Christmas and blog neglect!

So, I have officially neglected my blog for over a week, which is unheard of (for me at least)..

I have been so busy with the holidays, I'm on vacation, Olivia is off from school, etc.. so I do have a lot of "valid" excuses... but I'm back!

Christmas morning was great.. Olivia got a bike from Santa and she was more than excited.. Santa came a day early because we were going to Orlando, so the gifts were given on the 24th in the morning.. Here she is with her bicycle.. she was so proud of it..

On the 24th, we drove to Orlando, where we had rented a house in a very nice neighborhood... The house had 4-bedrooms and it was so spacious.. the girls had an amazing time..

Christmas eve was so much fun.. We exchanged gifts and had a nice dinner...

On Christmas day we went to Celebration, a town close to Orlando.. It was designed by Disney and it is such a great place for families.. They had a bunch of games, including synthetic snow for the kids to play in.. The weather was chilly but it was wonderful...

On the 28th, my parents kept the girls for a day and we went to Islands of Adventure @ Universal... It was so much fun.. we hadn't gone in roller coaster rides in so long, so needless to say we had a wonderful time... I have to say that it was freezing.. so the weather "almost" ruined our fun day...

...then, as our vacation was coming to an end, we went to Lakeland, which is a beautiful town in Central Florida.. the scenery was just beautiful and we had such a great time walking around and enjoying the beautiful day...

..then we came back home and we're living reality again!!

I will post most stories and pictures next year! ha ha!

My 29th Birthday!

Today I turned 29 years old! It was such a happy day, filled with love and wonderful moments...so much fun!

I had so many people who showed me some love and affection and on top of that I received some wonderful presents!

I spent all day hanging out with my family and then went to dinner at night...

After dinner, I went to the movies with Iggy and some friends to watch "Little Fockers"... such a good ending to an amazing day!

Thank God for this wonderful day and for another year of life... here's to many more!

All I Want for Christmas is You!!!

This is my little lady during her school's annual Holiday Show... She was such a diva singing with her glasses and microphone..
It was such a happy moment!

Wordless Monday...

Gaby is 17 months!

Today, my sweet baby girl turns 17 months.. she has grown into such a cute little toddler.. so smart and so talkative.. so amazing!

Gaby is such a joy to be around; she is smiley, caring and super cuddly...such a sweet little girl...

She loves to play with her sister, loves music, loves TV and loves to be around other kids (her age and older)...

She is currently 21 lbs and 31 inches long... wearing size 12-18 months and size 3 1/2 shoes..

She's learning to play dress-up and has gotten so good at pretend play.. she also talks up a storm... even more so than Olivia did when she was this little...

My girls make me feel like such an accomplished mother... I'm so proud of them!

Happy 17 months Gaby!!!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful dad, who is turning 59 years old today...

It is such a joy to be able to celebrate another year in the life of my father.. He has taught me everything I know and he is the person who I admire the most in my life...

Unfortunately he is spending his day alone in Auburn, AL, but he will soon come down to Florida to celebrate his birthday and the holidays with us....

I can't wait!

Happy Birthday daddy! I love you so much!

Birthday parties weekend!

This weekend was fun, fun, fun... filled with activities and friends....

On Saturday we went to Melissa's 3rd birthday party, which was held at Froggy's Play House.. The girls had so much fun jumping around and eating whatever sweet came her way!..

Melissa was so happy with all her guests and birthday presents! Such a great time!

After Melissa's party, we headed out to Sabrina's 1st birthday party held at Gymboree... Again..the girls had a blast playing around and enjoying their friends... So much fun..

After the birthday parties we went to a friend's dinner party... wow! We ate so much.. The girls stayed up past midnight, which is NOT common for us and we had a blast with our friends...

What a crazy weekend!!!

Holiday Party

Tonight we attended my work Holiday Party.. It was held in a very nice ballroom in Miami...and it was so much fun..

My mom was nice enough to babysit for us, so Iggy and I got a night out in the town... and we even got to dress up!

It was great to hang out with my work friends, while we danced and ate...

So much fun...and such a great way to celebrate this year's accomplishments!

End of year reflections... (continued)

Ok...time for more rambling...

7)..the last of my 20's: in a few days, I will be turning 29, so I'll be entering the last of my 20's.. wow! time does fly.. I still remember the day I turned 18.. I felt on top of the world and was so proud of my accomplishments... good news is, I still feel the same and I'm glad about it..Let's hope I continue to age gracefully and continue to live life to its fullest! ;)

8) Baby #3?...HELL NO!!.... but WHY NOT?? ha ha ha! Yeap..that describes my thoughts on having another baby.. I have NO CLUE how I feel about it.. Sometimes I'm really up for it, some other times I think it would be totally insane to have another baby... Bottom line, I (we) still have a lot of thinking to do on this subject...Who knows what next year will bring in the baby department? *wink, wink*

....ok.. enough rambling... those two thoughts always leave me with a headache..ha ha ha!

I'll write more later! ;)

Fav Picture Thursday...

Today's picture was taken 2 years ago during a trip we took to Virginia to visit our good friends the Meinweisers...

It was the first time Olivia felt "COLD"... let's say she was less than impressed... Her little face and nose got all pink and she was even afraid to leave the house...

I love her expression in this picture... it describes exactly how she felt in the cold!

Happy Birthday Claudia!

Happy Birthday to my "baby" sister who is turning 27 years old today!

It was such a great day! We all gathered at the Olive Garden to celebrate her special day...so much fun!

Everyone had a blast and Claudia enjoyed her day so much...

Happy Birthday sis!

End of year reflections... (continued)

Time for more rambling about my end of year reflections:

4) Marriage: this years marks 5 years since I became a married woman.. Considering I'm *only* 28 it seems like a long time... People get married much later nowadays and while that's totally fine, I think it's sad that marriage is not taken as seriously as it should be..But here I am, constantly pouring myself into the best relationship of my life and proud of it... Yay for being married!

5) Work, work and more work: I'm so sick of working and I wish I could stop... no.. really I wish I could.. I've been working at the same place for almost 6 years and there are days I wish I could just run away and forget about all my adult responsibilities, including, of course, my "wonderful" job... Ok, ok, it's not that bad and I'm REALLY thankful to have a job in this economy, but I'm just so exhausted!!!

6) Worrying over "petty.little.things": I've got to stop worrying about little things. It's just SO hard.. I feel like I'm always caught up on little worries and it's wearing me out.. I really hope next year I can move away from all the worries of daily life and just relax a bit...This year has been stressful... in part because I'm so freaking anal!....But then again, is it REALLY that bad?

... to be continued!!!

Wordless Monday...

Piggy tails!!

This is so cute!! Gaby finally has enough hair for piggy tails!! Doesn't she look adorable??? I think so! ;)

Gus and Yuyu visit us...

Dec. 2-Dec. 5

Iggy's cousin Gustavo visited us along with his fiancee Alexandra (aka Yuyu). They came from a recent trip to Las Vegas, where they got engaged. After 3 years, Gus proposed to Yuyu during their visit to Grand Canyon...they plan to wed sometime next year!

They were in Miami to do some shopping and stayed with us.. The girls enjoyed their visit and so did we...it's always great when family comes around!

End of year reflections...

As 2010 comes to an end, I begin to think of everything this year brought and have several random "reflections" that come to mind...

It's going to take me a while to think about all my reflections so I'll start now so I can use December to ramble...

1) My FAT year: yeap! 2010 has been the worst year in terms of weight issues and body figure.. I set a goal to lose some weight this year and I totally failed...I feel bad some days and some other days I think "heck, this is who I am".. I guess every "fat" woman goes through that... or so I hope! My BFF is getting married in April, and I hope to be able to lose some weight by then! I just need to set my mind!

2) Grad school: I made the decision to go back to grad school and wow! So great... I started in August and just survived my first semester! I am happy. I feel accomplished. I feel smart.. yeap.. great, great, great idea! Let's hope I still think it's great when I'm a year into my program!

3) I have TWO kids: Yes, I know! I should have processed this concept a LONG TIME ago..but some days it just dawns on me that TWO little people depend on me, TWO little people call me mommy and see me as the center of their world! Is that big or what?? Yeap! I have TWO kids...

.... to be continued!!!

Fav Picture Thursday...

I don't know why I love this picture so much... Maybe it's because I find it funny that Olivia was eating a dog toy... or maybe because it was taken on the day she began to walk back in 2008?? Or maybe just because she looks so darn adorable... the point is.. I love it.. and it is today's fav picture! ;)

Wordless Monday...

Thanksgiving!

Today we celebrated Thanksgiving with a wonderful lunch/dinner at our house.. It is the first time we host Thanksgiving so the holiday was extra special..

I spent all morning cooking and organizing the house for the big meal and everything was a success...

The food was delicious and we all had a wonderful time as a family... I love this holiday!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Christmas Tree!! (part 2)

As promised, here's a much better picture of our Christmas tree...

You can click on it to make it bigger to better appreciate the new colors! ;)

...and the semester is over!

I have officially survived my first semester back in grad school!! Yay! I'm a free woman again...until January that is!!

I did great in my classes and the program is all that I expected..and then some!

Let the Winter break begin!!!

Thanksgiving celebration at Open Valley

These are pictures for the Thanksgiving celebration held today at Open Valley Academy, where Olivia attends school...

They had a lunch for all children and their parents... The kids sang a Turkey song and dressed up as pilgrims... It was very cute...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Setting up our Christmas Tree!

Wow! What a process it was to set up our tree this year... especially because I ended up doing it alone for the most part...

This year has been an exciting one because I decided to add a new color, or I should say new colors to our traditionally blue and white tree. A friend pointed out that our tree was "boring" and that inspired me to add some life to it... I picked dark purple and bright pink as the new colors and I think our tree looks amazing... It looks so much more beautiful than the past years and our house definitely looks more colorful...

This is our tree, right before starting the process...

This is right after we put all the lights...

..and this is the end result... although the picture doesn't do any justice to the new colors.. I will take another one in the day time so that colors can be differentiated...

...and this is another picture... this time with flash, so that the colors show.. again..the picture doesn't do a good job at displaying the colors, so I will post another one...

Christmas Tree!!

Today we bought our Christmas tree! Yay! My favorite time of the year as officially started!

Right after Iggy came back from work, we all went to a tree tent nearby and picked the most beautiful Christmas tree.

It was such a great experience, which the girls got to enjoy with us. They walked around the tent and helped up pick our tree. It was so exciting to see them enjoying this tradition... I'm sure we they will love doing this every year!!

Let the fun begin!

Wordless Monday...