St. Augustine

Our little family was offered the opportunity to take an all-expense paid trip to Ponte Vedra Beach, FL to attend a churchy event, so we didn't dare pass up the chance. As part of the deal, we were required to attend a pre-conference event (how's that for vague?!), and since Abuela was staffing the committee in charge and Abuelo was tagging along for fun, we all decided to come yet another day early to be together and visit St. Augustine just 30 miles away.

Lucas mostly did this on the flight down:

...while Jesse and I did this. Jesse had been running a high fever for days up until 1:30 a.m. the morning (just a few hours before) we left the house to catch our plane. Phew! What a relief to not have to care for a sick child on a plane and on vacation!

We credit the NYC subway system for instilling a love of maps in our Lucas. He begged to check out the sightseeing map and poured over it for a good while.

As we approached the fort, Lucas saw the cannons and yelled, "Look Mami, lots of telescopes!" I told him they were called cannons but didn't go into explaining their original function (and he was fine with that -- as far as he was concerned, a fort is just one big playground). I think a dozen or so telescopes on top of an old fort would be so much better, don't you?!

I remember coming here with my parents and brothers as a child and touring the fort and the old town and the sites and thinking that the place seemed so large and ancient. I even remember its smell. I wonder what -- if anything -- Lucas will remember of these special days...

Playing with Abue, below... All of this was just before dinner where Lucas proceeded to vomit his food all over his shoe and the street (just a few feet from where others were enjoying their outdoor dinners...) And then he needed to tell everyone with whom we interacted on the street or at the hotel about what happened. Yes, I think Lucas will indeed carry some of these memories with him for a while...

Abuelo and Abuela standing in front of the very same place where they stayed the night of their honeymoon 36 years ago! The window at the top right is the room where they slept.

This shot is for Mema and Mempa. Can you two make out what it is?

The next day at the hotel in Jacksonville Beach. I love how when there are little to no toys available the boys find ways to have good, simple fun.

We ended up pushing our queen-sized beds together and against a wall to make one large family bed. One night after we had put the boys to sleep, I came back into the room (we were in a suite with multiple rooms) not 5 minutes later and saw this -- our sweaty, cuddly, sleepy boys:

More pictures to come!

Look Who's Walking!

We spent the last week in Florida where Jesse was mostly carried or placed on new and unfriendly surfaces, such as spiky grass, steep hills, mulch, hot cement, sand, and carpet. I thought for sure that the hotel carpet would encourage his walking skills but we found that it gave him too much resistance, so he rarely bothered. So we were surprised when we finally came home today and he decided to take off once he set foot on our hardwood floors! Of course, he'll likely still use crawling as his primary mode of getting around for a while to come, but we're definitely beyond the 5 or 6 running steps we've been seeing lately. Today he seemed to figure out that he doesn't need to run or lunge towards his destination but rather that taking his time and one slow, deliberate step at a time works best! Now I just need to videotape his adorable crawling for posterity!

This video was taken after dinner (note the wet spots on his clothes), and after a long day (we were up at 4 a.m. to catch our flight) and lots of walking (do you think his little legs will be sore tomorrow?), so he wasn't as motivated and strong as he was earlier in the day.

Toddlerhood has begun!

Blowing A Kiss

More Scenes From Easter

The Easter party at church:

Decorating cookies...

Egg hunt...

Spunky babe:

This is Bosco (age 11 or so?), whom Lucas adores. He talks about him and his brother Alvaro and their cousin Mateo and friend Matthew ALL THE TIME. And, the boys humor him! When Lucas says, "Hey guys, let's sing [this] song," they oblige him! When he asks to play ball, they're game! They hold his hand and tell him they love him and give big hugs before saying good-bye. Yesterday Bosco drew Lucas a beautiful picture to take home...

Lucas had decided to sit in this room and draw on a bible (whoops!) when the boys found him and didn't want him to be alone! Here are Lucas and Alvaro singing together.

And everyone else who eventually joined in...

Here they all are. I had another picture of all of them looking at the camera but Lucas's eyes were closed so I went with the day-dreamy look on his face instead. Such loving, fun boys!

Easter morning...

Mema and Mempa sent books and crayons and coloring books for the boys' easter baskets. Lucas is showing us how he colored Mickey's tongue to match Lucas's red tongue (covered by the nuts he's chewing with breakfast).

Jesse with Tio Maquin and cousin Liam. Jesse lunges forward and out of the arms of whoever is holding him to have Maquin hold him instead, and of course Liam gets a bit jealous and wants to be held as well. The three of them together like this is a very common scene...

That's it! Now we're packing up for a big trip to Florida this week! Is there ever a time for things to feel normal?!

Sugar High

What do you do when you have some graham crackers in the pantry, an overabundance of chocolate candy, and some Peeps from the Easter basket?

Make S'meeps, of course!


Make sure you wear the S'meeps, too!

Happy Easter!

We took these pictures after church and fellowship hour. It was a windy 43 degrees and during lunch/nap time. Lucas was in la-la land from all the sugary candy and Jesse just wanted to get down and explore!

Thank you, Abuelo and Abuela, for the matching outfits!

Holy Week

It's a pastor's spouse's favorite time of year! (Grumble.) But the boys and I have been keeping busy too. Here's what we did on Wednesday:

First thing Lucas did after he woke from his nap and saw the cups of dye was to rearrange them in order of the rainbow spectrum! (You know, ROY G. BIV...) Nothing gets past Lucas!

You can sort of see how the tablecloth gets progressively messy from all the dunking and re-dunking.

"Two colors together make another color, like yellow mixed with blue turns to green!"


Guess who had a blue mouth afterwards?

And now, two videos that I couldn't choose between because he's way too cute and fun to watch:



Don't you love the way he says 'purple?'

Later today is the annual Easter party and egg hunt at church. Lucas has been very excited, so we've been practicing at hiding and finding eggs in our living and dining room all week. He gets confused about "how many more days until...?" and often asks if we'll go to such-and-such event after he wakes up from his nap or after breakfast, etc. when it's days and days away. So I decided to help give him a visual to help him count off the number of days until the Easter party. We've been using these chains from election day that he and I made (he's becoming skilled at using the tape dispenser!) by removing a link each morning.

Now you know that you can count on more Easter pictures tomorrow!

Colander

Some of these are blurry but cute nonetheless...

Primos

The boys adore their Tata and Maquin, but they go wild for their cousin Liam! Here they are together this past Tuesday after we picked up Liam from daycare located just two blocks away:

Later at home Jesse smothers Maquin and Liam, just like he does most visitors. He insists on sitting in Maquin's lap practically the entire time (which sometimes makes Liam jealous). He's also smitten by Liam and makes countless sweet noises that sound like the Gerber Baby -- "Hiiiiii" and "A-gaaaa" and "huuuuu" and "A-ti" -- while giving him bear hugs.

For a moment it seems Liam doesn't like it, but then he moves in towards Jesse in anticipation of the next hug. So cute!

From The Fluff Jar

Every now and then we go through the jar of quotables by Lucas to see how far he's come and to get a good chuckle. Here are a few cute stories from the past month:

One day Lucas was sitting on the couch daydreaming and running his hands through his blankie in an unusual way. I asked him what he was doing, and he replied, "Oh, I'm knitting. Just like you, Mama!"

While planting seeds the other day, Lucas and I talked about how plants need dirt plus water and sun to properly grow. Several days later it was (another) gray and cloudy day, and Lucas turned to the pots sitting on the windowsill and wondered aloud, "There's no sun today, so how will our seeds grow?" (Wow! He's a smart one, although my attempt at explaining photosynthesis that followed made him understandably bored...)

While out on a walk the other day to pick up cousin Liam from daycare, Lucas asked me when he could have some holes in his ears for earrings!

One breezy morning we were walking along an avenue where the subway also runs below ground when I noticed to myself that distinctive subway smell coming from the vents across the street. A split second later Lucas also caught a whiff, then remarked, "Hey, I smell the subway!"

That's our observant boy!