Her Real Birthday

Happy Birthday Anastasia! As she has been telling me for weeks, today is her real birthday. I thought I'd put together a little photo display from her last 6 years. It was really hard to narrow down 6 years of pictures to just a handful. And of course, I'm embarrassed at how bad some of those early pictures are.
This was taken at about 1 week old - I can't seem to find any of the better pictures of her early days.
All dressed up in her baptismal gown.
Crawling!
She was about 11 months here.
Jumping right to the 2nd birthday.
I think she was about 2 1/2 here - but I'm not quite sure (her hair seems long though, so that's the best way I can guess).
A proud big sister!
Her best buddy Peyton. Photo courtesy of Jordan.
Around 4 1/2 - One of my favorite pictures of her, ever.
Always having a good time.
Such a sweet smile and a sweet girl. Always ready for fun, and "game" for anything. Happy 6th Birthday Anastasia. We love you!!

Visiting Santa

Today Santa came to town. Granted, he was not the most realistic looking Santa around, but hey, we only had to drive 1/2 mile to see him.
Rafael looking like an elf in his hat. He told Santa he wanted toys which is a request I think Santa can handle, unlike Anastasia's Christmas wish . . .

Anastasia told Santa she wanted a magic wand. Earlier she told me she wants a real magic wand, so she can just get whatever she wants, whenever she wants. I have to give her credit for thinking this one through and figuring out how to get the most bang for her buck, although I tried to explain to her that Santa can't get her (or anyone for that matter) a real magic wand.

p.s. Doesn't Anastasia look pretty in this picture? Her hair was a complete mess and her smile isn't the most natural one, but there is something about the symmetry of her face, or the lighting or something that I really like.

Snow Day

Yesterday we woke up to snow! To be fair, this is not the first snow of the winter but it was the first real accumulation of snow. Yikes! It's not even Christmas, so I think that means we are in for a baaaaad winter. I am not a lover of snow, although I do remember loving to play in it as a kid. Anastasia, on the other hand, is totally a snow lover. She was out for hours yesterday. It's amazing to me that she doesn't seem bothered by the elements and will literally stay outside forever whether it is 100 degrees or 20 degrees. Did I mention she was playing outside in freezing rain the day before it snowed?

Anyway, I just wanted to capture a few pictures of the kids in the snow. Unfortunately, my rechargeable batteries are losing their ability to recharge and they were dying, again. I could only take one picture at a time before the camera turned off.

Rafael was all excited to go out in the snow, but really didn't like it much once he realized how cold and wet it was. He tried shoveling, ran around a bit, fell a few times, got very upset and then had to be dragged back inside. He stood at the door asking to go out again but when I opened the door he refused to go back out. I went to close the door and he screamed that the door was closed. Oh well. Sometimes you just can't win.
Not the most flattering picture of Anastasia, but it was all I could get.
The neighborhood gang running in the snow.
Rafael looking a little lost in the field of snow.
On a somewhat unrelated topic, Rafael basically doesn't take naps anymore, except when he is simply too exhausted to stay awake any longer. This means he just falls asleep wherever he happens to land. Today he fell asleep in his little chair like this. Such a silly little boy.

Birthday Bash

Yesterday, we had a co-birthday party with one of Anastasia's best friends, Tevyn. Since both girls are December birthdays, it is always complicated to figure out when is a good time for a party with everyone getting ready for Christmas and going on vacation. So this year an early "joint" birthday party was the solution. It turned out pretty well. Of course, both girls will be having another family party on their actual birthdays. Hmmm, maybe a December birthday really isn't that bad - seems like they are getting a lot of parties!

Here are a few (too many) pictures from the event.
Anastasia wondering what is in the presents, and hinting that she'd like to open them early.
Posing with a few of the balloons she blew up and tied herself!
Love the little smiles the birthday girls are sharing.
I think the birthday girls were embarrassed when we were singing "Happy Birthday" to them. Fortunately, Emmy was willing to give me a smile.
Anastasia and Peyton getting excited about one of the presents.
Another present being opened.
One of the presents we gave Anastasia was a little 3 foot Christmas tree she could put in her room, complete with ornaments for decorating. She did it all by herself and here is the finished product! Not bad for an almost 6 year old.
After the party the birthday girls and a couple of their best buddies, Peyton and Emmy, headed to the movies to see "Bolt". Rafael enjoyed the movie but was very tired after all the festivities and fell asleep on the floor at 7 pm. Of course he woke up at 1:30 am and was hungry, but that's another long story.:) Here he is all tuckered out after all that partying.

Late November afternoon

Rafael and I spent some time playing outside today in the late afternoon. It was kind of cool trying to take pictures with the sun flare. Of course, trying to take pictures of a constantly moving subject is also pretty interesting! Still, it was a beautiful day and I was happy to actually be outside for a while and not freeze.
Rafael being a monster. He loves to pretend that he is a lion or a monster or throw a blanket over his head and be a "scary ghost". He has been talking a lot more in the last few weeks and it is so neat to finally hear what is going on in that little head.
Simply irresistible. Totally loving my little guy.

Fall Fun

We spent a lot of time raking leaves while we were in NE. The weather was absolutely beautiful (unlike the snow that is coming down right now.) Too bad we couldn't get all the leaves raked up! But the kids had a blast jumping in the leaves and climbing the one small tree in the side yard.

Penelope was my one cooperative model.
Took about 30 pictures just to get these 3. I like this one because they are acting silly.And they were having fun.
This is probably the "best" one. Better luck next time!

Halloween and more

Just a few pictures from Halloween and more. My sister and her kids flew out to NE and so we all headed down to see them. I didn't get many pictures from Halloween but I did have fun trying to take pictures of the kids playing in the fall leaves. I'll post even more of these tomorrow.

The kids got to dress up twice and unfortunately, a certain little boy refused to wear his very cute leopard costume both times. So he just went as a cute little boy. Anastasia was a bride but she refused to wear her veil. Penelope was a puppy and Charlotte was princess.
Anastasia playing in the leaves.
Rafael trying to help rake leaves.

Las Amigas

I was going to title this "The Three Amigas", but then I realized I'd be leaving Emmy out, so it's just going to be "Las Amigas", which I hope means "The Friends". Despite having taken many years of high school Spanish and one in college, I really know hardly any Spanish. There is someone that I could ask (Joe), but I'd rather just throw this out there and see if it's right.

So anyway, here are Anastasia, Peyton, and Tevyn in their matching dresses (bought last night at the Gap Outlet for a steal). We couldn't find one in Emmy's size, but at least she had a similar dress in her closet already. The big girls were pretty thrilled that they had matching clothes and kept wondering if everyone would think they were sisters/triplets. I still remember when it was totally fun to be dressed like your best buddies.:)

I only got one picture because my camera battery was still low and I've been too lazy to charge it up.

Current and Recent

I've been so behind updating the blog that I'd almost just quit entirely. Not sure if any of our friends or relatives are still bothering to check it, since there is never anything new on it!

But anyway, yesterday was a beautiful day and we took the kids to the park. I brought my camera thinking I would get all sorts of cute shots and then found out that the battery was almost dead. I could only take one picture at a time before it died. So I didn't get many pictures because I was waiting for the camera to restart over and over. But here is what I have. At least you can see how much the kids have changed (for far away readers who haven't seen us in a while).

Checking out Cape Cod

When we were in New Hampshire we decided to take a day and drive to Cape Cod so that the kids could see the ocean (it's only about 2 hours away). I had visions of a beautiful warm day on the beach since it was only the 2nd of September. So we packed swimming suits, towels, and sunscreen thinking it would be warm enough to swim. Boy were we wrong! It was cloudy and sort of cold by the time we got there so we just ran around the beach and took a few pictures. Joe really wanted to swim, but I talked him out of it. :) So here are a bunch of pictures to commemorate our trip to the ocean. p.s. The pictures really look better if you click on them and see them larger.

Pictures from New Hampshire

Well it's been almost a month since we were in New Hampshire. We took tons of pictures, but I'm just going to put up these for now. They were all taken with Nana Lourdes' new DSLR (which I enjoyed playing with), but haven't been edited at all. Just SOOC to save time.
Joe and Rafael checking out the beautiful lake.

Anastasia driving the boat (with Nana's help of course).

Rafael's favorite thing to do on the boat - sleep. He refused to take a nap almost the whole time we were there, but without fail fell asleep within minutes everytime we took him on the boat.