Nine Months!

Our little boy is nine months old today! This is such a fun stage, even if his curiosity often does get the best of him (and us). Mateo has been crawling since five months of age, and has been pulling up on things and "cruising" (walking around by holding onto things) for about a month now. He likes to practie walking with his little push toy and just recently started pulling up on things and then going "no hands." And yesterday he crawled up his first stair. He is very ticklish and loves to laugh almost as much as we love hearing him do it. He also loves playing with the door stoppers ("boing!"), digging in the house plants, playing with the door on the DVD player, and, more than anything, chewing on shoes. We need to start taking babyproofing a little more seriously, I guess. Oh, and did I mention he gave himself a bloody nose the other day when he was just laying on his stomach on the hardwood floor and decided to bonk his face on the ground? How do you babyproof for that?! He's had the front two bottom teeth for awhile now, but the top two and a few others are suddenly making themselves known. As a result, Mateo has developed a fondness for Barbie--apparently her long, slender appendages make great teethers for those hard-to-reach back teeth. So, without further ado, here are some of my favorite recent pics of our growing little boy.

Visit to Spain in Photos

As has become our tradition, we headed to Spain right after Christmas to spend New Year's, Reyes Magos (when the wisemen were believed to have brought their gifts to baby Jesus), and our nephew Javi's birthday with Agustin's family. Here's a little taste of our trip in pictures.

Emilia waits with her seeded, peeled grapes to ring in the new year. It's tradition in Spain to eat twelve grapes--one with each "dong"--when the clock strikes twelve on New Year's Eve.

Emilia helps Papa prepare a "tarta de galletas" (cookie cake!) for Javi's birthday. Below, Javi blows out the candles and Emilia continues to be helpful, this time with the eating part.

Three generations

The newest additions to the family, Mateo and cousin Alejandro, get to know each other. Our next visit, when both these guys are entirely too mobile, will be interesting!

Agustin and I prepared an all-American meal for the family. It was a tight squeeze with 20 people, but great to see everyone.

Mateo's make-shift bath

Mateo and Bob the Builder, a new gift from the Reyes Magos

Emilia tries out some of the loot she scored at the Reyes Magos parade. Watch out Hollywood!

It rained way more than normal while we were there (hence the umbrellas on the stroller), but we did our best to not let it keep us indoors!

Above and below: We were lucky enough to get to see one of our old roommates and his family (including two daughters who are each just a few months older than our kids). Although they don't live in Sevilla, we've been able to get together with them for a few hours when they were passing through town during our last two visits. If Emilia had her way though, she'd play with Celia every day (last year she came home from Spain and named a doll after her new friend).

The boys--brothers and cousins

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate, and happy new year!

These pictures make me disappointed I was on top of things and got my holiday cards made (although not sent out) early this year. These are way cuter than what we sent out!

Emilia Turns Three (and other November Highlights)

Time has gotten away from me again! And things are only getting busier with the holidays upon us! Emilia turned three about two weeks ago and, as such an occasion requires, we celebrated for almost a whole week. First we had a birthday party with my parents and friends of the family and their three kids. Emilia's favorite part was getting her face painted by her friend Liza, then painting Liza's face. Then Emilia celebrated with her friends at school another day, and on her “official” birthday our immediate family had a special birthday dinner. Emilia is so “sited” to be “free” (excited to be three)! Oh, and is the fact that my daughter's favorite present was, at only three years of age, clothes reason to be concerned?

Last week Emilia had her three-year check-up, and we learned she is in the 90th percentile for height—looks like she might have gotten her dad’s genes in that area.

In general, we are pretty crazy about our little three-year-old. She is smart, funny, imaginative, creative, sensitive, and caring. She’s quite the talker and is picking up a lot of Spanish these days, not to mention repeating anything and everything she hears (we need to start being more careful about what we say). For awhile she said she wanted to be a “doctor and a dentist” when she grows up, but today she said she wants to be a mom or an actor. She said she’d try each out to decide which she wanted to be “for a long time.” I explained that you can be a mom and something else, so she decided that’s what she’d do.

Last week we celebrated Thanksgiving with my dad’s side of the family. In practice for her acting days, Emilia performed the play “Hansel and Greta” (apparently a modern adaptation of the original by a similar name?) for the group. However, she has not actually seen that play yet (we have tickets for later this month) or even heard the story, so it was a lot of dancing around and singing, “Haaaaanselllll….aaaand…..Greeeeeettaaaaaaaa…..” Needless to say, she loved the attention!

Mateo, who will be six months old within the week, is a little mover and shaker. He has been crawling for a few weeks already, although in a bit of a worm-like fashion. He loves Emilia’s doctor kit and piano, and often goes straight for them when you set him on the floor. We just started him on “solids” (there is nothing solid about baby rice cereal, in my opinion) this week, and with every bite he seems to be saying, “Where have you been hiding this insipid stuff all my life?!”

Happy Halloween!

Wow! Life has been incredibly busy lately. I started class again in September and, although I only have one class this semester and am not teaching this year, I have started working on the literature review and preparations for my dissertation. The result is that I never feel "done" and always have more I could be doing.

The potty training continues. She wears underwear while awake and really has no problems, but we're still working on the finer points of it, so the sticker chart continues (for dry diapers at night and a BM on the potty) with an ice cream outing whenever she completes a row. Chocolate brownie is the flavor of choice; I assume she does not see the irony in that.

We also joined our local gym when Mateo became old enough to go into the child care center there last month; the kids and I go several days a week (I’m almost back to my pre-pregnancy weight!) and Agustín takes Emilia to the pool at least twice a week. She’s becoming a fearless little swimmer! So, life is busy, but good….very good.

As a reward (i.e. bribe) for being such a good flower girl, Emilia got a pink doctor's kit, and has been doing a great job of keeping H1N1 out of our house. Her favorite tool in the kit is the "stefacope."

Just a few weeks ago we said goodbye to "Tío Jojo" and "Tía Tara" as they headed off to Chile to start their own adventure travel company (see www.KnowmadAdventures.com).

Emilia has been enjoying the lead-up to Halloween, with opportunities to wear a costume to her school party, a parade at the gym, and trick-or-treating. She’s worn a different costume each time! That makes sense, since if you ask her what her favorite letters are, she responds very quickly, “E for Emilia and C for costume.” She has gone to three childrens plays and has decided she wants to be an actor when she grows up. Specifically, she wants to be Louanne the pig in the play “I Like Me” (based on the book by the same name). And Yaya has fueled her love of costumes by taking her into every second-hand store she sees and not coming out without something shiny, sparkly, frilly or fancy. They even got Mateo a great little dinosaur costume, which has seen its share of wear this week.

The photo above and below are from a recent trip to the Children's Museum (Mateo's first!).

Mateo is getting big quickly; he’ll be five months next week. He’s working very hard on moving—he rolls over, pulls his legs under his stomach and pushes forward, does a no-handed downward dog, and generally does whatever he can to propel himself wherever he wants to go. He loves to practice standing up and is rocking the exersaucer. He’s losing his hair in a very interesting pattern, leaving a dark mohawk and crown on his head. He’s quite a talker, very ticklish, and laughs a lot. He’s sucking his left thumb just like his big sister, and we think the blue eyes are here to stay, just like his papa’s. Oh, and last but certainly not least, he sleeps 11-12 hours straight at night.

My parents babysit every Monday afternoon/evening while I'm at class until Agustín gets home from work. Last week they tackled the great pumpkin project with the kids (and yes, my dad is wearing Zubazz....no comment).

Emilia models her Halloween costume, a "flying pink dragon."

Mateo in his halloween costume (although we'll wait until next year for him to go trick-or-treating).

The costume that Emilia chose to wear for her school halloween party. I have no idea what she's supposed to be, but she seemed to think she looked like someone from "Dancing with the Stars" (her favorite non-PBS show).

Flower Power

This past weekend we celebrated at the wedding of my brother Jordan and his new bride, Tara (with whom I now share a first name, middle initial, and last name). One of the highlights was Emilia as the flower girl. We were worried how she would do, especially after a meltdown at the rehearsal. It didn’t help that she decided this past week to rebel against the nap. But, despite all this, she did an amazing job! She was completely concentrated on her basket of petals during the long walk up the aisle, except for when the photographer stepped in front of her to snap a picture—she stopped, looked right into the camera, and smiled! Unfortunately I was so focused on getting her to walk down the aisle to me, I didn’t get a great picture. Hopefully the photographer did. Anyway, here are a few of the better pictures we did snap.

The happy couple at the rehearsal dinner

My other brother, and the best man, Devin, and girlfriend Noelle

Congratulations Tara & Jordan! Next month they’ll be moving to Chile to start the next chapter of their life together and we wish them all the best.

Cousins Megan and Amy

The Scotts