Weekend Smiles

We are looking at a pretty great weekend ahead:
Today Dada went on his deep sea fishing trip that Little and I "gave" him for Fathers day and he'll be gone all day.  So Little and I will be hanging out with Squish and Tia Linda.  Saturday night Dada and I will be heading to a good friends birthday celebration, we're gonna have a little grown up time together!  And Sunday Im hoping to take Little to see the movie Brave.  Gramma took Squish last Saturday to see it as sort of a girls day and they loved it.  Im definitely looking forward to our full weekend ahead and Im going to leave a few links to enjoy.

Thinking this would make the perfect gift for Little's birthday.  We like to give him something extra special!

If you haven't heard about the Disney/Pixar movie Brave, please go watch the trailer now! (Im sure you've heard of it though!)

I am a huge fan of Baby Gap and Im loving this new collection.  At first I thought it would be super hard to dress a boy but I LOVE IT!

This blog has finally convinced me to move forward with my red jeans idea.  The idea: take my old pair of light gray jeans and dye them red! It sounds pretty easy and I can hit 2 birds with one stone; try the DIY and have red jeans! (I hate that saying!)

Im finally doing it! Im going to open an Etsy store!  Im going to start small with selling invitations Ive designed (and all things invitation related) then move on to bigger things.  Its very scary and thrilling at the same time!! Ill have a full scoop in a later post.

Looking forward to big fun this weekend with more smiles like the one above!
<3 Mama Chuca

Rewind

With a big birthday around the corner Im becoming very nostalgic these days.  Little changed so much that first year and even more the second year.  Lately we've been trying to teach him how to hold up 2 fingers instead of 1 when we ask "how old are you?" and he almost has it down.  All I can say when looking at the photos above is... Isn't he the cutest baby you've ever seen, really?!?!!!

<3 Mama Chuca

Wordless Wednesday: Us

<3 Mama Chuca

23 Months

Favorite Foods: Yogurt, strawberries, bananas, chicken, juice and rice.

Watching: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Go Diego Go, Toy Story 1-3 and a couple of animal and shape apps Dada downloaded for him.

Reading: When I Get Bigger (Little Critter), I Love You Through and Through, No No Yes Yes and Binky (this was the first book he ever loved).

A few of his favorite things:  His favorite toys right now are Woody the Cowboy and Buzz Lightyear, he calls Woody "hat" and Buzz "busss".  When he goes to bed they both have to be on the bed with him and sometimes we get the pleasure of having them join us on trips out of the house.  He loves an animal app I downloaded on my phone, its full of animal photos and the noises they make.  He can make the noises when asked about the following animals; cow, horse, elephant, bug (a squeal), dog, cat and lion.  We also just bought Little a Melissa & Doug chunky puzzle that he loves!! He also loves singing songs with Mama and Dada, swimming, jumping on the bed with Dada (wrestling), coloring, driving his toy cars across the room, pushing a shopping cart that belongs to Squishy around and pretending to drive Dadas jeep.  He also happens to love pushing a small chair around Grammas house, this hobby of his is very irritating because it makes the worst sound while the plastic chair is being pushed over the tile.  Gramma sometimes hides the chairs to give all of our ears a rest, but Little and Squishy can usually find the chairs within an hour and resume this horrible game.  They love it.

A few of our favorite things:  One of Dadas favorite things to do right now is to wrestle with Little, they are a match made in heaven.   One of my favorite things about Little is that every time I take my glasses off he has to find them and put them back on my face PRONTO! As soon as Little wakes up in the morning, the first thing he asks for is a nana even if he hasn't opened his eyes yet. He just sits up, crazy hair all about, and says "nana" then points to the door, it is adorable.  Little has been learning a new word almost every week!! He's also starting his 2 word combos now, he says "my mama" and "no mama" (thanks to Dada).  Some of his new words include: Papaw, no, choo choo (hello new combo), shoes and he is still signing the words "sorry, thank you, and hurt".  We also love that although he is shy, hell still give a friendly wave or high five to people we meet and see.  

Little will be 2 years old very soon, how can this be?
Our Little makes us laugh every single day and we love him more than we could ever possibly imagine.  This kid is our world.


<3 Mama Chuca

According to my Phone

Little loves to take pictures of himself
He has the cutest fishie face
The self portraits of his forehead should be in a gallery somewhere
And we tried on big boy underwear for the first time!

We are on our way to Gymboree on Saturday morning in the photos at the top.  He giggled every time he took a photo of himself.  Sunday after breakfast with Gramma and Grampa I ran some errands and let Little pick out some big boy underwear on a whim.  As soon as we got to Grammas house I put them on him and we cheered for our big boy in big boy undies.  Then, I tried my best to explain that if he has to poop or pee (sorry for graphic language ;D) he needs to go to the big boy potty Gramma bought a couple of weeks ago. So for 15 minutes he walked around and played with toys in his big boy undies, I was proud.  Then when I called him over to the potty to remind him what he's supposed to do and try to sit him down, I realized he had already peed.  Well being wet didn't seem to bother him much so I decided we would try again another day.  Every other week or so I try and introduce the big boy potty to Little, so now I think Ill start putting big boy undies on him as well.  We're not pushing him as far as the potty goes, its not a big concern for us right now.  But doesn't he look sooooo adorable in his big boy undies?!!!

One more thing....
LITTLE IS 23 MONTHS!! Yes Sunday Little turned 23 months, which means he will be 2 years old in approximately 1 month!!  Time to start planning the party, although I probably should have started a couple of months ago.. right? Well Ill have a Monthly post for you tomorrow to catch up on this little guy.  Cheers to 23 months!!

<3 Mama Chuca

Im Loving Right Now

An adorable little boy who plays with his toys all by himself on the floor. 

Fishies!!

Last Sunday we had a little get together at Gramma & Papaws house for some Fathers Day fajitas.   Gramma bought the babies a pool to keep them cool, made some delicious fajita tacos and then we got Papaw a super yummy ice cream cake.  Unfortunately Dada couldn't make it due to a schedule change at work but we did give him his gift as soon as he woke up and took him to a big Fathers Day breakfast that morning.  Later this month Dada will go on a deep sea fishing trip with Papaw, so I took care of all the fees and packed his backpack full of his favorite goodies for the trip as a gift.  

Now take a look at those photos!! Could I have more?? Yes I do, I held back!!  We have a couple of fishy babies, they absolutely love the water and had a blast splashing around.  

The baby shower I hosted Saturday went off great and Im sorting through all the pictures to share here later. Now on to planning Little's birthday party!!  eeeesh... Im one busy Mama!  Happy first day of summer!

<3 Mama Chuca

P.S. A good way to enjoy this summer is to go out, buy a pool and do some fishy watching yourself!

Dada

 "My dad taught me everything he knows."
When Dada said this the other day it made my heart skip a beat. This simple sentence made me realize immediately that this is Dada's philosophy for fatherhood.  It was also a reminder that Little is lucky to have a father who is willing to take the time to teach him everything he knows.  We don't necessarily agree on everything but one thing we do agree on, that never has to be said, is that we love our baby, love each other and want to be together.  Little and I are very lucky to have this man in our life. Happy Fathers Day to Dada, Papaw and all the fathers, mothers and anybody who is any sort of father figure.  I have 2 great men in my life that inspire me to raise my son to be an amazing man one day.

The video is a little weird, but I love the song! Heres to you Dada, enjoy. 

<3 Mama Chuca

10 Photos

First I want to share a couple of pictures that I found while going through my iPhoto!!

June 2011

May 2012

What a difference a year (or so) makes!! Look how little they are in the first picture, what cuties! I just had to share this picture, they've been best friends since they were both little and squishy! 

Now on to business, as you can see I take a lot of photos of Little.  But I always wonder what photos I should be taking of Little now, that I will love later on.  I just read an awesome list that has inspired me even more than ever to take pictures of my little boy! This post from Lil Sugar has an amazing list of the 10 pictures to take of your tot each month. 

The list:
1. A portrait
2. New mannerisms
3. Siblings
4. Playtime
5. Bath time
6. Squeaky clean baby
7. Favorite Toy
8. New trick
9. A picture with Mama
10. A picture with Dada

Some of pictures on this list are a little obvious but sometimes Im so busy clicking away that I forgot that their are some pictures that need to be taken.   #7 is a great example, his favorite toy this month happens to be his Woody the Cowboy doll from Toy Story. Luckily I do have a photo of Little holding Woody on a walk to Tia Linda's house, but I agree this picture should be taken every month because it does happen to change very often.  As for #3, there probably won't be any Little siblings anytime soon, so our Squish will have to fill this spot for now... after all they fight and love each other like brother and sister as it is (see above photos)!  Hopefully this list inspires you as much as it has me and yes there will be "10 Photos"posts around here very soon!!

<3 Mama Chuca

According to my Phone

While looking through my iPhoto I came across a folder full of pictures that I had uploaded from my phone a couple of months ago.  Here are some really cute pictures of Little in disguise at a party store!

He is around 18 mths in the photos and super adorable!!! I know Ive mentioned the baby shower I will be hosting this Saturday a number of times but Im super nervous and its days away!! There is still lots to be done on my part but Im hopeful I can get everything finished.  Please excuse the light posts the next couple of days and enjoy an awesome kid in an awesome sweater wearing awesome disguises!

<3 Mama Chuca

A Family Portrait?

In case you haven't noticed all of our photos are usually of either Dada with Little or Mama with Little. That is mostly because we are just not good at taking photos of ourselves!  Especially when its the 3 of us, somebody is either blinking, not looking, cut out or none of us were ready.  We absolutely need a professional family photo!! Lately Ive been scouring the web for different ideas for a family portrait that is very "us" and Ive decided that the best choice for us was finding a beautiful location and lovely photographer.  We do have a friend who takes amazing photos and hopefully we can get this in the works around Little's second birthday!

May 2010

July 2010

This is our first picture as a family, please keep in mind

 I had just gone through 9 hrs of natural child birth!

Christmas Eve 2010

New Years Eve 2010 

Easter 2011

May 2011

October 2011

Christmas 2011

Valentines Day 2012

My eyes are actually opened but we were laughing 

so hard because we could not take a decent picture! 

This was the best out of all of them.

Family Mini-Vacation (May 2012)

I just wanted to say that I do LOVE all of the photos we take together as a family.  I mostly just want a couple of pictures as proof that we really can be dressed nice and looking in the same direction.  Heres hoping!! 

<3 Mama Chuca