Happy Birthday Leyla!

Leyla has been waiting for her birthday ALL week! She knew it was coming because we bought her some presents and told her she could open them on her birthday. We talked about getting a pinata, too. So she was waiting for it! We explained to her - not today, not tomorrow, then the next day, and so on. Her actual birthday is tomorrow, but I wanted to celebrate it at school with the kids and Monday was the only day I had space in my schedule. So, when she went to bed last night, I asked her, "Do you know what day it is tomorrow? And she said, "Yes. My birthday."

She woke up this morning and we sang happy birthday to her then got her all dressed to go and took the party supplies. Mrs. Ochoa made her a birthday "crown" that was so cute. At 10:30 Marcos came with the pinata and we took the kids out to swing at it. Of course none of them could break it, but they had fun trying! Then we lit a 4 candle on her cupcake and sang happy birthday. At the end they sang, How old are you now? And every time Leyla said "Four!" And held up her 4 fingers :) Then everyone got their bags of candy and a balloon. It was lots of fun! I can't believe she is getting so big :)

 Her Hello Kitty pinata we had made specially for her!

 Getting ready for the pinata! (She has on the crown Mrs. Ochoa made her)

 Stella, Amy Camila, Leyla, Pamela, and Daniela

 Everyone in a circle waiting their turn.

 Leyla goes first! They usually count to 10, but since Leyla was the birthday girl she was going to get 15 hits. Only, the kids don't know how to count in English past 10! So they all stopped at 10 anyway. It was pretty funny.

 Go Kevin!

 We had to break the pinata ourselves for them, poor things are so tiny! They are so sweet though, taking turns, and when we got to "10" they gave up the stick - nobody fought to keep hitting! What well-behaved little kiddies.

 Running back to the classroom for cupcakes!

 I made chocolate cupcakes with pink cream cheese icing. They were yummy.

 Leyla's class!

 At home opening presents!

 She was excited to get her Three Little Pigs Play-doh kit!

 Perfect paper for her :)

 A purple fairy Barbie with wings, to match her purple fairy dress from Abuela.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEYLA!

Lucas - 8 Months Old!

Here's the two videos I promised to load. The first is Lucas babbling! He says ba ba ba and da da da. 

This one is a video I made of his progress crawling. He starts out just moving back and forth, leaning forward and going back into a sitting position. Then he moves forward enough to fall onto his stomach and pulls himself forward with his arms. Then he finally figured out how to get up onto his knees to crawl. And finally there's a clip of him crawling today - he's got it down and follows me all over the house if I let him! Now, he's trying to pull himself into a standing position to walk!

August, September, October

I did not intentionally wait 3 months to post again. Oops. I've just been a little busy.

I don't know how some mothers do it, because for me, balancing it all is quite a task. If I'm not grouchy or stressed or exhausted or scolding everyone it's a lucky day!

Lucas is 8 months old now and still having sleep problems. At about 7 months, he started sleeping through the night about 3-4 nights a week. Then he got a cold and had a cough for about a week and a half. That finally started going away and all the sudden a rash appeared all over his back. I figured it was a heat rash, we talked to a doctor and got a cream for it. But since that Friday, he started waking up all through the night and wanting to be held constantly: every time we put him back in the crib he woke up. He would do this at 2 or 3 AM and not go back to sleep until 5 AM!!! Last night he finally slept - from bedtime around 7:30 to 3 AM. And this time, I only had to put him down twice before he fell asleep. His rash is healing, but it seems that the cream really dries his skin out :( Poor thing. But, I think he is doing better and we are trying not to hold him as much during the day and during naps so he will get used to it.

In other news, he started crawling at about 7 and a half months! Took him a couple weeks to figure out how to move on his hands and knees instead of scooting but now he crawls all over the house. He follows me from room to room if I let him! He pulls up to a standing position on anything he can find, too.

Leyla is about to turn 4 in a week!!! We are going to celebrate her birthday at school on Monday with her class. I will probably make cupcakes and we'll take a pinata. She is loving school and has learned so many songs and new things - she sings CONSTANTLY and is always singing something new or making up a song. She has learned 10 Little Indians, When the Saints go Marching in, This is the Day, and a few others. I love to hear her sing! She has several little friends - Pamela, Amy Camila, Stella, Nicholas, Mario, Diego, and Carlos are the ones she talks about the most. She always says they are coming to her house to play! She is also learning to write her vowels, a, e, i, o, and u. We do her homework every week and she either has to trace the letters or most recently, write them herself freehand. I think she is doing really good for her age! She can write the "i" almost perfectly, but the other letters are a bit harder to do freehand.

Here are just a few pictures of the past three months.

 Leyla having fun at the fair!

 Listening to a band play! She wanted to hit the drums and dance!

 Probably the only picture I've taken of myself in a year, ha!

Playing with big sister!

 This is from awhile back, she's in mid flight!

 Also from last month, Leyla and her school friends on Children's Day! Pamela, Camila, Jennifer, and Leyla. Pamela is Leyla's "best friend" I would say because she sits with her on the bus every day and talks about her more than the others!

 One day after school she fell asleep watching TV all covered up and with her teddy bear :)

 Lucas and daddy!

 Noe chasing Leyla at David's party - they had so much fun! Love the smiles on their faces. The are only 12 days apart.

 Lucas loved the pinata!

 Leyla excited and proud of her loot!

Hi pretty boy!

Kids' Room

We moved the kids' room a few weeks ago and I finally got around to taking pictures! We had some furniture built for all of the toys and although it was custom made, it did not fit in their room. I was very specific about the measurements but I suppose it was lost in translation....

Luckily, the back room is a bit larger and it fit there. So we moved the entire room! It turned out great though because they have lots more space and the room is the coolest in the house because of the two windows. I didn't realize how much bigger the room was though, until now.

 Walking through the door...

 Lucas's corner!

 I love how the shelves turned out after we painted them. They fit all her toys nice and neat, and each space is really deep too for even more toys. This way her room is nice and organized (most of the time). She climbs on top too, to play with her dollhouse, or get her dresses down!

My Cutie Pies

 Little Lucas loves this toy - I picked it up to give him and shook it once and he reached out his little arms for it! He is amused for hours with it! Ok not really hours but a long time!

 It is really hard to get a good picture of Leyla nowadays because she is always making silly faces!

 Lucas was smiling and looked so sweet but I couldn't get her to be still! So these were the results. The last one they finally both look good, but Lucas wasn't smiling much anymore!

 I can't wait to watch them grow up together and hope that the love they have for each other never fades! Lucas just lights up when she talks to him and so far she is the only one who can make him laugh! She jumps on the bed, dances around and makes silly faces and he grins from ear to ear. It is so sweet! He adores her and I just know that as they both get older he is going to follow her everywhere and want to do everything she does!

Conversations with Leyla

I am desperately trying to get Leyla to watch less TV. We did good for about a week and then we slid back into the old habit. So now we are starting over, again. I told her to pick 3 shows. She listed her favorites: My Little Pony, Backyardigans, and Peppa. Then first thing in the morning, she wants to watch TV. But, when I turn it on and it's not one of those three - I make sure she understands that if she watches Curious George, for example, she can't watch My Little Pony. She agrees. Then two hours later she's begging me to watch another show. I don't think she gets it.

So today, after Lucas finally fell asleep for his nap, we went into her room (reluctantly) to find something else to do. She picked out her Dora coloring book and some crayons. I started coloring Dora's hair pink. Of course she got really mad because Dora's hair is supposed to be brown. And her backpack isn't yellow, it's purple. There's no being creative here! After awhile she got into it though, and let me color Dora all kinds of colors including red and yellow eyes. I called my masterpiece "Zombie Dora." HA! Here's the conversation we had:

Leyla: Here mommy, I'll take the pretty colors. You can have the black ones. (She gave me all the dark colored crayons).
Me: Oh wow, thanks Leyla, how nice of you.
Leyla: You're welcome.

I colored the trees blue and orange.

Leyla: Oh Mommy, that is so cute!

We colored a princess in a high tower.

Leyla: Look mommy that door is locked. Mommy look there is water, the princess can't get out because there is water.
Me: That's right, she's surrounded by water. Maybe we can draw a bridge so she can escape. Can you draw a bridge?
Leyla: Okay (She drew a very nice bridge)
Me: What a good bridge you drew. Now let's color the water blue.
Leyla: Now she can get out!
Me: But how we'll she get down to the bridge? We should draw some stairs. Or, I know, let's draw a ladder (I drew a ladder).
Leyla: But mommy, she's in a window...
Me: Right, that's why I'm drawing a ladder.
Leyla: Noooo we have to draw stairs! (She knocks my hand away). I know, I have an idea. (She colors over my ladder, exactly like a ladder). Now She can go down the stairs!
Me: Oh good job Leyla, we saved the day just like Dora.
Leyla: Yay! I saved the day!

Oh, Leyla.

Here's the Proof!

I realized I didn't actually have any pictures of Lucas sitting up, so in case you didn't believe me, I took a bunch!

 "What's big sis doing?"

 Not sure what that face was about!

 Happy boy! He loves to slap at the ground or the toys in front of him.

  Leyla was posing, according to her...although I don't know what she thinks she's doing, with her hand up like that!