Mexican Food

Ans,

The other day Bronwyn was craving guacamole so we took her to this place.

The best guacamole ever and Bronwyn definitely fed her face with lots and lots of it.

She was happy.

While there, Quigs got the camera as you know he likes to do.

Here are some of the pictures from his restaurant photo session.  Every time he pointed the camera at one of us, he would say, "Be a weirdo."  We did our best to obey.....

He has a gift.

Thought you'd like to see his handy work. Have a good day.

Thanksgiving Week-Part 2

This week I am also thankful that Giovanni is potty trained. He just learned within the last couple of weeks.

And as a guy he's also learned, without any training, where his throne is and what you do when you are on it.

You'll notice the pacifier in one picture. That's our next adventure.

The Bible tells us to be thankful for everything. This week we are thankful for our last child learning how to poop on a commode.

Three

Hard to believe it was three years ago today that Giovanni was born.

He was a pretty good looking little guy then...

....and we think he's even cuter now. 

Busy Weekend-Part 3

Giovanni started pre-school in March. For those of you who don't know, our school years run from February/March through the middle of December.

Anyway, he started school in March. It took him a while to get acclimated but he really likes it now.

His school is at the same place where Carys and Anderson had their race on Saturday. He goes to the same pre-school that Anderson went to. Same teachers and everything. We love the school.

At the same time the kids were racing Giovanni had a Mothers Day presentation. They had the presentation a week after Mothers Day (our Mothers Day is the same day as the day in the states but our Fathers Day is in a different month) and the place was packed.

Here kids go to school only a half day. They can go in the morning or the afternoon. So at the presentation there were morning and afternoon classes for 2-3 year olds, 4-5 year olds and 6 year olds. Lots of people.

We shared yesterday that Giovanni doesn't like adults dressed up as characters. He also isn't a big fan of new, loud places full of people. If you've ever been to Brasil then you know when lots of people get together it's going to be super loud.

His class was to do a little dance presentation which, for 2 year olds, is going to be funny no matter what they practice because they will never do what you worked on.

For some reason the director of the school decided to put the 2 year old group last. So Giovanni and his classmates had to wait through 5-6 other presentations (without us around) before they came out.

I know the picture is blurry, small and hard to see. We actually weren't even there and only have this one because another mother emailed it to us. I'm pretty sure she took it with her phone but you can kind of see what he and his buddies look like as they waited to do their presentation.

Anyway, we didn't think the waiting outside the auditorium for 30 minutes was going to work for him but he was fine with his buddies and his teachers. He LOVES his teachers and so getting to hang around them was fun for him.

He was fine when they brought the group in to do the presentation.

He then got on stage, looked around and started to not like it so much. Okay, he didn't like it at all!

But he had his mom there to take care of him.

As soon as the show was over he was still needing some mom time.

He gave Benay her present and started to slowly get a little better.

About a minute later he was back to his normal self.

Even though he didn't get to do his presentation (which if you look at the show it was mainly kids standing looking at Janette, the teacher, while she demonstrated everything they were supposed to be doing) my girlfriend still loved every minute of it.

What mom wouldn't love the chance to just sit and hug and love on their child?

It was a great Mothers Day gift for her.

Bloody Wednesdays

Giovanni is one pretty stubborn little dude. 

Two Wednesday's ago he was exhausted from pre-school but when he got home he didn't want to take a nap. 

I tried to get him to take one. Normally that's my job and he does pretty good with me. 

That Wednesday he wasn't in the mood for me. As he was laying down he started to yell for his mom. I tried to get him settled but he was having none of it. 

So as I went to get my girlfriend he got really mad. I then heard a BANG and looked around in the dark room to see our two year old smacking his head. I knew he got hurt because he was popping his head with his hand where he got hit to try to stop the pain. So in my loving, full of patience voice (cough, cough) I said, "See what happens when you flip out like that? You need to calm down and I'll get mom." 

I then looked a little bit harder in the dark room and noticed blood pouring out of his head. 

I picked him up and yelled, "BENAY COME HERE!"

She came in and saw blood everywhere. 

What happened? He tagged his eyebrow pretty good on the wood frame of his bed and opened up a nice size cut. It ended up being like a boxer's cut. The blood made it look worse than it was. It was a deep cut worthy of stitches but not as horrible as it looked at the time. 

Giovanni went with his mom and I called our pediatrician (who happens to have his office in a children's hospital). I explained to Ricardo (our pediatrician) what happened and asked him where was the best place to take Giovanni. He told me to bring him to the hospital emergency room and he would meet us there. 

He met us and took us to the pediatric surgeon to work on Giovanni. 

Oh yeah, Giovanni also HATES doctors. Doctors offices, doctors, nurses, receptionists, whatever. We enter and he begins to scream and, in general, flip out. 

He had just eaten so they couldn't give him an IV to let him sleep for the stitches. The doctor then decided that he would glue the cut. He told us that it would leave a smaller scar. But Giovanni still had to be still. Easier said than done in a hospital. 

So they gave him some medicine to make him "drunk." They said it would make him have amnesia and that he wouldn't remember anything that was about to happen. That it would only last for 1-2 hours and it would allow them to work on his cut. 

Sounds good but he had to drink it. Not easy. He puked some of it back up on Benay, because of his crying, but thankfully enough went in for him to calm down a little. Enough to make him groggy but not enough to knock him out. Just to be able to wash his eye and put the glue on took my wife laying on him and a nurse holding his head still. The surgeon called him "The Beast" because of how strong he was. 

An hour and a half later we were leaving the hospital with our little drunk baby and his glued eyebrow. 

Here is what that looked like and the fun that the kids had with him.

Mean big brothers and sisters goofing on their little brother. 

About an hour later all the medicine wore off and he was back to normal.

Then last Wednesday we were eating lunch and Giovanni was running around. We heard a "blam" and we knew he had splatted on the floor. I immediately said, "He busted his head." I'm not sure I believed it or was just thinking about the week before.

Benay went to get him and their was blood coming out of his face again. This time his mouth.

He had busted his bottom lip and inside his mouth above his top teeth.

So, as is becoming our Wednesday custom, we called Ricardo. He met us again in the emergency room but this time took us to his office to check out Giovanni.

He looked him over and, thankfully, said he didn't need stitches. We were not looking forward to fighting with The Beast again.

Ricardo prescribed ice cream for The Beast until the swelling went down. What a great doctor.

He also didn't charge us for the visit. What a great doctor.

Here's Giovanni right after we got home from the hospital showing off his cut with his bloody clown lips.

Here he is posing for us the next day.

Wonder if we'll get to see Ricardo tomorrow?

Future Picasso?

This is Giovanni's first ever school drawing.

It might be worth millions one day.

First Day-Part 2

My girlfriend helped Giovanni get ready for school yesterday.

Even Rex walked him to the door to say goodbye.

He had his backpack and his pillow.

He chilled on the way to school looking at Carys' sticker book.

We got to school. He was excited.

I walked him to the door.

He has the same teacher that Anderson had four years ago. Her name is Janette and we love her.

When he got to the door he asked to have his backpack put on. It was so heavy that he couldn't take a step forward and started falling backwards. Janette then took it off his back and walked him inside.

He went in with no trouble.

My girlfriend and I sat outside the room (just as all the parents were asked to do during the shortened two hour class) and Giovanni did okay for about thirty minutes. Then we heard him begin to ask for us.

After a little bit longer they came out and asked one of us to come in. Not to hold his hand and do everything with him but to stay in a hidden corner that he could come around and see us from time to time when he needed to.

My girlfriend went first. He did okay. Then he wanted to see me.

I went in and sat in the corner. He did fine for a little bit. He played in the ball pit. Then he just lost it. He started crying uncontrollably. Janette decided to call it a day with about thirty minutes left in class and after it was evident that nothing, except leaving, would make him happy. She then told me what we would try today to help him with the transition. She is a really good teacher.

Not the best first day but a good first step.

We talked later about why this was so difficult for Giovanni. Our other kids have never had a first day like that before but our other kids had never dealt with what Giovanni was dealing with.

For the first two and a half years of his life, Giovanni has been either with me or my girlfriend. We've taken an occasional one or two day trip but he always had his brothers or sisters around when we left so he was good.

When Anderson was born we had a friend (more like a mom really) that we paid to help us take care of our house. She was, literally, Anderson's Brasilian grandmother. From the first day of his life she was with Anderson. She came to our house four days a week, and she speaks no English so Anderson's days were filled with English and Portuguese. There were times when no one was home with Anderson except Vera (our mom/grandmother). Anderson calls her grandma. We all love her and she is family. Unfortunately, after the fall of the dollar and the rise of inflation, etc. we were no longer able to afford to have this kind of help. Sadly we had to let her go. So Giovanni hasn't been blessed with a daily Brasilian grandmother or had the luxury of hearing daily, hourly Portuguese. He has only heard, mainly, English his entire life. He's constantly around Brasilians, but a few hours at a time is no comparison to eight hours a day.

We also talked about how, in his mind, he must have thought he was going where his brothers and sisters were going. When he got to the door of the school he looked at my girlfriend and said, "Mano? (a Brasilian word for brother which he calls Anderson) Carys? Garrett?" He goes with me a lot to take his brothers and sisters to school. He knows they get out of the car together and they go to school. Giovanni's school is right next door to his brothers and sister's school. We actually parked on their street. So he got out of the car and wanted to go in their school. We had to explain that he was in a different school but we think he was fully expecting to see them when he walked in the door.

It makes sense then that his crying time probably had more to do with mental tiredness than anything else.

For all the stuff that was messing with his brain yesterday we think he did just fine. We are praying that he will want to go back today and that every day will be better.

He had a tough first day but, like any little kid, he quickly forgot about it and was happy when we got back to the car and was able to check out Carys' sticker book again.

And by the time we got home he was completely konked.

Tough but good first day.

But just to give you an idea of the state of mind we were in immediately after we left class yesterday my wife shot a video. He had stopped crying, almost immediately, when we left the class but the tough first day was still evident by his answers to all her questions.

First Day

Today Giovanni starts his first day of school. My girlfriend did a blog about the same thing. You mom's will like it. Click here to read it.

Giovanni will only go for two hours today. It will be like that for all the kids for the first 5-6 days. These short days will help the little guys get acclimated to their new life.

First school days are exciting for our family. Especially for the baby who always has lots of help.

This morning Giovanni had two good helpers as he put on his uniform.

He then went and showed it off to Anderson.

Anderson, who is Captain Excitement about everything, met Giovanni first with a big hug......

.....and then with a "first day of school uniform dance."

I told you, first day of school days are exciting in our house.

We'll let you know how it goes.

Spiderman

We returned this past Sunday from a two week vacation. We spent a week visiting our friends in São Paulo state. We then spent a week with just our family at the beach to celebrate Ansley's recent high school graduation.

We had lots of time to relax which meant lots of time to read to Giovanni.

His new favorite book is Spiderman.

He reads it for you here:

Merry Christmas

Quig Talk

Bronwyn,

Your brother really likes to talk now. It's fun listening to his new words every day.

Here's a little video to help you until you come home next month and have your own conversations with him. I know you'll enjoy it:

New Buddies

Bonni,

You already knew how much your little brother LOVES Lightning McQueen.

He now has two new buddies.

Mom found Toy Story 1 and 2 DVD's on sale last month so we bought them.

Quigs is hooked.

The movies, the Woody doll mom brought back from the states and a Buzz Lightyear car have made him a big fan of Buzz and Woody.

Woody and your brother do everything together. Even take naps.

They're pretty tight. Sometimes they even share clothes.

In Giovanni's language Buzz and Woody have become Buh-Who (one word). Very cute.

Cheese

Am I a bad dad because I wanted to see how many times I could get my one year old to say "cheese" while he waited for me to take a picture when really I was taking a video?

He never did get tired.

Down Time

After a long, hard day some people find it relaxing to unwind with a good book. 

Dirt Cake-Part 2

Remember Giovanni and his yummy snack?

As I was filming that day Benay took a bunch of photos.  Those pictures gave her an excuse to play with our new MacBook computer and come up with the slide show below.

Okay, we realize that probably only grandparents and the Terry's will want to watch a second blog about Giovanni and his dirt cake and that's okay. You guys enjoy.

Here it is:

Dirt Cake-Part 1

About ten years ago our family lived in a little town in Mississippi.  We were a part of a little church family.

As is the tradition in many churches in the south you have different times of enjoying fellowship together after worship time.   More often than not it is a pot-luck type meal.  Everyone brings something.  You put it all together and let everyone dig in.

There was a woman at our church (Susan) who made dirt cake every time we had a meal together.  It was awesome.  On more than one occasion I saw people start their meal time at the dessert section just to make sure they had some of her dirt cake.  Our kids loved it.  It was made with pudding and mashed up Oreos.  Who wouldn't like that?

We mentioned, in a previous blog, that before my parents got here we bought some flowers to spruce things up a little.  We also bought some black dirt.

Rex and Lucky love the black dirt and love to dig up the flowers.  It's been a losing battle in trying to save the flowers.  Every day we get to sweep up more black dirt and dead plants from their digging.  Let's just say the discipline isn't working so far.  We keep reminding ourselves that they are puppies.

Anyway, this week Giovanni made his own dirt cake but I don't think he used the same recipe as Susan.

I love the little black hands, the dirt hand print on the side of his face, and his reaction after eating his version of dirt cake and realizing that Brasilian Oreos taste different than American Oreos.

(p.s.  Thanks for your prayers.  Dad made it home safely.)

Popcorn Can Head

Giovanni is an extremely independent child.  He's starting to get real upset when someone tries to feed him.

His independence makes for a happy mess.  He's very happy when he gets to feed himself.

When Ansley and I went to Chicago last year we brought my dad back a can of Garrett popcorn.  It's the name of the popcorn and my dad claimed it was the best.

After he and the kids ate all the popcorn he gave the can to Garrett.  We have nerf gun wars in our house.  Garrett has 3 or 4 nerf guns and about 30 nerf bullets.  The can has become a holder for the nerf bullets.

Giovanni found the can one day.  So what does a very independent one year old do with a can like that?  He decided to empty the bullets and put the can on his head.

It's been one of his favorite things to do since.  It even got stuck on his head a few times but this hasn't stopped him.  We don't try to stop him either.   We just let him be happy living in his popcorn can helmet land.

It really doesn't hinder him in what he wants to do.

He wears it when he reads.

He wears it when he watches television (notice the nerf bullets around and behind him that he's dumped for the 50th time).

He even wears it when he's walking. 

Who knew a popcorn can could have so many different uses?