She's a sucker...

I picked up Maya from school today and since it was cold they didn't get to go outside to play on the playground. As we leave, we pass by the playground and Maya tells me she wants to go play. Well, it's cold, I'm carrying Armani along with a stack full of craft papers, Armani's backpack, and his lunch bag so I tell her NO and to hurry up. Maya then begins to cry. I have very little patience with her at this point since I'm about to drop everything I'm carrying and I tell her that I'm going to the car and that she'd better follow me. As I walk away, she sits down on the ground and begins to cry louder. I figure let me get Armani in the car, out of the cold, and then I will come back and deal with her. To my surprise, however, one of Maya's classmates (Ben) and his mother come out of the school and when Ben see's that Maya is crying and sitting on the ground he goes over to her, picks up her lunch box, and offers her his hand. Maya takes his hand, stands up and Ben walks her all the way to our car while holding her hand and carrying her lunch box. This was definitely a Kodak moment. Of course Maya completely stopped crying. She's such a sucker for sweet little boys. I wonder were she got that from?

In memory of Lex

Lex and her three sisters were the first babies to be born in our house, they were actually born in our linen closet 5 1/2 years ago. We have such fond memories of them. Alex, who was about 13 years old at the time, watched their birth in amazement. When they were less than two weeks old, I can remember watching them in awe as they all tried desperately to climb up and down our stairs. Unfortunately, we recently had to say goodbye Lex. Lex was a beautiful cat, very loved and will be missed!

Thanksgiving playdate

Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving playdate.































We made turkey cupcakes!
















Armani is loving the camera in this picture. This is a very rare occurrence. He never, let me repeat NEVER, lets us take his picture. Maybe a new phase is on the horizon. Gosh, I hope so.
















For Thanksgiving day at mama and papa's house, Maya and I made this turkey out of fruit. We had a lot of fun doing it and it held up pretty good except for the one feather (pepper) that wilted.

The Feliciano Elves

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

I've got to thank my good friend, Nancy, for directing me to jibjab for this one. Check her out at http://kanedays.blogspot.com/2008/11/christmas-is-coming.html

Air Bud

I had no idea that my 4 year old, "baby girl" was so emotional, sensitive and empathic. Today the kids were watching the Disney channel when a movie started. My kids have had little exposure to non-animated films but they seemed really interested in this one (Air Bud), so I decided to sit down and watch it with them. Having never seen this movie myself, I didn't know what was in store for us but I figured it's a Disney Movie, rated G, I had nothing to worry about. The movie started out great and both kids were glued to it (they really liked the dog). Then it happened...Bud (the dog) was taken from the little boy who found him and returned to his EVIL owner. The little boy was heartbroken and cried and cried and cried. At this time, I look over at Maya and notice that she is getting red in the face and her eyes are tearing up. Then she breaks out in a high-intense cry. I grab her, hold her and tell her that it's OK, it is just a movie and that the dog will come back to the little boy soon. But she won't stop crying and is extremely emotional. I finally had to turn the channel. I had no idea that a TV program would elicit such an emotional response from her. But then again as I notice the lump that had formed in my throat as the dog was being taken away, I realized that my "baby girl" got most of her strong emotions from mommy.

Advanced to candidacy

It's done! I had my dissertation proposal hearing last week and passed. Officially, I've been advanced to candidacy (whatever that's suppose to mean I'm not exactly sure since I thought I was a Ph.D candidate before this hearing). But what I do know is that now I can apply for a few research grants and actually start my research project. I will be interviewing all participants in January. It feels so good to be moving forward.

What was I thinking?

At Armani's 6 month dental cleaning, his pediatric dentist informed us that he would have to pull his front tooth (Armani fell and injured the tooth when he was 12 months old). I have to admit, I'm pretty heart broken over this. I know things happen and that it is just a baby tooth, but the thought of him going through the next 5-6 years without a front tooth and the teasing that will undoubtedly ensue just breaks my heart.

So hubby and I decide to take Armani to see our dentist for a second opinion. I mean there has to be some other options, right? This morning I called to schedule an appointment and they tell me that they could get us in today at 2:30pm. Great we're there! Now, I'm sure you wiser moms are thinking, you're kidding right, you're NOT going to take a 2 year old to the DENTIST at 2:30pm, are you? Isn't that when most toddlers nap? Yes it is, so I'm not sure what I was thinking when I agreed to this appointment since Armani (when he does nap) is usually asleep at 2:30. I guess I thought that this would be one of those no nap days and even if he did get a little tired, he's pushed through it before so how bad could it be? OMG...little did I know.

Once we got to the dentist's office, Armani and Maya played nicely in the little playroom for about, oh let me see, FOUR minutes. This office has no doors (did you hear me, NO doors), instead the entire office is an OPEN floor plan. Not something I noticed when I go in to get my teeth cleaned but quickly took note of when I had my 2 year old with me. Seriously, NO doors, not so great for toddlers. So until we were called back to see the dentist, all I did was run after Armani, time and time again as he kept bolting to the back area where patients were being treated. Then they wanted me to fill out 4 pages of paperwork. Uh, are you kidding me? Can't you see that I'm chasing a 2 year old. So as I hold my 41 pound, squirming boy in one arm, I desperately try to fill out these stupid forms. Finally, they call us back. As soon as Armani sees the dental chair he starts crying, screaming, and again squirms to get out of my arms and when I can't hold him anymore I put him down and of course he bolts to the front (remember OPEN floor plan). So I run after him for the millionth time, pick him up and hold him tight. Then Maya starts crying because she wants the dentist to clean her teeth. At this point, the office seems very hot to me, I'm totally sweating. The good news is that the dentist comes over rather quickly, I assume because she and everyone else in the office can hear Armani screaming and wailing. So the dentist and I are trying our mighty best to talk over both kids crying and I'm seriously struggling to keep Armani in my lap for the doctor to evaluate his tooth. It was so bad that the Dentist asks if it would be better if we continue our conversation via phone. I happily agree and try to get out of the office as quickly as possible, but both kids are crying and are so uncooperative. Seriously, this was Armani's worst melt down (he won't let me pick him up, he won't stand up or walk and instead just lays on the floor crying). Finally, I pick him up, hold him as tight as I can so he won't squirm his way out of my arms (I'm probably cutting off his circulation somewhere but at this point I really don't care) and tell Maya that she'd better follow me out to the car. I place (more like throw) both kids in the car and force their seat belts on (both of them are still crying very loudly). I say nothing. I get into the drivers seat, roll down my window, take a few deep breaths, turn on the radio (VERY LOUDLY) and try to ignore them. After I drive about two blocks it suddenly gets quiet. I look back in my review mirror and, you guessed it, both kids are fast asleep. I wanted to drive to the nearest bar and get a very tall drink but instead I came home and transferred them both to their beds. On the bright side, this is the first time both kids have taken a nap at the same time in over a year.

So when Armani is a teenager and tells me that I have embarrassed him in someway, I will kindly remind him of this day (November 17, 2008) and even perhaps show him this post and the embarrassment that I had endured.

Please put a shirt on...

Tonight, I asked Maya to go up to her room and put on a clean shirt (since the one she was wearing was dirty). So when she came back down this is what she was wearing. No shirt and yep those are tights on her head.

Making spider cupcakes

I'm a little late posting about this but wanted to wait until I got the pictures. All of these pictures (except the cupcake) were taken by my good friend Laura. Thanks so much Laura..you are awesome!

The third Tuesday in October, we hosted a playdate where the kids made spider cupcakes. We had lots of fun decorating and spending the afternoon with friends. Check out Maya's masterpiece. Pretty scary, hu! The following morning, I walked into our kitchen and came across this cupcake and it scared the bejeebees out of me.




Here the girls are hard at work.


Armani had to get his entire body into it.



Maya and her good friend Tristan.


This is what happens when Armani has too much fun and excitement!

Hairy Spiders: Frost cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Place 4 pieces of black licorice on each side of cupcake for legs. Cut and form marshmallows on top of cupcake to make spider body and head. Cover marshmallows with chocolate frosting. For hair, turn cupcake upside down and dip in chocolate sprinkles. For eyes and mouth, I used raspberry gltz gumdrops.

According to my 4 year old, I'm so smart!

So tonight I was putting Maya to bed and she requested that we read "the Foot Book" by Dr. Seuss. Since Maya knows the book by heart, she read it to me. After the part that said "how many feet you meet" she asked me to count all of the feet on the page. So I counted all 28 of them and then she turned to me and said, very enthusiastically, "GOOD JOB MOMMY" she then grabbed my face with both her hands, looked me in the eye, and said "YOU ARE SO SMART MOMMY" emphasizing the so and proceeded to give me a big hug. Gotta love it!

Happy Halloween

Tonight we enjoyed walking through the neighborhood with our little witch and our little football player. Unfortunately, my little football star wouldn't stand still long enough for us to get a good picture of him and he wouldn't wear his football helmet! Ugh!


My little witch.
















She's a little tired of me taking pictures of her. Can't you tell.
















This was the only shot of Armani that we were able to get. And in order for us to get this shot we had to turn on the TV! Of course he had to be a Giants football player.

Oh ya, please disregard the lazy dog in the background. That's Linkin, our chocolate lab, who thinks he is human and gets away with sitting on our couch like this.
















This is Maya's rendition of a scary witch.


The kids had a great time trick or treating tonight. Poor Armani only made it to four houses and then wanted mommy to pick him up. So I held him for about 2 minutes and he fell asleep in my arms. For him, trick or treating ended at 6:30pm. Maya continued and kept informing me "just one more house mommy" until it was "time to go home and eat".

Halloween Day

We had such a great day today, well at least Maya did. Armani desperately needed a nap. This afternoon we went to a Halloween playgroup and enjoyed the beautiful weather (65 degrees today). Maya had fun running around in her costume and playing with the other kiddos. Armani was not so happy and spent most of the time crying and wanting mommy to hold him. He didn't warm up until the playgroup was over and wouldn't let me take any pictures of him. Gotta love the two's!

Thanks for hosting a great playgroup Sarah!

Martha Stewart

On Tuesday, my mommy friends and I took the train to NYC to be part of the studio audience for the Martha Stewart show. This day they had LL Cool J on as a guest. For some strange reason I never pictured LL Cool J and Martha Stewart kickin it but you never know. Martha was a bit of a drag but just spending the day with friends in NYC was well worth the trip. The weather could have been a lot nicer though (it was raining and very cold). I'm sure all of our hubbys were happy it was cold because we would have been back a lot later had the weather been nice. Lots of love goes out to Sarah for planning this wonderful trip for us!!!

School Fall Festival

Monday morning the kids had their annual Fall Festival. Here are some pictures from their hat parade.


I couldn't get Armani to walk fast enough to get a picture of them from the front. :(




I begged Maya to take that plastic thing from her mouth, to no avail. Oh well!

That is a bat that they painted on the side of Maya's face (which of course she would not let us wash). She had so much fun at school this day. She is still talking about the parade a week later.




Since Armani would only walk if holding my hand, I had a hard time taking his picture. Yep, this is Armani looking up at Mommy. The red marks on his face are not scratches but paint. He had just finished painting his pumpkin at school. Also, notice that he is not wearing a hat (doesn't like hats).

We're Royalty

Lately, Maya has been on this queen and king kick. If she wants something she will tell me that I am the queen (or she will say daddy you're the king) and therefore we have the power to get her whatever she wants. The first time she said this I was so tickled that I got her what she wanted (a few M&M's). But as with everything else once you give in they think it will always work to get their way, so I've been told that I'm the queen quite a bit lately.

Parents weekend at American University

We went to visit Alex today at American University. It was so good to see her. We really miss her around here. She seems to be doing very well in school (showed us an A that she got on one of her paper's) and making lots of new friends. I can't tell you how proud we are of her. Unfortunately, it rained almost the entire day. Not so much fun with two toddlers so we had to cut our visit short. I hope we can see more of the campus on our next visit.

Girls Night Out

Last night I went out with my three sister-in-laws to Moriarty's in downtown Philly. Moriarty's is such a great little bar and an old hangout of my hubby and his sisters. I had an awesome time! I love being with my sister-in-laws. A little too many martini's though (right Olga?). It took me a good two days to recover. Next time we will have to make sure we count those drinks. I'm not as young as I use to be.

I have scheduled a proposal defense date!!

FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY...did I say FINALLY? Yes, I have finally been allowed to schedule a date for my dissertation proposal defense! YEAH! It has only taken me an extra year and a half to get to this point but let me not complain and instead just revel in the great news. So the big day is November 12th.

To catch a few of you up to date, I finished my graduate school coursework the year before Maya was born and then took my preliminary exams. So for the last 4 years, I have been trying to put together a study proposal for my dissertation and form a dissertation committee. I took a lot of time off while I was pregnant with both Maya and Armani, but once I started actively working on the proposal (about two and a half years ago) I had it done within the year. However, trying to form a dissertation committee has been unbelievably difficult; my department wasn’t very willing to work with me after I had taken almost two years off.

So what does all this mean and where do I go from here? It means that I will present my study proposal to the entire department on November 12th and if they accept my proposal I can move forward to conduct my study. This is more of a formality than anything else; they usually don’t let you set a date until they are confident that you will be advanced. So what am I studying? I’m studying acculturation and infant feeding among the Hmong people. The story of Hmong people in the U.S. is truly fascinating (I will post more about the Hmong in the U.S. at a later date). Hmong people are an Asian ethnic group from southern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar-Burma but most Hmong living in the U.S. came from Laos and Thailand during the late 1970s. They came to the U.S. as refugees after fighting the communist-nationalist Pathet Lao and assisting the U.S. during the Vietnam War. Hmong culture is truly unique and they have a strong sense of independence. Like many refugees and even other immigrant groups, I think that the obstacles the Hmong people have overcome and their resilience are amazing. I’ll post more about my study later. I certainly don’t want to bore you all at once.

About a year ago, I thought I would never get to this point and to be honest I even thought of quitting. I’m so glad I stuck with it. Many thanks go out to my hubby for always believing in me and encouraging me to continue. I LOVE YOU! From here on out things should go relatively smooth and I anticipate being completely done by next October. I CAN’T WAIT!!

Kids in plastic bubbles ....not such a bad idea

So would it be so bad if I put my kids in plastic bubbles to protect them from the world??? This morning I dropped off Maya and Armani at school and as I’m tending to Armani, I see that Maya is standing next to a few of her school friends. She then walks over to a little boy and says hi (I’ll call him J). The next thing I hear is J say to Maya, “I don’t like you, because you are shy”. This just breaks my heart. Obviously, it didn’t have the same affect on Maya since she just turned around and started playing with another child as if he had said nothing to her. But, I’m so not ready for those hearts breaking moments when she comes to me in tears over something someone says to her. I know I can’t always protect my kids but homeschooling is looking better and better.

Cleaning with toddlers in the house

I hate cleaning! I know, no one really likes to clean house. But every week I set aside a good 6-8 hours just for deep cleaning and every week I have to go through this entire mental exercise to convince myself that it won't be so bad. I remember a time when I didn't feel this bothered with housework. Hmm, let me think was it pre-children?? Could it be the fact that it takes me (now with two toddlers in the house) double the amount of time and sometimes even 3x the amount of time to clean as it did before I had children? And once I finally get the house clean, I spend what's left of my day picking up after them. By gosh, that could be it! Oh the days when I felt a sense of pride after cleaning the house and enjoyed the peace of a clean house for at least 3-5 days. Now I'm lucky if I can keep my house clean for 2 hours.

Let me give you a recent example of some futile cleaning. On Sunday, I spent about 20 minutes cleaning the walls that lead down to our basement, where we have the kids playroom. I was tired of looking at filthy, dingy walls covered with hand prints and scuff marks so I got a wet rag and proceeded to scrub the walls as my kiddos watched TV. When I finally got to the bottom of the stairs (and feeling pretty good about my job I might add) I look up to see my 2 year old boy banging and running his little car all over my freshly cleaned walls. So I say to my little sweetheart, What are you doing??? And all he does is look at me and smile. Okay so he's too cute to be mad at but I do think to myself, why do I bother? When it comes to house cleaning, I can't wait to be done with graduate school, get back to work part-time and pass on the deep cleaning to someone else.

Attending a family wedding

So I have FINALLY joined the blogosphere. It took me a little bit (well maybe a lot) longer than I had anticipated but I'm now up and running (thanks to hubby for helping me design my blog). Babe you're so awesome!

Last night we had our first non-family babysitter come while we attended a family wedding. I was a little nervous especially since I hadn't met this new babysitter before she arrived but she came highly recommended (thanks Jen!) so I took a deep breath and then proceeded to call her every 45 minutes to “check in” on the kids. Oh and I wasn’t even the worst of it, hubby sent me to the bank right before she arrived so he could "interview" her without me around. Poor girl, I'm sure she had no idea what she was getting herself into. Actually she was a wonderful girl and she did a wonderful job. We will certainly use her again and hopefully sooner than later. But Let me get back to the wedding and my embarrassing moment. Well the wedding was my hubby’s cousin’s daughter and it was absolutely beautiful! The ceremony was held outside a restaurant overlooking a beautiful lake and the reception was held at the Philly convention center. It was a pretty traditional American wedding except that when we arrived for the cocktail hour we were greeted by 18 foot giant puppets, live drum music and a Spanish dancing troop. It was really something and as always when I’m with my in laws, I had a wonderful time! I mean I couldn't have married into a more beautiful, loving and fun family even if I had tried. Hubby and I had a great time and danced so much that it took about three hours after the reception before I could completely feel my toes again.

Ok, so about that embarrassing moment I mentioned earlier. This will certainly go down as one of my worst memories. We arrive at the cocktail hour and me and hubby and my in-laws immediately go to the bar for cocktails. I order a glass of red wine (this is important) and I begin to mingle. Hubby and I are next to each other but mingling with others. All of a sudden we both notice the mother and father of the bride and as I'm talking to another woman hubby starts heading over toward them. So I end my conversation and follow him over so that I can give my congratulations. Hubby greats the father of the bride and I begin to greet the mother of the bride with a hug. As I lift my arms to embrace her, hubby turns around to point to something (not knowing I'm behind him) and hits my hand (the one with the wine glass). Yes, you guessed it! Red wine goes flying through the air and lands all over me and the MOTHER OF THE BRIDE!!! Initially I thought it had just spilled on me since it was in my eyes and I couldn’t see but once my eyes stopped burning and I opened them I noticed that the Brides mother was drenched in red wine, it was all over her face and all over her beautiful dress. Ugh!!! It was truly one of those "want to get away" moments. So as hubby wipes my face and as I wipe her face I'm thinking OMG we just ruined one of the most important days of this woman's life. Fortunately for hubby and I she was wearing a reddish pink dress and once the wine dried you really couldn't tell. We were also fortunate in that she was very nice about the entire thing and approached us twice throughout the evening just to say that it was ok. I have to tell you that hubby and I have not been able to get this unfortunate event out of our heads. In fact, we have been lamenting about it all day. Looks like hubby and I made it into the memory of this family's wedding day for good. Not how I would like to be remembered but what can you do?