Merry Christmas

As always, the holidays come and went before we had time to enjoy them. I got most of my decorations up in a timely manner and our poor tree was only half dressed to discourage a little boy from touching, little did I know that a young lady would also have to touch and rearrange all the decorations. December started with snow (on the first) and mother nature wasn't done. Snow came not once, not twice but 3 times in December and for the first time ever for me, we had a white Christmas. Of course as much as cool the snow is, it just causes trouble in my opinion. We can't drive anywhere and we don't have proper snow clothes. Our original plans were for Christmas Eve dinner at the Angeli's and breakfast at our house. Due to the snow, we ended up home with just our little family, eating whatever I could put together (I wasn't planning on cooking a whole meal) and Tomas and the kids watched a cartoon Christmas special. I of course was sorely disappointed and pouted the whole night. Called my mom's and talked with my brother for a while with all the Christmas joy sounds in the background, I have never been so homesick for California as I was that moment. We got everyone to bed and Santa made his yearly appearance. Olivia was cute, in the morning she woke everyone up that "Santa had come" and she squealed with delight with everything she opened, ate or saw. It was just what I needed to be reminded that it's really for the kids. It kind of stinks to be a grown up when you just want to be a kid again. The roads weren't clear until after 10 in the morning, so Christmas breakfast became Christmas brunch. We had a great time with the Angeli's and snowed in Katie and Bryce, what a fun surprise but I'm sure they would have loved to have been home for Christmas. A first and probably last, I made matching PJ bottoms for the kids. Olivia refused to wear them so I only have a picture of Malaki wearing his. His turned out funny and were skin tight and low riders. I got a good laugh out of seeing him. I didn't make him wear them to bed, Tomas didn't think they were warm enough. I think I was in a little bit of denial of the holidays coming, I still have pumpkins on my pouch, which then became snow covered pumpkins.

Family Photo

Here's just a taste of what we got...

Christmas Party

We had our ward Christmas breakfast and one of the activities was to dress up as people of Bethlehem and take a picture in a stable. It was just I and the kids but it was fun :) Good food, great friends, a great morning :) Merry Christmas

November

The month flew by faster then you can say "Football"! The month started with nice fall weather and ended in a cold front that brought snow December 1st. We ended up staying home for Thanksgiving and due to a spectacular win from the high school football team we were joined by the Angelis at the last moment. We didn't take pictures that day but Lisa and I put together a fantastic meal. We had turkey and ham, sweet potatoes, jello and veggies to just name a few favorite's. And of course it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without yummy desserts. I made a creamy pumpkin spice pie, bought a very yummy dense fudge chocolate pie and made soda cracker pie that is my favorite from childhood. Lisa made a very tart lemon pie and a blueberry pie. We had lots of fun and enjoyed each other's company and Mark of course got to watch some football.

15 months

Malaki just had his 15 month check up and I happened to find Olivia's stats from her 15 month.

Malaki: Olivia:
weight 20.2# weight: 21.9#
height: 283/4" height: 291/2"

I'm sure I'm going to miss a few but here a few things that Malaki does:
blows kisses & gives kisses
claps and says "edwin" (the cat)
climbs on everything
puts and pulls things from the garbage (even lifts the lid)
same goes for the toilet (grosses mom out)
runs away and laughs
only sits still and lays his head on mom's shoulder when he's either hurt or super tired.
still sleeps great! (mom's favorite)

The joy of dressing yourself.....

This is how Olivia left for school this morning...The best part was when she said,"I hope I don't look "rediculish" aka ridiculous

Happy Halloween

For a few short hours, we had an extra kitty and puppy at our house. Not "fur" real but just for Halloween. Olivia was a black cat and Malaki was a brown puppy. Malaki started the night out grumpy but once he learned that we were going to go for a walk, he was very happy. That was until he found out that kids were walking all around him and he had to join in. He didn't get the whole asking for candy thing but he liked walking up to the door and people handing him things, which he gladly gave to daddy until someone gave him a box of nerds that made lots of noise for him. He kept that one for himself.

We joined some friends to walk around and Olivia declared that every house was "haunted" and that Halloween was "awesome"! We had so many tricker-treaters that I gave most of her candy away after we got home. It was a great night for the Mendoza home.