It's beginning to look a lot like...

Six reasons it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas:

#1. We had to wait all night in order to see a Santa on a sleigh
#2 Ali told Santa all the presents that she wanted (girl guitar and Tangled dress) and Kat of course, screamed.

#3 Ali helped decorate the tree.

#4 Kat undecorated the tree!

#5 Nick got our yulelog burning.

And last, but not least, we got this wonderful and anonymous (Thanks Jim!!!) gingerbread house in the mail. Since Ali stole Jim's heart 3 years ago we have mysteriously gotten a gingerbread house every year for Christmas, and clearly the girls are over the moon.

Grand Canyon

Nick's 2 week vacation started on Friday, so we took off to the Grand Canyon. Neither Nick nor I had been there since we were much younger, and I think as an adult it is much easier to appreciate the beauty found there. When I was ten my family backpacked across the Grand Canyon, but we did it the easier way and stayed in a hotel.

This is all of us about 2 switchbacks down the South rim, where Ali said her legs hurt so we couldn't make it any further. I think she needs to workout more.

We did make it to this fun tunnel that both girls thought was really cool. Here is Kat in the tunnel.

Ali really thought this tunnel was cool. Even though she was the one compaining about sore legs, she really wanted to get to the bottom of the Canyon. I think she was mad that we weren't already at the bottom after the 1/4 mile we hiked. She does not have much patience.

This picture is to show how cool it was that my hair matched the canyon. This was not expressly on purpose, but after stripping my hair, and dying it 4 times, I had to give it a week break before fixing it again, or it would have all fallen out. Moral of story: don't try to drastically change your hair before a big trip where you know you are going to be taking lots of pictures.

This picture of Kat is cute, but it has a small story.
The only real hiking we could do was along the rim, where we could bring our stroller. So most of the time we were hiking right on the edge of cliffs. I have never been a great fan of heights, but I don't have any phobias either. Well on this trip we discovered that Nick does have a slight phobia. And by slight, I mean a HUGE phobia. The whole time we were hiking Nick would freak out if the girls got too near the edge. (there were rails and such, but that was a moot point in his phobia). When we got to this one really pretty overlook with nice flat rocks I took each of the girls out to the edge where I sat down and took their picture. (This picture to be exact) I kind of wish I had a small video of Nick while I was taking this picture, because if I did you would see what a heart attack looks like.

Ali LOVED the cliff edge, which probably didn't help with how anxious Nick became. She kept trying to get to every edge she could so she could "see the bottom." I admit, sometimes she scared me. This girl has NO fear of heights at all.

This is a cliff where I got Nick to climb out. Apparently his phobia only extends to the girls. In order to take this picture we had to strap both girls in the stroller.

In the Grand Canyon there is a tall tower called the watch tower. Since Ali is obsessed with "Tangled" (despite never having seen the movie) we called it Tangled's tower. I am not sure how it happened but we never got a picture of the outside, so you will have to trust me that it looks like Rapunzel's tower, or you can google it. Don't ask about the bunny, I am not sure why she has it or why she is showing it, but this is a picture of her inside Tangled's tower.

One of the best things about our trip was the chance for the girls to just have fun. Ali loves to climb trees, and the Grand Canyon is FULL of fallen trees to climb.

She would have never seen the canyon if we didn't force her to "get off that tree and keep walking."

Even Kat ventured up a few trees, though this tree is only a foot from the ground.

Seeds and Halloween

It has been almost a year since I last posted about my avocado seed. You can see the post here. I know it hasn't done the best, but at least it isn't dead! :)

In case you cannot tell, it is growing. The root system grew so much that I decided to put it in dirt. Well, it has taken a long while, but look at the wildly growing leaves. That stem is enormous!
I guess it might help if I took the toothpick out, but I didn't want to take any chances, since it hasn't died with them in. Plus the toothpick gives you a good size comparison.

Halloween! I know it is wicked late posting these, but my girls were so cute that I figured people would want to see them even if it is late.

In case there are people out there who have no costume recognizing skills, Kat is Dorothy and Ali is Glenda the good witch from Wizard of Oz. Oh, and I am the Wicked witch of East

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A trip and more

This little one broke my camera, so for the next few months until we get a new camera, get used to fuzzy pictures. I managed to make it so that I can get my camera to take reasonable okay pictures if I zoom in exactly the right amount, but it is still not good pictures, so excuse them for now, and enjoy the fact that at least there is some evidence as to who broke the camera in the first place.

(This happened a few days before we left on our trip)

Last week I got the chance to take my 2 girls and meet up with a few family members in the Outer Banks. For people like me, it was on the coast somewhere in North Carolina. We had loads of fun. My sister rented this huge house and we all just crashed her vacation, so thanks Jen, but mostly thanks Chris (her husband, who I am sure could have done with a vacation alone).

This is all of us a a famous lighthouse. I was there and I am still not exactly sure why it is so famous, but it is, so we took a picture in front of the sign near it.

The house was right off the beach, so that is naturally where we spent most of our time. Here Ali and Kat are making sand birthday cakes.

We got to fly some kites. This is my niece Madeline flying a kite. If you look very closely you can see the small kite very far away.

Ty conquered the kite, but he had to use all his muscle, because it was very windy.

Ali did NOT want to fly it at all... she is great at pouting.

The part of the trip I was most worried about was the flight. Uncle Nick got on the same flight as us with his son Philippi. That made the trip wonderful for Ali.

Kat had no problem on any of the flights. I brought the car seat and she slept almost all the way there and back. But if you look closely you can also see that I brought the binky back for the trip. I am paying for it now, but it was a lifesaver on the flight.

Ali also started gymnastics. Well she started a few months ago, but I finally remembered to bring the camera (now that it is broken I remember...go figure)

Big jump! That jump rope is literally 3 inches off the ground.

Balance beam! Go Ali! She loves this class. The teachers don't push too much, and Ali has so much fun the whole time. They have to be 3 to get in the class, so Kat is always on the sidelines mimicking what they are doing in the class. She will be ready when it is her turn.

I know that this post is already way too long, but I have to add this one in. Gaby and Paul took a little trip away and I got to watch Dez. He got sick the next day. Maybe because he missed them so much. For those who know Dez, they know he is ALWAYS moving, so to see him all cuddled up on the couch and lethargic was so sad. Poor boy, but he will be running this house and his again by tomorrow.

Scholastic achiever!

When I was younger I loved school. I loved that there were loads of new boys to kiss each year, and I loved recess, and I loved to do math and English. I loved to have TV time once a week where we watched "Reading Rainbow." But one of the things that I loved more than most people would think is reasonable is the scholastic book catalog. My sister, Adele, and I would pore over each catalog once it came out, and then we would beg (thinking back my mom was probably really annoyed by the begging) to be able to get the book that we wanted. She would usually only order about one for each of us, but I LOVED it. For some reason it was an even better place to get books than a book store, perhaps because of all the pictures.
When Ali started school, I knew that she would like it. She had a bit of a shaky start because most kids in her class were together last year. But of course, she made a few friends and now she loves school. One thing I hadn't counted on was the Scholastic catalog. When we got it, I didn't even let my girls read over it before I had. I love that thing. Even now that I am way too old I still love that catalog, and it brings back such good memories of all the wonderful books I got to read as a child. I am such a nerd...

Here is our first order.

PS I dyed my hair black, what do you think?

For Paul

For Paul, because what father wouldn't be proud of this.

Back story for this picture : I was busy making lunch and the 3 kiddos were playing. I heard Dez laughing, and as I have wanted to catch him and Kat in their fun, I snatched my camera and ran around the sofa. This is the image I caught. Kat was no where in sight, and Dez was cracking up about his find. This is actually Kat's "special" toy. I think that he was very proud that he had managed to get her toy without her snatching it back and so that is why he was laughing.

I have been meaning to post this picture for awhile, well since the last post at least. I wanted to post a pic of Ali with her new friend. My brother Lutie got this for her at Sea World.

Random Assortment

This week I have found out that Ali has some pretty good fashion sense. She still will sometimes put stripes with stripes, and polka dots with other, different color/size polka dots, but in general she has found her groove. Maybe it is because she has to dress herself every morning for school.

I look back at earlier pictures of Ali, and I wonder how this girl...



has become this girl. Though the smile seems the same. Here she is totally posing. I wish I could put in all the different poses that she did, but everyone would hate me, or just stop reading after 6 or so.

But I had to put at least one more in. Plus in this picture you can see the toddler bed that we have set up for Kat. Since I never posted about it, this picture speaks for me.

We went to Sea world for Philippi's birthday, and I should have done an entire post about this too, but since I didn't, here is a picture of the fun we had. There is a huge Orca whale about 5 ft from the kids. But, of course, everyone knows flashes don't work well through tanks...
Also Ali got a HUGE stuffed Shamu from my brother, (thanks Lutie) and now she has to sleep with it, which is funny since it is almost the same size as her.

I had to put this picture in because I thought it was so funny. Why is it that every picture I take with any of my nieces or nephews and Kat inevitably has Kat crying? If you zoom in you can see the tear that can't quite fall due to such large cheeks.

These next series of pictures has a short background story. I usually wake up to my girls jumping on me to wake up, but this morning, I woke up to quiet whispers and giggles coming from upstairs. Any and all mothers know this as a bad sign, so as any mother would do, I ran upstairs expecting the worse... turns out Ali had just figured out how to work our camera. Do you think she will make a good photographer?

her foot

Our bunny, through the screen because it was too cold to go outside.

Close-up of her little sister.

There were about 25-30 pictures by the time I got to them. Some are better, and some are worse, but at least nothing was broken, spilled, cut up, or bleeding. All in all, not bad, especially since this morning I had an extra 15 min of sleep.

First day of school

Today was Ali's first day of school.

Abuelita got her this great outfit, and Tia Gaby contributed the stylish jacket to match. Thanks! I think Kat is wondering where her backpack is because at this point, when we left the house, she thought she was going to go to school too.

Ali right outside the classroom. She was ready for me to leave here.

Instead I took loads of pictures and helped her put her things into her cubby.

Even after I left, I was still taking pictures. Not that Ali even noticed.

New earrings

Malena got the girls these adorable new earrings, and the girls had a blast showing them off.

Her curls are coming back!!!!! I know that is a lot of exclamation points, but I love them curls!

Sweet Ali.