We didn't photograph the growing belly at all when I was pregnant with Siena... and that was a conscious choice, it grossed me out.

Now, when people ask me if I am bigger or smaller with this child than with Siena, I don't know what to say because I honestly can't remember how tubby the tummy was with Siena.

So, without further ado... baby belly numero dos is documented at month 7:

I've been keeping busy the last few days, that's for sure. After finally deciding on a theme for Siena's birthday party, it's been non-stop "project-ing". It didn't help that I stumbled across this awesome tutorial online that shows you how to transform an old button-up shirt into a cute sundress. It just so happens that we were given a bag of button-up shirts (which Juan decided he did not want or need) and since we haven't yet taken them to the second-hand store, I'm going to use them to make dresses for Siena and a little girl in the Branch. I whipped one up yesterday morning (bloomers and all) and since it was so easy, I think I'll tackle about 5 more in the next couple of days. The shirts are all de-pocketed and ready to go and I can't wait to see how they turn out. These are poor-quality pictures, but it gives you an idea of what the project was. (Oh, and since I did bloomer capris out of the arms, I decided to shorten the dress into a top so the capris would peek out; the others I think I will mix up a bit.)

So I think our camera is cursed... or the rechargeable batteries have kicked the bucket. Every time we take our camera out (re-filled with "charged" batteries,) it dies after 2 pictures. So we've opted to using our phone cameras rather than drive 3 blocks to buy new batteries. Blurry is better than nothing, I suppose.

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For Juan's birthday, I decided to get him tickets to the Gold Cup Quarterfinals here in Philly. We left Siena with Kurt and Amber and had a much-needed date night. The first game was Honduras vs. Canada (2-0) and the second was U.S.A. vs. Panama (2-1 U.S. won on a penalty kick in double overtime.) Our seats were amazing, the energy of the stadium was high, and both teams we had rooted for WON... a successful birthday present, I think. After about 6 hours of two awesome futbol games, we headed home to pick up Siena, who had been having way too much fun with K & A. We owe you guys!

An overnight attempt:

(pay no attention to the unmade bed...)

Siena had awoken in the middle of the night because of a nightmare, so she was cuddled up to us this morning. Around 9-something (aahh... Saturdays), she woke up Juan by saying "Te amo Papi!" (I love you Dad). After some tickles and giggles, she leaned over to me and said "Te amo Mami" which woke sleepy-head-ME up. Then, as an itty-bitty family, we shared smiles and kisses and hugs all around. I can't remember a time when I was more content with life.

If you haven't actually used a Magic Eraser, you probably have at least heard of it. I have wondered if it really works and tonight I became a believer.

We'll get back to that....

We've been confined to three and a half rooms in our home: our bedroom, Siena's bedroom, the kitchen, and the upstairs bathroom. Why? WE'RE FINALLY GETTING NEW CARPET! No more pet urine stains and their lingering smells. No more black socks or feet. No more ugly stains everywhere. They tore out the carpet in the main floor and the basement and will replace it with the new carpet on Monday. I can't wait!!

So, to prevent us all from going stir-crazy, we've tried to stay busy out-of-doors today.

• Went to a local Farmer's Market. Tried sugar plums for the first time... delish!
• Came home, changed into nice clothes, and went to the baptism of a young guy who has been coming to the Spanish Branch for a couple of months.
• Groceries and shoe shopping. (Believe it or not... the shoe shopping was not for me!)
• Came home. Hung pictures on the wall. Siena napped. Juan napped. Stacia sewed this little thing to keep Siena busy tomorrow during Sacrament Meeting: (sorry, another phone pic)
  

• Later, drove out to Penn's Landing for the Hispanic Festival. Ate good food and watched Siena dance to some awesome live Puerto Rican/Dominican music. (Will upload video of her shaking her booty later... maybe.)
  
• Came home to clean up a mural courtesy of Siena and a bolt/pen earlier this morning. THIS is where the Magic Eraser comes in to play. While we were shopping this afternoon, we saw it in the home cleaning aisle of Walmart and decided to try it out. (Okay, we went with the generic brand "[comparative] to the Magic Eraser".) Anyway, it really worked! Our walls are clean again!

Just for fun.

...that is such a scary word around this time of year for 3rd-year dental students and their families.

Luckily, Juan did a lot of studying these last couple of weeks and the dreaded written exam is OVER! He says he feels really good about how it went (not over-confident, but good,) and says that he wouldn't have changed anything about how he studied. That's some good news around this house. ;^)

So what did we do to celebrate when he got home from his exam? We ordered classic Chavez family take-out: Phở! (pronounced "Fuh?" as if you were asking a question.) Tooooooo yummy.


CONGRATS JUAN!

Simply put: Siena is pulling out the stops with tantrums lately. We're talking screaming at the TOP of her lungs, kicking, throwing stuff, hitting-- the very worst a 2 year-old can do. So what do I DO??!?!?!?!

Admittedly, I have no idea where to start because whenever I read all the parenting magazines, I skipped to the fun stuff like " Your Baby Can Crawl at 2 Months!" Now that we've hit the Oh-So-Renowned "Terrible Twos", I find myself trying my hardest to remember what they taught in my high school Child Development class...hmmmm... can't recall anything. Here are the methods I have tried, which do not seem to be working:

• ignore it
• TIME OUT
  
• withhold a desired object as punishment
  
• TIME OUT
  
• bribe against it
• explain the situation calmly
• TIME OUT
  
• explain the situation harshly
• TIME OUT
• Copycat her performance (yeah, this definitely doesn't work)

Anyway, I am running out of patience and am running out of ideas even faster. They have had to bring Siena in to me at work because she cries and cries whenever she realizes I am not there. So we have this whole " Separation Anxiety" thing going on again, hmmm? Moms... any advice? Did this happen to you when you were pregnant with numero 2?

Since I took pictures, I have reason enough to post about 4th of July. We didn't start the day with any plans whatsoever, but decided around 10:00 to take advantage of the things that were going on at Penn's Landing. Walking out of the subway, we caught the end of the parade... which we didn't expect to get to see at all. Then we went to the annual Ice Cream Festival--oh yeah, you heard me right. Once we got inside the tent, we were wondering if we would even get our money's worth because it was SO crowded; however, we figured out a system and by the time we left, we had eaten about 15 scoops of ice cream between the three of us.

We then walked over to the Betsy Ross house (how appropriate for the 4th,) and took the tour. We decided to keep walking and ended up visiting Christ's Church, the Friend's Quaker Meetinghouse, and the National Constitution Center. The last stop was really spectacular because they had a TON of tents and actors reinacting different armed forces from different wars. For example, there was an army doctor who gave a demonstration on how amputations were performed during the Civil War (Juan liked that one); there were women who shared stories of women's societies throughout wartime; and there were old-timey marines who explained their living circumstances during the early 19th century. It was a very interesting experience and you could tell that it had taken a lot of preparation for that event.

We left the Historic part of the city to travel to our part of the city, West Philadelphia--the slums we call home. After a nice restful rest of the afternoon, we drove back in to get a good spot to view the fireworks from the Franklin. We checked Google Maps and strategically planned out where to go so as not to hit traffic on the way back home. Luckily, that plan worked out for us and we found the perfect spot on the Schuykill River right near Boathouse Row. The view was spectacular: the cityscape, Franklin Museum, Boathouse Row and the River all in one photo. Loved the fireworks, but have to admit that they didn't equal those of the Stadium of Fire. That's okay, though, because if the city of Philadelphia is closing things like libraries because of funding, they probably should keep the "extras" like fireworks low-key, right? Anyway, the entire day was fun and when we eventually leave Philadelphia, we will not have regrets that we didn't take advantage of where we lived on the Fourth of July.

Yesterday was fun--we cleaned the house from top to bottom, finally finished the bathroom (which means I finally found a shower curtain I can work with,) had some yummy food with friends, and watched fireworks.

Bathroom Confession: Juan and I have never owned a shower curtain. Yes, we've had the liners, but never an actual curtain... you know, one with a cute pattern that you match your towels to. So after months of browsing here and there, I spied one yesterday at TJ Maxx and then the inspiration started flowing. Yes, you may laugh because I'm so excited about my bathroom, but this is a big deal. That means we could finally buy a floor mat (which means never having to use that nasty hand towel as a substitute... for which I am grateful!) Anyway, enough about the bathroom...

Wait, oh wait! I forgot there was a sidestory to the whole bath re-vamp:

So I was putting finishing touches on the bathroom and I decided it needed one last punch of color. So I headed into our garage and came out with a little vase and some silk dogwood flowers. The vase was fire engine red instead of wine red, so I decided I'd spray a cherry wood tone overtop it to hide the brighter red. I didn't want a breeze while I was spraying, so I decided that since it was such a small vase I would just quickly spray it in the garage, then open up the garage door to air it out. I also knew that the label of the spray can specifically warns pregnant women NOT to inhale the fumes. "Okay," I thought, "I can do this under a minute, and I'll just hold my breath until I'm done." (Let me just say, I was on a roll with this project and I wanted it to be completed. One track mind.) So I sprayed it really quickly, was proud of the result, and started for the door to the house to open the garage. Now, the way our garage is set up is with garage door button to open and close the garage downstairs in our house; also, the door from our house to the garage has a lock on it, but from the inside going out, you can just open the door. It doesn't work the opposite direction, you have to use a key to get in if the door is closed.

You can see where I'm going with this...

I headed for the door only to realize that I was locked in. No problem, Juan was home and in the room right above me, feeding Siena her lunch (such a nice hubby.) So I started yelling, "Juan!" through the door, expecting he would just come down and open the door. He never came. After about 2 minutes, I started getting worried that he had left the house for something. After 5 minutes of yelling, I started panicking because I had sprayed a LOT of paint on that stupid vase and the fumes had saturated the small garage by then. Where was Juan?! I could hear Siena in her chair at the table, yelling for someone to give her more food. This was a bad sign- had Juan passed out next to her at the table? Soon I had started planning my death--DEATH BY ASPHYXIATION, or at the very least, the complications it would induce in my baby; I started to cry (chalk another one up for the Hormones,) and wondered how they would break the news to our parents that all three and a half of us had died from different circumstances on the same day: heart attack, starvation, and asphyxiation.

Finally, after about 8 minutes, I heard Juan's voice upstairs; he finally heard me and came to my rescue. After I had had a few minutes to calm down and breath in some good air, he explained that he had been upstairs (2 floors away) re-filling the air fresheners and that the sound of the ceiling fans had masked any noise from the rest of the house. He hadn't intentionally ignored us, he was just trying to make our house smell good. :^) I finally stopped crying and realized how stupid of a plan spraying that vase was. Juan took me back down to the garage where he then pointed out a red rope dangling from the ceiling. He told me that all I needed to do was pull the rope down and mechanically lift the garage door. Easy as that. Man, I felt dumb for letting myself get all hysterical and weepy when I could have been out of the garage in one minute. Ha, ha, ha... some of life's stories....

Okay, so the rest of the day went by at a nice pace. Juan was tired so he took a nap while I unpicked Minnie Mouse from a pair of $7 maternity jeans and watched Roddick vs. Murray in the Wimbledon semi-finals. Then I had to get back to work on cleaning the house before our friends came over. Once that was done, and my part of the dinner was prepared, everyone showed up and we had a good time. All of us had either school or work off that day, so that was reason enough to celebrate despite the fact that it was only the 3rd of July. Amber even got sparklers and snaps as an ode to our more youthful 4ths of July. Siena loved them and wouldn't stop asking for "mas" (more). We then all piled in cars and drove over to Upper Darby to watch fireworks with some other friends in their backyard. Unfortunately we couldn't find parking on their one-way street, so we ended up watching them from the car. It was still a blast to watch Siena's reactions to the fireworks, and I hope we get to see more tonight.