Merry Christmas from The Velas!!

2010 Christmas Card Picture Outtakes

This has to be one of the most stressful things that Steve and I do every year. We have a great camera, but conditions have to be perfect with our lens.

We set out to do them outdoors this year, going early before the overhead sun gets too bright. Claire wore Grace's dress from her first Christmas and Grace wore a matching dress.

When we first started out, Steve had the camera on black and white. Some of these ended up being the best ones although they don't show the pretty colors of their dresses.

Of course, I was worried about clean faces and hair being neat and out of their faces.

These two had other things in mind.


But in the end, we were happy with our work.

Mi Casita Christmas Song and Dance

Grace's class as well as ballet class performed several songs and dances for the parents. Grace had missed the previous 5 days of school because she was sick so I am surprised she participated at all.

Grace was right in the front and my view was blocked by some of the bigger kids around her. You can see her green and white polka dot bow every once in a while.

Claire hung out with me and played with the maracas.


Lots more Christmas activities to share soon....

Bowling with Daddy

And the result on her first try??

A STRIKE!

'Tis the Season?

Apparently it is the season for cherry tomatoes down here in South Texas.

Steve and Grace planted an Elmo kit for cherry tomatoes from Lowes back in July. All of a sudden, we have a bounty of cherry tomatoes.

Grace is so excited about them and is even eating them!

Christmas Tree Memories

(I'm saying "cheese!" that is why my mouth is open)

Oh, the memories gained while precious momentos lost during our Christmas tree preparations this year.

(Grace is telling Claire to tell the man "Hi")

We loaded the girls up on a beautiful, warm South Texas day and headed to the nursery to pick out our tree. We were excited both girls could walk and help us pick one out.


Steve and I found the perfect one - a noble fir which is heavier than the fraser fir we have gotten the past 2 years. Steve usually does most of the lifting himself, but this year I had to help him.

We worked and worked while the girls napped trying to get the thing in the house and straight. After the girls woke up, we started putting lights, beads and ornaments on it. The Christmas cookies, eggnog, and Christmas music set the stage. Grace loved the process. She wanted to know if every ornament she picked up was hers. Unfortunately, she hasn't been around long enough to have too many.

We started to let Grace put the angel up and all of a sudden, crash! The 9 foot tree fell, breaking ornaments and spilling 3 pitchers of water on our wood floor.

(Just before it fell. See it leaning??)

Poor Grace was traumatized by the whole thing. We had her sit on the couch while we cleaned up broken glass, water and pine needles. Every once in a while, we'd hear her whimper. We reassured her things were not supposed to go this way.

The next day, Steve went back to the nursery and bought a big enough stand to hold the monstrosity. He even paid a nursery worker $20 to come and install it properly.

Luckily, not too much damage was done. Grace's 1st Christmas ornament was broken but I can easily find an identical one. My UT ornament that I got from my parents the year I graduated from college was also broken and I am on the hunt to find an identical one. I earned that one! Everything else broken was just random stuff with no real meaning.

This will be a year we won't forget!

Blessings

We counted our many blessings this Thanksgiving and had a wonderful time with our family. I tried and tried to get just one picture of the girls together, but that is impossible. So instead, here are some random shots of the girls on Thanksgiving Day. And this is not Ginger in the picture above. But they could somehow be blood related, you never know. This is my aunt's sweet Ladybug.


This is the face Claire makes when she really wants something. Usually something to eat.


Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We are so excited about the holidays and all the festivities it brings.

Baby Boogie

Claire is taking a music class in addition to her Musikgarten one. It is called Baby Boogie and has great props. Parachute, maracas, shakers, streamers and so much more.

Her boyfriend and future Mi Casita classmate is also in the class.


She loved the streamers the best.

A Day of Firsts

Last week, Steve and I went to Las Vegas leaving the girls with their grandparents for the first time. It was probably harder on us than them, but everyone had a good time.

While at the airport waiting on the plane, Claire decided to take her first, long string of steps. When this was taken, she had already been walking long enough for Steve to realize she was really going and to capture it on his phone.

Since then, she hasn't stopped walking. We all laugh when we are doing something and in she walks.



Vegas included great shopping, meals, and shows. We love Cirque du Soleil and Ka and Love were amazing. Since we love sushi, Tao and NOBU were perfect. We even sat next to David Spade at Tao who was performing at the Venetian later than evening.

Halloween 2010

Just like last year, Grace doesn't get the fact that she doesn't have to eat all her candy right then.

While we were visiting with some neighbors, she blared out "Come on Mommy, let's go get some more candy!" Nice!

She was very good at saying thank you though. When one house opened door, she just stood there. So I said "what do you say?"...meaning to say "Trick or Treat". Instead she responded with "Thank you!".

Our little duck was happy riding in the wagon and eating a dum dum...or two.

"We Love Our 50 States"

Grace's theme at school this year for their Fall Festival was "We Love Our 50 States". All the kids' costumes were so cute. Grace, as an Native American, represented Oklahoma. I saw other Native Americans, Cowboys and girls, an orange, disk jockey, Statue of Liberty, Big Apple, horse, and so much more.


Any kind of deviation from routine sends Grace off the edge, so she was full of tears.

She also wasn't fond of standing on stage to present her costume and state.

My friend who stayed in the class to help, sent me this picture and assured me she was fine after Claire and I bolted.

Happy Birthday, Claire! You are ONE today!

This day has come WAY too fast! Some of the past year has been a blur, admittedly. She has been a pure treasure and the "ying" to Grace's "yang".

• She is a great sleeper...most of the time. She goes to bed before 7 pm and I go get her from her room around 7:30 am. I say "most of the time" because if there is anything wrong or different, she is a horrible sleeper. New place, horrible. Teething, horrible. Sick, even worse. These things would give Grace a slight blip, but Claire doesn't tolerate them as well.


• She is a HORRIBLE eater. Table food, that is. She'll eat purees til her heart's delight. I am a big proponent of after 1 year, no bottle and no baby food. That is not going to be the case with the food and Claire. She spits out anything with texture. Even banana? She will eat puffs and MumMums though. She has done great getting off the bottle. She is only taking one before bed and isn't finishing that one.


• Because of her eating preferences, she has really slimmed down. At her 1 year dr appointment, she weighed 20 pounds 10 ounces. At 9 mos, she was 20 pounds 14 ounces! So her weight puts her at 45%, but her height (30.5 in) and head circumference are still 90%.


• She says bye bye and hi. She also makes a 2 syllable sound that sounds like Ginger.



• She waves bye bye and gives kisses. She also loves clapping. We went to the dolphin show at the Aquarium last week and she was clapping with everyone else.



• She lights up when she sees Grace and loves for Grace to rub the top of her head in her belly.


• She is just about walking. She can walk beside you holding one hand and takes 2 steps alone between furniture pieces.


• She still loves putting everything in her mouth.


• She loves terrorizing Grace when she is doing puzzles.


• She is in music class once a week right now and we are going to add in another music/play type class in a few weeks.

C is for Claire Birthday Party

We had Claire's first birthday party Saturday featuring all things starting with the letter C. C is an easy letter for a party and you can get carried away.....

I made a C shaped wreath out of a styrofoam wreath and covered it with orange, deflated balloons.


Party favors were C shaped cookies (C is for Cookies) and C shaped crayons (C is for Crayons)




Smash cake and cupcakes (C is for Cupcakes) featured the letter C made out of fondant.


For food, there was C is for Chips, C is for Carrots and Celery, C is for Cheese Balls (had to include these since they went with my party color of Orange), C is for Crackers, and C is for Candy Corn. There was real food too that didn't start with the letter C - hamburgers and hot dogs. For drinks, I had Orange Crush since C is for Crush.





A jumping house (luckily they had a Castle...C is for Castle) and a C shaped pinata provided entertainment for the little ones.




Claire loved her cake, but was eating it very slowly.


So Grace finally tried to help her out a little.

We've been a family of 4 for a year now and we still haven't mastered getting everyone to look at the camera!


Pinata found on Etsy http://www.etsy.com/shop/MommyDo
Crayons found on Etsy http://www.etsy.com/shop/GaddyNipperCrayons
Fondant found on Etsy http://www.etsy.com/shop/EdibleDetails
Labels for cookies found on Etsy http://www.etsy.com/shop/LittlebeaneBoutique
Cookies, Cupcakes and Smash Cake local Corpus bakers (Sue B Sweets and Janet's Cakery)
Invitations and menu cards courtesy of Steve who did them in Photoshop