Mas Visitantes

Another weekend and more visitors!  We had Sule & Patience and their kiddoes come as well as a flying visit from Mi-mo and Billpa-pa.  Despite the fact that we only saw Bill for a short time he managed to get in some quality holding Eliana time.  Which means of course that he's the only person we got a picture of with her.  (Honestly my children are going to grow up believing no one ever came to see them because we never took pictures.)  Regardless of the lack of pictoral evidence, we did have a great time with all our guests.  The craziness of four children under five was a bit much, but it was worth it to be with our friends.  Sule even helped Daniel put together our new bed.  (Don't worry I kept the "How many engineers does it take...." jokes to a minimum)  Now this weekend will seem so flat without any out of town guests to entertain us.

Comida para Eliana

A baby's life is full of firsts, and here's one more from last week... first food!  A nice mix of rice, apples and pears.  She liked it!  Didn't eat a huge amount, but enjoyed what she did.  She's eaten twice since then so we're still working on making it a part of our day to day life.  Unfortunately bottle introduction has not gone so well.  She hated it passionately with Mommy milk inside.  (I mean crying and trying to get away from it, etc.)  The next day I let her play with it with a little juice and some water inside.  She liked the taste okay and thought the nipple was fun to chew on, but only a little sucking went on.  I tried one more time with plain water and she sort of played with it again.  So Mommy is re-thinking strategy.  Convincing Eliana of something is always a difficult process.  Still she's growing up fast!

Dedos de los Pies

Eliana has discovered her toes!  Yay for fun new body parts.  It was actually really funny, I bought her some gold gladiator sandals (yes, she has fabulous shoes, she's my baby!) with little flowers on them and they caught her eye.  After a day of watching her flashy feet, she started reaching for them and discovered - toes!  Now grabbing her cute tootsies is her new hobby.

Mentores

I say thankful prayers every day that my boy has so many lovely men in his life.  It's even better that most of them will take time to hang out with him.  Lately Joaquin and Daddy have been enjoying reading together.  They tackled The Hobbit which was a bit above Joaquin's head.  He caught the plot and had fun with it, but asked questions about every half second.  (Very frustrating, not just for Daddy but listening Mommy as well.)  So I went looking for a book that would be easier to conquer.  I got Mr. Popper's Penguins, which turned out to be quite the hit.  Joaquin has been a penguin for several days now.  Now that they've finished, they're moving on to the Chronicles of Narnia.  Don't worry boys, that should occupy you for awhile and Mommy has a prodigous repetoire of favorite children's literature.  This other picture is with Grandpa.  He and Grandma dropped by on Memorial Day and he introduced Joaquin to Notepad on the computer.  You would think it wouldn't be interesting to a kid who's quickly mastering Word, but Joaquin is interested in new computer information always.  He really just likes knowing how things work on the computer.  Turned it on, typed in my password and opened up Word the other day.  Totally shocked me!  Anyway now he's discovered that Grandpa likes computers too and I think my Dad is going to be on call for more computer lessons.

El Eclipse

Last weekend Daniel's Aunt Meredith and Uncle Jerry came to visit on the heels their tour of historic Route 66.  Daniel and Joaquin took them up the tram (I declined to imprison other folks in a small area with a crabby Eliana and we got some beauty rest) and then on Sunday, they were lucky enough to be in Albuquerque for the eclipse!  We took them up to our friends' new house in the mountains and watched the eclipse through our homemade pinhole camera and some old tinted camera lenses.  It was very interesting and the pinhole camera (ingeniously designed out of some old diaper boxes by Daniel and Jerry) worked very well.  Both Joaquin and toddler Luke (he used to be baby Luke to Joaquin, but as he's grown and gained a baby sister, we had to upgrade him) enjoyed the pinhole camera and Joaquin had a great time exploring their new nature-scaped yard.  The adults had a good time too, especially since there were numerous adults to help keep the baby happy.  Especially sweet Aunty M who is a experienced grandma. It was a short but lovely visit.

Graduación para Joaquin

Joaquin graduated from pre-school! I say it like that because I'm trying to be happy about it.  I am super proud of him, he's learned a ton and grown up so much. But it's hard not to be scared about my little guy growing up.  He really has changed so much this year, finally becoming a little boy and leaving toddler-hood completely behind.  

Of course they had a graduation ceremony, that's not silly at all.  It was actually very sweet, the kids wore matching t-shirts and had little felt mortarboards.  Each class performed their own little song and then each student had their name called and received their 'diploma'.  I'm admittedly biased, but Joaquin's class did the best job on their song.  They obviously knew their words and their actions.  And Joaquin was obviously having a great time participating.  Sometimes he can be such a stinker about joining in, this was really fun to see.  And to top off a lovely evening, Eliana was an absolute angel baby all night.  Fabulous!  Afterwards, we met up with Joaquin and because everyone else was doing it, he insisted we take photos with him on the edge of the stage.  And since it was his initiation, he really smiled.  Look at these charming, no grimace smiles.  He's a little sad because he tells me he's going to miss his friends, but fortunately Caleb, Caleb and Joshua will still be at Sunday school!

Cuatro Meses

Eliana is four months old! (And apparently not terribly thrilled about it, I had already taken several pics with Joaquin's camera and she was done with the photo session.)

While now very active and kicky we haven't achieved rolling over yet (probably because we don't do enough tummy time). The biggest milestone we've achieved is our first tooth.  Actually just part of a tooth, but a bicuspid rather than a front tooth so she still looks all cute, baby-like and gummy.  She makes adorable noises thinking they're conversation and loves it when you repeat them back to her.  She's a bright little cookie, which is cute but frustrating because she notices when you're trying to put her to sleep and protests - vigorously!  And while she's a definite mommy's girl, she loves her Daddy.  He's the perfect chest to snuggle to sleep on.

I love you my little bug-eyed baby doll!

El Dia de Madre 2012

Mother's Day! And also Eliana's baby dedication day.  She behaved very well, no crying or fussing.  However she did manage to start spitting and pooping.  I don't think anyone else noticed, but it was nerve-wracking for me!  Fortunately, she looked absolutely adorable in her little white eyelet dress (my protestant take on a christening robe).  Joaquin was very good too, falling into serious/nervous mode that he gets when he realizes something is important.  He looked sweet also, notice he matches Daddy.  Then to torment Eliana further we went to Grandpa and Grandma's house after church for lunch and celebration.  We have three generations of Mommies in this picture!  Daniel and Joaquin gave me some Mommy jewelry, carefully designed to not be cheesy (Daniel threatened to buy me those little golden children with the birthstones in the middle of them, but fortunately conquered his sense of humor before Joaquin could decide they were cute.) So I have a gorgeous cuff bracelet and necklace with everyone's birthstone.  Entertainingly Joaquin's is turquoise while Eliana's is rose quartz.  Blue for my boy and pink for my girl, how classic.  Mother's day or no, you're still a mother so here I am reading to both the kiddoes (not sure what if any Eliana gets out of it, but she likes being part of the action).  I just noticed the myriad of different outfits Eliana is in.  Yes this is all on Mother's Day - she's in a very spitty stage right now!

El Dia de Madre, parte uno

To celebrate the upcoming mother's day, Joaquin's class had a mother's day luncheon.  Joaquin made me a special lunch bag (see right) and he and Daddy prepared a special lunch for me to take.  Cantelope wrapped in proscuitto.  Aren't they fancy? Daddy had coached Joaquin well, he knew all about how I first had it in Italy.  So I brought my special lunch and joined Joaquin at lunch time.  He had made me several presents (see my beautiful flower pot, both the 2d and 3d versions.)  My favorite as usual was the questions about mommy.  Last year's answers to similar questions were so outrageous and adorable, but this year was remarkable for some really good answers.  Despite thinking I'm 10 ft tall, he knows my age and eye color, etc.  He also thinks my favorite color is green, which isn't necessarily accurate, but considering I'm always trying to dress him in it, it's a good guess.  He says I always call him 'my sunshine' which is totally the truth.  And he loves me because I take care of him.  Oh, sweet boy!  Then his class showed us how they say the pledge, sang "You're a grand old flag" (patriotic theme, don't know why) and then recited all the 26 verses they learned, one for each letter of the alphabet.  It was very cute, especially since Joaquin got to hold the big flag as it was his snack and show-and-tell day.  Finally we picnicked outside under the trees.  And since Eliana had eaten at a good time and could spend an hour or so with Grandma, we got some nice mommy and son time.  It was lovely.

El Bumbo

 Such a big girl!  She still likes to lie on the floor and bat and grab her toys, but now we can play sitting up too!  (Admittedly not on her own, but hey she's only 4 months old, nobody's expecting that yet.)  It's a totally different experience grabbing toys when you're looking straight at them.  Makes an old toy new again.

Mas Ropa

Well the weather (which has been ridiculously warm) turned cold for just a few days.  Which allowed us to wear a few outfits that we'll probably be way too big for come fall.  Yay! Isn't this one cute?  And the baby too of course.

Juegos

Joaquin has become quite the games junkie.  First and foremost is of course Angry Birds.  We have had to be very firm about the amount of time he plays on the Kindle, but it's had unexpected side benefits.  He gets really creative about it even when not playing.  He draws adorable pictures of Angry Bird levels he's made up, complete with the menu buttons, etc.  He thinks up new Angry Bird games and tells you about them, ad nauseum.  He loves to play with Mommy or Daddy as well as to play the Angry Bird tag game he made up with his buddies.  He's even made up Angry Bird's chess.  Seriously.  So, Angry Birds actually turns out to be more than a video game for him.  He's also taken up Checkers and Chess.  Daniel taught him chess a long time ago, but he was a little young to enjoy it.  However he became interested again when he got it on the Kindle, as well as Checkers.  In order to limit screen time, we're starting to play them on an actual board.  Here's Daniel and Joaquin playing chess.  Apparently Joaquin 'won'.  According to Daniel he actually is getting better at strategizing.  He's also much more into computer in general.  He really likes different fonts.  I let him play on Word one day and came back to find he had managed to change the font all by himself.  He's also trying out Excel and Power Point.  He doesn't quite understand the point of Power Point, but it's cute nonetheless.  And to complete the little boy engineer picture, he is math crazy.  Seriously, he actually likes to learn math concepts with Daddy.  He can do basic addition and multiplication, some subtraction, very basic fractions and now they're working on negative numbers.  I'm torn over whether I'm proud or kind of scared.  I don't understand someone who actually seems to like math.

Dientes Nueves

Eliana is teething, yes I know that's rather earlier, my pediatrician didn't believe me either.  She's actually working on a bottom bicuspid even rather than the usual front teeth.  Unfortunately since she's only 3 1/2 months old she can't hold toys for very long so chewing on them isn't doable.  So she resorted to gnawing on her arm.  Poor thing actually gave herself a bruise overnight.  So I sacrificed an old pair of booties to make some stylin' armbands.  She's totally rocking the eighties exercise look.

Andale Eliana

More Eliana playing movies!  She really, really loves to play with her toys.  And she's getting so good a grabbing them.  Also, her entire body is getting into the act.  Now she throws herself to the side to get at some toys, almost rolling over.  Then she scares herself and rolls back.  Ah, we'll get there eventually!  Mommy also put batteries in so now she can play to music!  Yay!  Also, for your entertainment, Eliana from Joaquin's point of view.  This particular photo was taken by him.  This extremely wide-eyed look is a common one for Eliana.  

Tiempo de Historia

Unfortunately with the school year coming to an end our storytime is as well.  Our church has started 'life groups' which are basically fun groups that last for about a semester.  So I started a family storytime life group, which turned out to be very fun, both to be at and to plan.  Joaquin loved it, and is in sort of denial that it's over.  For our last meeting everyone brought a favorite book from home to read and we picnicked on the church's back lawn.  Look at Eliana chillaxing on the grass.  I like this other picture of Joaquin with one of his teenage buddies.  I think one of the advantages of church is the chance for children to interact with kids of other ages.  It's like having your older cousins in town. :)  This particular young man, a friend of Joaquin's, came outside with the youth group for some 'cabbage ball' and immediately picked Joaquin up and threw him up in the air before taking him over to talk to other kids.  Kind of wish there were still cool teenagers to look up to in my life.  Now we'll have to find some other excuse for our weekly library trips.  

El Zoológico

Joaquin's stint at Kid's Express is coming to an close.  Our beloved preschool will soon be behind us (Graduation is May 15th!)  To celebrate this, the end of the school year is quite eventful.  Joaquin's class had a 'field trip', or rather optional together outing, to the zoo.  As you can see, Joaquin was quite excited.  This exciting beaded chair is in the zoo's African area, it serves no purpose that I know of except to be photogenic.  However it was a great place to take a picture of the kiddos and their teacher Miss Connie.  At first we were having trouble getting them all to focus and smile until a smart parent told them all to say "Angry Birds"!  At which point they all started laughing and smiling away at us.  There are apparently several little boys in his class that share Joaquin's obsession so it's become a class topic.  One of Joaquin's favorite parts was practicing his nature photography.  Here's one of his photos of a peacock.  (Only one, he's a fan of peacocks so there were several.)  Then Daddy joined us for the picnic lunch, yay!  Which was very nice since it allowed Mommy and Eliana to leave a little early for naptime while Daddy and Joaquin played on the zoo's fabulous playground.  Eliana was in fact quite charming, turns out that she's much more of a stroller baby than Joaquin was.  Here she is at the beginning of the morning, quite interested in everything around her actually, and here she is when the desire for a nap caught up with her.  She actually slept for about 20 minutes in the stroller.  Not a lot, but enough to keep her happy until lunch which made the day much nicer for everyone.  Nice outing for every family member, an impressive accomplishment honestly!