Baptism

Our little Santiago was baptized! What a great occasion to bring family and friends together. Here are abuelos with their crew. 

The parents and godparents. 

Our family!

Godfather and abuelo. The best combo!

The aunts came in for reinforcement! Even bought and prepared all the food. Love you guys!

Regroup

Stay focused. Eye on the prize. What's the goal? What do you want long term?  How do you want things to turn out in the long run?  Big questions that get lost easily in the every day. The holiday season is coming to an end and the energy is winding down as well. The flurry of activity has thrown our family off in terms of sleep, health and routine. My goal is to get us back on track in the coming week. The baby and I have been sick for over three weeks. We are now both left with a big cough and lack of sleep isn't helping anyone. No fun. Last two nights have involved late nights of the baby being awake and talking (he loves talking to the Buddha head on the table) and him being so fussy you can't even put him down when he is sleeping. It has been five days since I left the house and had time, even a half hour, away from my kids. Not good self care. Trying to get better at that too.  For now it is a time to regroup and reflect on the next year's goals. To be continued....

Baby Jesus

Baby Jesus bought mommy a tablet!! Here's the first picture I'll post from it:)

It doesn't get much better than that!!

Merry Christmas

It's the most wonderful time of the year!!!  We are so blessed this year to be surrounded by our three beautiful children and so much love.  Last year I was eating McDonald's because I was so sick with the pregnancy. This year we have our beautiful baby boy and two ever growing big boys.  Merry Christmas!!!

Back

Santiago is back to sleeping in our room. He is almost five months and getting so funny. Such a smiley, happy baby. He no longer likes laying down and wants to be up and seeing the action. His cold (the reason he moved back to our room) is almost resolved so we are just about back to sleeping through the night. He is getting bigger and I have started donating the baby clothes. It's sad but they are mindfully going to good places. I continue to look at my family with amazement and joy. So beautiful. 

Tree Trimming

We (Angel and the boys) ventured out to Ace Hardware to buy our Christmas tree. I stayed at home with the baby because it was so cold. It was frozen so we had to blast the Christmas music and decorate it the next morning, which was somewhat brutal because the baby didn't sleep well. :( But we made it and I could smell it all the way back in our room. Delicious! In the middle of the night I took the baby out to see it but his little eyes stay closed after filling up on warm milk. I just love this time of year!!

Crib

Last night Santiago slept in his big boy crib in the room with the boys. It was hard for me and I missed him terribly when climbing into bed. Having him close set me at ease. With him in the other room I worried about everything. His position in the crib. Was the blanket placed okay on his body? But then I drifted off and so did he and we reunited as we almost always do at 1am for some warm milk. 

Don't want to forget

Things I don't want to forget:

Ignacio saying that he wanted to live with me forever near the woods so he could hunt our food 

The baby's sweet smile and small hands and luscious smell

Emilio's alligator tears

The smell of their heads

The feel of a baby pressed against my chest. 

Ignacio's smile and desire to make me smile. 

Their warmth especially when sleeping

Big 4

Here's to being four months! Talking, sucking on fingers, playing with toes and rolling over...did I mention drooling?

Big 6

Ignacio turned six on Friday and it was the first birthday he wanted to celebrate at the exact time he was born. He kept asking all day what time it was and then I figured out what he was doing. He had his annual physical (with the same doctor who held him when he was 2 days old) and passed with flying colors and orquestrated our day all the way through bed time:

Lego Time

Chinese for lunch

Target to look at toys

Pizza party for dinner

It was a fun day although Emilio struggled with not being the special birthday boy all day. We sang him happy birthday at night. My big boy!!

It was actually a birthday weekend with presents and singing each day of the four day weekend. It wrapped up Sunday with a small birthday party that turned out to be just as relaxing for the adults as it was fun for the kids. 

Keep growing Ignacio!!!! 

Feet

He can finally grab his toes and it is a whole new world. They are the best toy. They never fall, are always accessible and require no batteries. Let's hear it for feet!

Talker

Oh Santiago. He's a talker. He talks to the guitar. He talks to the toys. He talks to me, his brothers, and papa. He carries on indepth conversations with his feet and then gets frustrated when they don't talk back. He has perfected a high pitched screech that is highly effective in getting Emilio's attention in particular. He is smiley and bright. He is already an extrovert and apparently has so much to say. 

I love you more than...

The kids and I say "I love you more than (fill in the blank)" all the time. I love you more than snow. I love you more than dog poop. I love you more than strawberries. These are just some of them. Sometimes the boys say things that melt my heart and this week was no exception. 

"I love you more than sliding down a rainbow." ~ Emilio

In the dark

Last night I got home from work and I could hear the boys were still awake in their bunk bed. After nursing the baby so he would go to sleep, I quietly went into their room. I could see in the dim light that Emilio  was tossing and turning down in the bottom bunk. I snuggled my way in next to him and immediately felt his warmth. He was doing what he does every night, rocking back-and-forth snuggling and smelling his blankey and looking around the room. He snuggled in right next to me and give me a big hug and it felt so good to be with him still and quiet. I whispered to him that I loved him so much and he replied, "What you love me more then?"  I then told him that I love him more than snow. I could see his little half smile in the dark. It was then that he turned his back towards me and I knew intuitively he was getting ready to actually fall sleep. Then it happened. I caught a glimpse of the back of his head. It was really more the shadow of it in the glow of the night light in the room. It was a little boy laying next to me. Not a baby and no longer a toddler. A beautiful big boy. It's easy when you're with him every day to miss the change and the growth.  The days roll into each other and everything starts to blend. But sometimes,when you take a moment in the dark warmth of the bottom bunk, you notice it. The beauty of what you've created. 

Back to the beginning

Here he is in the exersaucer that Mama Ama bought nearly six years ago for another little baby in the family. The first post of this entire blog was of Ignacio in this toy. And here we are with Santiago. We miss you Mama Ama. Your gifts both seen and unseen continue to bless our family. 

14 weeks of cuteness

Falling all over in love

Some pictures from Cisneros family adventures of Fall 2013!! Enjoy!

Santiago

Santiago Angel. Oh my Santiago. My little strong snuggle bug!! Santiago is now three months old. He is already sleeping 6 to 8 hours straight at night and he rolled over at 11 weeks!! This is one strong boy!! He is so big and healthy. Did I mention that he's beautiful? 

Santiago has really gotten a rhythm going     I love waiting for him to wake up in the morning so I can go and snuggle him. It is very rare that he doesn't wake up smiling and happy. He really loves mommy and he really loves milk. He loves being sung to and of course being held but he also has a massive love affair with his hands right now! Some days I can leave him alone in the bedroom for a couple of minutes and I will walk back in and he is just eating his hands and looking at his feet. And he is a talker! He spends most the day trying to engage something or somebody. Yesterday he had quite the conversation with the chair and when the chair didn't respond he moved onto the guitar. Poor baby still doesn't realize that his toes will never talk back. He loves being up especially standing up and has started crying when having to be laying on his back. He wants to see the world and wants to experience the world. He started reaching for things about eight days ago and, while he can't grab onto them very well, he is coordinated enough to touch them. His eyebrows move in such a cute way when he's trying to focus on things. And he loves his brothers. His smile is so big when he watches them play when they make him laugh. And speaking of laughing he just started doing that two weeks ago! I think he's going to have a great big belly laugh. We just love him and we could never imagine life without him. It is only going to keep getting better and better!!

Emilio

Emilio David. My bright, strong-willed boy. Emilio certainly knows who he is!  We have been working hard to help him learn how to calm down when his mads and his sads get so big so fast. And believe me they get big really fast!! He's been earning stars when he's able to calm himself down and we did it for a month and it really seem to help. He still has a hard time transitioning from doing one thing to another but that's getting better too.  Sometimes it's easy to forget he's only three years old because he's so big!

It is his first year at preschool and he is doing so well!!! He is definitely not a people pleaser and he's not a cookie-cutter kind of kid. He dances to the beat of his own drum. It is one of the things that I love about him even if it can be very challenging at times! At school he is participating well and doing really great listening. It is fun to see him branch out on his own without his big brother. He seems to be doing well academically and socially. He's one of the only kids in the class that can already write his name! Proud mama!!

He has been such a great big brother to Santiago. Santiago loves watching him play because he is so much energy. Sometime Santiago doesn't know if you should admire him or be afraid of him because he's so energetic! His way of giving Santiago hugs is to smell him. I just love it as he nuzzles his head into the babies chest and takes a deep breath in. So sweet! 

Emilio has also become quite the storyteller! He's figured out that he can make up stories in his head and have them come out his mouth and get a reaction. After hearing that Ignacio went to a computer class at kindergarten Emilio created a lavish story involving a limousine and movies that he watched as he was driven to his computer class by his teacher. Crack me up. The funny thing is that he actually believes his own stories! Angel said he was that way. I will give him the credit for this one! We just love Emilio. Life certainly would be boring without him in our family. He keeps us laughing, often times without even trying.