Mateo Update

I'm currently perusing photos from the past week or two and thought I'd share some.

Today brought us great weather, so Rafi and I got the bikes out, tires aired up, and the trailer attached so we could all go on a family bike ride. Mateo really enjoyed riding in the "train." He would yell "choo choo!" as we rode. So cute.

As you see here, Pixel seems very nonchalant about being Mateo's horse. Thank goodness he's such a great dog. I don't think Marley (our cocker spaniel) would've put up with that. Pixel pretty much endures anything that Mat dishes out.




This is his most recent television watching position. (I snuck up on him with the camera.)





Lately he's been really into drumming - even when Rafi's not there to drum with him. Sometimes he likes to wear a hat while he does it and sometimes he doesn't, but he loves hitting all the cymbals. He'll sit by himself and practice his beats for about 5 to 10 minutes. He's a prodigy in the making we think!




And this photo is just because I like it. :)

Whatta weekend...

This weekend was my birthday weekend, and what a weekend it was! I'll summarize...

Thursday was my actual birthday - 31 years old. That morning while Mateo was in school I got my hair done, but really we didn't do anything special. I just made dinner at home. A couple of friends came over, and Rafi surprised me with a cupcake cookbook and a Wii Fit. Fun!

Friday was quite the event. I participated in a girls' night out. By "night out" I mean the entire night out, for we stayed in a hotel downtown. We started with champagne, moved on to martinis and mojitos with tapas, and ended up in a tattoo shop where two of our group got piercings - one nose and one daith (it's a part of the ear). No, neither one was me, though I did contemplate the nose piercing. It's always been on my list of "cool" things to do, hehe... It was loads of fun, though I admit to really having a tough time recuperating from it. No sickness or even hangovers, but the lack of sleep was more difficult to deal with than I though. Guess I'm really in my 30s now!! This is a photo of us gals before we left. (L-R, Tina, me, Gen, Mel, and Jessica)

Saturday night we had dinner out with a few other friends. This was a much calmer night involving only one martini. ;-) We ate at Habana's, a Cuban restaurant off of 6th street and were joined by Tina, Greg, Deanna, her friend Brad, Ingrid, Victor, and Karina. We were home to relieve our babysitter by 11. Thanks to Deanna and to Victor for my cool gifts - makeup, mirror, chocolates, and a cool stainless water bottle! And thanks to Gen for watching kiddos!


And now the weekend is over and the new week begins.

New Year's Eve

I know this is out of order, but I just discovered photos from New Year's Eve. I'll go back and add a few shots into the holiday update a few posts back, but here's a link to the gallery of them all.
New Year's Eve 2009

First full day of school.

So Mateo's first full day at school went pretty well, but apparently he did cry off and on. And when they were making friendship bracelets he got caught eating his. I thought this was out of character for him until I saw the bracelets - they're made of Fruit Loops! I'm with him - I'd rather eat 'em than wear 'em.

He ate all of his lunch and loved playing outside so much that he didn't want to come in. This is pretty typical. When I first walked into the door he didn't see me, so I got to watch him play along side his classmates. When he noticed me, though, his little face crumpled up and he trudged over to me with his arms out. After I hugged him, he started showing me all the toys in the classroom.

In the true finicky fashion of toddlers, he didn't want to leave when I tried to get him to walk out. So then he cried when I scooped him up to go. But he enjoyed the walk home. (I had taken an empty jogger stroller with me for a run before I picked him up.)

On a side note, his teacher told me that one of the little girls kept saying, "Mateo is SO nice." He's already got the ladies after hime! I admit to feeling a little lost with him gone. I picked him up almost 15 minutes early just because I was impatient. My little boy is growing up!! His school is only 3 hours a day, two times a week right now. What will I do when he goes to REAL school?!! I can't bear the thought.

Mateo's first day of school... almost.

In order for him to learn things I can't teach him at home (like how to wait your turn, stand in line, etc.), we have enrolled Mateo in "school." It's located literally blocks from the house, so I'll be able to bike or run him there with the jogger stroller if I choose. His brain is like a sponge right now, and he's interested in socializing with other kids, so we decided to go for it. Plus I get to have three hours a day, two days a week all to myself. (During which I'll do fun and exciting things like grocery shopping. hehe)

I woke Mateo up Tuesday morning for his first day of school, and he cried. He kept crying during breakfast, out the door, and even in the car. He cried going into school (partially because we took his sippy cup away). He was very shy in school, but after he saw the toys he perked up. His teacher Ms. Jaimes ("Hy-mes") is really nice. And the best part is that she is fluent in Spanish and volunteered to speak to him in Spanish! He loved all the play areas (kitchen/work bench area, blocks area, animal rug, and general play area). Because he had a bit of a cough and some runny clear snot, we were debating on whether to let him stay or not, but in the end we opted (for the other kids' sake) to bring him home. Of course, when we went to leave he threw a fit screaming "toys! toys!" down the hallway and cried again.

I really do think he'll do just fine there. He also has his own diaper cubby and own backpack cubby. They have P.E. class, and sing songs, and learn letters and numbers. I might mention he can name almost all the letters on sight. He confuses Y with X and K though, and G and C look suspiciously close as do S and Z. Does everyone think their kid is this smart? Cause I'm thinking my kid is really smart! :-)

Okay, okay... I procrastinated.

So I missed updating about Thanksgiving. And I missed updating about Christmas. And I missed updating about New Year's! What's important is that I'm doing it now, right? So here goes...

Thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving at my parents' house in Stephenville (the land of cowboys, UFOs, and football). We had someone extra at our Thanksgiving table, too - my brother's fiancee May. We welcome this talented pianist to the family, for we sure could use some talent around here! ;-) The Thanksgiving dinner was the norm and delicious as always.


Christmas. For the second time in our 6+ year marriage, we had a Christmas tree! We hosted Christmas at our house since Mateo is getting older. We were very fortunate to have my Mimi (my mom's mom) join us, too. For the first time in a long time I was very into Christmas this year. I enjoyed all the shopping, decorating, and meal planning. We combined both Cadle and Campana traditions together to create our own. On Christmas Eve Rafi and I cooked a Panamanian style meal with Panamanian tamales, ham, arroz con guandu, green beans, and homemade bread. I also surprised Rafi with his mom's recipe for arroz con leche. Everything was delicious, though those tamales were more trouble than they were worth. I would post a photo of it, but since we were elbow deep in corn and banana leaves, we didn't take any. I think next year I'll try to order some frozen ones online. On Christmas Day I roasted 6 cornish hens and served them with mashed potatoes, green beans, homemade bread and more ham. Christmas morning was not what we expected. Mateo was a little overwhelmed with everyone looking at him, so he clung to my side for a while. He ate the mini cookies from his stocking while everyone else opened gifts. Once he warmed up to the idea, he opened his which included a red retro kitchen from Santa, lots of play food, and an Elmo Live.

New Year's Eve. We had the Smith family over (Tina and Greg and half of Greg's family from Michigan) to celebrate. The celebrations aren't the same as they used to be due to having little kids ranging from 3 months to 22 months, but we enjoyed it just the same. The food was delicious (smattering of breaded greenbeans, mini empanadas, flautas, mini pizzas, veggies, and cheese and crackers along with rice krispie treats and cookies, of course). And the wine was great. Midnight proved pretty funny as Mary (Greg's step-mother) had some difficulty opening the champagne bottle in time. But after what can only be described as some funky dance moves with some hardcore tugging, she got it open.

So there. I did it. Now you're all caught up. :-) And for your further pleasure, I'll tack on a photo of our attempt at a family portrait.