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!

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!

My Big Boy....and my Little Preschooler!

 Lucas is about 18 weeks now, or 4 months and 1 week. We have had a few big achievements over the past 2 weeks.

#1: We are finally sleeping! He takes 3-4 naps a day and goes to bed between 7-8 at night. For several nights now he has slept from bedtime to 2:00! Then he wakes up between 6:00 and 7:00! It's GREAT!! I have to pump after he goes to sleep or I wake up overflowing...

#2: He is sitting up. Yes, that's right. My baby boy is sitting up, on his own, without support, at 4 months old. I still cannot believe it! I'm scared he will be walking early too!! He has been trying to sit for about 2 weeks now but in the past few days he has really gotten it down and can sit for 10 minutes or more without falling over. Leyla didn't sit until 5-5.5 months and walked at 10. And I thought she was advanced...

I FOUND MY FEET!

#3: He is now eating breakfast and occasionally lunch. I still want him to breastfeed for most of his calories, but want him to try a variety so that by the time I go back to work, he has good eating habits/ a routine for the babysitter. He has rice cereal in the morning and avocado or carrots for lunch. I want to move into some fruits for breakfast, starting with bananas. I want to freeze some mango purees too before mango season is up, since Leyla loved them! Then I'm going to get some zucchini squash and see what other veggies I can find for him for lunch. I don't know why, but I really enjoy making my own baby food so I am excited to make and freeze a ton of purees :)

Leyla is growing up FAST! She is such a little girl now, not a baby :) She is learning to draw and write her letters and numbers!! I can't wait for her to go to preschool, I know she will love it, and I think she is ready.

Her drawing skills are great! I love to watch her draw, and then tell me what she drew. This is a family, mommy, daddy, a little girl, and a baby :)

 We found the gameboy and Leyla LOVES it. It is so cute to watch her play, and she is actually figuring it out!

 Another one of her drawings :)

We went to Tegus to get Lucas a permanent residency in Honduras and we spent some time at the mall. Leyla was so good and ate all her lunch (she has been eating really good lately) so she got some ice cream. She wanted the footprint. It was vanilla ice cream covered in white chocolate. When it started to melt, mommy got to eat it :) It was really good!

 Lucas fell asleep!

 It's Leyla-punzel!

 She got to play at the mall the day we left, again for eating good :)

Can't believe how big she is getting!

4 Months Old

Lucas will be 4 months old this week! He is getting so big! We don't have an appointment until next month, so I don't know how much weight he has gained since last month, but he was 13 lbs at his last appointment. Now, he is using 3-6 months clothes and a few 6 months. Last week we started him on rice cereal to help his sleep patterns. He started rolling over a couple of weeks ago and can hold his head up 90 degrees on his stomach! He is really trying to sit up too, but still wobbles a bit. When I try to lie him down on a pillow, he uses all his strength to pull himself forward to a sitting position! When I try to tickle him, he still just kind of makes a face and grunts - for some reason he doesn't know how to laugh yet!! Occasionally, he'l let out something similar to a laugh but it is rare.

Last week Leyla came down with a fever and of course this week, Lucas got it. He started with a cough, which I thought was from being hoarse and crying all day (due to sleep problems, I tried to let him cry it out - wrong week apparently!). Then that night I could tell he was getting the sniffles and having trouble breathing, and then he got a fever. The next day they put him on a nebulizer at Predisan and gave him antibiotics and cold medicine. He's doing a lot better and has been sleeping great! I can only hope that after he is better, he continues these great sleeping patterns! He falls asleep on his own, in his crib, and sleeps almost all night long waking up only twice! But, for right now, I can't say if it's the medicine, the cold, or the cereal helping him sleep!

He wakes up, eats 1 oz of formula with a bit of rice cereal mixed in, nurses throughout the day, and around 6 pm gets a 4 oz bottle of formula with a spoonful of rice mixed in. Then he takes a bath and I nurse him to sleep. He has been on that routine for about a week now, starting 3 days before he got sick. So we'll see if after he gets better, he keeps sleeping.

 He loves his baths now and kicks his legs and arms waiting for the water to heat up!

 One of his favorite toys!

 Asleep with daddy in the hammock at Iguana's Water Park.

 His other favorite toy :)

 Sick baby :( I put him down after nursing and started picking up around the living room - when I looked back at him he was sound asleep!

 Leyla and Lucas this morning, watching baby einstein! look at him sitting up!

 Leyla is doing better with him - she loves him so much! But, I can see a little jealousy coming out now too. I wish I had more time to spend with her now and really can't wait for her to go to preschool so she will have something to keep her busy, and some new friends to play with. I practice her numbers and letters with her and she can write her numbers (tracing them with a marker) AND she could circle the right group when I asked her, "Which group has more things?" She knew without even counting them out loud. She can also recognize the letters, if I show her an A and tell her to pick out all the A's, then ask her, "Is that an A?" She will say yes or no. She is soooo ready for preschool! She is also picking up spanish again, saying things like "Permiso" and "Pase adelante" and "Ay caliente!" or "Que frio!" Her accent is not as good as it was before and some things are really cute the way she says them, but I'm sure she'll get there :)