Santa!

I'm very behind blogging, and I feel that at Christina's young age, a few weeks makes a very big difference physically and developmentally.  Therefore, I'll have you know that these pictures with Santa were taken on 12/14/12:

I asked Dominic weeks before this if he was going to cry when he saw Santa, and he said "Yeah, just a little."  He was pretty much right.  He started right after picture two was taken, which is why he is not in picture three.  Christina also cried for some of it, because her Mom removed her pacifier.  She also tried to suck on the white fur on Santa's coat.  Speaking of Santa, you may recognize him from last year.  I think it's neat that with all the malls in the world, we got the real Santa again this year.  I tried to explain that to Dominic but I think he's too young.

Coming up soon: pictures from our Christmas trip to Dallas!

Christmas Recital

I have not been this excited about a post in a long time. I just adore this video of Dominic and his class performing at their school's Christmas recital.  I admit that I felt a little emotional as I watched my boy sitting on that stage acting all brave and grown up.

We were in a quite large school auditorium, using my zoom lens.  Marcos did an excellent job filming.  I take full responsibility for all the photo interruptions.  I told Marcos to take pictures and that it wouldn't interrupt the video.  Clearly I was wrong!  But I do think the stoppages are kind of funny. 

Christina's Newborn Photos

We had these photos done by Alison Edmon Photography when Christina was 3 days old.  If anyone wants a larger copy of any, let me know.

 

Dominic got "two candies" for doing this. He remembers it well.

This sweet girl is 6 weeks old today.  She met her Aunt Stef this week and they clearly hit it off. She is still doing really well.  I hope to weigh her on the food scale today, and I will leave a comment below if I get an accurate weight. 

Christmas Tree

We went to get our Christmas tree on December 1.  I don't think any Austinites read this, but if you do, we always have a great experience at Papa Noel on 360.  They are friendly and have great trees.

Dominic has been saying a lot of cute things lately.  We pulled up next to the large red tent housing all the trees and he said he wanted to go in the "Christmas house".   As we were driving home with our tree tied to the car's roof, he said, "Don't fall down, Christmas tree."

Here are some pictures in and around the Christmas house:

The weather was high 60s. So disappointing!

He could see how the little trees were kind of like Charlie Brown's tree.

Me and the kids. Christina loves being carried in the baby bjorn.

Silly boy. I forget why he made this face.

We decorated the tree the next morning. Dominic liked looking through the boxes of ornaments. He only broke one - a generic glass ball that shattered when he dropped it.

Finished product.  Marcos was ok with a normal sized tree this year.  See Emmy - no hallway blockage.

I picked up these cute bears when out shopping with my Mom this week. They are ornaments.

The stockings are hung.  Emmy is making one for Christina like she did for Dominic, and mine was handmade by my Mom many years ago.  We need to do something about Marcos...

In other news, my Mom was here all week to help me survive Marcos' first trip since Christina's birth.  Not only did I survive, but I was downright spoiled.  She left this morning.

This is before my Mom's visit.  Pretty much all naps occur on Ita and YiaYia when either one is in town.

Big Boy Bed and One-Month Update

My little Dominic has been sleeping in a big boy bed for about three weeks now.  At the end of October (on Christina's due date, coincidentally) he showed up at our bedroom door around 6am.  He knocked and said "Mama?"  It was rather surprising because it was the first time he opened his bedroom door by himself.  He first climbed out of his crib in August, and then he didn't climb out for a long time.  He had been climbing out again prior to that morning, but was stuck in his room.  We already had a toddler bed on order because we knew it was time to get him out of the crib, and you can see in my previous post that he helped Marcos put it together in early November.

We left the crib in his room for over a week in case he flipped out and couldn't handle sleeping in the new bed.  He has always seemed to enjoy his crib and has spent many happy hours in it, both awake and asleep. The day they built the toddler bed, I asked him if he wanted to take his nap in the crib or the new bed, and he chose the crib.  I asked the same thing at bed time and he climbed right in to the new bed and never looked back.

Picture of his room with two beds:

Crowded, but temporary.

Dominic slept until 6:40am the first night in his new bed - which is totally awesome for him.  We were feeling pretty good.  The next several mornings, he came to our room anywhere from 3:30-4:30am.  We let him get in bed with us several times. It seemed cruel to turn the poor guy away when he could see that baby Christina was in our room.  Big mistake.  He never falls asleep in our bed (though he tried very hard to be still and quiet) and I can't fall asleep when he's there either.  Loss of some precious hours of sleep when Christina was quiet made me realize this had to stop.  I told him as he went to bed one night, that if he wakes up when it's still night time, he has to stay in his bed.  When he came to our room at 4:30am the next morning, Marcos told him it was still night time and took him back to his room.  He cried for a very short period, and then laid in bed for about 30 minutes before returning to our room.  It seemed like a pretty good effort since it must have felt like forever to him.

Now when he gets in bed every night he says something like, "Still night time" and  I say, "Yes, you have to stay in bed if it's still night time."  And ever since, he has not gotten out of bed at all!  We can hear him awake on the monitor and he does his usual chatting and singing.  When he's had enough wake-up time, he shouts for Dada or Marcos. (He has picked up on me shouting across the house for Marcos when I need something).

More pics:

Now the toddler bed is in the crib's old spot.

He still moves all over the place and does not want covers.  He usually starts with his feet up on the rail or headboard.

One day after his nap, I saw him get out and return to bed with a book.

I started this post about a week ago, and now I'm publishing it on Christina's one month birthday!  She is actually napping right now, but her sleep patterns in the last few days are making me think my sleepy baby is gone! On Friday she went a 5 hour stretch of being awake during the day.  That's an eternity for a newborn.  It reminded me of Dominic, except we had the swing (Marcos called it our secret weapon) that could always be counted on to knock him out when he was tired and fighting sleep.  She is ok in the swing sometimes, but usually resists its powers.  But this lack of day sleep gave us a great night last night.  She went down around 9:45pm and woke to eat at 2am and 6am.  And I must say that at 2am, she ate and went right back to sleep.  In other news, she's been getting fussier too, which is to be expected.  It's supposed to peak around 6 weeks and end around 12.  She's still a good eater and soils plenty of diapers.  She has definitely smiled at both me and Marcos, though social smiles are not supposed to start until 6 weeks.  What can I say?  She's a genius. 

Giving Thanks

Happy belated Thanksgiving!  With the recent birth of Christina, I have never had so much to be thankful for.  I have thought of that often this month, and hope to stay in the thankful spirit all year round.   There's really no excuse not to.  We've really been blessed in so many ways.

We had a quiet and very nice Thanksgiving.  Ita was here from Tuesday until this afternoon and got to spend lots of quality time with the  grand kids.  Dominic organized an Einstein's date for all of us, and Christina spent many a happy afternoon napping on Ita's lap.   This was the first time in many years that we didn't go to Dallas.   I really missed the rest of the Arazozas and I know Marcos and Ita did to.  We can't wait to see everyone at Christmas.

Here are some pics from the week:

Dominic playing with the book Ita brought him.

He brought this hat home from school. I'm not sure if he's a turkey or an Indian.

Ita with both kids and one cat.

 Marcos did a beautiful job cooking.

Mashed red potatoes with cheddar cheese.

Prime rib roast.  We decided not to do a turkey.

Dressing.

Good ole Pillsbury crescent rolls.

And jellied cranberry sauce.  I made the obligatory Simpsons references when I slid it onto the plate.

Green bean casserole.

Baked apples as a side.  This was added to the menu for Dominic.  He loves these.

Here's an overview.

I made a little sampler for Dominic.  He didn't eat much besides apples.  We had some ham too, which I forgot to photograph.

Christina slept through the whole meal!  She continues to be a sleepy baby.

It really felt like a small crowd when we sat down to eat.

Apple pie. Dominic talked about this all week.

And then he had a bite and didn't like it. He told me today he was too little.  I asked if he would like it when he's older and he said yes.

On another note, something kind of scary happened the first time I tried to upload these photos.  Blogger told me I had reached my 1GB free storage limit and I would have to buy more space.  I used Picasa to export/save compressed versions of all the photos, which uploaded without a problem.  I think they still look perfectly fine, so it's too bad I have not been doing this all along.  I usually upload huge files from my dslr camera.  I'm not sure what this means for the future of my blog!