The Beautiful Adventure Known as Life With Kids: How do you like my hot sauce?

October has been a super busy month, and it's not over yet! We headed to Tampa at the beginning of the month for Tim's 20-year reunion from high school. Gabe and Sofia had a wonderful time playing with their cousins, and we had our first real vacation from the kids. Tim's family watched the kids for the first 3 days we were there, so we hung out at the beach house. We'd stay up late catching up with our good friends Sean and Missy, Stephen and Steve, sleep in to the sound of waves crashing against the shore, and wake up to walk out onto the beach and sit under our umbrella and enjoy the beautiful Gulf of Mexico. On Sunday, we swooped up the kids and took them to the beach for Sunday and Monday. The high point for Gabe was spotting a crab, capturing him in a bucket, and scaring the living daylights out of both his dad and his sister. He took the crab over to share, and as Tim peered into the bucket, no joking, the crab launched himself out of the bucket onto Tim's right foot. Sofia ran screaming toward the beach house. Of course Gabe and I were doubled-over in pain from laughing too hard -- we are so mean. Poor Sofia -- she will most definitely be scarred as an adult. At least this blog will be proof for her to pull from. ;) The high point for Sofia was building a sand castle with me and going in the water with Dad.

When we got home, we were greeted with a visit from Aunt Jane, who was in town for a tribal conference. We took her to Busboys and Poets, a local restaurant named for Langston Hughes that we love for its atmosphere and knew she would too. We also went for yogurt in Shirlington. There are a ton of new frozen yogurt places cropping up. I can't decide if I really care for them or not. The flavors seem too tangy for my tastebuds. Anyhow, we had a fabulous time catching up!

I got a text at work on Tuesday from Tim that read, "Gabe's tooth 'jumped out' of his mouth at school today!" Our baby boy lost his first tooth. So of course I asked him to write the Tooth Fairy a letter about his tooth. (I do whatever I can to encourage him to write because he tells great stories, but he hates writing them down. I want writing to be easy for him the way it is for me.) The next morning, when Gabe found that their was a note still in the purple pouch he left his tooth in, he was disappointed the Tooth Fairy didn't take his letter. Even when he asked, "Is this a REAL gold coin?" he still looked sad she forgot his letter. I asked him if he was sure that was his note. So he opened it up and his eyes got really wide, "MOM! SHE WROTE ME BACK!!!" And then he started talking a million miles a minute about how sure he was that he saw her. "She was pretty tiny, had a ponytail, was all dressed in purple and was dropping fairy dust all around. And she was SO strong! I don't know how she carried the coin and this note." (That's what I'm talking about -- I love his imagination....I want him to write some of that stuff down.) Sofia was upset not to get something from the Tooth Fairy too, so Gabe reached up onto my dresser while she wasn't paying attention and gave her a quarter that he said the Tooth Fairy brought for her. He can be very sweet to his sister when he wants to be! Everyone has been sharing their lost tooth stories with me, which I'm loving. I think I lost my first tooth by getting knocked over by one of our big dogs, either Misha or Mosha.

On the other hand (end?), Gabe's been walking around passing gas and saying, "How do you like my hot sauce?" Has anyone heard that reference or know where he got it? I always wonder if he hears things elsewhere and just repeats them. When I asked him, "Where did you get that phrase?" He answered, "I got it from my brain." Of course he did! LOL!

Sofia adores her music teacher so much that we bought his CD, which I'm starting to regret slightly because it's one of those things where we now all have his tunes memorized backward and forward. And she wants to hear it constantly. She has been playing the piano and asking, "Do you like my song?" So it's probably time to get our freebie piano tuned and sign her up for classes.

Sofia just announced, "I don't want to grow up." To which Tim responded, "I don't either!" and started laughing. She said she doesn't want to grow up because she doesn't want to live in a different house. Tim said, "Well you could buy Dave's house and live next door to us." Sofia said, "Well only if I get married, and then I could just build a house between your house and Dave's house." Gabe interjected, "Better yet, we could build a house behind Mom and Dad's house because there's more space in the backyard." I know, I know -- their minds will change about all this soon... but it's so sweet that they think they want to live with us forever now.

That's it on the Vazquez family front for now. I'm sharing a few pix from the last month.