15 months

All my life I heard that the second you see your child you fall madly in love. Its the only person in your life you love without having to get to know first. Im not going to lie, it didn't really happen like that for me. I have a feeling Im not the only one, but maybe one of only a few. Its not that I didn't love Santi, of course I did. I loved him before I knew him, but it didn't happen as everyone else said.

The moment I saw my baby for the first time I felt odd. I felt as if he was someone else's child. It was all a little too surreal! I thought he was great, but not really real. It was such a weird feeling. As the months have gone by and I have gotten used to the fact that I do have a child I have fallen more and more in love with him! I feel like now I understand what everyone was talking about before.

Santi is the greatest thing that has ever happened to Nolan and myself. He is such a little sinner, from day one, but he is so perfect at the same time. I am officially one of those moms. You know the ones? The ones who think their child is the greatest thing that has ever happened to planet earth. Everyone else is wrong though because Santi is the greatest thing!! Haha! It can be so annoying to hear other people talk about how amazing their child is...and yet that is what I do.  Santi is all I can hardly think about. What a precious gift from God he is to me! He is totally making me a different person.

He is a very smart little boy and knows how to win my heart! He just recently started
handing out hugs and kisses freely! He melts me!

Little man is 15 months old today. The first few months went by sooooo slowly, but now time is flying by! I can't believe my tiny little baby can run, kick the soccer ball, play with cars, laugh at us doing silly things, make silly faces, dance, do puzzles, enjoy books, and have such a great personality. He is too young for all of those things!!!! He was just born like yesterday! How is this possible?

He LOVES puzzles!

To celebrate being 15 months, we went to the doctor. Im not sure that is what Santi would have chosen for the day, but its what we had to do. You would have thought the world was ending when the doc had to look in Santi's ears. Bless his heart! Lets just say he isn't a fan of getting checked out. All is good though. Mr. Pants is very healthy! He is in the 25-50th percentile for weight and 75-90th for height! He is above average in everything they check for at this age including fine motor skills and language development. Thats my boy!

Here is my favorite video of Santi thus far in life. He is laughing so hard he can hardly breathe. He is pretty sure that his Papi hung the sun, moon, and the stars. He cries every day when "dada" leaves for work and screams for joy when he comes home.

My redneck, tan, blonde, Peruvian child.

It's what we do

It's official. My baby has a personality. And it's cute and funny and always looking for attention. He is no longer the tiny little baby laying on the floor not being able to move or do anything for that matter. How did that happen? Just yesterday I didn't know what to do with him in the hour or so he was awake at a time.

Now he runs around the house jumping off anything and everything. 

He takes blocks and other assorted weapons and hits them on every object to see what sound they will make. I say weapons because anything he carries he at least thinks about throwing. We are working on that! Cars hurt when they hit you in the face though. Just sayin'!

Santi will do anything to get attention. He will wave at total strangers. He flirts with everyone.

He runs around the house screaming "gggooooooooaaaaaaallll!!!!!!!!!" The Latino in him is coming out!

He makes all sorts of faces and noises. Auntie Bri says one of the sounds he makes sounds like a guinea pig.

He loves cars! He almost always has at least one car in a hand.

All food and drink is "banana".

He is a very good nap taker and for that I will always be thankful!

He loves being startled! 

He "barks" like a dog and "meows" like a cat.

I gave him a puzzle and within 2 days he learned how to put each piece in without any help!
This is how Papi is treated on his lunch break!

He hates goodbyes, especially if Papi is the one leaving!

He is exhausting, but the greatest thing that has ever happened to us!!

Many faces

Santi likes to make faces. About once a week he discovers a new face. The last 2 have been my favorite. This kid makes me laugh sooooo hard!

A couple days before Jesse left Santi started making this face. He got a ton of laughs
so he did it over and over and over and....

Then it turned into a little more like this...

Finally it capped off into this. His cousins would say "Santi do your face" and he
would do this. I think they asked him to do it a little too much and he
got sick of it because he wont do it anymore!

This week he has started his new face. He looks mad, but isn't at all. He scrunches his
nose and sniffs in and out. Not only does it make a cool sound, but he is
proud of himself because he can scrunch his nose.

He does it over and over and over and....

It cracks me up because he looks mad!! Hahaha! He does this in stores and
I know everyone thinks he is a little brat, but I don't care!! I love it!!

A day in the life

Today has been a fun day. First Santi got up extra early, just because. But since he got up so early he took a never before heard of TWO AND A HALF hour nap. I actually had to wake him up to go have lunch with Nana and Uncle Jesse. Then when we got home Nana came to play for a little bit. Then to make things even better Papi came home for lunch. Then right as Nana was leaving our much anticipated package arrived. It was about an hours worth of fun and it doesn't even have wheels yet. Oh to be a kid again!

Precious little sleepy toes.

He was so tired he didn't even wake up with me taking his picture, with the flash, right in his face!! This was 2.5 hours in!

Don't even need wheels to make this thing fun!!

The Reader

Where there is a little Santi there is almost always a book. I love it!!!

The couch

Santi has been able to get up on the couch for about 2 months now. Thankfully he hasn't been interested unless someone else is up there, until today. He discovered he could get up all on his own, and bounce, and jump off. Yeah, jump off. He has been jumping off the fireplace for a while (its about 8 inches up) and I think in his little head he thought it would be about the same. Yeah, not so much. He jumped off (thankfully I was only about a foot away) and landed on his feet, but it scared him to peices. It was a MUCH further distance than he had calculated. He cried for about 3 seconds and hoped right back up. Are you serious? What is it with boys? He wasn't about to let that little scare keep him down, literally. I then showed him how to sit down and scoot off. He thought that was fun, so he was up and down, on and off the couch for about 20 minutes. All of that time I was having a heart attack waiting for him to break a leg or his face. I know better than to not let him do it at all because he will then just do it while Im not looking. Its not like I can take the whole couch away, so its going to happen whether I want it to or not. Better that I actually be there and able to catch him or rush him to the doc if need be. By this whole fun event I have decided that children are not good for blood pressure. But man oh man did he have fun!

When he first re-realized he could get on the couch he was very calm and happily brought a book along.

Looking at cars and probably hoping Papi would come home soon!

Deciding his jumping method.

Post 500 jump/scoots. All that fun was very exhausting!

New Camera

Soooo.....I got a new camera! I really didn't need to be spending the money, but its the camera I have wanted for years and years and years. I never felt like I could just spend that much money on something I really didn't need, but when a friend was trading up and needed to sell her nearly new, spotless, perfect, beautiful Canon Rebel XS EOS Nolan and I just couldn't contain ourselves. Plus she needed the money to go on a missions trip, so that helped! Haha! Anyway, I normally take way too many pics of Santi throughout the day, but now.....oh my!! Im having waaaaaaaaayyyy too much fun! Nolan even joined in!

Our new toy. I love her and think I shall name her. Ideas?

I utterly HATE peanut butter, but I know the majority of the world loves it. So I try and be
 a good mother and let Santi enjoy even though it is so sticky and his breath smells
like it for the rest of the day. How could I not give it to him? Look how happy he is!

Apparently I was taking too many pictures. This is his finger shake that he
 does when someone is being "rude"!

Nolan joined in on the camera fun last night!

He got this amazing picture of the babe! Look at those eyes!

He loves to "jump" off (I would call it walking off) the fireplace.
This is pre-jump.

Post-jump.

All our days include hours of staring at books! Love it!

I told him we were going to go see Nana when he got up from
his nap. He immediately ran to get his shoes.

He tried and tried to put them on himself. I had to break the news
that it wasn't time to go yet.

Now the question is...how many pictures will I take today??