Happy Halloween!

There are so many things I should be doing right now, but here I am.

This was us last weekend at our church's Fall Festival and Trunk-or-Treat. We didn't stay very long. Why? Because Marcelito thinks it's hilarious to stick his whole hand in his mouth and make himself throw up. So he did that in the car on the way there, and smelled soooooo bad like barf, that we had to change him out of his costume 5 minutes after arriving. Then, Diego ate a cookie that I brought because it didn't have any "unfriendly" ingredients in it. All it had was whey, and usually whey is okay. But as soon as Diego ate it, he kept coughing and pointing at his tongue and saying, "Owie! I have an owie in my mouth. I think I spit up." Meaning, I think I'm going to throw up. So I was holding his hand for most of the time, on the lookout for telltale signs. Thankfully, he never did "spit up". And, we won a prize in the Family category of the costume contest. I wasn't going to enter it (contrary to popular belief that I LIVE for this stuff -- not true. Though I do think Halloween is fun. Sue me.), but my mother-in-law told me to and I listened this year. Last year we sat out. ANYWAY, without further ado, here we are:

That's yellow ducktape.

We're going to be something else tonight. I'll post pictures soon.

Update on our Busy Lives

My blogging time has diminished. Right now, if I'm on the computer, it means I'm working. Although I love what I'm doing, after several late nights of sitting in a hard wooden chair and clicking away in photoshop, I get a little digiscrapped out. So I'm really happy that I don't have to work again until at least Saturday. By Saturday, I'll be excited to get back into it.

Diego has figured out this "working mommy" thing pretty fast. If he sees me on the computer, he's like, "Mommy, you have work to do?" I tell him yes and I ask him to play with his brother for a little while. Who knew that getting a job would be the way to finally teach Diego how to play on his own?? He's done awesome at entertaining himself lately. Hallelujah, is what I have to say. It is a straight up miracle in our house that he can finally happily entertain himself for 30 minutes. Even 10 minutes would have been miraculous.

Anyway, he now calls our home computer, "Mommy's computer", so if Marcelo needs to get on it, Diego says, "You using mommy's computer?" And if he sees me shut the computer cabinet doors, he says, "You don't want to do you work today?"

In other news, I'm doing a little preschool group with 3 other moms. There are four kids: a 3 year old boy, a 3 year old girl, Diego (2 and a half), and Diego's 2 and a half year old cousin. (A girl. She's Marcelo's cousin's daughter, so what's that? A second cousin?) We tried to keep the ages as close together as possible, because at this age, they change so much from month to month. And we can already see the difference between the 3 year olds and 2.5 year olds. The 2.5 year olds are a lot more wiggly, and we lose their attention faster. But it's going really well, and all the kids seem to be enjoying it.

The way we're doing it is 2 days a week for an hour and a half, and we're taking turns having it at our house and teaching. The moms who aren't teaching can choose to stay, or if they have something they need to do, they can go. We're not really doing "joy school". We're just flexible about the way we do it.

It was my turn to teach this week. I had the letter C. I centered everything around cats and cookies on the first day, and clowns and candy corn today. Diego thought it was pretty cool that I was the "teacher". A few minutes ago, when I was putting him down for a nap, he gave me a hug and said, "Thanks for being the teacher at school today." And then he gave me a big kiss on the cheek. And then I almost cried. He's been so sweet like that lately. He thanks us for everything. Almost everyday he says, "Thank you for making dinner, Mommy." (Even though he doesn't really eat it. He's become SO picky.) And he loves to give us hugs. He says, "I wanna give you a big squeeze." And then hugs us really tightly. Marcelito is always trying to hug Diego, too. But mostly, he goes after babies. One of the mom's in the group (Marcelo's cousin) has a 6 month old baby girl who is seriously a little doll. Marcelito always wants to hug her, but he hasn't quite learned how to be gentle.

Speaking of Marcelito, he's been a handful during preschool. He wants to be up in everyone's business, which is a problem during craft time. He wants to grab all the crayons, rip everyone's paper, and do whatever he can to get his hands on the playdough so he can eat it. Playdough is like his favorite food ever. It's so disgusting. During snack time, my little thief walks around trying to steal everyone's food. So the way I handle it is by putting him in a high chair for as much of the preschool time slot as possible. Poor kid. I entertain him with food, toys, whatever, for as long as he'll sit still in the chair. He's becoming increasingly cranky though, so it's getting harder and harder to keep his temper in check. Have I mentioned how angry he is? He's a pretty angry boy. But he's cute, so we'll keep him.

Anyway, that's what's going on in our world. We've been pretty busy around here. I'll try to update this thing as much as possible, but I can tell you right now that my posts are going to be less frequent. If I can do 1 or 2 a week, I'll be happy.

Tuesday Tell All - Halloween

Describe the Halloween traditions you had as a child growing up. Share the traditions you have created now. Do you watch certain scary movies? Do you eat something specific for dinner? Do you decorate your house and yard? Spill your Halloween Guts!

For as long as I can remember, my parents have dressed up for Halloween. They were always as into it as us kids were, and that always made it even more fun. It was always cool to see how creative they could be in creating their costumes. They have been some really funny things through the years. I wish I could remember them all, but these are the first ones that come to mind: "cereal" killers, an old couple, cavemen, jailbirds, a Jamaican couple, and scarecrows. Their halloween costumes have always been a joint collaboration. Seeing my dad behind a sewing machine still cracks me up.

When we were younger we would just dress up and go trick-or-treating. And once a big group of our extended family moved here, we started having annual halloween parties. (Be on the lookout for pictures from this year's.)

As for traditions, we don't really have any besides getting all the cousins together to go trick-or-treating. And I think I'm going to start doing the "Switch Witch" or Great Pumpkin, or whatever you want to call it. That's pretty much it.

Pretty Mantis and other Diegoisms

Diego is so fun right now. I love this age. Yes, it's a roller coaster of emotions and he has really really great days as well as really really rough days. He's sweet as can be one day, and then completely defiant the next. But all the funny things he says and the moments when he hugs us and says, "I yove you" out of the blue, make up for all the times he makes us want to rip our hair out. You know, like when he writes with markers on the carpet, or empties a whole bottle of soap into the sink, or refuses to eat anything remotely healthy, or rips toys out of his brother's hand all day long, or screams at the top of his lungs just because he thinks it sounds funny.

Anyway, I just want to write out a few things Diego has said lately that made me smile.

- I was wearing my hair in a ponytail a couple of days ago. Since my hair is really short right now, the ponytail sticks straight out. Diego looked at me funny and then said, "Mommy, you have a tree on the back of you head." (He can't say your.)
- Lately he starts almost every sentence with "can we". He doesn't know that he's supposed to say "can I". So he'll say, "Can we put my shoes on? Can we hug you? Can we eat scabetti? (spaghetti)", etc, etc. Then when I say yes, he says, "Yay! That's a good idea!"
- He tells me I'm pretty all the time. He'll just look at me like examining me, and then he'll push my hair out of my face and say, "Mommy you pretty." And then when I say thank you, he says, "Daddy's not pretty. He's a boy." He's very interested in the fact that some people are boys and some are girls.

-Lastly, this one is my favorite, he's super into bugs right now. He loves spiders, ants, grasshoppers, everything. Mostly spiders. Anyway, we have a bunch of plastic bugs, and I taught him the name of each one. A couple days ago, he had a friend over to play, and I heard him telling his friend the names of the bugs. He said, "This one's a pretty mantis. Because it's so pretty." Pretty Mantis! Adorable. I tried to explain that it was actually a praying mantis, but he liked pretty mantis better. And quite frankly, so do I.

I got a job!

I'm a Digital Designer! Basically that means I create digital papers and elements for digital scrapbooking.

I am just amazed at how the Lord works in our lives, so I want to write out how this came about.
Back in June, my cousin Lina came to visit. She introduced me to a few things in photoshop, one of which was brushes. This was door number 1.

Then in September, our financial situation shifted, and not for the better. This led me to start brainstorming about what I could do to help. This was door number 2.

For the past couple of years, I've been really into digital scrapbooking. I've looked at a million different scrapbooking sites and have downloaded dozens of digital scrapbooking kits. Well, in September, I decided to give designing a try. I looked at some kits and thought, hmmm...maybe I can make my own. So I spent a couple evenings experimenting. After a bit, I started to get discouraged and thought that maybe I was wasting my time and was going in the wrong direction.

Then I went to the Stake Relief Society Conference. President Uchtdorf spoke. You can read his talk here. He talked about creating. He said, "Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty. Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment." While I was listening to this, I strongly felt that what I was doing wasn't a waste of my time. I needed to keep creating. This was door number 3.

I kept working on my kit, and started trying to find places to sell it. One night, I spent 2 hours searching and searching, but found nothing. Again, I got discouraged and stopped looking for over a week.

Then, my friend Jae mentioned that she got a job in the scrapbooking field. I had put this whole thing on the back burner, but when I heard this, I thought, maybe I should give it another go. This was door number 4. (Thanks, Jae!)

So I started searching again, and within 2 minutes of looking, I found a site that was hiring. I submitted a kit to them and they liked it! I submitted another, and they decided to buy both from me! I would post them here, but I no longer own the copyrights. :)

Heavenly Father answers prayers. He opens doors in our lives and gives us the direction we need. I am sooooo happy that I'm going to be getting paid for something I enjoy so much. And it's going to put our financial situation back on track. I'm hoping that this is going to be a stepping stone into the world of digital scrapbooking. Maybe in the future I can sell on another site, too. And who knows, maybe down the road I can sell on my own. But first I still have a lot to learn.

Tuesday Tell All - Scary

In the spirit of Halloween, tell us about a scary experience in your life. How did you overcome it? How did it make you the person you are today?
I'll tell two.

Diego's first bad reaction to milk and eggs was one of the scariest moments of my life. He had eaten some pasta at a family get-together that had sour cream and mayo in it. He threw it up, and we left the party. On the way home he wouldn't stop crying. When we got to my parents' house, (I can't even remember why we were going there) he was still crying, but we couldn't really hear his cries. It began to dawn on us that his throat was closing up or swelling or something, because no sound would come out when he tried to cry. We were sooo scared. We put him in the bathtub with warm water and shut the bathroom door, praying that the steam would help. After a few minutes, he was a lot more calm, and seemed to be getting better. The rash that had broken out on his face started to go away. It took awhile for all the symptoms to go away completely. It was a few more months before we found out that the list of foods he's allergic to was much longer than we thought. But I'm glad we know, because I'm able to avoid those foods, and avoid another reaction like that first one when he was not even 11 months old.

Scary Experience #2 - When I was about 14, my brother David and I were home alone one night. I don't remember the details of if it was my dad or my mom that had left something on the stove and had told us to turn off the heat in a little while. Either way, it didn't register with either of us, and we forgot all about the hot oil sitting on the stove. A little while after our parents had left, the hot oil exploded into flames. My brother leapt into action, trying to move the pan. When he did, the oil spilled out onto the counters and onto the floor. There were now flames on the kitchen counter, and on the floor all around my brother. I was standing in front of the pantry, and David started yelling, "Get the thing! Get the thing!" I froze. I completely froze in fear, and couldn't think straight. I didn't "get the thing". I ran to the front door and opened it, looking out into the night. For no reason. I really don't know what I was hoping to find out there. Help? I don't know. While I stood there like an idiot, David jumped the flames and went to the pantry. The "thing" that was in the pantry, was the fire extinguisher. He extinguished the fire, and I came back to the kitchen staring at the mess in disbelief. Because the flames were coming out of the oil, nothing got burned. We cleaned up the kitchen like nothing had happened, and didn't tell my parents until long after the incident. Once I came out of my frozen state of fear, I cried and cried while David consoled me. We told all our friends at school, and a few kids in our chorus class gave him a certificate calling him a hero or something. I'm sure he would remember those details more than I would, but I have memory loss issues. For real.

Don't worry, I no longer freeze in scary situations.

Tio David

My brother David came to visit for two weeks. He's been in California all summer, and is now moving to Arizona. It was awesome to see him, and a bummer to say goodbye. But I'll see him again in a month. I tried to spend as much time with him as possible, which is part of the reason I've been a blog slacker lately.

When he's visiting, I get to go to the movies, which I never do anymore. I used to love going to the movies. We have the same taste in tv, movies, and music, so it was fun to talk about our shows, see the movies I've been wanting to see, and ask him for new songs to download. (He's my go-to guy for new music.) Oh, and it was also nice for him to teach me how to text more efficiently, haha. We ended up going to see Eagle Eye (we have a mutual admiration for Shia Labeouf), and Flash of Genius. If there was anything else worth seeing in the theaters right now, we would have gone to more.

We went to Sea World while he was here. We went on the Kraken, and they took the funniest picture of us. I wish I would have bought it. I laughed so hard when I saw it.

Diego had a blast with "Tio Dabit". David climbed up this giant web of netting with him.

Riding the giant crab ride:Marcelo liked David, too, but for the most part, he just ignored him and walked away from him, much like he's doing to this giant penguin in the picture below. He's mean like that.

Tuesday Tell All - Reality TV

I know it's Saturday, but I haven't had time to blog all week. And I still want to do the Tuesday Tell All, so here it is.

Which reality TV show would you want to be on and why?

Top Model, hands down.

Hahahaha, just kidding. Although, I *am* really good at smiling with my eyes, Tyra.

As much as I would love to say The Amazing Race, I know I wouldn't do well on it. Which is too bad, because I love to travel. Marcelo almost applied once, but you pretty much have to sign your life away, and you have to be able to leave your job for like 3 months, so that was a no. But I've told him a million times that even though I have no doubt that he would do great in all the challenges, he wouldn't win. Why? Because he's nice. Really nice. Like, "Oh, it's okay, just go ahead of me" nice. And it's a race.

If I lived in a different neighborhood, I'd say Extreme Makeover Home Edition. But, I don't want to live here forever, so that's another no. Soooo, I would have to choose What Not to Wear. Who doesn't want a $5,000 shopping spree? And I would love for them to teach me new ways to do my hair and make-up.

BUT, I just want to throw it out there that I really think they should have a show like Dancing with the Stars for normal people. Like, Dancing with the Average Joes, or something. I would love love LOVE to learn how to ballroom dance.

Diaper Check

Diego has become quite the diaper checker. He's a lot closer to Marcelito's level than I am, and is usually pretty close to him. Because of this, he usually smells Marcelito's poopy diaper long before I do. At first he would just sniff the air, then run to me and say, "I think Baby Marcelo has a poopy." Then, I would go over, check Marcelito's diaper, tell Diego he was right, and announce that I was going to go change it.

But now, instead of just sniffing the air and guessing, Diego checks Celo's diaper himself. Once he sees the evidence, he tells me, "Baby Marcelo has a poopy. Change it Mommy, change it."

He's a good helper.

Tagged!

7 Random/Weird Facts About Me


1. I can't stand the sound of teeth against a metal fork. Or the squeal of a metal fork against a porcelain or ceramic plate. Or two kinds of metals rubbing together, like a fork and knife. Just talking about it gives me goosebumps, makes the hair on my arms stand up, and sends shivers down my spine all at once. This is why going to the dentist is PURE TORTURE for me. When they take a little metal instrument and scrape it against my teeth.....eeeeek. Hate it. Marcelo is the only person I've ever met who has this same problem. Although his isn't quite as severe as mine. At least neither one of us will ever intentionally scrape our fork through our teeth like my brother used to do to torture me. (Or he'd rub his silverware together just to see me squirm in my seat.)

2. I think I've said this on here before, but I'll say it again. My feet are black. They're darker than the rest of my body. In the summer, they look like a whole separate ethnicity. In the winter, they just look like they have a perma-tan. Whenever I go to the pool or to the beach, I put SPF50 on them just so they won't get darker. It's quite embarrassing.

3. When I was 9, I got stung by a scorpion. I still have a bump on my right arm from it. I still remember everything about that day, down to what I was wearing. Maybe I'll post the whole story another day.

4. I think Swiss chocolate is the best chocolate in the whole wide world. I LOVE chocolate. All I have in my house right now is Colombian chocolate (Chocolatina Jet) and I eat one almost every single day. I need rehab.

5. I have a really hard time hiding emotions in my face. If I'm upset, my bottom lip sticks out. It's uncontrollable and it's a dead giveaway. So I bite it to try to hide it.

6. I have a thing for tweezing my eyebrows, pulling out splinters, and pulling weeds. Something about getting the root out is so satisfying. Weird, I know.

7. My mom calls me Surina. It started out as "Princess" (preencess, with a Spanish accent) when I was little, and then turned into, "Prinsurina" (preensurina), and then got shorted to "Surina". A lot of times she just calls me "Sur".

I tag: All the "RHMs" that haven't done it yet. You know who you are.

Two Minutes

Every time we go anywhere, I give Diego a 5 minute warning when it's time to leave. I tell him "It's time to go home in five minutes!", then a few minutes later I say, "Two minutes!", then "One more minute!", and then I tell him time's up, and it's time to go. It really helps to avoid meltdowns because he already knows it's coming, and as soon as he hears the 5 minute warning, he knows he better squeeze in a little more playtime because it's almost over.

So now, when he wants more time doing something, he tells me, "Two minutes, Mommy. Two minutes, like my hand." And then shows me his two little fingers. I'll say, "Time for lunch." And he wants to keep playing, so he holds up his two little fingers and says, "Two minutes!" Sometimes he pushes it and says, "Three minutes. Like my hand." And shows me three fingers (in case I don't know how many minutes 3 minutes is). It's adorable. He makes me smile.

Tuesday Tell All - Celebrity Showdown

List your top five favorite celebrities and why you like them. It can be someone from the past, present, or anywhere in between.

It's so hard to choose just five!! So I'm cheating.

FIVE FAVORITE COMEDIANS
Steve Carrell - He doesn't even have to say anything and he has me laughing.
Amy Poehler - Ditto the Steve Carrell comment
Ben Stiller - Everyone says Marcelo looks just like him. Not true, but he still cracks me up.
Joel McHale- From The Soup. This guy is hilarious.
Ellen DeGeneres - I'm just now starting to like her more and more. She's funny and I think she has a big heart.

FIVE FAVORITE ACTORS/ACTRESSES
Meryl Streep - She is just an amazing actress. And something about her reminds me of a younger version of my grandma.
Johnny Depp - He's also an amazing actor. A bit of a weirdo in real life, but an amazing actor nonetheless.
Shia LaBeouf- Such a good actor!! He's going places.
Reese Witherspoon - Great and seems down to earth.
Will Smith - Not even really for his acting ability. I just like him and his wife because they seem like great people.

FIVE FAVORITE SINGERS
Carrie Underwood - Her voice gives me chills. Amazing.
Faith Hill - Also a great voice and the fact that she's married to Tim McGraw (another favorite) doesn't hurt.
Michael Bublé - Love his voice! Very soothing. "Everything" is currently my ringtone.
Josh Groban - Same as Carrie Underwood.
Bono - I like his music and his hummanitarian work.

FIVE FAVORITE PEOPLE FROM HISTORY
Jesus Christ - This one just goes without saying.
Joseph Smith - I am forever grateful to him for his life of sacrifice.
Gordon B. Hinckley - He'll always have a special place in my heart for being the "prophet of my youth".
Anne Frank - Her story has always touched me.
Abraham Lincoln - I like everything I read about him.

General Conference

For those of you who read my blog and are not LDS (Mormon), and are interested in getting a better idea of what we're all about, this weekend's General Conference is a great way to find out more about what we believe.

This is what the Church's website says about General Conference: Messages of inspiration and guidance will be delivered by the First Presidency, members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and other General Authorities and general officers of the Church.

There are four sessions. Two on Saturday, and two on Sunday. On both days, the sessions are at 12pm and 4pm Eastern Time. Each session will have a different set of speakers covering many different topics, music by the Mormon Tabernacle choir, and will last two hours. If you're interested in tuning in, you can watch by finding the closest meeting house in your area, or if you want to stay home, you can watch it on BYUTV (Dish Network -channel 9403, DirecTV - channel 374), or watch or listen online at either of these websites:

http://www.lds.org/broadcast/gc/0,5161,8176,00.html
http://www.byub.org/programaz/program.asp?id=571

Lashes

I know I take way too many pictures of my child's eyelashes, but I can't help myself! One day he's going to be like, "Mom! Stop!" So I need to do it while I can. Plus, every time I try to get him to look at the camera, he looks down. So these are the shots I end up with.

I also know I post way more pictures of Marcelo than I do of Diego. I am not showing favortism, I promise. It's just that Diego runs too fast for me. And when I try to take a picture of him, he automatically does this:

So, Celo it is.