Budding Artiste

Siena has been drawing a lot (on paper, walls, bellies, legs, etc.) and her practice is paying off. She's finally able to draw something semi-decipherable. She even explained what she was drawing as she was drawing it. I can't even describe how proud I am of her for drawing a face and I'm left wondering what it will feel like when she learns to ride a bike or make a sandwich or play the piano. Aaahh, I love this age!!! (I have to write that down NOW so in an hour or so I can look back and remind myself that I really DO love this age.)

Presenting: FACE by Siena Chavez

8 Weeks

Our little Qiana is 8 weeks old today. I can't believe how fast time flies. It's been such a new adventure with her. She sleeps through the night (11:30 to 7:30!) She eats in less than five minutes. She wails her lungs out when she's tired. She makes fists with her thumb between her pointer and middle finger. She smiles a lot... especially after she eats. She is realllllly chunky, especially in her cheeks and thighs. We love her through and through!

Coldplay/Piano Junkie

Let's say there was a fire in our house and we had 10 minutes to evacuate everything that we treasured. What would I bring?

• Juan and the girls, of course.
• Our computer (it has all our family pictures and files.)
  
• The "Vital Information" folder containing important documents.
• Journals
• My purse and Juan's wallet

If we had 11 minutes to evacuate instead of 10, I'd bring:

• everything mentioned above, plus...
• The Coldplay Collection piano book
  

Okay, so maybe that's a little too dramatic (clothes, blankets, and 72 hour kits would come first,) but I have always loved Coldplay and I LOVE that piano book. Once I found it online, I realized that it's only distributed in the UK; I found a place in New Jersey that has it shipped overseas and to your door for only $4, so that was a nice break. Playing from it has taken up almost all of the "naptime break" time the last few days--"PRACTICE" being the justification.

A frustration I have when I see sheet music of popular songs is that the melody is written into the accompaniment. I like to just hear the harmonic background music and think of the melody in my head because it allows for more depth in the actual played notes. Anyway, this book has a third staff plus guitar chords so it doesn't detract from the song. Perfect! I also like that it contains every song from the albums, and not just the popular ones because some of my favorites aren't played on the radio.

Anyway, I thought I'd share my excitement, however trivial it really is in the big scheme of things.

Little Miss 'Lentes'

This girl loves to try on our glasses.

Exerci....ZZZzzzzzz

It's official: if you want to stay dedicated to an exercise routine, get a 2 year-old in on the action. Siena has been the one to tell me, "Mami, ejercisios! Musica!," every morning. It's great because she does it right beside me; it's so funny to watch, I keep going just so she will also. She and I have been doing P90X every morning and besides the buckets of sweat I'm losing, I'm also losing all the extra zzz's. We've also been trying to get in shape by eating more balanced meals and watching calories. This has been REALLY hard because I love to cook... more specifically: BAKE. We got to have a little break in the new diet this last weekend because our friends treated us to The Cheesecake Factory while they watched the girls. We hadn't been on a real date since the soccer game in July, so it was totally justified and relished.

Another new thing around here is the Merengue music coming from our walls every night. We've been taking online classes to improve our groove and because it helps us stay away from lounging on the couch watching TV at night. Hopefully we'll be semi-proficient Latin dancers at the Branch Christmas party this year. I definitely feel a little bit more confident about my dancing because I know the rules behind the moves, and Juan is getting really good at leading (...it's in his Latin blood.) Siena, of course, gets jealous because she doesn't have a dance partner, so I have to share Juan with her every few songs.

Singin' In the Rain

There was no rain today, but that didn't stop us from breaking out the umbrella for our walk today.

Halloween

The Flower Fairy strikes a crazy pose.

The Garden Gnome is sleeping on the job.

Together they are the perfect garden accessories.

At the ward Halloween party

At the Branch Halloween party

Qiana's got a really bad bout of baby acne right now. It's all over her face, scalp, neck and back (this picture was taken when it first showed up, now it's even worse. Her poor face doesn't have a smooth spot on it.) I thought it was a rash so I called her pediatrician; however, she told me it's common and that I shouldn't worry. I can't help but wonder if she was just trying to get to the next caller on hold; because of the H1N1 outbreak, I was on hold with seven callers before me and I can imagine how swamped their office is.

I really hope it's just acne.

She's getting chunky!

HDA Conference in Houston

Rubbing shoulders with the bigwigs.

They got to take a trip to NASA on their spare time. Luckily, there was an open house that day so they got to see quite a bit.

No big prizes this year... but they're going to "up their game" for next year's poster contest.

Juan really enjoyed the conference and he wants to go next year in Chicago.

Phillies '09 National League Championship Win

As I mentioned before, we have been immersed in Phillies baseball. Besides going to a few games this year, Juan got to go to the winning championship game. He and Kurt lucked out (again) with second row seats behind 1st base. The Adamson's lended us their zoom lens, so Juan got some awesome pictures of the game. (p.s. We were easily able to sell the World Series Game 1 tickets on an online ticket auction... wahoo!) Let's hope the Phil's do well tonight!

Juan's 2 seconds of fame... on the jumbo tron... taking a picture of the jumbo tron.

They got pics of practically everyone on the team, but I don't have the patience to put them all up.

Kurt's 2 seconds on the jumbo tron with his front row buddies.

Here's What I've Been Up To... Besides Motherhood.

• Designing for our Dental School homies. These business cards won 1st and 2nd place in a school competition and we got $100 (plus bragging rights) for the work we did to get them printed for all the third year students. It took about 15 hours start to finish because a bunch of students kept changing phone numbers/e-mails/names but hey, it was $100 and we got to spend a lot of time together and with our friends, Mr. InDesign, Ms. Illustrator, and Miss Photoshop.
• More Designing. This poster was the main project of the last couple of days. Juan just left today for a Hispanic Dental Assn. Conference in Houston; he, along with Kurt and another kid from school, is going to present in a poster competition a summary of their organization's community outreach efforts. This is actually the second version; the original poster we designed was 3x4 ft but we just received information telling us it had to be 4x8 ft. The first poster had already been printed, so we had to eat the cost of that, but we were able to re-arrange and add elements, as well as find an overnight printing and shipping company so luck was in our favor. The winner of the competition gets $750 for their school chapter, so we're all keeping our fingers crossed....

• Designing a blog for the Temple Hispanic Dental Association, but I have to fix a painfully obvious Photoshopped pic before I can admit the website address.
  
• Scoring awesome World Series Game 1 tickets... yeah, as luck would have it, we got in the system AGAIN. The second it turned 10:00 am yesterday, I clicked into the Yankees ticket system and miraculously was able to buy some. (It was 99% risk-free: we're totally auctioning them off and going to make some nice "elbow-room moolah". Speaking of Major League Baseball, there will be a post in the near future about the game Juan got to go to last night.)
• Sewing... another future post.
• Teaching piano lessons again. It's good to get back in it after a little dry spell. I've got eight students in total: three who have already started, and five more committed to start soon.
• Baking. I wish I had the excuse that my body is deficient in sugars and fat and that it's screaming out warnings with cravings for gooey cookies and moist cake. Unfortunately, that's not the case, but my self-control is still trying to tell me otherwise. If you also want to ignore your self-control for a moment, go HERE for an AMAZING recipe!

...I'll end on that sweet note.

ps. I miss Juan already. A lot.

Shoes

She loves her pink shoes... probably because they go with every outfit. Does this little girl have style or what?!

Thanks Gwaaan-ma!

First Real Haircut

=

Matchy Matchy

The single most asked question we got from people before and after Qiana was born was "How is Siena (going to be) with the baby?" We didn't know how to answer before, but now that the time is here, it is as clear as day:


What a relief it is to us that she has taken the baby in under her wing. She still has her 2 year-old moments, but she's been so good with being gentle (mostly) and motherly with Qiana. She does, however, take it upon herself to include a lot of aspects of being a mother in her treatment of her little sister. For example, the other night when it was her turn to say the prayer at dinner, she kept pausing in the middle of her prayer to hush Qiana and quietly remind her that we were praying and to "Be Ki-et Tiana"(--she still hasn't been able to kick the habit of calling her "Tiana".) And we get to hear play-by-play what Qiana is doing at the moment, thanks to our cute, little jabber box. Siena still struggles with a lot of pronunciation and enunciation so it's funny as she informs us about Qiana. "Tiana piano" translates to "Qiana durmiendo" (which translates to "Qiana is sleeping"... which is quite different from Qiana is playing the piano. Obviously, our job of deciphering and decoding is still very much alive.)

What else is new with Siena? She says "Homo" instead of "Homie" (which slang was taught to her by her joking, yet unwise mother who thought she'd instill a little 'Philly' in her child to remember her time here.) You can imagine it makes for awkward and embarrassing encounters.

She also loves to cook, it turns out. Slap on an apron, give her a whisk and a pot full of milk and she is in heaven. (Dulce de leche... so easy: 4 cups milk, 2 cups sugar, 1 tsp baking soda, and vanilla. Simmer for an hour.)

Her favorite song to sing is "Hola" which is the primary "Hello" song. She says her ABC's pretty well until the end: "...X, Y, 19,7." She used to say it correctly. I don't know what happened. As for potty training, well... that's an uphill battle that I will save for another blog post.

She has also picked up on the art of stalling at bedtime. Yep, she now says goodnight to everything she sees in the room, individually. "Buenas noches shoes. Buenas noches balloon. Buenas noches stroller. Buenas noches TV. Buenas noches stairs. Buenas noches little speck of dust of the floorboard... etc." It's still working for her because we are too humored by it to put an end to it.


Qiana is getting bigger and bigger and the only thing I really can say is that she is starting to look completely NOT like Siena, which is an unexpected twist. Other than that, she still just eats, sleeps and poops. Still healthy and moving along just fine though, so we're pretty happy.

As for us, we're still in the stage where we are re-thinking ever adding another "arrow to our quiver". We know it will probably go away with time as we get accustomed to more responsibility, but right now we (meaning I, in this case) am wondering why I thought I could ever handle more than one kid. It's difficult going from one to two. However, I am constantly reminded how much I love the situation we are in and know that I would have deeply regretted not having another child after Siena. I love these two little girls so much!!!!!!!!...(I would put more exclamation marks to really prove my point, but that's overdone in the blogging world.) ;^) <---- as well as that.

The Rest of the Story

(Nevermind that I got a little distracted before I could finish the last post, we're back up and running now.)

Visiting the farm and pumpkin patch

In Washington D.C. for some pretty important stuff

In the 'Manzana Grande'

Abuelo y Abuela

Kinks Out?

A few people have been telling me they can't view my blog... which is no surprise because I'm technologically impaired and must have goofed up the HTML somehow. Anyway, I've reverted to a basic background in hopes to repair the damage.

Any luck now?