Chicago girls trip!

Last weekend I headed up to Chicago to visit my dear old friend Lindsey and our friends Katie, Corey, and Brooke flew in from Houston to make it a girls' weekend.  Lindsey, Brooke, Katie, and I lived together for one year in college, and I played softball with Brooke and Lindsey growing up and in high school.  I had such a good trip!!  One night we busted out our senior yearbook and laughed hysterically at the things people wrote in there.  We got very lucky and had very mild, even nice, Chicago winter weather.  We did a lot of sight seeing including Hancock Tower, Millenium Park, the Bean, Lincoln Park, and the ice skating ribbon.  We ate Lou Malnatis chicago pizza, had a fabulous dinner at RPM Italian, and saw a hilarious comedy show at the Second City.  And we spent a ton of time hanging out at Lindsey's beautiful home and catching up.  We stayed up until 3:30 a.m and 4:30 a.m. the two nights we were in town.  I miss these beautiful ladies already!!

Rock-a-bye Baby

My baby girl still wakes up at least once most nights.  I am not sure why, and we did let her cry it out once about a month ago, but I think it is mostly a comfort thing for her.  It makes me a little crazy, but, at the same time, I love rocking her back to sleep.  As soon as she sees me, she calms down, and she falls back asleep as soon as I pick her up to rock her.  Rock a bye baby, my sweet, sweet girl!

New Years Eve

Happy 2015!  We rang in the new year at the lovely Davis house.  Astyn hosted a wonderful dinner for the adults and kids.  The Davis's lived two houses down from us in Cottonwood, and they moved to Colleyville a couple of months before we moved.  The Amisons lived across the street from us, and they just moved to Coppell.  So, we all got together for a little neighborly reunion!  The kids all missed each other and had a blast playing and staying up late to drink fake champagne and cheers.  I only miss a couple of things about our old house:  my commute, and our wonderful neighbors!  I hope we are able to make great friends in our new neighborhood too.

We spent New Years Day at home, cuddled up on the couch by the fire.  I SO enjoyed my time off with my family and spending our first holiday season together in our new home.

33!

I turned 33 on December 27, and, I have to say, I think this is going to be my best year yet.  Last year was a really tough one for me.  I struggled a lot with work, with two different bad job situations, and trying to sell our house.  I felt very uneasy, and, at times, hopeless about both situations.   Last summer, I had a significant personal situation that really changed my life.  I decided at that time that I would not take anything for granted, and that I was not going to do anything to jeopardize the wonderful life I have been blessed with.  I turned to God a lot during these months.  And, miraculously, after I made the conscious decision to live life a different way, everything turned around.  We sold our house and bought our dream house.  As soon as we moved, I felt an immense sense of peace.  I know that Southlake is where we are supposed to be, and I am so happy we are here.  I also found an amazing new job.  My boss is wonderful, my coworkers are great, and I really feel like this is a place where I can shine in my work while still maintaining a "part-time" schedule so that I don't have to miss any important family moments.

I celebrated my birthday surrounded by family.  We went to Mellow Mushroom for lunch to continue our tradition of pizza birthday celebrations, and Frank took me out to a nice dinner that night.  Frankie helped me blow out my birthday candles.  My birthday wish is for continued health and happiness in the coming year.

Liliana 18 months

I took Lily to her 18-month checkup today, and she is doing great!  She is still a petite little miss, hitting right at the 10th percentile for height and the 41st percentile for weight.  She is currently 22 lbs and 30.75 inches.  At 18 months, Lily is..

• wearing size 18-24 month clothes.  She must have had a growth spurt recently because the 12-18 month clothes I bought her at the beginning of winter are already too small!
• walking, running, climbing, doing somersaults, and trying desperately to jump.  I need to get this girl in gymnastics ASAP, because she loves to move.
• loves her BUBBA so much and tries to imitate everything he does.
• very independent.  She wants to do everything herself, and she has a lot of opinions.  She is just not quite able to express them yet.  She is very good at nodding yes and no, waving hi and bye, and pointing.  She says mama, dada, nana, papa, bubba, dog, doll, star, uh oh, and maybe a couple of other words, but mostly she calls everything "da."  She knows her body parts and she knows most of her animal sounds.  
• is simply adorable.  She loves dirt and slides and dolls and shoes.  She loves to play with her babies, and she is very interested in reading books these days.  She points to every person and object in every picture and says "da!!" so excitedly.  
• into everything.  But, unlike her brother, she follows direction well, and she will usually obey requests to sit down, or put something back.

I cannot believe my sweet baby girl is halfway to 2.  She has grown so much these last few months, and she is becoming a full-blown toddler.  As I rock her to sleep every night, I try to treasure that time together, as I know that the day will come soon when she won't want me to rock her anymore.

Christmas 2014

We hosted Christmas at our house this year, and we had my Mom and Dad, brother Tyler, and grandparents in town.  It was a full house, but it was wonderful to be surrounded by family.  Frank took off two entire weeks from work, and I was off Dec. 24-27 and Dec. 31-January 4, so we got in A LOT of great quality family time and time with the kids.  Frank built lots of fires in our "wood room" fireplace.  I never realized that a wood-burning fireplace was important to me, but it is one of my favorite features of our new house.  

On Christmas Eve, about 30 minutes before my family was scheduled to arrive, Frankie was riding his bike outside when he crashed into one of our iron gates and hurt his privates.  It was purple and bleeding, and Frankie was screaming in pain, so Frank decided to take him to the ER.  I took Lily to church with my family, and we met Frank and Frankie back at the house afterward.  Luckily, he was okay.  We all headed to Allison and Steve's house after church for a big lasagna feast.  We let the kids open a couple of presents over there, and they had a great time.  I continued the tradition of giving the kids Christmas pjs, a new Christmas book, and a Christmas movie on Christmas eve.  We headed home to put some cookies and milk out for Santa and sprinkle some reindeer food on the front lawn.  Frankie was SO EXCITED for Santa this year, and I was very nervous that he was going to wake up and hear us setting out the gifts.  But, he was out like a light and did not wake up until after 7:00 the next morning.  I actually woke up at 6:00 a.m. and could not go back to sleep, so I made myself a cup of coffee and sat out in the living room, just enjoying the magic of our beautiful tree on Christmas morning.

We opened all the presents--play dough and frozen stuff for Frankie and baby dolls and accessories for Lily.  Both kids also got new ipads.  Frank and I didn't get each other anything big this year, because we had just bought a new sectional, coffee table, and big TV for our living room.  We did give ourselves a new gym membership, and I bought Frank some rainbow colored George Bush socks he wanted!  He and my parents both gave me yoga pants, and they were both the wrong size.  But luckily I was able to exchange them both without any trouble.  

Frank and I decided to change things up and cooked a beef tenderloin and ham this year instead of turkey.  The beef was so amazing.  Frank is truly an amazing cook, and he did such a great job with the beef and ham.  I cooked all the side dishes, and his entrees were far superior to mine :)  I am much better at dessert than the main course.  But this year, I managed to mess up dessert too.  I had ordered a cake from Nothing Bundt Cakes for our dessert, and then I forgot to go pick it up on Christmas Eve!  So, we got it for my birthday instead.  

I love Christmas for the time spent with family.  I love the decorating, the anticipation, and I especially love experiencing Christmas through the eyes of our children.  I am hoping they appreciate the true meaning of Christmas more than the material nature of it.  We are so blessed to be able to give our children so much, but I don't ever want them to take any of it for granted.