Merry Christmas

 

We just want to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas, we hope you had an enjoyable day together with your loved ones!

Pirate Santa

According to Alicia, Santa says "Yo Ho Ho". That answers the question about what he does the rest of the year. He's a pirate sailing the high seas in search of hidden treasure! Hope everyone in Colorado is looking forward to a White Christmas, we certainly are!

A Delicious Talent

About 3 years ago Sarah took up a new hobby of cake decorating.  She wanted to be able to make beautiful, fun cakes for all of our celebrations.  She took several classes and bought some supplies and started making cakes.  In the past several years we have enjoyed some very delicious and wonderfully decorated cakes.  She does an amazing job and she has fun with it.  I look forward to the future cakes we will continue to enjoy as she continues to develop this delicious talent.

Knock Knock

Who’s there…

Nobody's home.

That has been Alicia’s favorite knock knock joke for some time now, unfortunately it has been true of late for our blog as well.  Alicia picked up repeating this knock knock joke after a visit from cousin Bobby where he read a Halloween knock knock book that we have.  It is very cute to hear her say, until about the 5th time or so!

Anyway, we have been very busy lately mostly with Adrianna in kindergarten and I have not taken the time to blog.  I hope everyone had a fun and happy Halloween.  Though I cannot believe it is here already we are looking forward to the upcoming holiday season!

Just thought I would throw up some fun pictures to make this post more than just words.

Weekend Project

 

This past weekend I spent Satruday evening repairing the power connector on Sarah's laptop. It took a spill several months back and you had to hold it on its side with the cord bent over backward in order for it charge. Anyway, the hardest part was putting it back together after removing everything to get to the power connector board. The worst part was finding out the the connector wasn't the only problem, the power cord has a short in it too! Gotta love electronics. So Sarah is going to have to type with the laptop on its side and the cord twisted in awkward positions while I get a new cord.

Star Spangled Pancakes, Tortafritas & Mate

For the 4th of July we decided to hang tight and relax at home. Sarah was sick with Strep throat during the past week so we needed to catch up around the house. For the 4th I woke up with the girls and made some blue berry pancakes.

Afterwhich I set out the kiddie pool we'd gotten for the girls to enjoy this summer. I can't believe half the summer is gone already. The girls had a blast playing in the frigid water, and were bummed they had to get out as the lightning and rain started to roll in. We have had storms practically every day which I personally love, but it can be a drag for hopeful swimmers.

We took advantage of the rainy afternoon to enjoy a family tradition of mine tortafritas & mate. In Uruguay, where my mom is from, they often make tortafritas (a fried round & flat pastry similar to sopapillas) when it rains. It is a fun treat that everyone can enjoy, making and eating. Mate is an herbal tea that is also from Uruguay & Argentina. The girls loved helping make the tortafritas and later eating them with mate & milk. What a great way to pass the rainy afternoon and celebrate our heritage & independence!

Father's Day

 

For Father's Day Sarah made chicken enchiladas and this delectable strawberry cake, which was even more delicious than it looks. We had my parents over for dinner to help us celebrate. Adrianna wished me "happy muthers day" a few times, which I thought was very sweet! But I think the best Father's day gift & sentiment is the one I receive every day when I get back from work every day. When my girls realize that I am home and come running out from wherever they are while yelling "DAAADDDDYYYY!" They then jump into my arms and give me the biggest hugs and kisses you can imagine. It is the best way of being told you are loved!

T-Ball

Every time we drive by a baseball field Adrianna tells us that she can play baseball there.  Since we took her to a Sky Sox game last year she has been wanting so badly to play baseball.  So we signed her up for T-Ball this summer and she loves it.  Pretty much anything where she can be active she loves doing, especially if there are boys involved.

Birthday Party

Adrianna & I celebrated our birthdays yesterday.  We grilled up hamburgers and Sarah and I decorated a Shamu cake for Adrianna.  She had initially asked for a baseball cake and then she changed her mind a few days later asking for a “Shampu” cake.  Sarah does an amazing job decorating our cakes.  And she was rewarded for her hard work by a gleeful expression when Adrianna saw her “Shampu” cake. 

I can’t imagine a better person to share my birthday with.  I’d even say I enjoy getting a year older, because I get to share an extended celebration with my daughter!

Birthday Hug!

Today is Adrianna's fifth birthday! She very excitedly woke up this morning with a big grin knowing it was her special day. I just want to let her know how special she is to us and how she has changed our lives for the best! Here is a big gigantic hug for our special girl! Happy Birthday Adrianna!!!

I love this sequence of pictures from California Adventure when Adrianna got to meet Sully from Monsters Inc. She ran up and received the most engulfing hug you could imagine. Disney does such a great job at making these moments perfect for their guests!

Roomba

Did you ever wonder if we would experience a Jetsons like world? Robot maids, flying cars, etc. Well we have taken a step in that direction by getting a Roomba, robot vacuum. It is great, we turn it on before going to bed and it vacuums the family room and kitchen floor. Though the girls challenge it with some of their eating habits, it makes it so much easier to keep up with the daily messes. It even vacuums underneath the couches!!! Maybe flying cars would help turn around the auto industry!

Alicia's 2 Year Old Pictures

Sarah took Alicia to the studio a few days before her birthday. When they got there Alicia didn't want to have her pictures taken at all, she threw quite the fit. After a good time-out and a stern discussion with Mommy she said "I'm done mommy” (meaning she was done with time-out); and she was ready to have these shots taken.  Sarah said it was her best photo shoot yet after that!  It is amazing the determination of this two year old, she will not do something until she is ready and when she is watch out!

Alicia's Birthday

Alicia recently celebrated her second birthday, she is very proud to be two and she gladly states that she is “fours” when you ask how old she is. She has heard her sister say she is four for the past year! We had local family over to celebrate her day and we enjoyed a wonderful breakfast for her meal as Alicia really loves pancakes! Especially the fun shaped ones we make.

Alicia waited patiently in her chair for about an hour before the guests arrived. But she finally got the eat her panCake.

After eating the kids enjoyed riding the roller coaster in the basement. Alicia had a blast opening her presents and we finished the night off with some Wii games.

Birthdaygirl and Sleepyhead ready to square off!

Preschool Graduation

Adrianna completed Preschool in May and is now ready for Kindergarten. Technically she was ready for kindergarten after she came home from her first day of preschool.  She would ask us if tomorrow she was going to Kindergarten.  Both Sarah and I are shocked that we will have a kindergartner in August.  Adrianna loves school and she loves making new friends.  We had great teachers at Falcon Elementary where she went and we are very grateful for the Colorado Preschool Program that she was a part of.

Though the outdoor events at the graduation were rained out we enjoyed celebrating with Adrianna’s preschool friends.  Adrianna and I especially enjoyed the egg walk and three-legged races.  It was a lot of fun for both of us.  We are so proud of our little student!

Mother's Day

From Mother’s day to Father’s day is a pretty crazy time of the year for us. Not only do we celebrate those special days but we also have Alicia’s birthday, Joseph’s niece’s birthday, Adrianna’s birthday, Joseph’s birthday, a grandmother’s birthday, and now we added end of school activities. Unfortunately the craziness got the better of us and both Sarah and I came down with some pretty nasty upper respiratory infections. But we managed to enjoy some pretty descent celebrations.

For Mother’s day I made Sarah some strawberry crepes, and we enjoyed a pretty relaxing day making cards for Sarah and enjoying the day together. Though the girls and I try to show Sarah the appreciation she deserves every day; I know she enjoys having a day that she can call her own. Happy Mother’s day Sarah!

As you can see I am quite behind on my blogging, so I hope to catch up on the enjoyment of this time as I can. I expect to post about Adrianna’s graduation from pre-school and Alicia’s birthday shortly.

San Diego Temple

Sarah and I visited the San Diego when I first met Sarah's grandparents. As most people do we fell in love with this Temple, it is a stunning building. We decided to take some pictures of us there for our Spring/Easter pics. We are very grateful to the missionary who took time to show Adrianna pictures of the inside of the temple and who took the picture of us above.

San Diego

After staying most of our vacation with family we enjoyed some time to ourselves in San Diego.  We stayed on Shelter Island on the San Diego Harbor overlooking the bay and the city.  We enjoyed a day at Sea World, another at the Zoo, we spent some time at the San Diego temple, and we relaxed near the hotel. It was refreshing to be so close to the ocean again.

Newport Beach

While in California we were able to visit with some friends Sarah grew up with. We met up with them at the Fashion Circle mall in Newport Beach. We had a lot of fun visiting at the mall enjoying the different fountains and enjoying each other’s company. The mall even had a store especially for me, unfortunately it was all women's clothing. After we'd had our fun around the fountains, we headed down to the ocean to enjoy the sunset at the beach. The girls loved playing in the sand and enjoying the waves on the beach. We couldn't have picked a nicer place or more beatiful weather to catch up with old friends.

Disneyland Day 1 Highlights

I have been experimenting with some slide show programs. I found that Picasa throws together a pretty descent slide show movie in a couple of clicks that took me an hour to create in Photoshop Elements. That is an hour spent looking at cute pics of my girls while they sleep, so I guess I cannot complain. Anyway, here are some pictures from our first day at Disneyland. We had a great time mostly riding the rides in Fantasy Land like the Tea Cups, Alice in Wonderland, etc. Adrianna especially loved the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which ended up being her favorite ride. We ended the day visiting with Pooh and his friends Tigger and Eeyore where we got some cute pictures of the girls (primarily Adrianna as Alicia didn't want to have anything to do with any of the characters!)

V is for Vacation

We recently returned from a 2 week vacation to California.  We decided to drive so that we could visit family in Arizona along the way.  We had a wonderful time visiting family, going to Disneyland, staying in San Diego, enjoying the coast and the beach and beautiful spring weather.  Now I have about 1500 pictures to go through and blog posts to make which is a bit of a daunting task.  I hope to get some of our favorite pictures up soon.