Growth Chart

Pictures of my little ones below.

Baby E- 11 months
He is walking~ taking 5 to 10 steps and stopping for a break, or going back to crawling. He babbles so much!! He loves to sit in the little chairs around the house (all of which STILL seem so big in comparison to him). He is back to not sleeping through the night, and we've started a second (or third?!?) attempt at sleep training. Sigh! He loves to eat sweet potatoes, and LO gives him her chocolate chip cookies (such a good share-er :P) which he eats so very happily. He has a signature Buzz Lightyear pose that I love (and that is actually in one of these pictures below!). He has finally contracted the Mamitis virus that LO seemed to have been born with. Part of me is actually kind of happy and relieved. He loves to play with cars and anything with a screen or buttons. He likes to dance, and shakes his head in the same way that he "dances" whenever he is excited about something. Or he jumps. He kind of propels himself upwards with his legs (though not actually jumps) with excitement. It's super cute. He happily but decidedly drops everything and anything at 4.30 when Daddy comes home to go demand that he pick him up and carry him till 5pm. haha!  

LO- 3 years old
She is my Princes E these days. She loves snuggles and books, dress-up and tea parties. She calls her Monkey "Momey" which sounds a lot like "Mommy" to me. She's starting to put together little conversations (are you okay? yes, I'm okay, thank you. Oh okay! or OoOOoo it's a shadow. How scary. Oh, it's gone. Where did it go? There it is! Go hide!) and is starting to learn to introduce herself to others (though I think she would still only practice this particular conversation with a kid or an extremely friendly adult). She is so sweet to her brother and even when he hits and pinches her or pulls her hair, she has yet to respond in kind. She takes care of him and tries to include him in her games (Baby! Come here!) except when she's building something, because he goes all Godzilla on her. She is becoming more and more social and loves hanging out with other kids her age. I think it's time for school! In the meantime, she loves going to the library and play dates and going to church. She loves to eat hot dogs, sliced apples and grapes, ice cream and cookies. She wakes up in the middle of the night to jump in bed with us. She can be seen standing by the window or trying to open the door when she knows Daddy is coming home.

I had pumpkin spice in my eggnog

And I loved it.

We are having a bit of a mixed up holiday celebration at the MBC home. It's all the fault of last Sunday's snow day~ something about snow just yells Christmas. Q was mockingly singing that "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ...and Thanksgiving isn't here yet!"

Well it did start out as a Thanksgiving-oriented sort of theme for the kids and I. LO and I started praying before our meals and Q started praying with her at night. And we went to the library's Thanksgiving event, which LO and Baby E both loved. LO was even called by the teacher, and she just loved being a helper! Not that she knew what to do.. haha! But she had lots of fun. I didn't take pictures of the events because Baby E was trying to explore and was seriously ALL.OVER.THE.PLACE but the Library's Facebook page put up some pics and there we are:

Can you see me back there with Baby E? LO is so independent these days! Here she is, one step ahead of the action! LOL

She was so attentive (most of the time) and followed directions perfectly. Such a good girl, my little one <3

We don't show as much in this picture but I still think it's a great pic of the process :)

And here is her art work:

She did SO WELL. I am so proud of her. She still remembers how to use glue, even though it's been a while since we practiced. We did lose a tail feather on the way to the car (boo).

We have also been reading books at home about the Thanksgiving holiday- though only about the family gathering part. No Native American-centered books at our library, I'm afraid. In all honestly, (and now that I've shared my cute pictures) I should say that I dislike the story in its popular Euro-centric form (a simplistic story about Plymouth pilgrims' survival thanks to the help of the Wampanoag) given that said settlers proceeded to nearly extinguish the tribes that were native to what is now called New England. In fact, as you may already know, the United American Indians of New England mourn on Thanksgiving day since the 70s. Those Native Americans who do celebrate, do so in a revisionist manner, by centering the celebration around the many contributions of Native Americans; and I too think this is the best way to celebrate it. In Mexico, for example, these conflicting perspectives around Colonialism have been the root of a similar (though in our case, official) editing of Columbus Day (October 12) which has become Dia de la Raza, a celebration highlighting our Mestizo race*

We do celebrate Thanksgiving in our family, though, as you have seen, because as I said before I believe the holiday is what one makes of it. In the end, I think that Thanksgiving today is about family, about being grateful for the blessings we have been awarded, and about giving back. And so we celebrate all this, and we spend time with our family, and (despite my little rant here) we don't hate on Turkey Day. Can't wait for Turkey Day.

That is not to say, however, that when it snowed on Sunday, this house did not feel the Christmas Spirit! We watched Christmas movies or listened to Christmas music, broke out the eggnog and out came the Christmas tree and all of our decorations. We have not put up our lights yet, but everything else is up :) It was lots of fun!

See that hand? I should have known he'd want to pull on the socks- we had to move them :P

And I'm serious about the eggnog. I totally put pumpkin spice in it. And it was delish.

* In 1918, philosopher Antonio Caso took October 12th as an opportunity to praise the "Mexican mestizo race", La Raza, the rich mixture of Spanish and indigenous cultures which characterizes us. He was perhaps the first to coin the term La Raza, which has now been adopted by Latinos from all across the continent. Ten years later, the Día de la Raza was declared an official national holiday by Congress, after only minor debate.
From here 

Thank you, God

How very fitting, that LO's first prayer would happen this month.
 We've talked to her about God and tried to show her our spiritual life, talking to her about His love, teaching her about church, etc. But because I wanted her to have some idea of what she was doing and who she was talking to, prayer around the table had not been our practice yet, until very recently. Like every other Christian mom, I have dreams of my children gathering around the table or kneeling by their bed and praying about the important things in their lives, but in my dreams they were always a little older than her... not babies or toddlers but children who understood and wanted to pray. I don't know how much she actually understands, and I honestly suspect she does not understand much (in fact I was just recently telling a friend from my Couples Sunday School class that my little girl typically just waits to hear "Amen" and then opens her eyes! Haha!) And yet, today, when she held her little fuzzy friends' hands and told them to close their eyes and said "Thank you, God, for this food" my heart simultaneously melted and exploded, and I had to contain myself, and it took all my strength not to shriek for joy and possibly scare my poor child out of her prayer. Instead I did what she said to do, and I held the monkey's hand, and I prayed.

Thank you, God.  

Le cortamos el pelo!!!

 Baby E acaba de recibir su primer corte de pelo.

Fue una tragedia.


De verdad :(





Aqui esta mi pollito hermoso antes del corte:

Y aqui esta despues:

Me veia mas lindo con mi cabellito largo, mami :(!!

You may call it a fail :P

Definitivamente me gustaba mas como le quedaba el pelo mas larguito. Le Snif! Ya ni modo! A esperar a que le crezca!

El corte en si estuvo bien. Se dejo muy bien cortarse el pelo, y no lloro ni nada, gracias a Dios. 

Hoy fuimos a comprar cosas en JoAnn y luego nos fuimos a comer, y helo aqui, mas contento al menos :)

Okay, seriously, he was waaay happier. I know. It doesn't show. But it's the only picture I got.
Sigh...

Lotta Random Things

So a while back Q and I switched to a phone company called Republic Wireless and we love it. We are hoping to save some $ with this change, for the sake of saving of course, but also because Verizon ripped us off and I need a sense of justice. LoL! So they won't be getting our business anymore and hopefully, over the next 3-4 months, we can save back the money they literally stole from us. Justice. Sort of.

Added bonus: I have officially joined the rest of the modern world and am (for the very first time in my life) the owner of a smart phone. Cue the fanfare.


I'm so excited. Do make sure I have your number and you have my new number too :)!!

So I've found myself browsing while nursing Baby E, or when they're both playing, and it reminds me of the time I spent reading on the Kindle my mother-in-law gave me, and so I decided I wanted to read during these times again, now that I can. I used to read a mom's devotional book back then, but it turns out my phone doesn't have enough memory for the mom's devotional Bible app, so I suppose I don't have enough memory for a kindle app. But I have been using THIS  Mom's devotional from BibleGateway.com, which I have found very convenient. I just google "mom's devotional" on my browser every time. I should probably figure out how to use bookmarks in my phone. The devotionals are weekly, not daily, but since I'm starting out super late in the year I have lots of devotionals to go back to. Hehe! If you are my Mom and are reading this, please don't pass out just yet, and know I WAS having a devotional before, just not a directed sort of thing.

LO and I have also started singing and signing :)!!
We use Youtube.com (I like this channel in particular) and to be honest, I started out doing it by myself (I am trying to relearn the little bit I studied when I was in college) and was surprised when LO stopped playing and came over to sing and sign with me!! So she's been doing it with me too. We do the same two or three songs every time because the signs are actual ASL and the whole thing is actually pretty complex for a toddler, but she knows "Jesus" and "Lord" and "hands" for sure so far, and the word "kingdom" cracks her up for some reason. In general she sort of just moves all over the place and has fun with it, and I'm just glad that she follows along pretty happily. I like it because she is having a little devotional time with me, having fun, and learning a third language; and Baby E looooves music, so he is usually entertained too.

As you may already know, Q (and his parents) and I have been working on the dining set, but I think this particular story deserves its own post, and I shall indulge in a long, picture filled post when we finally finish them [this week, I hope!]

We've also been sick these past couple days. It is not fun. I think we are finally on our way out (hooray!!) and I'm looking forward to having more "normal" days again.

Wish Lists

Little Owl & Baby E

PLEASE NO STUFFED ANIMALS we have too many... thank you :)

More magana tiles would be great
More wooden blocks would be great

LEGOS- (Older kid sized) Super easy one, and you can't go wrong, because even if two people get legos, it will be a great gift and will add to a collection which I'm sure will be played with every day.

Here is a toy I love:
Marble Railway




I'm also working on making a felt board like this:

So any felt constructions of this kind would be fun :)

Ideas for felt toys here:

 Dress up felt dolls

 Felt cars

Felt nativity set

A toy like this one that makes for continuous water play in the tub without wasting water:

This one is 12 bucks and looks like a lot of fun too:

 

Mama:

I need gloves and scarves. Boot socks. Sweaters. I like neutral colors best. 

Daddy has an amazon wishlist going. Will post a link on FB