It's my understanding that when "bloggers" reach their 100th post on their page, they need to post a list of 100 facts about themselves and/or their family. Well, that time has come! So, in celebration of this milestone, I humbly present to you "100 Random Facts About The 5 Aces." I hope you enjoy reading it, and that you learn a few new things about our family. Hector and I truly enjoyed coming up with this list!
100. Hector and I have known each other for 60% of our lives.
99. When we were trying to start our family, Hector wanted 1 child. I wanted 6.
98. We tried for 5 years and 7 months to start our family before I became pregnant with Samuel.
97. Samuel was 5 years and 7 months old when Isaac was born.
96. Hector and I have visited 22 US states, or 44% of the country. We are hoping to make a trip to South Dakota and Wyoming this summer to see Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone. We also plan on visiting Nebraska on our way up there, which would bring our total to 25 US states visited, or 50% of the country.
95. When I was pregnant with Samuel, Hector came home from work one evening and asked me if I wanted to go out to eat. When we came home after going out to dinner, I realized that I'd left a pot of beans cooking on the stove, and it was on fire. Our house was full of smoke and the dogs were howling to get out of the kitchen. Thankfully, no real damage was done. But that's not the only thing I caught on fire while pregnant with Samuel. I also caught 2 toaster ovens on fire, once while cooking a corn dog and once while cooking a tostada shell. I simply went right off and forgot about them. I also set our microwave on fire by leaving popcorn cooking in there too long.
94. Hector regularly asks me if I know how to swim, despite the fact that I've told him several times that I do know how, and he's seen me swim!
93. I've had 19 different jobs in the past 18 years. Hector's had 8 different jobs in the past 19 years.
92. When I was in college, I slammed my finger in the closet door while vacuuming. I woke up with the vacuum still running, and realized that I had fainted because of the pain. Hector still thinks this story is very funny, for some odd reason.
91. Hector and I vacationed in Washington, D.C. exactly 1 year before the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
90. We found out that I was pregnant with Samuel upon returning home from that vacation.
89. We tossed around a lot of different middle names for Isaac. We came up with the name Elan by taking the E from Hector's name, the L from Samuel's name, the A from Avery's name and the N from Dianna. When we looked up it's meaning (friendly), we knew it was the perfect middle name for our son.
88. At the age of 5, Samuel could say the ABCs backwards without hesitating to think about what letter came next. He could also spell words backwards without hesitating.
87. Avery's first memory is from an incident that occurred when she was only 18 months old. She recalled the incident for the first time when she was 3 years old. She had never mentioned it to us before then, and we had never mentioned it to her before then either. It wasn't anything big, but she remembered it as if it had just happened!
86. Avery is a very detail-oriented person. She can recall what a person was wearing the very first time she met that person, right down to the color of their socks.
85. When Samuel was in Kindergarten, he memorized the first and last names of all 20 children in his class, in alphabetical order. He also memorized all of their birthdays.
84. Hector gave me a dog for my 24th birthday. We adopted the dog from a Dallas shelter when she was 8 weeks old. We named her Molly. Molly stayed in her puppy stage for 3 years, or at least that's the excuse we gave everyone for her behavior. One time, she jumped straight off of the top of the second story staircase at our duplex, down to the concrete ground below. Molly's been making our lives crazier for over 11 years now.
83. Our second dog was abandoned by her previous owners. They had named her Sissy. She was 6 months old when we got her, and she was not well. We spent a lot of money to get her well, and we renamed her Maisy. Maisy's still a sickly little dog, but we love her. Maisy celebrated her 9th birthday this past October.
82. I became pregnant with Avery when Samuel was only 14 months old.
81. Avery was due to be born on Samuel's 2nd birthday.
80. My favorite Psalm is 27:14... "Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he will strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord."
79. Hector and Avery can curl up the sides of their tongues, making a U-shape. That's a little trick we like to call a "taco tongue." Samuel, Isaac and I can not make a taco tongue.
78. Hector can twist a cherry stem into a knot with his tongue. I can not.
77. I could not snap or whistle until I was in my early 20s. Hector taught me how to do both. Avery learned how to snap at the age of 5. Hector taught her how...
76. None of our children were born with birthmarks. Samuel got a birthmark on the bottom of his foot around the time of his first birthday. Avery and Isaac both got a birthmark on their stomachs, in almost the same exact place that I have a very similar looking birthmark. Hector calls them our "ketchup stains." I also have a birthmark behind my right ear, and so does Samuel now. Hector does not have a birthmark.
75. I tend to be far too critical of myself. I also second-guess myself all the time.
74. Hector loves fruit and his favorite dessert is mixed berry cobbler, but he does not like fruit pies.
73. I hate ironing and will avoid doing it at all costs.
72. Hector has a fear of horses and will avoid them at all costs.
71. Hector's favorite drink is sweet tea. My favorite drink is a Mint Cafe Mocha from Starbucks. Samuel's favorite drink is apple juice. Avery's favorite drink is orange soda. Isaac's favorite drink is whole milk.
70. My wisdom teeth have never come in.
69. I can not swallow pills whole.
68. Hector has never had a surprise birthday party. I've had 2 surprise birthday parties, but I found out ahead of time about both of them. So technically, I've never had a surprise birthday party either.
67. Every time we finish using a bottle of medicine for the kids (like Children's Tylenol), Hector saves the tiny plastic measuring cup that it came with. He stock piles the tiny medicine cups. He used to do the same thing with the plastic scoops that came with powdered baby formula. He saved dozens of those scoops. Every time it gets to the point where I can no longer close the drawer because all of the tiny plastic cups are getting in the way, I throw a few away, knowing that Hector will replace them soon enough with more tiny plastic cups. Why does Hector save these free tiny plastic things? I guess he figures just in case there's ever a shortage of tiny plastic medicine cups, we'll be covered!
66. Hector is a picky eater. The list of foods he dislikes is quite long; pickles, mustard, anything with vinegar in it, beets, turnips, radishes, collard greens, tomatoes, green beans, bell peppers, cucumbers, okra, avocados, blue cheese, Brie, Swiss cheese, pastrami, ginger, rye bread, cabbage, brussels sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, sushi, and the list goes on and on. I am not a picky eater. The list of foods I dislike is quite short; nuts, peanut butter, seeds, grapefruit, beets, turnips, and radishes.
65. Hector likes to mix all of the food on his plate together. I like to keep my foods separated.
64. Hector prefers to eat the corner pieces of a cake first. I prefer to eat the middle piece first. Hector's favorite part of a cake is the icing, but I prefer the cake itself. Hector likes sweet tea but I like unsweetened tea. Hector likes black coffee but I like my coffee sweetened. Hector prefers vanilla ice cream with caramel topping but I prefer chocolate ice cream with hot fudge topping. Hector is the yin to my yang.
63. When I was working at a college day care, one of my coworkers was giving away gerbils. I brought 2 home (1 black and 1 white) and shortly thereafter realized that 1 was male and the other was female. Within just a few short months we had more gerbil babies than we could count. Did you know that a female gerbil can give birth every 6 weeks? Some life lessons you have to learn the hard way. I gave away gerbils to everyone I knew, and to every pet store within a 30 mile radius. Finally, overwhelmed by our thriving gerbil community, I found a pet store about an hour from our house that was willing to take them all to use as snake food. In tears, I handed over the entire cage to the pet store employee. I called it heartbreaking. Hector called it the circle of life.
62. Avery can not tell the difference between enchiladas, lasagna, and tostadas. In her mind, they're all the same thing. Likewise, she does not know the difference between breakfast, lunch and dinner.
61. My pregnancy with Isaac was the first time I went into labor naturally. And it was also the first time my water broke naturally. Only 5 - 10% of all pregnant women have their water break naturally during labor.
59. I went past my due date by 2 days when I was pregnant with Samuel. My doctor told me that if it was possible for a woman to be dilated to a negative 1, that's what I was.
58. Avery was in a breech position up until the night before she was born. I was sitting on the couch, and saw her flip to a head-down position. It was the weirdest thing to see my stomach move like it did!
57. The name Avery means counselor. Her name seems very fitting for her personality. Can't you just picture her as an attorney some day? Her middle name is Grace, which refers to the unmerited love of God.
56. When we asked Samuel and Avery where they wanted to go on vacation this coming summer, Avery said Disney World and Samuel said South Dakota to see Mt. Rushmore. And since our family has a vertically challenged 2 year old, South Dakota got 4 votes and Disney World got 2 votes (Isaac voted for both).
55. Hector likes to take empty candy wrappers and tie them into knots of all different shapes and sizes. So does his father. Then Hector likes to put them in his pockets so that they all wind up in the lint trap of the dryer, or he'll stuff them down in between the couch cushions so that I find them when I'm vacuuming.
54. Samuel taught himself sign language from a poster his Kindergarten teacher had hanging up in the classroom.
53. Two summers ago it rained so much here that the "critter" population in our yard was booming. That summer, Avery captured and released over a hundred frogs in our yard.
52. I have learned that God always answers prayers, but sometimes the answer is "No" or "Wait." I have also learned that sometimes it is our greatest struggles in life that bring forth our greatest blessings.
51. Last summer, our okra plant grew to over 8 feet tall.
50. On occasion, Hector wears a pair of boots to work that he bought back in 1992.
49. Avery was speaking in complete sentences and having conversations at 18 months of age. She was using a fork at 15 months of age.
48. Hector's lifetime dream is to become a roady for a band that our kids are in. My lifetime dream is to attend culinary art school and open a catering business.
47. Avery once ate 2 bowls of cream gravy at a restaurant, with a long tea spoon. Nothing else, just gravy... We have the pictures to prove it!
46. I've never gotten a speeding ticket in Texas. The only ticket I've ever gotten was in Lousiana on our way to New Orleans to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.
45. Samuel, Avery and Isaac have close to 1,000 books all together.
44. To figure out which direction he's heading, Hector says "Never Eat Soggy Waffles." This helps him to remember North, East, South and West. He learned that little trick in the 3rd grade. Whenever I need to spell the word beautiful, I say to myself "Be A Utiful girl" and that helps me to remember the correct order of the vowels. I don't know when I learned that trick, but I just taught it to Amanda who's in 4th grade, and she spelled it right on her last spelling test!
43. If you put an empty glass down in our home, it will mysteriously make its way into the dishwasher, faster than you can ask "Where did I set my glass down?"
42. Last summer our garden continuously produced hundreds of tomatoes at a time from May through October. We ate our last 2 tomatoes on January 18.
41. Samuel has 3 tiny moles on the top of his right hand, and 1 mole on his left knee. Avery has 1 tiny mole on her back. Hector and I both have dozens of moles. Isaac does not have any.
40. When Isaac was 22 months old, he could correctly identify over 3/4 of the letters in the alphabet. He still struggles to correctly identify the letters b and d, i and l, u and v.
39. Samuel gave up the bottle on his own when he was 10 months old. Avery gave it up at 11 months. We were finally forced to take Isaac's bottle away 2 weeks ago.
38. Hector thinks I am a slow driver. I know that Hector is a slow driver.
37. Hector loves banana and watermelon flavored candy. Those are my least favorite candy flavors.
36. I have 33 first cousins and I honestly don't know how many second cousins I have, but it's around 20. Hector has 11 first cousins and 5 second cousins. Samuel, Avery and Isaac have 8 first cousins.
35. Samuel and Avery know who our last President was. They know who the candidates were in the last Presidential election, and they know who is our new President.
34. When Hector was 5 years old, he ran straight through a sliding glass door. He still has scars on his knees from the incident.
33. Hector has been to the ER once in the 14 years we've been married. I have been to the ER twice. Samuel and Isaac have never been to the ER. Avery has been to the ER 5 times.
32. Samuel, Avery and Isaac are 3 of God's most beautiful creations.
31. Samuel, Avery and Isaac know that God loves them.
30. Hector's favorite movie is
Rudy. My favorite movie is
The Wizard of Oz. Samuel's favorite movie is
Kung Fu Panda. Avery's favorite movie is
The Care Bears. Isaac's favorite movie is
The Mickey Mouse Club House.
29. Our cat was a stray. She hung out on our front porch for over a year before I finally gave in and fed her. We named her Miss Kitty, but Avery (who was only 2 at the time) pronounced it Lid'l Lee. The name stuck. Lidl'l Lee weighs 17 pounds.
28. Hector can go from being in a deep sleep, to being showered, dressed, and ready to leave the house for work, all within 15 minutes. It takes me approximately 5 hours to get ready. :-)
27. I use chapstick all the time. I have 1 tube in my make-up bag, 1 in my purse, 1 in my coat pocket (sometimes it's in my pants pocket), 1 on my nightstand, and 1 on my computer keyboard. It stays right there, on top of the "Num Lock" key. On more than one occasion, I have been driving somewhere, and realized that I did not have a tube of chapstick with me, and I have turned the car around to go back home and get one.
26. Hector and I have made entire meals from the free samples given out at the grocery store.
25. Hector and I want to travel to Venice at least once in our lifetime.
24. Isaac's first word was "Hi." Samuel's first word was "Dada" and Avery's first word was "Baba."
23. Avery can always think of another question to ask.
22. Samuel loves playing video games, and he's quite good at them. I can play Miss PacMan from start to finish without ever losing a turn.
21. One night, as Hector and I said good night to each other, Hector started snoring almost immediately. I waited to see if he was joking. When I realized that he was really snoring, I woke him up and told him that he literally fell asleep and started snoring within 2 seconds of saying good night to me. He always tells me that he needs to see if that's some kind of world record, but he never has.
20. Hector wants to invent something in his lifetime. His ideas for inventions include a car dashboard piano (to play along with the radio while you're driving), and a woman's necklace that holds chapstick inside of it (so that no man ever has to help his wife hunt down her lost tube of chapstick ever again)!
19. Isaac is the only 1 of our 3 children to suck his thumb. Samuel and Avery both preferred a pacifier.
18. Samuel was left handed up until the age of 4, when his preschool teacher told him to write with his right hand. By the time I realized what was going on, it was too late. In Samuel's mind, he was supposed to be right handed, and there was no going back to being a lefty. Avery and I are both left handed.
17. Hector and Avery have black hair. Samuel, Isaac and I have brown hair.
16. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to enter and win a contest where I would get to run through the aisles of a grocery store, throwing into a shopping cart as much as I could within 5 minutes. I used to love watching that game show on t.v. called Supermarket Sweep, but it disappointed me that the contestants did not get to keep the food...
15. I am a competitive person. I am also a crafty and thrifty person. I pride myself on finding a really good deal.
14. One of my favorite snacks of all times is Funyuns dipped in Bean Dip with Orange Soda to drink. It's a lot better than it sounds! One of Hector's favorite snacks of all times is Corn Nuts and Big Red soda.
13. As a child, I used to make up silly little songs about what I was doing. Avery does the same thing.
12. Samuel, Avery and Isaac say "Please" and "Thank you" and "Bless you." I get a little thrill every time I hear my kids say those words, and I didn't ask them to do it!
11. Hector's favorite food is Sesame Chicken. My favorite food is enchiladas. Samuel's favorite food is pepperoni pizza. Avery's favorite food is bean and cheese tostadas. Isaac's favorite food is spaghetti.
10. When I was pregnant with Samuel, we were planning on naming him Benjamin, Alexander, or Max. Some really good friends of ours had just adopted a little girl, and sent us an announcement in the mail. On the announcement it had the Bible verse "For this child we have prayed, and the Lord has granted what we asked of him." 1 Samuel 1:27. Hector asked me what I thought about the name Samuel, and I told him I felt like it was the name we'd been searching for the entire time... It was the perfect name for our son.
9. I love quoting other quotes. I like the thought that someone else, maybe even long before my time, felt the same way as I do about something, many years later.
8. Avery used to say "averycado" for avocado, "tee la la" for tortilla, "Old MacDonalds" for McDonalds, and "hangabuga" for hamburger.
7. Hector still knows how to make me laugh.
6. I truly dislike wearing make up and shoes. If I could get away with it, I would never wear either one of them every again.
5. In the 14 years we've been married, Hector and I have owned 7 different vehicles.
4. The name Isaac means laughter. It has proven to be the perfect name for our Isaac. He is definitely the comedian of the family.
3. One day, I want a home with a huge front porch and a chef's kitchen. Hector wants to have enough land so that he can raise a few pygmy goats. Maybe even some chickens...
2. On several occasions in my life, while in the course of a normal conversation, I have been able to guess numbers accurately. Like the time I was at work while living in Austin, and my friend Monica asked me to guess how much money she was short in her checking account, that caused one of her checks to bounce. I guessed the number right. If memory serves, I think it was 17 cents. This happens to me all the time, but if I hesitate to think about the number, I get it wrong. Just last week, while in the car on the way home from picking up the kids after school, Samuel told me that they were learning about money in school. He told me that he pretended to buy something with a dollar bill, and then his friend gave him change back. And he asked me to guess how much change he got back. I said, "26 cents." And Samuel responded, "How did you know?" I can also do this when it comes to guessing which elevator in a building is coming down first. I don't know how I do it. I just do!
And the #1 random thing you should know about our family is...
1. We aren't perfect, but we love each other deeply, from the heart.
Our Garden, March 29
On Saturday, I was doing some spring cleaning in the kid's closets when I came across the big basket full of flash cards. I was so excited to show them to Isaac because Samuel was around 2 1/2 when he started showing an interest in them. But Isaac could have cared less. I tried many times to engage Isaac with the cards, but he kept tossing them aside. And then it occurred to me that he was much more interested in playing with the animal figurines I was taking out of Samuel's room and had piled up on the table. Long before Samuel was born, when I was running the day care out of our home, every time I would take the kids to the zoo I would buy them each one of these animal figurines. We got quite a good collection of animals over time. Samuel's had them in his room since before he was born, but he's never really shown too much interest in them. So I was finally prepared to take them out of his room and give them away, but before I could do that, Isaac grabbed them all up and started playing with them. They are now his new favorite thing to play with. He carries as many of them as he can in his arms, and then proceeds to take one in each hand and pretends that they are fighting with each other. He wants to take them everywhere he goes and refuses to put them down, even when it's bath time. It reminded me of Samuel with those flash cards, wanting to take them EVERYWHERE.....
Now, I can honestly say that this must be something inherent within the lad, because I've never shown him how to make animals fight each other. He just knows how to do it... And that reminded me of the time I snapped this picture of Avery at the age of 3:
She would carry her baby dolls around on her hip like that, and I never once showed her how to do that. She just knew how... It could simply be the difference between boys and girls, but I think it's more than that. It's like I always tell my kids... just like you have brown eyes and I have blue eyes, and he has brown skin and she has black skin, and she has curly hair and he has straight hair, and you like green beans but he doesn't, and you walk on both legs but she needs a wheelchair, and you want to love on your baby dolls but he wants to chunk them across the room, and you wear glasses but none of the other kids in your class do... we are all so very different. But being different from each other doesn't make one thing wrong and the other right... just different... We are all so very different from one another. And it's these differences that make this great big world that we live in such a special place!
The front porch of the cabin.
Samuel and I were just relaxing on the porch while the men got everything situated.
Inside the cabin.
The pond, just outside the cabin in the back. I loved these windows!
Looking out at the pond, from inside the cabin.
Samuel caught 8 fish.
Even I got to share in the fun of catching fish! The other fish I caught was around a 20 pound bass, but the camera batteries were dead. By the way, I'm joking about that bass....
And then some of the girls decided to play a game of catch.
Some of the kids, playing on the tire swing.
The boys just could not take a serious picture... Our friend Carl (married to Jennifer) is on the far left, then there's his son Nathan (8 yrs. old). After that is Samuel, striking quite a silly pose. Then there's Jackson (10 yrs. old) and Jace (8 yrs. old) is hidden (oops)... Their dad Kasey is wearing the ball cap. Then there's Isaac and Hector on the right.
And what a fire it was!
They had a golf cart, that we all got to drive around. The kids thought it was so much fun... Truth be told, so did the adults!
The 5 Aces, Spring Break 2009
For the finale, they combined Samuel's choir and Amanda's choir. They sang 2 songs together. And it just so happened that Samuel was dead center, right in front of the microphones. I saw him looking over at me and he gave me a big grin, as if he was thinking, "How cool is this? I'm right in front of the microphones!" 
Can you see Samuel, standing right behind the Choir Director? He's wearing a burgundy shirt. Amanda is to the right of the Director, wearing a navy shirt.
