Santiago gozo un puyero a comienzos de la semana, cuando fuimos al Miami Children’s Museum (altamente recomendable). Aqui lo ven vestido de Bombero, manejando el propio camion de los bomberos (con sirena y demas):
Al ver el video, no pude evitar el clasico “Fuego” de Las Chicas del Can. Para quienes ya lo olvidaron, disfruten del videito:
P.S. Para mas videos y fotos de Santiago durante la visita al Museo, visiten su blog.
The simple things of life, huh? 
Enjoy…
El nuevo bebe de Luis y Michelle nacio el fin de semana. El sabado llego al mundo Luka Elias Garcia Sanchez, un varon que peso 7 libras 11 onzas y midio 21 pulgadas.
El bebe y la mama estan super-bien y muy lindos. Fotos aqui.
After some debate about it, we finally decided to give it a shot. I am talking about Muzzy, a set of educational videos distributed by Early Advantage, a subsidiary of the BBC, to help teach languages to children.
We got the 30-Day Free Trial of the Spanish program, and we’re not going back. Santiago has clearly expanded his vocabulary in Spanish since we started the program. It may sound silly to those who know that we talk to him in Spanish at home, but the truth is that bilingual kids tend to lean towards English, because it’s what they hear at school and Santiago is no exception.
So, there you have it: the latest recommendation for teaching Spanish to your children!
P.S. they have programs for other languages, in case you’re wondering. Just play with their site so you can see all the options.
A little known fact to some of the people I’ve met in recent times is that I used to work for Procter & Gamble (Pampers, Pringles, etc.) I was with them in Venezuela, between 1996 and 2000. Now, a little less known is what I used to do, considering that I had concentrated during my Bachelors and Masters on Electrical Engineering (EE). I used to work in the manufacturing facility where they MADE PAMPERS in Venezuela.
First, I was in charge of the Electrical Maintenance of the production lines (that’s as much of a connection you are going to see between diapers and EE, so don’t hope for more). Then, I was a production manager in charge of one of the diaper production lines. Last, I left the Operations environment to work on (ready for more changes?) HR: I was in charge of recruiting and training for the whole facility (some 600 folks back then).
Those were good times and they helped lay the foundation for most of the management background I now have. Now, the irony today is that I worked producing something that nowadays is such an important part of my budget. So, to help those with kids who now consume tons and tons of diapers on those little ones, check out the tip offered by my friend lemuroo, to help you win stuff while you buy diapers for your kid(s). I mean, you are going to spend the money anyway: why not make something out of it, don’t you think?
Here we are, at the “other end” of Santiago’s birthday. If you had asked me a few days ago, I wouldn’t have told you I’d made it to the day after, but I did. 
It was a stressful period leading to the party. We suffered changes in the party’s main “attraction” from puppets to animal petting to, what ended up being the final solution: a big bouncing castle that we rented from RentAJumper.com.
In the end, the stress all led to a party that was as smooth and enjoyable as can be. Hey! You can even see me here sporting my Marillion shirt in “Manny’s Hot Dog Corner”.
One tip I found the other day was this:
A guide line which we found very helpful with our three was that the number of invited guests should be (less than or ) equal to the birthday childs age. i.e. five guests for a fifth birthday party.
We had about 15 kids over and Santiago turned three, so you do the math. Indeed it was very involved (almost like one of my projects at work), but the truth is that when I saw Santiago’s face and saw him enjoy himself so much, it was ALL worth it.
I don’t know if next year we’ll repeat the stunt (maybe we’ll do a theme park party with a handful of friends) but this year, it was a great time. Thanks to all who came! And to those who couldn’t, you were in our hearts.
We took our son to Sesame Street Live over the weekend. Halfway through the 1.5-hour show, there was an intermission, which kinda made sense, considering that you could tell from the chatter level in the young audience that the kids (and their parents) were much in need of a break.
What came as a surprise (I know, I shouldn’t be surprised about it) was that, as soon as the lights were came on, one of the persons working with the show came out with a TON of Elmo balloons (I mean a ton!) He was met by an horde of parents desperate to leave an extra $8 in the UCF Arena floor (after having paid $27 per ticket plus some commissions and fees in some cases, if you got them through Ticketmaster.com). I admit I ended up forking the money for the overpriced balloons… but not after waiting for a while, until Santiago realized that every single other kid around him was getting one! 
Within minutes there were no balloons left and if you looked back you could see a sea of floating Elmos in the audience. It was a surreal experience…
En este video, Santiago y Rebecca (la chama de Sandra y Bill, unos panas de Arizona) dan una catedra de como compartir juguetes… y como ponerse a pelear por ellos segundos despues.
COMPARTIENDO
PELAANDO
As we’re gearing up for my son’s third birthday this coming month, we were looking at activities for the kids to do during the party. We were going to rent a few Little Tikes-like items but found an amazing outdoors bouncer made by Spinmaster for them to jump in. We found a video that I could bet was shot with the input from parents. Here’s why.
The first scene shows a baby in a bouncer (the small indoor type) and eventually advances to the point where he’s in the age of being able to use the large outdoors bouncer. It shows the mom, enjoying the view of her son jumping up and down. At the end of the commercial, the kid, totally exhausted, crashes in his mom’s arms and she smiles at the camera, proud of her purchase! See what I mean? This is brilliant! Though one of the ePinions reviews about it says it will never fit in its bag and only holds two kids at a time, I admit it convinced me of the idea of getting this bouncer. 
Hoy fuimos a Disney, y pasamos tiempo con unos amigos (Sandra, Bill y su chama, Rebecca). Se estaban quedando en el Wilderness Lodge.
Antes de irnos a pasar el resto del dia a Downtown Disney (estamos volviendonos unos veteranos de ir ahi), pasamos por unos populares ponies que pusieron al Papucho de cabeza. Estaba demasiado feliz. Aqui lo ven con un guia de ponies que estaba aporreado porque el pony del carrizo no paraba de irse hacia la baranda.
