Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas from Team Puga

Missionary Song

This morning at breakfast, Rody said, "Hey, Mom, do you want to hear a song."

He sang out this little ditty with a great rhythm:

"If you want to be a missionary, march! march! march!

March! March!
March! March!
March! March!

To be a missionary, walk! walk! walk!

March! March!
March! March!
March! March!

Then you are missionary (slower, bridge-like effect)

and you can teach the gospel."


In his made up on the spot song, my three-year-old captured the essence of missionary work: march a lot, walk a lot, march a lot - only then do you get to teach.

I wish I could have caught it on video, but when I asked him to sing it again, he made up a song about reindeer and said, "My song starts with a P, okay."

Ali is six weeks today!

Ali at 3 weeks

Quick pic - more to come

Ali - Welcome to the Team, Baby Girl

Alicia Rosa Puga

(A-lee-see-a)

 

Born Oct. 13

Blue eyes, dark hair

 

 

An angel on earth

 

 



37 weeks

I guess it is about time I took a pregnant picture before this active little girl squirms her way out through my belly button. 

 

The Joy of Giving

Today is Pedro's birthday (don't tell him I told you). I only share that detail to provide context for the pictures shown below. As much as I would love to go on and on about my incredibly wonderful, kind, amazing husband and how grateful I am for him and how I can't imagine life without him, he would prefer no one knew.

So, this is officially about our son and the joy of giving.

Rody picked out three of his favorite toys and helped wrap them for gifts for Papa's birthday. The pictures really don't do justice to his excitement of watching Papa unwrap the gifts Rody chose to give him.

I can only pray for the type of love and selflessness my son expressed. The gifts he gave to his papa are some of his favorite toys that he received for his birthday two months ago.

Quotes from a three-year-old

"Is our baby curled up in a ball?"
"Yes."
"Can I bounce her?"

"I saw that the sun was awake, and I was like, 'hey, that's interesting'. I was like that, Mommy."

"I would prefer to have a cookie before my nap AND a cookie after my nap."


I love my three-year-old!

Wild Rice Festival

Rody and I were converted to traditionally-harvested wild rice at the Wild Rice Festival. I tried some in a yogurt parfait and Wow!

He loved watching the kids perform their traditional Native music in the bright costumes. We also tasted fresh apple juice from apples Rody helped press, saw how honey is extracted from hive, made beaded crafts and a wooden bug house and played in tepee.

Random fun of an almost three-year-old

 

This is from sometime in July. I like it. This is daily life with an awesome little boy.

First Canoe Trip on the St. Croix River

In early September, we enjoyed a beautiful Saturday morning testing out our new canoe. Pedro paddled us up river to a little park where we had a picnic. We passed lots of fancy speed boats and yachts (or rather they passed us) whose passengers seemed to enjoy the sight of a little canoe on the big St. Croix (which becomes the Mississppi down river).

Happy 3rd Birthday - Moose Party

On a family vacation to the Tetons National Park, Rody saw a moose antlers kids hat. His mother, not willing to pay exorbitant visitors center prices for something that might be forgotten the next day promised her son they could make him some moose antlers when they got back to grandma's house on his birthday.

 

He did not forget that promise, and for the next three days he reminded Mom, Grandma and everyone else that we were going to make moose antlers on his birthday.  

 

 

Rody thought that everyone should have the good fortune of moose antlers, and decided he wanted to have a moose party in which everyone would make moose antlers and then go outside and pretend to be moose. His uncles and aunts were very good moose. As a family, we played a variation of the game "Duck, Duck, Goose":  "Elk, Elk, Moose", making one little three-year-old moose very giggly and very happy. 

 

 

 

Happy 3rd Birthday - baseball pinata carne asada party

Our little man turned three in August while we were visiting family in Utah.  His California grandparents met us in Utah for a big family birthday party. Though I don't know how they fit it in their car, they brought the biggest pinata I'd ever seen, purchased in Mexico.  They also brought our favorite carne asada meat for an amazing dinner that made me so glad my kid didn't request cheesy noodles.

 

We were happy a few friends could come to the party with their cute kids. We miss you!

 

I was a little nervous that the kids would be scared of a giant smiling baseball bigger than any of them, but they loved it - especially when the Mexican candy spilled out. Chili-watermelon sucker anyone?
 

 

 

 

Measure your feet

My son wanted to measure things with the tape measure. He asked if he could measure my feet. Afterward he said, “Good job, Mommy! I'm proud of you for being so brave."

Learning to Ski with Mr. Magee

One of Rody's favorite library books is Learning to Ski with Mr. Magee by Chris Van Dusen. We've read it 10 - 15 times the past month. Finally, after reading it yet again, I told Rody, "Okay, now you read it to me." - And, he did.

I had no idea he had memorized the WHOLE book.

When Pedro got home from work, Rody "read" it to him. I caught part of it on video. This kid can't keep his hands out of his mouth, so I don't know how much of it is understandable. It's a bit long, so mostly for grandparents and aunts with patience, but super cute. I love their papa-son conversation at the end.

Urban Dare Adventure Race

This was our family outing Saturday afternoon. We ran (ok, walked) all over downtown St. Paul to take pictures of the answers to clues with Rody relaxing in his stroller. More to come. 

Pedro's brother served as our "phone a friend" - Jordan, you're the best!

Indexing

I am not a consistent indexer. I need a refresher course in cursive, and I often have to give back a batch if I just can't decider the handwriting. But, I made a goal to get at least one batch complete on Monday, and I did. Yay!

Sharks in the barn

This is the quick-response dialogue that passed between father and son this morning:

Rody: be careful, papa, that's my barn. (as Pedro sat on the couch to put on his shoes)

Pedro: oh, okay. What kinds of animals do you have in your barn? Chickens?

Rody: yes

Pedro: and horses, pigs and ducks?

Rody: yeah

Pedro: and cows and buffalo?

Rody: NO! of course not! the buffalo are in that field (said without skipping a beat)

Pedro: oh okay, and cats and dogs?

Rody: yup

Pedro: and sharks?

Rody: No Way!

Pedro: oh, no sharks in the barn?

Rody: of course not, the sharks are in the water over there.

Best Discovery Ever! - Mr. Roger's Website

http://pbskids.org/rogers/index.html

Full Episodes - no ads!

Kinnickinnic River Area Adventure

Pedro says flukey things happen to me frequently. I disagree. Odd things happen to everyone every so often. But, I did have a couple incidents on our adventure.

Pedro wanted to check out the Kinnickinnic River, famous for trout fishing. So, we hopped the border into Wisconsin (the day before the recall election) and explored around River Falls, WI.

While Pedro fished for a bit, Rody and I walked along the river bank trail - until we ran into some kind of poison ivy type plant. Our legs were stinging and itchy as we hurried to get to a place where we could soak in the water. Oh, the relief of cold flowing river water!

The land around River Falls is beautiful: rolling fields, forested knolls, classic farm homes and barns.

The sunset was gorgeous. At one point, I asked Pedro to stop so I could get out to take some pictures. However, upon trying to exit the vehicle, some how my pant loop got stuck on the zipper loop of the cooler, not in the zipper, but it's loop actually looped a hole in my loop. Once I enlisted Pedro's help, it still took five minutes and ripping a bigger hole in the loop of my pants to free me from the Catch-22 humiliation of either walking around with a small cooler dragging from my belt loop or ditching my pants all together.

Due to that delay, I didn't quite get the sunset picture I'd hope for, but I had fun snapping shots out of the window as we drove home.

Spontaneous campout/fishing trip at Frontenac State Park and Hay Creek

So I can see my brain

My son borrowed some tweezers and was poking at his hair in front of the mirror.

The Dialogue:

Mom: "What are you doing, buddy?"
Rody: "Cutting my hair"
Mom: "Oh, we usually let someone else cut our hair so we don't make a mistake and cut it all off."
Rody: "Well, I'm cutting my hair so I can see my brain."

I'm just glad he found tweezers and not scissors if that was his goal.

Is that you singing?

My son just heard Karen Carpenter singing "I just fall in love again." 

He asked me, "Is that you singing?"

HA! I wish!

Spoiled

A couple weeks ago, Rody and I got to make a special "Happy Birthday Grandpa" trip to Utah. We are so spoiled every time we go.

Case in point: my mom took me to Costa Vida on the way to the airport because my favorite sweet pork salad was the only thing I could think of that I didn't get to do while we were in Cache Valley (besides visit our family to the south).

Rody got to play with second cousins at the children's museum, go fishing, feed horses, play baseball, basketball, tennis and ping pong and get tons attention from his grandparents and aunts and uncles.

I got to join in on most of the above, plus see my brother's church basketball team (coached by my dad) win the regional championship, take my sister's engagement pictures (congratulations Brette and Andrew!), hike with my dad and brother (gotta love the Crimson Trail), host a baby shower and see some of my best friends from high school and hang out with my mom, just to name a few highlights.

I wish I had more pics, but here's what I've got.

Original Lion King Medley

Until the flan cools - home-movie marathon

I have two hours of video clips of mostly Rody that I have neglected to post since, oh, last August. I baked flan for the first time, so the plan is to load as many clips as I can while it cools.

A candid of my boy doing some of the things he loves best (other than baseball, of course): singing and playing in the sink.

Our Saturday adventure at Interstate State Park on the St. Croix River next to the small town of Taylor's Falls, a terrible misnomer, considering there is NO waterfall in the vicinity. There are however, pot holes formed by swirling lava. I was a little bummed about the lack of falling water, but the amazing pizza in town made things mostly right in the world.

One of the few pros of having a very steep driveway: sledding.

Introducing an original song composed by none other than the most recent diaper graduate. He was generous enough to perform the number again and gave me exclusive movie rights.

Thanks for the membership and memories Grandma and Grandpa!

We love the Minnesota Children's Museum!

The flan was delicious!

Best Friends (part 2)

The past few days I'd been enjoying the back and forth repetitive banter with my son:

"You are my best friend."
"No, you are my best friend."
etc.

Then, the other night I tried to start it up again, telling Rody, "You are my best friend." Instead, he replied, "No, I'm not your best friend. Papa is your best friend."

When I suggested that both he and Papa could be my best friends, he countered, "No, Papa is your best friend, and my best friends are Woody and Buzz Lightyear."

Best friends

Out of the blue, while eating his breakfast, Rody said, "Mom, you are my best friend!"

I am not sure where he heard the phrase, but I like it.

Can I make granola without coconut?

Nope, I just can't bring myself to do it. It would be like making chocolate chips cookies without adding the chocolate chips.

Where can you buy bulk coconut?

First home

We bought a house! The past two months have been crazy, but good. More on everything later. Just wanted to let whoever might look at this know that we are still alive. Thanks for reading.