Saturday, January 23, 2010

Daddy's Little Sous Chef

Since Dan gets off of work some days as early as 3pm he usually picks Sofia up from daycare and they have fun evenings together doing cool things before I get home. The other day he pulled up a stepstool to the kitchen counter and put her to work cooking! Well, really putting vegetables in a bowl ...



and helping to spread tomato sauce on pita bread. She loved it and luckily Dan had his iPhone handy to capture the cuteness.





She looks so happy and comfortable up there hopefully she'll get the cooking-gene that somehow skipped me!


When I got home she was so proud of herself and so excited to tell me that she cooked dinner for Mommy. She's such a sweetie!

And it seems that being involved in the preparation of the food gave her more courage to try different vegetables, even broccoli...





which doesn't seem to be a favorite!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Note to Little Sofs

You are such a joy.

Many nights, like tonight, your Daddy and I put you to bed and we walk away from your dark room, after prayers and sweet goodnights and we say outloud to each other how lucky we are, as parents, to have you.

Thank you for being such an amazing little girl.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Sofia's Birthday 2009

We decided to stay home this year for Christmas. It was a lot of fun. Papi came in from Miami, Louis joined us from Austin and Grandma and Grandpa spent time with us too.

Here is Sofia showing off her Christmas dress on Christmas Eve.







Louis cooked an awesome Noche Buena dinner and I did enough Christmas baking to to open my own bakery. I made some of Mom's classic Christmas baked goods, the Pecan Tea Tassies and the Mexican Wedding Cookies that she always served on the Santa Claus platter so the cookies look like his beard. I also did some new things like Fruitcake Bars which were a real hit, Chocolate Sparkle cookies and I made some Gingersnaps to give to my friends.

Christmas morning was super fun. Sofia didn't really "get it" but she knew what a present was. It was a lot of fun opening gifts with her and she immediately wanted to play with whatever present she got. The first present she ran to was unwrapped (from Tio Louis, of course) so was drawn to it right away. It was a bath toy with a boat and fisherman - she loves it!





She started out so sweet and innocent, very thankful for her toy because after the first gift she thought she was done. So we'd coax her into opening another one and even then she still didn't get that there were more. Santa was good to her this year and by the last present she was asking for "More! More presents!" It was as if we created a spoiled monster and we did it in 15 minutes and watched it happen before our very eyes.

Here she is during present-overload. Too many presents, not enough hands, MOM!



Some of her favorite toys that she got were her twin baby dolls who came with a double stroller and baby swing. It was a gift from her Coussirat cousins in Flower Mound. Her Tio Louis put it all together for her and she has been playing with it ever since.



She also really loved the tricycle Daddy picked out for her. It was the last present we gave her because, as we figured, she wanted to ride it right away.



So I put boots on over her pjs, strapped on her winter coat and Daddy took her outside to learn how to pedal.



She got a lot of other really great presents from so many people! So many though I can't even list them all. We are so lucky so many people love our little girl.

After a day of play and a good long nap we were ready to celebrate this little girl's BIRTHDAY! She wasn't too excited about posing for pictures post-nap but I had to get shot of her birthday dress...



We were so excited to celebrate. I can't believe she's two whole years old!!!! Grandma and Grandpa and their good friend, Rosemary, came to help celebrate.





Grandma made Sofia's (seemingly) favorite dish, Mac n Cheese and we ate some awesome Cuban sandwiches that Louis and Dan put together. They had to impovise a bit seeing as they forgot to buy bread the day before and all the stores, save CVS Pharmacy, were closed. The only option was to make the sandwiches on CVS bought hamburger buns. I had to take a picture it was so funny! But I must say the goodness of that sandwich transcends the bread because it was still damn good.



After all the baking I'd done I baked Sofia a Betty Crocker box cake but drew Hello Kitty on there since she likes "Kitty" so much. I kept wondering what looked odd about my Hello Kitty rendition and then I realized... I forgot the whiskers! Oh well, at least this way they can't sue me for copyright infringement!



We dimmed the lights and the whole room sang Happy Birthday to her. She was a little confused but tried her hardest anyway to blow out that candle ...



and then she promptly poked Kitty in the eye.



But she loved her cupcakes ...



and round two of opening gifts with Grandma and Grandpa and birthday presents from all. We had such a fun day!

And such a fun week during all the Christmas week. Here are a few random moments from our holiday break...

playing in the neighbor's driveway where she loves to pick out her favorite rocks...



modeling the adorable shirt Tia Emily and Uncle Jeff gave her...



watching Dora videos on Tio Louis' laptop...



realizing that her Bobo is crazy...



coloring with Daddy in shades and pjs...



looking beautiful all bundled up in the winter coat from Grandma...



eating anchovies (eww...she liked them!) at Houston's Restaurant with Tio Louis and Bobo...



and having very interesting conversations over breakfasts with Bobo.



It was a joyous time! We're so sad it's over... but grateful for the memories.

Grocery Girl

Sofia rode in the fancy, kid-friendly grocery cart for the first time the other day at Kroger. She loved it! She got to "drive" the cart. Here's what the other shopper's saw...



and here's Daddy's view. It had a little see-through so he could see her and make sure she hadn't devoured a bag of M&M's from off the shelf. And she could turn around and flash him this cutie smile.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

December 2009

December always turns out to be the busiest month of the year for us... but it's also one of the more fun ones! Among several birthday celebrations, Christmas, decorating, gift buying and giving we also have the joy of visiting with friends and family.

In the middle of December Dan's cousin, Karen and her family came through Houston on their way to a cruise.





Dan and Sofia got to go to Grandma and Grandpa's and visit with them. Unfortunately I had food poisoning and didn't get to see them but from the pictures it looks like the kids, Jessie and Robert have gotten so big since the last time I saw them. I remember when they came to visit last and Sofia was just a wee little infant. This time she got to play with them!





Another person we had the joy of spending time with in December is one of my dearest friends, Nan. She recently took up photography as a hobby and she is so talented I think if she wanted she could make it her career. She's been practicing on her new camera so I asked her to photograph some of my favorite subjects: Sofia, Matthew and Jakey Wakey. I wanted to give Papi a set of photos of his grandchildren to put up in his new apartment.

She came over to Julie and David's new, beautiful house and took shots of them playing and coloring. We also headed out to Grapevine's Main Street and had lunch with Papi, David, Julie and Louis. Two of my favorite pics of all are the ones the kids took with Bobo.





She took a million and they were great. Here are some of my favorites, just a few... ok, so I couldn't narrow it down to a few, here are just twenty of my favorties.
I can't wait for her to take more!



































And here's the one that made the Coussirat Christmas card this year too!



Stay tuned for more Christmas, birthday, New Years and Moments in General Cuteness pics. Love, Angie