Early March

 At the beginning of March Lucas turned 4 months!  At his 4 month appointment he weighed 20.5 pounds and was 27.5 inches long.  My doctor here in Spain was always in awe of Lucas's measurements.  Every time he'd weigh or measure him his eyes would always get big and he's say, "My God!" in his Spanish accent, and for some reason just thinking about it still makes me laugh. 

For some reason this time I listened a lot more to other people's opinions on things.  Some of the mom's here told me that the correct age to introduce solids was 4 months instead of 6 which is what was recommended when Avery was a baby.  I researched it and found out that was true, and because baby food isn't quite the same here, and is a little harder to come by I decided to start making my own.  At first things went pretty well, and though it was a bit of a hassle I thought it was kind of fun.  Unfortunately, shortly after turning 4 months I made a giant batch of sweet potatoes.  Lucas ate them up, and about 2 hours later started vomiting everywhere!  It terrified me!  After talking to my doctor he said it was a little too soon for those, and I decided to swear them off for a while and hope he would overcome this strange allergy.  I also decided that I should probably stop listening to other people and do what I thought was best for my kids.  I decided to just feed him fruit and cereal for the next two months and I think it ended up being the right choice.  (Though one day I gave him a little avocado and he threw up again, and I realized the day he'd thrown up after the sweet potatoes I'd also given him some avocado, so now I'm not sure if he has allergies to both or if it was the avocado both times.)  Fortunately I've never had to worry about him loosing much weight.  He is a big boy, and handled these little episodes really well. 

 The weekends have been full of tennis for these girls.  Marc takes them every week, and I think they love the time they get with just dad.  It's fun to see the pictures.

 The primary had an activity in March.  The kids all got to go to SpungeBob.  They also all got their own popcorn and drinks.  They were in heaven.

 There's nothing quite like the first blossoms of the year.  The cherry blossoms in the park are usually the first.  It's so fun to see the neighborhood change.

 The picture above is from the plaza at the Reina Sofia.  After school a lot of kids go to the plaza and play for a little while.  One day a friend of mine and I decided to go, and as we neared the plaza we saw three big tents set up with orange fencing around them and on the side it said treatment center for patients with ebola.  Now there were a few Ebola cases in Madrid in September-October, and it really kind of freaked me out...after all we are pretty dang close to Africa.  Anyway, it took both me and my friend several minutes, of which we were frantically yelling at our kids to come back and to stay away from the tents, before we realized it also said (in much smaller writing in the corner) free exhibit.  Hahaha, but really Madrid...to soon!

Protests are happening constantly up our street.  The kids convinced me to go see what was going on one day and we were there for two seconds and within that time we all got pins, someone handed me a mother Mary picture and  when I looked up the girls were carrying these flags.  It was so overwhelming I told them we had to leave.  Super funny though.

 After I told the kids about Ashlee and Ty's engagement Hailey drew this picture.  She was so excited about it, and I thought this was pretty adorable.

 Father's Day was in March and we all enjoyed the chance to celebrate Marc.  We woke up early and made him breakfast.  The kids were SO excited to bring it in to him.  I really feel lucky that my kids have such a great dad!  Marcus is the sweetest father, and it was great to get some time to focus on him.