10-11 Months!

Time got away from me the last month and clearly I haven't posted in awhile! Both kids were sick one week, Jon and I were incredibly sick the next week, and then the kids again the following week. Let's just say I cannot wait for sunshine and spring.

Among all the chaos the past month or so, little miss Evangeline turned 10 months and today is 11 months! How is this possible? Absolute craziness. I'm feeing a bit emotional that she is going to be one years old in just another month. Boy has this past year flown by.

Evangeline Rae

11 Months

• You weigh 18 pounds and are wearing 9-12 month clothes. 
• Between 9 and 10 months old you finally started eating solid foods! Getting you to eat pureed baby food was such a struggle and you wanted nothing to do with a sippy cup. As soon as you stopped gagging on puffs and cheerios, we put you to straight table food in little chunks and you were as happy as can be! Whatever we are eating, you are eating in little bite size pieces. You want to do it all yourself and get upset when someone puts it in your mouth for you. You are now loving your sippy cup, especially with some juice in it. 

Evie at 10 months

(We got some free photos from a new place in town. Not impressed with the quality, but oh well! They were free and marked her 10th month!)

 (This was a sample, hence the lettering through her bow. haha).

• At 10 months you started clapping your hands. This is probably one of my favorite milestones baby's reach. It's too cute. 
• At 10 months (on January 21st) your top two teeth popped through. You are darling with those huge chompers! 
• We are working on a few baby signs and you seem to have gotten the hang of "all done," which Mekonen loves to emphatically do along with you. 
• You are our destroyer. You love, love to knock things over, bulldoze through piles of clothes, and rid a shelf of all its books. You are definitely learning what the word "no" means. Is it possible to have two feisty kids? haha. 

• Blanket training has just begun. Not mastered yet, and truthfully, Mommy can't wait until it is. :) 

• You are nursing just twice a day now (before bed and in the morning). Weening from nursing has been a little more emotional than I ever thought it would be. Who knew! 
• You love to play! At the museum you now get out of the stroller and crawl all over the kids play area. At home, one of the first toys you go to is the little blue kitchen. You open the door to get to the wooden food pieces that velcro together. You always, always grab the carrot. Many times you will carry it around for awhile and then take all the pieces apart. It's the only piece of play food you play with. So random. You also love to push anything that will move along the floor. It entertains you for quite awhile! 
• At the little blue kitchen in search of the carrot.
  

• You love to climb! Daddy found you 5 stairs up our flight of stairs and Mommy and Grandma found you standing up in your high chair! 

• You have stood independently several times, but just for a few seconds. As soon as you realize you are doing it, you quickly sit down. 
• You are still a terrible sleeper! For awhile, you were doing great when we discovered a space heater helped you sleep much better. But now you are up anywhere from 3-5 times a night crying. It is exhausting my dear! You have had problems off and on with your ears (5 ear infections since the summer) and we are looking into seeing an ENT and possibly ear tubes. Hopefully this might be a solution for consistent, good, sleep-filled nights! Lord knows this Mama needs it! I can only drink so much Pepsi Max! 
• You get startled very easily and crawl as fast as you can to the nearest adult. It's hilarious. 
• We love seeing your personality emerge. You are really beginning to interact with Mekonen. When I get you out of your crib and say, "Where is Mekonen" You point your little finger down the hallway. He makes you laugh and laugh, but can also make you very mad. You are very quick to let him know you are not happy. Mekonen's favorite name for you right now is, "Eve-Bo-Beeve." Haha.

Mekonen's Hair-Do!!

Wow. I keep resolving to write more on the blog, since I'm far off my usual posting schedule. But none the less, when some down time comes, I'm too tired to type out any thoughts! So thanks to all of you still reading even though my posting has been minimal this month!

I have had numerous people over the past several months ask me about Mekonen's hair and how I do it. Since I found myself writing the same things over and over, I figured a blog post was in order instead!

Hair-type is the biggest contributor to the kind of hair-styles you can do on your little one. Just because someone has black hair doesn't mean it can turn into any black hairstyle. Black people have just as many varying textures and kinds of hair as white people. I say all that because even if you follow certain black hair care routines you may get a different result than you were anticipating. This is where lots of reading, asking questions, and pure trial and error come into play before you find the right combo of products and hair-styles for your little one. We live in an all-black neighborhood and I have gleaned some great tips from some of my neighbors. Here's what I've learned over the last few years and through trial and error!

Texture/tightness of curl- Most of my black friends have very thick hair, tiny, tight spiral curls, and a more coarse texture. This kind of hair works best (they say) with more oil based products. I have tried several different black hair care products of that nature on Mekonen and they do not work at all. Mekonen's hair is way more soft than it is coarse and his curls are more loose. Because of this, his hair would not absorb the oil enough and it would almost drip off, or it would leave oil marks wherever he rested his head. Then I switched to a more lotion based oil product and that still wasn't working well.

I tried many products in the black hair care section, and some that were pretty expensive. After lots of trial and error, I found that an over the counter spray in detangler and Garnier Fructis Leave-in-Conditioner works great for Mekonen.

It is usually the case that most kids shouldn't have their hair washed more than once a week. When Mekonen doesn't wear his hair in twists, I need to wash it every two days to keep it fresh and not too frizzy. (I know, seems to be the opposite, but we've found that works best). But, if Mekonen wears his hair in twists, I wash it and twist it once every 1.5 to 2 weeks (sometimes more or less depending on how well he keeps his sleep cap on).

Okay, so now, on the the "how-to" of twists. This style, and the way I do it, can be done on all black hair textures and types, the "look" just might end up different depending on their hair. A black friend of mine came over and basically gave me the lo down.

1. Wash and pat their hair  "dry". Some say to comb it out with a wide toothed comb in the tub or after using detangler, but I've stopped that battle. It hurts his head too much and doesn't seems to make a difference, so why torture him? I do make sure that I scrub his scalp really well with my fingers when I wash it to prevent product build up though. Never rub their hair with the towel, or wrap it up in a towel. Gently squeeze it out, or pat dry.

2. Arm yourself with a good kid movie, a sippy cup, and some snacks. Our process with Mekonen's hair is about an hour long, and it holds for about 2 weeks.

3. Style as soon as possible If it starts drying out too much before you begin using the product and twisting it can create frizz.

4. Soak, I mean soak, their hair with the spray detangler. (The cheapest store brand kind has worked just fine for us).

This is where some things may vary depending on your child's hair texture and the prodcut you are using. This is just what I do.
5. Use a very generous amount of Garnier Fructis Leave-in-Conditioner. I fill almost my entire palm and massage it through his hair. Work the conditioner through for a good 3-5 minutes. Don't skimp on the time. Usually when his hair turns out frizzier than I want, I find it's because I didn't massage the conditioner in enough. Think of coating every single strand.

6. Twisting.
The more temporary style (1-2 weeks)
Start from the bottom and underneath. Take individual sections (however big or small you want) and begin twisting them. If you are using a lock cream you will want to put the lock cream on each twist before twisting. I haven't used lock cream yet and just use the same Garnier conditioner for the twisting, but I don't put more on every single twist. Just as needed. Make sure you twist the hair underneath first and work towards the top layer. Otherwise, you won't get every strand of hair in the twist and it will create a frizzy look.

The more "permanent" style
I have yet to twist in the more permanent way because I'm afraid I won't be able to get it out. The more "permanent"twist style can dread the hair and the only way to get a dread out is to cut it. However, my friends say that you can twist it in this permanent way and just take it out at 2 weeks like the other way, and it'll be fine. With this style of twisting (you mostly use the lock cream for this, although I don't see why you can't use the conditioner), you are creating a twist inside a twist. Again, start from the bottom and underneath, and work your way to the top. Take the section you are wanting to twist and divide it into 2 sections. Twist those 2 sections around each other all the way down. Then take the twist as one section and twist that.

(I have super bad lighting photography skills. So ignore that! )

7. Maintaining the style. The biggest reason this style is successful on Mekonen is because of the sleep cap. If Mekonen doesn't wear a sleep cap, the style will only look good for about 2 days. We use the adult size caps because of how much hair Mekonen has. The child size ones are too small to fit over his hair and cover his whole head. We have him wear a silk cap every nap and bedtime, and also put it under his snow hat. He does well keeping it on most of the time and he looks so darn cute! When you take the cap off the hair will be smashed down, just carefully and lightly "fluff" the twists out. Daily touch-ups can include twisting front pieces that might have frizzed by twisting them again with conditioner or whatever product you are using. If I have a hair serum, I often put a good amount of that in my hand and lightly finger it through his hair.

 The smashed down after sleep cap look. Haha. Just fluff it out and it's fine! 

8. Most black people I've talked to say not to permanently dread or lock your child's hair because it's unhealthy. They say only keep hairstyles for about 2 weeks, then take it down. If you are doing a tight hairstyle (like braids and such with a girl) that you should alternate between a tight style for 2 weeks and then a "free" style like leaving it big and curly with a headband or something for the next 2 weeks to let the hair "breathe" and the scalp recover.

Merry Belated Christmas!

Wow. What a busy start to the New Year. I have been trying to muster up the energy for a couple weeks now to catch up our the blog and I just couldn't! We hit the ground running upon our return trip from PA and I am still feeling a bit overwhelmed. Both kids were really sick for a good ten days, and then Jon got sick. All of that on top of working and other scheduled activities, I am just too tired to do anything extra. I am still not as organized and de-cluttered as I like to be after Christmas, which is driving me insane. And so, without further ado, here's a recap of Christmas!

This year we spent Christmas Day in Indiana with Jon's family, which meant we got to spend Christmas morning at our own house with just our little family of four. This was my favorite part! :) Here's Jon reading the Christmas story early morning out of Mekonen's Bible.

The kiddos with their stockings and gifts! Mekonen was loving the Thomas wrapping paper. Evie spent most of the time throwing around the wrapping paper and trying to figure out what all the commotion was. 

Mekonen and one of his favorite gifts: a stuffed Corduroy bear from the Corduroy stories. He loves those books right now. When he opened up Corduroy he took him out and was staring at him with amazement and said, "You will be my buddy!" and gave him a big hug. We got Evie her first rag doll with her name engraved on the dress. 

 After breakfast and gifts at our house we headed up to Jon's parents late Christmas morning. 

Evie got her first tea set. :) 

 Evie looks a lot like my baby pictures here. 

 Mekonen got a Thomas scooter from Uncle Jeremy. He loooves it. 

Happy Birthday Daddy!!! Mekonen always thinks the cake and presents are for his birthday. This year he understood that Christmas is when we celebrate Jesus' birthday. So, with Daddy and Jesus' birthday the same day, and Mekonen's also 3 days later, he was wildly confused. haha. 

About 6am the day after Christmas we piled into the car and drove 12 hours to PA to spend Christmas with my family. Crazy, but so fun. We walked into my parents house, changed our clothes, and Christmas began! :) 

 Castro Family Christmas Chaos. The way it should be. :) 

 We had such a full week and such a great time with Grandma, Grandpa, aunts, uncles, and lots of cousins. Mekonen was passed out every night from exhaustion but would wake up bright and early asking if Manny and Aderyn were awake yet. 

My brother wasn't able to come Christmas day so he came a few days after. So good to see his bright smiling face. Love. 

We had a wonderful Christmas celebrating Jesus and the hope we have that started in a manger. Oh how different our lives would be without it. 

9 Months Old

Mekonen turned 3 years old on December 28th, and this cutie cutes turned 9 months old the same day!

At 9 months old you are:

• You are mimicking noises and of course we think it's the cutest thing. You love to smack your tongue and will laugh in response to someone laughing at you. It's fun to see you developing into a little person. hehe. 
• You started walking around with a toy walker on Christmas day and less than a week later were cruising around Grandma's furniture. It really is a funny sight to see because you are so tiny. (sorry for the stellar camera skills). 

• You are finally eating some finger food- just puffs! You still gag and gag on Cheerios, but you eat puffs a little better, gagging here and there, but you love them!
• You still want nothing to do with a sippy cup and if we give one to you, you just end up chewing on it. 
• You still like to wake up in the middle of the night and cry a bit, but at least not every single night now! What happened to 0-6 months when you slept through the night without a peep? 
• You are expressing your little temper these days and yell very loudly when something doesn't go your way. uh-oh! 
• You are in love with your blankie. You find it so soothing to put it right up to your mouth and make these little clicking noises with your tongue. When you sleep, you like it lightly touching your lips. Thankfully you don't suck on it though. Eww gross. 

• Your favorite food is sweet potatoes, and a mix of pears, carrots and squash. Your favorite fruit is apples and blueblerries mixed. You are a plain girl when it comes to food. So far you are not a fan of mixed stuff (besides the pears, carrots, and squash), and most recipes with meat in the them make you mad. haha. 
• You are starting the stranger anxiety stage and prefer your Mommy to most people. When a stranger talks to you, you turn your head into my shoulder like you are being shy. When people are in the room, and then they leave, you often cry. You are just like your Mama...you love having lots of people around.
• And the best yet? Your first word is "mama" and yes, you actually do say it in reference to me. *love*

Happy 3rd Birthday Mekonen!

Mekonen turned 3 years old today! Wow. Boy does time fly. I can't believe I have a 3 year old. I can't believe my baby is already 3! This pretty much makes him preschool age, which is strange. :) Oh how I love him more than my life itself!

Mekonen Jack

3 years

Mekonen loves, absolutely loves, Thomas and trains. So this year we did a Thomas the Tank Engine party with his cousins. We set up the table while he was taking his nap and when he woke up and came up the stairs to all the Thomas and birthday things in the front room, his face lit up! It was too cute. He kept saying, "Whoa! Look at Thomas!!!" 

The birthday boy's seat!

Thomas cake!!

I love how excited he is in this picture!

 Blowing out the candles!

 Cutie boy.

 Opening gifts! We got Mekonen a Thomas book, paint with color book, a Thomas Take-N-Play Pirate ship, and a remote control "Cars" car (which he was so fascinated with). My parents got him the Radio Flyer Classic Tricycle. He also got a Cars placemat, another paint with color book, stamps, and a cape with a big "M" on it for superhero play. 

 Mommy and Evie

 Playing with the Thomas Pirate ship. 

At 3 years old, you are growing into quite the little man. You are 36 lbs and have grown out of two pant sizes this fall! You sound so incredibly grown up when you talk and answer most questions in complete sentences, such as, "Hey Mekonen, do you want to go to the store?" and he says, "Yes I do!" It's super cute. Some of your other famous responses are, "yes it is." "oh sure." and "actually..." 

You are very sweet and have been using please, thank you, and you're welcome without reminders almost all the time. You are constantly thanking me for things that I do for you, without prompting and things we haven't "taught" you to say. For example, while eating your lunch you stopped and said, "Thanks for making me lunch Mom." and, "thanks for giving me a bath Mom." Melts my heart. 

You have a genuine joy and happiness that busts out of your little self. You laugh and laugh all day long and get such a kick out of making your sister laugh. You will go to great lengths to do this! Whenever we want to get you to smile for a picture we say, "Mekonen laugh!!" And you do, on command. A full on belly laugh. 

You continue to love music and can learn a new song in just one day. You even recognize songs you know that are just instrumental. Crazy. Right now you sing the hymns "Blessed Assurance," "Standing on the Promises," "All Creatures of our God and King," and umpteen amounts of kid songs like "If You're Happy and You Know it Clap Your Hands." You can recite Psalm 23 and we have begun memorizing the first chapter of James. So far you have verse 2-3 completed. 

You love trains and cars. Thomas and his friends are your go-to train characters and you still love the characters from the movie Cars.  

You are an all or nothing kid. As soon as you get something in your mind, there's no stopping you. When you like something, it's all the way, such as a favorite toy or character. Because of this, we work hard to set your heart on Jesus. 

We continue to pray for you daily, that God will draw you to Himself, and that you will love Him, and live your life for Him. We pray that you love and protect your sister and build a strong and lasting relationship with her. Your name means "noble," "the next one to rule" and we pray great things in that direction. We praise the Lord for making you exactly as you are, for His glory. May we love and encourage you this coming year (and many, many years to come) into becoming who God has created you to be. 

We love you!