Belle-rina

I often think that no other parent can love their kids as much as I love Catalina. While objectively I know that is not true, that all parents are quite taken with their own children magic, somehow, deep down, I am sure that what I have with my baby girl is un equaled.

For quite a while, Catalina was entranced with Angelina Ballerina. She would actually hang a shoelace from her skirt or from her pants and pretend she has a tail and she's a mouse. We thus decided to take her to ballet lessons. Can I say she loves it? No, not really. She likes it, she goes there, but most of the class she just wonders with her eyes and once in a while she watches and tries to follow the teacher.

She is however cute beyond words. I have to say that the ballet costumes were probably designed with my daughter in mind :)

Before her costume arrived, her first class!

                                                         Look how cute I am, mommy!

                                              Valentine's Day class, they all had red balloons!

                                                  Rehearsal, just before we left the house :)

Aside from the ballet class, with all the snow and cold weather, there was not much to do on the physical education front. But we did enjoy some sunny days and filled them with joy.

 The first warm day of this year. Catalina took on her rain boots and splashed in the puddles for hours!

Spring, we are waiting for you!

Love under the sea

My big gorgeous girl is 4. I close my eyes, and I still see her all red and wrinkled and beautiful beyond belief at my breast in her first hours. She is our ray of sunshine. And she had an awesome birthday party!

She wanted a birthday under the sea, an Ariel theme. So we did our best to give it to her. The whole week she counted days until her birthday: mommy goes to work 5 times, then it's a holiday for all girls, and then it's mine and mine is more important because I'll be 4 years old! She kept saying this day after day. And Sunday morning, on March 9th she opened her eyes and said: Mommy, I'm four! Wake up! We got a playhouse for her and she was extremely excited. She moved half of her toys in the house, rang the little bell, and started opening the other presents. That was quite a bit of work, as nana Petronela went a little crazy with this, but Catalina loved them all.

All smiles and excited, Catalina put on her Ariel dress and was ready to greet her guests. Too bad the party was in the afternoon, she could have entertained a lot of kids with her giggles. We had games, an awesome cake (made by a friend!) and good food. I liked the party, I had a really good time. Catalina got a little flustered when all the people came, but recovered quickly and enjoyed the rest of the evening.

                                           Catalina in her "why do I have to smile" mood :)

                 Pinata was a big hit! We still have sparkling stars and seahorses on our carpet :)

                                                 Happy birthday to the most loved little girl ever!

 Trying hard to blow the candles from the cake (we put a lot of those candles that relight). Kids had a good laugh and good workout for their lungs :)

 At the end of the party all the kids had to work for their party favors. Whatever fish they got, they had to match it to the fish that was taped on the sand bucket (party favors were stuffed in sand buckets). They liked the game so much, after everyone got their own bucket they threw the fish in the "pool" again and started fishing again :)

And this is how my heart was all during the day. I am filled with joy and gratitude. It is still a mistery to me what I did and how come I deserve to be the mom to her:

                                                    HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CATALINA!!!!