Brightening up a sick day...

This is the fifth day of Elena being sick now. Today she had reached her limit by afternoon and was tired of being home, nobody had played with her ( to her surprise we didn't sit around when she was not here!) and life was sad...

Somehow she got a hold of my old camera and was trying to put new batteries on it. So I volunteered to take pictures with her of all the toys she loves and she was happy again! We are even going to put them all in a book for her.

And there's sunshine in her heart again.

 

My little guys

Some of my Little Pony

 

My fish. It took a while to get them together!

 

My favorite little pillow! Mom made it for me when I was a baby.

  

 

The pink house...

 

Under the sewing table...

 

Book/Toy Shelves. I think we got enough now...

 

Can you see the red cough drop?

Thoughts about life...

This has been a hard week. I thought in the beginning of it that having a sick child was hard. Than I had a big test announced that I'm not sure I can get the "A" I want. Besides the normal complains that my knees hurt when I stop working out, my house was not as clean as I wanted, I have not lost the 10 pounds I was working on, etc, etc.

Thursday I heard that a friend of mine from church, Estela, was sick and taken to the hospital with meningites. By afternoon she went on a coma and by early Friday morning she died. She was one of the few Brazilians members around here, there's about six of us. I felt my heart sink. She was 37 and has three kids, 12, 10 and 4. I could only imagine what kind of despair they must been going through.

My friend also from her ward, Jane, went to her house and found everyone in peace and the Spirit there was really comforting.

She was such a happy, positive, good woman. she had been the RS counselor recently and everyone loved her. As I thought about life and how we do have to see that this life is one of learning and nobody knows how long you have to learn and do what you came here to do. I thought about how I had not paid my tithing last week because I forgot to calculate it before I left to church. How I haven't read my scriptures this week because I had been studying and caring for sick kids, home food etc, that my time was not enough (but I still manage to read email, browse the net, look at my orkut and facebook, etc...) How would I explain this to the Lord if it was me instead of her who passed away...

How would measure up all the time I spend reading magazines and its latest diets, but not following the Word of Wisdon and eating healthy as I know? Or the other million substitutions I do, doing "good" but not the "best"?

Talking to Marcus about it, we converse about how "laying treasures in heaven". Those treasures, the only ones we take are really our family, our service to others and the love for the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost we have.

Everything else will stay.

I learned much from saying a sudden goodbye to a my friend. Life is indeed precious. This is the time to live it to its fullest. So I pleadge to do my best. Thanks Estela, till we meet again.

She's better now!

Camila is finally better but still home. She's going to school tomorrow. Still coughing a lot.
School for me is getting harder timewise. I have just spent the last days working problems about 5 hours a day. I have my first big test coming up. It make a world of difference when you haven't done anything like it in 25 years!

The countdown for the Utah trip is moving fast. I just found out yesterday that my plans to have everyone going together to watch the conference is not going to happen. The way tickets are distributed are from each family individual stakes, plus internationals get their tickets a week earlier at the door, and everyone will be in different sections. I contacted my bishop but I don't know if we are going to make it. I must be the last one to know these things...

The Torta de banana recipe that I found on the net, was exactly the one mom used to make years ago. I liked and it brought back some memories. of course Elena hated, she's not much into bananas, but Camila loves it. She's my banana girl.

I'm working on the girls dresses. Just cut everything last night. I'm not sure when I'm going to sew them but they need to be ready by next week. Good luck to me!

Bummer for the Holiday...

Well, Camila got sick.

Nothing serious but a low grade fever sure bust the plans for the free day. Not that we had tons of plans, but some thing were in the cards, park, maybe pool, something fun. Now we are stuck here. We may do a movie, bake something, I don't know.

Friday we officially had our marriage recognized in Brazil. With that we also registered the kids and they are know Brazilian citizens too. So we went to a Brazilian restaurant to celebrate. We should had ask the price first because we paid $100 for lunch! Lesson: NEVER go to a Churrascaria in Houston! I could have made the same for 20 people for the same price. What really got me was that the four guarana that we got cost $5 each! You could only imagine Marcus face...

We had fun after that. The children s museum there has doubled its size and it is fantastic. We spent about fours there and did have time to enjoy everything. Of course I forgot my camera home so no pictures this time.

We are counting down the days to go to Utah. We are so excited to see everyone. I'm going to make the girls dresses this week for Isadora's big birthday party. I should finish in a week or I'm in trouble. Today I have 150 math problems to finish to catch up with homework.

We are out to try to make a Reese's Cup ice cream cake. I'll post the results on that one!

Labor of Love

Tomorrow being Labor Day, I decided that nothing could be better than find myself a new thing to do! Kidding, for a long time I have wanted to have a blogg to update family and friend on what's going on here at the Grande home.

Not to mention that I have not being able to keep up with letter to Jacob (Marcus brother serving a mission on the Czech Republic), or birthdays or even what we did last weekend. Since I'm on the computer a lot, this is one sure way to get me to use my time here in a good way. Is there a limit in how much you can search decorating ideas or recipes that you probably will never make? Hope not.

Anyway, tomorrow the girls and I are going to fill this up with a lot of updates. From Summer adventures, school news, vacation plans and more! Keep in touch!