Hogar

Mommy, Daddy and Eliana spent the night in the hospital recovering (you can see Daddy and Eliana had some good bonding time) before Joaquin descended the next day.  He was excited to see his sister again as well as check out my bruises and all the hospital machines.  He really liked how the beds went up and down and the foot moved separately from the head.  I think in an effort to make sure you can control them no matter what language you speak, they have pictoral controls so Joaquin understood them at once which allowed for maximum playing!  Quite entertaining, but fortunately my antibiotic drips ended eventually, Eliana passed her hearing screening and the birth certificate stuff got all filled out.  And then they let us go home.  (And take the baby with us)  We picked up Joaquin, Chita and some dinner from the Grandparents before heading home to try our first night as parents of a newborn again.

¡Eliana Nace!

For Eliana's induction Daniel and I spent the night at the hospital Saturday night to start some medication.  Joaquin got to spend the night at Grandpa and Grandma's house.   Sunday morning actual labor commenced and while Aunty Boo-boo skipped church to come watch, everyone else went and then came to the hospital awaiting Eliana's arrival.  It did take some time, you can see Joaquin being entertained by playing "Angry Birds" with Uncle Matty.  (If that isn't a sign of the times I don't know what is.)  Finally after a little drama, Miss Eliana made her entrance and everyone got to meet her.  I unfortunately missed Joaquin's first introduction to her, but the pictures are priceless!  He looks so happy.  Here she is very, very new and meeting the fam.  Welcome Eliana Marie Headley, 7 lbs 10 oz, 20.5 inches long, born January 15th 2012.

Esperando

Since Eliana declined to be born on her own, we scheduled an induction to start on Saturday evening.  So Joaquin got to pick an activity for Saturday afternoon.  I had suggested bowling and some other more exciting activities, but he chose more science!  So he and Daddy made a beautiful color changing volcano.  (Playing with acids, bases and litmus - would you believe red cabbage can be powdered and used as an indicator?)   It's very fun because Joaquin gets to scoop and measure stuff and he's learned how to use a pipette.  Honestly that's more than some of my high schoolers ever managed.  But it was a good family time before things got hectic.

La Guardería Infantil

 Realistically this blog will be changing soon to Cada dia con Joaquin y Eliana.  As she doesn't seem to want to come out on her own (due date is already past!), we'll be starting induction tomorrow.  So it seems appropriate to prepare with a blog on her nursery.  We have a black and white theme sort of going on (with other colors mixed in obviously) and I went a little crazy with patterns.  Daniel did a great job refinishing the cute little dresser Dora found for us and the changing table/sideboard that we purchased from an FCT production.  I had fun putting my limited sewing skills to use, Daniel thinks the canopy makes her a little Persian princess.  Admittedly that combined with the sheepskin rug on the floor does make for a little opulence.  I think our most successful project was re-upholstering Joaquin's rocking chair.  Doesn't it look awesome?  There's some decorative elements and a mirror for the changing table that still need to come in, but we're really done.  All we need now is the baby!

Enigmas

For his birthday Joaquin received a Perplexus ball from Geoffpa-pa.  This is a clear plastic ball with an elaborate 3-D maze inside of it.  This maze is run by a small metal ball and is quite complicated and difficult.  Joaquin's ball is "the rookie" but I've yet to master it, although Daniel has managed to beat it once.  It's wildly addicting for both parent and child.  Even for uncles.  Uncle Matty actually purchased his own after an evening with Joaquin's.  He left it at our house accidentally, so for the last week both Daddy and Joaquin have had one to play with.  While Joaquin is actually quite good at his Perplexus (esp. for a 5 year old), Matthew's is one level up and neither Joaquin nor I can get any traction on it.  Daniel can sort of work on it, although he tries to cheat frequently.  This evening I was treated to the amusing sight of both my boys absorbed in their puzzles with very similar concentrating expressions on their faces.  I tried to capture just how much they looked alike with photography, but I really can't do it justice.  It was a very mini-me moment.

Vacacion

The week after Christmas is always lovely because Daddy is off from work, but this year was especially nice.  We spent a relaxing week getting things done and playing with Joaquin's new toys.  We finished Eliana's changing table, shelves, dresser and crib bedding. (whew!) I'll post pictures of all that on another blog, don't worry, we're pretty ridiculously proud.  We also got to have dinner with the Carrolls, here's Joaquin and Allie posing with their matching 'Albuquerque Penguins' shirts.  (Random shirts Kara found at the Target in Phoenix on sale like 2 years ago)  I love how Allie is managing to jump straight up in the air, arms tucked in, like a little spear.  She maybe jumping but she looks almost as decorous as if she was standing still with her hands folded.   Getting the two of them to calm down for a picture is almost impossible, but they're cute even when they're being silly.  I've been impressed at how much more fun they have together this year, and how much less yelling and hitting happens.  (The hitting is Allie, the yelling is Joaquin.... the general crabbiness is both.)  Nice to see them growing up.  It was also really cute to watch Daniel make slides for them on the microscope.  They were both very interested in it that evening.  It's hard to make slides of a lot of things Joaquin wants to see up close though, we really need a dissection microscope as well.  Or maybe just a really good magnifying glass.  I thought the most interesting was when Daniel managed to focus on one hook of a cockleburr.  They are very curvy, it's easy to see why they stick to your shoes and won't come off.  Joaquin has been very into seeds lately, so for Christmas we gave a bunch of seeds (via World Vision) in his name.  Don't know if he quite understands why, but I'm thinking we can grow some sugar-snap peas this spring and try to drive home the lesson.  Unfortunately our week ended without any appearance from Eliana and Daddy had to go back to work.  Sigh.  Life as usual can commence again.

Feliz Navidad 2011

Since Christmas was going to get busy, we opened some of our presents as an immediate family on Christmas Eve night.  Unfortunately one of those presents was a microscope.  Try to get Joaquin to focus on other presents or go to bed after that!  So here's a picture of a happy but somewhat bleary/sleepy little boy on Christmas Day.  After opening stockings together Christmas morning, Mommy darted off to church to prep for singing the Christmas services while Daddy and Joaquin enjoyed Christmas morning cinnamon rolls.  (I got the recipe from 'the pioneer woman' blog.  Oh my goodness!  Definitely only special occasion rolls, but they were amazing.  I think Daniel actually loves me more now.  Honestly.)  After some lovely rejoicing in the birth of our Savior we had Christmas lunch, crackers (my want-to-be British brother is addicted, Joaquin likes the pop) and opened the presents from family.  Entertainingly enough between his birthday and Christmas, Joaquin has received 3 lab kits and 1 microscope.  I can see that our friends and family have a real hold on what peaks Joaquin's interest.  We've had lots of fun with them with Daddy's week off.  Joaquin also got a make your own swirly crayons machine from Aunty Boo-boo, wow was he excited!  Plus lots of books, which also have been tons of fun.  Everyone, thanks for making it a Christmas of things he actually likes and not full of little junk that I have to clean out of his room later!  We finished our day by going to see Matthew's production of "Camelot".  Since he directed it and has seen it now a gazillion times, Matthew was elected to entertain the little boy once he got bored.  Which he did fairly quickly.  It was actually really funny, I think some little kids would just be entertained by the spectacular costumes and the beautiful music, but Joaquin was seriously annoyed that he wasn't getting the jokes (they're fairly adult in this musical) and that the adults around him shushed him when he asked for clarification.  So he got to climb a scary ladder up to the tech area (maybe not something Mommy would have done, but Uncle Matty got him up and down safely) and play Pac-Man on Uncle Matty's phone.  Nice.  He's so cultured my little one.  Merry belated Christmas everyone.