12.27.08 Marco's Birthday

We went to the Grand Lux for Marco's birthday. Everyone came. It was a crazy event where we all laughed and had a good time. Isabella was passed all around the table and amused everyone.

12.25.08 Christmas Day with Juan's Family

We went to Juan's parent's house on Christmas to be with Juan's family. Edward was there, along with Adam, Thelma, Aram, Sole, Marco, Gracie, Prinscella and Isabella. It is a crazy, chaotic event when people arrive and presents are opened. It is a free for all with people standing to open presents. It is hard to capture who receives what and if they liked it. It is definitely a bit different from what I'm used to. I'm sure that comes from having a huge family. After all the presents were opened, we gorged ourselves on posole and tamales. It was delicious as usual.

12.25.08 Christmas Migas

Juan and I spent Christmas Eve night with Mom. Vanessa and Jeff returned home because of Jakob. Christmas morning, Juan fixed Mom and I migas. They were DELICIOUS. I actually think of Christmas now when ever he makes migas.

12.24.08 Christmas Eve at Mom's

We spent Christmas Eve at Mom's with Jeff, Vanessa, and Jakob. Juan, Mom and I went to the candlelight service at the First Presbyterian Church in Mesquite. I love the way they ring bells to the songs. They are called the Jubilant Ringers. The prayer the minister said asking God to be with the hungry, those without jobs, without a home, in the middle of a war, without their family, etc. etc. etc made me cry. When he mentioned those remembering loved ones from Christmas past, Mom began to cry as well. The lighting of candles was both beautiful and inspiring. Afterwards, we returned to Mom's to gorge ourselves on potato casserole, chips, dips, breads, cheeses, ham, pumpkin pie, etc. We also got to fight over who was holding Jakob! Then we all opened presents. It was a lot of fun. I received a wine fridge from Mom, among other things and neat divided serving platters from Vanessa and Jeff. I think everyone loved their gifts and we were all thankful to be together.

12.21.08 Cookies with Kids

This year Aram and Sole were both so excited to decorate cookies. Aram must have asked me about it 10 times! We had them over and decided to take them to see Santa at the snow globe display at Willowbend. After waiting in line for an hour and barely moving we decided to give up on Santa. We returned to the house and decorated cookies. It was a lively and hysterically funny time. Aram kept dumping the sprinkles into his hand, but he would dump them until his hand overflowed. He would then put sprinkles in just one spot on the cookie and then ask me what I thought. Every time I would tell him what a good job he was doing, and he would reply, "Thank you". Sole was very adept at icing her own cookies this year. We had some lovely and colorful results. Afterwards, we let the kids open a couple of presents. A monopoly junior game for Sole and a game of Cooties for Aram. We played Cooties and Aram won. Juan gave him a dollar for winning. I think he was more excited about his dollar than the game. It was a fun afternoon for everyone.

12.14.08 Girls Gift Exchange

Sarah, Abby, Janet, Danna and I exchanged Christmas gifts at P.F. Chang's again this year. The food was awesome and the company delightful. I had my gifts all planned out for weeks prior, I purchased books on Muses for each of them and was going to give associated gifts based on each Muse. The stupid books on Amazon never arrived. It is now almost January and I have only received two books. I received a lot of awesome gifts, though. Both Janet and Danna bought me things I had registered for and it was so long ago that I didn't even recognize them... just remembered I really wanted them! Crazy! Danna got me a gift certificate to Nail Times and the napkin rings I wanted for the wedding. Janet got met a divided serving dish for parties. Abby got me an awesome frame for our engagement photos and Sarah got us all little suitcases with travel items inside. They are all so sweet and know me so well. Janet brought Audrey and we got to hold her as well. What a lovely evening.

12.14.08 White Rock Marathon and Dad Visits

Shannon and Lisa came down from Wichita to Dallas and ran the White Rock 1/2 marathon. I found the course online and went down to meet them at the 2-1/2 mile marker. They just happened to be running right by my office. They had all the streets blocked off, so I couldn't get to the office, but managed to work my way down to the course. I watched about a million runners run by and never did see Shannon or Lisa. I know they had to have run right by me. I then headed down to the finish line at American Airlines Center. You couldn't even see the finish line. I ended up climbing a wall and jumping a rod iron fence just to get close to the finish line. I waited about an hour and a half looking desperately for Shannon and Lisa. I never did see Lisa, but spotted Shannon whizzing by me briefly. I caught up to them at the finish line to offer congratulations. I still can't believe they ran the whole way, what an accomplishment!

After the race, Juan and I headed over to Vanessa's to see Dad, Sheryl and the new Baby. Dad drove in the following evening to see Jakob and they were leaving that afternoon. It was a brief visit, but was good to see them both. I had not seen them since Vanessa's wedding. Jakob, of course, was adorable.

12.13.08 ccrd Christmas Party

The ccrd Christmas party this year was held at the Old Red Courthouse. It was nice that it was somewhere different this year. Juan and I had attended both the P+W Christmas party and Lila's birthday party the night before and were a bit partied out. Juan was ready to go almost as soon as we arrived and did not feel like being social. There were so many more people this year, you could really see how much our firm has grown. The food was really good and it was nice seeing everyone in a non-work atmosphere.

12.11.08 Baby Jakob Arrives

Vanessa was induced around noon on Thursday and Jakob was born around 9:30pm that evening. I was still at work when I received the call. We were issuing the Los Robles California project the following day. Juan and I arrived at the hospital around 11pm and they had just taken Jakob into the nursery to clean him up. We talked to Vanessa and waited about an hour, but when they said it was probably going to be another hour and half, we decided to let Vanessa rest and return the following day. Juan and I returned to the McKinney hospital the following day and got to hold Jakob for the first time. He was so small! When I went to pick him up, Jeff told me to make sure and hold his head. Vanessa responded that I had probably held more babies than both of them combined. That made me laugh, because it was probably true. I am so excited to have a little baby in the family. He is absolutely adorable!

12.06.08 Juan's Birthday

For Juan's birthday this year, I got reservations at The Grape, his favorite restaurant. His mother wanted to have a lunch for him, so we headed over to her house around noon. When we arrived, we learned that we were the first one's there and that everyone was going to be arriving much later. Gracie didn't get off work until 4pm. We ate dinner around 4:30pm, so we had to cancel our reservations; but Juan had a good time playing with all of the youngsters and chatting with his family. It was a beautiful day, so we spent time outdoors playing baseball with light savers. Quite a sight to see. After we returned home, Juan opened his present from me. It was an external hard drive. He was quite excited, I think it was just what he wanted.

11.29.08 Picking a Tree

We searched everywhere for a tree this year. We found the perfect little one at a tree lot in Richardson; but when we went back they said it was $15 per foot. Even at 5' we were looking at $75! We said no way and chugged on to Lowe's but all of theirs were way too big. A second tree lot offered some smaller trees but were still in the $60 range. Then we headed to Home Depot. We had to wait about 20 minutes for them to open their tree area, but there were two small trees left and they were $27.95! The tree we picked still looked big. We were planning to put it in our tiny corner in the living room, so it needed to be narrow. I didn't realize quite how small and sad it was until we left Home Depot and Juan held the tree over his head on the way to the car. We brought it home anyway and decorated with our little ornaments. Juan referred to it as our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree all season. We even bought a Charlie Brown snow globe this year to add to our yearly collection of snow globes. We did get the tree and the inside of the house decorated, but we never did get the lights up on the house this season, maybe next year.

11.27.08 Thanksgiving

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house again this year. It was the first year that almost everyone came. Jeff had to work, but Vanessa, Mom, Miriam, Adam, Juan's parents, Themla, Sole, Aram, Marco, Gracie, Prinscella, and Isabella all came. The plan was for appetizers at 1pm with dinner starting at 2pm. Miriam, Mom and Vanessa were all here around 1pm, but at 2pm there was no sign of Juan's family. They all finally arrived around 4:30pm. Juan opened a bottle of wine at about noon and began to drink. We opened a couple more bottles around 1:30pm when Mom and Miriam arrived. Juan didn't realize that he was the only one drinking the red wine. At about 4:30pm on the dot, when everyone arrived; Juan passed out on the bathroom floor. He didn't mean to imbibe to that extent, it sort of snuck up on him. Adam ended up carving the turkey, although he had also had a couple beers by that point and about 1/4 of the turkey ended up on the floor; but he did a really good job. Juan's family brought almost an entire dinner themselves, so we had WAY too much food! It was also pretty crowded in our little home with everyone; but it was really nice to have everyone together. By the end of the evening, I managed to drag Juan out to the table to get some food in his belly. I don't think he'll be hearing the end of that one for awhile. We are very blessed to have everyone together, healthy and happy!

11.08.08 My Birthday Weekend

Shannon came to Dallas to visit for my birthday this year. It was a jam packed weekend. She gave me oodles of cool gifts Friday night. Saturday we went to try on my recently arrived wedding dress and stopped at Sprinkles cupcakes for a bit of sweets. We met my friends for dinner at Bugatti Ristorante, a fabulous little Italian restaurant I had never been to. Everyone was there: Vanessa, Miriam, Shannon, Abby and Brody, Danna and Mike, and of course Juan and I. They had birthday menus in my name printed and awaiting us at the table. Then we all headed off to go bowling! It was really fun bowling with everyone. Vanessa did really well, although we were all afraid she was going to fall down and hurt herself. We even wore our bowling shirts. Afterwards, Juan gave me my present. It was two cricut cartridges that I really wanted. What a fabulous birthday extravaganza!

11.04.08 Election Day

Today was the first time EVER that Juan and I voted. Today was the election day for the new President of the United States. Juan, fresh with his citizenship, was allowed to vote for the first time. He made me ashamed that I am 32 years old and have never once voted. This year we both made it a point. It was Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama, from Illinois, with his running mate, Delaware Senator Joe Biden, versus Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain, of Arizona, with running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. I voted for McCain and Juan voted for Obama, so in hind-sight all we did is cancel each other out. Oh well, at least we had a voice. Obviously, Obama won the election and is going to be the next President of the United States.

10.31.08 White Trash Bash

This year for Halloween, we travelled to Shannon's house in Wichita. She and Aaron were hosting a White Trash Halloween Bash. I bought a costume labeled "Freshman". It was a fat suit with a teeny top, a thong showing over the skirt, and even came with a tramp stamp. Juan bought overalls and a mullet. We had a great time and loved seeing all of the White Trash outfits. Kent was Joe the Plumber from the elections this year. Shannon had her house gussied up with Christmas lights, boxes for tables, lawn chairs indoors, spam, Cheetos in a cat dish, trash bags and tin foil in the windows, etc. She really did it up right. I also got to see Tracie and Lisa from our wiki.

10.28.08 Pumpkin Carving

We kept up our annual pumpkin carving tradition this year with one slight twist, Jeff painted on Vanessa's very pregnant belly. Don't worry, we didn't let him carve her. The paint was difficult to apply and a bit uncomfortable for Vanessa once dry, so she didn't leave it on very long.

Christmas Card

This is the Christmas Card I sent out this year. I used different chipboard letters that matched different Seasonal Greetings. I used stickles on the tree for the ornaments.

Vanessa's Baby Shower Invitation

This is the invitation Vanessa and I made for her baby shower. So cute with the yarn.

Danna's Baby Shower Invitation

This is the shower invitation I made for my friend Danna's baby shower. The poem inside says:

... to a baby shower
For you know who.


Two bottles, two bows,
Two onsies, you know
It's a Noah's Ark theme
For the mother-to-be.

Join us for laughter
And to shower our friend
We'll welcome her baby
Without any men!

Why am I blogging?

I am an avid scrapbooker and I find that I am so far behind that I am forgetting important memories before the pages are complete. I thought a blog would be good for 2 reasons: the first is to track my stories as they are created for later use in my scrapbooks, the second is to share with friends and families cards and pages I've created. I have been creating cards lately for baby shower invitations and realized that I don't really have copies of any of the cards I have made in the past. Also, my fiance got me a digital camera for Christmas, so I thought I would put it to use. Yes, I am in the digital era....although I still refuse to give up my pentax!