Pronunciation

Here is how you can pronounce Xenia's name. It is not the official way to write the pronunciation, but this is how I would write it.

Ze-nee-ah

I hope that helps.

It's finally official

We finally decided on a name. This was hard and I still have a hard time remembering it. Oh well I am sure after a couple weeks it will stick. Are you ready . . . . .

Xenia Ardella Garcia

What do you think?

The New Addition!!!

We finally got a new addition to the family. No it is not any sort of pet, but a little girl. The name is not finalized yet so we will post the finally name when we know it. But here are the pictures.

We ran into some road blocks as her breathing wasn't stable and low blood sugar. Then it didn't help that I threw up for hours as well. But that is why she has the oxygen tubes.


Just another sleeping sweet picture. You can tell by the pictures that the first thing the doctors and nurses commented were her cheeks. They are cute.

Here is a picture so you know that we just didn't take pictures of someone else's baby. This picture was 2 days before she was born. My students from my ESL class threw me a surprise baby shower. It was so nice of them. I will never be able to repay their kindness. But as you can see from the balloons we didn't know what she was going to be until after the birth. It was fun.

Happy Birthday!

My sweet little angle turned 5 recently. I can't believe how fast time goes. I remember, like it was yesterday, when she was born. For some reason five seems to be so much older than four. Maybe it is because she will leaving me soon to go to school. Who knows, but I do know that from day one she has been an joy, and a huge struggle. :) There is a nursery rhyme that fits her perfectly.



There was a little girl, With a little curl Right in the middle of her forehead When she was good, She was very good But when she was bad She was horrid.



That has been the story of her life. From day one she has known exactly which buttons to push to drive both Sam and I crazy. One of our biggest struggles was eating. She never wanted to eat. I remember When she was less than 3 months old she didn't eat for 10 hours. I remember her being perfectly happy until I would try and feed her then she would get so mad. When she was barely 3 she didn't feel like eating her eggs, so I said when she finished her eggs she could eat something else. She didn't eat for about 20 hours. She was starting to feel so sick but I still had to force feed her. What a stubborn girl.


But she also has some fantastic qualities. If she understands why she will or will not do things. She is smart and easily remembers nursery rhymes and books. She learned Betty Botter when she was three just after a few times listening to it. In the video she quotes Betty Botter, Six little mice, and Humpty Dumpty The reason why I told her to do Humpty Dumpty was because she couldn't do it for a long time. She had really hard and random nursery rhymes memorized but couldn't do Humpty Dumpty. But by the time I took the video I guess she memorized it. But the other two she heard the nursery rhymes only a few times before she them memorized. She shocked everyone. She learned to add and subtract with only four examples of each.



She is so sweet. When she sees Sam after he comes home from school or work, she will say, "Hello handsome daddy!" She smiles with her eyes and when her eyes are sparkling with a smile she cannot be resisted.

She has been a great big sister, although we are still working sharing, fits, eating, and various other human frailties. Oh well she is only human, and I need to remember that and remember she is ONLY five and can't be perfect yet. (I sometimes forget) What a girl!

The perfect solution!

I want to thank all my friends for the advice on the cereal. I did find a way to use it. Our ward was having a get to know you night where they provided treats. About 15 minutes before we were to leave Sam starts looking through our cupboards trying to find something QUICK to take. First, I told him that they were providing the treats, and second he should know by now, after six years of marriage, we don't have anything that is quick to make ever. (This is the reason I hate cooking. :)) But as he was looking I had a revelation. There was a bag of marshmallows that I bought back in November for a Thanksgiving recipe. I wasn't planning on using the rest of the bag, for similar reason as the captain crunch, but than it hit me. Captain Crunch Treats!!!! So I melted butter, marshmallows, and poured in the Captain Crunch. There we go. I used both in one recipe for a good cause. It turned out it was a really good thing because the ward underestimated the amount of people that would come and they didn't have quite enough desert. The people initially had a confused look on their face when they saw the rice crispy treats made with captain crunch but they ate them anyway. They must have enjoyed them because I didn't have to take any home, or in reality throw them away.

So it turned out to be a perfect solution. No waste, no children and spouse eating them, and people were happy. Thank you ward for bailing me out and Sam for looking through my cupboards! (It seems that I did have something quick and easy to make for once!)

I couldn't resist

I have very different ideas about health. I learned that if I want friends I usually have to keep my ideas on the back of conversations. I have tried to promote them, but I usually end up losing friends when I do. Like when I was back in college and this guy, who I discovered later was interested in me, became very uninterested in me when he found out my health ideas. It was actually a very good thing I shared him my ideas because I was NOT interested. It saved everyone some pride. :) So I have given up and settled on just trying to keep my health goals to myself. But one of my big ideas is cereal. I really don't think cereal is very healthy, regardless if it is organic or not. I have seen some cereals that seem okay, but for two reasons I don't get them. The first is for MY family I don't think cereal should be an everyday breakfast, eggs are much better, and second, I don't have the money to shell out on these select, very expensive few brands of cereal that seem okay. But this past week I really couldn't resist. At the grocery store they had a coupon that if you 5 boxes of quaker brand cereal then each box was $1. It was 6pm, I was hungry, my family was hungry and we all felt a little indulgent, so got the five boxes. Four of the boxes I tried to find the one with the least amount of ingredients, with the least amount of sugar, and the ones that seemed the least processed. But the last box I have no excuse of buying except that it reminded me of my childhood dreams. We rarely got to eat this and was always a special treat. So for one dollar I did it. I bought Captain Crunch.


I had my two bowls of memories. Was it good? The first bowl brought back all those wonderful special treat memories, but the second bowl reminded that there really isn't much real sustaining food in it. It always seems to taste better back when I was a kid. Now that I have had those two bowls I have no desire to eat more, but I am now also stuck with this huge box of crap that if my children ever see the box they are going to want some. :) I don't know what to do. I don't want to eat more. I don't want my children or husband to eat any, but if I throw it away it is like throwing away .95 cents. :) What should I do? :)

ps Please don' t hate me if you eat cereal everyday because I don't care, and especially please don't hate me if you eat Captain Crunch everyday because if you think it is okay by all means eat it. :)

Nothing to blog about!

I really have nothing to blog about. Luckily life has been really boring. I say luckily, because after the trials of this past year I will take boring any day. :) Sorry about the boring blog, but I am back to writing once again. Remember that sweet deal on my imac, well it is not so sweet anymore, our hard drive went out. Lucky us. Doesn't it seem that money is always required when you have the least of it, like after Christmas, and after not working for 2 weeks for Christmas break. :) I am sure every family has been though similar times. So anyway we are back to our old trusty laptop that has no usb ports, which means I can't download pictures. Oh well.

Good new, my children have finally started playing like friends, (well most of the time.) It has been fun to watch them play for hours with out the thought of talking to Sam or I. There are times when I feel left out, but I can't bring myself to wreck their good times together.

Well that is it for my post.