Maya - 18 months and counting...

Maya has grown so much in the last 6 months or so. The first thing that comes to mind when I think about her is personality. She is a firecracker! Her independence is almost alarming. She gets very upset if you correct her or discipline her, but unfortunately these are things that must be done. She’s stubborn, affectionate, fussy, and happy, all at the same time. Sometimes, she grabs my leg and says “Awww!” So darn cute! But she is a total daddy’s girl. It’s crazy! And actually, I don’t know who she loves more. Daddy or Jayden?

She follows Jayden all over the house and imitates all his little tricks. They love to play together, fight together, and laugh together. And at night they giggle behind closed doors. Jayden brings all the toys to her crib and I can’t understand how she can sleep. I always have to creep in to remove the books, blocks, plushes and anything else Jayden has tossed in there.

Maya loves to color and is very fond of the ‘handy dandy notebook’, as Jayden is. They spend a lot of time fighting over it. She also loves shoes. She is always finding a pair to put on. Usually mine or Jayden’s. I think my shoes are her favorite, but she can maneuver better in Jayden’s so she tends to gravitates towards his. I got her first pair of crocs and she was so adorable. Her eyes actually twinkled. She just stared at her feet and tip toed around the house with them. At bed time, she cried when I took them off.

And her words are much more advanced than Jayden’s were at that age. It’s great to communicate with her, but sometimes I think she’s growing up too fast. Here’s her list of words:

Ma-Ma
Da-Da
Thanks (13 months)
U-oh! (15 months)
No (16 months)
Close (16 months)
Ni-Ni (16 months)
Hello (16 months)
Ok (17 months)
There it is (18 months)
Wow (18 months)
Hi (18 months)
Choo-Choo (18 months)
A-choo (18 months)
Bye (18 months)
Ca (short for ca-ca) (18 months)
Awww! (18 months)
Amen (18 months)
Yellow (18 months)
All done. (18 months)
Hola (18 months)
Cheese (18 months)
Jay-den (18 months)
Mine (18 months)

Maya is not a picky eater by any means. She loves her fruit and vegetables. She’ll eat anything you give her. I have yet to find something she doesn’t care for. Thank God because I have my hands full with Jayden’s shenanigans. Maya is pretty good with a fork, but needs work with the spoon. For now, we continue to feed her, unless it’s a finger food in which case she feeds herself. I can tell she’s going to be like her mommy in the sense that she’s got a sweet tooth.

Not only does Maya complement our family, but she completes it. I am thankful to God everyday for her smiling face and the joy she puts in our hearts.

Pumpkin Painting and Cookies at Titi's House

Sunday, we spent the day at Mari's house. We devoted it to Halloween traditions. We planned on pumpkin painting with the kids.
Jayden tried his hand at painting, but he wasn't patient enough for the stencilling process. So, I gave him a paper plate and he was good to go. Except for the part, where he painted Titi's seat cushions, he did a great job!

Here's my crazy pumpkin. Jayden picked the colors. At this point, we lost control of the situation and the kids were out of control so we put them to nap and finished up the project ourselves. It ws alot of fun!

Mari was into her pumpkin and she spent a lot of time researching and planning out her design. It was very funny.

Here's the Frankenstein stencil she created. It's starting to take shape!

Ta-dah!

Meanwhile, mine is slowly transforming.

Next, we're on to cookies! We took care of rolling out dough and cutting themout and teh kids decorated! They were so into it. I felt sad that I had waited so long to do cookies with Jayden since the last time.

Maya is a silent contributor!

Jayden has decided this is going to be his happy face from now on. I hope he outgrows this stage!

Here are two happy boys!

The finished product...

Awww. And they tasted just as good as they looked!

Oh, here's how my crazy pumpkin turned out...

The Pumkin Patch (Florida Style)

My church puts together a Pumpkin Patch as a fundraiser for the children's church and we take the kids every year. Here's Jayden loving every minute of it!

Maya, Devonte, and Jayden...Did you notice they each have their little sticks ready? For what? Who knows. Maybe they are planning on poking the pumpkin to death...

They've discovered a hole in one of the stems and are taking turns poking it with their sticks.

Maya takes a turn too!

Jayden's looking around for more trouble I suppose...

Maya tries to hug the pumpkins...

Falling of the Leaves

Last weekend, we took the kids to a playdate in Celebration, FL. "Falling of the Leaves" was very interesting since we don't exactly have a change of seasons like we do in the north, so it was nice to see how they re-created it. It was a great time and the kids had fun. Here's Maya going down the slide.
Esteban got into it.

Jayden tries to imitate Daddy's pose.

A poor attempt at a self portrait. LOL

I love the fountain.

Maya goes for the playground one last time.

This is a poor shot, but I thought it was very cute! I never saw him come down the slide like that.

Did I wean Maya? Without even batting an eye?

On Sunday, we spent the day at my cousin’s house in Saint Augustine . We stayed until about 8pm, which meant we had a late night drive back. Jayden fell asleep as soon as we hit I95, but Maya took a long while before falling asleep. I actually couldn’t believe that it took her almost 1 hour to go to bed. As I got home, I wondered to myself for the first time ever if I should skip the feeding. Maya is 18 months old and I still nurse her once a day, in the evenings before bed.

It was past 1opm when we pulled up to the house and as soon as the car stopped, her eyes flew wide open. I grabbed Jayden and Esteban grabbed Maya. We were getting them ready for bed and when Esteban put Maya in her crib, she screamed and carried on. I thought to myself, I guess she’s not going to go to bed without being nursed. So I took care of her, lay her back in her crib and she drifted off into sleep.

A couple of days later, I thought about it again. I wonder what would happen if I didn’t nurse her. It was 8pm and we shut off the TV and headed into the room for our bedtime rituals. I changed Maya first and put her in her crib. Not a peep. Now it’s Jayden’s turn. She got a little antsy when I left the room to take Jayden to the potty, but settled down when she saw me come back with a chair. With both of them in bed, I went to the closet shelf to pick a book and read it to them. They carried on as usual. Jayden coming back and forth from his bed to my lap and asking tons of questions about the book and Maya did all her usual Maya tricks, like saying “A-chew!” over and over again and squealing in delight. Every now and then, she would acknowledge my book reading and say “Wow!”.

“The end.” I said. I tucked them both into bed, put on their music, their fan, said night-night and love you about ten thousand times and left the room. No resistance at all from Maya. The second night, I did the same thing and got the same reaction. Nothing, except for her saying Ni-Ni! I still couldn’t believe that it was over. But now, after the third night, I know it is. And I don’t know how to feel. Should I be happy? Should I be sad? Someone congratulated me. Thank you, I guess. But I don’t really know if I should be jumping for joy or bawling my eyes out because that sweet chapter of my life is over.

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with Jayden and Maya

It was our turn to host a playdate so I decided to take advantage of the timing and opted for Hispanic Heritage as opposed to Halloween, since that's what most October playdates are themed to. I was really excited about the concept and wanted to keep it simple, but incorporate food, music and art which are really important to our culture. Sadly, as the days got closer, I noticed that the guest count was dropping. About the same time, I got really sick and considered cancelling the playdate, but then I decided against it, thinking even if only one mom shows up, Jayden will have someone else to play with.

As luck would have it, everyone cancelled except for one mom with two boys and I would say the playdate was a great success. She was really cute, taking the time to dress the boys in themed outfits and made mexican cheese wraps to go along with the theme. The kids played with all the toys, colored, danced, played on the swings, and more. It was great. Four kids were more than enough for our celebration. Plus, Jayden got to observe Justin using the potty like a "big boy" and hasn't gone in his potty chair ever since.

Here's Jayden hoarding the crayons.
Here's Maya working on her piece, but she doesn't seem too happy about it, does she?

Justin finished his piece in record time and did a very nice job with it.

Christian was dancing to the beat of Fisher Price's Cantemos en Espanol. Too cute!

Miami Visit

As soon as I got back from Ohio, I had about 3 days at home, which was just enough time to unpack, do laundry, sort through mail, and re-pack. I was headed to spend time with my girlfriend Judy before picking up Esteban at the airport. Unfortunately, it was awkward timing, because she was moving and in between homes, but I did help her move the last of her things and helped with decorating her new home. Jayden and Maya got lots of pool time and one night, Esteban and I even got to go out on a double date with Judy and Ivan. It was awesome! We haven't been dancing in ages!!!

Here's Jayden trying to boss Maya around. Doesn't he get it yet? She has a mind of her own and boy does she like to show it...
Here's Gabby with Maya. She's Judy's eldest and one of my trusted "babysitters".

Here's Becky giving Maya swim lessons. She's my other trusted "babysitter".

It's been a while since he's been to a pool so it took him a while to warm up to it.

Here's Maya, sitting around watching Hannah Montana. I'm not ready for that yet!

Back to the pool! Here's Jayden showing off his confidence in the water and taking Maya around for a ride. Very cute.