Ho! Ho! Ho!

Santa came!  Santa came!  Vanessa's excitement on Christmas morning was everything but disappointing.  Of course we went to bed having left Santa his milk and cookies, along with her left over popcorn (which she insisted on leaving) we had while we watched Frosty the Snowman.  When morning came, she woke up asking if it was Christmas and if Santa came and knew the answer as soon as she walked down the stairs and saw the tree...I mean...the presents.  Santa blessed us with a very Merry Dora Christmas.  Her Christmas wish was fulfilled with both a Dora house and a kitchen - both which we have played with practically every minute of every day since.  That Santa did good.  He even brought Roman a great little piano which he LOVES (how clever of him to find it in the basement from when Vanessa was a baby)

Inspite of both mommy and Roman getting hit with the cold that Daddy and Vanessa had the previous week, we had a wonderful weekend.  We hope all our family and friends did as well!  We'll leave this post with a little video song from our piano man  ;-)



my first Christmas
mi primera Navidad



milk, cookies, popcorn and a drawing for Santa

D-D-D-Dora Castle

exchanging gifts



ooooooooo



play us a song piano man

Santa

It's finally here.  We've finally hit the "Santa" phase.  There is no mistaken who the jolly old man with white whiskers is.  This Christmas is for sure the most fun with Vanessa and I can't even imagine next year.  Between preschool and books, Vanessa is fully aware of this fat man in a red suit and what he signifies.  More importantly...what he brings come Christmas morning.  I hadn't even really realized just how Santa-fied she has become until she started making comments about leaving him cookies at night, how he rides in a sleigh and of course if he will bring her ALL the things on her wish list. 
Today her preschool had their holiday party and of course there was a special visitor at the end!  It was the first time Vanessa has seen Santa (other than in books and of course a Dora episode).  Shy?  Our girl?  Nope...she pretty much charged him as he was walking to his chair and immediately started saying she was a good girl and she wanted him to bring her a Dora dollhouse.  The poor guy could barely get to his seat.  I think today may have been her favorite school day yet.

A funny side note to her 'conversation' with Santa is that the night before she had received an email from Santa.  The email was a video, personalized just for her.  It was cute and what was funny was that she didn't understand that it was just a video.  Since we Skype with out of town family quite often she naturally assumed she was Skyping with Santa.  Every time he said her name and talked to her....she tried to answer and tell him something.  First it was that she wanted a dollhouse, then that she wears big girl panties. LOL.  At preschool she kept saying "remember I wanted the dollhouse Santa", it took me a minute to realize that "remember" meant that she was reminding him of their Skype call.  So funny.

Counting down the days until Christmas morning...Ho, Ho, Ho

This video is of most of the email from Santa (http://www.portablenorthpole.com/ if any parents are interested). 

Looks can be deceiving

Our 'little' Roman is 9 months old already.  Wow.  You'd think the second time around you'd get used to how fast the time seems to go by?  Nope. 
Tank (as Daddy affectionately sometimes calls him) went for his 9-mo check up and surprised us by being "appropriately proportioned "and average in terms of weight and height.  I say surprised because by the looks of him you'd think he was a little...shall we say, robust?  He's a solid kid that's for sure and even has a few super cute rolls to go along with that super cute dimple.  His new stats are: 17lbs 14oz and 28" long.  He's in the 12-13th% for both wt and ht.  (At 9mos Vanessa was 16lbs 14oz and 27 1/4").
He's a doll that Roman.  Laughs all the time - belly laughs!  Especially at Vanessa, who usually just turns away and says "Don't look at me Roman", to which he laughs even more at (...hmmm...purposely?).  I think she is finally starting to realize that there could be some fun in having this kid around.  This kid who thinks she is hysterical and who loves when she runs around the corner and says "boo".  I have hope yet that she'll get it and he'll soon become her built in audience. 

First swing

Busses, trains and wrestling

We're back from Florida and yes...I am sorry I ever complained that it was cold down there.  The high today was 19, what a nice welcome back to Upstate NY that is.  Despite the unusual cold weather (mid-50's and windy during the day, 40 at night!) in Orlando our trip was wonderful!  We got to spend the entire week with family we haven't seen since last year.  Vanessa was immediately smitten with Tia Marjorie and Tio Peter and played pefectly with the boys.  One of the best parts of their playtime was eavesdropping on their conversations - Vanessa to Joshua (he's 4): "what do you want to be when you grow up?", Joshua: "Big like my Dad" too cute!!

Our resort was perfect and yes we even took advantage of the pools.  Judging by the abundance of empty lounge chairs, we were the only crazy Northerners (along with a few groups of Europeans) to think sunny and 60 means pool time.  Vanessa managed to stay in for about 30min before telling Daddy she was "all done".  Oh well.  One of the best days we had was spending the day at SeaWorld.  Vanessa was in awe at the dolphin show and so excited to actually feed and touch one, her face made the price of the ticket (ouch!) well worth it.  The other home run came in the form of free transportation.  For weeks, maybe months, Vanessa has been saying that she wants to get bigger so she can ride the school bus.  She somehow has become obsessed with riding busses and trains, so aside from playing with her cousins I think it's safe to say her favorite parts of the week were riding the shuttle train at the airport and the fact that we got to ride shuttle busses all around the resort.  Every time we got on one she said hello to the bus driver, sat in the front seat and proceeded to sing "The wheels on the bus..." for whomever else was on the bus.  How's that for free entertainment  ;-)  
It's only been two days, but we're pretty certain she misses her cousins.  Tonight after dinner she told Daddy she wanted to wrestle.

oh, and Roman had fun too!  He got lots of cuddles and "good" conversations with his Tio, Tia and Abuelo.

Yes, it's Orlando.  Yes, we're wearing fleece.

Samuel, Joshua, Vanessa & Roman

First "ride" (we went twice, she would have gone more)

Abuelo y sus ninos

meeting Tio Peter

Freezing in Florida

So we definitely have some sun, but the warm weather seems to be missing from the 'Sunshine State'. Woke up to 32 degrees this morning! No snow so at least that is nice. In spite of the frigid temps we are very happy to be away for the week and getting to spend lots of time with the Florida Blancos!! Vanessa is having the time of her life just running around the condo playing hide-n-seek with someone other than mom and dad (of course that's nice for us too!). Plane ride went well, Vanessa was very good, got a bit bored after 2hrs but who wouldn't! Looking forward to a great week!!! Come on sunshine!!!!! Here's a pic of us getting on the train at the airport to go to baggage claim....riding on the train was enough thrill for Vanesa we could have spent all day doing it (much cheaper than a theme park ticket!)


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First Haircut

Today was what I suppose is one of those monumental days in the life of a parent...the first real haircut.  For the last week I've been mentioning to her that I was going to take her to get a big girl haircut soon.  She would talk about it on her own every time I combed her hair, open to the concept, so I figured let's do it!  As required by 'mom code', I brought Vanessa to Snip-it's.  Camera in hand of course.  She couldn't have been cuter!  She waited patiently for her name to be called, then jumped up and said "me" when it finally was.  She said hello to Courtney and climbed up in the chair all by herself.  No drama, no tears, no fears.  When Courtney was done and turned Vanessa to the mirror she happily announced "ohh, it looks beauty-full!".  Love this girl!



Waiting to be called




Ta-da!



Christmas Wish List

and so it begins...
We, as I'm sure all of you, have started to get every store's toy catalog in the mail in prep for the busy shopping season.  Vanessa loves to get mail and always asks 'what came today mommy'.  I usually hand her all the kids related catalogs so you can imagine how excited she's been getting these days when I check the mail.  In order to ease the "mom can I have that" that began to play on repeat for DAYS and DAYS, I decided to make a project out of all these mailings.  Vanessa and I sat down with the stack of catalogs and began searching through to find the things she really liked.  We cut out the chosen items, grabbed some construction paper and the trusty glue stick and began to complie this years "wish list"!  Now...everytime we get a new catalog she sometimes ask if we can "add" something to her list, but first she looks to see if she's already got it on there.  It was actually a fun and helpful thing to do!  There is definately a theme....kitchen sets, dolls and dollhouses (our girly-girl).

Ho, ho, ho

Random recent pics

My little school girl

Lovin his big sister

Halloweeeeeenie

As Vanessa gets older it's as if we get to experience life from a whole new perspective. This year has been filled with so many examples and Halloween was certainly one of them! Sure it wasn't her "first", but now that she's two it's as if this whole year is filled with real firsts since she can really participate and understand what's going on (to the extent that a two year old can anyway). We had thought for sure Vanessa had her mind made up to be Dora this year but, she pulled a fast one on us and went for the Tigger costume. Following her preschool costume party, we kicked off the weekend with a trip to the pumpkin patch to get a big pumpkin for our jack-o-lantern. Not sure who enjoyed the carving more, Vanessa or Daddy since it was both of their firsts. Great job daddy. Later it was into town for their Fall Festival (outfitted in her Tigger costume of course) and then finally trick-or-treating to our neighbors houses. No surprise that she loved walking door to door, but what she loved even more was giving out the candy to the other kids who came ringing our door bell! Oh, and of course Roman participated in the festivities as well.....as our little (?) plump pumpkin

Story time

Always fun to go to story time at the library. Maybe next week we'll be able to get books that don't have Dora or Curious George in the??? Pretty please Vanessa???

Fall fun

I think the Fall is one of my favorite seasons. Nevermind the fact that I really don't love the slushy, grey mess that is soon to follow..... We recently had a chance to have some Fall Fun with our friends the Bice's! I can't really decide which part was my favorite: apple picking, pumpkin picking, the yummy feast Mrs. Bice prepared (complete with crafty beer tastings for the "grown-ups"), was it just the adult conversation or was it learning that everything tastes better with bacon??? Does there really have to be a favorite? We loved it all and are looking forward to seeing them again. Now that I think of it, maybe it was more of a playdate for mommy and daddy? Hmmmm ;-)

A future MaryLou??

This fall Vanessa started taking a toddler gymnastics class. LOL! So funny and cute. It's extremely basic, but pretty cute to see her following direction and "doing" forward rolls, jumps, etc. Here are a few pictures for Tia Marjorie ;-)

Dora...Dora...Dora

We were working on a goal here in the Blanco house. A goal that mommy, daddy and Vanessa set together. When Vanessa reached the point where she was using the potty everyday and telling mommy & daddy every time she had to "go", she would get a big girl bike as her reward. Well, she reached it. Yippie!!! We have a potty going girl. She's been doing fantastic with very few accidents. We were going on week three when it suddenly occurred to us that mommy & daddy had yet to make good on their promise of a bike! Vanessa had spotted a Dora (of course) bike in the store and for the last 3months that's all we've been hearing about. So, you can imagine our bit of panic when we went to buy the bike...and...um...we couldn't find it anymore. Needless to say I think I felt like a horrible mommy for about three days until by chance Juan was driving thru a random town while working and saw a Wal-Mart sign and decided to stop. Crisis averted!! Daddy scored the very last Dora bike (the sales associate had to search the inventory in the back!) and now we have a very happy little 2 year old. Lesson learned = when you set a goal and promise a certain reward to a little one....it's best to buy that reward ahead of time just in case! Very proud of our peanut!

Birthday invites

Vanessa received her first very own invite to a party, a friend (Alex)from preschool who we've also gotten together with on a few occasions just to play. A simple thing that made me feel like she's growing up - her own little friends, LOL so cute. The whole family was invited for the party fun. Pony rides, petting zoo, pinatas, etc (all for a two year old!?!). It was an amazing fall day and a lot of fun.

15 pounder

Yesterday Roman had his 6 month check-up and as expected...he's doing great. He seems rather "large" to us these days with little leg rolls and all so it was a bit surprising to compare his stats with Vanessa's, they're nearly the same. Funny because she never seemed chunky or big to us and never had the same rolls. a little disclaimer...Vanessa's six month apointment was spot on to the day, Roman is actually six months and almost 3 weeks ;-) (slacker with the second, right?) LOL! Roman = weight: 15lbs 10oz height: 25 1/4" Vanessa = weight: 15lbs 10oz (yup...the same!) height: 24 1/2"

Now that's a money smile

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Da Da???

Vanessa's first words were "ma ma", starting to think Roman might be deciding to pull the man card on his first words??

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Preschool rocks!

Still wearing DRY big girl panties!

Pampers-shmampers

We're on day four of wearing big girl panties folks! Started on Friday first thing after waking up and still going strong. No accidents on Fri, three small ones on Sat and none since. After three days of being homebound ( because mom was too nervous to leave the house and the safety-zone of having a nearby potty), we went out to dinner Sunday night. Still a bit nervous and armed with my trusty portable folding potty seat (yep - thank you One Step Ahead) we hit the road. Vanessa went potty twice in the restaurant. Couldn't believe it. This morning I tried to put on a pull-up for preschool for a little extra insurance, but little miss Dora booty wanted no part of a pull-up so on went the Dora panties. Two hours later....still dry! Yahoooooo Dora! Lo Hicimos!


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Sittin big boy style

Wow how fast it seems like he's "growing" up!


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Wells, Maine - Beachtime fun

Beach time fun In Maine! We love the beach, there's nothing better than hanging with friends and relaxing on the sand.

6 months old

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