Dancing Princess Belle

Belle's new favorite song/chant is as follows:



Thank you Starfall.com.

A transcript of the video has been requested...

Chh..Chh, Chh, Chh

My neck is on my body, I can move it like this! (trying to move her neck)

Nose!

Chh..Chh, Chh, Chh

My nose is on my body, I can move it like this! (quack, quack, quack)

Heart!

Chh..Chh, Chh, Chh

My heart is on my body, I can move it like this!

Now you know!

English Lesson

Belle is trying to teach Leia how to say Luke Skywalker:

Say "looska" *pause* "wah" *pause* "kehr"

Beach Day

We don't like to travel on holidays here, since everyone else does, but for Easter weekend the weather was so good that we couldn't resist the pull of the beach. We took off Saturday early (8am is early for the beach) because there was no commuter traffic and arrived in record time.

Rex got comfortable right away with his construction vehicles.

Mommy and Dancing Princess Leia made an ice cream sunday complete with "sprinkles."

Then Belle actually tried to eat it. Gross!

We dug the obligatory beach holes and then proceeded to fill them up with people.

First Dancing Princess Leia.

Then Belle.

She even requested a pillow.

The boys went out to play in the waves. Which were HUGE!


And the girls rode the sand on the boogie board.

This picture was taken right before Belle pushed Leia off and a little fight ensued.

We had lunch around 10:30, since there was so much pressure from the nearby lanchanete. Yummy, yummy beach food: French fries eaten with toothpicks and cheese and pizza filled pastels. MMMMmmmmm. These are the remnants.

The beach was more crowded than we usually see on our weekday non-holiday outings, but it made the views more festive. These are a few of our beach neighbors. Interestingly enough, we ran into the family that lives on the 3rd floor of our apartment building as we were leaving.

Small world, big beach.

One of the favorite views on the beach is of the kite salesmen. These guys have five to seven kites up in the air on one string and walk the beaches. Quite a sight. This guy had airplanes, too.

Like I said, the waves were GINORMOUS. There were at least five waves coming in at a time.

And the farthest out were the biggest.

The boys were not daunted, however, and spent about an hour out in the water body surfing and enjoying the waves.

Another favorite beach food is the cheese. These guys walk around with coolers of skewered cheese and a little grill and cook it on the spot. In order to get the fire going, they spin the grill around and that is a sight to see.

We had noticed that the water was a bit higher on the beach when we arrived and attributed it to the early hour. Then, while the boys were out in the surf and the girls were eating the remnants of lunch, the water got higher. The wave just kept coming and coming. I picked up the backpack and stepped on the water toy bag and told the girls to stay in their chairs. The water got about a foot deep and took everything that floated with it down the beach. All our shoes went floating away. A few buckets and beach balls, too.

Everyone was in the same boat, though. People were grabbing and saving whatever floated past them. Once the water receded, there were piles of salvaged shoes, hats, buckets, towels, clothes and even cameras scattered along the beach. I was amazed when I was approached by random people asking if things were ours, and what we were still missing. Our neighboring umbrellas brought back toys they recognized as being ours and after all was said and done we got back ALL our shoes and toys.

It was like magic.

I love Brazil!

The amazingly high tide, combined with our three non-swimmers, led us to abandon the beach earlier than usual. We hit the outdoor shower, took the obligatory "kids on the dolphin statue" pictures and headed home.

It was a fun trip with just enough excitement and no sunburns (except for mommy).

We even got back in time for a few of us to take naps and then go out to our favorite family restaurant.

Note: We found out later that most of the beaches from Rio to wherever (including ours) were closed due to high tides and dangerous undertows. Good to know.

Contradiction

Leia: Mom, can I sleep with just pants. No shirt.

Mom: Sure.

No less that ten minutes later...

Leia: Mom, can you zip my jacket? (no shirt underneath)

Mom: Sure.

Didn't she say that the cold was nice?

It's All Relative

Mom: Dancing Princess Leia, close that door. It's cold outside. (a crisp 68 degrees)

Leia: But it's nice when it's cold. (says the little girl completely wrapped up in a fleece blanket)

It's really not the cold, it's the humidity and the wind.

High Aspirations

Rex: Mom? Do protocol droids exist?

Mom: No.

Rex: But are there protocol robots?

Mom: There are smart people who are trying to make smart robots, but they are not as smart as R2 or C3PO.

Rex: But if we find the planet Tatoine we can make a protocol droid because they exist there. Do you know where other plants are in our universe?

Mom: No, I only know about seven. And none of them are Tatoine.

Rex: I am going to find Tatoine, or another planet like it and make my own protocol droid.

Mom: I would like one, too.

Conference Tradition

This year's general conference Sunday began with the Blueberry Boy Bait cake/coffee bread (thanks Hillary). Mommy really liked it, Dancing Princess Leia liked it enough, Belle picked around the blueberries, the boy turned up his nose and I'm not sure if daddy even looked at it. In this case it was not true to its name. We will here forth refer to it as

Yummy Blueberry Cake.

Next time I will try it using brown sugar as the "berries."

Since we are soooo far ahead of the mountain time zone and our kids have such a short attention span for old people talking, we have instituted a picnic lunch that get the kids in the same room as, if not listening to, conference. And by conference, I mean a tivoed session from Saturday because the morning session doesn't even start until 3pm!!!

We all have our specific assignments for getting this party together. Mommy is in charge of bitesize picnic fare. This year's menu consisted of the following:

Pigs in sheets (tortillas are not thick enough to be called blankets)
A hot dog and a slice of mozzarella cheese rolled up in a tortilla and zapped for 20 seconds to melt the cheese, then sliced into bites.

Above: Open Egg Sandwiches. Mini toasts topped with a four cheese spread to adhere the egg square to the top with a dollop of more cheese spread on top.

Below: Mixto Quente (ham and cheese) on Crackers. Super cute, super mini crackers with prato cheese and tiny sliced hot dogs on top. Again, zapped for a bit to melt the cheese to adhere the hot dog to the cracker.

Extreme close-ups!!!

Dogs in sheets.

Open Egg Sandwich

Mixto Quente on Crackers (the obvious favorite)

The kids have the task of laying out the blanket, setting out the tea set dishes and finding special toys to have at each person's place. This is the fun part for them.

This year's blanket of choice was princesses, as was one of the two tea sets used.

Everyone's place setting was color coded. And extensive.

Notice my kids still haven't quite figured out that the picnic is supposed to happen on, not around the picnic blanket. I find that cute. And a dead giveaway that they have not really ever had a picnic outside, or at least not enough.

Rex had is Lego collection with an extensive clone and Jedi army behind him.

And his sleeping car.

Dancing Princess Leia chose her bald eagle and pony.


Belle, who refused to help set up, rejected the stuffed tiger (as seen behind her) and decided to eat without toys.

This is Belle's plate. When she was done eating, there were tiny toasts and tortillias left over.

Rex chose to separate his food onto different plates. We actually used the tea cups and pots for this picnic, a treat in itself for the girls.

Sweet Leia trying to daintily use her rounded pronged fork in vain.

We ended up listening to the Saturday afternoon session. At least the beginning. Rex liked the singing. Belle liked the pretty dresses. We- Mommy and Daddy -listened carefully to the releases and callings to see if any of the people in our area were changing. Rex seemed to find many names that interested him, like the names of his friends or some that sounded Portuguese.

Then mention was made of the four temples dedicated last year. One of these, we were able to participate in, and tour, so I replayed that part to see if Rex heard about the Curitiba temple. The first time, he responded to the Panama temple because one of his good friends is from Panama. I rewound it again.

Still just Panama.

Then I said, there is a new temple in Brazil, try and listen for it. Lost cause, maybe because Curitiba was pronounced wrong, but mostly because my boys have one track minds (and apparently don't like blueberries).

Then we heard how many missionaries there are and told the kids that their uncle Owen is one of them. And then we listened to the first speaker, Elder M. Russell Ballard while the kids started drifting into their Lego worlds. Every once in a while Rex or Leia looked up and responded to something said, but did not protest or distract.

Improvement.

I have not personally listened or watched the rest, but have it both on my DVR and iPod so somehow, somewhere along the way I will get the rest of the messages.

Saturday Morning Tradition

We have a Saturday morning tradition. It began with the kids playing video games in the living room while Daddy went golfing at the driving range and Mommy slept. Then Daddy would come home and make breakfast for everyone and bring it to Mommy in bed.

Aaah, those were the days..

Then Dancing Princess Leia (the Girl's self-appointed new name) asked Daddy if she could PLEASE go with him.

And he said yes.

There are kid clubs available at the driving range and Leia did her best, which was quite good.

This is an action shot of her best hit of the day. Boy did it soar!!!

The new tradition formed of Daddy and Dancing Princess Leia going golfing on Saturday mornings. Daddy would ask for the club and the lady would give it to Leia and she would hide behind Daddy with a hand over one eye and not say thank you.

Not even upon returning the club after they were done.

The same thing occurred at the gas station where they give free car washes if you buy enough of the right type of has. They would go into the loja and Dancing Princess Leia would pick a treat (with enough to share with her siblings) and not say a word to the sweet lady at the register.

Not even to the attendant who gave her the complimentary sucker.

Then Rex (the Boy's self-appointed new name) asked if he could go, too. I think he was enticed by the candy buying experience afterwords, but whatever.

Just before contact with the ball.

The tradition changed once again with Daddy, Leia and Rex all taking off on Saturday mornings while Mommy and Belle (the Baby's self-appointed new name) snuggled in bed. Sometimes Leia or Rex stayed home, claiming to be too tired.

Hello?? Then why did you wake up at 5:30 on a Saturday!!

Awesome form for his follow through.

Then a sad realization came to Daddy. Mommy was going on a trip and he would have to take all three kids to golf.

Or not go at all.

So thus was born the complete family Saturday (early) morning trip to the driving range. Mommy reluctantly agreed a trial run of EVERYONE going together and it went quite well. We go up to the second floor of the tee boxes so even when the kids hit duds, they still look like they went somewhere. This adds a little to my worry - it would be quite a fall - but there are usually less people up there and it even makes me feel good to have my ball go farther based on the 10-foot drop to the ground.

I'm not sure that this tradition is safe enough to withstand one less parental supervisor, but it is fun for all of us in its current form.

Notice the super-long shadow of the wee morning hours.

Belle is so excited to go and wants to hit more than her siblings, but still needs to work a bit on her form.

And not standing on her toes.

The Daddy-assisted swings are the most effective, but when left to her own devices it looks more like a cross between hockey and pool.

To pass the time between tee shots, each kid is allowed to bring one toy.

This week, Rex enjoyed walking his dinosaur in the "tall" fake black grass of the mat.

Dancing Princess Leia brought "Mommy's favorite dolly" and turned her shoes into toys as well.

These kids can find toys in anything. They build cages for the dinosaur and baby with the ball buckets.

Somehow Belle got out of the house without a toy and had to be pulled away from the ash trough multiple times, but she eventually found approved activities.

Here they are pretending to be golf bags.

(notice the ash trough right behind them?)

We still go to the loja and get the car wash and at least one of the kids gets nervous when the soap is sprayed on. We have learned to keep the suckers reserved for another day and that the car wash attendant is very happy to receive a tip from a smiling kid out the back passenger window of our car.

Daddy will be gone on a trip next week. Maybe Mommy will try to carry on the tradition.

Or maybe not.

Good times.