Pijamas

 When you spend a lot of time in your pajamas, it's important that they be pretty.  Fortunately Eliana has a lot of really cute sleepers.  Here's a few of our favorites.  We're styling... even while we're sleeping.

Dos meses

Yay! Eliana is two months old and cuter than ever.  She actually turned two months while we were in Las Vegas, but we didn't forget to document!  So a few things about Eliana..... She's hit her first milestone; smiling!  She likes to watch Joaquin and to lean against my or Daniel's chest while watching the world.  She makes little aah or ooh noises and tries to kiss back.  That is she turns toward you and tries to slobber on you with an open mouth.  So cute!  Joaquin likes to grab her face in his hands and lean into her face.  She usually responds by making little oooo sounds at him.  She also loves to be sung to.  We each have our own little Eliana song that we sing to her.  Joaquin even made his up himself.

Vegas 2012

We went to Las Vegas for Spring Break, an odd place for a family vacation, especially with a 2 month old.  However some friends of ours were renewing their vows for their 10 year anniversary and invited us to come.  We arrived a day before everyone else so we spent the afternoon playing on the midway at Circus Circus (our hotel).  Joaquin became quite the fan of skeeball, although his technique still needs work.  Then we walked over to the Mirage for their dolphin  and wild cat habitat.  Joaquin loved the dolphins.  You could see them from below and watch them swim or sit next to their pools on the top and watch them do tricks while their trainers fed them.  It was very entertaining.  They didn't have formal shows, but the dolphins were basically like dogs, doing their tricks for treats.  And dolphin tricks are pretty impressive!  The cats were thrilling as well since they were only five feet and a heavy chain link fence away from you.  Eeek!

We did not rent a car which, while feasible on the Strip, ended up being quite a lot of walking.  Eliana spent a lot of time in the sling, bonding with Daddy and Joaquin clocked up an impressive number of miles for such a little guy.  According to Daniel's pedometer we did 30,000 steps one day.  Obviously that's more for Joaquin, but it's about 12 miles anyway you look it.  When our friends arrived the next day, we did some more sight-seeing, including the M&M store!  It was really cute, fortunately Daniel stopped my shopping urges because I wanted to buy lots of stuff.  We did buy Eliana a cute little M&M onesie as a costume and lots of cool colored M&Ms for fun.

The next day was the vow renewal, time to dress up!  Since this was a costumed event, Daniel rented a dancing taco costume.  He, along with the groom and several others actually went to a costume shop there in Vegas (fortunately since who wants to schlep a Dancing Taco costume through airport security).  However Eliana wore her new M&M onesie and I had a Carnival mask.  Joaquin refused to dress up, don't really know why, but after he saw everyone else having fun, he did try on Daddy's hat!  The ceremony was performed at "The White Chapel" which was about as fabulously Vegas kitschy as you'd expect.  Notice our beautiful family shot surrounded by the heart-shaped wrought iron.  Very romantic except for the Tuxedo rental sign on the door behind!

After the ceremony we had a reception at a local restaurant rented out for the occasion.  Very nice, since it let the kids run around and be crazy.  Daniel had fun dancing with Eliana, which was very sweet, even with the taco costume.  Joaquin played with the child's menu, discovering he can do word searches if they have a word list to guide him.  He didn't know what the words said, but he could find them in the puzzle.  I was very impressed.  Even with all the excitement, we managed some quiet family time in the hotel room.  Travelling with friends who also have small children is very convenient sometimes!  Daniel and Joaquin had a great time 'kindling' (Joaquin has a bit of a Kindle problem), even with Eliana's occasional contribution.  That's the danger of touch screens, anyone can work them!  Despite the fun we had, it was definitely an exhausting vacation (don't worry after taking that last picture, Daniel rescued Eliana from my sleeping grasp).  I'm glad we went, but I'm also glad it's over!  We needed a vacation from our vacation!

Eliana a la Dos Meses

And here's Miss Eliana showing how high she can lift her head up!  (One picture of a cute face, and one pic of a really silly face, she's a funny one this one.)  In the interests of fairness I must say that I put her down on her hands so she had some help at first, but she held herself like this for quite a while, looking at the cool patterns on her crib decor as well as at the funny machine with the blinking light (the camera).  We had our 2 month check up on Thursday (about a week early, but who's counting?) and discovered that Eliana is an Amazon!  She's 12 lbs 14 oz and 24 inches long, which puts her in the 95 percentile for both height and weight.  The fact that she's in the 95th for both means she's proportional so she just looks like a cute pudgy-wudgy instead of Joaquin's super chunk.  (For comparison, he was always in the 95-99th percentile for weight and anywhere from the 50th to 75th for height.)  Still she's a big girl, being the average size of 3 1/2 month baby according to my doctor.  So she's making great strides in the neck-muscle and growing department.  Now if we could just see that smile more often.  Apparently we as a family aren't funny enough.  Although the 'spinner' Joaquin made with his magnetic toys was intriguing enough to make her smile when he showed it to her.  Onwards and upwards to more milestones.

Sonreía

We have achieved smiling!  During our weekend in El Paso she smiled at me when I kissed her, but I thought it was maybe just a face twitch towards me.  Then she did it again two days later.  Then a few days ago she smiled when I came up to her and said hi.  And now she's done it several times, including this particular occasion.  Isn't it adorable?  In the interests of fairness I must say that Daniel claims she's been smiling since about two weeks old, but as all baby experts would consider this impossible, take it with a grain of salt.  She also 'talks'.  Seriously she makes these funny little noises that aren't really coos and aren't crying.  Plus she looks at me very seriously and moves her mouth around.  It looks for all the world like she's trying to talk, although maybe she's just thinking, "I want milk".  Daniel thinks I'm crazy and that they're just involuntary movements, but I think that's sour grapes about the whole smiling issue.

Feliz Cumpleaños Dr. Seuss

 Joaquin's class had Wacky Wednesday last week in honor of Dr. Seuss's upcoming birthday.  They were supposed to wear their clothes and hair wacky.  Unfortunately we missed it because Joaquin was coughing and claimed his throat was 'itchy'.  When he remembered that he missed Wacky Wednesday he was absolutely heartbroken and we had a minor meltdown about it.  So Thursday morning when we went to hang out with Uncle Matty (I had a doctor appt.) we wore wacky shoes.  As in two different shoes and two different socks.  Then Uncle Matty was so kind as to style Joaquin's hair wackily and then take pictures.  Joaquin loved it.  (Entertainingly enough, they also printed out the crests for all the Oxford colleges and Cambridge colleges.  My mother has a coaster with some of the crests on it that she purchased at Oxford.  Joaquin loves it and always asks questions about it, so he was delighted that Uncle Matty actually knew something about the subject.  So now I have some papers with these crests on them that I must apparently keep for time immemorial.)  Today Joaquin's class celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday by wearing their PJs to school and reading "The Cat in the Hat" and then watching a movie version.  Joaquin is a Dr. Seuss fan, his favorites including, "If I Ran the Circus", "I Saw it on Mulberry Street", and "The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins".  However he's only vaguely familiar with "The Cat in the Hat".  But I think he enjoyed it since he was able to repeat the plot verbatim along with several lines from it (I could tell because they rhymed).  They even got these cute little Cat in the Hat hats.  Yay for a children's author who's famous enough to inspire a pre-school day.

Pulgar

So here we are working on finding that thumb!  Eliana sucks on her hands frequently, even when she's not hungry.  Something that causes people to hand her back to me insisting that she's hungry.  She's starting to enjoy 'play time', by which I mean lying on her back or tummy and staring at the world.  Joaquin is especially interesting, you can see her staring at him.  Fortunately Joaquin is frequently willing to play near her, thus keeping both of them occupied.