Tricky Tricky Halloween

"Tricky, tricky, Halloween." I have no idea what that's from, but I vaguely remember my cousins chanting it with a thick accent in Colombia.

Halloween is kind of a bust this year. We had our fall festival last night, but Mila and I were feeling deathly ill. I didn't even want to go, but felt like I had to for the kids. Marcelo was working a booth and had invited a friend, so he got there early while I stayed home with the kids for awhile longer. Poor Diego kept asking, "How much longer are you going to feed Camila?? When can we go??" We finally showed up with just an hour left. It was pretty breezy and cool outside, which made me want to just take Mila home, but alas, someone had to pass out candy while someone else took the kids trunk or treating. Thankfully my cousin helped and held the baby while I handed out candy to all the kids.

Before we left, I set up a tripod and begged my family to smile for one picture. When I got some eyerolls from my poor husband who probably gets quite sick of being married to a photographer, I said, "Come on, we'll never get this moment back!" He said, "We'll never get A LOT of moments back." Because I probably use that line a lot. BUT HE WILL THANK ME ONE DAY. :)

So here we are in our Cowboy and Indian get ups. A big thanks to my mom for scoring these costumes and to my mother-in-law for providing a shirt for my growing Diego who no longer fits in hardly any of his plaid shirts. I made Mila's outfit (I rock the glue gun), the "boots" for the boys (didn't quite work out, but I whipped out my mini sewing machine for them...I know, who am I?), and the headbands for both girls.

My handsome cowboys. Whoa there, smolder much? ;) As they were getting dressed, Celo decided he wanted to be Batman instead. Pretty sure one of his friends at school is going as Batman because Celo has zero interest in superheros. Anyway, he finally gave in and wore the cowboy stuff, but I'm guessing he's going to want to wear his Batman PJs on Wednesday for trick or treating.

I had too much fun making these braids for my sweet baby girl. Hilarious. Hoping I can get a better picture on Wednesday. And Eliana thought these boots were so awesome. She wanted us to be twins so she kept telling me to put on my boots, too.

On Wednesday Marcelo has school, so he won't be able to go trick or treating with us. The boys are sad about that. And we didn't do our usual family party this year for the first time in....I don't even know how many years. There's just been too much going on and no one was really up for it. Hopefully we'll bring the tradition back next year for the kids.

Camila

My smiliest baby ever:

Ohhhh, where to start. This girl. She's a doll. She's an angel. She's my sweet, smiley baby. It literally feels like someone is squeezing my heart when I think about what a good baby she is. She has made the transition to four easy. Thank. Goodness.

Camila puts up with so much torture. It's loud roughly 90% of the time at our house. Her siblings like to touch her, poke her, kiss her, squeeze her, and all around drive her crazy. But she mostly just takes it. Thankfully, the kids aren't doing this with bad intentions. They are just curious about what happens if they touch her eye, or pull her fingers really far back, or pull on her toes. The majority of the time I'm able to stop it before they hurt her. But occasionally, they (they meaning Eliana) slip one past me. The other day I was nursing Camila and Eliana came to sit next to me to play with her sister's toes like she usually does. I looked away from Eliana for a second to answer the phone, and Camila stopped nursing and just SCREAMED. On instinct I grabbed her foot away from Eliana thinking that maybe she had pulled on it too hard, only to see BITE MARKS on her pinky toe. I was furious. I yelled, "You do NOT bite your sister!!! That hurts her! You are going to time out!" And marched her to her room. I think my spastic reaction worked because she hasn't done it since.

When I say Camila is my smiliest baby, it is so true. Diego didn't smile a lot as a baby. He didn't even laugh until he was 5 months old. Celo and Eliana smiled more than Diego did, but they also had a grumpy side. So far, if Camila isn't sleeping, she's scrunching up her nose and smiling, cooing in the most adorable "ahh, gahhhh" way, or sitting peacefully with me or Marcelo. She really only cries when she's hungry, and sometimes when she's ready to go to sleep. A lot of times I just put her down in her bassinet and she talks to herself for a minute and then goes to sleep. I'm sorry for the all caps, but she's just SO STINKIN SWEET.

Am I in the honeymoon baby phase or what? I hope it lasts a good long time because I'm sure with the firecracker big sister she has, Camila will be talking back to me like a teenager in no time.

Elinana

That's how Eliana says her full name. But the majority of the time she calls herself Nana. So that's what Diego calls her when he's in a loving mood towards her. She terrorizes him and Celo, though, so more often than not, the way they refer to her is an exasperated, "EliANA!!!!" A lot of my family members call her Ellie. Marcelo calls her Sweetheart or Baby. And her mama calls her by her given name.

So Eliana, Nana, Ellie, whatever you want to call her...is such a character. She has no shortage of personality whatsoever. She cracks me up with the things she says. In the last couple of months she has dropped her habit of starting every sentence with "ah" and I miss it! She used to ask "Ah take shower?" And now she says, "Did you take shower?" She used to say, "Ah tired?" Now she says, "Are you tired?" (She asks this every time I yawn.)

Recently, she has been very difficult at bedtime and nap time. And because she's so tired, she's been having some massive meltdown tantrums. So one day I asked her, "You used to be so sweet. What happened?" She looked at me with a little half smile and answered, "Camila." I'm pretty sure she had no idea what I was asking her. But it was so funny because it felt like she was saying, "Um, you went and ruined things by having another baby, mom, that's what happened."

Speaking of that baby, Eliana still adores Camila. When I say, "Do you love your baby?" She says, "Yeah. Sister." Melts my heart that she loves her so much. Yes it's stressful because she always wants to hold her, hug her, kiss her, and all around torture her, but it's also very sweet and I don't want it to end. It absolutely amazes me to watch her be such a loving little "mommy" to her sister. I looove how helpful she is to me, giving me diapers the second she hears me say Camila is stinky, picking out clothes for her to wear, and even wiping up spills. It's also so helpful that she dresses herself, puts her own shoes on, takes care of her potty needs with little help, can buckle her carseat almost all by herself, and is so independent. Such a huge blessing for me. She may be super stubborn and strong willed, but she's also so funny and sweet. She has my heart, that girl. Here's a picture of her wearing a mask that she puts on and comes at me saying, "ERRRR".

By Example

Last night we decided that this morning Marcelo would get to sleep in and then between conferences, I'd get to take a nap. We plan out sleep times like that because we are two tired parents. So this morning, I hung out with the kids and kept them quiet. I made chocolate waffles with berry sauce (from OBB). Marcelo slept in till 10:30! I prepared some crafts for the kids to do during conference and at noon we sat down together as a family to watch it. At about 12:15, Marcelo got a phone call from someone who needed help. I'm not going to act like I'm a better person than I actually am...I teared up as he told me that he'd be gone the rest of the day. Goodbye relaxed day, goodbye sitting on the couch as a family to listen to the prophet speak, goodbye afternoon nap, goodbye help entertaining the kids and taking turns hearing the talks. I told him that I had really been looking forward to hearing the messages today. He said, "Sometimes instead of LISTENING to the messages, we have to DO what the messages teach us to do."

Why lie...I'm disappointed in the way today turned out. But I'm also really grateful for Marcelo's example to our kids. He is for sure a better person than I am. When I tell him that, he says, "Not true. When I serve, you serve too." Maybe, but a lot of times I silently grumble about it. I should work on that. I'm proud of how service minded he is.

*Update...he's back in time for the last session. :)

General Conference Oct 2012

Earlier this week we had a Family Home Evening about General Conference and hearing the Prophet speak. When I asked, "What's coming up this weekend?", Diego excitedly responded, "General Conference! Yay! General Conference is my favorite!" There are many times where I have heard other moms talk about the sweet things their kids say about wanting to read the scriptures or touching comments about their love for Jesus Christ. I've always thought, "Why don't my kids ever say stuff like that?" I've worked hard to make Conference Weekend a big deal. I plan activities for them, I talk it up in the days before, I make special food and treats, and I try hard to make them understand that it's a special weekend. Diego's comment about it being his favorite made me want to cry and say, "It's working! He gets it!" I had another proud moment last night as we were telling the boys what our Saturday would be like. We told them that their soccer game would overlap over part of the morning session of General Conference. Diego said, "Awwww! Then we shouldn't go because I don't want to miss Conference!" We assured him that he would only miss part of it and he said, "Okay, as long as I get to hear President Monson speak." I was amazed. 

Then came today. I put together a "Conference Store" with treats, Halloween decorations and activities, and Angry Birds coloring books. I gave the kids some tally sheets and picture sheets from a Conference packet for kids that I found online, and I explained that every time they heard a certain word during Conference,  (from the sheets: church, love, family, Jesus Christ, prophet, etc.) they'd have to put a penny in a jar and at the end of the session, they'd get to go shopping in the Conference Store. We did this in April, too, so they already knew how it worked and were excited about it.  

The picture below shows the "prices" I put on each item. We ended up having to change these because the kids got waaaay too many pennies.

I made these Halloween Parfaits (from Pinterest) and the kids loved them.

The boys were into the penny thing pretty hardcore for about 2 talks. Eliana just screamed and whined 90% of the time. After the first couple of talks, Celo started playing with some angry bird toys and not paying attention anymore, but occasionally stopped to drop a penny into his jar. Diego was putting pennies into his jar every 10 seconds. We were only a little over halfway through the session when he said had about 170 pennies. Celo had 35. Then they both started just dumping the pennies out and playing with them. After telling them to stop several times and after several attempts at getting them to be reverent fell on deaf ears, we took the pennies away and made them start over by just putting check marks next to each word they were supposed to listen for. This bummed them out, but got them to listen quietly again for a bit. Diego kept strong for most of it, but Celo lost interest quickly and went back to playing with his plastic angry birds more noisily than I would have liked. Eliana continued to whine and cry and then Camila started crying because she was hungry. I did not freak out. I did not get frustrated that we couldn't really hear each talk in its entirety. I whispered to Marcelo, "Heavenly Father can't say we didn't try." I just thought, hey, this is where we are in life. They are little kids. This is boring for them. Sitting here is not fun, nor is it uplifting for them just yet. One day they will be less wiggly and have longer attention spans, and hopefully when that time comes, they'll know that Conference is special and will have a desire to listen. 

After it was over, we had pizza and we talked a little about what we had just heard. I asked them what messages they heard at Conference. Celo said, "Love your family." Diego said, "Love your neighbor and have faith." I asked them what else they heard and they said, "I heard them talk about Jesus and about going to church." So I'm going to call it a success.

Earlier in the day we had talked about the fact that the only picture we have of the 6 of us is from the hospital, so after baths I decided to test out the timer on my older camera. I put it on the coffee table and we sat on the floor. The first attempt was ok. The second was not great. I asked everyone to sit still just one more time, and was so happy when I looked at it and saw that even Camila smiled! Amazing! She is such a smiley baby.

What did I get out of today's Conference? When we heard the announcement about the age change, I immediately thought, "Camila is going to want to serve a mission." Her baby's blessing gave me that feeling, and hearing that she can go at 19 made me feel even more like it's something that could happen. Marcelo's first thought was, "If Diego does a year of college after High School and goes at 19, he and Celo could go at the same time and help strengthen each other while they're on their missions." Even if he goes at 18 their missions should overlap by a year or so.

The talk that affected me a lot today was by Sister Ann M Dibb, 2nd counselor in the Young Women general presidency. At one point she said that if she could put a declaration on a shirt, it would say, "I'm a Mormon. I know it. I live it. I love it. She talked about not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ and about prioritizing and paying attention to the things that matter most. It made me think about the fact that I've always been kind of shy about sharing the gospel. Maybe scared is a more accurate word. And it made me ask myself why. What am I scared of? Why not declare to the world that I'm Mormon and love it? It's true, so why not say it? I'm determined to start doing that more. 

In Which I Decide to Wear Button Downs

My life right now is a bit of a whirlwind. This is a boring play by play post, but I want to remember these busy times, so these are my days:

Get up at 6:45, throw some clothes on, start giving orders to the boys. "Get dressed! Socks and shoes!" Give them breakfast, finish packing lunches, make them brush their teeth. Give Eliana some milk, nurse Camila. Tell the boys to put their lunches and school folders in their backpacks. This is usually the time they choose to say, "Mommy!! We forgot to do my rain-forest homework! If I don't do it I won't get class money!" And this is when I have to bite my tongue to keep from scolding them before sending them to school and I say, "I asked you yesterday if you had any more homework to do besides what your teacher told me and you said no. We do not have time to do it now. You need to tell me earlier next time." Then Eliana gets her shoes on and I put Camila in her carseat and off we go to school. Diego is my big helper and straps Eliana in and out of her carseat. We walk to the school entrance and I send them off with a kiss and I love yous.

Here's what their lunch looked like on the first day of October:

Next I go home with the girls. We eat breakfast and Eliana watches a movie while I tidy up and put a load to wash. On very tired days I join her for the movie instead. Gotta take advantage while she still likes to cuddle! Sometimes Camila stays asleep in her carseat, other times I hold her, and other times she sleeps in her bassinet. A lot of times this is when I shower.

Here's Eliana watching a movie:













And my smiley Camila:














Then I take them places...Music Makers, the library, grocery shopping...wherever we have to go do that day. If we're staying home, we color, do play dough, Eliana "helps" me fold laundry, she plays while I try to catch up on the house or while I nurse the baby. Then it's lunch and naps. I try to nap with them when I can, which is why it stinks so bad that Eliana is trying to give up her naps. If I don't nap, I eat my lunch and read, watch a show, or fold the never ending piles of laundry. If dinner requires more prep that day, this is when I do it. I do things like plan fhe, plan my couponing trips, blog, get photography ideas, respond to emails. I will eventually use this time to tackle house projects but motivation is low these sleepy days.

After naps we go pick up the boys. We get home and they put their lunch boxes away, put their shoes in their room, and wash their hands. They have a snack, and then we start homework. They get to play for a little while I nurse the baby again. Lately they like for me to read to them while I nurse. It makes me so happy that they're so into that. I hope they grow up to love reading as much as I do. Anyway, next I make dinner while the kids play. I have them clean up their toys so the house isn't trashed when Marcelo gets home. This requires about 1000 reminders to "CLEAN UP" in a span of about 30 minutes. In this "after school time slot" we sometimes run a quick errand, have a playdate, or go to the library. There's also soccer practice once a week, and school activities sometimes. Right when Daddy gets home we have dinner. Then I clean up the aftermath while Marcelo gives the kids a shower. I nurse again and the kids get a little daddy time. Mondays we do fhe. Thursdays Marcelo has school and doesn't get home until really late.

After daddy time it's time for teeth brushing, a story, prayers, and bed. Marcelo and I chill with Camila and watch TV and eat a snack. It's a great time of day because we get to spend much needed quality time together and de-stress a bit. Right now there are many nights where Marcelo does homework and I read a book. Sometimes this is when I go grocery shopping. I start on the next day's lunches so the morning is less rushed. I shower if I didn't squeeze it in earlier in the day. Once I start doing shoots again, this will be the time I edit. Then I nurse Camila yet again and we read the scriptures. Then we crash and pray that Eliana will sleep all night so we can have the energy to do it all again the next day.

Maybe it doesn't seem like much. I'm sure lots of people are way busier. But to us right now it feels very go go go. I'm not at all saying that to complain. I'm happy our days are so full. I'm happy I get to be there for my kids so much. I'm happy we get to have dinner as a family every night. But it does make me want to sleep in on the weekends! And it does make me look forward to days off of school. And it does make me ask, when did I become such a MOM? Should I buy some crisp button down shirts like the moms in all the commercials? Why is that the mom uniform? What mom has time to iron her shirts? It's all about the cotton Ts and jeans over here.

I love my kids. I love my husband. I love my life. Even if I am oh so very sleepy.

Forget it.

I spent a while making dinner for my lovely family tonight. I made some beef smothered in a creamy mushroom gravy. I made Diego his own allergen free version. I sauteed some squash, zucchini, onions, and mushrooms in a soy sauce and lemon juice marinade. And I made some noodles to go with it. Marcelo loved it. I thought it was all very tasty. The kids ate the noodles and complained about the rest. Didn't even want to try it. Took a tiny bite and said they didn't like it.

This is me throwing my hands in the air. Why. Do. I. Bother? Why do I insist on making them try new things when I know there are pretty much 5 meals that they like, with 3 of those being chicken nuggets, pizza, and hot dogs? Why do I dirty a bunch of dishes and spend time looking up recipes and ways to make them like their veggies? Why don't I just let them eat junk with lots of sugar and zero nutritional value?

I suppose it's because I am their mother. And it's in my job description to help them grow up to be healthy and strong and not obnoxiously picky. So far, I'm quite sure I'm failing.

So tonight, as I scrub all the dishes, I will tell myself that it's okay that the only vegetables they like are cooked broccoli and raw carrots. I will tell myself that Diego will eventually outgrow his food allergies and will lose his fear of trying new things. I will tell myself that it doesn't matter that the only meat Celo will eat is "mystery meat" (nuggets and hot dogs). I will tell myself that one day in the near future, Eliana will decide to eat something...anything healthy that is not called yogurt and will learn to like fruit. Who doesn't like fruit????

And when I'm done having that conversation with myself, I will watch funny TV with my husband and feed the one child that actually likes everything I feed her. And then I'll break my no sweets diet and eat a bunch of cookies. I mean I'll fold laundry.