New PJ's

Sippy Cup: Inaugural Try

Alejo was very interested in the sippy cup, but totally unsuccessful in terms of actually drinking from it.

Alejo & His Momma

Treats from the Dollar Store

On one of their Father/Son outings, Diego and Luis made a stop at the dollar store. Luis was super excited to show me the funky/dirty fake teeth. Lucky for us, three sets came in a package: one for Luis, one for Diego and one for me. Luis wanted all of us to try them on immediately, some sort of family bonding experience. I'm not sure how it happened, but the picture shows it best: Luis and I wearing the teeth and Diego behind the camera!

Brotherly Love - Kinda One-Sided

This photo was totally staged. I admit it. Alejo is so enamored with his big brother, watching Luis's every move and totally lighting up whenever Luis decides to show even the slightest bit of attention to Alejo. To reward Alejo's adoration, and a little bit to rub Luis, Diego likes to put Alejo on Luis - as he did here. Alejo loves (LOVES!) it and just smiles and giggles the whole time. Luis asks, begs, pleads, and then demands that Alejo be removed. In spite of his complaints, I must point out, Luis never does anything like push Alejo or anything else that might hurt him. Though he gets annoyed with Alejo sometimes, it is very evident to me that Luis loves his brother, too.

Exersaucer

It's always a bit surprising to me how things sneak up on you. Alejo had only mild interest in the exersuacer at first. Then one day, I suddenly realize how much fun he's having in it, yet am unsure of when the change occurred.

More Lego Creations

Luis spends at least some time almost every day building a new Lego creation. Here is an ambulance (note the Silly Bandz that holds the man to the "stretcher") and some sort of spaceship.

Alejo in the Baby Gym (and in Good Light!)

An Afternoon with an Old Friend

Luis has loved playing "Water Games" for almost as long as I can remember. Outside, it involves the hose and/or the watering can. Inside, it means playing at the kitchen sink. We haven't played in a long time, mostly because I tired of mopping up the water from the far reaches of the counter and from all over the floor. I told Luis "no" so many times, that he finally stopped asking. Until this afternoon. I'm not sure what made him think of it, and I'm not sure why I said yes. Probably had a lot to do with the fact that Alejo was sleeping and I needed a good 30-minutes to prep for dinner.

After one gentle reminder about not pouring water on the counter, Luis did a surprisingly good job of keeping the water mostly in the sink. In the first 5 minutes, he wanted to show me 15 different things. I explained that the main reason I agreed to let him play in the sink was so that I could get my own work done, logic I have used (unsuccessfully) on him in the past. Except this time it worked. He then played contentedly for more than 30 minutes (with minimal splashing).

As a VERY BIG added bonus, when he was done he asked (begged, practically) if he could clean the kitchen sink for me. You bet!

Ashley Wants a Turn

This is the first time I've seen Ashley get IN the baby gym. It's kind of hard to see, but she has her own toy in there with her. Not sure what she was thinking...

Loving His Giraffe

In the last week or so, Alejo has taken a very keen interest in this giraffe. Because it squeaks, Ashley and Luis are also very keen on it. Me, I'm not so keen.

SUPER Silly Straw

Thomas and Lucy gave Luis this very clever build-your-own straws set for Christmas. Luis really likes the idea of it, but still has a few physics lessons to learn before he can get the most out of it.

Open House Day

Our rental house in Texas is back on the sales market, much to our chagrin. For the time being, we will stay here and hope that no one buys the house! Today, the owners had an Open House, to sort of welcome the house to the market. It was a miserable day weather-wise: very cold with a lot of rain. Regardless, Diego and I packed the boys up after lunch and headed out a local sports store. Turns out that Luis and Diego go there regularly as part of their out-of-the-house trips. Luis calls it "the indoor golf store".

We had two hours to kill, so we took our time perusing all the different sections, starting (of course) with the indoor golf. Not surprisingly, Diego has the best putting skills of the three of us. From there, we cruised through the winter sports section (a fairly small section here in Dallas!). Luis found this snowboard and it was love at first sight!

He cried a bit when we told him that we would not buy it for him!

Next, we moved on to the baseball section. Luis asked for one of almost everything and asked several times about when could he play baseball again? After two seasons of t-ball, I have learned that Luis likes the idea of t-ball much more than he likes actually playing. (As a result, I think we will sign him up for soccer this spring instead.)

In the end, it was in fact a skate board that we brought home with us. Stay tuned for photos of that!

School Projects - At Home

As part of the study of Dinosaurs at school, Luis made a volcano using baking soda and vinegar. After watching one erupt at school, he was sent home with all of the ingredients to erupt his own at home. It took us a few days to get around to doing it - but it was worth the wait!

All the ingredients are assembled. Luis is so excited he can't stand still!

Pouring the vinegar in after adding the baking soda and the food coloring (he chose green, his favorite color!).

Luis LOVED watching the volcano erupt!!

A Blast from (Momma's) Past

On Saturday, Alexandra, the sister of Luis's friend was having a roller skating party. Having rented out the entire rink, Alexandra's parents very generously invited almost everyone they now (including us!). Luis and I packed up after breakfast to head to the rink. I told Luis he needed to wear tall pants as sometimes you fall when you roller skate and you want your legs to be protected. Before getting out the door, Luis dug up his bike helmet, to add to the protection level.

When we got to the rink, Luis and I were both pretty excited to skate. I hadn't been in a roller skating rink in 20 years, if not longer - not since the days of Kate's Skate in Rock Hill with my brothers and cousins. Turns out that roller skating rinks have not changed at all in 20 years.

Early on, Luis did a lot of falling

We got his skates (and helmet) on him pretty quickly. He then fell approximately 47 times in the next 8 minutes. And he totally lost interest (and his composure). We sat on the side - on those carpet covered mushroom like seat/tables - for nearly 30 minutes watching the other kids skate. Luis then decided to put one skate on and kind of test it out around the carpeted area. Another 30 minutes later and he had the confidence to put two skates on. I was totally amazed at the attitude shift that happened in that hour. On our second attempt at skating, when Luis fell down, instead of crying he said to me, "Mommy: Sometimes you fall down, but you just have to get back up and try again." It was rather amazing. And inspiring to me.

Keeping his balance

After about 10 minutes, Luis asked if I would skate with him. I was a little nervous about holding him up while I was on skates, but Luis's eagerness to skate with me was much more potent than a little fear. So I grabbed a pair of skates and we inched our way around the rink one time. It is in the top 3 all time great experiences with Luis.

Practically an old pro

In between skating sessions, they had a couple of contests, including a speed skate contest and a limbo contest, which I remembered from childhood. But the one that flooded me with memories was when we all got in a circle in the middle of the rink and did the Hookey Pookey. It was all so much fun!

Turns out that a camera phone is not particularly effective at capturing quickly moving things in very low lighting. I wish I'd had my good camera. Since Luis asked me to promise him that we will go back, maybe next time...

Alejo's Blanket

While we were in Florida for Christmas, we received Alejo's blanket from Liz. When Luis was born, she made him a blanket, which is probably his most prized possession. I was excited for Alejo to have one as well. I don't have a full-size picture of it yet, just lots of pictures of Alejo nuzzling it.

At this point, I won't leave it in the crib with him when he sleeps, as he still likes to smother himself. But hopefully it won't be long.

Thanks Aunt Liz!

Christmas Clean Up

For a long time now, I have dreamed of being more organized with my Christmas stuff. Unfortunately, I rarely tap into that dream when it's time to take down the tree and put everything away. This year, however, I did it!

I saved a couple of the plastic boxes that apples come in for ornament storage. Turns out that it was the perfect thing! I got 90% of my fragile ornaments into the apple boxes. Putting the ornaments in the apple box was SO MUCH easier and faster than wrapping them all back up in tissue paper. The real test will come next Christmas when I get them all out again. Assuming that nothing gets broken, I will be thrilled.

The other thing that made Christmas Clean Up successful this year was that I actually did the whole house in the same day. This means that everything actually got put back in the proper box (something I have never managed to do in the past - with the result that I find random Christmas stuff in random drawers and boxes throughout the year).

All of this gives me hope that I may some day be more organized. Some day. I really, really hope.

Happy Birthday Party Day

This afternoon, we had a few of Luis's friends over to celebrate his birthday. Whenever one of the wished him a Happy Birthday, he was to point out, "It's NOT my birthday today." So, we settled on wishing him a Happy Birthday Party Day, to which he was only slightly more amenable. We invited five friends over, and four of them made it: Caleb, Elijah (from PDO last year), Will and Colin (both carpool buddies at the Science School) - all from the neighborhood.

I brought down Luis's three "building toys" (blocks, legos, Gears) and told Luis that this was a Downstairs Party. The main activity was decorating cupcakes. That part was a hit, but I didn't manage to get any pictures of it.

Luis has long been wearing Super Chupies, as part of various super hero costumes. He has, on many, many occasions, offered to loan his friends some, but never with success. Well, not today. In the blink of an eye, all five boys were wearing Super Chupies and running around the house like crazy four year olds jacked up on too much icing and cupcakes (in that order), er Super Heroes.

All of the boys "suiting up"

This photo reminds me so much of the old Batman shows, where Batman and Robin would duke it out with the bad guys. This afternoon, it was a little difficult to tell who the good and bad guys were, though everyone was having a good time. It was also difficult for the boys to remember that the pushing and hitting and fighting was supposed to be pretend.

Luis, Elijah and Caleb (the knight)

Colin, Will and Elijah strike their best Super Hero poses. Will won!

Colin, Elijah, Luis and Will sporting their Super Chupies. Caleb was feeling a little camera shy.
I'm not sure how this game got started. I asked Diego to keep an eye on the boys in the front room for a few minutes. Next thing I know, he's dragging them all - all FIVE of them - around by his feet. They were squealing and shouting with laughter. Diego was exhausted. That was probably more than 175lbs worth of 4 year olds he was dragging!

Shortly after this, Diego moved the party outside, which was a brilliant move. It appeared that all of the sugar from the cupcakes and icing had hit the blood stream, and the boys had A TON of energy.

The boys playing in/on the fort

Will, Colin, Elijah, Caleb (hidden in the tire swing), and Luis

Bethany & Caleb

Elijah and Luis

Elijah, Will and Luis