365!!!

I feel like I should have something profound to say... but I don't.

Woo-Whoo! I made it.  You know, with some slacking-cheater days of photos or excuses thrown in for good measure.

I've never been one to enjoy journaling and just the other day someone asked me, wasn't my blog just like an online journal?  That gave me pause, and I had to think about it a second.  I would not have been able to do Blog 365 if it had just been for myself.  I don't "journal" just for myself, I don't even feel like I have the right to call it journaling. But I am able to keep it up because I know that it keeps me and my little family closer to my friends and (larger) family.  I know my husband and my daughter's grammas feel like they know her thanks to the blog.  And I think my extended family feels that way too.

Having said that, I make no promises to blog for another 365 days, but I do feel like there is value to keeping it up.  And I send out blog-dust to my friends attempting (and thinking about attempting) a Blog 365 of their own.  I look forward to coming along for the ride!

The Cousins

All the boy cousin from the Huerta clan.

Not to be totally out done by the boy cousins are the gorgeous girls!

And then, just because it's fun, four generations of girls. :)

Three Amigos

My brother, Jake, and my cousins, Ben and Kevin, are inseparable when we have family get togethers.

If you ask me, they are too handsome for their own good. :D

Mi Familia

The Christmas morning bunch!  We love our tamales.  And some of us think wrapping paper fights are fun.  {Not me!}  Though we reconcile after to take a family photo every year.

I love these guys!!!


(Okay, for those of you who don't know, a typical Christmas morning for the Whites consists of waking up at my Godmother's house where we do Santa presents with their three kiddos.  Then everyone gets dressed and heads over to my Gramma Peter's house for a fabulous breakfast of tamales that the adult-women spent the previous day slaving over. This is immediately followed by the adult's present exchange, during which the paper fight usually ensues.  Then the kids get in on the present opening action, usually precipitating an all out paper war for those not lucky/smart enough to run away outside. On Christmases when the weather is nice... like the 65 degrees we had this year, for example... we take our big family picture and then smaller family pictures outside.  And then it's back in to make sure we cleaned up and to watch a slide show of photos from the previous year's family get-togethers. Sadly, the Whites aren't in too many of those.  All in all a very satisfying morning with mi familia.)

Home Again, Home Again

Jiggity-Jig.

Well, temporary home anyway.  We're back in NorCal as of late this afternoon.  Still enjoying the holidays :) as we have just over another week here in Cali!

Not looking forward to the unpacking tomorrow.  Unpacking is my least favorite part of traveling... which is saying something, if you know anything about my travel anxiety.

I'm convinced Lil and I came back with more that we took with us.  The plan was to give all the gifts away and come home with a relatively empty car.  Not so much.  Clothes for Lil, clothes for David, lots of books and new toys and an immersion blender for me, somehow take up quite a bit of space.  We are blessed with an embarrassment of riches.

Now... how to get it all back to North Carolina.

Nino Ben

Lily and her Godfather, playing peek-a-boo around the wall with Uncle Jake.






Where is he?



There he is!


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Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family.

We had a lovely day here, 65 degrees in SoCal!  Opened presents, ate tamales, opened presents again, played in the yard, took a nap, and now we are getting ready to have dinner with family again.  We are so blessed. :)

Miss you Jacob, wish you were here.

Merry Christmas Eve

Waiting for Santa.


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Dancing

Dance party! Lily and Mia helped Lil's godmother, Kaitlin, make cookies and then had to burn off the sugar getting their groove on. :)

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3 Days Before Christmas

Last full day in Palmdale. Very windy. Just hanging out with my family. Couldn't ask for anything better than cookie baking, movie watching, naps and take out dinner. :)

Lily is LOVING playing with our cousins. I think she'll be sad to go tomorrow. Good news is, we are headed for more family. And we'll all be together again on Friday.


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To the Park!

We had to kill a little time out of the house today... the exterminator came by so we had to find something to to do for two hours.  We decided it sounded nice to stop by Starbucks and grab something to take with us to the park. :)

Lily is having all kinds of fun with her Godmother, Kaitlin.  Especially because Kaitlin is willing to push her on the swings. ;)

They even spent some time checking out the airplanes and helicopters flying overhead.

After two hours we all had pink noses and came back to the house to warm up and watch movies.  Does winter break get any better?

Palmdale

Let me start with letting you know I actually got decent sleep last night and the night before. Mostly due to the fact that I used a sleep aide that first night, but so worth it. Thanks for asking, Ells.

Today was our first full day in Palmdale and we had lots of fun. We had breakfast out, the lot of us; me, my bro, Lil, my aunt and uncle and their three girls. And then we went out running errands, Walmart and Dillards. What a mix! We hung out this afternoon and finished the day with Mass.

All in all a very good day.

Here's a pic of Lily enjoying her "cold" at breakfast... otherwise known as ice:



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Visiting the Grandparents

Lily made a stop on her journey today and got to visit with not just her grandparents but her great-grandparents too! Lucky girl.

She went for golf-cart rides and skipped rocks in the stream, ate pie and read books. It was a very nice day.



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I'm Sorry

I don't have a post for today.

I just finished wrapping all my presents and haven't quite finished packing our clothes for our trip to Coarsegold/Palmdale/Altadena. And we leave tomorrow morning!

I've given up the rest until the morning. I just hope I can sleep....


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Jingle Bells

I tried to get more video of Lil singing, she walks around singing all day long seems like, but as you can see she got a little excited about me being on the floor.

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My List

Christmas cards - check
Shopping for presents - check
Crafting - still working on it
Gift wrapping - Hah! Not even close.


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Alone

It's just me and L tonight. Mom and Dad are running the Christmas party at the preschool she manages. Jake is selling concessions at a basketball game. And Lil is taking a late nap... So I really am alone for the moment.

Sadly, this means another Tuesday without a tummy picture. I have no one to take it and no tripod to do it myself.


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Christmas Cards

I've been procrastinating my Christmas cards. But I'm finally sitting down to do them... hence the TV marathon for Lil this morning. I just picked up my head to see what she was up to, and found her at my feet, lying on her back under the table.


I love my silly girl!!

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Road Trip

Took a family trip today to see my sister's new place in Groveland, CA. Haven't gotten my pictures off the camera yet. But we did have a nice visit and were able to take her a few things my parents were storing for her. Including her Christmas tree and decorations. Lil had a blast helping to decorate the tree!


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Saturday

Today I went as Mom's date to her work Christmas luncheon.  Oh, and we took Lily too, of course.

And since we were already in Sacramento we braved the mall.  I'm not a huge fan of crowds, so I'm not entirely sure what possessed me to go to the mall on a Saturday two weeks before Christmas.  But we got in and out of there in 45 minutes and I made all three stops I needed to... with much success!

And then we had to rush back home.  My too-handsome-for-his-own-good little brother had his winter ball this evening and I had to catch a glimpse before he went out for the night.

I love him. :)

More Papa

Papa works 4 days a week, for 10 hours a day.  Which means he was here to play with us today. :)

At one point I walked into the living room to find Lil leaning over the couch to watch TV in a perfect mimic of my dad.  Hand on the chin and all.

I just wasn't fast enough to capture it without her seeing me.

21 Days

Just three short weeks and the year is over. Along with my 365!

How did this year go so fast? Lily is such a big girl. How did I get to seven months pregnant so quickly? We're almost a third of the way through the deployment.

My theory is that the older we get, each year makes up a smaller a percentage of our life. When you're three, a year is a full third of your life. But when you're thirty a year is a much smaller portion.

And that's my silly thought for the evening. :)


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Jungle Gym

         

Lily thinks Gramma is a jungle gym!

Charlie Brown

I love the Charlie Brown Christmas Special! Especially the jazz soundtrack. That, and the message that Christmas isn't just about the stuff.

Some years I miss it and it makes me sad... so Jacob bought me the Charlie Brown holiday box set while we were living in Germany.

But I didn't miss it this year!


Commercial is over... I have to run. :)

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Snow in the Valley

My parents live in a small town in the Sacramento Valley, maybe 100 feet above sea level. 

And this morning we woke up to snow!

 It didn't last past 10:30, but it sure was neat.

Snow in the Sacramento Valley? What's next?

Merry Christmas, Jacob

It's no easy thing, decided what to get a deployed hubby for Christmas.  What does he really need, want or will he use?  Will he have to drag it back with him?  Have I sent enough sweets and goodies?

So this year I was struck with a bit of genius. :)  I went last week, without telling Jacob, to get a 3D/4D ultrasound done.  And since I couldn't wait to share it with him... he's now seen it... and I can share it with you too!

So here he is, our David James:

And here's a bit of the 4D I edited down to send to him:

I was sad to think that I wouldn't be able to see his reaction to seeing his baby boy for the first time.  But Jake's 1SG came to my rescue... he and his wife are having a little boy too (come May) and Jacob was tricked into watching the video... which Mike kindly recorded for me.

Merry Christmas, Jake. We love you.

Christmas Tree!

Lily got to go out today to help pick and cut the Christmas tree for Gramma and Papa's house!

It was a lovely day, and it hasn't rained in a while, so it didn't matter that Lily kept falling over as she walked through the rows of trees. :)

She and Papa discussed the merits of a good tree.

And when we finally all agreed on which tree we wanted, she was very interested in how we went about cutting it down.

I even made it into a picture!  The belly is getting a little bit bigger.  It was hard to tie my shoes this morning. ;)

Excuses

My bro had his wisdom teeth pulled today so I've been on both mommy and nurse duty. I'm tired and headed to bed.

Sweet dreams all!


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Lunch with Papa

Lily and I took In-N-Out burgers to Grampa's work yesterday for lunch. 

But better than the burgers (in Lil's book) was the golf-cart ride around the duck ponds, where I snapped this photo of my girl and her "Papa."

I Think It's Over

...or at least the end is near.

Lily didn't ask to nurse once today.

We've been down to once or twice a day since just after Jacob left, so about three months now.  And there were a couple of days, back when she was really sick and congested, when trying to latch would just make her angry.  I thought that might have been the end of it then.

But she proved me wrong and went right back to asking, usually first thing in the morning and sometimes for comforting.

Today she didn't need either.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.  Maybe Lily weened herself.

In the back of my mind, I think I was leaning toward 24 months anyway... so 21 months is not too shabby.

Fast Healer

It was last Tuesday evening when Lily hurt her face:


Today, it looks like this:


Makes me wish I healed that fast! If we could bottle it we'd be rich. :)

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