a long update

I know I know. I have been really horrible with the blogging lately. Life has just been so crazy. Plus my small camera broke awhile ago and it's really hard to take pics of the two of them with my nice camera by myself. Since I have to be able to just toss it aside to stop what disaster is about to take place. And than I lost my flip and now that I found it, it too has broke. I have plenty of older videos to share it's just a matter of sitting down and editing them.

The two of them just keep us going non stop. Joaquin is now a professional crawler and will for the most part try to walk before crawling to get someplace. He is up to a whole 10 steps. He can say "Mama" and "Dada" Sometimes he will say "dog". Yesterday I had him saying "out mama, out mama"

For awhile there all he wanted was the basic step 2 baby food. He would gag if we tried to give him anything but the plain fruits and veggies. And table food forget it. Well all of sudden he has decided to skip all that and go straight to big people food. He loves noodles, peas, carrots, potatoes, apples, and bread and cheerios. The other day he even ate some zucchini. Yesterday he had his first box of animal crackers. He insists on feeding himself so it's a pretty slow process since we can only give him one piece at a time otherwise he tries to shovel it all in at once.

He loves music and dancing and clapping and watching his big sister sing and dance. The other day she was singing along to deck the halls, especially the "fa la la la lalala" part and pretty soon I start to hear Joaquin "la la la la la la" Isabel has also taught him to draw. He has little trouble getting enough pressure to actually make a mark and the crayon does find it's way into his mouth A LOT but he's definitely got the idea.

His two favorite games are peek-a-boo and keep away. Anytime he's crying Isabel will go running up to him and start playing peek-a-boo and it almost always makes him stop crying. He has started mimicking her and placing his hands over his eyes and opening them. He also loves to throw a blanket over his head and pull it off when someone says "where's the baby?" For keep away, he will be playing with something or about to eat something and will hold it out towards you but when you go to grab it he takes it back and just giggles and giggles. Oh wait I forgot his other favorite game. "Run away from mama." He has figured out how to get past the gate. We don't have screwed into the wall yet just braced against it and after watching Isabel he's finally figured out to push it hard enough and squeeze thru. Isabel will start yelling "oh no baby's out" And he'll get to the other side and crawl as fast as he can towards the play room giggling mischievously the whole way. He'll even look over his shoulder to see if he are coming after him. And start going faster when he sees we are close.

Isabel is just Isabel. Her vocabulary is growing like crazy. We don't know where half the stuff she says comes from. Like she was talking to Uncle Seann on the phone and Uncle Seann asked Isabel what she was getting him for Christmas and Isabel says "I don't know, something cool I guess." Seriously where does she come up with this stuff? I took her with me to Joaquin's Dr appt and she was just chattering up a storm and the dr commented on it. "Boy she is just a chatty Kathy huh" "And she's really observant" and Isabel pipes in with "yes I am. I'm observant" The dr got a kick out of that one.

We are having issues with tantrums and a whole lot of "no's" but they are over pretty quick and there is usually a really good reason. Hopefully next year we can find a preschool for her cause she definitely needs to start interacting with other kids.
We have been trying to do numbers and letters with her but haven't found a way to grab her interest. She does know basic numbers and quantities but only when it suits her. Like if you ask her to count she won't do it but if she asks for 4 m&m's, she knows if you only give her 3.
She is proving to be a picky eater just like all the women in our family. She doesn't like peanut butter, only jelly and no crusts. She LOVES pepperoni, fruit roll ups, grilled cheese sandwiches, pasta, milk, cheese, pancakes, bacon and round tacos (taquitos). And will eat baby carrots, apples, bananas, broccoli because she knows she has to. We're still working on improving her veggie intake. I've started doing things like adding pureed veggies to pancake batter and muffin batter. So far she hasn't noticed a difference. She is has got to be the only kid who doesn't like sprinkles. Unless She puts them on the cookie herself.

She is into kung fu right now and has invented all sorts of moves or as she calls them her "cool tricks" and she runs everywhere. And she now has imaginary baby brother and baby sister. They are only a couple inches big so they can fit into the palm of her hand and she will carry them and put them to bed and take them with us. She'll ask if her baby brother and baby sister can come with us. Yesterday as we were driving away from the store she cried out "oh no you left my baby sister at the store" I said "no I didn't. she's inside the diaper bag" her"oh ok that was a good idea mama"

As for Moe and I, things are good. Tiring, hectic but good. I just got a promotion at work. My job didn't change just my title and more importantly my pay :) Always a good thing. Moe recently started overtime so the poor guy is even more tired than usual. We both are really ready for our yearly shutdown at work. We will be off from Dec 24th-Jan 3rd. Oh man are we looking forward to it. So far our big plans are to rest,sleep in, clean, organize, rest, watch movies, rest, clean, get rid of stuff, and well you get the gist. It just seems like the second we get one room really clean the room behind me looks like a tornado hit it, it's a never ending cycle and we just can't seem to get ahead. Just keep moving one pile of junk from one room to the next. Hopefully this shutdown will finally give us a chance to put things in their place once and for all. Especially since we will be offically moving out of the baby phase and getting rid of all the stuff that the kids of outgrown and no longer need. Making way for all the new things I'm sure Santa will be bringing them.

Hopefully this weekend I will have a chance to load some videos. And cross your fingers that we can figure out how to fix the flip :)