Happy New Year

It is 2012. I can hardly believe it.

2011 was a whirlwind. I could barely catch my breath! But things around here are settling down.

Sofia settled into school well. She is four now and already counting the days down until she's five. We keep reminding her to enjoy four.





Ana has settled into her own as well. We can hardly believe she will be ONE in just a few short weeks. She is still full of smiles and laughs. She's started to stand on her own and she's picking up on the sign language for "milk" and "all done." She can clap and blow kisses but still has only two little bottom teeth.





Dan and I have settled down too. Now that Sofia is in school our nights are spent quietly in the home, eating dinner as a family and enjoying our routines. We've succumbed to the truth that the home just won't always look perfect and that these kids sometimes get the best of us but we're really, really happy so it's ok.

It's my earnest hope to keep this blog updated so we have our memories logged. These are precious and important years and I want our girls to be able to look back and know how much they are loved.

One year ago, 2011. This was our first family portrait; taken the day Ana came into our lives.



And here are the most recent family portraits from November. What a difference a year makes - what a fun time!

Happy New Year and Russian Christmas

This year's holiday breaks were great. We had two weeks in a row of 3-day work weeks. Sofia came home from daycare with this celebratory hat to kick off the New Year. We also had a visit from Tia Emily and Uncle Jeff who were in town for a friend's party. Emily helped keep Sofia busy doing crafts with the craft kit she gave her for Christmas.



We had a fun day at the mall with Emily and Sofia seemed to have picked up on my purse obsession. Here she is at the Coach store at Memorial City Mall. She's a natural! And check out my Kate Spade diaper bag in the background. That diaper bag has it's own story I'll have to share another time...



We were excited to get home though because Emi was coming to spend the New Year with us! She was planning on coming for Chirstmas but Dallas had an unusual snow storm which kept her from traveling. But it was perfect because this way we got to spend more time with her. It was fun for Dan too since she was his Secret Santa he got to open his gifts. Sofia also got to open all her Christmas and Birthday presents from Emi and her cousins too. She loved all her presents!!!

We spent New Year's Eve with our friends Mel and Dee. Sofia stayed up practically the whole time and we were in bed by the time midnight struck in Houston but celebrated the ball drop in NYC on tv. My, how things change once a kid is in your life! We had fun nonetheless.

The next day we would treat ourselves to a yummy lunch at Houston's and Sofia would take this sweet picture with her Daddy.

We ended up later at Discovery Green park downtown. Sofia brought the twins.

She was a bit perplexed by the fruit and veggie face man...

and had fun at the park with Emi.

She was dying to get in the water like we let her do in the Summer and really didn't seem to care about how cold it was.

The park's Christmas decorations were beautiful.

Sofia loved running with her twins. And as most new moms know, it's hard getting all that extra baby-weight off. Maybe we should get her a baby jogging stroller!

I asked Sofia to take a picture with her babies and instead of posing with them she kneeled over just like a real mommy would and said, "Say cheese!" It was pretty hilarious.

So, we said, "No, Sofia, take a picture with them. Next to the stroller." She must have heard something like, "No, Sofia throw your babies on the ground and try and sit your big-kid-self in that stroller."

Don't worry, we called CPS. Dan and I now have full custody.

The rest of Emi's visit was spent taking Jax on numerous walks, playing with new toys, eating and shopping. What a great start to 2010!

Russian Christmas

Every year Dan's parents try to celebrate Russian Christmas just like Grandma used to do when she was a kid. We get together with family and friends and celebrate the traditions from Grandma's youth. Grandma makes the traditional meal of saurkraut and potato perogis with kidney beans and mushrooms. She also makes homemade bread and serves her poppy seed and nut rolls. It's a wonderful tradition that will serve as a reminder to Sofia of how culturally diverse her ancestry is.

Aunt Betty and Uncle Bob were there. Sofia acted very shy toward everyone but especially Uncle Bob since when he asked her so kindly if he could read her a story she cried. Somehow though he made quite an impression seeing as she talks about him all. the. time. For instance the other night (like a month later) as we were putting our sweet girl to bed I asked her if she needed anything and her response was, "Uncle Bob?" Dan and I walked out of the room quite perplexed. But really, she says his name all the time. She even talks about how he made her cry.

Anyway...

Ann and Eric Keibler and the Coussirat's friend, Mrs. Cotton, all joined. It was a really nice night.



It took Sofia a while to warm up to everyone. She is pretty shy around adults but she had a good time too and was comfortable and herself at dinner. Toward the end of the night as I took her back in another room to change into her pjs she got ahold of Big Frog and dragged him out to where everyone else was.

And she put on a quite entertaining little show for us all. Luckily Grandma documented it. She's our little clown!

Happy New Year to all. We hope 2010 is a great year!!!!

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.