Happy Anniversary to Us!

3 years ago today, I married my dear... I love you!!!!

its still Christmas time - so Merry Christmas!

as you can imagine its been a little busy since the last I posted, getting ready for Christmas and all (basically shopping for last-minute gifts and wrapping all of them even though most have been sitting around the house for a month!)

so once again, I'll do a recap of the last week of december...

our good friends jen and fern got married so as a family we went to celebrate their day...
jenalyn hugging with the Easter candle


of course the weekend is never complete without a trip to our local mall. since it was the holidays, the big tree is up and the train rides are in the street (not the cobblestone walkways that are way too bumpy)oh and eli, through all this is...you guessed it: sleeping!
oops I dont wanna turn it, Im getting lazy



ok so I didnt take any pictures of them during Christmas Mass or opening gifts, although we did video record it - but still bad, I know. but here are a couple of pics of them playing with some toys they got (and my gosh, they got a lot of toys!)



yesterday we headed to the park after Mass and this time eli was awake! so heres a few pics of him hanging out on the grass while his sister is running around on the playground. we did manage to get one of them together, not very picture perfect but they are together...

our wonderful secret santa presents!

we had a secret santa gift exchange with my mommy board and the kiddies were so excited to open up the big package they got in the mail.
our secret santa spoiled them with handmade I Spy games, elmo books and an awesome aqua doodle mat! thank you so much secret santa!!!

jenalyn at My Gym

last weekend we took jenalyn to a kiddie gym to check out the program. she really enjoyed herself there and had so much fun exploring and playing with all the equiptment as well as interacting with a buch of kids her age. we hope to sign her up for classes soon and make it a part of our saturday routine.

and we would've taken more pictures if the battery didnt die.

where's the Magi???

I love our Fisher Price Litle People Nativity set and so do the kiddies. as you can see jenalyn likes to rearrange the people (Ive seen her replace the angel with the sheep!)before she throws them everywhere and then we cant seem to find them. but when we do find them, they are in the oddest places...



and look where we found the one of the Magi...along with some animals and Baby Jesus.


and eli so mesmerized by the pretty ornaments and lights.

it's almost Christmas!!!

yay!!! its been kinda busy around here - not to mention everyone is sick - AGAIN!!! but its just the common cold, we hope.

so heres a few pics of what these kiddies have been up to this Christmas season.

heres our tree. this year I decided to just to a kiddie crafty tree since I had a feeling the kids would be pulling on it and didnt want any real ornaments to break. so heres our little 4 ft.fake tree with ornaments I made using paper, craft sticks, buttons, felt and pipe cleaners. I should have made more, but jenalyn always takes them so... oh well.


checking out a nice big tree at daddy's work


eli trying to blend in with the holiday dolls

a few pictures from the week

jenalyn was the one who wanted to be trendy and wear the skirt over her leggings - I didnt have the heart to tell her that it doesnt go very well with her bootcut leggings though - but still cute because she did it herself.

eli showing off his pearly whites!

I caved - and opened up one of her christmas presents to play with, ok so I'll wrap it back up, she'll never know.

" a little too much mayo and mustard for my liking...but I do love Blimpies!"

Oops, I forgot, we took pro pics

I forgot to post our professional pictures that we took in mid novenber too. as you can see, this was around the time jenalyn wasnt feeling well, so she wanted nothing to do with the pictures. but eli was just charming - look at that smile!!!
these are the first family pictures we've taken, the four of us. and we have our christmas pictures to take next week. I'll make sure to remember to post those. enjoy.

happy 8 months eli!

yesterday eli turned 8 months! this is going by way too fast...and a nice little milestone on the day: clapping!!!
yay my baby can clap. he's scooching around to get to where he needs to go, mainly in circles and rolls to get everywhere else, no crawling yet though, but all in due time.
we had to take him to the pedi today for a checkup on his eczema and of course we checked his weight: 16 lbs. 10 oz. - so far so good. we'll check back in a month for his next well visit and see how much he's gained and how long he's gotten - and he is getting quite long!

wrapping up november

ok so Im gonna attempt to blog the rest of the goings on of november in this post.

mid-november grandma and grandpa came down for an early thanksgiving celebration. we ate super yummy prime rib at a fancy shmancy resturant which both kiddies were so well behaved (even the waitress was greatly impressed - and so were we!). then the next day we had an all-out thanksgiving dinner at my auntie's house which was very nice. that weekend went by really quick and unfortunatly we didnt take a single picture! (bad mommy!) but thank you grandma and grandpa for all the toys, clothes, food, etc!!! thank you thank you thank you!

my college roomies and our families had a mega-playdate. it was soo nice to see everyone, and we just dont get together hardly enough as we should so it was a happy reunion for us 20-D girls (the number of our college apt.) and look at us now... (we missed you ahila!)
all the kiddies (chiara left early, boo!)

oh my how our group has grown!

looks like a drinking contest!

my dear, the baby hog!


auntie jamie took us to see santa at Bass Pro Shops, but we got there too early so santa must have been stuck in traffic... but jenalyn sat in his chair, but grew impatient and wanted off. and eli, well as usual, not up for these picture moments.



thanksgiving day was a plesent one. we went to an aunt's house to celebrate Mass and have thanksgiving lunch, then it was back home to celebrate our own little family thanksgiving dinner which my dear prepared the whole thing, yummy! just a few pics from the day...all decked out in brown.




we finally got a table! well one for jenalyn (and eli). ok so currently we dont use our dining room table for eating (but it does make a great place to make tutus). so when we eat jenalyn has her highchair on the floor and we eat there. but since this table we're trying to get her to eat there, some days she will, some she wont. but Im so excited because it also means that we can do more crafy things on the table instead of the floor. yay!


ok so that wraps up november... now on to the month with "the most wonderful time of the year!" (every month is the most wonderful time of the year though...)

a playdate and feeding time

last week auntie sarah, jasmine and jayden came over and spent the day with us. we all had such a good time. it was sooo nice to sit and chat and have grown-up mommy conversations all the while letting the kids play. jenalyn was especially excited. and when we all went to panda express for dinner (yup, had to take BOTH minivans!) the girls were running a muck (ok so I think mine was the culprit behind the madness. being all caught up in the fun times, I forgot to take pictures. I only have one of the boys. but we're planning to have a mega-playdate with all the old college roomies tomorrow - so I'll make sure to snap away (or at least someone will.


jenalyn has been more interested in playing with "dolly" these days. she got a hold of eli's sippy cup and tried to give it to "dolly" letting the water drip all over her face. so I gave her a bowl and spoon to see what she would do and sure enough... how sweet.

feeling crafty...

so yesterday I made a trip to michaels to get more tutu supplies and felt like being crafty (other than tutus) so I picked up some painted wooden animals, magnets and felt and this is what I came up with:


I just glued the magnets to the animals and since I still need to by a dry magnetic erase board, I just used the ironing board instead (b/c I hate ironing, so this is the best use of it!)and as for the little felt guy - thats suppose to be a sun. it was totally a rough draft, but I hope to make other things and use them as christmas ornaments.
heres jenalyn playing with her new magnets - as you can see she just likes to peel them all off or toss them behind the ironing board. and eli just hanging out...

when it rains...it pours! (huge buckets!!)

::sigh:: the days are getting better but wow what a week! a few posts back I mentioned that everyone was sick. well eli and my dear were doing ok, nothing to be too concerned over. but jenalyn. poor poor jenalyn...
monday of last week she really wasnt herself and wouldnt want to eat, by the evening she had horrible diarriah and running a low-grade fever. we tried so desperately to have her take tylenol and drink pedialyte but she was having none of it. we literally had to hold her down and squeeze meds and fluids down her throat with a dropper.
then of course, she gets this terrible diaper rash and has to be held down for changing too. the next morning, no improvment really, just a super cranky baby. and then, as if things couldnt get worse, by the evening I caught whatever jenalyn had was sick as a dog! I really dont remember feeling so sick in my entire life! so poor daddy, had to stay home from work for 2 days to try and take care of this super sick family - luckily eli didnt get it.
so wed. I was out like a light, but Im sure it was a rough time for my dear and on thursday morning he bursts open our bedroom door and yells - "jenalyn has chicken pox!" -
ok so it wasnt chicken pox but she broke out it the most awful rash imaginable (I'll pass on posting pictures b/c it just so sad looking) it was all over her body! the 2 went to the pedi and they said its viral and should go way in 7-10 days. since she was a little itchy the pedi said we could do a little benadryl.
the rash got way worse before getting better (thats whats suppose to happen)its still a little noticable but much better and shes eating and drinking much better too, since its been a week since a real meal and good amount of fluid.
she's still super cranky. any little thing upsets her. but we know she is getting better... as for me, its crazy how your body kicks into mommy mode and knows that being sick is not an option, so after seeing that rash I was starting to feel better, knowing I needed to.
::sigh:: I hope shes back to her old "happy-happy" self soon.

halloween '08

ok so these pics are a little late - but I'll get to that in the next post. we just headed out to the mall for some trick-or-treating. jenalyn was just the cutest fairy ever (and she got so many complements for her costume - yay!) she wasnt into holding her bag but she only let go of her wand once. the most exciting thing for her was to say "bye!" to the choo-choo train everytime it passed by - and she does this everytime we go to the mall. so cute! now eli, hmm... we're thinking he doesnt like all the hoopla of picture moments - once again he was sleeping and he didnt eve get to wear his costume - but I did take a few pics of him in it while at home earlier that week.
so over all - little loot, but thats ok - I think jenalyn was more excited about the stickers anyway, but poor mommy and daddy, people needed to hand out more snickers!!! oh and coupons from gymboree would have been good - maybe a thought for the excecs of gymboree for next year! ha!
"I thought you said we get candy for wearing this?"

the only pic of eli the fishie

"aww man, I fell asleep, what did I miss?"

"bye train!!!!!!"