsey and I... she is our newest j-girl and we were so thankful to have her with us for the holidays. She is such a trooper, we were at our friend's house from 8pm until 3am, nothing but Portuguese being spoken- have I mentioned Lindsey just got here in October! We even got her to sing a little Cheetah Girls with Sahara on the Wii, haha!  

Alright we have to talk about the food a little...isn't the 2010 cake fun! It was really yummy too... And notice my zucchini and banana bread beside the cake, always a hit! But those little treats in the front...our new favorite Christmas treat! Sonhos de Abóbora!!! In English it would be something like Pumpkin Dreams, oh so yummy. Sílvia's mom made them... oh we are addicted. Sílvia emailed me the recipe so I am going to experiment soon and see if I can make them too! 

On New Year's Day Lindsey made us her family's traditional meal- black eyed peas, cabbage and cornbread. It was great, and I think the first time Lindsey had made it herself. It is supose to mean something, like the cabbage-money but so far that isn't working out so much for us, oh well maybe next year!:)

Happy 2010!!!

My Grandpa

Today my Grandpa, Graydon Geary Enbody, will be buried and then my family will have a celebration of life service for him. He was a very sweet special man and he lived an amazing life... I am so glad that we can Celebrate his life!

He lived first for God, he was a great example of man who walked with Jesus. Although we will miss him he left us with the gift of peace, we know that he is in heaven because we know that he believed that Jesus came and died and rose again and washed away his sins. My Grandma told me that after he died he even looked peaceful, we know he was with the Lord.

He loved my Grandma and they were a great example of love and marriage. They were married almost 60years! The picture above is me and Sahara with Grandpa and G&G's 50th wedding anniversary (Sahara was just a year old.) I am so thankful for the beautiful example they set for us... I pray that my grandkids will see the same example in Mark and I.

He loved his kids, my mom her brother and two sisters. No doubt they were special and important to them... but I honestly always thought that his grandkids were the center of his universe!:) Haha, I sounds a little egocentrical me being grandkid #4 and all but he made me feel that important and loved. It wasn't until I had my kids (the great grandkids) and I watched him play with and love on them that I realized what a big hearted man he was. And although I was very important and very loved by my Grandpa... he had enough love to go around, he made a lot of people feel special!

I am so thankful that my kids have special memories of my Grandpa. He is the Grandpa that comes with his house:) and always had jellybeans to share:)! They loved it when Grandpa and Grandma rolled up in the driveway for a visit and they also loved getting to see him in Longview at his "real" house in the woods:) I also love that Mark got to know Grandpa so well, they spent lots of hours fixing up our house, putting stuff back together and telling old stories.

I will always miss my Grandpa! I am sad that I can't get one more Grandpa hug, hear another story (especially one from when I was a little girl) or answer any questions about Portugal. But I will always be thankful for the time I had with Grandpa, for all my sweet memories... riding lawnmower rides as a little girl, eating at Mimi's when they helped take me to college, him pretending to give Grandma a hard time for taking me shopping my first Christmas in the States alone, taking him on the German autobahn, watching him play with my girls and his other great-grandkids, listening to countless "a guy outta know..." statements and on and on... I have more special memories than I could ever share, I am blessed!

Most of all I will miss his laugh, he laughed a lot... the picture below is of my girls with Grandpa the last time I saw him just before we moved to Portugal.

Notice the laugh:)

I wish I could be with my family today, to give lots of hugs and to hear all the great stories about his life but I am comforted by the fact that we aren't saying goodbye to Grandpa today, we are saying see ya later...

Love you Grandpa, I thank God for the time I had with you!