A little bit of this and some of that

Ok, if you thought I get a little excited for the fall season, you haven't seen me get ready for winter and the Christmas season!

As always, the day after Thanksgiving my house gets transformed! Gone are the pumpkins, leaves. brown and bronze decorations and out comes the white, silvery, and sparkly blue wonderland!

Aside from our week of cruising, it feels like the Christmas parties and festivities haven't stopped. There has been a whole lot of this....

Eating too much of this:

(Sonya what do you think about this??)



Wish there hadn't been any of this....

or this....

Just glad it didn't happen until after this....

I try to capture this...

But usually she's too fast and it looks like this....

My decorations always end up being used for this...

I decorated for an event and it looked like this...

Glad he didn't fall down while doing this...

Seriously, how cute is this?

I feel so blessed to have this!

What do you think about that?

I love it when we're cruising together!

For our first two anniversaries Jose and I have made a point to take a trip (Dominican Republic and Colorado). This year I was a little bummed that it wouldn't happen. I thought we should probably save some money and I knew we aren't ready to leave Aubriella. Still I wanted to do something! One morning I looked up cruise prices, called Jose at work, invited our moms, and within 24 hours it was booked! We wanted to invite more of our family, but school and work commitments (and short notice!) didn't allow that to happen (Next year Jasen and Adriana!).

We were excited for our babysitters moms to be able to join us, and the idea of being stuck on a boat with a very active, very mobile 10 month old didn't seem to overwhelming. Aubriella did great- though it is hard to relax when we have to chase her around. We all had a blast, and even though we didn't take advantage of free babysitters like we envisioned we were able to enjoy ourselves.

You can check out my Facebook album of pictures by clicking on this link

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111771&id=68600295&l=eef2af5cb0

Bradley Training- Anaheim

I am so proud of Jose and Aubriella for how well they did spending 4 days with only a little hotel room to call home! During my Bradley trianing they explored Downtown Disney-several times-and seemed to walk all around Anaheim. They had planned on going to Disneyland, but after finding that they had lots to see without paying the admission price they changed their mind (I was so grateful! The thought of missing her first Disney experience was sad).

You'll notice there are no pictures of me... I was sitting in the training from 8am until 10pm everyday. I did get to see them every short break, lunch and dinner!

So much to be thankful for!

This year has been amazing! We have so much to be thankful for! I love Thanksgiving and the idea of taking a day to be thankful for all we have. We are so blessed to have all our family nearby....even though that means we have a very busy Thanksgiving day seeing everyone!

Our 3rd anniversary was the day before Thanksgiving, and Jose and I were able to enjoy a nice dinner at Trattoria Uliveta and enjoy massages! Ahhh...

This year we woke up and I got busy making all the side dishes for the Tapia meal. I was in charge of green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, yams, dessert, and macaroni and cheese casserole (a request from my brothers and husband). I was tempted to get overwhelmed with all that had been going on that week and all I had to do, but I was trying to help make the day less stressful for my mom (which makes the day more fun for everyone ;-). Once everything was prepared, we headed over to Nino and Nina's (Jose's grandparents) for the first meal of the day!

Aubri loves her Baby Nina! This doll sings Spanish nursery rhymes. We think it looks and sounds just like the real Nina!

Nino always gets sentimental as he shares all he has to be thankful for- at the top of his list is his family!

This is such a beautiful picture of Emma!

Favorite cousins!

After Nino's thanksgiving meal, we ran home to cook the side dishes and headed to my parents house. Somehow we managed to save room for another yummy meal!

I am so thankful that every year my Tia Angie and cousins come to spend the holiday with us! Aubri loved getting to hang out with them and their dog Snuggie!

I promised the rock band pictures wouldn't end up on Facebook! (I didn't say anything about the blog!)

This year we started a new tradition for us. Since Silvia's FIANCEE and kids couldn't come up on Thanksgiving day, we had another "Thanksgiving" on Friday with Jose's immediate family.

Somehow Aubri got the head of the table! She ate better than she ever had- maybe it was her cool seat!

I know Aubri has her eyes closed, but she wasn't very cooperative during the photo shoot. To be fair to her beautiful cousins I had to post the best one of them.

Aubriella loved playing Twister!

I was nervous to step on the scale after all our Thanksgiving meals and the cruise the following week. Thanks to chasing the Little One around the number didn't even go up. For that I am very thankful!

Birthdays!

Nino turned 75! The family threw him a huge party following a special mass. He is so proud of his family tree!

Cousins in the mass

Rigo popped the question to Silvia!!

All but two of the grandkids and greatgrandkids!

Gulianna turned 1! She had a great party at Chuck E. Cheese!

Aubri, Gulianna, Danica and Anastasia weren't to sure about this guy!

Danica turned 3! She had a cute Toy Story party!

See the resemblance?

Where to start?

November may have been the busiest month of my life...until this December ;-). Wow! It was a whirlwind with one event after another. I had my hands full balancing all my jobs. Aubri is a walking pro and I'm constantly chasing her around keeping her out of trouble hehe. It was a very busy month as Children's pastor planning for all the events happening this month and trying to schedule Sunday School teachers during the busiest season of the year! In between the holidays and our vacations I had to schedule CWS visits which was tricky. I had my big Uppercase Living Open house which went well, but took a bit of work to set up and prepare for. And...if my plate wasn't busy enough I'm embarking on a new endeavor. I will be starting to teach Bradley birth classes and attended a loooong four day training in Anaheim. I am so very excited to teach the natural birth process and educate couples in my home, but I'm essentially starting up a business and am a bit overwhelmed by the marketing process (not to mention the academic packet I'm working on completing).

On top of all that, we had a family birthday party EVERY WEEKEND, Thanksgiving, and so many other little events. I think I could challenge anyone to a full calendar competition and win! To round off the month, we went on a four day cruise to Catalina and Ensenada. There was so much I needed to wrap up to take a week off, that it felt like I was exhausted by the time our trip began. We had a blast though. Aubriella does so well traveling! Our mom's went with us and they are closer than ever. It was so funny that we had to turn in early because of the baby, and our mom's would come in giggling at 3 am!

We came back from our cruise December 2nd and have not had a day off since! The following day Jose hosted a "Man Shower" at our home for our friend Andy (another thing we prepped before we left on the cruise!). We are so excited to be welcoming another Unger any day now! Oh! I also started a mini day care! Since Joy Unger is on maternity leave, I'm watching one of her daycare kids. So far it is only one day a week, but this past week I also watched Aubri's cousin Jesse. I had an 11, 10 and 6 month old at the same time (thanks Silvia for the help!). Last week there was also Christmas parties, a cookie exchange, youth group, staff events...whew!

I'm making myself a little overwhelmed writing of the busy-ness and thinking ahead of all the events we still have coming up (Children's Christmas performance practice, Girls bake day at my house, Jr. High Christmas party...) so I think I will stop and share the good stuff- pictures!

So very busy!

I can't believe I haven't updated since Halloween! I don't think I have ever been as busy as I have the last couple of months! When I get some time, you are in for a whole lot of updates. In the meantime, here is a cute picture of Aubriella