Celo's 3rd Birthday

This is going to be a picture overload. I promised my grandparents pictures of Celo's birthday party and this is the easiest way for them to see them. The Spanish is for them. (Aquí están las fotos prometidas del cumple de Marcelito.)

Last Saturday, we had Celo's 3rd bday party in my parents' backyard. The weather was perfect for what we had planned. It was a car wash party! My boys love the carwash. Water + cars = great fun. So I asked Marcelo and my dad to build a kid-sized carwash and they delivered.

Pizza was on the menu. (Marcelito disfrutando su pizza.)

His cousins sang to him. (Las primas cantando.)

I made this banana split cake. (La torta que le hice.)

Celo approved. (Le fascinó su torta de helado.)

Eliana just chilled. (Eliana con mi mamá.)

Decorations by Tata. (La Tata se encargó de las decoraciones.)

It wouldn't have been the same without my mom's signature foamy cup labels.

Goody bags by Tata. (Las sorpresas hechas por Tata.)

And the CAR WASH! A big thanks to Marcelo and my dad! They looooved it. (Lo que les hizo mi papá y Marcelo. Les encantó!)

The girls enjoyed the slip'n'slide.

Always the ladies' man, Diego chillin' in the tiny kiddie pool with Isabella and Sofi.

Enjoying a nice summer evening. (El día estaba muy lindo para estar afuera.)

Water balloons! (Bombas de agua.)

At one point all the kids ganged up on my dad with their waterguns. So funny. (Todos los niños ataquando a mi papá con pistolas de agua.)

It was a really fun party! On his actual birthday, we had lunch at Chik-Fil-A, also known as "Chicken A". Here are the kids all ready to go.

Celo got tons of Thomas stuff. He was in heaven. Diego was pretty excited Celo was getting new toys to share with him. Marcelo and I scored on this little Thomas station on craigslist. PS, as I was taking this picture, Celo was saying, "Thank you, Mommy." Love that boy. (Aquí están los niños jugando con el regalo que le dimos a Marcelito. Es una estación para los trenes que adora tanto. En esta foto me está diciendo, "Gracias mami!")

Another big giant THANK YOU to my parents, in-laws, and husband for all of their hard work to make this party so fun for our little guy. We love you!

Treasure Boxes and Toy Fairies

About a week after Eliana was born, Marcelo and I reached the end of our rope with our two crazy boys. We had a horrific day full of scolding, misbehaving, more scolding, and complete mayhem. We were both ready to throw our hands in the air and just let the boys run the house. Marcelo was giving the boys a bath, and I sat at the computer and said a silent prayer begging for some inspiration. My first thought was, "What would Ms. Denise do?" Ms. Denise was Diego's preschool teacher and she's about to be Celo's. She uses sticker charts to get her class full of 3 year olds to behave. I googled behavior charts and found a site that lets you print sticker charts with different characters on them. I chose a Cars one and wrote each of the kids' names on the top. When the boys were done with their bath, I called a family meeting. I showed them the charts and told them that there were some things we needed to work on, and asked them what they thought they needed to do better. Amazingly, they knew exactly what they needed to improve on. So with them telling me what to write, I wrote down the 5 things we needed to work on: no hitting, no baby talk, listen the first time, share, and clean up. Since they can't read, I drew a picture next to each one so they could remember. I said, "What should I draw next to 'no hitting'?" And they said, "A hand!" I explained that when I caught them doing something good, like cleaning up their toys, they'd get a sticker. If they got a column full of stickers, they'd get to take something out of the "treasure box". The next day, we went to the store and picked out all kinds of candy and stickers to put inside the treasure box. Just like Ms. Denise does in her class, I told the boys that once they got a whole chart full of stickers, they'd get to pick out a "Big Kahuna". This is the Big Kahuna box that Diego painted and decorated. The boys came with me to the store and helped me pick out cars, tractors, etc, that they would want to get as a Big Kahuna prize.
For the first few days, we went over the charts every morning to remind them of the things we were working on. It's been almost two months now and so far it seems to be helping. Some days are better than others, and I've noticed that if I forget to mention the chart or don't reward them often enough, they forget about it (even though the charts are always in sight) and start acting crazy again. But for the most part, there's been an improvement. Especially with hitting. They picked up hitting from another child and went through a few weeks of hitting each other at least once a day. Thankfully, that phase has now passed. That was so not okay with me.


Here they are proudly holding up their completed sticker charts. Notice that Diego's has way more stickers than necessary. He got into the stickers one day and thought he could cheat his way to a Big Kahuna.Here they are eating one of their prizes from the treasure box: a sour Warhead candy.On to the Toy Fairy. My boys like to make gigantic toy messes and let me do the cleaning up. Having "Clean Up" as one of the things on the sticker chart wasn't quite doing the trick. One day a few weeks ago, my mom came to my house to take the boys out for a morning with Tata, and found a huge mess of toys in the living room. She said, "We can't leave until you clean up your toys. It's not nice to make a mess and expect mommy to clean it up. Plus, the Toy Fairy doesn't like it when boys and girls don't clean up their toys. If you don't clean up, she'll come to your house and take away all the messy toys and give them to boys and girls that do clean up after themselves." I looked at her with my eyes wide open and said, "You're a genius." I've been using the "Toy Fairy" ever since and it works like a charm. At night before bed, Diego says, "Oh no! If we don't pick up these cars, the Toy Fairy is going to take them away!" Last week, it seemed to be wearing off a bit and they left a mess before we left for church. I had to leave the house a little after them, so I...I mean the Toy Fairy...picked up all the toys and hid them away in a box. That was a helpful little reminder for the boys. :) Is that awful? I think not. I'm tired of stepping on cars, okay? The funny thing is that now when they misplace a toy, they say, "Maybe the Toy Fairy took it."


As if this post wasn't long enough already, (that's what happens when you never have time to blog anymore) here is a smiley picture of our little girl who will never need a sticker chart and will always behave like a little angel child.Right? No, probably not.

Blessing Day and Fireworks

Last Sunday, July 4th, we had Eliana's blessing. It was a beautiful blessing and a special day for our family. Here's the proud dad who blessed his baby girl.Eliana wore the first of (hopefully) 3 white dresses she'll wear in her lifetime. My grandma got her dress in Colombia. My mom had to fix the little bonnet to make it fit Eliana's tiny head. She also sewed some lace onto her little shoes. They turned out really cute. She was even wearing panty hose. Panty hose!! I plan on taking better pictures of her in her dress soon, but for how, here she is:We set the camera on a timer and tried to get a family shot:The boys refused to hold her for a picture. They were ready for lunch and had no interest in modeling for me. At least they smiled.That evening, we had a dinner at my mom's house with my parents and in-laws. After dinner, we tried to go see the fireworks. I didn't time it well, though, so Eliana was having a fit because she was starving. We ended up parking in a parking lot and letting the boys sit in their little chairs next to the car while I sat in the car and nursed Eliana. My dad snapped this picture of them watching the fireworks.Her first 4th!