Playtime

A night of fun photos... Here he is just being cute

Found a toy while drinking his bottle... and deciding he must carry it around.

still has it...

and now, apparently, they belong on his highchair.

man I'm cute... but the living room is a mess, Mommy!

playing in Mommy's lap

playing peek-a-boo alongside the laundry

this is a game in which he would put the "ball" in the toy, then bring it to me, and then hide in my lap... but I had a hard time getting that to show in the pictures so this is just him playing :)

First Steps

Wow... so I guess I kinda forgot I had a blog :) Anyway, so that I always remember what day it was and because I am terrible about keeping the stereotypical "baby book", I just wanted to post that my little 10 1/2 month old boy has officially taken some real steps!

He has been hinting at it for awhile. A couple hobbles from one piece of furniture to the next. Practically running along the couch and anything else he can grab onto. But today, at my parent's house, he turned from the tv stand, let go, and started walking towards me. This was about the third true attempt of the night where he was independently walking without being quickly able to grab onto nearby furniture, but this was the most extensive. At least 5 steps, maybe 6 or 7, walking all by himself! Yay Daniel! And I have never seen him look more pleased with himself!!!

And, of course, I have no pictures or video to show it! :( Oh, well... hopefully we can get that soon. Grandma attempted to get some video, but as soon as she pulled her phone out, his focus quickly went towards her phone rather than walking.

So, soon, I'm sure he will be running....

Family Portrait Day

It has been a LONG LONG time since I have even thought to post anything!! Ooops... never quite got in the habit and then the whole thing just slipped my mind, what with having a newborn to take care of... So what I'm going to do is basically work backwards.  A couple of weeks ago, my brother came up to our house to shoot pictures of Daniel, and these are some of the results.  I used powerpoint to condense it and a little art to it, but my brother is responsible for all the awesome shots.  It is so nice to have a brother who enjoys doing photography on the side... and who will also do house calls!! :) Thanks Steve!

Stopping for lunch... more than once

Pictures with mom

And with Dad

Some family portraits

We love to kiss our baby!

And finally, the most adorable baby in the world.

To see all of the pictures, and some of our puppy, visit

http://www.thomaspatel.smugmug.com/

Welcome Daniel!!

Baby Daniel Thomas Celis-Castillo was born on April 26, 2011 at 3:44 a.m. He weighed 6 lbs 2 oz and measured in at 19 inches. Here is the story of his first few days!!!

Two weeks before Daniel's due date, at around 6:45 p.m. on Monday, April 25, I suddenly got up to go to the bathroom, and discovered that my water was breaking!!!! At this time began a frantic search for... a pair of comfortable pants for me to wear to the hospital! Fortunately, my sister-in-law Chely was there to help us keep sane get everything together and we made it out the door with (pretty much) everything we needed and began the 25 minute journey to the hospital. Family was called, as well as a few calls to take care of things for work (my substitute was scheduled to shadow me beginning today, Thursday, April 28 and was actually booked with my good friend for Monday - Wednesday). I didn't know it until about 7:45 the next morning, but it ended up that Kim subbed for me, which worked out great! (Thanks Kim :)

We ended up at the hospital after taking a brief detour (oops, wrong exit, Love) with my water still continuing to break... I had a towel, but I don't think that was nearly enough! We searched for how to get to the actual emergency entrance, and as my water continued to break, I took a ride from my husband in a wheelchair. We got all checked in after finally figuring out the maze to labor and delivery (at Kaiser in Fontana -- can't believe how long of a ride that was!) and I was placed in my first room.

I was given a hospital gown to change into, but I couldn't quite figure out how to put it on... For one because I didn't know how it worked, but for another, because my water was STILL breaking. My husband actually knocked on the door to figure out what was going on because he thought that the sink was running, but no, it was just me leaking into the toilet!!! Continuously!!

Finally, the nurse helped me get into the gown, and checked to see if I was dilated (no). I was transported to the next room, which was a little bigger (the first one was miniscule!), and was where I would spend the time until going to delivery. I was administered a medical insert to try to induce labor and was told if nothing progressed, they would check again in 12 hours and possibly reinduce. At around 9 (I believe after the insert had accidently been pulled out), I did start having contractions. And they were not the kind where you get a break in between... it started pretty quickly to where I was getting maybe 30 seconds to a  minute and a half to rest and then onto the next one. I imagined that happening, of course, but I thought I would be at least a few hours into labor first!! At midnight, the nurse came in to check how much I was dilated and I had some bad news... a 1/2 centimeter! So all that pain and it was still going to be a LONG time before I could get an epidural. I had ended up taking some pain medication, which was not a part of the original plan, and honestly, except for making me groggy, didn't really seem to do much to help the pain. But anyway, so my contractions continued, coming in quickly and not feeling too comfortable, and at 3 the nurse decided to check my cervix again to see if I had dilated a little more so I could get the epidural.

Here's the shock. Not only had I dilated more, but I was up to 9 centimeters!! So there goes any chance for an epidural and now it's time to go to delivery!!! I honestly thought the nurse was kidding when she said it, but I guess not!!!

So after 30 minutes of pushing in delivery (which felt SO MUCH BETTER than the regular contractions!!!), little baby Daniel made it into our world!!

in delivery

Painting a Mural!

So after I kept saying that the colors of our baby's room looks like a giraffe, my husband finally suggested that I paint a giraffe on the wall. Well, I was concerned that if I just painted a giraffe, it would blend into the walls and wouldn't really look that good. Plus, i was scared of painting anything at all on the walls because I didn't want it to look like an awful mess when it was done!

But, the next morning, I had an idea - use the invitations my mom bought for my baby shower as a design plan. With a few minor adjustments, I decided that I'd just go for it. If it doesn't work, then we'll just have to paint a few more coats of yellow over it, right?

After a trip to OfficeMax to have the invitation blown up and laminated. The grid is in 1 inch squares, and each sq. inch is a 6 in. square on the wall.



I first tried to draw the grid without a level -- bad idea. Ended up at Target to buy one, and that was a HUGE time saver!



This is my first ever attempt at creating a mural. I think that the hardest part is working with the texture of the wall... the wall that constantly wants to work against me. It is very difficult to make a straight line! Also, everything requires at least 2, if not 3, coats of paint to get full coverage! And some even a little more than that...

Pencil drawing of the monkey on the tree

The first paint

Here are a few more steps of the process:

I did not realize how long of a process this would be... I started this over my spring break (the end of March), and here is it April 17 and I'm still not completely finished!! Backache, exhaustion, and having a million other things to do have really gotten in the way!!! However, I will post later the updates of the entire room, because, finally, our nursery is ALMOST finished and looking ready for little Daniel to move in!!!

Here is the most updated picture of the mural:

Painting Daniel's Room



 Sandra, China, and Grandma check out our wedding album



We had a full house today full of family here to visit and help us out.

Our moms looking at pictures

After that, everyone got to work. Mostly, it was my mom and Rudy painting, but Sandra, China, and I helped out too... and Sandra and China did an awesome job cleaning the living room and pool table room!

My mom and I painted the baseboards a chocolate brown

Sandra lends a hand

My love matches the walls :)

My mom as they get started on the painting

It's a good thing my mom knows how to use power tools! Here she is with the nail gun.

And the circular saw... scary to watch but she did an awesome job!

All done!

Daniel's Room

We are finally working on our baby's room! At first we weren't too sure about the color (it turned out a little darker than expected), but it's starting to grow on us. We still need another coat, but I think it'll end up looking great when it's done. My mom and my husband worked together painting and they're doing a great job! I wish I'd taken some pictures to post... I will on Wednesday when they do the second coat. Our next step is to paint the baseboards, which we're doing in a dark chocolate brown. I think it looks like a giraffe, but that's fitting since the theme of the room is animal safari. 

We went to Michael's yesterday to get the letters for his name, which we'll be hanging on the wall. Those we painted a Dazzling Metallic Ice Blue... it won't show up as well on the computer, but we like it.

Now that we have a little more going on, I'll try to do more posts and add more pics!!!!