Rafael's Birthday Parties

My little boy turned 1 last week!  He had his family birthday party on Saturday at his Ninas' house and it was so much fun!  We did a Monster themed brunch, and I had a blast making the "monster" food.  We had a green chile breakfast casserole, fruit, Monster Toes (sausages), Monster Fingers (french toast sticks), Monster Eyes (donut holes), Monster Blood (blueberry pomegranate juice), OJ and muffins.  By the way, those muffins are a huge step for me.  My poor Michaela wasn't even allowed to have sugar on her first birthday, at least these muffins had a tiny bit of sugar and some chocolate chips!

 His favorite toy was one of the balloons that we had bought.  So happy!

 I want to grab that candle!

 Yummy!  Sugar!

 I love my nina!

Our friends and family

 Michaela decided to take a break from the party with her friend by taking a nap.  And by taking a nap I mean screaming and giggling together for 10 minutes while they pretended to close their eyes.

 He was so happy that day and in such a great mood being the center of attention!

 And he made out like a bandit!

I have some truly great friends and family!

By the way, he had a great birthday party a couple of weeks ago with our MOMS Club family, many of whom were planning to be out of town this weekend.  Such a lucky boy to have two birthdays!

Dear Rafael!*

Happy Birthday!  It's amazing how fast this year has gone!  It seems like just yesterday we were bringing you home from the hospital, just in time to meet your sister and enjoy a relaxing Thanksgiving dinner.  And here you are a happy, active 1 year old, taking your first steps and getting into trouble every time I turn my back.

From the very beginning you were my easy baby.  You slept most of the time and rarely fussed, a far cry from your colicky sister.  Yet, you also quickly developed a personality that let us know that you were her brother and my child.  You know what you want and heaven forbid you don't get it!

I was also a completely different mother with you than I was with Michaela.  More experience and being around other mommies taught me not to sweat the little things.  I gladly handed you off to friends when they offered to hold you, knowing that you would be a stronger child if I didn't insist on being with you every second.  As you have slowly started crawling and cruising, I haven't hovered over you.  I trust in your strength and know that you will recover quickly from any bump or scrape that happens.

You make everyone around you want to love you.  Daddy, sister and I all absolutely adore you.  I can't wait to see you continue to grow into a little boy and am looking forward to the changes this next year brings!

*Ok, well it's a couple of days late, but that's what happens when a second child's birthday falls so near a holiday. :)

It's 5 o'clock Somewhere

It's barely noon, but I'm pretty sure this is the only way I'll get through the rest of my day.

I went to make the kids breakfast this morning (the kids who woke up before the sun was up), and realized I was out of eggs.  I don't know how I missed this, but I was on my own yesterday, and sometimes bad things happen when I'm husbandless.  Anyways.  No eggs.  My kids only eat eggs for breakfast.  It's my fault, I'm a huge egg eater, so I've encouraged their egg loving fanatacism.  In any case, I was hungry, the kids were hungry, and I knew we would not last an entire trip to the store and then back home to cook eggs, so we went out to breakfast!  I was so impressed by how well the kids behaved, and I'm pretty sure the group of old men sitting at the table next to us were too.

And then it all went to hell.  We had plans to go to the local fire station for a tour with my MOMS Club, but the second we walked in the door, it all went down hill.  The girl decided to scream the entire time and spent most of the tour sitting on the floor in tears.  I don't know if she was overwhelmed by the size of the firetrucks or if she was just tired from waking up too early.  Maybe both, maybe something else.  It really didn't matter, I couldn't pick up a screaming kicking child and carry Rafael at the same time, so God bless the amazing firefighter who helped me get both kids to the van.  (Can I just say how upset I am that I didn't get my adorable shot of Michaela with a firehat on standing in front of a firetruck?  I mean seriously, thats the main reason we went!)

I was ready to call it a day, but I had a great thought.  We decided to go outside and play ourselves into a good mood.  The kids loved playing in the leaves from my Halloween Jack O Lantern bags.  Michaela jumped and kicked and fell herself back into a happy child.  And silly little Rafael crawled right into the middle of it all and enjoyed the heck out of it. 

I'm still tired, I still need a glass of wine, but thankfully the kids were able to go down for naps happy, and I'm able to sit here and relax without having murderous thoughts toward my daughter.  Salud!

Library Woes

We were planning on meeting a friend for lunch today, but Rafael was super grumpy so I put him down for a nap.  It was a really fast nap so I decided to load the kids up and run to the library real quick with the intention of calling to see if she was still at the restaurant when we were done.  Our library trips usually only take about 10 minutes so it was totally possible.

Except while there, Michaela had a really really hard poop (I'm sure you needed to know that) and started screaming and crying in pain.  Many of you who actually know Michaela can attest to the fact that she is a REALLY loud screamer.  Yeah, imagine that in the middle of a quiet library.

God bless the amazing librarian who took pity on me as I struggled to make an escape while holding and comforting Michaela, pushing the double stroller with Rafael in it with one hand, and dragging along the full bag of library books we had just picked.  She helped me into a small bathroom I've never noticed before in the children's section and I was able to get Michaela's diaper changed and calm her down. 

Yeah, we decided to just call it a day and go home after that.

Halloween!

I had an awesomely fun Halloween weekend!  Date night on Friday, moms night out on Saturday, family Halloween party on Sunday morning, and family night and trick or treating at night.  It was great!

Abby Cadabby and Elmo getting ready to go Trick or Treating.  Michaela did great, saying Trick or Treat at all the right times and saying thank you after each person gave her a piece of candy.  At first she wanted to hold her candy instead of putting it in her bucket, but she learned quickly.  The only part she had a little trouble with was the one house that had scary music, strobe lights, and corpses!  I tried to be upbeat as we walked up the driveway, but about halfway through she yelled "I'm scared!" and turned around.  That's the first time I've ever heard her say that! 

Michaela counting all her candy!  We only went down one street so she didn't get much.  This was all that was left after I took out all the gumballs, taffy, gum, and other dangerous candy.

 She was so happy when I told her she could eat all of it!  Which really wasn't much because she ended up not liking the Sour Patch Kids or the Nerds.  So she ate a packet of M & M's, half of a Kit Kat, and then nursed a lollipop the rest of the night.  She was a tiny bit upset when we took her lollipop away because she had been sucking on it for half an hour and it was bedtime, but she got over it.  After I told a little white lie and said it dropped on the floor so now it was yucky and WOW wasn't Halloween fun?!  Let's go to bed!

All in all, a successful Halloween!

Messy Monster

My little guy has been mobile for a few weeks now, and though it's totally adorable, it's also a lot of work!  For instance, he can make a perfectly clean room look like this in under five minutes!

He is so fast!  I will literally turn around to do something for thirty seconds, turn back around and he is gone!  Off to destroy something or get into the dogs water.

Speaking of which, he has encouraged my daughter to regress and start playing in the dogs water bowl with him.  Something that we beat out of her taught her not to do over a year ago.

He finds tons of other ways to be messy too.  Beside shoving food into his mouth as fast as his little hands can, this is his preferred method of eating.

He loves soups, stews, applesauce, yogurt, anything that is any sort of messy, but surprise surprise, he wants to eat it himself!  And since he doesn't have enough manual dexterity to handle the spoon very well, this is how it usually goes down!

He is definitely keeping me on my toes these days!

Don't Judge

I have a friend who writes the most amazing blog ever.  She's a mom who tells the truth and doesn't pull any punches, and I absolutely adore her for it.  Today she had a horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad day and managed to cope by putting makeup on her two little boys.  So. smart.  I was totally inspired by her "hey don't judge me" attitude, that I decided to post my own "don't judge me" moment.

Yup, that's right.  That's my 10 month old sitting in front of a tv, eating fast food with his sister.  Yeah, don't judge me.  It was a crappy day.  I'm my-throat-hurts-so-bad-I-can't-even-scream-at-my-children-and-I-just-want-to-lock-them-in-their-rooms-so-I-can-sleep sick.  Philip was working late, and since I'm one of those moms who thinks she's too good to keep a frozen pizza or can of ravioli in her house, I drove to the nearest fast food joint that had something my toothless baby could eat.  Mom of the year right here folks.

Butterfly Wings & Tutu's

Michaela was invited to her friend's butterfly tea party themed birthday party and I just about died from cuteness overload.  Seriously, the birthday girl's momma did a great job and the party was absolutely perfect!

They decorated and ate their own butterfly cookies.

The adorable tea table

Th birthday girl's baby sister got a little tutu action as well

Aren't these girls the cutest?

They loved their cups of tea and finger sandwiches.

 But of course, they're two, so their attentions quickly moved on to the outdoor toys sitting enticingly nearby.

 Michaela is jumping in this one, but doesn't it look like she's flying?

 When it was cake time, Michaela decided to blow the candles out before the birthday girl did...

 and then eat from the big cake instead of the tiny piece on a plate in front of her.

We'll have to work on that before her cousins birthday next weekend!

One Year

One year and one day ago I went to visit my mom.  The moment I walked in, I knew the moment was coming.  She was losing her battle with lung cancer.  She could hardly breathe and was hardly lucid.  Not unkindly, after a very short visit she asked me to leave.  She didn't want me to see her like that.  It was the last time I saw her.

One year ago I sat at my dad's house, visiting.  It was sort of late in the day for a visit, not to mention a Sunday and Philip should have been at home getting ready for school the next day.  But he sensed that I needed to be around family because I knew what was coming.  When my phone rang, I was already prepared.  And yet I wasn't.  Nothing can prepare you for the death of a parent.  There is no feeling like knowing that I was never ever going to talk to her again.

Almost a year ago I sat in the church, numb and exhausted.  I hadn't been able to cry the entire week.  It was like my brain hadn't processed the fact that my mother was gone.  Until that moment.  As I saw my mom in the casket, and listened to the beautiful music coming from my friends in the choir, reality hit.  I couldn't stop crying.  I sat there surrounded by my sisters and we all wept together.

It's been a year and so much has changed.  I have a son now who brings me happiness and joy.  Michaela has grown one year older and is coming into her own as a little girl.  I have wonderful mommy friends who fill my days (and many a fun night out!) with laughter and understanding.

And yet there are things that still exist exactly as they were on that day one year ago.  Like the bag of fideo in my pantry, sitting unopened.  It was one of my favorite dishes of my mom's and I had bought it a week before she died, intending to call her up for the recipe.  For some reason, I always used to call her when I was elbow deep in the middle of cooking, looking to her for advice on how to salvage the dish.  I can't cook that bag because I know I won't be able to call her for help if something goes wrong.

There's a picture that my mom gave me last summer.  A beautiful black and white picture of a little girl looking to her future as a woman.  I always loved it growing up and my mom gave it to me.  I put it in my garage waiting for a chance to hang it up.  And now I'm terrified to, because it will remind me of my mom every time I look at it.  So it just sits in my garage gathering dust.

It's amazing how the littlest things can still set me off crying.  You would think that after a year, the grieving process would be over.  But there's not a day that goes by that I don't think of her.  That I don't wish I could talk to her or share with her the news of my day.  It pains me so much to know that she doesn't get to share in my joy of the kids.  She would have loved them and spoiled them rotten.  I would have rolled my eyes and complained to Philip, but it's what I would have wanted for them.

It's funny how after years of fighting and not getting along, I discovered how much I needed and loved her only to have her be taken away from me.  I wish I could see her one more time, or know that she's looking down on me.  I love you mom.  I miss you.