giving thanks

Ava what are you thankful for?
A:  Well...my movies, my toys, my roxy (her dog she has had since she was born) and...
(she smiles and pauses)
Me: Is that it?
A:  mom, I'm just kidding.  I'm thankful for Adam and Daddy and Mommy and Nunny and Nonno Tony and Nonna and Nonno and all my friends.
Me:  Ava that's really sweet.
A:  Yeah, I was tricking on you.
Me:  Oh yeah! Well you're pretty funny.  It's okay to be thankful for that other stuff too. 
A:  I know, but I have to be thankful for you guys because that's how I get all my other things.
Me:  ...awesome. 

So we had a great Thanksgiving.  It was much more laid back and relaxing than years past.  We went to his mom's house and ate lunch, then came back to our house to get ready for dinner.  We usually head over to my Nonna's house, but her and my Nonno were both sick.  So my dad came over in the morning to get the turkey going at our house.  We came home, my mom came over, the kids took a nap, and when they got up dinner was ready.  We ate,cleaned up, watched football, and then ate pie.  Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but my pie's were sooo yummy...pat, pat, pat.  I would say the best I have ever made.  Lemon meringue, pecan, pumpkin, and apple.  Oh yes, on Thanksgiving I am a pie makin' fool.  It was all delicious and we had a great time together.

I am very thankful for my beautiful, wonderful children.  They make me laugh and smile every day.  I'm so thankful that they are healthy and happy and that they have each other as siblings.  I'm so thankful for Rolies, who is so laid back and caring.  He always puts the kids and our family first, and I couldn't ask for a better husband.  I'm so thankful for my family.  They are so supportive and wonderful.  I could not ask for more or anything better!

THANKFUL...GRATEFUL...BLESSED...ALWAYS!!!

I can hardly contain myself

Holiday, celebrate...

So it is a tad bit early, but I can smell it in the air.  It is the sweet smell of the holidays.  I have always loved holidays, but since having children, my love for this has grown and changed in many ways.  I do enjoy Thanksgiving.  Totally love being with all my family and eating turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, pie--well, I'm kinda getting off topic here and becoming increasingly hungry as I sit here picturing this yummy table of food.  But my number one pick for favorite holiday is...CHRISTMAS! 

Christmas, Christmas time is here...can anyone else hear the Chipmunks singing???



I love seeing the very first colorful shine of lights on the day after Thanksgiving, bundling up on chilly nights with the family to walk around the neighborhood searching for the house with the best light set up, making endless trips to the mall and toy stores to make sure that I have the perfect gifts for everyone who was "nice" on my list, taking the kids to see Santa (this year should be interesting),singing Christmas songs with Ava over and over and over again, and like a friend reminded me--getting all the different holiday cards from family and friends.  

This does remind me of another thing...oh my goodness...it's that time again too.  It's time for the annual Vasquez family Christmas card.  Oh no, there is no sarcasm here.  We love having to take dozens, make that hundreds, of pictures to make sure that we have just the right picture for our photo card that we send out yearly. 

It started off in 2006 with my beautiful baby girl.  A couple of pics, and done.  She was adorable and had the card all to herself for 3 years in a row.  It got a little tougher as she got older, maybe because she's so darn cute or possibly because she is hard headed and only wanted to smile when it suited her. Either way '06-'08 were great years for cards.  Now, 2009 changed a bit.  My beautiful baby boy was born and added a whole new light to taking pictures.  We wanted the perfect family picture...ha ha ha.  The children had other plans.  They decided to make this a challenge...one that I was willing to accept and win.  Although it took HOURS to get a decent picture, looking back I think it was worth it.  The card was great and no one had any clue the agony that we went through to get it done.

So, here we are again--Christmas card time.   I was totally searching the web for the cutest holiday photo cards when a friend pointed me in the direction of Shutterfly.  If you have kids and you take pictures, I'm sure that you know of them.  They have the best selection of Christmas/Holiday cards.  I have spend hours already, trying to pick out the perfect card.  It's really hard with their huge selection, but I think I've narrowed it down to the few contenders.

Okay, so it wasn't so easy, and I don't have our Christmas/Holiday card picked out just yet. And for everyone out there who knows me, you also know that I am indecisive and want things to be perfect.  If anyone can check out this site once and pick out a card, then I am jealous. Check out their holiday photo cards here. 

They also have all kinds of other items and gifts for the family.  Although I thought it was a tad bit much at first, the photo calendars are really cute.  A friend had one made for my Nonna and it was so adorable. Check those our here.  If my grandma loved them, I'm sure any other family members who may not live so close would love to see the little ones and the family every day all year long.  They also have the mini desk calendars here, which are smaller, but still super cute.

Oh...FYI to bloggers...Shutterfly has an awesome promotion here.  They are giving out free holiday photo cards.  Yeah!

I'm so excited.  Now, I have an unspoken rule, which tends to bite me in the biscuits every year, but I never start Christmas shopping until December.  I tried it once and it didn't work--it stressed me out to hang on to the presents for so long.  So I still have about a week and a half to choose the perfect Christmas card...then I will be off and running with the other holiday shoppers.

I can't wait...

It's the most wonderful time of the year...(I would go on, but I don't know the rest of the song...so I'll just keep repeating that part and making up the other words in my head)

october fun 2010

Although October has come and gone, here are a few things we did during this fly by month.

We took a trip to the Elgin Christmas Tree Farm/Pumpkin Patch.  I have to say that I like Sweetberry Farms in Marble Falls better, but we opted to not drive for over an hour, and still had a good time for the most part.  It was quite warm, which let to some minor melt downs, but snacks seem to make everything better. We got some pumpkins there which quickly rot and got tossed over our fence.

We also decorated our Halloween cookies which went a little like this:

Kids:  yeah, yeah, mmmm...icing

me:  no, stop licking the spoon. we can't give away cookies if you lick the spoon.

kids:  (icing cookies nicely and then licking the icing off the cookies)

me: gross

 

 

FYI-If you did receive cookies from us, they were the "safe" ones.  I only let them decorate a few cookies, which turned into the kids devouring 1/2 container of icing...sick.

Then we went to another church pumpkin patch where we picked out many pumpkins.

Then came Daddy's birthday...so excited for cake!

Last, but not least...Halloween.  Ava dressed up as Alice in Wonderland, and Adam was a puppy.  He didn't give us many options.  We had to choose a costume where everything was attached b/c he was not too fond of dressing up in anything.

Ava as Alice, Adam as a Puppy, and Nonna-on her 78th birthday-as a genie,or as Ava referred to her "Princess Jasmine"

Wow...what a busy month!

port aransas

Last week we ventured off on our first family vacation.  Well, not really our first vacation, just our first vacation as a family without anyone else.  It was fun and...interesting at times.  First off, I decided it would be a great idea to get Ava a new car seat so that Adam could have hers.  I thought it would be better for him to be facing out instead of backwards.  I thought they would both be more comfortable and it would make our 4.5 hour drive a lot smoother.  I thought wrong.  On the way there Ava slept for about 15 minutes and asked when we were going to be there about 117 times.  I really thought that only happened in movies...not so much.  Adam on the other hand slept for about 10 minutes and screamed for the other 260 minutes of our ride.  I was not in a good state of mind when we reached the ferry loading and there was an hour wait. But, I was willing to put all that aside when I heard the water and saw the dolphins.

The kids had lots of fun playing in the sand and in the "blue water", as Ava refers to the pool.  We played/walked/sat in the very shallow water at the beach, but that's about as far as that went. I think we might have gone out to our knees...yes, we are quite the adventurous family.

Adam got pinched by a crab right in between his big toe and second toe.  Poor baby.  He was screaming and I didn't know what to do.  Do I pull it off and risk it totally cutting his little sausage toes? No worries...this kid took matters into his own hands and ripped off that little crab like a champ.  Good thing I was there to help. 

We took a trip to the Corpus Christie Aquarium which was fun.  Adam was amazed and Ava enjoyed most of the time we spent there.  The ride back was awesome.  They both slept the whole way back to the condo.

Sleeping arrangements were super awesome too.  We brought Adam's little pack-n-play, which he hasn't been in since he was about 2 months old.  He totally loved it. Not really.  He actually had to be rocked completely to sleep in order to be put into it.  Thank goodness the condo had a rocking reclining chair and a king size bed.  It was so great to be awakened by Adam at 2am every night and then to have all of us in the bed together.  I was so tired at one point that I couldn't stop laughing at our sleeping situation.  Roly was on one side, Ava next to him, Adam next to her, and then me. How long did this last?  Oh, about 2 minutes.  These kids have super fun moves at night, and I just happened to be the only one that this bothered.  I got the kung fu panda moves to the neck, face, and stomach all in about 15 minutes.  And to top that off with a cherry...they ALL snore.  It was awesome! 

We had some good food, got some cute pics, and had some good times at the beach.  It does make me question summer vacations with more than two kids though.  Not sure if I could hang.

Adam decided he needed some time away from the waves.

Ava "keeping Adam safe from the crabs and the waves"

green bean drama

Today my mom, aka Nunny, stopped by after work and had dinner with us.  All was fine until Ava decided to try to get out of eating her green beans.

Ava: (sad face)
Nunny:  Ava what's wrong?
Ava:  I'm sad. (pouting)
Nunny:  Why are you sad?
Ava:  Because my green beans don't like me.
Me:  What are you talking about Ava?
Nunny:  Your green beans don't like you.  How do you know that?
Ava:  They're being so mean to me.  They said that they are not my friend. 
Nunny:  Oh.  Well you know why they probably said that?  Green beans are vegetables that love to be eaten.  If you don't eat them they will be upset with you.  You know, if you eat them then they will like you.
Ava: They said I'm ugly.
Nunny: You should try eating them to see how they feel about you after that.
Ava:  (smiling) Close your eyes Nunny and Mom

I'm obviously watching her with my eyes partially closed and I noticed her eating her green beans.  She shoves them a few at a time into her mouth until they are completely gone.

Ava:  Now open your eyes.
Nunny:  Wow, you ate all those green beans?
Ava:  Yes. They were so good.
Nunny:  So, how do the green beans feel about you now?
Ava:  Oh, they like me.  They said, "Thank you Ava.  We can be friends now."
Nunny:  Well I'm glad you worked that out.
Ava: Yeah, me too.  Can you pass me the bowl of green beans?  I'm gonna eat them all.

Thanks Nunny.  You might want to stop by tomorrow night...we are having broccoli.

peach picking

A couple weeks ago we wanted to do something fun with the kids. I remember doing stuff like this with my family when I was younger, so we headed out to Fredericksburg to pick some peaches.  We went to a cute little retired couples house/peach farm, maybe it's called a peach orchard, but anyways we drove out there and set off to pick some peaches.  It was a nice day, breezy and not too hot.  Of course we get there and we both tell each other, "let's not go toocrazy, just a few peaches."  Well...35 lbs. of peaches and a container of blackberries later...oops. But who can resist when the peaches are so good and plus we were walking up and down the rows of peach trees, we just got caught in the moment and happened to get a little carried away.  Ava had fun picking peaches and Adam kinda had fun in his stroller eating them. We did finally decide it was time to go when both kids were totally and completely done with this whole family time experience.  Adam was throwing a massive fit in his stroller, and Ava was crying and whining...what a sight to see.  But being that the peaches were so delicious, I was in an okay place with the fit throwing and such. 

What did we do with all the peaches you ask.  Well, we obviously didn't eat them all, who could?  We gave our neighbors and families some little bags of them, froze a couple bags, and I made two delicious peach pies and a totally awesome peach and blackberry cobbler. Yep, just call me Betty Crocker.  I should have taken some pictures of them, but they were devoured by some onlookers before that could happen.

The peaches didn't last long, but it was a fun experience!

PATIENCE PLEASE

Today I:

* had lunch with a friend and her daughter--ahh, adult conversation

* found 4 uncapped markers on my bed, under my sheets--Ava has no idea how they got there, but she did express that the stains that they made on the sheets AND MATTRESS looked like flowers

* found Adam eating chalk from Ava's easel

* washed the floors

* mopped the floor again after Adam took the cornstarch out of the pantry and dumped it all over the floor mixing it with his apple juice in the 3 minutes it took me to get the clothes from the laundry room to his room

* listened to the kids fight over toys that neither of them EVER want to play with until the other gets a hold of them

* put Adam back to sleep when he woke up after a two hour nap--he was still grumpy and I needed some quiet time

* made a lite brite picture with Ava while Adam was in round 2 of his nap--we were both getting frustrated.  Her little fingers couldn't push those darn pegs in between the others, and I was keeping my frustration to myself, but goodness me, how long does it take to make a lite brite picture of an ice cream cone???

* decided sandwiches would be dinner

* pretended to go to the bathroom, but instead took my book into the closet to read while Roly entertained the kids

Today was just one of those days.