Feliz día de los Enamorados 2012

Happy Valentine's Day! Here's a few outtakes from our Valentine's card photo session.  We ended up with this cute one, but the ones where Joaquin is holding Eliana are my favorite. (Example below)  Unfortunately Eliana was still upset from getting dressed and wailed through them.  Joaquin however is smiling (albeit goofily) in all of them, while gamely holding on to a screaming little sister.  I have many pictures of me as a little girl desperately holding a squirming/screaming/moping little brother or sister while attempting to smile sweetly.  Ahhh, the plight of the eldest.  We had a nice family Valentine's day.  Joaquin had a party at school with ice cream floats and valentines covered with candy.  He gave out some that were scratch cards of dinosaurs - woohoo! Although of course we added a lollipop.  Joaquin and I had made cards for Daddy the day before and Joaquin had decided on his own that he needed to make me one and made me sit on the couch and close my eyes while he made it. Then we got a heart-shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's and made heart-shaped brownies for dessert.  My card from Joaquin was beautiful, a multicolored crayon heart on the front and "i love u" on the inside.  Joaquin asked how to spell love, but apparently decided you was just u.  Then he made the u a heart. :)  He's a cutey-patootie.  (He comes by it honestly, Daniel got me some beautiful earrings.) Eliana did nothing special for Valentine's Day except poop through her cute outfit around noon.  But we forgave her cause she's so adorable and sweet!  Joaquin even made her a card as well.  It was very entertaining because he based it off of the card I made Daniel, but he didn't understand the concept very well.  For Daniel I drew some tamale candies and an actual tamale and then said, "Honey, you are one hot tamale".  I'm sooooooooo clever, JK! Joaquin wanted to know what it said and then what it meant.  My explanation that it was a joke inspired him to try his own joke card.  His card for Eliana is a picture of blue jolly rancher candy and the phrase "You are a glass of water".  Made it up himself!  (Although I of course had to spell everything.)  Fun times in the Headley casa.

Hermanos

So the fun of having children 5 years apart is that the oldest is semi-responsible.  I can leave Eliana on the floor of Joaquin's room while I run to the bathroom without fear of what might happen.  What happened in this instance is that Joaquin started explaining to Eliana what a pulley is.  Seriously.  She was totally into it too.  So a few Joaquin stories from lately.  We've been reading a lot of Dr. Seuss lately, Joaquin's current favorite being "If I ran the Circus".  So Joaquin's take on Dr. Seuss..... "I think he took some true imaginings and put them in a bag and shook them up."  I found that very apropo actually.  He's also decided that Eliana is charming enough that we need another one (which I find odd, because her crying bothers him).  He wants me to get pregnant again, now. Hmm...... maybe not.  He's also having more fun pretending with other children.  Lately he comes home from school with stories of their adventures at recess.  Apparently he and the boys are the bad guys on one ship while the girls are the good guys on the other.  And this recess he and a few other friends were a family of dragons so they had to go around making dragon noises.  I love that he's learning new imaginative pretends from his friends.  

Moda 1

 Following in Joaquin's footsteps, Eliana is growing fast.  Although her height is growing fast also, so hopefully she won't be quite so rotund.  It has it advantages though, since now we're rocking the smaller of our 0-3 clothes. That means now it's time for a blog with a few of her cuter outfits.  This sweet little bear suit is actually a size newborn, but since it runs big, she just now fills it up.  It's hysterical now that her arms actually fill up most of the sleeves because she waves them around at me.  I feel like I have my own live teddy bear.  The white outfit came from a used clothing store, but I love it because it's both pretty and practical, pants are important on chilly days!  (Plus she's rocking a very bizarre but typical Eliana expression.)  And the beautiful outfit that seems to be making her very sad (she hates being dressed) is one of the few things I bought, new and full price, for her.  Notice again the practicality of her ruffly skirt, both beautiful and warm!  And I love these bear slippers, they're the only shoe type accessories that fit her currently.  Fortunately when you're a baby these go with everything!  Anyone not interested in little girl clothes I must warn you this will be the first of many blogs devoted to the cuteness of Eliana's fashion, sorry.  It's way too much fun having a baby girl.

El Primer Baño

It only took two weeks, but the umbilical cord finally fell off!  So now we can have our first real bath.  She was enjoying it until the tub (which had been propped up on the side of the sink) got bumped and dropped a few inches suddenly.  Eek!  That was some serious upsetness.  And we haven't quite recovered.  The next bath she wasn't into it at all!  But the last one she was happy for the first 5 minutes or so, so I'm hoping we can grow back into a love for baths. Either that or keeping this kiddo clean will be a chore. 

Visite Primero de Mi-mo

And just when we thought we'd have to start figuring out real life, Mi-mo came to help!  Yay! While she came to see Eliana, and did manage to hold her quite a bit, Joaquin took it for granted that she came as entertainment for him.  This might have something to with all the cool games she brought for him.  He loved essentially all of them, especially this traffic game. He's surprisingly good at little puzzle things (like his Perplexus) for a kid who was never really into actual puzzles.  In this picture, he's doing some activity specified for the pizza game.  This is a game you play while actually eating pizza so we had a pizza night.  Obviously Joaquin enjoyed it. :)  And here's Eliana with Mi-mo, modeling a beautiful outfit Mi-mo brought her.  I like this picture of Eliana with Mi-mo because she's sticking out her little chin, something she does frequently.  It's an angle I see her at often.  Mi-mo finally left us, but she definitely helped get us over the hump between Daddy home time and the ability to cope with two small children and life.  Thanks Mi-mo!

Primero Sesión de Fotos

Our friend Emily is an amazing photographer who for some reason thimks she needs more experience as a newborn photographer. So she came over for a photo session of Eliana.  The pictures were absolutely incredible but since many of them can be accessed via facebook, I'm just putting up my 3 favorite that weren't up online.  Fortunately Joaquin got to go play with the grandparents after a little while (the photo session was not near as productive with him), but we did get some cute photos with him, including a few of him jumping from the 'burst' mode on Emily's camera.  He loved that she could capture him in midair.

Una Fiesta para el Tío Mateo

While it's important to keep a little baby away from germs, and the chance to spend lots of time snuggling and bonding with them, it can get a little claustrophobic.  Joaquin went to school and Daddy is now back at work, but I'm spending a lot of time in the house.  So to stave off cabin fever we went to a party!  At my parents for Uncle Matty's birthday.  Joaquin had actually done some planning with Grandma, so the party included these punch balloons.  As you can see, they were a hit. :)   It also gave Joaquin and Daniel a chance to work on Uncle Matty's Perplexus.  (I officially declare the Perplexus the addiction of choice for all the male members of my family under 40.)  And Uncle Matty turned 28, yeah!