Random assortment of our month

This month has been kind of calm. Since Ali has started school it has been days full of drop-offs and pick-ups, but there have been a few photo worthy moments.

For labor day we spent the 3 day weekend in San Diego. For the girls that means Abuelita's house! They love that they have all different toys there. Plus this little rocking chair (along with lots of different books) is a big favorite.

We went to Sea World, which the girls loved... until Daddy sat us in the wet zone of Shamu's show. I should have gotten a picture of all of us soaked, but there were NO smiles involved.
I had to add this picture because it has Nick in it. A rare occurrence, I know, Nick has had decent rotations this month, and every weekend work-free!

Alicia lost yet another tooth! Here she is showing me her "hole."

Kat started gymnastics!

She is in the same class as Ali, so of course they have to hold hands most of the time.

This is just a picture of Ali that I liked.

For Ramona, here I am at 33 weeks! With my super itchiness, I am hoping that this baby comes early.

This is a picture for Jen, cause she always says that I am pushing out my belly in normal pictures, so this is me really pushing out my belly.

Right on time

Christmas was great this year, (or last year actually). It started out about a week early when Ali got a present from our good friend Jim. Ali wouldn't put these stuffed animals down for most of Christmas break.

They sat next to her while she opened each present. (The squirrel at her feet is one of about 5 that are on her lap)

Christmas Eve the whole fam headed out to Olvera Street in Downtown LA, for Las Posadas.

Abuelita got the girls and Dez some adorable outfits. I am glad these little ones love each other so much!

Christmas morning the whole gang headed over to our house for some presents. There were so many it made our tree look tiny!

Kat really cleaned up this year, her pile of presents was HUGE! And this year she was old enough to really enjoy the whole thing.

And Ali of course, loved this whole time of year. When she opened this particular gift she said, "This is EXACTLY what I wanted for Christmas!" It was pretty funny. Now she is always "Tangled" even though we constantly tell her that the name is actually Rapunzel, to which she responds, "Yeah I already know that." All in all, I would say that this is the best Christmas we've had, but I think that it is because the girls are getting older and can really enjoy it. We put out cookies this year and Ali was excited in the morning when they were gone. She loved decorating the tree and putting up lights. If this year was the best because of how much the girls loved it I can look forward to next year when both girls will be older and even more into the season. I can hardly wait for next year!

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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Birthday post

I know that I have been terrible at posting, and I will try to do better, so here are 3 posts in one. I will start off with the fact that due to some really random scheduling and some real luck on our part, Nick got 3 weeks off of work. We decided to have some fun during that time. We started by taking a trip down to San Diego. We have season passes to the zoo and the wild animal park, so we used them.

The San Diego zoo is HUGE!!! And by huge I mean so big that we had never gone to the elephant exhibit before, so we decided to go. I recommend it! The girls loved these realistic statues that are meant to be climbed on.

Kat was a fan of this specific goat at the ever-a-winner petting zoo.

I know these pictures are super cheezy to put in blogs, but it took me about 10 pictures before I got one where they were looking the same direction, so I had to put it in.
After our trip south, Nick's mom, Malena came and stayed with the girls for 4 whole days while Nick and I took a cruise to Ensanada.

Here is me in the main part of the boat.

Here is Nick in one of our favorite parts of the boat.

Gettin' some sun!

We did a shore excursion to La Bufadora, which is a blow hole on the tip of Baja Cali. I didn't just want to look at the blow hole, so we decided to Kayak up to it. Here we are in our wet suits getting ready to head out. We didn't get any pictures while out there because our camera is not waterproof, but we had loads of fun and it was amazing to get so close to La Bufadora. (Link is wiki site of blow hole)
After the fun on the cruise we all headed up to Fresno for my niece and nephew's birthday party.

Here is Jasmine and Benjamin with their cake. There is Ali, planning which piece she is going to get. Every picture I took of this scene has her looking exactly like this one. Every other child is running around or looking different ways, but not Ali. She knows exactly which piece she wants and she is NOT going to look away and let another kid get it.

Me helping Kat hit that scary pinata. Maybe we will wait another year to have a pinata for Kat.
Right before Nick went back to work Ali had her first swimming lesson, EVER!!! (unless you count mommy and me, which I don't)

She was so brave the entire time. I think this girl should have been born a fish!

Here she is learning to float on her back. Just put your hands behind your head and chill!
Most of Nick's vacation took place amidst the terrors of June gloom, but the day before Nick had to head back to work the sun came out, so we did too.

We headed to the beach where Ali finally let Nick bury her. In this picture you can see her impatience to get out. You can even see the sand cracking in front of her where she had her arms out one second later. But I cannot believe she consented to even that. Just a few weeks before I would have had to bribe her an arm and a leg just to bury her feet. Anything for Daddy!
Last but definitely not least, Kat's birthday is today!!! Nick has been back to work for a week now, but he was able to skip clinic this morning to spend a few extra hours with us and watch Kat open presents.

Nick got her a candy bracelet which she refused to put on her wrist, but didn't want to put down either, so her mouth is where it stayed.

Until she found out about Pez!

Dez liked this present of Kat's the best! But maybe because we didn't let him try the Pez.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas
I hope everyone had as great a Christmas as we did. To start off a great Christmas week, we celebrated Nick's birthday at Benihana's with Nick's folks and the girls.

We all love Benihana's! Last time we came here Kat was too little to eat anything, but this time she got to sample all the tasty things.

We spent Christmas with Nick's fam this year. It was a special treat because it was baby Dez' first Christmas.

We got a 2 gingerbread houses this year. One that Tia Gaby helped Ali make, and this one that our good friend Jim sent to the girls. Ali thinks it is all hers. If you look you can see Kat's hand trying to get a piece, and Ali's response to that hand.

I told Ali that if she shared with Kat then she gets to eat as much of it as she wants. This was the look she gave me.

A picture of all of us.