Paintings by Mateo

Recent paintings by Mateo.  I hope that as he grows older he'll realize that humans stand vertically and not horizontally!!

My Family (I love his portrayal of Santi and how he's at the center of the universe!!)

Drawn: 18.Dec.2008

Self-portrait

Drawn: 20.Jan.2009

Random Shots

A Lazy December Morning ...

Corona del Mar

This is how a day at the beach begins: Mateo fully dressed.

Wow, the waves!  Let me just put my feet in the frigid water ...

And then the pants come off and Mati starts to run in and out of the water!

Then he decides to chase the birds (by the way, it was a COLD day!!)

And of course, no outing is complete without a break to play with his cars!

Arcade Fun - OC

Still some more pictures from our Christmas vacation.  This time, we all went out to the arcade so Mati could drive cars, shoot some hoops, learn to bowl ... all good fun.

Learning to bowl

Some people were having way too much fun ... and it wasn't Mati!!!

Shooting some hoops

Santiago at 4 months

Santi is absolutely GORGEOUS!!!  With his red apple cheeks, his olive-toned eyes and his smiles, he melts my heart.  

He behaved extremely well on both segments of the flight; flying with two, however, is a whole other ball game.  Traveling with Mati had become so easy - no diapers, no bottles, no baby food.  Now, we need to have toys to entertain Mati and Santi, plus all of Santi's baby stuff: that made for one BIG diaper bag and another bag of toys.

His pediatrician recommended that Santi start solids at 4 months.  His opinion is that babies who are formula-fed loose their stock of vitamins and minerals faster.  I didn't want to start solids until he was 6 months, like I did with Mati, but the fact that Mati comes home with colds just about every other week, made me change my mind.   Santi can do with the extra immunity protection!  So we started with apple sauce and then rice cereal.  Today the little monkey had some banana.  He's still getting used to eating from a spoon and the different texture of the food, but I think he's accepting it quite well.

While Santi continues to sleep through the night, he is still very unpredictable for his naps and his wake up time.  During our vacation, he varied his wake up time between 4:30 to 6:30, sometimes, even 7am.

He's starting to be more amused by his older brother.  He will crack up whenever Mateo does crazy things and turns his head when he hears Mati's voice.  But he's also Mister Sensitive and can easily get annoyed, especially when Mati is all over him.

Enjoy the pictures!

 

Christmas Eve

One of the best things about opening presents is seeing the face people make when they see their gift!  Mateo had a couple surprises, but overall, the best presents, like usual, were cars ...

My sister and Brandon got Mateo a Gandhi doll - out of solidarity when Mati pulls his hunger strikes!  Mateo wasn't too amused.

Mateo thinks, "Who IS this old man??  Why did they give me this? I want a car!!"

Now this is COOL!!!

Baking Cookies for Santa

Mateo and his grandmothers baked brownies and M&M cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. Mati is getting very good, as you can tell from the pics, at breaking the eggs.  Of course, the chef had to try all the ingredients along the way and was so impressed by the taste of the M&Ms that he had nearly all of them!  Mateo (and Santa) was very happy with the end result!

Disneyland with the Tios

Uncle Brandon and Tia Mercy surprised Mateo with a visit to Disneyland!!!  The happy trio left at 9am and didn't come back until 5pm.  The little guy had a wonderful time: he saw Mickey, Goofy, and Minnie, he ate pizza and an ice cream sandwich, drove cars, went on rides ... He was exhausted by the time they got home but refused to go to sleep despite being dillusional!