El Rey Edmund

 The Chick-fil-A near us hosts the occasional theme night, free food in exchange for dressing up and participating.  Daniel and Joaquin enjoyed their cow night (they made very charming cows).  Well last Saturday was Prince and Princess night.  I'm guessing it started out as a girly attraction and then expanded, but we were none the less excited.  Joaquin got a notice at school about it so of course we had to go. He dressed up as King Edmund from Narnia.  Doesn't he look great?  I think Daniel and I have some frustrated costuming instincts.  He did win his little costume contest (I think they keep having them over the evening) and won a little nerf missle thingy.  Plus they had carriage rides - again I think intended to be slightly girly but Joaquin was pretty jazzed.  He said he wished he lived when people took horse and carriages for everything.  Plus we got some free nuggets.  There were a few moms that dressed up and Joaquin told me I should have dressed up and been Queen Susan.  Since she's the pretty one I took it as a serious compliment.  You're adorable Joaquin-o.  Since Eliana can't eat chicken nuggets yet we didn't dress her up either (a massive oversight on my part), but she also had a great time.  She really likes events with lots of people and little kids.  After a nice dinner Joaquin and Daniel darted off to their next engagment and Eliana and I went home for an early evening.  Some friends of ours had set up a father and son treasure hunt out in the desert behind their house.  They ran around until it got dark (and then after) finally finding a treasure chest full of gold chocolate coins.  Awesome, huh?  Every day's a party with the Headleys.

Siete meses

 Eliana is seven months old and super happy about it!  Gotta love that super big smile.  Joaquin is sixty eight months (and also happy about it although you can't tell from the picture) and the creator of both signs.  He insisted on making Eliana's as well as his own.  Eliana now rolls all over the place - on purpose, sits for long stretches and reaches for toys.  She's starting to say ma-ma-ma-ma-ma when she's upset and then reach for me, so even if she's not saying Mama yet she will be soon!  She's also going through extreme separation anxiety - meaning if I walk away from her and she notices we get hysterics.  Her new nickname is Arm Candy, since she's super cute and always on my arm!  We're working on getting better at grabbing things.  She's actually pretty good at her pincer grip, but she hasn't figured out how to let go to get something into her mouth.  It's pretty cute to watch her try to nibble it out of her own fingers when letting go would solve the problem immediately.  Her favorite things are Daddy kisses, Joaquin silliness and the remote (it's like the best toy ever!)  She's 20 lbs and about 27 inches of adorableness.

Escuela

 First day of Kindergarten!  My little boy is so grown-up.  He was super excited, although a little over-loud so I think there was some unacknowledged nervousness under there.  He did great (so did Mommy, I swallowed a few tears but no one saw), carrying his very heavy backpack full of supplies.  We lined up with his class, I gave him one last kiss and off he went.  For like seven hours.  Man, who knew I would miss him so much?  By all accounts it was great fun, he came home full of stories and information.  We're at day three and he still seems to find school exciting.  (He was also very excited to find that his school was named after a person Edmund G. Ross.  He loves the name Edmund because of the Chronicles of Narnia.) Here's looking at a fantastic year!

El Fin del Verano

 As Joaquin started kindergarten on Wednesday, we decided to celebrate Tuesday as our last day of summer.  We met Daddy at the base pool after naptime.  I dressed Eliana in Joaquin's smallest swim shirt and a swim diaper and she spent almost the whole time in the pool.  It was so cute to watch her splash happily around.  Joaquin of course had a fabulous time, doesn't he look cool in his goggles?  Then over to McDonald's for dinner with Grandpa.  As you can see from the pictures, a good time was had by all.  Eliana was allowed to play with all kinds of wrappers and boxes while Grandpa, Daddy and Joaquin turned our used containers and cups into a variety of toys.  It started with the salad container UFO and moved on from there.  Adios to halycon days of nothing specific to do and on to the school year!

Mas Picturas de Mi Familia

 Another try by Tia Lina at a good family picture just proves we are a goofy family.  I think I ruined as many pictures as the kids did. They are fun to look as a group however.  This one is actually a pretty good one of all of us and has the added benefit of being amusing because a second later Eliana was pulling Joaquin's hair.  We did get a variety of cute pictures of the kids by themselves though.  Kara is a genius at getting good pictures of Joaquin, an art in and of itself. 

Bañarse

Miss Eliana loves a bath.  She splashes and splashes and splashes.  Plus she really likes when I read "What Floats", a little plastic book for the bath.  We've had it since Joaquin was a baby and we read it every bath.  So now I do the same for Eliana and she is a serious fan.  She gets the biggest smile (not like the one in this picture) on her face whenever I pull it out.  She also likes to chillax in the bath, as you can see; one foot up and leaning back.  Both super cute and super funny.  This picture is also indicative of another typical Eliana feeling.  This weird smile is caused by teething.  Poor baby, her mouth seems to be hurting her all the time and those next teeth will just not pop through.  She also makes some seriously crazy tongue movements exploring the teeth she does have.

Finja

 So Daniel and Joaquin have developed some serious imaginative play.  They can make a game from anything.  Of course their favorite is to play 'Narnia', or to reenact encyclopedically each book.  This definitely proves Joaquin is understanding those books since he remembers everything! My favorite was actually when they took out a large map of the world and had pretend adventures in the countries that caught their fancy.  Not sure what all happened, they did make it to Iceland though.  This particular playtime appears to have been manipulated by Daniel in an effort to be 'playing' but still nap.  He and Joaquin were playing 'Praying Mantis' where one of them would pretend to be a prey bug and then the praying mantis (the other one) would grab them aggressively and yell about how they were eating their head and then their legs, etc. (Yeah, we've seen a lot of praying mantis feedings and it's not for the faint of heart.)  Then somehow this segued into Joaquin being the 'flea bird' which is like a superhero for dogs because it eats fleas.  (His words) Eliana is the dog in this instance and Daniel was the flea biting her and Joaquin would grab him and pretend to eat him.  At least little sister got to play.