Holidays part 4

How many holiday blog posts can I do?!?!

The last (but still one of the best!) parts of our holiday was meeting Susanna and spending a few hours with Caleb and Abby!

Susanna and Xaris played and played...and Abby and I talked and talked.

Good friends sharing the toy

We tried to get a mother/daughter shot...friends with baby friends.

It was really difficult though to get anything great! Babies looked different directions, mommas forgot to smile or closed their eyes! We weren't very successful, but they are fun shots anyways!

Holding hands...

So Xaris is about 2.5 months older than Susanna. But Abby and Caleb are both much taller than Ric and I so we were curious to see how our babies would measure up! X is still taller (not by much) than Susanna. But we decided that Susanna is measurably heavier than Xaris (we don't know exactly how much they weigh at this point...but she was enough heavier to notice when holding each of them). My guess is that Susanna will pass up Xaris in height pretty soon too!

This is the best one I found on our camera...although Ric took some with Abby's camera too, maybe they are better?

This was also Xaris' 8-month birthday!

Bring on the cupcakes! We shared...Susanna got 5, and we took pictures of her too...

Too cute! Sitting up like a big girl!

Xaris did some damage...a few of the cupcakes had finger-puncture marks by the time we were done with the picture-taking. I love this one. The cupcakes were a pyramid, but here you see the top one mid-fall as she goes for it.

Happy 8 months darling girl! We love you...and we love everyone who was a part of our holidays and those we miss and didn't get to spend time with!

Happy 2010!

Holidays part 3

We left on Monday for Mexico for the New Year. Xaris has continued to travel well, and she did fine on the plane and visiting with all the family in Mexico. We also got to spend time with some of Ricardo's high school and college friends!

She loves her Abuelos.

Fernando is one of Ricardo's best friends from high school. If you have been a long time blog follower, you might recall a post around Thanksgiving time a year ago where both Brisa and I were pregnant (but barely showing). We tried to get some belly pictures on the beach in Florida, but we kind of had to force our tummies out.

Julia is their daughter, and is one week older than Xaris. She is quite a bit bigger though--not surprising when you see how tall her dad is! We met them for coffee at Starbucks in Juarez, Mexico. Apparently it's been there for a little bit, but this was the first time I got to experience it! They have a few different drinks--one being a Cherry Mocha. Ric ordered it and I tried it...not bad, but too sweet for me to drink one. We were really glad to be able to see these friends though. They live in Michigan so it's not often that we can get together.

A few other highlights from the week:

We have a puller-upper! She didn't actually do this on her own, it's too tall. But she is pulling herself up into a standing position on smaller things. We crawls and scooches anywhere she wants now, and together with the pulling up we have realized that we need to get a move on the baby/child-proofing of our house!

Ricardo had to make tamales by himself this year! I was trying to get Xaris down for a nap, and as she has so many cousins who she loves, she wasn't doing a very good job calming herself down enough to sleep! Ricardo made the tamales, and we've decided to keep practicing during the year this time so we remember how to do it by the time next year rolls around.

We have a good, and sometimes voracious eater!

She's decided to like most of what we've tried. She now eats rice and oatmeal, butternut and acorn squashes, green beans, yogurt, avocado, apple, pear, sweet potato, teething biscuits and sweet potato puffs :) and the only thing that she has not liked is carrots. I tried them again this week and got the same reaction. She may just not be a carrot fan. I don't blame her, I really only like them raw--cooked are pretty nasty.

I hadn't tried really hard to introduce many new things in her first two months of eating solids, so now we're going to focus on increasing the things she eats. She is getting interested in table food and is able to eat pieces of stuff instead of just purees. Next up: Cream cheese, toast, brown rice, blueberries, cantaloupe, grapes, broccoli, lentils and tofu! That should get us through January!

Holidays part 2

We took my parents to the ICE exhibit at the Gaylord Texan for Christmas. We weren't anticipating the line (think Disneyland), Xaris was pretty tired by the time we got ready to go in. She was a trooper though, and allowed me to put her in a parka and then wrap her inside my parka.

Here we are at the entryway. The whole thing was made of ice--this year's theme was How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Xaris meets the Grinch.

And then she notices that Taita (my dad) is nearly as big as the Grinch.

Xaris-sized door

It was a fun outing--we'll be better prepared next time for the walk and wait and to enjoy spending time there.

Holidays part 1

My parents (Gramama and Taita) came up on Christmas day to spend the weekend with us. We started out with snow in the morning (but gone by the time my parents got here, so they had smooth driving). Just enough to get a cute picture.

And then, when my parents got here we had Christmas!

X was the elf. Actually, she was the santa in the mask Tia Kira made for her.

The rest of the day included playing with new toys and puppies and lots of eating.

Xaris got spoiled by family. This new drum was from Auntie Lisha and Unker Paul.

Xaris and Frango are buddies. Xaris returned the kisses.

Another favorite new toy from Gramama and Taita. She's really wanting to be able to do this on her own!