~Enero: A month in the Midwest

These past few weeks were busy with cooking, baking, eating, shopping, and more eating. Beli is enjoying spending time with all her cousins. She gets along well with all of them,but she is very possessive of her toys when it comes to sharing with her youngest cousin Daniel. She says, "Mami  no presto el perrito a Daniel. no,no." I explain to her that she has to share.

She is also picking up many English phrases like, "this is mine!" hmmmm. Her Croatian exposure is minimal, but then again she is on vacation right? Daddy calls everyday but Beli refuses to talk to him. I don't know why.

 Do any of you who have kids have this same issue when one parent goes away for a short period of time? Any words of encouragement?

Have a wonderful weekend.  Beli and I will be going to the Children's Museum tomorrow. I should be back to posting more often. ( I decided to go ahead and  purchase storage space from google so I could share all my photos with you.) You know me, I love taking pictures. So what will you be doing this weekend?

Family Tree

What or who is Beli running after?

Hurry, hurry there is a very energetic little girl chasing after you!

Whew! we are safe in here.

Safe in Grandma's arms.

This weekend we drove to the countryside to visit Beli's Great-grandparents. Hubby told me we were going to also meet his Grandma's nephew who was visiting Croatia after 35 years of living abroad (England). I told hubby, "you mean we have family in London?" You see, grandma Vida is the only surviving sibling, her sisters and brothers have all passed away. I'm very interested in family roots so I quickly started asking questions (with respect of course) because I wanted to construct a family tree for Beli. I think it's very important for her to know her extended family. Plus it's a more organized way of keeping all the names straight. To give you an example, on my Mother's side of the family I have 22 first cousins compared to hubby's 2 cousins. But then you go to the extended cousins and aunts and well the list just gets longer.

I remember as a kid every Christmas, all of my Mom's 9 siblings and spouses and kids gathered at my Grandparents home in Mexico. It was a fun time to see my cousins all together. Yes, those were some happy memories. I'm hoping, wishing to have a family reunion, but how do I begin?