Back to School & New Do's

All ready to head out for the first day of school!

This week Emilia went back to school and Mateo started for the first time. Emilia started at the school when she was Mateo's age and is now officially in their pre-school curriculum (a.k.a. the "Terrific Tiger" room). Mateo is a "Busy Butterfly," which seems very fitting. Both go two full days (i.e. 9am - 5pm) a week. Emilia was very excited to go back and really enjoyed her first week. Mateo did amazingly well, thanks in part, I think, to the fact that he's been going to the childcare center at our gym for an hour or two several days a week since he was three months old (and probably the fact that he's been to the school many, many times before). He headed straight for the toys when we arrived the first morning and didn't even seem to notice, much less mind, when I left. On the second day, unfortunately, he got sick and had to be picked up halfway through the day. If exposure to a classroom full of other snot-nosed toddlers doesn't build up a kid's immune system, I don't know what does.

Before

During

The start of school also seemed to warrant new haircuts, initially for Emilia, and then mid-way through the week for Mateo when the arrival of a good coupon (not to mention Agustin's comment that he would try cutting Mateo's bangs himself) convinced me it was time to get his first haircut. So Emilia is now sporting a cute and curly bob, and baby Mateo has become a big boy. His curly "wings" are gone, but there's still some curl in the back, so hopefully we haven't seen the last of it. I can't believe how quickly they are growing up!

After!

Summer Days Gone By

Holy crap! It's September! It's practically mid-September! I guess it's true that time flies when you're having fun (and when you're crazy busy). I can't possibly begin to itemize all that we did (nor would I subject any of you to that), so I'll just say a few words and share some favorite photos. Most noteworthy in the second half of summer was that we had a pseudo exchange student during the month of August. Paula, a 16-year-old from Spain, gave us a taste of what it is like to have a teenager in the family. She is the daughter of one of Agustin's childhood friends, who also spent a few days with us before deciding we were (barely) trustworthy enough for him to leave his daughter behind. All in all, I think it was a good experience for everyone. We are always looking for ways to expose our kids to the wider world and different cultures, so this provided a great opportunity. Her presence forced us to spend a little more time having fun and relaxing, and a little less working (and when we were working, we did not miss the opportunity to teach her about getting her hands dirty, literally). She was also quite helpful with the kids and spent a few hours two mornings a week with them while I worked. And Paula not only improved her English, but also learned a little bit more about a place she previously hadn't even looked up on the map.

If I had to summarize how we spent our time this summer, I'd say we spent it on the water. We were either at the pool at our gym or on the lake at my parents several days a week. Paula's presence and interest in tubing and skiing meant my mom and I had the third person necessary to go waterskiing whenever we wanted (typically while Mateo and Grandpa napped). Emilia tubed for the first time and continued to take to the water like a fish. She passed the swim test at our gym, which entails swimming the length of the pool (25 yards) unassisted. According to the lifeguard, she is the youngest one to pass (although I doubt the official-ness of this claim). Mateo also took to the water much more this summer than he had in the past. He'd go running into the zero-depth entry pool at our gym and keep going until he was over his head or fell over, and just calmly wait until someone pulled him up from underwater. Agustin, the kids' unofficial swim coach, is determined Mateo will break Emilia's record next summer and pass the swim test at age two. It's good to have goals, right?

Oh, and I certainly can't overlook the fact that Agustin and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary in August. Marriage with two small kids is not easy, but I am so thankful that I found such a great partner and someone who can put up with me!

In Honor of Two Great Fathers

This past Father's Day weekend, we enjoyed a little time "up north," as we say in Minnesota, with my parents and my brother Jordan and his wife Tara. We had a lot of fun swimming, playing at the beach, eating, coloring, playing lawn games (or, in Mateo's case, anything involving a ball), golfing, and even relaxing a bit in between all the fun. It was nice for Agustin and I to have four more sets of hands to help with the kids. And Emilia and Mateo loved all the attention. In honor of Father's Day, I'd just like to say thank you to my dad and my husband for both being such great fathers, each in their own way. Here are a few pictures of our fun.

A Weekend Away

Agustin and I recently enjoyed a much-needed weekend away without kids. My parents were kind enough to watch Emilia and Mateo (thanks Mom and Dad!) while we headed to Madison for the wedding of two friends (we'd barely been back since moving away from there four years ago). We spent a day/night in Madison, where we visited all our old favorite places and watched the U.S. vs. England World Cup game at a popular sports bar, then headed out to farm country, where the wedding was held on the couple's property. It was a beautiful and very fun wedding, and we partied into the wee hours of the morning with old friends and new before retiring to our tent and camping out right there on the property. A big congratulations and best wishes to our friends, newlyweds Chris and Stephanie!

This is the first in a series of photos of Agustin dancing (a sure sign he's having a good time) with the sister of the bride (and her scooter). The others were a little too racy to post.

Mateo is One!

Little Man Mateo is now officially one year old! We celebrated his birthday at the beginning of the month with a small family gathering. As is to be expected with a first birthday, the birthday boy was as enamored, if not more so, by the wrapping as the gifts themselves, the older sibling was more than helpful with unwrapping said gifts, and the man of the hour was not quite sure what to think of his first experience with cake. But fun was had by all and our baby is turning into a little boy right before our eyes. He's trying to communicate a lot more with sounds and hand signals (and banging his head on the floor when he's tired and wants to be held), and I have decided that his first official (i.e. intentional) word was ball ("ba!"). He also loves putting Emilia's headbands in his hair all by himself (in the picture above he has one around his neck); I think he's trying to keep up with his ultra-fancy sister.

Mateo models the poncho Tio Jojo and Tia Tara brought him from Chile

And here are a few more pictures from the past few weeks:

Emilia models one of her many homemade costumes; I forget what she was supposed to be here, but take note that she's wearing puppets as slippers

Enjoying a warm day in the backyard; Mateo isn't a big fan of the big pools yet, but loves the bath and the little plastic pool

Although Mateo took his first steps several weeks ago, he has preferred crawling as his primary means of locomotion until just recently. Now he takes as many as 8-10 steps at a time and enjoys showing off his walking skills. He still looks like a drunken sailor most of the time, but our cheers and laughter just encourage him to keep practicing the walking. I'll bet it's his preferred way of getting around within a week or two.

With Yaya and Grandpa at a different birthday party (note Emilia and her doll are wearing matching outfits--the result of shopping with Yaya)

School's Out for the Summer....School's Out Forever (well, kind of)

May has come and almost gone. I passed my oral preliminary exam and prospectus for the PhD in April, then completed my final course at the beginning of May. That means I've completed every requirement for the PhD except that pesky little thing called the dissertation. It means my basic research plan for said dissertation has been approved. I will be collecting data in the fall, which will include a trip to Spain and one to Senegal (the former probably as a family and the latter solo). I'm hoping to officially become a "Dr." two years from now, if all goes according to plan. In the meantime, I am going to try not to stress too much over my research plans this summer, and plan to spend a lot of quality time with the family. These are just a few photos from earlier this month to demonstrate we're off to a good start.

Emilia's First Self-Portrait

This post is a bit belated, but I wanted to document Emilia's first self-portrait, which she did last month. She loves to color and had been improving by leaps and bounds. Several times she handed me pictures when I picked her up at the childcare center at the gym and I questioned whether they were really hers because it looked like someone had actually tried to color in the lines. I'm not quite sure why it didn't occur to me that she might just be improving. Heck, the girl knows how to write half the letters in the alphabet; why wouldn't her coloring skills be improving? Then one day I picked her up and she handed me a picture of Tinkerbell with her signature scribbling. "Nice picture," I said. "No Mommy! Look on the other side...it's me!" Sure enough, when I turned over the paper, there was a very distinguishable human figure. Not just a human figure, but a girl. Appendages, head, face, clothes, the whole deal. "It's me in my orange dress," she explained (although she does not own an orange dress). "I couldn't make the hair curly, so I just drawed it short," she said. Of course. And purple. This is definitely a keeper.