Tour des Fleurs 2011

The Tour des Fleurs is an annual race sponsored by the Dallas Arboretum. Not only is it really pretty, it's also a great race with lots of amazing food (not just the typical banana and yogurt cup that are handed out at most 5K-marathons) and vendors afterwards. Plus, they have a kids/family 1-mile fun walk.

Since I was really hoping this baby would have been here earlier, I went ahead and registered for the 1-mile, and Ricardo for the 20K. And...since we managed to get up and get ready, we decided to go for it on Saturday morning. However, no one could believe that I was there are walking with my two and a half day old baby.

But it was an early morning. Ric's race started at 7:30, which meant he wanted to get there at 6:45--time to get to the start, allow for traffic, parking, etc.

So, we were up at way too early o'clock, and I had to pull a sleeping X out of bed and get her dressed and on the way. She was still a happy girl, but sleepy.

More awake and ready for the race. I posted this photo mostly because of those ears.

Enjoying our post-race snacks. I say post-race when ours was really a meander through the Arboretum. At the finish of the kids 1-mile, there was music, "I did it" stickers, snacks, photographers (who made free photo buttons of kids and families who participated), face painters, and a prince and princess who handed out toys (X got a wind-up neon green ladybug). Plus a butterfly painted on her face.

Ric enjoying his post-race "snacks"

Then we got to meander back through the Arboretum to get to our car. This is the first weekend of all the pumpkins--they really do an incredible job. I'm sure we'll be back to get some more pictures. I'm gonna need to knit another pumpkin hat first though!!

Tadpoles!

Papa and his girls

First family photo? We might have done one in the hospital...I'll have to check.

It was a fun day--and seemed totally do-able. I do wonder if I overdid it since I came down with X's cold since. I do not recommend getting a cold while trying to recover from childbirth. I'm starting to feel a bit better today--until I sneeze or cough repeatedly.

ilane xochitl

Finally! She's here!

Ilane Xochitl arrived Wednesday, Sept. 14th at 7:03pm. (two days before 40 weeks--but I was so miserable the previous 2.5 weeks or so, it was wayyy past time)

7lbs, 2 oz, 19.75 inches long.

It only took us a day to name her :)

Quicker labor than Xaris Sofia's, but a little bit of pitossin was administered, and my water had to be broken (didn't appear it was planning on breaking on it's own--just like her older sister!)

I don't know what it's like back home, but in TX they keep moms and babies in the hospital for something like 3 days (and other more insulting laws, like a mandatory 1st AND 3rd Trimester HIV test). We stayed the full time with Xaris--nothing pressing that we needed to get home for, but this time around I was anxious to be home and with Xaris (although she had a ball with Gramama and Tayta--even made up a song the morning we went to the hospital: "bye bye mama". Repeat.) We asked to go home early, and they decided all was fine and they could let us go after the baby had been there 24 hours and passed her newborn screen. Yay for a healthy girl, we've been home since last night!

24 hours old---ready to go home!

Darker eyes than Xaris, but lighter hair--looks like she has brown hair with red highlights!

Full of sweetness

Love from papa

And big sister

We love our sweet girl!

P.S. The name. It's pronounced

eee la nay

so cheet (the l can be pronounced if you can handle it :)

Here's the story.

We've been updating the nursery. Changing colors, moving furniture, etc to make it a two girl room. I took down the birds that were Xaris' theme, and ordered a vinyl tree with cherry blossom flowers and X and I were talking about putting a big tree on the wall, with lots of flowers. When it came, we took a couple days to put it up, and Xaris loved the new "arbol con muchas flores!!" (tree with LOTS of flowers). We saved a branch for over the crib and a few flowers to decorate that side of the wall, and Xaris knew that the big tree by the big bed was hers, and the little branch above the crib was for sister-baby.

Well, that was last week. During that week, anytime I asked X for name suggestions for the coming baby, her only offering was "Arbol con muchas flores". So, while we were in the naming process we decided to let Xaris name her baby sister.

Ilan is Hebrew for "tree" (we added the "e" to make it a more feminine name).

Xochitl is Aztec (ric's roots) for "flower"

And that's the story. :)