Nursing Home

One of Catalina's favorite things to do is go the visit "the old people" as she calls them at the nursing home. :)  The other week Cata, Lucas, and I went with a couple of friends to join the residents during music time.  We danced along and handed out snickerdoodles that Catalina helped me make.  Cata likes to go to the nursing home because we talk about how we can show the residents God's love.  She's always excited when we plan a trip to visit them!  I can definitely see that she has the gift of compassion and loves to make people smile!

Lucas isn't quite sure about going to the nursing home yet, but loves to be around other people to.  He's always blowing kisses to people and is learning a lot of words right now!  He absolutely loves his classes at the Little Gym.

playroom time!

It's been so long since i've written any updates, so i guess it's time to start keeping up the blog again! So, since the last post, we've had another baby, moved and have had many memorable experiences :)

As far as updates on my little Catalina... she is about to start day school two days a week.  we went to the swimming pool this morning and she is ever more comfortable in the water after having swim lessons the first time this summer.  She can hold her breath and put her head under water! This week she figured out how to wink at her Papa for the first time. her favorite thing to play is make believe that she is a friend who is sitting alone and i have to go up to her and ask her to play with me... she seems to have the gift of compassion :)  She loves to go with me to visit "the old people" once a month at the nursing home. She's my little helper!

Now my little Lucas is quite an active boy.  He's developing a little temper whenever you tell him no or take something from him.  His only answer to everything is "no" and he loves to say phrases like "ewwww" "oh no" and "what's that".  Although he can get angry, he also gets scared when watching cartoons very easily! Lucas is also very demonstrative of his love! He loves to blow kisses and gives kisses freely always giving a big "muahhh".  He catches on very easily to concepts and already recognizes the letter "o" and points it out to us whenever he sees one on a sign :)

This year I am leading a Bible study for wives of physicians and dentists, facilitating a depression support group at my church, and am the assistant coordinator of our MOPS group, so I will be quite busy.

Pablo's still busy working at the downtown san antonio hospitals and will hopefully be switching to a  7days on 7 days off schedule, which will be nice as the kids and I love to have him around! he's also entered into the biggest looser contest at the hospital, so updates tobfollow... he has a 30lb weightbloss goal!

Children's Museum

Last Friday Catalina and Mami went to the San Antonio Children's Museum with some friends and had a blast! Catalina's favorite parts were shopping in the HEB grocery store, watching plastic fish change colors in a tube, and pretending to be a pilot in a plane. Lots or varied interests :) She is talking more every day and is saying a lot of phrases now like; "where'd it go?" "I find it" "there it is" "wash hands" wake up". When she wants to refer to something by color she always says "yellow, pink" no matter what color it is and when she is counting something it is always " 2, 5, 2, 5"! Although when she is playing hide and seek it's always "8,7,8,7" :). She will copy you when you say just about any letter of the alphabet, but when she sees letters, she always assumes it's a "B"! We've had several successful potty completions in the potty chair over the last month, but never ends up being recurring, so we'll keep familiarizing her with it. She now where's her "princess" pullups that she loves! Life has been a little crazy amidst our move and now living in an apartment, but Cata has been a trooper! Her only complaint from being in the apartment is wanting to play outside more, but we've been going on outings every day to keep her busy!

Diego

Well, it seems as though Catalina has her first crush... You know the Nick Jr. program, Diego? Catalina gets so excited every time she hears the music come on for the show and she try to sing along "Go Diego Go". She has a little Dora and Diego figurine and she's not interested in Dora, just Diego. She says the name Diego or "Dago" all of the time now... it's so cute!

Well, Catalina has already passed the 15 month milestone. It took her until she was 14 months to walk all over the place, although she started taking one or two steps around 12 months. What amazes me most is how much she talks. She's learning new words every day! She likes to try and copy whatever we say. The other day something happened and I said "crap" and then she responded back "crap", so now we have to be much more careful what we say around her :)

Nap time hasn't been going very well lately, but we'll still work on it. I at least put her up for "rest time". The other day I went to get Catalina after an hour and she didn't sleep at all, just talked or fussed now and then. When I opened the door she was sitting down reading a book in her bed.

Last weekend we went to the fairgrounds for the rodeo and Catalina got to see the pigs, horses, cow, goats, and other animals. She wanted to touch everything! She is learning all of the animal sounds right now, so loves to see any kind of animal.

On Monday we went to the zoo and Catalina saw a rhino and thought it was the elephant, so went up to the fence and started making elephant sounds. Then when we got to the elephant, she didn't make a peep!

Catalina definitely keeps us on our toes and gives us so much joy everyday.

Finally an update!

Sorry it has taken so long to finally post another blog. For some reason I was unable to sign in and just figured out how to fix it a few days ago. Catalina has been very busy this summer. From travels to California, Cabo San Lucas, and Ecuador! Last weekend she just got over a horrible flu bug that sent her temperature to 103... the swine flu... maybe? She now has three teeth showing, and two on the top that have broken through but aren't photographical yet. She is walking all over the place with the assistance of her toy train. She is not so interested in taking steps by herself yet. She is quite speedy when it comes to going up and down the stairs. The other day her papi left the living room for a minute and found her all the way at the top of the stairs! Right now the struggle is trying to figure out whether she is ready to go to one nap a day. She is sleeping in until 9 or later and sleeping 12 to 13 hours at night with one nap during the day about 1.5 to 2 hours long. She has also been getting up more at night as well which isn't so great... 4 times last night! Hopefully we'll get this all sorted out soon. Her new food that she enjoyed tonight was blueberry muffins as well as sampling all of the booths at the grocery store this afternoon! She tried everything from the baked beans to the gourmet cheese : ) Catalina's personality is becoming more evident all of the time. She loves talking... favorite words are "baby" and "peek a boo", likes to give hugs and kisses... especially to other little kids (the nursery worker told me that she knocked down another little girl the other week as she was trying to give her kisses!), and she is already having little tantrums when she gets frustrated... she starts on her tummy and kicks her legs a bit and then turns over to her back! Parenting is such a huge responsibility and I'm just praying that God gives us the wisdom we need to love and direct Catalina just the way she needs!

August and September

I know it's been a long time since I've posted anything. For some reason I couldn't sign into our blog, but now I figured it out! Catalina had a very busy summer. She is already filling her passport with stamps from Ecuador and Mexico.