Elsita :)

When it comes to children, there is nothing better than fantasy for fixing little problems like Natalie's "ant phobia". I have been telling Natalie so many positive stories about Hormiguita and how she works really hard trying to teach her baby brothers and sisters not to bite, just the way Natalie had to teach little Diego not to bite (true story).

Little by little Natalie has started to change her mind, right now she likes Hormiguita a lot so that's a good beginning, she can say that there is one single ant in the whole world that she likes. The next perfect step would be to adopt an ant as a pet, name her and play with her everyday but this seems like impossible. Anyway, if you meet an ant that wants to volunteer as a pet for a week or two just drop me an e-mail :o In the meantime I also like Hormiguita as much as Natalie does and she has made me more aware of her tiny relatives, she made me go online and read as much as possible about her family.

Next week I will show you a whole series of little characters that I created in the Hormiguita style and I will tell you how I made them. But today I want to tell you that Mister Hubby :) is preparing a series of posts based on a diary with some photos that he created during his first trip to Havana (when we first meet). Like a week after we met (before we declared ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend) he sent me this diary with pictures as a present.

I was fascinated by this book where he wrote so many interesting things. One of the last pages included a photo or two of myself that he took in my apartment-studio on December 15 of 2000, plus a text describing what he thought about that visit. The book was his second subtle attempt to show me how interested he was in me, the first one was an e-mail that I still keep :) I also keep the hundreds of e-mails that we wrote to each other before I moved to the USA with him not too lond after we meet for the first time :)

This diary is something that I still treasure as you can imagine. One day our kids will read it and understand all the details about the circumstances in which their father came to havana and meet their mother. I still cannot believe how fast everything happened, how we got married and had two children and now I am trying to teach one of them not to be afraid of ants! Isn't life something amazing?

Now I am leaving but I cannot wait to be back tomorrow with the surprise that I have for you to see!!!!
Have a wonderful day!

Elsita :)

Good Morning my friend! And Buenos Dias too!
Today I want to show you some of the small things that I have been making lately and here are the pictures for you :)

These are little pins that I made out of laminated pictures of some of my illustrations, thick gray felt and some sweet beads. I don't normally taste the beads to know if they are sweet but these ones are visually sweet for sure. I have to say that pins are one of my favorite things to wear, no matter what material they are made of. Whenever I am under a lot of stress I look at the little pin that I am wearing and I feel immediately better. I have been wearing the pins that you see in the pictures all the time (but not at the same time) and they look sooo cute!

It is so interesting to see how small things make us happy (remember this post?). We just bought a small fish tank for the kids and they are over the moon! Right now we are in the process of preparing the water and as soon as it's ready we are going to bring the fish home. I can't wait to have our new aquatic pets with us so I can observe their simple routine: eating tiny food and swimming around in circles. We should be more like our aquatic friends: eat smaller, healthier portions of food, exercise more and not worry too much :)

If you would like something small to make yourself or someone else smile, I have listed some of these pins on my Etsy Store they make great little presents. The other option is to get a fish tank for your home. I don't have a fish tank listed on my Etsy store at this time :o but you can find them everywhere and here there is one that I find so original.

Now I would like to jump into our fish tank and stay there the whole day but I must go out instead. In case you see me out there notice how I am wearing the bee pin today, the bee makes me feel more energetic plus she reminds me that you cannot produce honey without hard work and discipline so I better go out to do my job :)

Have a wonderful day at work today and see you tomorrow!

Elsita :)

We designed the banner together and it represents all the things that are connected to Bill's life: family, movies, books, traveling, Cuba, Chicago, fantasy, music, Autism, creativity, past, present...

Bill is not only a wonderful human being (this shows through all the posts that he has already written) but he is also some kind of living encyclopedia, he knows so much about so many different subjects, I learn more from him than from any other source. I thought that by opening a blog he could share all his stories with us and at the same time it would be a great way for our children to enjoy his father's writing in the future.

A blog is definitely something positive in anybody's life if we use it in a constructive and positive way. It is a space where you can express yourself and become more aware of your own interests and passions. Through a blog we can develop ourselves and grow in unexpected ways. Bill is a Film Producer and this means that he is basically a creative person. Producing movies is a whole complex career that requires for you to understand so many things; from music to history, politics, economy, cultures... movies capture all areas of life and the more areas of interest you have the better movies you will make.

When Bill is not producing a movie directly he is developing a new project and whenever he has a little free time he does something creative like making a comic book with his own stories and drawings, playing the flute or the piano, taking great photographs and most important: observing. He is like a sponge that captures everything around him. His personality is quiet and you may even think that his mind is somewhere else but he is really very present listening to you and noticing everything around you. He is also a great story teller and a wonderful writer as you will see. And also let me tell you that he has a great sense of humor and whenever he is around my face looks like this :) or mostly like this :D

At this point of this post I want to say that if you are still there :0 I would like to invite you to stop by Bill's blog and say hi to him. Let's welcome Billy to blogland and let's enjoy his internet presence! I already signed up as his fan number one as you can imagine :)

See you there!
Elsita :)

Dear Friend,

I can't even tell you how excited I am to be back here in my blog today. I have so much to share with you, I will tell you everything one post at a time. I want to start by saying that the winner of the tiny papercut bunny is Beverly LoPinto! Dear Beverly, I don't have a way to get directly in touch with you but I will wait until you see this post, you can just write me an e-mail with your mailing address (the link to my e-mail is right there on the left upper sidebar of this blog :).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, I want to say THANK YOU SOOO MUCH from the bottom of my heart for the best wishes left in the last post, before my blog break. I treasure each one of your words and they made a great difference in the way I faced all the changes that we went through in the last weeks.

Natalie and Diego started school and they are doing amazing. I can't even believe that this is a fact. Everything happened in the most natural way as I had anticipated. No crying, no separation anxiety...they just went there the first day, then the second day up until now and all I see is progress in both of them. They both love school, they love their teachers and everything else about this new experience.

Diego:
He is in an Intense Education Program: This is a program in the morning where he does lots of different activities with a small group of children. Each child faces a different kind of challenge. The teacher is wonderful; she is smart, patient and loving. As always, the quality of any experience has everything to do with the quality of the people around you and Diego is very lucky to be surrounded by great people during his school hours. He has his shadow who is in the process of getting to know him and we are so excited that the same company that provided us with the shadow will start providing Diego with Applied Behavior Analysis. This kind of intense program known as ABA consists on several hours of home therapy (after school) and this will be key in Diego's development. This is the kind of treatment that will really teach Diego how to function in many areas of his life, how to do things by himself and how to be independent. Right now we're going through all the paperwork but he should start sometime this month, I can't wait! In the mind time he keeps going with the rest of his therapies in different clinics so I keep driving him everywhere everyday :). And now, the big unexpected thing about Diego's new life: HE IS GOING TO SCHOOL ALL BY HIMSELF IN THE YELLOW SCHOOL BUS!!! No Mom or Dad or brother or sister in the yellow bus, just the bus driver, a few kids and Diego. This was not in our plans at all but the LAUSD provided us with this service and Bill said, why not, let's try it and see what happens, maybe he'll love it! My little overprotective Mother instinct's voice kept saying: he is only three, almost a baby, he's not ready for something like that, oh no! That's too much!! But as always, reality is stronger than all those crazy little voices around us and as soon as Diego sat in his special car sit in the yellow bus it was love at first sitting! :o Today, the whole yellow bus experience is an important part of his day. Our little baby is turning into a little man! We are so proud of him!

Of course, I have like one million things to say about Diego and Natalie, all the new things that they are doing but I will tell you everything little by little in other posts. Tomorrow I want to give you a little surprise and it has to do with my hubby!!! Yay!!

But I don't only have things to tell you about my children and hubby, there is a loooot more, and again, I will keep telling you everything little by little. Just to anticipate something exciting I want to say that on Friday I want to introduce you to something special that I have been putting together, it is almost ready. I first had the idea, then I said I will make it happen and then I started working on it. You will see what I mean on FRIDAY! Yay! Surprise! Surprise!

It is SO GREAT to see you again!
Take care and I will be back tomorrow!

Elsita :)

Dear friend,

This post is to say good-bye for a few weeks. Life over here is calling for a blog brake and I am listening to the call because as I wrote in this post we should try to be good listeners :) Fortunately this will be only a temporary good-bye because I will be back on MONDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2008 YAY!!!! In all these weeks I will be doing one million things family-related and work-related. I have to say that I am very excited about my to-do-list, I will share everything with you when I am back. Right now we 're getting ready for an important meeting about our little man el Diego. We are going to meet his shadow for the first time and we are so excited for him. This will be the person that, as the word explains, will become Diego's shadow when he starts school in a few days. She will be with him every minute during his school hours and she will have an important impact in his life. Diego doesn't have any sense of personal safety yet, he would run to the street if he could, with all the cars passing by and he doesn't realize how dangerous it is. His shadow will make sure that he is safe but also she will teach him many new things. I am crossing my fingers for Diego! You now how we all have a natural shadow and it comes out the way it comes out and there is nothing to do about it but in Diego's case it is important that he has the perfect match as a shadow :) It will make a big difference in his new life. Please send us lots of good energy, I am taking a purse with a big pocket on the outside for all the good energy. I wish you lots of good things in these weeks, and the best health possible to deal with a month like September. I will be back with good things to share with you, including how Diego and his shadow are getting along.

Lots of love and see you on Monday, October 6, 2008!!!!!!
Elsita :)

When life seems too big the best thing is to focus on the little things around us and enjoy them. I just got these two miniature vases (they're about 1 inch tall) and I am in love with them. They are on my desk right now, reminding me that little things can make a whole difference in your day. If you look at the mouth of these vases you will see how they are saying: I loooooooove Youuuuuu :)

Have a great day my friend!
See you tomorrow!

Elsita :)

Elsita :)

Today I wanted to show you a little painting that I made a while ago for a very special girl that loves elephants and her name is Danita!!! Many of us are already familiar with Danita's etsy store. She is a painter a doll maker... and a wonderful human being. It is impossible not to love her. I am deeply enamored with all her dolls, let's take a look at them here. This little Frida Kahlo melts my heart.. As you can see, Dorita, the girl in my painting, is related to Frida Kahlo (see the eyebrows :) In this post I officially want to say that Danita has the best husband ever. He secretly got in touch with me in order to commission this painting for his wife's birthday. Isn't that wonderful?! I admire all the husbands that do special things for their wives :)

And now I am going out!
But I will see you tomorrow.
Elsita :)

Today I just wanted to share this drawing with you because I think that is so cute!! This is a drawing by my daughter Natalie :) She got the inspiration from Diego's latest obsession. He is a lot into Micky mouse right now, he loves the original black and white version of Micky and all the other old characters (me too!) Bill got the whole Disney black and white cartoon collection some time ago and Diego just discovered it like a month ago. There is nothing more charming than those cartoons made with the primitive techniques, they look so organic and real! Because they come from the drawings made directly by hand. I also love the modern digital animation techniques, but the old ones are still my favorite. One of my dreams is to learn how to do animation in the future. I would really love to animate my own characters!!!!! But in the mind time I am just gathering ideas in my mind about some of the stories that I would like to animate... And now I need to stop dreaming because I have to go out and do sooo many things!

Have a wonderful day!
Elsita :)