Day 19

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Today was just about family! Nina woke up in an amazing mood and requested to play school with her cousins and Sander. Sosie and Adelae were delighted! It was the first time during their visit that Nina had initiated play with them!

Since everyone was in town, we decided that we would take family portraits. Larisa, Nate, Eileen and Dave generously agreed to take our Kodak moments. We all got dressed and washed our faces (the boys had to twice!). I had planned separate Matos (my family) and Fredeen (Todd's family) portraits, with a grand finale with us all. You would think that I have learned my lesson about making plans....but alas I haven't!!

On our way to the perfect patch of grass (my brother and I had surveyed the neighborhood earlier and found that spot with the best lighting and background for the perfect family portrait) Nina started tantrumming! Of course she did!!! Why not??? My whole life had turned into one big fat tantrum! Me, who obsesses over photos and takes a million of them, was despearte for the perfect family portrait but my willful (which I love) daughter had other plans! So...the individual family portraits got scrapped and we all jumped in for the grand group pic!

And grand group pics did come out, but not without a whole lot of insanity! You see....Nina had become very fatigued since treatment had started. This was to be expected. However, what we hadn't prepared for was  how hard it would be to get her to smile and laugh. Normally, the girl would laugh over the slightest and silliest thing. But now it was practically impossible...except for Nacho Libre!!

Earlier in the week, Nina had requested to watch Nacho Libre with Jack Black. It is a family favorite. On vacations we always have nacho night where we make nachos and watch the movie!! While watching the opening scenes, Nina turned to Todd and said, "Nacho has boobies!" She then proceeded to laugh hysterically. Consequently, whenever we were desperate to hear her laugh, we would blurt out, "Nacho has boobies!" Without fail, she would crack up and our hearts rejoiced!

So...as well all sat perfectly groomed and polished on that perfectly green lawn we realized that if we were going to get our perfect portrait we would have to pull out the big guns. Pull them out we did and in unison for about 3 consecutive minutes anyone within a 5 block radius heard the roaring boom of, "NACHO HAS BOOBIES" over and over again! I would start the sequence by counting 1, 2, 3 and all 23 of us would yell, "NACHO HAS BOOBIES!!" Thank heaven for Jack Black and his man boobs!! Because of the most ridiculous and raunchy phrase, our honey-girl smiled the most precious of smiles and we got our perfect portrait!!!

The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging around. Normally when we are all together there is a frenzy of activity, usually with me running around trying to oversee several different activities. But this time, we were just happy to be...no need for activities, fancy stuff. Being together was more than good enough...it was perfect!

Breakfast of champions (donuts!) with Sosie and Adelae

Perfect Family Portrait!!

Honey-girl and me!