Aunt #4 died this morning.

She’s my father’s sister and mother of my dear cousin E. My cousin called me this morning to give me the news. Although very disturbed, she understands that her mother was suffering a lot and that this was better than suffering a few more days. The funeral will be tomorrow.

Rest in Peace Aunt Q.

I just received a phone call from my mother and Aunt #4 died this morning. Her health condition was critical and she did not resist.

I received the bad news quite well what puzzled my co-workers. I believe they expected me to receive the news in a more sadly way. This doesn’t mean I don’t care but she is an aunt I don’t see in many, many years, I was never closed to her, she’s my father’s aunt I mean not a direct aunt and she’s 90 something.

Do I mean she deserves to die? Of course not, but I’m glad it wasn’t someone younger.

My father has 4 brothers and sisters, my mother has 9 brothers and sisters, from all these aunts and uncles one is in danger right now. The one that died today is aunt of my father and his brothers and sisters, meaning it’s right that she goes first.

I have this point of view because 7 years ago someone I considered my younger sister died at the age of 18 and THAT…it’s not fair. So when someone old from the family dies I always have the thought that: I’m glad it’s an older member of the family and not a younger one.

Rest in Peace.

Tuesday it was our 19th dating anniversary and yesterday it was our 14th Wedding anniversary.

Usual there are no celebrations and yesterday it was not different. Due to the tooth removal I didn’t even have dinner and went to bed early.

19 years is a long time and although things aren’t working out the way I thought they would, we’re still going on well.

Some changes must me made to smooth things out but being full time workers, two kids, a house to take care of, blogging and a million other things, it’s really hard to be always ok. The future will tell.

Every year, on the first Sunday of May, it’s Mother’s Day in Portugal. So last Sunday I received wonderful presents from my daughter and son as well as many kisses.

It all starter on Friday when my son, who had three presents to give me (one he bought, one he did at school and one he did in daycare), insisted in giving me one right on that day. He read a poem and I couldn’t hold the tears from rolling down my face. It was so beautiful.

On Sunday I received two presents from my son and two from my daughter. Now I have poems, a wallet, a purse, a Potpourri bag and two recipe books where I have to write my favorite recipes.

But like my daughter learned in pre-school: Mother’s Day it’s everyday and love should be shown daily.

Yesterday I thought I was going to have a relax day although I know with all the housework and kids to take care is a little difficult to accomplish that.

Today it was an important holiday here “Carnation Revolution“, and although I already knew my son was having a birthday party in the afternoon, I thought I was going to have a calm day. I was wrong.

The news came when I picked up my son yesterday at soccer class: Your son has a soccer tournament tomorrow and he has to be at 9.30am in the local park field. The tournament will last until 12.00. What?? This meant I was not getting a calm and relaxed get up the next morning.

Today, my husband went to work early in the morning, I got up to prepare a few snacks, woke up the kids and got into the field. Fortunately the tournament took place in a park where besides, tennis/soccer/basketball fields there is a play park so my daughter could be busy. The problem was that I couldn’t rest a minute. Catherine wanted to swing and swing and swing and I had to push her in the swing all the time. Of course watching a soccer game bothers her so she refused to get near the field. Fortunately I was able to watch my son’s goal.

I went home already tired but I had to cook lunch. At 12.30 Catherine was asleep in the couch, I was cooking in the kitchen. Lunch ready, time to eat, Catherine continue to sleep, at 15.45, Dani and I left home to the birthday party, Catherine was still asleep. I left Dani in the birthday party and I met my best friend who was in the park where we had been in the morning and we spend a few time talking there, this was the only relax moment of the day (beside now).

18.30 time to pick up Dani, I took Catherine with me and I didn’t expect what was about to happen. I ate something at the party, Catherine too but Dani and her didn’t want to leave because all the other kids where still there. I’m not going to enter into details but at 21.05 I was able to grab them back home.

Baths and movie watch ended the day. We had started to watch the “Enchanted” movie the day before and we watched the rest. Excellent movie.

Now, the big moment of the day, everyone is asleep and I’m in the computer all by myself. I needed this!!!!

I know I’ve been away from this blog but fortunately I’ve been having a lot of paid work on the others, and I barely have spare time to write on this one.

Last Friday the daycare party went really well. The kids where fabulous, all of them.

First there was the Ballet class with the “Spring” dance:

Then, after new clothes and make-up, my daughter danced an “Ali Baba” dance and she was dress like the Ali Baba fairy tale.

My son danced HipHop and he was dressed (more or less) like a HipHop dancer. The trousers are really old but…he likes the way they look.

Before the end of the show a known Reality Show “star” from

around here sang a song and the kids where

all back on stage to dance with her.

After the show there was a lot of food for everyone (each person took something to eat) and I can say we had a nice evening.

With this theme I can’t locate the photos in the right places, sorry!

Daycare is having a party on Friday night and the kids will be the Stars of the party.

This daycare where my children stay after school has children from 4 months to 12 years old. Depending on the age of the children the daycare has several classes and therefore several rooms and activities. My daughter is in the pre-school class and my son in the basic school (1st to 4th grade) class and they only go there after 3.30pm when they finish public school.

So, talking about the party, all these children, all classes, will be the Stars of the party, even the little ones will have their share in the show.

My son will take part in a Hip-Hop dance and I still don’t know what he will be wearing.

My daughter’s actuation will be more complicated, she will be in two actuations actually, ballet (from ballet classes she attends in daycare) and one from her daycare class. For the ballet I already requested my mom (she has a sewing machine) to make me some wings. For the other actuation a mini-skirt is needed as well as make-up, red shirt, scarfs, etc.

As you can imagine, parents are not told what the show is about so we just have to follow the instructions the teacher gives us regarding clothes and make-up and go to the show.

Due to my overload explosion I had other side effects in my body and mind that I decided not to detail here because I would turn this blog into a disease research center. I’m taking a strong anti-stress pill for now and let’s see if I can recover soon.

Last Sunday, on Easter Day, we decided to spend some money and go to the cinema. I say “spend some money” because here it’s very expensive to buy four tickets and some popcorns and watch a movie in a local theater. So this was really a special thing we did. The day before it had been Catherine’s birthday and it was Easter without the visit of godfathers and godmothers because they were spending the weekend away, so we decided to do something different.

Here’s a look at the main chamber of the cinema:

We went to the 14.10 presentation and that meant having a full room only for the four of us.

The kids behaved…what can I say… they can’t keep still for too long so it was a little hard to watch the movie.

I’ll have to write a little review of the movie in another post otherwise I will leave this post in the middle and more days will pass without publishing it. I can tell you that we went to watch: Winx - The Secret of the Lost Kingdom.

This is Catherine favourite present: Barbie Make-Up case. Here you can find everything related to make-up: nail polish, eye shadow, lipstick, all in several attractive colours. Of course she ends up with a shower after she put the make up in herself but I already told her that dolls and nenucos also like make-up!

There was no big birthday party for Catherine this year. She turned 4 last Saturday but due to Easter holiday most family and friends were away for the weekend.

She’s too young to mind about that and what she wants is presents.

She had a birthday cake and we sang the birthday song together with her godfather (my youngest BIL) and his wife. The cake had the image of the Ballerina Princesses movie.

Her favorite present was something she has been asking for for a long time: make-up case. She also received a puzzle, a book and several pieces of clothes and other accessories.

At the end of the day we received the visit of my best friend E. and a couple of neighbors (she’s starting in the blogging world with: About Portugal).

Catherine was very happy even without a big party and that’s what matters.

There is a Dani girlfriend from her school class spending the afternoon with us. Being both 9 I understand it’s difficult to include my almost 4 years old daughter in the play. She just keeps getting in the way and things got rough now. Catherine ended up crying and after several warns I had to shout at Dani in front of her friend.

He’s not doing anything we request, I told him to get dressed before she arrived and there he is playing on his pajama.  Today dad asked him to put some toys in a box and he kept postponing it, dad, instead of insisting, he just put the toys away and said he will discipline him in a different way. It’s this situation that I complete disagree with dad. We have to take action right away not someday.

Catherine is now here next to me, while they are playing upstairs. A picnic inside the house today was promised to my daughter to end the dispute. Let’s see how it’s going to be the rest of the afternoon.

I’ve been postponing to write about diaper’s issue because I did once and things didn’t worked out.

I can tell now that for 3 weeks, Catherine is not using night diaper. I tried last year but it didn’t work out because she continued to wet the diaper at least 2 or 3 times a week. I didn’t worry at all. Dani wore night diaper until the age of 4 so I was just waiting for her timing (she’ll be 4 this month).

Three weeks ago, due the suspicion of a urinary infection that fortunately was false alarm, I decided to give it a try and no more night diapers.

During the first week, at about 1am, I used to take her to the bathroom to pee but than I stopped doing that and in three weeks, I can say, we had no wet bed.

I guess this is it…no more diapers in the house, well…only baby dolls are allowed to wear them.