The Modern Family Aesthetic

An Epiphany Kind of Weekend

2012-01-08T22:18:00.002-06:00

We celebrated 3 Kings, my father's 74th birthday and AK's baptism anniversary this past Saturday and of course I didn't get any decent pictures (I am really hoping to work on that). It was a full day which can often create challenges for our young ones but the day went really well. It was so nice to be a way from home in surroundings that still felt familiar and as comfortable as home to the children. They also had no problem making themselves at home by bring backpacks filled with their current favorite toys and of course their was birthday cake to be head so this definitely eases them into any occasion. "Cake" always makes it a party. The children were also particularly excited about the gifts they received.

I was kind of sad to say goodbye to the Christmas season. We had such a great time in the process of getting ready through our daily practice of lighting the advent candle and then steadily creating a festive Christmas environment as the day grew near. Post Christmas Day AK truly took on the journey of the Three Wisemen by moving them closer and closer to their destination bit by bit. On January 6, it was excited to tell the story and let AK act it out with our figurines as MAK watched. "They made it!"

On Sunday, the final pieces of our Christmas 2011 were packed up in a box and stored away in the attic. Our daily rituals that truly facilitated a special kind of family time and conversation ended. I haven't quite figured it out or discussed with my precious Bobo but I want to build upon what we began as we daily expressed our gratitudes before the light of the flame was extinguished. I know it may sound cheesy but it is my aim not to see the flame of Christmas extinguished in hearts as we move forth through where ever this year may take us.

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T23:35:00.001-06:00

It's been awhile but the intention will be to write more, to share more, to celebrate more of this amazing family journey.

Life is good!

Epic beadhead!

2010-12-06T16:12:00.003-06:00

See and download the full gallery on posterous

This time I caught Mak upon wakeup instead of at the yogurt table. Beadhead gold!

I am ironman

2010-11-29T23:19:00.001-06:00

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p78.mov (18423 KB)

He's been at this ever since thanksgiving where GIna and Kevin got him the talking ironman missle shooter thingamajig for early Xmas. Notice his superhero shirt. Not seen are the superhero underwear.

Thanksgiving Circle / Mom stops by

2010-11-21T01:46:00.001-06:00

Friday was Ak's thanksgiving circle at his school. Muffins and songs.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

My Mom stopped by for a visit today. Here she is giving Mak the tickles.

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IMG_1973.MOV (25247 KB)

Stop filming!

2010-11-17T06:03:00.001-06:00

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p36.mov (7764 KB)

I love baby mak's behead and always try to take a pic. She hates it when I do this as illustrated in this video.

Montessori at the dinnertable

2010-07-11T21:05:00.003-05:00

In this video, our 13 month old baby is finishing dinner. I am using some Montessori techniques to help her learn to eat using a spoon and to drink out of a cup. This is a very slow process that requires a great deal of patience and clean up. When you watch the video observe how I respect the baby and am patient with her as she makes a mess. In doing so, I allow her to explore, experience and learn. She is never told to stop, physically corrected by me or told that she is doing something the "wrong" way, although i do try to help along the way with the pouring work. This method takes time, but this toddler was drinking from a glass at 9 months of age. I recommended using metal tableware as giving this much freedom to a baby yields many broken dishes. Pouring work as you can see is very messy, but the sense of independence is instilled in this child through methods such as this, and creates a driving motivation to learn that carries them through their formative years. Putting milk in a sippy cup on the other hand does not. That's not to say that sippy cups are bad and should not ever be used, It's just to say that sippy cups are for parents, and not for kids.

When she drops the cup, I don't freak out and pick it up for her. I let her do that for herself. she drinks out of the empty cup and realizes that there is no milk left and that it's spilled on her chair. then she motions for the pouring pitcher. again, i let her do that on her own. She spends a long time with the pitcher and eventually drops it and becomes startled with the sound or frustrated that she dropped it. This is her basically communicating frustration, she is simply talking really. I don't tell her "its ok" or anything like that. I let her work through that on her own.

She enjoys cleaning up the table. It's purposeful work. Meaning that she is learning a skill that she can use in real life. a skill that lets her clean up after herself and be responsible for herself. kids love purposeful work. after dinner she always cleans up her space.

normally im not filming, im modeling how to use the spoon for her and how to drink. i eat very slowly so that she can see how i use the spoon. i hold my glass with two hands and pick it up very slowly as well, taking a drink and then putting the glass back down to the table very slowly. I give her a spoon and I have a spoon. I feed her and then let her feed herself. back and forth.

to the beach! before its covered in oil!

2010-05-04T22:58:00.003-05:00

So my cousin got married this past sunday. not too many more weddings to go! just my sisters really, my other cousin will get married in vegas or something, i just know it.

so this wedding was in corpus christi. which meant on opportunity to go to the beach. neither of the kids have ever been so we were excited. here is some video and pics, more on the flickr. We all enjoyed ourselves.

we then went to the wedding. a beautiful church. a beautiful bride. here is a video and some pics,
more on the flickr.

i used to

2010-04-25T22:39:00.002-05:00

i used to read alot of blogs. not anymore. i used to write alot of blog. not so much now. I was thinking the other day how come i have moved further and further away from writing on this blog. And i think its because of new media. Facebook and Twitter have taken the spot of me connecting to others via blogs. Now i connect much more efficiently with facebook.

I also will post pictures to facebook about once a week, but flickr? about once a month, if that. I must say that i think this blog has run its course. I'd also say that its rather sad to say that as well. i like the whole digital diary of things, and i think its great that i can look back on things on the blog and relive some moments. But i dont have time really. or i do, but i prefer to use that time in other ways. a while back i said i would write once a month. that didn't happen. so now im gonna say, once a year. we will see. for now i will just post pics to the flickr. thats not too hard. and right now im uploading alot of pics. all the way back to spring break!!!

so tata for now, and i invite you to join facebook to keep up with all the latest videos and pictures. and happenings in our life. until then, maybe ill write again come christmas. but who knows. maybe ill be back to once a week! or something.

"while you were out"

2010-03-16T00:44:00.003-05:00

When the cat's away, the mouse will play! T took the kiddos on a weekend getaway to a friends, so that meant that i had to surprise her with some home improvement.

behold the new garage door!

and the new shutters (not to be used to shut anything...for decorative use only!)

iT might be hard to tell from the pictures. but they along with the door are a kind of dark cranberry/purple color

here are some before and afters

so instead of our garage door looking like a milk chocolate hersheys bar, it now looks like a dark chocolate hersheys bar.

you will notice our yard is full of tiny rocks. yes, we are far from finished but at least its no longer just weed blanket. im sure the neighbors were like, "finally!"

My one raised bed is now complete, i will be making two more for the front. next month.

its starting to come along! you can see in the one picture where we are going to outline a half moon section with rock and plant some flowering plants and shrubs and put down some mulch. I did have it as a contained circle but now im taking it all the way to the curb. we will put a bird bath in the center of that too.

our little rosemary xmas tree is starting to bloom

RIP BOB 1/07-03/10

2010-03-04T21:39:00.004-06:00

I came home today to the sad news, our beta fish named Bob had died. T told me the news and then asked me how we should tell AK. I thought for a minute. This was one of those make or break parenting moments. we would have to consult the google before moving forward on this one for sure. I glanced at the tank for a bit and saw bob's body hidden behind some greenery in the tank. It was so sad. I said, "well lets get rid of the body and then tell him about it."

T refuted that It was important for AK to see the body as well as be part of the process of saying goodbye. Of course, that made sense. So I put it on the backburner of my mind and made dinner. Bob had not been looking good for about a month. i thought he was dead before....he had been swimming sideways lately, near the surface and he hardly moved. I knew that the time was coming.

After dinner i had forgotten about Bob and walked over to feed him. Ak came over to help and thats when i remembered and thought, "oh....oh well....here we go, google or no google"

I talked with ak and told him what had happened. he seemed to take it so lightly. even though he knew bob was gone. we went to go flush him down the toilet and thats where T said, "lets say a prayer". as AK looked into the plastic cup we scooped him out of the tank in...T said a few words of thanks for the joy that Bob brought into our lives. AK was silent. I then asked AK if he had any prayers and he replied with , "amen". i said, "i would like a moment of silence to think in my head about bob." Ak agreed. As ak looked at bob in the cup he proclaimed, "i dont like bob! he swims too slow i want to go back to the pet store and get a snake!" T couldnt contain herself and began to laugh, but she covered it up by pretending to sneeze. I didnt say anything. At that moment i put him into the toilet and flushed it. As he twirled around i said, "say good bye to bob" and as bob was flushed away i realized that i had made a mistake. AK began to cry. i comforted him for a while and then mama took a turn. I thought back...i should have told Ak what was about to happen. that i was going to put him in the toilet, and that i was going to flush it, and that we would be saying goodbye, never to see him again. But i totally skipped that part. Things were ok after a good long cry and he was playing paddle ball with mama after a bit.

Later, AK changed his mind on the snake and came to me saying, "next time lets get a bigger fish and a bigger tank and lets buy a fish that won't die!"

In other family news....ak and mak are into music as much as ever. we try to frequent musical activities. here are some pics of us watching the djembabes at central market.

Mak pulled herself up for the first time today. she has been saying mama lately as well.

she is quite the giggler and she loves to hang out and have a good time. i love coming home to her smiles and giggles and cant help but scoop her up and kiss her all over!

happy valentines

2010-02-16T21:24:00.002-06:00

happy valentines everybody.
we celebrated valentines day by eating a heart shaped pizza and listening to Sade's new CD, "soldier of love". Mac continues to eat more and more foods, We give her cheerios atop her high chair table top to give her a snack as well as to help her with her fine motor skills. She has started picking up the cheerios and simply throwing them. AK likes to throw things too as usual.

All of us except for macn'cheese have been sick for a good while now. being sick sux. but we are all better now. we are all as busy as ever.

Untitled

2010-02-05T16:22:00.001-06:00

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IMG_0563.MOV (3661 KB)

Via iPhone

Posted via email from gilgarcia

Testing

2010-01-14T23:24:00.001-06:00

Testing posterous

Via iPhone

Posted via email from gilgarcia's posterous

First Family Jam

2010-01-11T05:58:00.003-06:00

its always nice to come home to a jam. I came home yesterday to find the whole crew upstairs rocking out. AK has been impressing me by his improved songwriting since he was two. today he was singing about his birthday and what he wanted for gifts. sometimes he makes his own tune, sometimes he borrows a melody of a song.

Right now baby mac is waving bye bye, saying bye bye, (only once so far) and eating baby food. Ak is asking for stuff for his birthday all the time, and making poopy jokes. This must come from his school.

the other day, T asked for the butt of the bread at dinner. AK flashed the biggest grin and yells, "butt bread?" you want poopy bread!!!" he went on and on with the 6 year old humor. cracking himself up with poopy this and poopy that. Me and T try our best to ignore it. We are working on his grace and courtesy alot right now. trying to get him back in the habit of saying please. I have reached my limit with his "whying" as i like to call it. a pre-schooler asks 800 questions a day. crazy stat. i beleive it. the other day i had to tell AK, "im not going to answer any more questions for the day. im done"

here he is wanting a baseball helmet for his birthday. He is big into helmets right now. He said, "take a picture with your phone, so that you can show mamma what i want for my birthday"

Adendum to last post

2010-01-09T22:24:00.001-06:00

(Adendum: courtesy of Mama T) No we have not sold out on our preference for non-Disney/Pixar (or other commercially popular images) toys and clothing but I have bought into the idea that when AK requests a pair of "silly" shoes because they're funny and make him laugh I can go with that (I'd like to think of myself as flexible). I love the fact that he has no idea that there is a movie out there about talking cars. I'm still a believer that Disney, etc. can wait.

anybody still read this thing?

2010-01-03T23:35:00.002-06:00

So,

I know i have really slowed down on the posts. expect this to be the norm. I was thinking about it....people used to marvel at how much time i would give to this blog when i first started writing back in 2006. I never really saw what the big deal was then, but now I do. I dont know how i did it!?

oh yes i do.

I didnt have any kids,

then i had one,

then i had two

combine that with a new teaching career, and starting a wedding videography business. whew. that leaves blogging at the end of the list.

babymac... top of the list!

I feel that i have to write knowing that everyone is waiting on pins and needles on my irongym progress. last year i got an irongym for xmas and began my irongym workout. i actually kept with it and went from 2 to 10 dead hang pullups. yay for me. i gave up on taking the bar down and using it for dips and pushups. THE bar is right next to ak's bathroom and its easy to knock out a quick set while i wait for him to brush his teeth or take off his clothes for his shower. (yes, he's back to showers)

this christmas has been fun with AK getting into presents and stuff. and little mac along for the ride. what wasnt fun was the whole family getting sick (except for T) during the course of the whole holiday pretty much. no playdates, no getting together with freinds. but we still managed .

alot has been going on with our yard that i have never had the chance to talk about.

this summer my dad and i cutup the grass in the front and moved it to the back. a hellacious process. the front is now a work in progress. we plan to xeriscape it.

in the begginning

laying it in

pallette gras on the left. grass from front yard on the right. buuuumpy.

nothing left up front

new granite pathway and flowerbed. moved all pea gravel to left for rock garden and eventual porch swing type thing.

ak got some great stuff for xmas, a scooter, a camera, a bike,

a microphone that plays songs and amps his voice, and alot of great other things. we celebrated advent and kwanzaa.

we had tamales and ham. we baked, we went to first night new years celebration and almost got blown into town lake. we planted a rosemary bush in the front that we are going to prune every year into the shape of a xmas tree and have an outdoor tree. and after it was over, we cleaned up.

mak got a baby doll

this year T didnt want to buy a tree to throw it away, she wanted to plant a chrismas tree in the front and celebrate outside every year. all going green and stuff. i think it was a ruse to go to her favorite store, "the natural gardner" to get a tree.

the nat gardner teaches you how to garden as well, has field trips, workshops, all that stuff. they have alot of land and they have examples of what you can do

pretty nice beds.

they also have chickens and donkeys.

and a swing

we found out that xmas trees grow to be big. realllllly big. so we bought a rosemary topiary. then we found out that they need to acclimatize to indoors via the garage for 4 days. that would put us two days after xmas. so we deocorated the ikea plant. and just planted the rosemary.

i got an iphone for xmas and now i can take great pics with it as well as video that i can upload directly to flickr. amazing. that was the biggest drawback to my old blackberry.

we kept it lowkey for new years. me and t stayed in and earlier that day we went to a very scaled back first night celebration downtown. we saw some taiko drummers. that was cool. and a small group of bagpipers and drummers. bought some kettle corn, and that was about it.

ak takes a break from the taiko drummers to get some kettle corn

hope you had a good one and wish you the best for 2010. my goal is to write once a month!

-g

passed out from too much xmas.

we wish you a merry christmas

2009-12-29T00:34:00.001-06:00

DSC_0426, originally uploaded by Gilkata.

and a happy new year

college

2009-12-17T21:12:00.003-06:00

Ak is too excited about advent to sleep! so he is reading his dreidel book, while wearing a santa outfit thats a bit small maybe.

so my sister just graduated college, yay gina!
and i was tucking AK in bed telling him about how were going to go to gina's to celebrate her graduation. I said, after you go to high school, you go to college, and Gina is done with college, no more school! its a stay at home day everyday! and then AK says, " i know about college, that's wear mama got her tattoo!"

then i was explaining how college was a school, and not a tattoo parlor and i told him, "you go to college to study what you want to be for a job when you grow up. So what do you want to be when you grow up?" he thought for a minute and then replied, "a bad guy!" (from playing good guys and bad guys at school)

i almost said, well you dont have to go to college to do that, you can skip the school loans!
but then i was gonna say, "well you be the best bad guy there is and study hard how to be a bad guy and not get caught!" then i decided to say, "well you will probably change your mind, so keep your options open.

Mak is doing really good on sitting up on her own. She is very social and is good to sit and be around the family as we buzz about. AK is a goofball and she loves watching him.

she is in grabby mode. she grabs anything and everything. gotta keep an eye out.

the letter A

2009-12-06T00:04:00.007-06:00

ak tests out the bed in our hotel room in lousianna during thanksgiving

AK must be learning how to write his name in school because every time he sees the Letter A, he says, Hey! thats my name, why did they write my name on there?

I realized this when i was watching the florida Alabama game and Ak spied the word ALABAMA
written in the endzone.

HEY!!!! Why's my name written on the football field?

we went to the capitol tree lighting and sing-a-long to get our xmas card taken. it was so fun to have baby mak with us to add to the traditional picture in front of the tree. she was wearing the same hat ak work when he went on his first time. She looked just like he did too.

when we were leaving mama told ak that she was impressed with his stamina, being able to walk to the capitol and back without a stroller. then she asked him how his feet felt. "not good" he responded. "i think its time i got some new ones" then before we could laugh he said, "hahaha, thats silly!"

a few days later while we were driving to school hes asks me out of nowhere..."how was the sing-a-long?" and im like, "what?" and hes like, "from yesterday, the sing-a-long" too funny.

one day i asked him how his day went. "not good" he replied. "oh?" i replied. why not good.? " Toran had to go to the bathroom. but didnt have time. there was poop everywhere. not good dad"

I have been taking AK to school for some time now...quite the commute. My commute time is now an hour and a half. Ive actually considered audiobooks.
in the morning sometimes we are in a rush to get out of the house. I showed him on the clock that once the minutes hand hit the 12 we had to go. he looked at the clock , studied it and then replied. "i dont want clocks anymore, because i dont want to run out of time."

AK is really good about not eating or drinking "daddy drinks" So one day i was getting the jug of iced tea out of the fridge and he says, "when i get bigger, im gonna like tea too. its my favorite grown up drink"

i was making him dinner and trying to get him excited about a new dish. he kept telling me he didnt want it and that he wasnt going to like it. I made a serving for him and myself, and we sat down to eat. i took a bite of this new chili that my wife and her assistant made for the kids in the school and made a face of dissaprovement. "too healthy!" i said. "see i told you daddy. like i told you!"

We discovered that baby mak is into music just like her brother. Mak was pumped up watching T and ak dance to the music. She started waving her arms around like never before.

Mak is learning how to tripod (as T calls it) and can sit up with the support of her arms. Her front two bottom teeth have broken through and she is starting on solids. avacado is her fave so far, but she's also trying peas and carrots.

2009-12-03T20:05:00.000-06:00

cuter by the minute

2009-11-23T22:54:00.002-06:00

side by side

2009-11-12T23:03:00.003-06:00

sometimes when i come home from work, AK says, "i missed you today daddy"

makes me think of all those veterans out their and their kids that miss them.

Happy Veterans Week

HALLOWEEN

2009-11-01T22:40:00.003-06:00

I realize that i have hardly been writing on the blog. Things are taking precedence over the blog for now. but i wanted to you to see some pics from halloween. MAK was supposed to be a kitty and AK originally wanted to be a a pirate monkey. (so he could get two costumes) then he switched to a lion, then because i was wearing cammo that morning, wanted to be a soldier. So he put on his cammo pj'S and got his hat and told me to get dressed soldier!

we went to a party that one of his classmates invited him to. you can see in the group photo that AK is the small guy of the bunch (3-6) thats how montessori classes do it, alot of kids teaching kids and stuff like that.

later that night after we came home, we went to our next door neighbors to trick or treat really quick before bed. we had fun.

i invite you to search more photos from that day here

5 months

2009-10-25T23:35:00.004-05:00

Peace ya'll. I'm five months today. Holl-a!

happy columbus day

2009-10-15T00:00:00.002-05:00

AK said this morning. " i wanna watch kids flying kites videos. and if you cant find any than we will have to google it"

whenever we eat dinner we serve ak the same thing we eat. he usually tries it and doesnt like it and asks for something else. "i want something else" he'll say. we will give him a healthy option. but today, we were washing up, before we even sat down at the table. were washing our hands and he says. "im hungry!" well great were about to go eat! "i want something else" but you dont even know what were eating, "yeah, but i want something else anyway"

he tells T in the kitchen, (pointing at food) "i dont eat that kind of food. no... i just eat cookies now. got any cookies?"

teething!

2009-10-06T23:28:00.001-05:00

babymak is teething.

New tables for the back

2009-09-27T22:29:00.007-05:00

from the "if you want it done right you hire someone to do it" files.

So,

T had wanted to get some outdoor seating for AK and the children of the community like the one we saw at ak's school from ikea thats pictured above. but ikea doesnt make these anymore. we really tried to get this taken care of by the time of ak's birthday party, but it just didnt happen because we couldnt decide if i was going to make them or if she was going to buy some from this guy that makes outdoor picnic tables for kids.

it was as if Brett Favre was running the household....we went back and forth, back and forth,
i really wanted to make some parsons style picnic tables, but the tables that this guy was making were so cheap, 40 a table, and i didnt really have the time anyway. so we went with the guy. besides, he makes these tables all the time and knew what he was doing, where as i was simply a backyard warrior with a saw, right? you guessed it....wrong!!

The guy shows up with the tables (im not there) and assembles the components on site. T notices that they are kinda big.

T - are these for toddlers?
guy - they are for kids of all sizes.

i get home and i take one look and im like, WTF! i thought we were getting toddler tables, not tables for 6 year olds.

T says shell call him to fix them. So he comes out, after a week of no response...is confused by the request...but says hell make them shorter anyway...but doesnt see the point. but none of this matters because his drill battery is out of juice, and says hell be right back. never comes back.

after another week of no response we finally get a hold of him and he comes to fix them

i come home and see the "new " tables....and once again go, WTF! "He just took length off the bottom!!!

T says that she knew it was wrong but he just couldnt understand her request. so i made this picture to email to him

heres the deal...so many people don't respect toddlers, in so many ways.

they ignore their requests, (put me down, i dont want a hug, i dont want to tickle, etc..) they dont tell them the truth, they teach them vocabulary just to get a laugh out of the way they say it, or maybe they dont give them the chance to pour their own milk or put on their own clothes. most of this is because the adult is putting themselves first. As in, "i dont care what you think, your just a toddler, you dont know what you want, let me decide what you want for you." or " i dont want to deal with a mess so im going to pour this milk, make you use a sippy cup, keep you in diapers till your three, put you in front of television that you shouldnt be watching but that i want to watch, etc.

They also don't respect their bodies and think that they are happy sitting at a picnik table that is supposed to fit a two year old to a 10 year old.

toddler furniture is such a niche market. why? the demand of course. people dont want to pay for a table and chair set for their kid when they are 1 to 3 and then 4 to 6 and so forth. they have to for clothes because they obviously dont fit, but parents are not always as observing when it comes to what the market deems necessary. Case in point being tables and chairs

how would you like it if your feet dangled when you sat down instead of resting on the floor.
wonder why you kid wont sit down? maybe he's tired of his circultion being pinched. try it next time your at a barstool, let your legs dangle instead of putting your feet on the footrest

how would you like having to sit far away from the table, or have the table top be the same height as your chest. not very pleasant. but thats the way most toddlers have to sit and eat.

so we decided to give up on this guy and i took them apart and cut them to the right size. i come to find out, they guy didn't even use outdoor screws, and the tables weren't squared up either. and he left the freaking barcode staple on the ends of each piece of wood. BIG pet peeve of mine.

here are the two side by side before i brought the second one down to size

oh well, as long as we are happy now. and were happy now.

will there be cake?

2009-09-21T23:19:00.003-05:00

i forgot to post this pic of ak salivating for cake.

Gina knows that as long as she keeps her tone low and makes no sudden movements AK will be patient and let her cut him a piece without AK shoving the entire cake into his face.

Busy weekend

2009-09-20T23:10:00.003-05:00

This weekend was packed. But we had a good time and got alot done too.

We celebrated Pearl's B-day on sat at our house. I cooked migas and T baked an awesome orange cake. Then it was over to welcome my dad back from a trip he took to utah . We also went to see uncle sonny, but he never showed up and we had to leave pretty early as it was sleepytime for AK.

Pics of sat morning:

and sat night:

chilimac and uncle kevo!

gonna start with some juicy posts soon, sorry, but i just had to phone this in.

2009-09-13T23:05:00.002-05:00

babymak in effect!

AK in effect!

AK speed painting by using two hands.

after he started painting himself and looked in the mirror he proclaimed, "i look like an indian!!"

T and I were like, "where did he get that?"

one time when AK and i were at ikea, he looked at the us, swedish, and texas flag, and he said,
ak - "what flag is that?"
me - "thats the swedish flag."
ak - "whats that other one?"
me - "thats the texas flag."
ak - "and that other one is the Obama flag!!!"

AK B-DAY

2009-09-10T22:42:00.002-05:00

AK turned three the other day. we had a kiddie party to celebrate. then we were gonna have a grown up party to celebrate the following week, but he got sick, so he has been celebrating his b-day for about three weeks now. We really wanted this party last saturday to feel like a birthday cuss me and T were not feeling like it was. We decided to use the money that everyone gave him along with a little bit of ours to get him an electric guitar. the speaker is built into the guitar and runs on battery. there is also a headphone jack (wink) and a way to plug the guitar into the computer to record it.

notice babymak on the shakers!

he thinks that all electric guitars are bass guitars. he loves bass guitars but nobody sells bass guitars for kids. I tried having this conversation with him. i have been trying to teach him that bass guitars have four strings (usually) and electric guitars have six.

we go to guitar center for fun to look around sometimes. kick the tires. he loves looking at them all and has been saying "i want one, but i want one thats my size...for next time..."

so he asks if its a bass guitar and i dont want to lie to him. i tell him its an electric guitar.
"but i want a bass guitar" "they dont sell those in kid's sizes." "why not" "well...."

i go on about how nobody aspires to be the bassist, and the lead guitar player is the frontman and all that. i felt funny saying it. and laughed when ak responded with , "oh" as he often does.

ak looves his guitar and freeked out when his finger blistered up because of playing it all day. he was understandibly upset. i think more so because he couldnt play because of the blister than his finger looking weird or hurting.

i explained callous's to him and he is now more interested in using a pic. the guitar strings are metal soo....

ak likes to take responsibility for destruction. even if he isnt responsible, like some renegade terrorist group or something.

"hey! my truck has a flat tire! dang! were gonna be late!"
"i did that dad."

the list goes on.

grandma pauline gave him this singing robin and i cant beleive i forgot the song it sings everytime you press a button on it. i heard it for three days straight till we took the batterys out. it also make real robin sounds i think

heres ak counting off his own birthday song

and here he is cutting the cake!

mak makin noises

2009-09-08T01:04:00.000-05:00

baby mak has started to make some new noises. shes moving alot too.

2009-09-02T00:32:00.001-05:00

no time to talk

AK turns 3!

2009-08-25T00:02:00.002-05:00

today we celebrated. Ak turned three. and it was my first day of school. we went to terraburger

terraburger is the latest little burger joint thats family freindly and boasting organic ingrediants. its alllll organic.

we had been wanting to check it out. its right next to costco and everytime we take ak to costco he sees the wicked playscape and wants in on the action. he's funny, if you tell him. "we cant go their today, were going to go eat at home" he'll keep dazing off and then he'll say, "well i wanna go there next time."

i think we say next time alot.

so today was next time.

the food was good. everything is organic, down to the apple juice in the kids meal.

ak went with a grilled cheese

they have a playscape/waterscape too. T and I think its more filling than p terrys and I think its tastier. and they have really good root beer.

we went home and gave him his gifts, a tea set, and a wand filled with glitter and confetti suspension (he has a tiny little one already)

whats funny is that the playscape had this sign that said rules : for ages 3-12
(not that any parent follows rules when it comes to playscapes)

oh, and the playscape at terraburger is pretty amazing. amazingly built too.

the playscape at terraburger

tattoo you

2009-08-16T23:21:00.005-05:00

chilimac is starting to give theese smiles. they just melt my heart!

here is mama giving baby some floor time

so i have been wanting to get a tattoo since i was in high school but could never figure out exactly what i wanted. long story short,...i finally figured it out.

may i present my new tattoo!

I got this at blindside tattoo where they are all about meso american art and mexican american culture. They even gave me a wife beater since it was my fist time. la raza!

yes. it hurt. alot. and yes, ak wants a tattoo now too. a grandfather clock tatoo on his arm. I am going to get him some temp tatts. should be fun.

it looks amazing in person. not as amazing as the expression on my parent's faces right now, but still pretty rad.

roofing

2009-08-10T21:54:00.002-05:00

heres your moment of chilimac....

now to ak's exploits...

i turned around and found AK on the top of his little house. Turns out that he thought it needed a new roof and was working on it. This is because our neighbors were putting on a new roof and so of course, ak wants to do the same.

just hanging out

2009-08-05T22:44:00.001-05:00

MVI_9839
Originally uploaded by Gilkata

chilmac likes her little bouncer. its a no-no to hardcore montessorians because it gives the baby a false sense of weight, gravity... or something like that. dont quote me. I love the way baby girl moves around in it

quotes, toes and goal

2009-08-03T22:39:00.005-05:00

Chilimac received high marks on her recent ninja assesment. Mainly due to the fact that her hair is blacker than black and that the gap between her big toe and the other toes is big enough to hold not one, but two throwing stars. She will however not be going to ninja training camp due to the fact that she is only 2 months old.

ak's soccer goal is complete!

it took awhile because i was slowly collecting the wood for the project of craigslist or from friends. I already had the netting from a past project where we setup a temporary fence, and i think i spent 20 bucks for screws and fittings. i wanted to spray paint the net white, but that would have cost 30 dollars for paint.

after i showed it to him he said and i quote, "i want to play baseball!"

speaking of quotes....

jay leno, err..conan obrien should have a sketch were he reads an AK quote of the week.

AK does yoga at his school. its pretty amazing to walk in on a class of kids doing the "tree"pose .

anyway, were at home and ak says, "hey dad, i can do the downward dog." oh yeah? how do you do it i ask. "you bend over....and you urinate".

in the kitchen eating dinner. Ak looks at chilimac and proclaims, "i dont want a baby girl, i want a baby boy...mom, i want you to put her back in your tummy!"

at the dinner table..T has this way of asking questions like," Would you mind to wash the dishes." and i hate that style of questioning. i always say, "just tell me to wash the dishes!" or shell say stuff like this, to ak at dinner, "do you want to eat your green beans?" and i look up in amazement, cuzz i know where this is going and sure enough ak replies with ...and i quote..."no, thanks for asking though!"

one day were in the bathroom and he's sitting on the toilet and hes singing this song that i have never heard before. "its a bad day, its a bad day" he just keeps repeating it over and over to a melody. and i ask him, why is it a bad day??? and he stands up, points at the toilet and says, "cuss i got diahrea!!"

he didnt really have diahreah...i figured out that he knows that if you have diahreah you have to go to the bathroom alot. so he uses this as a way to get out of bed. so every night he tells me that he has to go (cuss he has diahrea) just so that he can get another minute or two out of the bed until i see that he has normal poop as usual.

quick vid

2009-07-29T22:53:00.000-05:00

VOTE NOW!

2009-07-27T23:47:00.004-05:00

So ak always sees me doing stuff with my wallet, so he wants to do the same. i let him pay alot at the store, or swipe the debit card. And now he has sarted to want to take his wallet too. (His grandma gave him a backpack that had a little wallet attached to it)

so he keeps his HEB BUDDY bucks in there and im gonna make an ID for him, and put in some pictures of me, t, and mak. but most important are his calling cards.

the info is fraudulent of course so that nobody comes to our house and steals us.

so ak is quite the helper. sometimes when im not paying attention i realize that its quiet. too quiet. and by that i mean that the boy isnt saying "dad,dad,dad,dad,dad," in the course of 2 seconds.

so we are working upstairs and i look behind me to see what he's doing and behold!!!

oh no!! he's completely rewired the equipment rack!!!

not really. upon closer inspection, he grabbed all the cables that were on the floor and started putting them in any available holes he could find. he was matching yellow cable to yellow hole, pretty impressive,

ak went to a playdate with a freind who likes to build forts out of furniture and pillows.

now he likes to do the same. hey, if he'll be quiet and not pull mak's toes and let me make dinner than im all about it.

of course he's wearing his construction hat.

chilimac is two months! woohoo! she got her shots today. poor little baby.

Dont stop till you get enough!

2009-07-26T23:58:00.001-05:00

somehow a cross between river dance and "the elaine"

so much going on

2009-07-21T22:00:00.002-05:00

wow,

theres been too much going on to keep up! today ak missed his nap and was a crankmonster. what keeps me going through it is the fact that on days like this he's gonna be in bed once his head hits the pillow, and ill have time to do something productive in the evening.

like blog!

so theres alot going on. house stuff. school stuff. AK starts a new school come the fall semester and his last day at his current school is July 31. So that means no school for a month! which mean it will be full time AK!

So we have been trying to concentrate on things that we should do without AK like, dangerous sod cutting, fence staining, and other things that involve chemicals for heavy machinery.

for blogging short hand i will henceforth refer to baby m as MAK. pretty close to AK But with an M in front of it.

so mak has got her first bling from my dad and mom. i think it was my dads idea though.
check out the little bracelet.

i always am joking with T saying, "i scheduled an appointment to get maks ears pierced" and stuff like that. I see these pictures of baby girls with pierced earings and stuff and it makes me cringe. im talking infants here. most of these pics can be found at awkwardfamilyphotos.com
well maybe not, but you get the hint.

i took ak out on an outing to some nature preserve thingy with dinosaurs and ak told me to take a picture of him, and he posed. that was a first. here is the photo

yes thats a motorcycle shirt that i made for him.

luckily i had packed his swim shoes with me and he was able to traverse the waterfall. i was still very nervous as i knew the rocks were muy slippery.

mac is the cutest. she sleeps alot. AK has gotten really used to moving around her and gets better at respecting her space every day. initially ak hated it when mak cried but that was only for a day or two, now i am really surprised at how he just ignores it and will even tell her, "its ok to cry baby mak!" you can cry!"

hes so sweet. he loves to kiss her toes.

here are the latest ak'isms. i jot them down in my phone everytime i hear them now so as not to forget.

so one time were all eating at the dinner table and im going on and on about something and then i look at AK and say, "you know what im saying AK!" and he shares my enthusiasm as he responds with a resounding, "yeah!"

then after a moment, he looks at me and says, "what are you saying dad?"

one time MAk was sitting in her bouncy seat just kickin it, while were all eating dinner. of couse ak is naked as usual. and then after a while she starts to fuss, we all look at her from the dinner table and T asks her, "what is it honey? what are you trying to tell us? then AK asks her, "you wanna be naked!?"

when ak and i do bedtime i take a glass of water and i put it on his bedside table. he drinks it all during the night, and when he wakes up. one time i brought some juice for me. he kept on making excuses to get up just so he could get up and sneak a sip of my juice. by the end of it i said, "hey! quit drinking my juice buddy!" and he gets in my face and is all, "im a toddler! i drink juice. all the time!

he's two years old by the way.

The Chil Mac sway

2009-07-17T23:50:00.002-05:00

Heres me and chilimac hanging out while ak cooks with T.

her name reminded me of mac and cheese, which reminded me of chili mac.

this will hold ya

2009-07-13T23:52:00.001-05:00

busy busy

trying to stay cool, will post soon, hopefully tomorrow

6 years

2009-07-05T23:26:00.003-05:00

Last week T and I celebrated our 6 year wedding anniv. We celebrated in style with a choc cake with 6 candles.

We have also been celebrating our harvest of gigantic zuchini and amazingly good beefeater tomatoes.

we have completed our latest outdoor project. putting down some playground mulch around the playscape in the back. It does need another layer, but you get the idea from the pics.

before

with border and weedblanket.

with playground mulch

if you notice, newer playscapes and parks use playground mulch instead of pea gravel.
i dont know why, but i can guess. One reason, kids are not so inclined to throw mulch as they are rocks, and if they do, mulch doesnt hurt. another reason is that rocks get hot when baking in the sun. really hot. another is that somehow, mulch is "green" or gives that vibe somehow???

I asked the dude at the landscape company what makes playground mulch...playground mulch. he said that its made from virgin wood. wood that hasnt been used for anything else, other than that, he hadn't a clue.

one thing thats nice about it is that its light! rocks are heavy, its easier on my truck to transport and didnt take that long to shovel into a wheelbarrow and wheel to the back yard,

speaking of yards, we have this squirl that likes to "shade bathe" right in front of the back porch. its funny when AK looks at it, "whats that squirll doing!?"

our garden has an owl now, to try and keep mr squirl and his friends at bay

it doesnt move though. i figured by now they would be selling robot owls at home depot that turned its head or lifted its wings like that little owl bubo from that movie clash of the titans.

we do have a pinwheel that provides movement thats supposed to help and we do move the owl to a new place everyday.

July 4 had visitors to the house, relatives got to visit and see baby M for the first time i think.

ak and gamma p had a good time running around the back.

you will notice in all the photos that baby m is supported on whats called a topenchino
thats not the way you spell it but, it is how you say it. its a montessori thing,

the mother sleeps with it before birth putting her scent on it, then when baby arrives, she is laid on it, smells mom, feels relaxed. also, it supports baby. baby always feels the same way no matter who is holding her, therefore baby is less stressed,

one month and one week

2009-06-29T23:37:00.002-05:00

hi,

baby m is one month and one week old. lots going on right now. Her eyes are getting wider, our hearts are getting bigger.

we did first bath. went very well, AK wanted a bath too. (in her bathtub)

Ak is staying busy with new things. some goggles, and a baseball glove.

when MJ Died we played his CD.

we had a photoshoot for a picture for baby M's announcement. went well.
but AK grew tired of the process. we really tried to get a perfect picture of him kissing baby m but wasnt meant to be.

is this photoshoot over yet?

gentle touches

Fathers Day

2009-06-22T22:45:00.002-05:00

Fathers Day was great. T said she was gonna let me sleep in, so come 6am when AK pushed me and said "i want yogurt" i told him, "go tell your mother, im still sleeping", which im sure confused him as that was a first.

we had breakfast at the house and then went for a walk around the neighborhood park,

later, joe, paul mona and anita dropped by to say hi on thier way back to d town.

earlier that week gina, my dad and my grandma stopped in to see baby m and gina dropped off some flowers. Her fathers day card said,

"these flowers are for baby m. tell her to get used to it, pretty girls always get flowers"

later that night AK asked me as we laid in bed, "dad...are we lucky?"

"yes son, very lucky."

Week 3

2009-06-15T23:10:00.003-05:00

Baby is 3 weeks old. things are good. we are loving the faboulous meals that people are bringing by and feel blessed. Do you know what a care calendar is? neither did i until this pregnancy. Basically people sign up on a day and bring you food. I have never seen this thing but i know it exists. a freind of ours put it together and emailed it to those that expressed interest in bringing food by.

We cant wait to return he favor and are getting tons of great ideas for meals.

ak and i are staying busy we try to stay out of the house as much as we can.

at baseball game with freinds

library branch grand openings

on sunday we were at home all day and we think ak's energy was too much for baby m.

ak likes waterplay. we do it alot. did you know that suncreen is now available in a spraycan, you just spray it on like paint.

swim party

swim party

butler park

backyard fun

i bought ak these swim slippers from target. I bought him the girls version because the boys version is impossible for him to put them on. the girls however is easy. He can do it himself.

i gave ak a haircut. this was the first time he let me use the clippers, but then i ran out of battery, so then i charged it and did it again, but he ran out of patience so he has a mohawk of sorts, im gonna try to shave it off, not sure if hell let me, he told me after the last session, "i dont like haircuts" so its not looking too good.

waiting out the storm

2009-06-11T23:26:00.002-05:00

Baby's umbilical cord stump came off yesterday and so you know what that means....
TUMMY TIME!

T related an interesting piece of info...

We only do tummy time because of SIDS. Infants sleep on thier backs now and because of this we need the TT. Before, they didnt have to do tummy time b/c they did it everytime they woke up!

This baby is strong. strong neck. stronger than AK was. Don't tell him i told you that.

waiting out the storm, watching the lakers game.

2 weeks old!

2009-06-08T23:58:00.004-05:00

today baby m started crying at the dinner table.

ak yells,

"NO!! THAT HURTS MY EARS BABY M! NOOOO!!!!

One Week Old

2009-06-01T22:53:00.003-05:00

AK marked baby m's one week birthday today with some cake from Tia Gina. Gina prepared a wonderful italian dish made up of stuff i cant pronounce along with a big brother cake for AK. Chocolate. his favorite. You will also notice the contribution from my father in this picture. thats frozen turkey in that glad bag. from thanksgiving? new years? i dunno. We picked lettuce from our garden to make a salad. bueno!

ak likes to call out his favorites. its really cute when he does. He has his fave parks, foods, and music.

we have been using the cake to get him to eat dinner recently. he has become quite picky and I have had about enough of it and tried the whole, eat this or nothing! but then he wakes me up at 5 in the morning saying he's hungry!!! arg! so now i give him food he likes even though it seems weird. so Yogurt dinners are not uncommon in the household.

so we put a candle in the last piece of cake and sang happy birthday to baby m.

when ak's grandparents brought him to the hospital to see baby m for the first time they took him to the gift shop to get a gift for his baby sister as per t's suggestion. and all on his own, AK picked a PINK hairbrush and comb set! before even seeing the baby! or knowing the sex!

crazy

speaking of cake, some of the girls from my advanced tv class made a cake in celebration of baby m. they also made her a onesey! that says i love daddy, but then they added + k-ahs (which is the name of their television show)

that class is %90 girls so they have been all about baby m.

it was very sweet.

i have one hour

2009-05-30T22:35:00.002-05:00

things are busier than ever at the g household.

umm, really wished i could give a daily update like i did with ak, but i know better this time to sleep when i can, and on top of that i dont have time as its. my goal is to do everything i can to allow mother and baby the time to recover and bond. T is doing good and recovering but is taking things really slow. lots of rest.

that means getting ak out of the house from dusk till dawn

when the fam is together for meals and what not, IT IS CRAZY! trying to stay attentive to both their needs while remembering the right things to say to keep sibling resentment and jealousy to a minimum is mentally tiring (for me anyway).

ak has been super funny whether he knows it or not lateley. here are some quotes, excuse me if some are repeats...

ak - "i want to go to einsteins (bagels)"
me - "its tuesday, we only go to einsteins on saturdays"

ak looks around and processes the thought....

ak - "well i want to go to chick-fil-a, or something)

another time when we were en route to chickfila and ak knew that we were going there. we came to a red light.

ak- "hey! your not driving!" whats wrong!

ak was sitting on the potty and i was waiting him to finish his BM.

AK- " I dont have any more poopoo dad.

me - "no? finished?"

ak- "yeah finished, my butt is closed"

brushing teeth this evening in fact:

ak picks up the toothpaste and hides it in his towel and then yells, "wheres the toothpaste?"

i see his smooth move and after he asks i grab for it. he giggles and i say, "here it is!"

he chuckles and says, "im a silly goose!"

so ak loves his sister.

when he went to the hospital to meet her for the first time i didnt know what to think. he came in with the grandparents, i setup my camcorder in the corner on a tripod.

he wanted to see her, touch her, sing for her, hold her. it was great.

ak also has been figuring himself out. finding his place. he wants to be held like a baby alot now, . "wrap me up like a baby grandma"

he wants to get in M's carseat, sleep in M's tiny cestina, basically wants to be a baby again. T explained this to me in a very academic way. basically saying this was normal.

when i picked up ak from school and brought him home to see them he was pretty excited, he grabbed a drum and ran into the bedroom where they were and started banging it and singing a song for her. sweet, but what a crazy scene!

baby m was not too crazy about this either

ak tells everyone, "i have a baby sister!"

thats prolly one of the sweetest things. and when he says her name, it even sweeter.

Baby M

2009-05-25T19:09:00.012-05:00

Baby M has arrived.

A very precious 7 pounder with whispy black hair and dainty fingers.
We are in love all over again and have had a beautiful day with just the three of us. We look forward to welcoming AK to meet his baby sister manana when T has healed from her cesarean surgery.

she looks alot like her brother when he was born

baby ak on the left, m on the right

heres a video of the day!
if it doesnt show up on the blog than click on this link.
http://www.vimeo.com/4840349

if you click on the x to the left of the word vimeo it will go full screen

We are Ready

2009-05-24T21:04:00.007-05:00

disclaimer to post...camera acting funny so i apologize for bad focus and exposure where you see it. ok now that thats out of the way,

Well the day is here. We have been waiting patiently and slowly getting ready, one weekend at a time for the last 9 months and tomorrow, we will finally see star trek.

just kidding,

but we decided not to see it tonight, and just go home and wrap things up leisurely. We have had a wonderful sunday with Ak at his grandparents since saturday to giving us time to get the house ready and time to relax.

t's mom was here helping out with the school, (it's the cleaning that's the really physical hard work) she also helped to harvest lettuce crops with the kids.

ak loves to get packed for grandmas. he decided to wear his hard hat too because Grandpa Ted and i were repairing a hole in the ceiling in the garage when Ak stepped out the door. "uh oh! construction! better get my hard hat!" (ted almost fell through while working in the attic the other day! whew! like daughter like father! (t did it too when she was little)

so this sunday we went to costco, got a bunch of food for the freezer, went to get T a massage from our friend Luna Wood at vidaluna.com.

then a trip to ikea to get a few things, most notably a yucca plant for our ritual of planting something to symbolize the new birth. this plant has 4 stems, symbolizing the four of us!

We have put a lot of thought and energy into transitioning our family with ak. We have been preparing him in a number of ways on the new addition. friday we had a family celebration and celebrated the three of us with some carrot cake and some figure toys to tell the story of our family up to now.

also to tell that story, we made a book for ak that has pictures expalining his life, from the first picture of him in mommas belly to the last picture of our family looking at mamas belly.

photo by madicyn

We want him to know that the arrival of the new baby will not usurp the attention and love he receives from others and us. This baby is, “his baby.”

If you bring a present for the baby please be sure to also bring a present for Ak (We will probably even have a stash of gifts that people can give). Many advised us that this was helpful in lessening the resentment/jealousy experienced by the older sibling.

we are also not to putting any, “you’re the big brother now,” pressure on him. The best thing is to allow him to be who he needs to be.

Saturday I spent a good two hours putting together his "big brother gift" a kitchen from Mellissa and Doug. (that's a brand name) it takes up his half of the bird room. the other half is designated to baby g.

We have added a second mirror this time to the area for movement. along with a movement mat from ikea versus an everlast excersise mat that we used with ak.

we transformed our living room back to a house since T's school finished this past friday. its temporary for the summer so we aren't putting too much into it, but are very happy with this summer setup and we are looking forward to eating at a regular table and i'm sure friends and family are looking forward to having somewhere to sit when they come over.

new in the living room are some accommodations for ak,

we are doing things diff this time in regards to babycare logistics. last time we had the changing table in the bird room, two rooms away from our bedroom, even though the baby slept in our room. umm....

so this time we picked up the malm dresser from ikea which makes for a perfect changing table. along with it above the table is cabinet from ikea. i didn't like it initially because for the ornation, but T said that i could leave that off.

a lot of people ask me what's the difference between modern and contemporary, or what constitutes modern furniture, or aesthetic. this is a prime example. there is no use for this thing on top of the cabinet. its just for show. in modernism, form follows function. therefore modern furniture = lack of ornation.

we also got T a descent chair, (also in the bedroom) otherwise the eames lounge chair would do just fine. This chair is more ideal for nursing than an eames rocker. sorry t! this chair is great because its stable which is ideal for nursing. but if you want you can give it a little bounce and it has a nice rocking motion to it.

here's t with ak back in the day!

montessori says: don't move when nursing, therefore all concentration is on nursing. no distractions

same thing with the baby changing table. last year we had a mobile above the table to distract ak while we changed him. Now we know that this is a perfect time to see baby eye to eye, communicate what we are doing and connect.

we will be connecting with convenience as T's parents gifted us 6 months of cloth diapering service. we are very grateful. it helps with the cotton diapers that we are committed to using. we wanted to do that with ak, but never got around to it.
'
so who says that baby #2 doesn't get the love that #1 does! Im shooting this pregnancy HD! i will be the nerd dad in the op room strapped with my slr and HD camera. no dorky bluetooth earset or anything, im geeky, not dorky.

T's mom rocked the sewing machine and made us a cestina for the baby out of a doggy bed form ikea, (i swear ikea doesnt pay me to write this stuff). once the baby is big enough (around 2 months) we will transition him or her to the floor bed. we have installed some pics of us next to said bed.

we also added a self care table in ak's room. a place for him to brush his hair and look in the mirror

ok, got to go to bed. tomorrow's a big day!

2009-05-22T23:48:00.003-05:00

ak and i went to the bicycle sport shop to geet a flat fixed on the jogging stroller. Needles to say he went nuts in there, wanting to sit on EVERY bike they had.

i had never seen a "hip" mannequin before. i was surprised there werent any black mannequins in the store. i mean, if they have "sasha" you figure they would have "jarome"

Ak is so funny these days, he just says one thing after the other that just has us rolling. of course i cant think of anything funny at this moment. oh i know.

so we are leaving a party...ak's calendar is booked with birthday parties these days..
here he is trying his first candy apple.

little did he know that he was sitting right under the pinata

so anyway were in the car headed home for nap when,

ak - "i want to go to einsteins"

dad - "we only go to einsteins on saturday mornings."

ak - "well...i want to go to chick-fil-a...or something"

so i have been taking ak to school for the past month in my truck as a way to start that transition early rather than have so much change come when the baby arrives.

he loves to listen to "daddys music" and we rock out all the way to school. he keeps a shaker in the car and he is beginning to learn some of the lyrics to some of the songs.

ak - "i want to listen to sade!"

daddy - "ok, let me put it on. there. (music starts playing)

ak - "no, dont like that one. i want a faster song"

daddy - (skips songs)

ak- "yeah thats it. this one's my favorite. louder! roll down my window! put on my sungalasses! (begins to sing chorus) "smooth operator!"

2009-05-20T01:59:00.000-05:00

pics from other people

2009-05-17T22:11:00.003-05:00

ak is really getting into water play lately. This little sprayplay was unplanned, hence the clothes, but he's been getting into his swim trunks and running thru the hose alot lateley.

We really wanted maternity photos this time. One of t's friends happened to come thru for us gratis. this is just one photo that i managed to steal from her.

T and ak and ak's friend D, were at Heartsong Music together the day they were taking photos for their new website, so i stole these pics off the site. We love heartsong.

speaking of other peoples photos, here are some of ak at school. they planted a garden and have been harvesting some crops.

our garden has been coming along nicely too and we are excited to harvest some lettuce.

love this pic

2009-05-16T23:54:00.002-05:00

the resident photog at ak's school took this. I love it.

getting close

2009-05-12T02:39:00.003-05:00

We have been super busy of late...all so that we can be super slow come june when our new baby is set to arrive. We have been working on transitions. with ourselves, our environment and each other, especially ak. He is ready and just as excited as we are.

we went to see parenting specialist carrie contey and got some awesome info as always.

t's mom is staying with us during the week to t out with the school

i have already begun driving ak to school as part of an early transition.

we steam cleaned our carpets with an organic steam cleaner (no toxic chemicals)

we put in some new grass in the backyard, very hard work but its coming in nicely.

i had a hard drive go out. lost all pictures of my life from honeymoon until ak's first birthday. Thank god i started the blog 6 months to a year before ak was born. now i have to go back to the photo server and download all the pictures before something happens to them online. if you have any his res photos from that time, email them to me.

Back up your files people!!! my files were backed up exept for one day and in that one day, when i was switching out drives,,,one failed. unbeleivable.

we got ak a new bed.

ak is really into dancing after we went to a dance show at my school. i filmed it and was editing it and ak fell in love with it. now he has to watch dance once a day. he dances around all the time and is a joy to watch him try to imitate the dance moves that he saw in the show. here he is with his scarf routine

Rock OUT!

2009-03-30T23:17:00.004-05:00

dont have many updates accept that ak has now begun to lay some tracks for his new album titled "the snacks in-between"

you can see how many times he has spun around because of the headphone cable.

Another Ghetto Walk

2009-03-29T01:43:00.002-05:00

for the love of god people. How many news stories is it going to take, how many two year olds have to be killed before you get it?

I see the people that posted this flyer have enough sense of how to offer a reward as they do to TRY to own a liability.

someone out there tell me WHY you would want to own this type of dog over, say...oh i dont know, one of the many thousand of other dogs out there that don't wind up on the news?

south by southwest

2009-03-26T23:29:00.002-05:00

I went out of town for spring break to the Student Television Network Convention in Orlando Florida. It was fun, but i think T and AK had more fun rocking out at during south by. AK is really into the geetar these days. eat, sleep, guitar and repeat.

im really busy. prolly wont see any posts for a while. check out the flickr for updates.

when i came back to town we went to trudys for some dinner and then it was stright home for another akello concert!

at trudys

at home

akello playing along with sade.

we got a fan for ak'S room and it was fun to put together with him. took two hours though. its amazing how small a fan is when you buy it. i kept looking around for a seperate box with the fan blades, but no, there in there!

ak liked climbing the ladder with his screwdriver.

ak likes to serenade us as we eat our dinner. he eats first real quickly and then its on to the guitar. We asked him to write a song today for us and he made up one about yogurt. it was pretty funny.

we keep talking about babies, especially the one in mamas tummy!

Phils Icehouse

2009-03-17T23:16:00.002-05:00

So the ATX is pretty family friendly. Only now do i realize this. but it seems that so many restaurants have a playcape attached. Very smart. central market, p terrys, and phils icehouse where we were today. i am sure there are many more that im not thinking of.

so lately ak has been in the "why" phase. you know that time when kids ask why. Usually only asks three times though, think his brain gets full at that point.

Ak has been growling at kids lateley rather that saying hi. "i roared at them daddy"
fascinating. I tell him that you can say Hi, and the other kids wont run away. "we dont roar at people ak. roaring is for lions and other animals that dont have any words. you have words." "roar!!!!!!" is his response. you should see him when he does it too. he puts all his mite into it. get all rigid and red cuss he's so tense.

whadya mean were leaving, we got here an hour ago! and we wasted thirty minutes eating!

oh, did i mention?

2009-03-12T20:57:00.003-05:00

T working on our new herb and flower garden.

so,

If you couldn't gather from those pics last post, T is pregnant with an early June due date. I know I know. never got around to mentioning it. time flies. Its so funny, last pregnancy we took a picture of t's belly everyweek and made a flip book. This year is a bit more relaxed. We are however excited and have been talking to AK a lot about it.

We have been reading books about siblings or stories about new babies in the family. We are going to wait and see about the sex, but ak thinks its a boy, or wants a boy. He is pretty excited about having a baby brother. we will be eating dinner and he'll be eating his food and then he'll finish and start taking his plate to the counter and say, "im gonna save it, for my baby brother!"

new peach tree is starting to bloom!

Today i was trying to fix my computer and i was talking out loud while Ak was around.

"man, what is up with this computer!, why are you not working...c'mon just quit out already!"

then ak comes over and is all, "whatr you doing daddy?" "trying to update this software ak, and i cant figure out why its not working." "oh, its because i hit it with a stick."

So comments like that i dont know what to think of...is he kidding?....did he really hit it with a stick? he's done naughty stuff before and just told us straight up like it was no big deal.

I start looking the powerbook over for scrapes and bruises. hmmm....
about thirty minutes goes by and i have come back to take another crack at it again.

AK sits and watches as i trouble-shoot out loud. "hmmm, maybe i should install the discs with the screen saver disabled..." then Ak looks at me and says, "I TOLD YOU, I HIT IT WITH A STICK, REMEMBER!!!"

Then he breaks out into laughter and runs away. This from a two and a half-year old.

pizza nite

2009-03-10T22:28:00.003-05:00

food prep with your child supports the ideals that Montessori encourages. Children have a natural desire for independence and an inspiration to do what you do.

cooking is something that we do everyday and children are most happy to be part of that experience and that responsibility of feeding the family.

Since pizza is one of ak's fave's he is naturally excited to be a part of making it.
While we were eating it, he was constantly saying, "i made that pizza dad. I made it with mama. you like it dad? its good!"

It's also very sensory. smell, touch, tasting, seeing. the more senses involved in children at this age the deeper the learning.

learning by doing is a philosophy that not only works for playing drums, or the primary classroom but is the same for young toddlers. preparing a meal with your toddler gives a lot of opportunities to enrich their vocabulary. they deepen their understanding better than just telling them or just presenting it to them in a book. Imagine trying to learn how to play the drums that way, by looking at pictures in a book.

it also lends itself to both gross motor (carrying the ingredients to the table) and fine motor (separating pepperoni) practice.

jam packed weekend

2009-03-08T22:11:00.004-05:00

we really crammed alot in this weekend.

T is beginning to recruit for students for next year. we had an open house and t put the school together. you know i usually dont see the school in all its glory cuss she lifts the curtain on everything after i have left for work.

above is flower arranging work. This is part of the beauty and aesthetics that makes montessori so great. Flower arranging is an example of "purposeful work" the activity has an end result that serves a real world purpose. Ak will be woo-ing the ladies for sure when he grows older due to his accute flower arranging skills, im sure of it.

Saturday had me and ak at the www.ikeasaurus.com rummage sale fundraiser. go to ike's website and see how you can help this family in need. thought ak would be into the face painting, but no, here he is pointing to the car while all the action takes place behind him. "ready to go jogging daddy!".

which actually is his way to entice me to get to the trail so that as soon as we park the car and get out, he can say. "i dont want to jog, i want to ride my bike.

I now know that those days of jogging with him in the stroller are gone. now its me walking while ak rides his trike. i put a bungie cord on him to keep him from steering into oncoming traffic and to help him on the hills.

we went to zilker park after our walk. i totally forgot about this park. i hate this park. maybe it would be cool if you had a team of handlers there with you to help, but when you have a toddler who demands that you stay on the bench and watch his bike while he plays its no fun. the park is way too big. and get this...

your toddler can run over the train track via the "really cool" playground. and then..you are seperated from your child. you have to walk all the way around to the other side of the park and by then, he's already gotten into some altercation with another toddler. all you could see was parents yelling at their kids from across the train tracks telling their kids to come back. i shoulda got a picture. too busy chasing ak.

then we headed on to pick up T so that we could go to our friends birthday cookout. the food was soooo good. all from costco they said. look at the size of that burger!!
ak is having second thoughts about his taco selection. never second thoughts about cake though. he knows birthdays and cake go together.

he broke the birthday candles and after a failed attempt at a wax fusion, we just stuck the broken candles in the cake.

later on he hit the pinata!
Happy birthday Corina!

i cant belive ak hasnt aked maya out on a playdate yet.

probably cuss he saw how she brutalized the pinata. good eye AK. good eye.

sunday had us visiting my parents and grandparents and playing a lot of football

ak's great grandma got him a football that looks like a real football actually.
and he loves it. he had a geat time playing all day with my dad.

lets not forget kicking practice!

and now kicking practice for grandpa

ak picked two lemons from the greenhouse, and my dad gave us a fig tree!!

mmm......

he's back!

2009-03-04T21:35:00.003-06:00

ak at the doctors.

so ak was sick for awhile there. i took the day off on monday to stay home with him while we formulated a gameplan. Thank goodness for retirees! (ak's grandparents specifically) Pearl was able to take over and My Dad was ready to go too. So we drove him up to killeen and he just came back today, good as new.

it was as the doc called it "a simple virus" he passed thru it in two days or so. just some fever, body aches, and sniffles.

we all love ak's doc by the way, dr. sufferdini at austin diagnostic clinic
we highly reco her if your looking for a ped.

ak has never had to pee in a cup before. he didnt like the idea that much. We finally had to leave the office after no success. at home, i finally had to pretend to let him urinate as usual, then once he let it flow, i had to rush the cup from the backside and scoop it under him. success! then we had to race the sample to the docs office. it was like an episode of ER, or SNL, or my life.

some said that the video did not work for them. here it is again but uploaded to a diff server, diff codec.

helmet head

2009-03-02T20:54:00.002-06:00

so ak is really big into wearing his bike helmet everywhere he goes. and on top of that he usually wears it backwards.

good thing he is into helmets, he could be into rock throwing or something, so i'll take peoples stares and giggles anytime.

it especially helps when he starts getting rowdy with his trike and pretending he's a stutman.

You need a new Tummy Daddy

2009-02-25T23:32:00.003-06:00

so im givin AK his bath and im shirtless....

after bath, im brushing teeth with akello and we're both looking in the mirror as we brush teeth, (he's on his stepstool).

He looks at my stomach and says, "you gotta big tummy daddy!" and i'm like,

"yeah, i got to go to the gym don't I!"

and he says...."your going to buy a new tummy at the gym dad?"

toothpaste....all over the mirror.

School Picture

2009-02-24T22:31:00.000-06:00

2009-02-22T23:48:00.002-06:00

ak at breakfast this morning. hes been taking this little tray of trucks with us everywhere we go.

some pics of ak playing in his sandbox.

hes stacking the dumptrucks here. he's been into stacking alot lately. sometimes it works out, like when were eating pancakes. but usually it doesnt, like when he insists on stacking his trike on top of his dumptruck

Pics at the park

2009-02-16T21:24:00.002-06:00

ak diggs the park. I think most kids do.

ak has been saying "you guys" a lot recently. he'll say, "what are you guys doing?" or hey you guys, i got some yogurt!" or "i got some yogurt for you guys, time to eat!"

Crash

2009-02-15T18:51:00.001-06:00

ak likes to crash. He will do it on his trike or when he's just walking around. here are some pics of him crashing.

also, T is recruiting for new students for next year and we just gave a face lift to the website. check it out at www.morningsinthenest.com

Valentines recap

2009-02-14T22:54:00.002-06:00

Today we had a very leisure filled valentines day. Filled with treats and eats mainly.

We went this morning to taco deli but since it was cold, there was nowhere to sit, and we werent sitting on the patio. So T had the great idea of going to trudys for brunch where we pigged out. AK had a good time dancing to the muzak too.

later on in the day we went to pickup our heart shaped pizza that we ordered that morning from Mangia Pizza. Twas yummy.

oh, and i saw this. cheap asses. just pay the extra 50 bucks for delivery.

hoW BOUT some black history!

2009-02-10T17:12:00.003-06:00

sorry for the delay in posts. i had been really busy this past two weeks with this video that i was commissioned to make for AISD's black history month. here it is. warning, there is 10 secs of black at beginning

The Black History of Austin, Texas from Gil Garcia on Vimeo.

ill get back to posting once i catch some z's!!

reading time

2009-02-05T00:19:00.001-06:00

3252783791_9faa5757aa_b, originally uploaded by Gilkata.

ak at school, sharing a little quiet time with a freind

Grandma's 80th

2009-02-01T22:40:00.002-06:00

so i have just come off a sinus infection that has had me really sidelined from everything. I even went to the doctor i felt so bad. he prescribed musinex and the zpack. the zpack is this 5 day dose of antibiotic that had me good to go in no time.

last weekend we had my grandmas 80th birthday to attend. here are some pics

Mariachis.

ak playing alon on decorative drums

ak picking out tangerines or some kind of fruit from my dad greenhouse

cake time!

ak and tia a have a pose-off

is this real?

2009-01-20T23:03:00.004-06:00

T and I were watching the inauguration on TV this evening. i taped it at school this morning as i watched it with my class so T could watch it tonight

We had our own watching party this evening with AK, even though he kept turning off the TV. We ordered pizza and had a good time. We even ordered Hawaian BBQ pizza (get it...)

T kept saying, "is this real?" "is this really happening" "black people are only president in the movies!" Wow, she's right, they are always making the president a black person or a woman.

what an amazing day.

Martin Luther King Day of Service

2009-01-19T21:00:00.006-06:00

Today we went downtown for the MLK march. Tony and Natascha joined us with their daughters and we had a great time and a very long walk. We started on UT's campus and then headed to the capitol. then it was on to houston Tilloston university. then it was back to UT where are car was.

We stopped at "THE BLUE DAIHLA BISTRO" it was really good. highly recommend it. its right by the OBAMA store wich was so packed it had a line out the door for the whole time we were there.

T tricked out AK's wagon, and what a great job she did. She put a pic of obama on the end and MLK on the front, add some pinwheels, some red white and blue tape, and throw in some instruments for AK. I designed matching t-shirts for me and ak inspired by Shepard Fairey's hope poster of obama. We also printed them out and put pics on the wagon.

later we met up with more friends! and ak was too excited and had to march (or run) along

it was a beautiful day, in more ways than one.

Yanni, I'm your biggest fan!

2009-01-19T01:41:00.004-06:00

So the other day i had to stay home with ak because he was sick. We were confined upstairs as to keep him away from T's kids downstairs. It was time to bust out the m-audio keyboard, which only works with the computer. i had been saving it for a time like this.

Now i started showing ak the yanni dvd (a guilty pleasure) way back as a way to introduce him to orchestral music, (violins and such). He has been asking for a piano for some time so when he saw me bust out with the keyboard he got fired up. naturally now he wants to play along with yanni.

with guitar, keyboar, or djembe, (daddy's djembe of course, never his)

Another Ghetto Walk

2009-01-13T22:19:00.003-06:00

The ghetto walk is back!!

but now its AK on his trike and me or mom walking behind. i saw this atrocity the other day. im not sure whats going on here. Was someone so lazy that they didnt want to bother throwing the bag of mulch away so they just threw it in with the mulch? or were they so clever as to use the plastic bag as a weed blanket, or where they just too ghetto to realize that neither are acceptable norms.

We ate the last of the tamales that my mom and grandma made for xmas for us. aK loves tamales. here he is downing the last one.

Djembes for the Boys!

2009-01-07T23:11:00.005-06:00

So T bought me a djembe for christmas. I have been wanting one for years, but the one i wanted is expensive, and have never had that kinda money laying around. and at this point i would be very happy with a good "starter" djembe. a DJEMBE is a hand drum that originated in africa. DJEM is a type of tree that they are originally made from and BE means goat, for the goatskin that is used as a head.

I not only wanted one for me, but i also wanted one for AK, so we could learn together. I knew that he would want one of his own and would never let me have a turn if we didnt get one for him.

So we had to budget that in to the gift as well. I am very happy with my Toca Canon Djembe. its has a 14inch head and is big. prolly the biggest that i have seen. it has a synthetic shell and sounds surprisingly good for its pricepoint. its also rope tuned. giving it a more authentic look. they are just as much decoration as function.
ak's is a REMO. Remo makes an awesome kids line of percussion instruments that are very durable and sound great. they arent cheap though. i had seen his djembe at Tommys drum shop and guessed it to be 30 bucks, but it was double that. sounds great though.

AK still likes to play mine though, so his just sits there. No, not really, but it was like that at first. now he gets into it, because he can strap his around his neck and dance around the house. he also likes to take it on the trail when we go running. he beats it as we run along and it makes for a nice little horn to alert people that they are about to get passed on the left. much more pleasant than "beep beep"

New Years recap

2009-01-05T23:07:00.005-06:00

new years eve had us attending FIRST NIGHT AUSTIN!

What is that you ask? (copied from website) First Night Austin is a public celebration of the arts that revives the ancient tradition of marking the passage of time with art, ritual, and festivity. It is a family-friendly, affordable, and alcohol free New Year's Eve festival. a cherished tradition for Austin that celebrates the culturally rich and artistically diverse place we call home.

We checked out a few artistic installations before heading to the congress First Street bridge to check out the parade.

The first installation was a gazebo full of lights and wind chimes.

we also saw a bamboo tunnel filled with shifting lights,

an interactive bell tower,

a fireman and fire truck.

and then the parade.

we then went to the resolution clock tower to watch it burn. people posted resolutions on it all day and at 8:30 it went off in a blaze of fireworks and flames.

(i did not take this photo)

this was the "family finale" and it was pretty cool, it got a little scary when the sky was filled with embers. Big blazing embers. i thought akello might see the fireman get to work there for a second. Now AK wants to burn his clock, and all the clocks in the house.

(i did not take this photo)

New years day had us at my parents for lunch

and then home for dinner.

before we had dinner we used a smudge stick of sage to shoo-away the evil spirits.
shoo spirits! shoo!

t and i did our tradition of taking out our resolution box and going thru it, adding more. i like this, cuss we totally forget what we put in the box from a year ago. Sometimes you will pull out a card and itll say, "work at a school closer to home" and then you can say yay! i did it! and sometimes itll be like something that you could now care less about. Two other notable "wins" were....move the shed, and build the trail in the backyard. yay! we wont talk about the losses. haha!

today ak asked me where is motorcycle toy was, and i told him it was in his room, and he trailed off while saying, "yeah, ok" in a very, "whatever dad, you dont have a clue where any of my toys are, you just want me to leave the room" kind of way. it was hilarious.

Day One of the IRON GYM

2009-01-04T22:34:00.002-06:00

TODAY was day one of the irongym workout.

dont worry, ill spare you the black and white before pic of me holding a newspaper with my gut sticking out after i just woke up. instead ill post my pre-test results:

there are 4 excersises with this thing. Pullups, pushups, dips, and situps.

i tried to do it with akhanging around, but he makes me crack up too much and i cant concentrate. He wants to do the excersises too. its too cute to watch him do pushups. and when i do pull ups he wants to help and will get under me and push me up.

he's quite the trainer, "up! down! up down!" he yells.

so i can do 8 situps, 8 pullups, 25 dips, and 20 pushups. This is to exhaustion, so as to track my progress a year from now. I weigh 177lbs today.

yesterday was a beautiful day. We packed it up and went to the park for a picknic. there was a bagpipe player there practicing. sounded neat.

"whats that sound coming from!"

Ak was covering his ears but still clapped and said yay after he finished, dont know if thats just cuss he stopped playing in this instance.

Green Room for AK

2009-01-03T22:27:00.010-06:00

T and I painted AK's room using Freshaire paint from home depot.

finally, an affordable paint with no VOC's thats down the road at home depot. Last time we painted the nursery i had to drive to ecowise which was way down south for every painting trip and wait for the hippies to quit bitching about the environment and mix my paint.

AK's room used to be the office and so he inherited a sophisticated gray when we decided to move him in and designate his nursery as a play room. It didn't look like the usual toddlers room and his friend's were starting to talk around the water cooler at school.

T had a vision and knew that she wanted to paint it green. I was ambivalent on this one and went ahead, as long as i could change out those miniblinds for some 2 inch faux wood blinds. with this new paint color, I really wanted to get new birch doors and get rid of the dark wood doors, but that's going to have to wait.

His room is so much better. Much more toddler-esque. This redo was long over due! I also gave him a chance to re-decorate his room, asking some leading questions i must admit.

"we just repainted the room ak! lets redecorate, how bout putting the clock here? how does that look? you like that?" "yeah!" he would reply.

i didnt win every point though, he did insist that his "animals of africa" collage go above the closet doors.

when we first deco'd the room he wanted everything up high, unusually high, but, that was his choice as weird as it looked.

Good choice on the green T! You will notice that like all good before and after pics, i trashed his room for the before pic and took a crappy photo, just like they do in those weight loss pics. Not only do they loose weight, but they get a tan too!

anyway, i also added a new nightlight from ikea as well as some lucky bamboo in an ikea vase for the windowsill

on top of upgrading the blinds i also upgraded the light switch to one that he could control.

Now they make these kind of switches but they don't sell them at Home depot or lowes which i was surprised to find out, so i made one using a key ring and a replacement wand for some blinds.

I drilled a hole through the light switch, put the keyring through the hole and then attached the blind wand. wallah!

this is a big montessori thing, having the child being able to control as much as possible in their environment. T drew the line at the Beyonce poster though. She says that i told him to say that. Sooo not true.

heres ak figurin out how the doorknobs work....back to babysr'us.

the garcias go camping

2009-01-02T23:03:00.004-06:00

so neither T or I have been camping since grade school but our friends the mclaughlins probably have REI edition wedding bands so when they invited us to join them for a night at INKS lake state park, we thought it would be fun. We almost didnt go cuss the weather was acting funny, but we were too excited not to make the short drive which is an hour and a half norhwest of austin near a town called burnet.

we saw this sign on the way to the park

All we had to bring was blankets. So we did, i wish i would have brought some pants though.

we had lunch upon arrival to a beautiful campsite. then we took a nice hike and explored.

ak is a pretty good hiker. My freind had one of those fancy backpacks for his son to go hiking with, good thing i didnt have one, cuss akello only wanted to hike when we were on the trail. He let me put him in the ghetto backpack (my shoulders) once we got off the trail

we roasted turkey sausages and made smores, all that stuff.

fun turned to miserable once we killed the fire and settled into our side of the "duplex tent" that they had pitched lake-side the day prior to us arriving. The temperature was already dropping fast come dinnertime, but was still bearable.

but once the sun went down and we bedded down, it became so cold, that t and i were miserable even though we were sleeping in our clothes, and jackets, and breathing on ak to keep him warm. and then it started to rain. oh my gatos! where's a freakin ton-ton when you need one!

when will this night be over. my feet were freezing. in fact they are still dethawing. If i was alone, i would have already gone to the car to sleep in the cargo space with the car running, heater full blast.

ahhh, finally, here comes the sun

the next morning we thought the mclaughlins were eating this stuff up, but they opened up the zip door and said, "this sucks, lets drive into town and get breakfast, screw this camping business." turns out they were cold too.

truth be told i think ak was happy the entire time along with his pal E. Akello even had a record sleep time ...from 7 to 8!!! unheard of!

We had a great time even with the temp, but from now on, we are strictly cabin campers.

count the deer

How to build a sandbox

2009-01-01T23:33:00.003-06:00

the current sandbox is really a sand table. A nice donation to the school, but after hearing one parent tell me that his kid will spend hours in the sanbox that he built him i knew that i too wanted hours. mmm.....hours (homer simpson voice)

Theresa wanted one for the school anyway. I told theresa that i was gonna build one the other day and she wanted to see/aproove my "plans".

"what plans?" i said. you put some wood in a square and put sand in it. how hard can it be? plus i got AK to help me.

"but it has to be sturdy and safe" she replied. "oh, i got your sturdy!" (kramer voice)

here we are lining up the 4" by 4" by 8' rounded edge pieces of lumber from Home Depot. 15 bucks a log. 8 logs total.

nothing has been nailed yet, just lining it up to get the wifes approval before i start work.

here we are now staining the logs. before you stain, be sure that the wood has aclimated itself to the weather that is normal for your area. it texas, that means dry and hot. so this was at the end of dry and hot day. these logs are heavy. most sanboxes are a little more complicated because they are smaller and are not so heavy duty. I have gravity on my side on this one.

Level the site. stain the logs and put them into place. luckily our site is perfect cuss thats wear the shed used to be so its nothing but a 10' square level dirt patch. normally i would use a weed blanket on the ground but that dirt hasnt seen sun in 32 years.

now lay lay them down and tie them together using sampson ties. 16 total at 2 bucks each. Use galvanized carriage bolts to bolt them together. Then dump in your sand.

I used half a cubic yard of white masonry sand. the "luxury" play sand at 20 bucks for all of it. you can also use fill sand. its cheaper, but not white, more of a dirty sand.

attach the logs on top to the logs on bottom with sampson ties. 4 total at 83 cents each

and walla!

now for the cover. gotta cover that thing for all kinds of reasons. Main one being it makes a very luxurious kitty litter box.

use the same carriage bolts to use as pegs. a total of 40 bolts is needed at 50 cents a bolt. 3/8ths at 3 inches bolts

these pegs work with the tarp ties that will hold down the tarp that covers the box . one box of 10 12 inch ties at 5 bucks for the box

now layout the heavy duty 23 dollar tarp over it and use the grommets to tie it down.

attach a 15 dollar 8'6" dowel rod at the end of the 8'6" by 11' tarp with zip ties thru the grommets to use as a roller/stretcher.

secure the tarp to the backside of the box with carriage bolts through the grommets

here we have a picture of the backside of the box with the tarp rolled back

and closed up at the front.

now some of you might be asking about water. well this box is too big to put a pylon cone in the middle and buy a really big tarp to cover it with the stretch, so we opted to just push the rain water to the back when we lift the cover on the box. done and done.

Christmas Recap

2008-12-30T22:52:00.013-06:00

ahhh christmas. This christmas was a turning point for me seeing that we have the little one who is now old enough to understand jesus birthday party, (to a degree) . We have been preparing him for the holiday with church and the advent wreath. Books helped too. I was no longer excited to get gifts. That excitement was replaced by awaiting the joy that Ak would get via gifts. Theresa did a good job explaining how that joy was supposed to be assosiated with baby jesus.
Im not even going to try to recreate what she said. But it was on point.

walkin to church

blowing out advent candles

i went to home depot on xmas eve to get our tree. thats our tradition via our anglican religeon. we keep it low key and then the night before xmas we put up the decorations, lights and tree!
(that and trees are free at this point). But wait! hold the phone! Trees were not even marked down when i got there. Everyone was like, "hey, these are supposed to be free!" I guess times are tough and home depot wants every little penny.

We also prepared by cooking cookies for gifts and food for the big party. It was my first xmas night staying up late preparing stuff, unwrapping gifts for akello and then wrapping them back up again so as to be easy to open, decorating and transforming the the living room from a school into a suitable hosting space for jesus's birthday party the next day.

oh, and i had to make a fancy menu of course.

The next morning i was just as excited to wake up as Ak. We rushed to the living room to make coffee and warm up some tamales. Ak has a knack for opening up the biggest gifts first. pretty funny. We bought him a guitar that was just his size. He has a ukelelee wich is small, and moms guitar wich is huge. this was perfect. He loves it.

all day had family coming over to the house. By the end of the day ak was walking around asking for more gifts. Whoa! pull up on them reigns boy!

ak and g pimp their new slippers. (wish i got the giraffe ones, thankness for receipts!)

cheers grandma!

ak passing out the gifts!

days prior to the big day
ak decided to make cookies for gifts and deliver them around the neighborhood. A toddlers work is never done.

get the dishes...

layout the ingredients...

mix it!

course he did have some help!

ak on his stepstool putting cookies in the tupperwares

time to wrap them up...

...and deliver!

Ak made some very healthy cookies, granola bites really. Not to sweet, but oh so addicting.

after that he said, "i wanna work hard like daddy"

so it was on with his work boots (rain boots) and outside we went to work on the trail.

he is quite the little helper.

the neighbors thought i was going ghetto for awhile parking my truck on the lawn, but no, twas simply another load to transport. i think ive been back and forth to whitlesey 10 times maybe? more?

Here we are unloading a load for the trail. Well, ak worked, and i just took pictures.

ak soon tired of my wheelbarrow and decided that his filled up a lot faster.

we were making good progress until akello heard the garbage truck. it was all over after that.

So it was back to me to compact the granite. I used this bad boy to compact the first layer.

then i rented a "whaker" as there called form home depot to finish off the second layer.

i rented it for the day, the day before xmas, thereby giving me two days to work on the trail before taking it in. ha! too bad i was too tired from drinking baileys irish cream and whisky all day to work on it till the evening. but the trail is done! whew!
merry xmas to Ak and his friends!

whats frustrating is that the bendaboard expands and contracts with the weather. as seen from the pic above, you can never have a straight line no matter how many stakes you use. it drives me nuts!!

we now have the pushtoys off the patio. this frees up the patio for other activities.

now i just got to build a sandbox and paint akellos room. and ill be done for the "break"

speaking of trails, we went to go check out the trail of lights. pretty fun, we even found a nativity scene amongst all the spongebob and dora exhibits.

for xmas i received the iron gym. (as seen on tv) from my uncle. I really have been wanting this thing and knew in some weird way that somebody would get it for me. and out of the three gifts that i got, it was one of them...and i didnt even ask for it! i put it together and tried it out. it works pretty well. i am going to start a routine with it on the first OF JANUARY along with half of america. And along with half of america, i will quit after the first month. HA!

a musical christmas

2008-12-29T09:05:00.003-06:00

akello plays his new set of tubular bells from Tia Anita. This sound so pleasant. We much rather him rock out on these versus the cymbals. Ill do a big xmas post soon

This little light of mine

2008-12-26T23:32:00.002-06:00

Merry Merry to all of you!

Backyard Renovations

2008-12-23T08:58:00.003-06:00

outlining the limestone, cleaning up the leaves

So we have been working on our backyard for quite some time now. Moving the shed was the first step in our plan. The break has allowed us time to move forward with the "trail".

We completed outlining some flowerbeds awhile back and have recently finished outlining a trail that follows the perimeter of the backyard for akello and his freinds to ride their trikes on.

here is a pick that shows akello wearing his safety goggles while helping dad. You can see in the pick at the top as well as this one the flower bed and his tree that we want to encircle with the trail as a turnaround for the trikes.

in this picture you can see the new flowerbed filled in with soil, mulch, some color spot perrenials and 3 types of sage brush. The trail has been outlined and i have started to lay down the week blanket.

akello is a great helper. He passes me the staples for the weed blanket and i hammer them in. sometimes, ill get one started and let akello hammer away at it for an hour or two, that usually gets him ready for nap. works out great.

Yesterday I went to Whittlesey Landscape supply to pick up some decomposed granite to fill in the trail. Below is a pick of them putting half a cubic yard into my truck. its as much as my truck can handle. it took me three trips to get enough for the first layer

The first layer is now complete but now i have to go and get another layer and then rent a compacter to really make it a good surface for the trikes.

Whittlesey is great. Its sooooo cheap compared to home depot. See the flower bed in the picture? thats 30 feet long and 4 feet deep. There is 3 inches of mulch in there that cost me 16 bucks. This would have cost me 50 bucks if i went to home depot. i SHUTTER to think what the limestone would have cost me at 3 bucks a rock at home depot.

Whittlesey also sells bend-a-board edging which is a rounded plastic of sorts thats a little more forgiving if falled upon than the classic Green metal edging. i also like it cuss its brown and i can cut it with a hacksaw.

more pics soon

pa-rup-u-pum-pum

2008-12-21T23:41:00.001-06:00

SANTA DRUMS, originally uploaded by Gilkata.

Akello's Christmas Wish List

2008-12-17T23:05:00.003-06:00

at the capitol tree lighting this year.

wow,

while i was titling this blog, i immediatley began to stop, go back, and change the word "christmas" for the word "holiday", and then i realized i wasnt at school anymore and could say what i wanted to. So merry xmas everybody! Prepare Ye the way!

So lets talk about akello and his language development and memory. He has a great memory and is very good and putting two and two together. He saw the cover of the ironman dvd in the living room and said, "hey! we bought that at the store!" He hadnt seen it in weeks.

one day akello said, "thats the cd we listened to with mama.!" i paused and looked at the row of cd's. Akello saw my puzzled look and said, REMEMBER DAD!"

I busted out laughing pretty hard after that. Theresa and i are both happy that he has lifted sanctions on us singing. Anytime we would start singing along with him or just humming a tune he would get infuriated. "no daddy! no singing! i sing!"

now he has asked us to sing songs or join him in song. so that nice.

akello lighting the advent candles

We have had many people inquire about want kind of gifts would be cool for a two-year old, in particular, Akello.

We appreciate the consideration and first of all want you to know that less is more. We try not to have to many toys out for Akello but it is nice to rotate every few weeks/month so that he maintains fresh interest and appreciation for his belongings.

We love anything that encourages hands-on, concentrated and/or active type of learning. We try our best to avoid electronic toys. these tend to be too overstimulating and often provide little or no opportunity for the child to use his/her imagination and thought process.

akello goes for the juice at einsteins bagels (our weekend hang)

We also steer clear of anything related to popular and overly commercialized characters (PLEASE no superhereos, no Dora and no Diego). We prefer toys made of natural materials (not plastic) and while Little Tikes and Fisher Price are uber popular for this age-group, the opportunity to work with wooden materials can give the
child a sense of appreciation and connection as to where something comes from and how it was created. Akello LOVES books and we always welcome adding more to his library however, we try our best to avoid fantastical story lines with themes to unrealistic for him to grasp as well as books that have animal characters that dress-up, walk and talk like human beings.

akello putting away his groceries. the bottom shelf is akellos shelf and anything for him is put down there so that he can get his food on his own. here he has ammassed a tower of yogurts.

We love books that are quite often non-fiction and there are many great books out there with people characters that he could easily relate to and understand. Well those are the ins and outs of our gift giving criteria.

aunt mona stops by for a visit

You might be thinking, those crazy Montessori people, but we want you to know the gifts aren't the important aspect of this holiday and we will encourage that in how we raise Akello. Most of all it will be wonderful to see and spend time with as many of you as we can during the holidays. Good times with family and friends celebrating the blessings of what Christmas means can be the greatest gifts of all.

or a drumset for akello. ha! no just kidding, friends and family visits, really

(drumset link here...)
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4184087&findingMethod=rr

We have however provided a wishlist for those of you still interested in getting Akello a little something, something.

below to view the Wish list:
http://www.toysrus.com/wishlist/search/index.jsp?_eventId=detail&searchBy=&wishlistId=4660818

You can also make purchases from this Wish List at any one of our retail stores. Just remember to bring the following information:

Creator: AKELLO GARCIA and GIL GARCIA
Gift Recipient: AKELLO GARCIA
Event Type: Christmas
Wish List #: 4660818

*Please remember to print a fresh copy of the Wish list when you visit a store to prevent duplicate purchases. Also make sure you present your printout during checkout so that this Wish List is updated correctly.

thanks,

KELLO at thanksgiving feast

2008-12-08T00:09:00.001-06:00

img_6590, originally uploaded by hms_kids.

Akello's school (hawthorne montessori) has their own flickr site for parents. how cool is that! they take pics of the kiddos at school and post'em. here's akello eating....as usual

New School for Akello / thanksgiving recap

2008-12-04T23:16:00.002-06:00

So the big news is that Akello now goes to Hawthorne Montessori school. He's been going since november first. Now i know what your thinking. "wha wha???"

I know. I know.

The whole reason Theresa started Mornings in the nest was so that she could stay home with him, still be an educator, still make money, not have to pay for childcare.

Well, we were forewarned that Akello might not do well in an environment such as this once he reached two years old. It was stressfull for mama and akello both. Imagine if you would having to share mama and all your work materials! Theresa knew that it was time for akello to go to a seperate program as much as it pained our hearts and pocketbooks. The only thing was, would we find a school that we saw "worthy" of our standards that was "worthy" of our pocketbook AND was close to home? We obviously did, but not before checking all options in the north part of town, and there are about 3 to five. Hawthorne Montessori was the only school that had that vibe, that felt right. and upon further inspection and experience has proven to be an awesome school with awesome faculty. Its on the pricey side, but you will know were that money went. Akello is loving it!

We went everywhere it seems this thanksgiving. To theresas parents in kileen, to my parents in san marcos, to my sisters in san marcos. here are some pics. and video

akello eating pie at my parents, or should i say, eating whip cream

akello loves his tamales!

akello's version of "goodbye, so long, farewell my freinds"

akello and DJ at grandma pearls

fun times

akello and great grandma chivela exploring my parents backyard

akello and gina and kevins. they got him a john deere toy skid loader with bucket and shovel. he hasnt let go of the skid loader yet. a great bargaining tool!!

this was only one of the many offerings that my gourmet sister served for brunch following thanksgiving. there was sooo much good food to be had.

We are still here

2008-11-18T23:09:00.002-06:00

We miss the blog as much as you!. I cant wait to blog over thanksgiving break next week, hang in there readers!

look! theresa cut her hair! i grew a beard! akello is as cute as ever!

Think outside the stacking cups

2008-11-10T23:17:00.003-06:00

Think outside the stacking cups, originally uploaded by Gilkata.

I am now "using the force" as it were with the montessori method. Today Akello grabbed the stacking cups and began to work. He began to stack them differently than I would expect him to.

The me of 3 years ago would have stopped what akello was doing, told him that he was doing it "wrong" and showed him how to correctly stack the cups.

The me of 2 days ago would have thought in my mind, "he's doing it wrong". I would have started to say something and then would have caught myself.

But the me of today simply observed as akello tried multiple times, and finally stacked his cups. He was determined and focused and un-interrupted by me. I found great joy in watching him work, problem solve and be so joyous upon balancing the tower after so many tries, and he found that joy through self discovery. Not be me telling him that he "did a good job" or did it "right" and through that self discovery comes the fostering of independence and a scholorship to an IV league school...right?

Where's my light saber?

young julius schulman

2008-11-02T23:17:00.001-06:00

IMG_6965, originally uploaded by Gilkata.

akello built this little city of blocks and then proceeded to document it for the library of congress. little did he realize he was taking another extreme closeup of his nose.

gameday

2008-10-31T00:28:00.001-05:00

IMG_6958, originally uploaded by Gilkata.

akello and mama and me at a football game. akello is clapping for the kicker. BIG KICK!!