Con Sobar Latino

Well it's official, my big boy had his first school performance tonight and I could not be more proud! Oliver loves dancing, singing, and he especially loves an audience and a stage. He has been suffering from some separation anxiety lately and I really think practicing for the performance is what got him through. He did so great! For the last several weeks he has been practicing without a partner, because his partner was to be one of the girls that attends on Monday and Wednesday. I was a little nervous for him, and although I admit that my eyes were only on him during the performance, when I just watched my videos I think he may have been the only little boy actually doing the dance on that side of the stage. He LOVED it and I loved watching him enjoy himself. We are such proud parents and the best part is the pride he feels in himself. Way to go Oliver! I also wanted to thank Cousins Robynn and Dick for taking the time to come to his performance. I only wish I would have been smart enough to get my camera out and snap your picture with him (next time I'll do better, I promise!). Thanks for the love, it meant the world to Oliver!

Oliver in costume before we left the house

the stage before the performance

Daddy and Miles waiting for the show to begin

Oliver and Farrah before the show began

Oliver expressing his shock that they were going to be dancing without shoes or socks! :)

my happy boy up on stage!

Oliver with his maestra Snta. Josefina after the performance

Oliver with his maestra Snta. Ingrid after the performance

enjoying his celebratory Chick-Fil-A dinner

Miles also enjoying the celebratory dinner chowing down his first french fries -- he is my son, he LOVED them!

Finally, here are five video clips of the performance if you'd like to watch: (I must apologize for some of the shaky filming. We were sitting six rows back and I was using the super zoom on my camera, and Miles really wanted the camera (or me) at some points.)



Getting Ready to Come to School (rhyme)

Pt 1of 4 of the song and dance Ya no eres mi bombon

Pt 2 of 4

Pt 3 of 4

Pt 4 of 4

Spanish Schoolhouse Bike Parade

This is Chilren's Week at SSH, and tomorrow they are having a bike parade. Oliver and I decorated his bike with his favorite things: turquoise and zebra striped crepe paper.

Unfortuantely I wasn't able to go see the parade as I was having an intense pain in my hip and I went to the doctor instead, but I was told it was a grand time had by all. Fortunately, my pain has since ceased and my hip/back pain is 100% better!

Spanish Schoolhouse Carnival

Oliver's school had a carnival and fortunatley, Clayton was able to clear his schedule so I volunteer, so I was able to pass out popsicles to 82 cute little kids! :) The carnival had a bean bag toss, face painting, temporary tatoos, dinasour egg dig in sand, bubbles and popsicles. I snapped some shots of Oliver's class enjoying the carnival.

Oliver showing off his ladybug and zebra. :)

Later that day...

Miles was out of my sight for a couple of minutes and I could hear something going on, this is what I found when I went around the corner to the kitchen. He had gotten this bag of wipes off the dining room table and was having a grand ole' time. I wouldn't mind so much if he didn't LOVE to eat wipes. Silly boy!

Easter Sunday

I took a few family pictures on Easter Sunday before we went out to brunch. I was happy with the way this one turned out! I hope you all had a Happy Easter!


The Emergency Alarms were on (again) before bed tonight and so we gave Oliver Tornado Hair to lighten the mood. Looks pretty good! :)

Easter Bunny Saturday

Thanks to a great suggestion from a friend, the Easter Bunny came to our house on Saturday this year so we could keep Easter Sunday focused on Christ. Oliver raced around the house and found all the eggs within five minutes. He was a great big brother and brought all the ones with puffs to Miles, and kept the ones with chocolate for himself! :)

Miles with his Easter Puffs

checking out the Easter Basket

My big boy in Heaven with his plane book!

Such a cute picture of Miles crawling to his Daddy!

Daddy reading another airplane book from the EB.

Hey, how come I didn't get any candy?

Oliver crashed later that day!

My cute cousin Robynn brought over this Jelly Bean Tree for Oliver and I to make together. It turned out cute! Thanks Robynn!

Dip-dyed Easter Hands...I mean Eggs

notice the hands

His hands were completely dyed by the time we finished and I Googled it and found that you can use a mixture of baking soda and vinegar and the fizzing action scrubs off the dye. Surprisingly it did a great job and after several more normal hand washes, I'm happy to report that his hands were completely dye free by dinner time. What a fun age for things like this! :)

Miles Brown Royal is Ten Months Old!

My baby is not so babyish anymore, I guess he is almost a toddler since he has been cruising everywhere and walking with a walker for the last week. I took him to the doctor for an ear infection last week, and he weighed in at 20 lbs. 14 oz., how does that happen in three weeks? At his nine month appointment he was just 19 lbs. Must be all that food he is eating!

Miles LOVES to eat. In fact, Oliver said to me just the other day, Mommy it seems like a big part of your job is feeding Miles and I. YES! We spend a lot of our time in the kitchen, but a full tummy keeps Miles happy. :) He loves yogurt. He will beg for it whenever I even say the word yogurt. He also loves meat. He seems to like flavorful things, not so much on bland. He doesn't enjoy pasta (such a change from Oliver), but he will try anything he sees us eat. Just today Oliver was snacking on some cheese crackers on his way home from school and Miles was BEGGING his big brother for some. He LOVED them, no big surprise there!

Miles signing is really progressing. He signs now include: more, all done, fan, light, and I swear I saw him signing eat while he was begging Oliver for crackers today. He also waves bye bye and hello whenever he hears those words uttered. So cute! You're really lucky if he gives you a kiss, they are few and far between but his little open mouthed kisses melt my heart. He even wants to give them to Oliver! He also started babbling this month. Lots of bababa's and I have heard dadada a couple of times, but not to refer to Daddy yet. Squealing is still his preferred form of vocalization, he has excited, happy, content, sad, and frustrated squeals that all sound a lot alike!

Still a great sleeper. He started taking two big naps somewhere around 8 1/2 months, usually a two hour and a one hour which has cut his night time sleep down to about 12. However, these last couple of days he is trying to take just one nap which means he is back to about 14 hours at night.

He loves to make Oliver & Mommy laugh and will do things over and over again to elicit laughs. Peekaboo might be his favorite game, though he does like lap rides and patting hands too. He loves to follow Oliver around and do whatever Oliver is doing. He is so patient and really tolerant of toys being taken from him, although he is starting to protest a bit. He is also really tolerant of his big brother carrying him around. He seems more of go with the flow type of baby, not so strong willed; perhaps that just comes with being a second child.

Last, I don't think I have mentioned in any posts how much this baby LOVES his Daddy. Despite Clayton being so busy at work and traveling more often, Miles never ever hesitates to go to his Daddy. He just lights up when he walks in a room and wants to be right there with him. I think it has something to do with seeing how much Oliver loves his Daddy. It makes me happy!

Before I get to his monthly photo shoot, I just had to post these pictures. This is one of Miles favorite things to do lately, he loves to see the view from upside down. Silly boy! :)

And now onto my big walker baby:

a small melt down in the middle, but he recovered quickly

so cute from the back too!

We love you baby Miles! :)

Bicycle riding

Oliver has a bicycle parade at school next week, so we have been practicing his bicycle riding skills on our driveway. Oliver has never liked riding his bicycle very much. A cold front blew through and the weather was a little cooler this morning, so we decided to take advantage of it and go for a walk. I suggested Oliver ride his bike, and although he resisted, he agreed it would be for the best so he could practice for his parade next week. And as it turns out, he LOVED it! You should have seen this kid go (you can in the video below). He was going so fast we couldn't even keep up with the stroller, he had to keep stopping for us. All his previous experience with bike riding has been on our driveway which although it is long, it does have quite a bit of an incline, so he is either going too fast down or having to pedal uphill and constantly turning. So glad he LOVES bike riding as much as I do. Now we can go for bike rides as family with our new wee one in the wee rider! :)

Check out Oliver's bike riding skills in the video above

After we arrived home from our walk, Oliver wanted to play in a little dirt patch where the grass is not growing in our front yard. Miles wanted to play too, so I put some socks and shoes on him.

He wasn't a big fan of the shoes.

You may be wondering, are they in their PJ's? Yep. Miles always stays in his PJ's until his first nap, and Oliver wanted to stay in his too even for our bike ride. That is one battle I chose not to have, so yep, they are playing outside in the dirt in pajamas. :)

I think Miles enjoys playing outside in the dirt just as much as his big brother does!