Mr. Angry Tuxedo

So, Daniel doesn't like wearing a suit.  I found this out the morning of his Christmas preschool play.  He sobbed.  He whined.  He looked at me with the most pathetic brown eyes I have ever seen.  But I made him wear it.

And perhaps partially out of defiance and partially out of stage fright, he rebelled.  He decided not to make one move.  The songs he has been singing for weeks... not one word.  The moves he has been practicing... not one finger lifted.  He quietly resolved to stand stock still for twenty minutes, and succeeded.  Nothing but steady eye contact and an emotionless face.

It was maybe the cutest thing I have ever seen.





As soon as it was done, in the "after party" in the classroom, he was completely fine.  Happy, energetic, answering questions about why he didn't dance or sing with a simple, "I decided to just stand still."







He played on the playground for a few minutes in his suit, and which made for some cute photos.  (The suit is filthy dirty now though, which is a small price to pay for photos.)













I will cherish this memory forever, and will try to keep myself from playing the video of the performance to all of Daniel's friends as he gets older.  No guarantees though... it's a pretty cute video.
 

Big Camera Time

As a photographer, I don't typically subject my kids to regular "photo shoots".  But once or twice a year, we get a little more formal about photos.  (Read:  I don't use the iPhone.)  

This week, we headed to a local outdoor spot that seemed conducive to photos and low key enough to let the kids run around.  Thirty minutes later, we had captured a few memories and had a ton of fun.  

As always, too many photos to post them all, but here are a few fun ones:   

  

Octimus Prime In The House

Our Halloween fun started a day early, with the traditional Amaro Halloween Bash. This year we partied on Sunday the 30th which turned out to be a great decision.

Violet and Daniel wore their "real" costumes - Octimus Prime (complete with "fire gloves") and... Ice-Cream. She saw this costume with Fernando at Target a few weeks back and just fell in love. It is pretty stinking cute. We even found some plaid shoes on clearance to match. The cutest part was that Daniel just wanted to "save the day" and "keep us safe" - specifically the ice cream. So they walked around as a team, her pointing out imaginary monsters and him putting his arm around her second scoop and reasurring her.



The Amaros made their grand entrance (Mema and Papa were Mustard and Ketchup... TK was a Chola... Quito and Uncle Chris were a 1920s couple... Fernando was Obi-Juan-Kenobe and I was Princess Lei-a) and we took the traditional photos. Then we did the traditional next step - taking the uncomfortable costumes OFF and having a big dinner together.

After dinner we played with some party favors and tried out a new-to-us game: Bobbing for Apples. TK rocked it, Papa struggled, and Fernando decided to show his skills and plunged his whole head in the bucket (much to the delight of his shrieking children). Naturally Daniel and Violet wanted to try - Daniel managed to get two (by the stems I think!) and Violet unfortunately cannot eat apples. So we found a pear and made do. (Side note: Pears don't float.)

The next night, on the 31st, we headed to the annual church tailgate event. About 30 minutes before we had to leave, both kids changed their mind on the costumes. While looking through the family costume bucket, they discovered LAST year's costumes and begged to wear those instead. So we squished a nearly 5-year-old Daniel into a 2T Batman suit and a 2 1/2 year-old Violet into an 18 month Tiger costume. (Thankfully, Daniel felt a little too squished and opted to change back.) But Violet stuck with the (high water) tiger and let me put some fun makeup on her.

Daniel was extremely bold, telling everyone he saw that he loved their costume, showing off his costume and trick-or-treating car to car with glee. But Violet was focused on one thing: A sucker. She can't have a lot of the regular candy, but I promised her a dum-dum sucker. She just might have been the happiest girl on earth that night.

Both kids ended up with way more candy in their bucket than I would EVER let them eat, but were perfectly happy to give it away. In fact, I think they had more fun giving the candy to other kids than getting it in the first place.

Anyway. Halloween 2011 was a success in the Amaro house. We're already making plans for next year!

Summer Into Fall (via Facebook...)

Once again a season has passed too quickly!  (Thankfully, in Phoenix, it's the one we WANT to pass quickly!)

As I work to catch up on missed posts, here is an overview of the past few months via facebook posts...

Daniel prayed tonight before dinner these exact words: "Dear Jesus, I really really want to go to Disneyland. Can you help me make a giant rocketship please? Amen."

"Naptime?  i can't take a nap now.  my head hurts and what if i will fall asleep and have a dream about a pokey forest and then i wont be able to turn my head so i wont be able to find my way out of the forest and i'll NEVER see you or daddy again?  that's why i shouldn't take a nap."  


Enjoying a little wee-hours blog surfing on some of my newly neglected old favorites, and this line from one mom just touched me deeply. She had written about "mother guilt" and how we don't understand how well Jesus understands. One of her closing lines: "I just sit here beside the friend of fishermen and tired mothers." Love it.

Daniel: "Daddy, I love being nice to kitty-cats. Kitty-cats are my favorite animal. But I am allergic to tigers."


Irritated with him for something, I said, "First of all, that's not how we act in this house."  He quietly looked up and said, "What's second of all?"

Daniel just asked me to marry him. while I know that he doesn't understand it (as evidenced by his subsequent suggestion that I might marry Violet) it was still sweet :) My cute little Oedipus.

Daniel's had a crick in his neck for a few days. Today, he wakes up, stumbles over to me and says, "Mommy, I can't feel my brain."

Fernando set up Daniels play tent yesterday and apparently Daniel slept in it last night... All night.

The kids were up super early today... Uncharacteristic for both of them. So we had a pancake breakfast on a Thursday :)

My four year old sees the snack I'm making him and says, "Now THAT's what I'm talking about!" and proceeds to point at me, wink and click his tongue. He's FOUR.

The kids wanted to get dressed up to give me a birthday concert. But Daniel got irritated, and the result is the funniest video ever. I love his intense pout the entire time. :)

‎"Honey, there are just some things that need to happen. And there are people who do those things. And I am one of those people." - Fernando, after I walked in on him killing a cricket (all this time I thought he released them outside to go free...)

Sprouts is always more fun with Captain America. A guy in the checkout line shook Daniel's hand and told him to keep up the good work. Daniel nodded solemnly and said "Thank you... I will."

I had company at Sprouts today... Last week was Captain America, this week was Batman. Shopping is so much more fun this way. :)

Thor was very helpful. Lesson to remember: Shopping is more stressful when 1) your 4 year old is carrying a giant foam hammer and 2) he wholeheartedly believes that hammer possesses superhero type qualities.

Ready for THIS? Daniel just tested positive for strep... AGAIN. Trying a different antibiotic, hoping to stop this tennis match soon.

His smile is changing... So grown up. And it's not my smile or Fernando's... It's his own.

Daniel just held up a piece of cheese and then pointed to his mouth. "This side is the good guys side and this other side is the bad guys side. Let's see who gets more cheese."

Me and my baby, at the train park today. Fall is almost here. And by almost I mean: It was still really hot out.

The happiness that Fall brings me is ridiculous. Daniel agrees... we drove to work with windows down, enjoying the cool air and he declared, "This is an AWESOME morning!" Agreed, little man.

Soulful

This is an old photo (April), but still my favorite of Daniel this year.  

It's just so... soulful.  

How I love him.  

Like Father Like Son

In a lot of ways, they are duplicates of each other.


Like the way their eyebrows peak at exactly the same place on each eye.  And their legs - spitting images, especially when they walk.  And how their fingers bend every so slightly in exactly the same direction.

Amaro genes are strong, apparently.

But they truly are carbon copies of each other when they sleep.

Their facial expressions... their body movements... the way they stretch... the way they wake up (slowly)... it's uncanny.

And adorable.

Vintage Memory

Of all the fancy photos I did with my nice camera, this might be my favorite memory of Daniel and Fernando from the beach (taken, of course, with my iPhone).

I just think we're gonna look back on this one and smile.

Beach Bums

My son is a beach bum.  Not gonna lie... I'm pretty happy about this.

As a kid, I was a water rat.  So it was beyond fun to relive my youth and watch Daniel splashing in the waves of the Pacific ocean last week.

After camping, we hit San Diego, our other favorite place in the world.  It wasn't Daniel's first time, but he thoroughly enjoyed showing Violet the ropes - they were inseparable.  Violet was cold on the beach (she and I spent most of the time cuddled under towels) but Daniel didn't let the temperature stop him.  He and Fernando spent hours digging in the sand, carting water in buckets from the ocean, and just playing in the waves.

Daniel loved our little hotel, and days after we came back to Arizona, continued to talk about "when we were at our other house tomorrow".  Which of course means "yesterday".  Which of course means "sometime in the past".

There are lots of other photos of the San Diego trip HERE on the photography blog, and HERE on Violet's blog.  But those are just a handful of my favorites in regards to our a vacation through the Daniel Filter.

My Mini Photog

My sweet little man took his camera on our recent camping trip, and managed to take some pretty amazing shots with that little blue plastic wonder.

May I present... Daniel's camping trip, through his own eyes :)