Auntie

Auntie is one of Santi's favorites ever of all time. She is a constant in his life and he honestly loves her dearly! She has been wonderful to me in watching the little pants during one of my two classes a week, so she spends even more time with the little guy.

Here are some amazing pics she took of him this past week.

This may be my favorite picture of all time!

Apparently he went from a baby to a little boy over night!

The Auntie with the Pants.

Why do Papi's have to work?

Santi's favorite person in the whole entire world is Papi. When Papi leaves for work or even attempts to put on his shoes Santi freaks out. In a perfect world, Papi would stay home all day and play soccer and feed ice cream to the little man. Sadly, it is not a perfect world, so Papi has to work.

This morning was for some reason a little harder on the pants than normal. Santi cried real tears and was genuinely sad for a good amount of time. He waved out the window even after Papi's car was out of site. Like I said, its always hard to watch him leave, but it wasn't the normal upset, it was real tears and crying. I felt so bad for the little guy.

I was able to distract Santi long enough to get him to stop crying. But almost immediately when he stopped crying he ran over to the rack of shoes and got out Papi's sandals. If Papi wasn't gong to be home, Santi at least wanted to play with something of his. He was actually able to get one sandal at a time on and walk around the room. Cute little boy.

It takes a couple tries to get the sandal on!

Notice the concentration with the open mouth!

Thank goodness Papi is coming home for lunch!! And even better, tomorrow is Saturday and the boys can play ALL day!

For Nana & Danddad

My parents have been on a MUCH needed sabbatical for the month of September. Santi and I were lucky enough to be able to go visit them with some free sky miles we had. But heres the thing.  A month is too long! They need to COME HOME ALREADY! The one thing I can think of to temp them with is a little pants named Santi. So, mom, dad, eat your hearts out!

Santi now moo's like a vaca (cow)
neighs like a caballo (horse)
says bom bom bom for bombero (fire truck)
says bird
points to batman
wears batman rain boots with just a shirt and diaper
wears cowboy boots with shorts
And is adorable....and yall are missing it!

Come home!!!

Cheesy smile, batman boots, diaper, school bus puzzle piece, check, check, check, and check!

Gotta smile for the camera!

I LOVE his leg rolls!

Its all about the boots

I teach Spanish on Tuesdays and Thursdays each week. As I was getting dressed I decided to wear fall-ish boots since its getting a little cooler outside. Our kitchen is laminate, so my boots made all kinds of fun noises when I walked in there. Santi immediately noticed how amazing the boot noises were and followed my every move. 

Going back 12 months. In September of 2011 I found these beauties (where else but Goodwill). 

At the time Santi was only 3 months old, but I knew that every little boy needs a good pair of cowboy boots. I learned about boys and cowboy boots as a child when my brother renamed himself Cowboy Bob. I thought Santi would be 2 or 3 before he could wear the huge things. Little did I know at the time that I would be raising a GIANT MAN! 

So back to yesterday. I knew the boots would be too big, but I thought he could at least try them on and click around on the kitchen floor. Sure enough the boots are too big, but they aren't too big to stay on. Like I said, the kid has huge feet! Oh what joy I brought to the little mans heart. He cluncked around on the floor with great happiness. He thought he was soooo cool! He would look at my feet, then his, then mine, then his. Never did they fall off. Something tells me this is going to be a boot kind of fall for the little man.

I bet you didn't know Batman was a cowboy! He is!

Santi got to bring joy to his Great-Grandmother later in the day with the boots too! Being from Texas, she was overjoyed to see the littlest wearing boots!

Mamas cute boots and Santis cool boots!

Rain and giant puddles

Yesterday was the day I had been waiting for ever since Santi got his batman rain boots. It rained and rained and rained. I watched as the puddles got bigger and bigger and bigger. I kept waiting for it to stop raining so we could put on our rain boots and stomp. It never happened. So I did what any mom would do who wants to get out of the house. We put on our rain coats, boots, and hats and went to the park in the rain and stomped in puddles. Well, maybe not what any mom would do. We were the only people there, but man did we have a blast. You know the little man had fun because I had to dump water out of his boots and strip off his pants before getting back in the car.

Pre-puddles!

He was still pretty dry here, so it had to be near the beginning.

Starting to get the hang of it!

We got so much energy out running back and forth and back and forth!!!

That face says it all!

Mama and baby boots.

Back home. The boots are still drying out!

Two Sets of Twins

I was unaware that twins run in my family. Well, technically there aren't any twins twins, but uncle-nephew twins. David is the spitting image of Jesse. He is tall and skinny and has looked like his uncle since he was tiny. I mean they are identical. If they were the same age they would be twins for sure.

Lightning has struck twice. The second Santi was born I said he looked like my brother Joel. Although Santi has blonde hair and Joel has brown hair they still are soooo similar, its freaky! I do have to say. David looks like Jesse always, regardless of what face he is making. Santi can look like a bunch of different people, but his eyes always look like Joel and some of the faces he makes scare me they are so similar to Joel. So apparently after all, we do have two sets of twins in the family!

First set of twinsies!

Jesse, I mean David this summer.

Second set of twinsies!

This picture is the one that freaks me out! I swear this is Joel with blonde hair!

The greatest compliment!

I received some great compliments yesterday at the most random place, Subway. I ran to get some quick dinner after working a wedding all day. We used to live next door, so the owner knows me well. The owner is from India, but speaks to me in Spanish since he lived in Costa Rica for 8 years. When I walked in the young hispanic teenager took my order. The owner walked over and started speaking to me in Spanish and told his employee that I speak Spanish. The kid proceeded to ask me if I was a Spanish teacher. I actually got to say yes and told him where. As they were making my sandwich we made small chit chat (the teenager never spoke Spanish, we sort of would switched back and forth, but he obviously understood everything). The kid stopped me at one point and said, "wow, you have a really good accent, you have a better accent than I do and Im Mexican." I asked him if he had ever lived in Mexico and he said no, but that he visits every summer. I told him that I speak Spanish every day and that I lived in Peru for a year and explained how much that helps. We continued talking and he stopped me again and said, "you speak really fast too!" I was floored. What compliments! I live with a native speaker, so all I ever notice are the mistakes I make, he grammatical errors, the struggling to remember a word, the saying things incorrectly. I know my Spanish is good or I wouldn't be teaching it at a high school level, but hearing from a latino that they are impressed with my accent and speed feels really good! I came home with a smile from ear to ear!

Teaching Spanish to the Quechua kids in Pallpanccay near Cusco Peru, 2005.

Goodwill

When Nolan moved to the States not only did he not speak English, but he didn't have a car and wasn't allowed to have a job for several months. Thankfully we lived next door to a shopping center that had a grocery store, Goodwill, and several other small shops. Nolan fell in love with Goodwill. He was shocked at the brand new to slightly used things people would give away. Often you can find things that still have the original tags on them. I can't say it is his favorite store anymore, but he still stops by there often.

The other night right after dinner Nolan mentioned he wanted to run by Goodwill to get some new work shoes. He works with water a lot, so there in no need in getting nice expensive new shoes. I reluctantly agreed to go with him and brought along a fussy-ready for bed Santi. MAN am I glad I did. Not only did I find a pair of long-johns in Santi's size (to die for), but we found Baby Boden pants ($42 new), several baby Gap shirts, some cute Old Navy pants, and the greatest Batman rain boots ever. Santi has worn the boots every waking moment since.

If I keep finding such amazing deals Santi may never get new clothes! I guess thats the best part though. All these things LOOK brand new. Haha! No one would ever know I didn't spend a fortune. Thank you Goodwill. And thank you everyone who donates adorable clothes so I can buy them for $1.

Adorable pants.

The shirt on the middle right is my favorite. It has little arm "tattoos".

The boots that he loves with all his heart. He now points to Batman when I ask him where he is.

The best part is this is what I woke up to this morning. Nolan let me sleep in and this
 is what he was wearing when I woke up. Be still my heart. I could burst!

Say cheese!

I can't even stand it! This is what the little pants does when I tell him to smile for the camera! He is completely and totally edible! And I am an out of control mom who can't get over the cuteness!

GOAL!

I knew it was only a matter of time. At 15 months old Santi scored his first goal! He could do this ALL day long! He does expect applause, praise, hugs, and screaming "goal" when he scores! Im sure our neighbors love us!!

Oh the faces

Santi may not be able to vocalize a whole lot yet, but man can he get his point across with facial expression. Every once in a while he can be shy, but most of the time he wants to be the center of attention. He has noticed that when he makes silly faces people laugh. And when people laugh he gets attention. Thus, millions of silly faces...on command! Each of these are from this morning.

He now make the "stink eye" on command. And yes, he does this when I say "stink eye"!

Also he does "the face" on command. That always gets a laugh. I thought the lady at the bank
was going to fall out of her chair the other day when he did it for her.

This is the "smile for the camera" face. And yes, he ALWAYS does this one with his eyes closed.

An accidental real smile!

Presh!

Who you lookin at!"