General Conference

www.lds.org

Just posted this on Facebook but wanted to post it here, too. I’m really looking forward to spending the next two days at home with my little family and listening to the inspired words of a prophet of God and all of the church leaders. I always go into General Conference with a prayer in my heart and a specific concern on my mind. Without fail, I always hear a message that feels like it was meant especially for me. I hear guidance that will help me in my life. I hear messages that inspire me to be a better version of myself. I feel comforted that God really knows and loves each one of us. I’m so grateful for the gospel in my life. It has brought me so much joy, has given me peace during the really tough times, and has blessed me in more ways than I can count.

If anyone reading this wants to know more about what I believe, watch or listen to the LDS General Conference this weekend.

Four

I’m 19 weeks pregnant and haven’t written a thing about this pregnancy! What a slacker. So here goes.

Remember when I was all, “This is the last one. This is the last time we’re doing this. The factory is closed. I can’t handle more than 3 kids…” ? Remember that? Well, in the middle of December, we found out that the Lord had other plans. I want to type out a couple of things about the way this all went down. Because who knows how much of this I will remember when this pregnancy steals the last good brain cells I have left.

A couple of days after I came back from Arizona (for my brother’s reception), I started to become a tad concerned about the delay of…you know…some things. As I was going to bed one night, I started counting the weeks in my mind. I thought, “I must have my dates all wrong…November was a crazy month and I really can’t remember what happened when…” And then out of nowhere I got this super strong feeling, like a voice, talking in my mind saying, “You’re pregnant.” It caught me by surprise and I thought, did I really just think that? There’s no way that could be possible. The second thought that came into my mind was, “It’s a girl.” I couldn’t shake the feeling, even when I woke up the next morning. While Marcelo was at work, I took a test and I can’t express to you enough how completely and utterly SHOCKED I was when it turned positive right away. SHOCKED. STUNNED. FLOORED. I don’t know how else to say it. I sat there staring at myself in the mirror with my mouth hanging open. I then began to text Marcelo saying, “Do you think you can come home early today? I just need to see you.” I was trying to play it cool so he wouldn’t figure it out while he was at work. He called me and asked if something was wrong and I was all, “Ohhh, nothing. Everything’s fine. I’m just wishing you were home today.” He must have thought, “Holy needy emotional wife,” but all he said was that he couldn’t come home early, unless I had an emergency. So I waited patiently until he came home. My mom had the kids for the evening, so I sat him down on the couch and said, “Um, so….I’ve been feeling kind of ‘off’ lately…” and he interrupted with, “You’re pregnant.” I nodded and it immediately became clear that he wasn’t totally serious when he said it and did not expect me to say yes. He stared at me wide eyed. It was really like a deer caught in the headlights. It’s so funny now to think about that moment. Pure shock in that poor boy’s face. I could see the wheels turning in his head trying to calculate and figure out the same things I had been trying to figure out earlier. We both came up with scrunched up eyebrows and the same questions: how? when? what???

Of course we got rid of every last baby thing in November. I had already given away all my maternity clothes, baby boy clothes, and even Eliana’s 0-9month clothes months and months before that. Why couldn’t we have just waited one more month??

Anyway, the shock lasted a good 2 weeks. But in those 2 weeks I had some really great moments that gave me comfort and peace. I had a dream where I felt like I was being told that this was the plan for our family and that everything would be okay. I woke up feeling so blessed to have a loving Heavenly Father that knew I needed to hear that. As the weeks passed, I began to feel like I was being given a gift. I had no idea that there was still someone missing from our family. I thought 3 was it for us. So to find out that there’s one more little person coming to join us felt like an unexpected gift. I thought I never wanted to go to the hospital and have another c-section ever again. But as I started to look back through my pictures from when Eliana was born, I felt surprisingly excited to have the opportunity to do that again. As my pregnancy has progressed, I have only felt more and more excited to do the whole thing all over again. Okay, saying “only” is a complete lie. I have also felt extremely overwhelmed, terrified, and all around incapable of handling 4 kids. I have felt completely panic stricken at the thought of having this baby the first week that school starts for Diego and Celo. BUT, I’m a mere human…an extremely hormonal human…so I’m not going to kick myself too much about all the fear that has run through my mind. Because above all, I feel supremely blessed and excited to meet this little baby that I didn’t know would come.

So ever since that first night where I felt like I was pregnant with a girl, I have not been able to think of this baby as anything but a girl. I had dreams about it being a girl and I’ve had many instances when I’ve had to catch myself to remind myself that I don’t know for sure yet. There was one day where without even thinking, I filled an online shopping cart with some killer sales on baby girl clothes and was just about to check out when I stopped myself and thought, “What are you doing??? You don’t know if it’s a girl!” Anyway, this week, it was confirmed that we are indeed having another girl (which makes me feel pretty sad that I didn’t buy all those super cheap clothes that day). Two boys and two girls!! I’m beyond excited. I can’t even believe this is happening.

Before I had Celo, I had a dream that I had a girl who was a total Diego clone. I could see her perfectly in my mind, wrapped in a pink blanket, with reddish-blondish hair like Diego had (and very little of it) the same dainty little nose Diego had, and light eyes that look so much like his. Then I found out I was having a boy. Then when I found out I was having Eliana, I thought, “Maybe this will be the baby from my dream!” And then she came out with a head full of black hair. So if this little girl looks nothing like the one in my dream, I will be left wondering who the heck that baby is. But I can assure you that we will not be going through this all a 5th time to find out! Marcelo thinks we’ll be having another hairy girl, but I’m betting she’s bald. I can’t get lucky with a hairy girl twice! I think this time I will feel all my friends’ pain of having to wait and wait to be able to clip a bow in my baby girl’s hair.

Marcelo kept his 100% record for guessing the gender of all the babies in the family. Out of our 4, his sister’s 3, his brother’s 4, and his cousin’s 2 kids, he guessed correctly every single time. (Btw, besides Diego and Celo, all of those babies were girls.) Celo was the only one in our family (well, besides Eliana who had no idea what I was asking her) who guessed wrong. He was a little bummed that he didn’t guess right, but he’s really excited to have another sister. He thinks Eliana is the most hilarious little girl on earth, so he thinks it’ll be fun if we get another one like her.

The way we announced to our parents was by showing up at their houses with each one of the kids holding a pink balloon and me and Eliana wearing pink. I had my dad snap this picture so I could announce it to the rest of my friends and family.

This is easily one of my favorite pictures of all time. I’m so thankful for my family!

Diego Turns 6

Well, it has taken me 6 weeks, but I am finally posting about Diego’s birthday.

Diego wanted a zumba party this year. He is completely obsessed with dancing, disco lights (which he calls dancing lights), and glow sticks. So we invited our families over and let him live his dream of becoming a zumba instructor. We made a sign that said, “Diego’s Zumba Class” with an arrow pointing towards the living room, where we moved the couches and made room for a dance floor. All the cousins wore glow sticks and Diego taught them how to dance. Reagan and Leilani were the most into it and followed his every move. It was too cute. Did I take a single picture? NO! I am soooo mad at myself. I was too busy getting video of it all that I forgot to take pictures, too. At least I have it all on video, but I would have loved to have some stills of Diego busting a move with his cousins. Oh well, here’s the video. Eliana jumps in at the end. Celo mostly played in the toy room because dancing is not his thing.

 

I mean…he loves it.

At least I did manage to snap ONE picture of him holding his cupcake right after we sang to him.

See the glow stick around his neck? You can see in the video that he had two on each wrist and two on each ankle. This boy danced for two hours straight. He was pretty sweaty by the time it was all over. The next morning he slept till 8:30, which is a big deal since he normally gets up at 6:30.

Some things about our 6 year old (many of these are according to his answers to our bday interview):

- The thing he loves most in life is dancing. Dancing lights. Glow sticks. As I already mentioned. He also loves to draw and write notes to people, ride his bike, and has just started liking golf.
- His favorite food is macaroni and cheese (which is just noodles with smart balance spread and salt and sometimes a little of his soy cheese).
- His favorite dessert is chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting.
- His favorite colors are orange, blue, and purple.
- His favorite place to go is zumba (not that he ever goes, but I asked and that’s what he said), the Orlando Science Center, and Sea World.
- His best friends are Sophia, Alyssa, Meredith, Tayla, Yomari, Tyson, Karly, Kealoha, Amelia, Melanie, Ethan, Lane, and Kyleigh. He basically just named all the classmates he could think of. He doesn’t really have a stand out best friend yet. He just likes everybody.
- He currently knows 300 sight words. He’s a sponge when it comes to reading. At the beginning of the year, he only knew a handful of sight words, so I am beyond proud of his progress. When I had my first parent/teacher conference at the beginning of October, he knew about 60 sight words and his teacher gave him a goal of learning 200 by the end of the year. In January, he reached that goal! Then in February, he reached 300! Most of the time he likes to work on them with me, but sometimes he gets very frustrated if he doesn’t get it right away. It’s been amazing to see him go from barely grasping the concept of putting sounds together to becoming so good at sounding out words he doesn’t know. I’m not going to lie though: it’s completely overwhelming to think that I will still have to teach 3 more kids how to read. But Marcelo and I made a deal that if I teach them how to read, he will help them with their science projects. Woo hoo!!
-He’s grasping math concepts so well. Today in the car he told me out of the blue that 15 plus 15 is 30. He said, “I don’t know how I knew that. I just knew.” He counts by 5s and 10s and adds stuff up all the time. I never realized how amazing it would be to watch my kids learn even the most basic things. It may sound cheesy but it really is incredible to watch them grow in so many ways.
- He’s about to have his first kindergarten play. At first he was chosen to play the lead role, but a few days later he said he wasn’t doing it anymore and ended up with a part that has 2 lines. I was so relieved because I’ve seen how he gets during the children’s program at church and I so could not see him singing and speaking in front of tons of people. He would have been happier with a dancing part, but he’s done great learning his two lines and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he’ll actually do it on the day of the play. Stay tuned. 
- He came home from school yesterday with about 7 love notes! Four were from Yomari, one was from Tayla, and another was from Sophia. I don’t think he’s aware of what it means when a girl puts his name with hers in a heart and says, “Love you.” But I am. And I don’t like it one bit.
- He’s still very allergic to milk, egg yolks, and possibly tree nuts. We haven’t tested tree nuts yet, so it’s possible that he’s outgrown that one like he outgrew his peanut allergy.
- He loves to learn Spanish. He understands SO much and can speak a few words.
- He is still very sweet and loving. He kisses me multiple times a day, tells me he loves me all the time, and is just all around a giant sweetheart. No wonder he gets all those love notes.

We are so grateful for our Diego!!