Deceitful Baby

My 13 month old has learned to try to trick me/be deceitful. I didn't realize it started so early. I don't remember Manny doing this. He likes to play with outlets and cords. What baby doesn't, right? And being the good mom I am, I try not to let him play with them. So I am standing there, guarding the cords and outlets and telling him no (this is the only place in the house where we couldn't move the cords to another place). He cries. Throws a fit. Then he calmly gets up. And points. Really points. Like he wants me to see something. I turn to look and he smiles to himself, turns, and tries to get to the outlet again. What a little devil! Needless to say we have have figured out a way to move the cords.

Mouse

I forgot to tell a story. We had a mouse. In our house. Disgusting. Well I figured it must have come through the fireplace. (Why do we have a fireplace in an apartment, you ask? I ask the same question. Pointless. We actually have our tv stand in front of it so the kids don't play in it.) We saw it run from the tv stand under the sofa/chair. We immediately got up and tried to figure out what to do. Luis thought we could catch it. I wasn't so sure. Turns out Luis is a little afriad of mice. (He actually thought it was a rat, but it wasn only 2-2 1/2 inches, "maybe it's a baby rat,"  I said no.) So here we are both with frying pans in our hands, and I am trying to convince it to come out from where it;s hiding. I'm banging my pan on the couch. We see it run. But Luis apparently didn't get the message that it was supposed to be team work. He is no where close to me or the couch. It runs back under the tv stand. I tell him I quit for the night. The blasted mouse is too fast anyway. Luis thinks we should bring both kids into our room (afriad the mouse will bite them or do something horrible to them). I told him I'm prety sure the mouse doesn't want to eat us, just the food our kids leave on the living room floor. I finally win that argument. And Manny is still up. Ever the little helper, he had grabbed something to try to hit it with. And then he told me, "Don't worry, I locked the bathroom door so he can't go in there." "Wait, you locked the bathroom door? And you're not in there?" "No."  So the next half hour was spent trying to unlock the door. We have those silly doors with the turn lock, not the pop button. Sadly.
Don't worry, this story gets better. So the next day I go to the store and pick up some glue traps. (This is what everyone told me to get. The snap ones are sometimes tricky and don't set right, and some other reasons people said. Glue traps were the way to go.) I bring them home and the directions say to place them in a path the mouse goes and then, "after use, dispose of entire trap" and it shows a picture of someone throwing the trap in the garbage (from the bottom, you don't actually see the mouse). After the kids go to bed I place 2 traps, one on either side of the fireplace. The next morning I see one, but not the other. I ask Luis if he moved one. No. I look closer and discover the poor mouse got stuck and tried to drag himself back to the fireplace. Of course it is still alive and terrified. Luis sees this and is instantly sad, for the mouse, that I got the traps, that I am a mean person, etc. And he doesn't want any part of it. Apparently I am a stoneheart (which may be true) and can do terrible things. I want to kill him fast, but am not quite sure what to do. Drop something on him? Throw him really hard? Luis doesn't think I am strong enough. A hammer? But that might get messy. Obviously I have never done this before, and the solution is now obvious, but it wasn't at the time. Luis tells me to run him over with the car. Okay. I go to the car, place the trap upside down and run him over fast. I go to remove the trap and discover the glue is sticky. Very sticky. Sticky enough that I can't pull it off the cement. Luckily I had some nice neighbors who were willing to look past my stupidity and help me out. They sprayed something and got him off.
So next time (hopefully there won't be a next) I will either get the snap traps or put the mouse in a bag before I do anything. I know. What a dummy.

Eyes Open and Santa Letter

I am finally caught up. And I will end with a quick story from Manny. He told me, "I sleep with my eyes open." I said-no you don't. What are you talking about? He kept insisting that he does, and then finally said it was because he REALLY wanted to see Santa. Funny that he helped me write a letter saying that he wanted a "toothbrush that makes silly noises" (an electric toothbrush-only my kid would ask for a toothbrush) and "the movie where King Julian falls in love with a bear" (Madagascar 3). Done!

Abuela's Birthday and Thanksgiving

Manny had a Thanksgiving Feast at his school that families were invited to. They made really great headbands where I'm guessing by the looks of them that they had to use an adjective and an animal. Manny chose to be "Strong Bull." Some of my other favorites were-"Tired Drangonfly" (pictured 2 away from him in this picture) and "Magical Unicorn." And both were boys.

 

Luis was supposed to dress up for Halloween at work. Luckily we knew someone with a Spiderman costume we could borrow. 

Terrible cheese smile

Shooting webs

Marcel joined in the costume fun.

Abuela had a birthday. Yay! Happy Birthday Abuela! We took her out to eat and then a friend made her a cake. But funny that they didn't have any candles, so they used a match. Just a plain, ghetto match, and we tried to take a picture before the flame went out. Impossible

More costume fun. A whole family of Spidermans (or do you say Spidermen?)

 

We had a great Thanksgiving and shared 2 meals together. Nice and relaxing. A lot to be thankful for.

Marcel's 1st Birthday and Voting

We really love superheroes at this house. Here Marcel is Super Baby. On his birthday

Marcel is a wonderful boy. He is full of personality and loves to play with his brother. He may be a bit dramatic, but what baby isn't, right? He loves to look at books (and thankfully doesn't even rip them). He also still loves to smell things. I love it when he pulls me close in a really strong hug (and smells my face or hair).

Happy Birthday Silly Marcelito!

We went over he Luis' parents' house the next day and had a "party." Both boys were spoiled by Abuela and Abuelo.

Manny was very excited for Marcel's birthday and wanted him to open presents right away. He helped make cupcakes for him.

And we, being the super great parents that we are, forgot his chair to eat in or even a bib.  

 

And Luis voted for the first time! (Don't worry. I voted, too, but didn't take a picture.)

State Fair and Halloween

We made it to the fair this year. Didn't take many pictures, but here they are.

We had to wait in line for 10 minutes (per Manny's request) just so I could get this terrible picture. He loves him some PBS Kids.

And we had to take a picture with each cut out.

Luis's work was wonderful and gave us tickets to the fair and for rides. We had to wait in line forever just to go on the merry go round, and Manny wouldn't let me let go of him. I don't think he's much of a ride fan. So we just did one ride and then gave our tickets to someone else. Manny was happy and had fun.

Manny's special treat was cotton candy. Gross. But he loved it. 

And I tried to get the blue all around his mouth from all the sugar.

Papi and Marcel.

We also tried to see some animals, but apparently Manny's sense of smell is too sensitive. We took one step in a building and he plugged his nose and asked to go out. There were some outside, but Manny was scared of those (sheep, goats, etc in a "petting zoo" where you can't touch the animals-fine with Manny). Weird kid. We walked through the zoo very fast.

 

This is what I found when I tried to go to bed one night. Not a lot of space for me.

I also sadly didn't get a lot of pictures at Halloween time. This is Manny's school parade.

There were a lot of superheroes in his class.

 

P.S. Manny wore that costume almost every day in October, and at least a couple of times a week in November. We are now down to once a week or so.

 

Marcel wore his skeleton pajamas, but had terrible diarrheaa and a fever. Awesome. He didn't go out on actual Halloween.

 

Planet Texas, Primary Program, and Hair Cut (Finally!)

So these pictures are from September/October-ish.

 

Funny story about this picture. I don't know if anyone else does, but we often have bedtime issues. I remember this night. I put Manny to bed at 8:30. I could hear him in his room (playing, reading books, who knows), but he wasn't being loud so I didn't care. He's got to fall asleep sometime, right? It is 11:30 and I am walking to bed and all of a sudden I hear something behind me. I turn around fast and this is what I find. I can't help but laugh, and I couldn't stop laughing for a long time. He told me he was an alien. From the "Planet Texas!" Not quite so funny the next 2 nights he tried it. He looked hurt and asked why I didn't laugh or take a picture. I had to try to explain that it was only funny the one time and it's not something I encourage him to do in the middle of the night. 

 

Manny had his Primary Program. He did so great. He has a lovely voice and I could hear him the whole time. He loves to sing. This was when he first started practicing so he was better by the time the program came along.

This is the nicest picture I could get of the boys in their matching skeleton pajamas.  

 

And Manny finally fot his hair cut!

 

I always forget it looks pretty terrible the first day or two. But still a cute boy.

 How sweet

 

Stand Up For Your Right

I know I'm pretty behind in blogging. My kid even had his first birthday and I haven't put up any pictures. Soon.
We are still working on reverence during sacrament meeting. But a funny story I want to remember from today--  During a talk someone said the words, "Get up."  Manny then started singing, "Get up, stand up. Stand up for your right. Get up, stand up. Don't give up the fight."   Thank you so much Bob Marley (and roommate Britton Gardner for the memories of driving in her purple truck listening to that song).

Bugfest 2012!

We went to a really fun event at the Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh (Manny's favorite local museum). It was Bugfest where you could learn about bugs, visit the new part of the museum that recently opened, try some new things, etc.

Here is Manny getting his face painted. He cried when it came off that night

What handsome guys

 

They had this cool section where you could try all these bugs cooked deliciously. They were surprisingly good. I'm not sure all the things we ate, but I definitely saw crickets and meal worms. They were in ice cream, on top of pizza, dipped in chocolate, and some tasted kind of like popcorn. I was a fan of the crunchy ones, not so much the chewy ones.

Manny surprised me and tried all of them. He even liked them. He told me he liked their crunchy legs and the ones he could dip in chocolate.

a salad if you're eating light

 

The new part of the museum. Isn't it cool looking?

 

And a family picture

 

A fun time was had by all. We will definitely by coming back next year.