Safety First

I forgot to tell funny stories about Manny's first night in his own room.

Luis is a very cautious guy. Maybe a little paranoid. He thinks things like, "If a bullet were to come through our bedroom window, where would the safest place be?" And that is where we have to place our bed. I'm not sure where he comes up with this stuff, but the examples are endless. He always likes to be prepared.

So, I am getting ready to put Manny in bed. Don't worry, I tried to find the perfect place for his bed to go (not close to the window, in case a stray bullet wanders in, not where the airconditioning is blowing right one him, etc). Luis comes in and looks through his toys and picks up a deflated pool floatie. "He might choke on this." What? Okay, we can take that out. But is he really going to shove his face into a floatie and not move until he chokes? And then we had to close the bathroom door, just in case he falls in head first. Again-really? He's almost 3 years old. If he somehow got his head in the toilet, I'm pretty sure he could get it out. Luis wanted to leave his door open, but I said no way. I tried to convince him by talking about fire safety. Doors should be closed--harder for a fire and smoke to get to him. I think it worked. Kind of. And lastly he wanted to fold up a blanket and put it by Manny's bed, just in case he falls off. Sounds nice, but is it really necessary? Manny's bed is just a crib mattress on the ground (maybe 3 inches off the floor). And we have carpet.

We amazingly made it through the night without any problems. I went to go get him in the morning so we could drive Luis to school. His bed was empty. I thought, "Oh, great. Luis' worst fears are coming true." (He also worries about someone coming to steal/kidnap Manny through the window.) Then I thought, "Stay calm. He has to be in here somewhere." His room isn't really that big. I tried calling his name. Nothing. I looked around and didn't see him. Then I saw his small pop up tent and looked inside. There was Manny curled up, sleeping. I laughed super hard and tried to take a picture. For some reason he had decided to sleep in his tent. This all happened in a matter of seconds, but you know how your mind works super fast.

I actually am very lucky to have such a cautious and caring husband/father for my children. I just think it's really funny and don't want to forget these details.

More Manny

More funny things that Manny has been doing and his accomplishments.

Luis has been trying to teach Manny that there is a baby in my tummy. So now Manny likes to try to peer inside my belly button and say, "I see you!" or stick his finger in and say, "He's touching me!"

Manny loves to sing. All the time. Mostly Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and often he comes up with other words or sounds to replace those words (the most ridiculous being "Mama Squatty Pants." Not quite sure how he came up with that, but that's what he sang super loud while we were at Wal Mart. At least it was Wal Mart, right? I've seen worse things there)

Since we have moved and things are not quite put away nicely Manny has insisted on watching some movies that he finds. His latest favorite is Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He is not allowed to watch all of it (especially the part at Potiphar's house), but he loves it. For serious. And he walks around singing the songs. His favorites are " Go, go, Joe, Go go Joe, Go go go Joseph!", "I closed my eyes, drew back the children (he has since learned that the word is curtains, but those words are easily confused, right?), Any Dream Will Do," (and this one is complete with the ahs sung by the children audience), and "Jacob, Jacob and Sons." Makes me laugh everytime.

He also gets upset if he can't reach a note. He has a pretty good sense of tune (for an almost 3 yr-old) and gets really frustrated when he starts singing too low and can't sing the tune how it is supposed to go. I have been trying to tell him to try starting a little higher, and surprisingly it usually works, he actually does it.

Manny is really sensitive to smells. He notices everything. If we are walking and he smells something bad he almost cries. I tell him we have to walk fast (past the dumpster, or a random bad smell on a trail) and the smell will go away. This also includes tooting. Even with his own toots he gets upset and yells, "Something's stinky!" I have recently taught him to wave his hand really fast and maybe it will go away faster. Very funny to me.

Manny is doing super awesome with the potty training. I can only think of one or two times I have had to change wet underwear and only one time poop (just a tiny hard turd, thank goodness) out of underwear since we officially started in May. And now he even wears underwear to bed, now that he is in his own bed. I was always afraid to just leave him in underwear since he was sleeping with us. Changing queen-sized sheets is a lot more annoying than changing toddler-sized sheets. Which brings me to my next exciting news.

Manny sleeps in his own room! It has been a long time and with a lot of hard work, Manny included, he goes to sleep on his own, in his own room (which he will someday share), and in his own bed.

On a side note--am I the only moron who can't figure out spacing on this blasted blogging site? I can't get it to tab, I can only sometimes get it to leave spaces between paragraphs, etc. I'm just trying to differentiate between paragraphs and tabbing and spacing is all I can think of, and it won't let me do it.

Iowa Vacation, New Apartment, etc

I have not really been blogging because I don't have really any pictures, but I shouldn't let that stop me. (Actually it's only partly because of the pictures. Mostly because I'm lazy.)

Warning: Most of this is a log of my vacation, since this is supposed to be my journal, so if you get bored by reporting of events--Do not read. For serious.

Manny and I went to Iowa and Wisconsin for my sister Jessie and Justin's wedding. It was so fun! Manny loved going on the airplane and talking to everyone he saw, especially the flight attendants. The first lady was very nice and gave Manny a nice pair of wings to put on his shirt. And everytime she would pass walk by or talk in the microphone, or even move up at the front, he would say, "There's my airport lady!" This continued on every flight (2 to get to Iowa and 2 to get back to North Carolina).

Most of the trip was just having fun and hanging out with my family. We went to one of my cousin's high school graduation open houses, we went with Sarah's family to the Mines of Spain in Dubuque and had a wonderful time hiking (who knew Manny was such a good hiker. He loved to keep up with his cousins, and even got a piggy-back ride from Uncle Joel. Uncle Joel also taught him to put a piece of long grass in his mouth to chew and look cool.), hung out with Meggie's family, and Uncle Eric accompanied us to all of these activities.

Then it was time to drive to Wisconsin for the wedding festivities. We stayed at Aunt Jessie and Uncle Justin's house with one of their dogs (Dillinger) and their 3 cats. Manny was quite nervous at first, but learned to like them, especially Henry the cat (he even wanted Henry to sleep with us, but Jessie told us that Henry wasn't very smart and would most likely pee on anything that slighlty resembled a litter box, maybe a suitcase for example, if he couldn't find it. Needless to say Henry was escorted out of the room shortly after this information was delivered).

Jessie and Justin were very nice and had a barbecue at their house for us. Then then the party was the next day so they were gone most of the day for the preparations and pictures and such. We only had to show up at 4 or 5 or something for pictures, so we went to Sarah and Meggie's hotel to hang out. It was quite an adventure driving in Milwaukee. There was lots of construction and nobody in our car really knew where we were going (Mom, Me, Eric, and Manny). Lots of back seat driving, people getting frustrated, driving each other crazy occurred. I personally thought the whole experience was quite funny and somewhat of an adventure, but I don't really think Mom thought it was as funny (she was in the back seat and asked us to lock the doors when we got to downtown Milwaukee and saw "scary" people and bars on most of the business windows). Then the driving Moms crazy (Sarah and Meggie and Mom are included in this crazy comment) continued as we got ready for the wedding pictures. Nobody is ready on time, everybody is crammed into 2 rooms, babies are trying to sleep, etc. Again, what a fun adventure, but I wasn't allowed to say that at the time. I'm sure they think it's funny now.

Jessie and Justin's party was the fanciest party I've ever been to, I believe. Waiters walking around with fancy food, a man playing bagpipes, Irish dancers complete with the fake, bouncy, curly hair, etc. They also had amazing food. Delicious. This was followed by one of the best dance party receptions ever (Sarah and Jessie's are some of the only ones I have super enjoyed, where everyone is dancing, they play great music, etc. No offense to anyone's I've been to, maybe it's because it's my family's). Manny loved to be around Aunt Jessie and her princess dress. Manny kept asking throughout the reception to go see Jessie and give her a hug. Addison was an amazing dancer, didn't stop the whole time, and he had some pretty sweet moves. Actually all the boys were pretty good dancers, but Addison was the most enthusiastic. Manny's dancing mainly entailed jumping and playing air guitar. All of the boys looked absolutely adorable in their kilts. And sadly my camera got lost/stolen at the reception, hence the no pictures.

The next day Justin's parents had a great brunch for the out of town family. Eric and I were in charge of the desserts so we made nearly 12 dozen cookies and 2 pans of brownies. We brought them in a couple of tupperware boxes, and were told that we needed to take them over the day before so Justin's mom could be able to set up for the brunch and make things look fancy. Fancy, I thought? How do you make things look fancy? But when we went the next day everything was organized on dessert/cake towers. I was super impressed. Who knew our super ghetto desserts could look so fancy? Almost made me want to buy one. For the many fancy parties I like to throw (actually I don't throw any parties, but maybe I would if I had a dessert tower). Almost.

Jessie looked absolutely beautiful and Justin looked very handsome and we are so excited that he is offically part of our family. We had such a wonderful time visiting everybody and can't wait to see everyone again.

We returned safely and were able to move to a new apartment. Yay! We absolutely love being in Cary, with all it's parks, lakes, closeness of everything, and fun things to do. And great for me is that the temple is only 11 minutes away!!

The weekend after we returned I took a ridiclously nerve-wracking clinical test, and thankfully passed. Took a couple more tests, passed, and am now awaiting my dental hygiene license.

So, it is now July and I still don't have a license or a job. Hopefully things should come together really soon. You'd think I would've done more blogging with all the time on my hands. Ha! Ha!

Graduation!

I graduated! Sadly, that doesn't really mean anything. I still have to take National Boards and State Boards. But at least I am done with school.

Here are some photos of my graduation. Well, the aftermath. Apparently Manny was super bad during the ceremony so Luis couldn't stay for the whole thing. They ended up playing in the soccer field until the ceremony was over.

Here is a nice view of Papi's robot leg and my awful choir robe-looking outfit. Who designs these things?

I tried to get some nice pictures of us as a family without the outfit, but it didn't quite work. Oh well. I tried.

What a cheeser.

More smiles that make me smile.

Primary Temple Trip

Recently our Primary had a trip to the temple where they got to walk around the temple, the temple president and his wife spoke to them and gave them a "tour" of the outside of the temple, and then eat lunch afterwards. It was really fun and I think the kids really had a great time and felt the Spirit. Manny still talks about it and wants me to take him to the temple often.

Obviously I am not a photographer, but I tried to get a few pictures of the temple.

Even though I am only showing a few kids, there was quite a turn out of kids and their families.

And I am hoping to get a copy of the picture of all the families in front of the temple.

And I just had to add what a great artist my little boy is. He loves to color. And the best part is he doesn't just scribble scribble and ask for a new paper. He had those same 3 papers for 2 days and just kept adding more and more until every white space was covered. What a funny kid.

Potty Update

So, I was wondering if Manny would be wearing diapers forever. Everyone kept telling me that he just has to decide to do it. So true. He's been doing a great job at home (since I have been home from school), but I have been a little nervous to take him out in public. We had made one outing to the doctor (which was a great success, I must say). No accidents while we were out and he even went potty in the big boy potty while there (and we were gone for 2 plus hours [WIC appointments take a long time]). This was the second time in a big potty standing up.

And today we went to church and had no accidents!!! Yay for Manny! And excitement for me! So I hope I am not jinxing it, but I think we are off to a great start. Progress.

More Ridiculousness

Sometimes I think kids might speak another language. Manny says a lot of things that I don't always understand right away. For example--what would you think "Pennysaucer" might mean? It later developed to "paNEEsaucer" with the emphasis on "nee." Finally, months later, he used it in a context I could understand. We were playing a game of stop-go (red light green light) and he told me to be the paNEEsaucer. Get it now? Police Officer! Maybe someday I will figure out all that he is saying. Any idea what BACKetabow means? Me neither. I'll let you know when I find out.

And today during sacrament meeting we had an entertaining re-enactment. I have been trying to encourage reverence and thinking about Jesus especially while the sacrament is being passed. It kind of worked today. Manny decided to re-enact Jesus calming the storm. He pretended to be asleep while I had to pretend to row the boat, then act scared, then wake him up (he got to play the part of Jesus) and tell him I was scared. Then he would hold up his hands and say, "Peace. Be still." Now repeat multiple times. Pretty funny, huh? Not necessarily what I was going for, but it's better than playing with motorcycles and making loud noises. And all of this dramatic acting was even done in whispers, so I'd say it was kind of reverent. And it was about Jesus, right?