Drooly, Drooly Drooly

In a previous post, I mentioned that I had forgotten about the "drooly stage". I really don't know how.

I was searching through old pictures and came across this one of Ella when she was exactly 5 1/2 months old.

Hey Ella, drool much?














On another note; we thought Ella had a lot of hair...Sofia makes Ella look like a baldy!

Sofia is sitting!!!

Sofia is sitting! How cool too that she's exactly 5 1/2 months today too.

She's been kind of sitting while leaning on something and sitting up for a couple of seconds here and there but today she sat for a couple of minutes AND while I was trying to get a picture she started to fall over. I went to grab her but she caught herself with her left hand and up righted herself! I was so impressed.

I also put her whoozit out in front of her and she reached for it with her right hand and brought it to her lap.

She worked very hard at the sitting and is now taking one of her super long naps, you know 45 minutes instead of 40minutes.

Now, on another note...little lady is a HORRIBLE sleeper. We didn't think it could get worse than Ella but Sofia was sent to us to show us that indeed it can.

I don't want to trade her in for baby girl: the sleeping model. I'm quite enamored with this model, but I would like to know where I can purchase the sleeping software upgrade. I don't even need to purchase the sleeping through the night software...just the once a night wake up version.

Good thing she's cute!

Seriously Mommy!

That's Ella's new phrase...

We have now officially entered the "better watch what comes out of your mouth unless you'd like to hear it repeated to you by your 2 year old" stage.

Every.single.word. that comes out of our mouths is echoed back to us by Ella. This is normally quite funny, but can also be quite eye opening.

Other Ella-isms include:

• Are You Kiddin Me?
• Mommy/Daddy/Mikka/Gaga/Baby Sister's Cute
• Go Chargers (whenever she see football on TV she shouts this, We've tried to get her to say Go Niners but she's not having it. She knows she was born in San Diego, and that's where her heart is.)
• That's nice
• Bye-bye, See ya later!
• It's a school day!

She's also become very into singing. She's always liked to listen to music, but it's just recently that she likes to sing along and actually knows the majority of the words. Her favorites include:

• Old McDonald Had a Farm
• Row, Row, Row Your Boat
• One, Two Buckle My Shoe
• Ring Around the Rosie
• Pat-a-cake

She has seriously been cracking us up lately.

Sofia is as sweet as ever. We are discovering that she is a car narcoleptic, just like her daddy. We can have the music blasting and Ella can be screaming, "BABY SISTER" and she just can't help but to pass out. It's pretty funny and a great thing, since poor girl gets totted around a lot in what should be her nap time. I guess that's what happens to the second kid.

Well, I know none of you really want to read about us, you really just want pictures, so here is our week in pictures.

On the weekends, we try to give the girls their baths together. They both LOVE bathing together. Ella helps me wash Sofia and Sofia just laughs and laughs at Ella.
We always have music playing and after bathtime we all dance around the bathroom for 5-10 minutes.

This is a very unflattering picture of Ricardo and I, but it's still one of my favorites. We were having so much fun.

We really didn't do anything exciting this week.

We just went shopping at Trader Joe's where Ella was so helpful (yes, she's wearing slippers. She would not take them off this day and wore them EVERYWHERE, including the mall...oy)


Good news-Ella is beginning to smile for the camera. Not for long, and not more than once but it's a start. At least she isn't screaming and throwing herself to the ground when the camera comes out.

I don't have a cute story to go with these pictures, I just like them. I will say though, I TOTALLY forgot about the crazy drooling stage. My god, this child soaks through bibs like crazy. Yea for cute bibs.

Such a sweet face.

THE END (literally)

Jump Jump Jump

Last night, Sofia got to try out the jumpey for the first time. She wasn't so sure about it at first, but once those little feet started moving, there was no stopping her!

Not so sure about this...

Okay, I can see how this can be fun...

Hillary For President!

Last night, Hillary came to NJ. My friend Nicole (Mia and Bennett's mom) and I were lucky enough to attend.

What a cool experience. I've never been to a political rally and the energy was really exciting

It was packed! In fact the fire department came and closed the doors on our faces! But we were lucky enough to get in to the overflow room.

Nicole and I waiting to get in to the overflow room

At first we were disappointed, since we had to watch the speeches on a big screen TV, not live, but then we realized we were seated right next to the baracade and standing right next to us was a secret service guy. So we started to chat it up with him (of course we did, right?) and he told us the Hillary was going to come in to our room, right where we were standing.

Proudly wearing my Hillary for President Pin

Nicole and I felt like little kids we were so giddy we were bouncing up and down! Such dorks.

Anyway, after the rally, they ushered Hillary into our room and it was like a whirlwind. People were pushing us up against the baracade and the secret service were yelling at us to move back. I swear I felt I was at a rock concert.

But we were right next to Hillary! Both Nicole and I got to shake her hand. The pictures I'm posting below will show you how close we were. I didn't zoom at all, in fact the one time my camera was accidentally on zoom, I only got a picture of Hillary's cheek. :D

It was a really wonderful experience. She is a wonderful public speaker and is quite beautiful in real life.

Nicole and I ended our fabulous evening at Chili's eating salads (good) and drinking beer (bad). :)
I'm so glad we made the effort to get down to North Bergen and waited in the cold. It is a night I won't soon forget.

4 Generations

I know I said I wouldn't be back until next Sunday but my mom called and demanded I add some pictures to my first post of the year so while I was looking for pictures of the girls to add, I came across a picture we took on our first day in CA during our Christmas vacation.

It's not the best picture because Sofia is very sick (horrible cold and ear infection) and Ella wasn't looking at the camera but it's very special.

4 Generations of "Gilbert" woman. My grandmother, Tissie (who Ella lovingly calls GG), my mom, me, and my girls. We are so lucky to have 4 generations and I am so happy that my girls have become close to my grandma, because in my humble opinion, she's the best grandma in the world.

Here's Ella and Sofia catching a ride with GG and Ella giving her a nice big kiss!

Well...I told you I wasn't good at updating

As you can see, it's been 20 days since my last post. I'm really going to make a concerted effort to update at least weekly.

January has been a busy month for the Martinez Family.

Ella

Can we say verbal explosion? Little lady is a talking machine. She also thinks she is quite funny. She now calls me "honey" since I call her honey quite often.

She's loving pre-school. Every Mon, Wed, and Friday she wakes up and yells, "School Day Mommy!". She also loves playgroups and has been such a great big sister. She LOVES "baby sister" and is very helpful and loving. Now that Sofia is more active (not to mention, over colic) it's really wonderful to watch the two of them interact.

We went to a playdate at our friend Thomas' house last week. He has a little sister, Ava, who is 9 months old. I went to go see what Ella was doing and found Ella and Ava like this:

We also hosted a playdate at our house on Thursday where Ella posed for a picture with Sofia (poor Sofia-her head is getting squeezed by big sister)

She also has a new obsession with kick ball. They must play at school because every day she tells me that she wants to play kick ball with Daddy. When I ask if she'll play with me she says no. I guess daddy's a better kick ball player than me. Friday night when Daddy got home we had to get all bundled up to walk to the park so Ella and Daddy could play kickball.

It's a good thing we went out on Friday because the high today is 25 degrees, but with the windchill it feels like 13! BRRRR.

Sofia

Sofia is growing in leaps and bounds. She turned 5 months old on January 14th. It's so crazy. We haven't been to the Dr. to be weighed or measured since her 4 months WBV, but she's definitely getting bigger and her personality it just shining. She is such a happy, funny little girl and she ADORES her big sister so much. When she sees Ella enter the room she gets a giant smile on her face. She's also a major Daddy's girl. The minute he comes home from work she cheeses and follows him with her eyes all around the room until he can pick her up. She also responds to her name now.

Two big milestones for Sofia!!!

Milestone #1-We started solids! She LOVES it. I make all my own solids, which is so easy and tasty. If anyone is interested in making solids for their babies, check out http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/ . I did this for Ella too. It's so easy to just steam, blend, and freeze in ice cube trays. When you are ready to feed, you just pop a cube out, microwave for 30 seconds and add some breastmilk, formula or water to thin it out or add some cereal to thicken it up.

Anyway, We tried sweet potatoes yesterday, January 19th (also cousin Max's b-day!)

Milestone #2-She's getting her first tooth!!!!

We can't believe it. Ella didn't get her first tooth until 8.5 months so the drooling, shoving her hands in her mouth and slight fussiness didn't clue us in (ya, we are a little slow). She's only 5 months old, which is a normal age range for teeth, but still, early in our family. It hasn't completely broken the surface but it's close. Hopefully this week, I'll be able to get a picture of it.

Oh, to my mom friends with little ones who are starting to teeth, in addition to tylenol, I highly recommend Hyland's Teething Tablets. They are homeopathic and completely safe. They really help to take the edge off and help for those 30-40 minutes while you are waiting for the tylenol to kick in.

This weekend

Saturday night, Ricardo and I got to go on a date. We went to a great restaurant in Westfield, NJ called Sweet Waters Steak House. It was a great night out. We went with three other couples; Andrew and Shireen, Gregory and Mario, and Lisa and Frank. The food was great and the company was even better. Of course, I brought my camera hoping to get all sorts of pictures to capture the evening but we wound up only taking one pretty lame one.

Ella, Sofia and I went to my friend Meredith's house this morning. She has two sons, Timmy who is 3 1/2 and Quinn who was just born on December 17th. Look how tiny and precious he is!

My friend Amanda was also there with her two daughters, Reagan (2 years) and Avery (2 1/2 months). Ella, Reagan and Timmy were playing like maniacs, so this is the only picture I could get of them...

Here's a cute picture of Sofia today playing in her excersaucer wearing Daddy's hat.

New Addition to the Martinez Household-Bobby the Betta Fish

Ella loves fish, well, Ella really loves all animals, passionately. After repeated requests for a fish tank, I broke down and we went to the pet store and bought Bobby.

Ella is in love. Bobby has to come in to the living room to watch TV with her and sit at the table while we eat. She wants to make sure we don't forget Bobby is an important member of our family.

Ricardo thinks we should get a female Betta and name her Whitney...I'm not so sure. ;)

Well that got long. Hopefully, if I can keep up with the blog the weekly updated will be much shorter.

Off to the gym. Till next week...

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year.

It's hard to believe 2007 is over. It was a big year for us.

Sofia was born on August 14, Alexis turned 30 on September 10, and Ricardo and Alexis celebrated 5 years of marriage on October 5.

Also, Gabriella started preschool in September and loves it. It's adorable to hear her sing all the songs from school and to get all her *artwork*.

Ricardo was also promoted to Sr. Manager at KPMG.

Hopefully 2008 will be a good year for the Martinez family.

I hope to update this blog on a semi regular basis with pictures of the family...I have been unsuccesful in previous attempts, so I hope I can keep up this time around.

Much love!