Elijah is 3!

Sunday was Elijah's 3rd birthday.  We had a tiny party which Elijah loved!  He really wanted to wear a party hat and have his friend Mateus over.  Both of his wishes came true and more.

(I cheated and made cinnamon rolls instead of a cake since my cakes always flop under pressure :)

 My favorite part of the day was watching Elijah play pin the tail on the donkey for the first time.  Absolutely hilarious!

 We've been following the Ciotta family tradition of taking a birthday picture with dad so we can see how the kids are growing.  So fun to look back on over the past years.

Here's what our new 3 year old has been up to:

Personality: Happy, reserved, helpful, kind, good sense of humor, prefers stability

Likes: Playing on play equipment, hot dogs, Paw Patrol, playing with cars/trains/boats etc, going to school, playing with older kids, reading books, stickers, going to the park, running to the truck to greet Jeyson when he arrives, helping load laundry into the machine and any other household task, tools, picking out his own clothes, repetition of the same routine every day, overhearing and adding to our conversations (quite hilarious, especially when he gets the whole topic wrong!), checking out how Audrey has no teeth lol!

New:  What hasn't changed in the last year??  Potty trained, sleeping in a big boy bed, knows to wait to get out until his clock turns green, independent player, talking about everything, lots of preferences about what he wants to do, imaginative play starting, learning lots of Portuguese words, eating everything (even vegetables), retelling stories of what happened, starting to become responsible and trustworthy in some areas little by little, joining in on jokes/humor and even laughing at himself

Routine:  Up at 7:00, nap 1-3:30,  sleeping at 7:30pm

Stuggles: Obeying right away, preferences about how details should be done, learning to get dressed and use the potty all on his own

Audrey - 1 Month

Audrey Sophia is 1 month old today.  In keeping with the tradition, I decided to try to blog a little about her each month for the first year, though it's definitely more challenging with 2 on our hands this time!  Here goes:

Personality:  Easy going most of the time.  Lets anyone hold her, including Elijah.

Likes: Being held up over a shoulder, sitting in her bouncy vibrating seat, sucking a pacifier and getting swaddled when she is tired.  She also really likes to being close to us, even if is just to suck on her pacifier laying next to us…makes her so much happier than being alone.  Also likes having a night light on in her room.

Routine: Wake up time at 8 am (often wakes up an hour or two before that but I treat it as a night feed and put her back until 8).  2-3 hour cycle throughout the day of eat, play, sleep and is in bed by 9pm.  Wakes up one time at night (around 2-3 am) to eat.  Still working out more definite times of the day for naps.

Struggles:  Going to sleep in her crib at bedtime.  For naps we can easily put her down sleepy but awake, but at her bedtime she cries in her crib unless we put her down all the way asleep.  We need to work on this and making her bedtime a bit earlier too.  Another struggle is at night occasionally she wakes up to feed and then doesn't want to sleep again for another hour or two!  Happy but awake, which is better than crying, but still results in tired parents.  

We are so glad this sweetie joined our family.  It's hard to imagine how we didn't have her before.  We look forward to getting to know her more and more in the coming months and years!