For Siena

'Tis the Night before Kindergarten

And all through our house,

Everyone is stirring

from baby to spouse.

The clothes are laid out,

the backpack is checked,

"Now is there anything,

I just might forget?"

I brought out the bread,

the p.b. and honey.

The lunchbox is packed,

so you don't lose lunch money.

You have spare supplies

and a gift for your teacher.

The classic red apple

is quite a fun feature.

She'll love you, I'm sure

from day one, just you see.

But try to listen, to share

and to sit quietly.

A quick note, I write

in a moment with care,

in hopes that your first day

will be easier to bear.

Not as hard for you

as it will be for me,

you've been anxiously waiting

since you were the age of three.

With a deep breath and a sigh

I turn off the light

and then head off to bed

where I will toss all night.

Kindergarten is fun,

you can't ask for much more.

Good luck! You're most ready

to step out the front door.

Big dreams lie ahead,

many more to discover.

School is just a first step

like it was for your mother.

On a very last note

I hope you'll remember

that I love you so much

apart and together.

Birthday Girl Turns 5?!

What?  Is that 5 year-old my Siena? I refuse to believe she is already that old, despite the many, many reminders I get throughout the day.  "But Moooooommmm, I'm a big girl now.  I'm five!"...and the like.

We tried to make it a fun birthday for her, and she's so easy to please that we were not worried one bit about meeting her expectations.  But I think besides the fact that her friends came over that night for swimming, her favorite part of her birthday was choosing the cake.  I took her to the grocery store on Saturday to choose out a cake.  (This was a first for us since we usually just make it ourselves.)  Flipping through the cake book, she was ecstatic.  As to be expected, she kept changing her mind as she progressed through the book.  Finally, she landed on a page near the end and was set on the design.    I couldn't help but laugh out loud.  This is what she wanted so badly:

I gently reminded her of the first few designs she had really liked and to my relief, she chose this one:

...it's a whole lot easier to plan a party theme around this cake. 

The morning started off right with Surprise Cereal... purple frosted shredded wheat.  The girls were squealing with delight.  (I sat there thinking, "Hmmm, I could be a responsible mother and make a waffle breakfast with the works like my own sweet mom did for us; but I vaguely remember the time I got Cream of Wheat with strawberry jam packets to make my own food design as being the most exciting birthday breakfast ever, so I went with the easier--I mean, more fun--approach.)

Opening presents from Mom, Dad and Qiana with extreme bedhead

 The eraser was her favorite part

Not pictured, but totally worth mentioning are the art easel that my mother gave her, and the cowgirl boots my mother-in-law gave her.  She is in love with both.

The rest of the day progressed as usual until dinner, when I prepared her requested birthday dinner.  The whole time we've been living in this house, Siena has been fascinated with an illustrated cookbook she found on a shelf.  It was printed and distributed in Great Britain, so it has a lot of traditional English recipes.  For some reason, she fixated on a particular recipe of chicken drumsticks with peas (excuse me, petite pois,) and potato crisps (chips.)  So I tried my hardest to accomplish the meal by converting milligrams and milliliters to teaspoons and cups.  It was a task.  I guessed what petite pois meant, since I know absolutely NO french, as well as "double cream"--I just picked out half and half at the store.  It wasn't until after I got to the point in the recipe where I had to add it that I realized it probably was sour cream... or something of that kind of consistency.  Oh well!  I converted 160 degrees Celcius into Farenheit and we were in business.  It actually wasn't that bad tasting.  (Ha!)  Siena was excited to see it come to life (okay, not literally, that would be gross.)  After gobbling up dinner, we headed to the pool to meet our friends for her "beach party."  I'm sad I didn't get a picture of her with all her plastic leis on.  It was cute. 

 Lauren and Qiana (Qiana has acclimatized well because once she got out of the water and into the 85 degree weather, she was cold.)

 The Ez was just hanging out.

 Adrienne with Maddy

 Logan and Madilyn

 Right before singing to her

 Siena invited some friends she had met at the pool a few days earlier. I'm so impressed that they actually came.

 McKenna, Brynlee and Siena

 Making a wish and blowing out the candle. (The one thing she requested for her birthday was a "number 5 candle".  Like I said, so easy to please.)

 "Mor-di-da!" Taking the obligatory first bite, and fully expecting someone to push her face into the cake.

 Half-way cleaned up and basking in the attention

 Just happy to have more cake

Saying goodbye to friends

The Usual Update

It's so sad.  I have written at least three other blog posts, but after careful review they all were deleted because they were too boring.  (When did I start caring?!!)

So here I am to confess yet another month of blog slacking and play catch-up.

Truth be told a lot of things have been happening with the Chavez family, although at first glance it may not seem that way.  Maybe a bulleted list would be beneficial... (I love lists!)

• First and foremost, we are in the middle stages of buying our first home.  This is a pretty big deal to us seven years into our marriage and three children later.  There is a home we found and it just feels right.  If all goes as planned, we will be moving in by the end of the month, but since Juan just started his job a month ago, something might come up in the underwriting that gives us grief.  We don't know what to expect so it's hard to let ourselves get excited.  I'm sure every homeowner reading this is nodding their head like, "Been there, done that."  You know what it's like.
• And speaking of Juan's job, he's probably not going to stay there.  They just aren't giving him enough work.  We're looking into purchasing an existing practice or starting from scratch.  This will be a joint effort since part of our business plan includes Solstice.  So many exciting things in store.... Juan has started the process with the bank and we should be seeing some major changes within the next couple of months.  If something else comes up in the meantime, we're ready for that curveball (...ha!)
• We were called into the Stake President's office a couple weeks ago and he invited us to attend the Spanish Branch instead of the Spanish Ward.  After a couple of weeks of attending the new branch, we are extremely happy with our choice.  It just feels like there is a lot of progress right on the brink and I'm excited to take part in that.
• Speaking of progress on the brink, I just have to share this piece of news that still has us grinning from ear to ear.  It has been almost eight years since Juan got home from serving an LDS mission. (I still can't believe how fast time has flown!) While in Northern California, he taught and baptized a young teenage girl who consequently was shunned by nearly her entire family.  She came from a line of high-profile leaders of their particular faith and they were very entrenched in their beliefs.  Her mother didn't allow her to be home if she and the missionaries were going to speak about religion, however her mother was kind to the elders in other ways.  For example, she always had ice-cold water bottles set aside for them when they came by to speak with her daughter.  However, absolutely NO exchange of religious beliefs were allowed to take place while she was there and she vowed never to listen to the missionaries herself.  Fast forward eight years.  Juan has kept in pretty good contact with her and her daughter and I even got to meet them once while we were visiting the area.  They have seen lots of happy times since then, ((like the daughter's marriage and the birth of their first son,) as well as really hard times (like the unfortunate death of her (the mother's) mother.))  Throughout these years and after numerous phone conversations about day-to-day life and sometimes even trivial things there was a recent one that made our jaws drop.  She called to tell us that she just went to an entire 3-hour session of church and that she immediately felt at home.  She is taking lessons (discussions) from the missionaries and her baptism date is scheduled for August 25th.  It's amazing to me how much the Gospel can awaken us to our situation in life and how much motivation it gives us to make positive changes.

Other little things of note are:

• We live with geckos and lizards.  Yes, somewhere in our house is a lizard we couldn't catch in time and we have already found and released two geckos. I know they are good to keep the bug population down, but I'm still not sold on the idea of living with roaming reptiles.  (*shutter*)
• Siena has learned to swim (technically, "streamline".)  Thanks to one extremely patient friend of ours who happens to have a knack for teaching swimming in one hour, she is a little fish.  We just have to remind her to breath! 
• Qiana is potty trained!  After three hundred and fifty-six attempts (okay, that's an estimate) she is finally contributing to the family budget by kicking her diaper habit.  I'm so happy I could cry.
• Ezra is starting to sleep longer and eat less throughout the night and I think we're pretty much down to one feeding during the early morning hours.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again--he's so easy.  Give him his pacifier and blankey at night and naptime and he's out cold.  The girls didn't have a security object, so this is new for us.  So far, it's working out just fine.

• Siena starts school in 21 days! The mother writing this is freaking out about it, too.  At first I was a wreck because I wasn't sure I could handle a more rigorous schedule (which, incidentally, was something I was secretly excited for because I knew I needed it;) however, my panic turned to absolute fear when I received the list of things my Kindergartner should know by the first day of school.  I mean, it was a simple list laced with things I hadn't gotten around to doing.  For example, "Can tie shoelaces."  Whaaa?!  I dropped the ball on that since Siena never ever wears shoes with laces, especially now that we are in the deadly heat of a Texan August.  Next, "Can dress herself and tend to all bathroom needs."  Okay, whew.  We're safe on that one.  "Can count from 1-20."  Hesitating on whether we even needed to review that, I asked her to count for me.  I was holding my breath because I knew it had been a looooong while since I had coached her on her numbers. I just had always assumed she remembered them.  Well, she missed number 16 (or was is 17?  It's a different skipped number when she counts in Spanish.)  I started feeling lightheaded.  Was my (almost) 5 year-old really ready for Kindergarten? I whipped out her little Fiskars and asked her to "Cut in a straight line."  Check.  But could she write her name with the proper case?  Answer: when specifically told to, she can; however, she prefers to write: SiENA♥ We reviewed letters and their sounds, colors and shapes--check--check--check--check.  And after the entire assessment, I got my act together and got to work.  We have been reviewing (and learning, in some cases) days of the week, her birthday, seasons, months of the year, her parents' names, and yes, tying her shoes. Next goal to accomplish: learning her parents' phone numbers and (future) home address.  I'm really nervous because tomorrow is her Spanish proficiency test to see whether or not she will be accepted as a late entrant into the Dual Language program in the district.  The only possibly hope she has is if she proves that Spanish is her first language.  We're praying all goes well tomorrow, especially because we have no idea how they are going to test her.
• Ezra also has a test coming up.  Rather than a test of his intelligence, this test is based on physical traits.  His torticollis is getting a little better, which makes me feel better about torturing the poor kid with neck stretches, but his head is still misshapen.  He will go in to Cranial Technologies in two days to have an initial assessment for a possible corrective helmet.  Too bad we are still in our 90 day waiting period before health insurance kicks in because those things cost upwards of $5,000.  So it's going to be helmet over a car for me to get around in because right now is the prime time for his skull to correctly form as his bone calcification proceeds.  Tim Gunn's voice is ringing in the back of my mind, "Make it Work!"  Running all of my errands on Juan's day off hasn't been that bad.

Well, there you have it.  Another month to begin and another goal set to blog more than once in the next 24 days.