Amazing

Sometimes I am truly amazed at how simple it is for my 18 month old to entertain herself. Or how great she thinks some truly mundane activites are. I mean I know that her attention span is like that of a, well, an 18 month old, but seriously. This kid thinks playing fetch with the dog is Gods personal gift to her.


Bits loves to stand infront of our digital picture frame and just watch the loop of 25 pictures over and over again. And everyone once in awhile she gets this expression like "wow".... like she's never seen such a great picture before.


It's the little things that she appreciates. Like cuddling with the dogs, or trying to. Like climbing up into our window seat and staring forever outside at the leaves, trees, grass, etc. She doesn't watch tv. After 10 min. she's ready to move on. I love this about her. I love that she would rather puts blocks into a bucket, dump and repeat 37 times than vedge out infront of "Dora la Exploradora".


I'm sure the day will come when playing on the floor with mom is just not as cool as it is now. But meanwhile, I'm going enjoy it.


*Wait, did I say playing on the floor? Sorry, I meant her playing on the floor with me on the couch watching. Because lets be honest, at this point if I tried to get down on the floor Lord only knows how long it would take me to get back up.*

Latest word: "Punkin"

Collect Call

*Ring Ring*

Person 1: "Hello"

Operator: "You have a collect call from"

Person 2: "Havingababyitsaboy"

................

I hate West County

Consider this a break from the usual Castañeda update...

I’m sitting in Bread Co. getting some much needed time to work. As I was driving down Olive this morning in order to drop Isabela off with my mom, I noticed a woman walking down the sidewalk wearing what appeared to be a bikini at 8:30 in the morning. I just assumed she was running and opted to do her morning jog in something that wasn’t going to cause her to overheat. About 5 min. ago the same woman, this time with a pair of pants on, walked in to get a glass of water at Bread Co. She was clearly out of place amongst the west county snobs that stared at her and wondered what this dirty woman was doing in their neighborhood café. To my oversight this woman is not a jogger but more likely homeless. I have headphones on so I thankfully can’t overhear what people are whispering to each other about this woman’s presence in their Bread Co. However, just observing their disgusted looks makes me sick. This woman didn’t bother anyone. She came in, walked straight to the bathroom and then to the fountain to grab herself a water cup, filled it and walked out. She came in a few min. later for a refill, and then immediately walked out again. I didn’t see where she went but I’m kind of hoping she walks back in so I can see if she’d like something more filling than a glass of free water.

I’m sure this will give plenty of the lunch rush something to talk about tonight with their significant others and friends. On a day with a 36-hour heat advisory you’d think people would be a little more gracious and kind. Guess not.

Bathtime

Bathtime is one of Bela's favorite things. Tied with picking up rocks, and anything else involving water ie: pools, fountains, the dogs water dish, etc,
Here are 48 seconds for you start your day off with a smile.

Home again Home again, pheww

We've returned from our trip and although it was a lot of fun, I wouldn't call it a vacation. My definition of a vacation is relaxing. Being able to kick back and avoid the majority of responsibilities that await you at home. When you're traveling with a one year old, in a different time zone and sleeping at a different place each night including two nights on the ground in a tent...it's anything but relaxing.

In Coure d'Alene on the 4th

But that's ok. Like I said, we had a blast. The majority of the Davis family was there, minus a few St. Louis folks and, oh yea, my brothers. We got to meet the newer second cousins that we hadn't met yet, and introduce Isabela to some of her great aunts, uncles and cousins.

In Ronan

Montana is beautiful and I can see why people love it up there. The mountains are, as most mountains are, amazing. The weather was chilly though, and the days start around 4:30 and last until 10:30. Bed times were kind of lax. Thankfully we had no problem getting back into routine when we returned home. And when I say "we" I mean the kid.

In Glacier Park on the Road to The Sun

Speaking of kids...We find out in three weeks what this new one is. Exciting stuff, folks. Exciting stuff.

As of Late

Things around here have been insane. Heres the list...
1. Carlos has finished (thank the heavens above) his med school application and submitted it. However this only means that now he's receiving secondary application requests from the 14 odd schools he applied to. Which is a good thing, but just means more stress and more work.
2. Bela decided to turn two like 8 months early. Ok maybe not two but she's growing into that little personality of hers which has lead to temper tantrums, yelling, and downright orneriness.
3. I quit my job. My dad offered me a position to do development for him and work from home. Which is ideal as this has been something I've always dreamed of. However, even though I'm only committing to 15 hours a week, I'm finding it harder than I thought I would to set aside 3 hours a day to get work done. Carlos suggested that I utilize the 2 hours or so between when his alarm goes off for work and when Bela wakes up. My response was "I'm pregnant, I need to sleep until 8:30." Who's he kidding? Am I really going to wake up at 6:30 if I don't have to? Yea right.
4. We're leaving on vacation in three days. Not that this adds to a good excuse as to why I have been blog MIA for three weeks, but I thought I'd mention it anyways. We're going to Montana for a family reunion for a week. I'm super pumped, and can't wait for cool weather and 0% humidity.

Back to number 3, I love being home with Isabela every day. It helps that my parents are so awesome and still take care of her one day a week just to give me a break and a chance to get things done.
Speaking of which, I should be working. More later.

catching up

It's been quite awhile since I last wrote. A lot has been happening since then. My brothers and their significant others were all in town at the same time at the end of May. We had a great time all being together and just enjoying each others company. We had a lot and I mean a lot of family time and were able to celebrate my mom's birthday together. It was wonderful having them here and makes me sad after a week, both had to leave.
Carlos has been vigorously working on his medical school application. It's a lot of work and hopefully it all will be wrapped up by the end of the week.
We also found out we're expecting a baby. We had said all along that we wanted to get pregnant sometime this year. And although we weren't trying to get pregnant when we did, we're happy it happened and very much looking forward to the busy holiday season we'll be having with the new baby due on Dec. 23.
Bela is growing so quickly. She's walking now, everywhere. She has the greatest little personality even though with it comes a bit of an attitude from time to time. We're looking into buying a bike trailer for her so we can start taking bike rides together.

Sick As a Dog

Yesterday was one of those days that I would've skipped over if possible. Where is Hiro Nakamura when you need him? (sorry, Carlos and I have been on a Hero's kick with our Netflix lately.)
Anyways, Tuesday night while trying to put new curtains up with my mom, I started feeling sick. I thought I just needed to eat so I choked down some pasta with tai peanut sauce and chicken. Needless to say it didn't help. Around 11:30 I woke up with an intense desire to puke. So I did. and I continued to do so for most of the night. Waking up at 5:30 on Wed. morning I realized I couldn't go to work and unfortuantely, Carlos wasn't able to stay home to help with Bela. So I called my mom who turns out was up sick all night too.
Now, other than the three times while pregos and less than handful of college drunkness, I haven't been sick like that since I was a kid. And on top of it, I had to deal with a perfectly healthy and energized one year old. It was quite possibly the worst day I've had in a long time.
Thankfully, it was a 24 hour bug and I'm much better this morning. Which is good because we're having a tea party with my mom's family tomorrow to celebrate Bela's birthday.
Happy to be better and looking forward to enjoying this beautiful weather!

almost one

Is it really possible that our baby is almost a year old?? Sadly, it's true. 11 months have zoomed by and now we're faced with the inevitable first birthday. *sigh*

But cheer up, cause it's going to be a great first birthday!

On a completely different note...I've started making shoes. Being the crazy crawler she is, my monkey has a hard time keeping her shoes on her feet. They're constantly falling off and most days result in my giving up at trying to keep them on her. She has one pair that do stay on. They're soft-soled and made of leather. I'd put these on her every day if it weren't for the fact that they are turquoise and yellow. And although cute, only match a minute portion of her amazingly large wardrobe.

So, I got online to buy more and saw that these shoes are a whopping $20-$40. Now I have what you might call a mild shoe obsession but even I don't spend above $30 on my footwear. There's no way I'm going to justify spending that on her when she's just going to grow out of them in 4 months. So I found this website, and decided to enter into the world of cobbler. After finding some scrap leather bins at a local leather supply store, and cutting out the pattern I broke out my sewing machine and began my new project.

These are what I produced....

Cute, but crapy and only made possible due to the vulgar shouting match with said sewing machine. Thankfully I won and continued to stitch. Second try turned out so much better.

So, in my quest to be cheap, I've aquired a new skill that although has no benefit to my own shoe collection (other than saving money on her shoes so I can spend more money on my own), will hopefully keep Bela's feet protected, warm and stylin'.

26

(celebrating my birthday at Mosaic)

I turned 26 yesterday. I've never been bothered with getting older. I realize I'm not old, but I'm not getting any younger either. This was a hard year for me. A few weeks ago, I started being very aware of the impending birthday. I, for the first time, began to think about what life will be like in 20 years. What I'll look like, what Carlos will look like, where Bela will be in her own journey. I wasn't depressed neccesarily, just aware of the aging process. My moms response to all my thoughts was "you can age gracefully." As though that is the cure for dealing with old age. Maybe it is, what do I know about being old.

It's been a good 26 years. Years that I'm greatful for. Years that have been blessed with lots of love, friends and family. Years that have been accompanied by trials, no doubt, but lessons and ultimately wisdom.

This past year specificly has been a cadre of experiences. From being pregnant for the first time, to becoming a mother. I had some medical complications 5 weeks post-partum that left me nervous and scared. I lost a dear uncle this year. I took a trying vacation with my inlaws that in the end left us all closer.

"Crazy" best describes this past year and I'm ok with that.

accidently deleted

I accidently deleted my blog the other day while trying to set up my new google voice account. Consider this the new and improved version.