Hoje o Diogo escreveu uma carta à Sofia. Correndo o risco de invadir a privacidade, aqui vão as fotos da carta mais fofa do mundo para os namoradinhos mais fofos do mundo. :)

O Diogo desenhou-me assim, tão simpática e colorida!
Adorei!! Good job Diogo!

O Hugo escolheu esta roupa e estas sandálias de uma revista. Muito elegante, nada mal representada. Parti-me a rir com o pormenor do cão. Demais!! Parabéns Hugo, gostei muito.


Simpática e elegante, boa rapazes!! :))

 No sábado fomos à feira do livro no parque Eduardo VII. Foi super divertido. Lemos livros, comprámos alguns, vimos vários bonecos, comemos Chocapic e ainda nos divertimos num insuflável a apanhar bolas. Nice lazy afternoon.
E no dia seguinte aparecemos no telejornal!! :)

Hugo Saltitão

O Hugo adora saltar, sempre adorou desde bebé. Hoje, depois do banho e do jantar, nada melhor que saltar com os dois pés dentro de uma pantufa. Silly Hugo!!

Bolo de mel e noz

O Diogo vai ter teste amanhã e um dos tópicos que vai sair no teste é explorar uma receita culinária. A professora sugeriu fazerem o bolo de mel e nozes que tinham feito na cantina da escola faze-lo novamente em casa. Não precisávamos de mais nada para meter as mãos à obra num domingo solarengo.

A realização correu bem e o bolo ficou delicioso como se pode ver na foto. Depois ainda deu para fazer 2 fichas de português mas os tópicos não eram assim tão divertidos e com tanta "mão na massa" como este. :)

À tarde ainda demos uma fugidinha à Portela para explorar um playground que já tinhamos fisgado há uns dias atrás.

Descobrimos que vale a pena voltar lá com uma merendinha e fazer um pic-nic debaixo daquelas palmeiras.

Meet the babies :)

Another very busy saturday: tennis and swimming pool in the morning, circus in the afternoon... And we still had time to see the newborn calves in Escola Agraria (vet school). They are 3 weeks old and still just drink milk. They are learning how to eat solid food (just like babies). :)

Tomar Lego

Yep, this is a LEGO basketball player. :)

Yesterday, on the way back home from our mini-vacations, we stopped at Tomar to take a look at the Lego fair. I was expecting it to be bigger but it was nice though, they definitely had some very interesting constructions there.

As soon as we arrived, Hugo rushed to the exhibits to "re-arranje" the LEGO sets (Curious George style).

So we took him immediately to the Lego pool - a large "sand-box" with lots and lots of LEGO bricks for people to play. After he was done exploring with LEGO bricks, he was able to see without touching. :))

Diogo loved everything. He thought it was really cool, specially the balls that were being moved by LEGO cranes, rubber bands, catapults, etc.

Of course Pedro didn't resist either and bought several LEGO pieces. I can't put all the photos here but take

a look at these. The Notre Dame cathedral was amazing!! So much detail...

Happy Birthday My Love!!

It's almost 4am and tomorrow is going to be a tough day: I have a deadline at work and I need to be at day care by 4pm to sing happy birthday to Diogo with his class. Why am I still awake at 4am then? The answer: love. Deep love for this little boy that is going to be 5 tomorrow. I made these cakes, the "savana" to take to school, the chocolate one to eat after dinner with close family. The big party will be on sunday. :)

Happy birthday Diogo!!!!! Can't believe you're 5 already!!! 

Simple great moments...

Who could guess that the best moment of my week would be eating a sandwich and fruit in the back of the swimming pool... It's amazing how simple moments can be so wonderful. 

Every week, on saturday mornings, we take the kids to the swimming pool. I get in the water and I get this big smile because its so much fun... The water is 32C, it's shallow so even Hugo can stand and be comfortable in the water... It's a great family time. But after 1 hour playing, we all get very hungry so two weeks ago we had the idea of bringing some snacks and eat there. That idea was brilliant. Now, after 1 hour playing in the water, we get out, we go around the swimming pool, we sit on the grass and just watch the beautiful landscape from there, the horses, the cows in the fields, the birds, the trees... It's such a nice, simple and quiet moment that me and Pedro labeled it "The best moment of the week". :)

Next week I'll take pictures to remember these moments.

-Ana

Emotional at work

A normal day at the office turned out to be a very emotional day for me. And the whole thing was triggered by such a simple question... I was working and my officemate just mentioned "San Francisco is such a beautiful city...". That sentence flew me back to the years I spent in CA, I remembered my friends, my work, my life... then I started thinking about Madison and ... and tears started to roll. I just couldn't put myself together and I was feeling so embarassed I had to leave the office. I talked with Pedro on the phone, then I met him for lunch (well, I just had time to eat a soup, he's always in meetings and no time for anything). Then at work I talked with one of the girls (she lived in France all her life and now lives here) and she said something really interesting: she doesn't see France as an opportunity that she missed (like a missed train). France is still there, she keeps contact with friends and family there, she can go there... it doesn't need to be a door that is closed forever. And after thinking a lot about it, I think I should think like that too. I think I really miss all the friends I left in the USA but I never acknowledge that to myself and I try to ignore it or not think about it (because it hurts). Then moments like today happen and I feel really sad and melancholic.
I'm still not feeling ok so I was looking at some silly photos to cheer me up. Here they are:

Recruiting at FEUP

I'm at Porto today, in a recruiting fair. People pass by, a few make questions about the company, some resumes are delivered to us and that's it. Simple but not so easy. Time goes by slowly... I'm glad we brought candy to offer to people. Some people stop, talk and make it a little less monotonous. Some people ask for candy, some take without asking and some are funny and pretend they are stealing. Some people take long time picking a flavour. Some don't care about flavour. Even the cleaning ladies came to us asking for candy. 6 pounds of candy are gone. Now its time to remove our stand and go back to Coimbra. Tomorrow (thursday) will be a normal day at the office, the first "normal" day of the week (Mon-Tues I was in a workshop in Lisbon. It was the first night I spent away from Diogo and he's now 4 yo!).

Here's our stand.

These two are so silly!!

Being a mother of two boys at this young age means being always on the go. They, really, never stop. But along all the work (and the extra work because they never stop) also comes a lot of fun and a lot of cute moments.

This afternoon Diogo just came laughing to the living room with a "turtle head" cap. He was laughing so much that he could barely breath. I don't know what was so funny about it but he was having this laugh attack. Along came Hugo with these big sunglasses. He wanted to wear them so I helped. They looked so crazy that I just shouted "Wait!!" and, of course, I went to get my camera.
Here they are being them-super-silly-selves. :))

Muffins and ribs

Pedro is in Rome and I promised I would send him photos of the muffins I made (from scratch, obviously) with no measuring utensils and with Hugo in my lap. Diogo's help to make a big mess, I mean, to mix the (unmeasured) ingredients was crucial. :))))

I couldn't believe they turned out so nice because it was a new recipe for a cake (not for muffins). The taste was excelent and they also looked really good. So I think the trick for baking is... a good oven and a lot of motivation. :))) The kitchen afterwards was a big mess but ahh, what can we expect baking with a toddler and a 4 yo? :))

And then the ribs. Hugo looked so cute eating ribs I couldn't resist taking a photo (yep, I'm that kind of mother that always have a camera attached to the finger) :))

Fun on a schedule

This weekend we did a lot of fun stuff: we played a lot with the kids, we've been to a BBQ in a friend's house, we took Diogo & Hugo to see Noddy Live, and we also watch the Euro final game (Spain won like we predicted). The weather was really hot so nothing better than a family swim on Marilia's swimming pool. Hmm... the water was at 27º C. Perfect!
The only problem was that Pedro was always running for meetings and to catch the plane to Rome. :((
Here's some photos of Marília's beautiful home:

And the Noddy show on sunday:

Euro

The country used to stop to watch the games but now Portugal is out of the game and everybody feels this emptyness... We still watch the games at home but the excitement is gone. :((

Hugo is still very excited about the games (he gets the scarfs and waves it up and down, totally thrilled about it) and his enthusiasm is contagious because Diogo starts dancing too and when we realize we're all having fun again and cheering for whoever is closer to the goal. :))

Here's how it used to be when Portugal was still in:

The party... and the missing dessert! :(

Friday afternoon was the day care party and it was so cute!! Each class made a little performance. (We were all dressed alike for the party :))

Hugo's performance was a cute song about bubbles while the parents and teachers were making bubbles. Diogo's performance was very cute and the kids had so much fun. They danced under a "parachute". I was so proud of him... :))))))


The only bad news: they forgot to take my dessert out! I looked around all the tables and I couldn't see it and then at home it hitted me: the lady put the dessert on the frigde and forgot about it! So much work for nothing... :(

Starting the morning with the left foot...

Sometimes things just get out of control, like this morning.
We all woke up late, I got to work late, when I got there I realized I had left the dessert for the day care party out of the fridge. The cleaning lady is in the house but I don't have her phone nr, so I call Pedro but he's not there either. He goes back to ring the bell and tell the cleaning lady to put the dessert back in the fridge.
At work, I realized that all the papers I planned to read today were left
at home, next to the dessert. I don't want to print hundreds of pages again
so I decide to go home and get all the stuff I forgot.
In the meantime, a close friend starts a chat and tells me
shocking news. I get all disturbed. I feel bad to rush my friend but I
really had to go home. I went home. When I got there I realized I forgot
the key. Fortunatelly the cleaning lady is there. Unfortunatelly she is
using the vacuum cleaning and can't hear me ringing and knocking.
Minutes pass and I'm still there, knocking, ringing, calling her name (at some point desperately).
Eventually she finishes to vacuum. She opens the door. I get the papers
AND the dessert. I drive back to work. I'm so distracted about all this that in a roundabout I didn't notice a car coming. I break abruptly. The dessert falls, I stick
my fingers in it to grab it and... well, it looks miserable and the car is all dirty.
I park in front of the door at work. Take the dessert out, clean a little bit
the car (I even tried a little piece that fell out of the dish and its GOOD!).
I'm finally sitting in my desk, with my papers and with the dessert in the fridge.
I'm going to drink a coffee, relax for a few minutes and then re-start the morning
hopefully with the right foot. :)

Terrific 1's

Ok, to be fair, I also need to say the funny things about Hugo.
Yesterday morning I told Hugo, "lets go wake up Diogo". Hugo runs to his room, climbs to the mattress, gets 1 centimeter close to Diogo's face and says: "Olaaaaaaaa!!!!"
I don't think Diogo liked it that much but it was soooo cute. :)))

The other thing was this afternoon. Diogo was starting to throw a tantrum because I was not giving him yogurt before dinner. I was talking and Hugo decided to intervene. He got really close to Diogo and saying "no" with his finger he yelled to Diogo like a little dictator something like "No no no no". It was so funny.

Sweet 4's

Diogo is in the nightmare stage. He has nightmares quite often and in the morning he tells me about it. Usually they are about monsters but on sunday he dreamt with something worst than monsters! He told me:

Diogo: "Mommy I had a really bad dream. It was worst, worst, worst than monsters!"

Ana: "Really? What could be worst than monsters?"

Diogo: "Giant... eggs... of... a grey chicken!"

No need to say, I couldn't stop laughing... :)))))))

The other hilarious dialog:

Hugo was destroying Diogo's "buildings" made of legos. Diogo was getting upset and I stepped in saying "Look at Hugo, he's like King Kong destroying all these buildings".

Diogo: "Mommy, can I also be ping pong but one that builds things?"

:))))

One more weekend, one more party ;)

This weekend was my niece's 1ª comunhão (catholic celebration for kids around 6 yo). Here's some photos of her special day. :)

My niece Beatriz

The proud parents: my brother Ilídio and his wife Olga

Her sister Patricia

The whole family at lunch