New Years 2009... or is it New Years 2010

Wow... I just realized I didn't post this blog... so here goes..

David, Vince, and I spent NY's in Laredo... I never know if it's NY's 2009 or NY's 2010. Anyways, my parents both grew up in Laredo and I still have a lot of extended family that live there, including my Grandma, mom's mom, aka Vince's only living Great Grandparent. Maria del Carmen Alvarez is her name and here she is with my mom, me, and Vince... it's our generation picture...

It was a cool night in Laredo, but that didn't stop us from hanging out outside a majority of the night. Vince had a grand old time playing with his cousins... or my cousins' kids... so I'm not sure what they are to him... second cousins?

Vince had his first experience with fireworks. He loved looking at them and wondering what exactly they were.

David is showing him what to do in this next picture. Not shown is other pictures of David getting carried away with fireworks... he's such a big kid. Did I mention fireworks are illegal in Laredo? You wouldn't know it by the bag of fireworks that my uncle brought in. I haven't really seen home fireworks since I was a kid so it was fun to watch them. The firecracker in the first picture is actually one of the bigger ones they did!

My mom with 2 of her sisters and her sister-in-law is pictured here with my grandma. The second one to the left is my aunt Rosy... she's the one with the party house..

And here are 5 of the 13 cousins on my mother's side of the family. We always have such a fun time together.

Next is David and me... with my cousin Freddy trying to get in the picture..

and this is my cousin's daughter who took a liking to David all night... David told me he was ready for a little girl... then retracted his statement and said, not yet! In the 2nd pic she is hanging on his leg!

All in all a good time was had... we are looking forward to a wonderful new year with family and friends... Happy New Year!

Thomas, Tamales, & Snowball

CHRISTMAS MORNING

Basically, Santa brought lots of Thomas stuff. He loved every bit of it.

We spent Christmas morning at Grandma and Grandpa's house where Warren, Selena, & Rick were staying. Santa had already been there and we brought over Vince's Santa presents to add to the mix. He wasn't too interested in opening presents, we would kind of open it a little so he could see what was inside and then he would rip it open.



Of course he got other small gifts, like this sword from Tia Selena... umm, Sele, what were you thinking?? Don't you know he likes to hit things? Oh... it's foam, I guess that's ok. Warren and Noah all got one, so now they can all go have a ninja fight.

I like seeing Vince's expression when he figures out there is a toy inside... here he's saying.. oooohh.

But in the end I should have not bought him any presents and just bought boxes since they are so much fun... but were would i find good boxes without presents in them?

CHRISTMAS EVE - DAY

On Chirstmas Eve we had a wonderful tamale and ham dinner at my mom's with my whole family and some extended family. During the day, we made the tamales... it was our 4th annual tamale making party. It's always a fun social event with my sisters, mom, cousin, aunt, and whoever else wants to come.

We always wear hats and aprons.. the hats usually very from Santa hats, to Elf hats, and this year it was reindeer ears. We also got a special unexpected treat from Jessica... aprons with our names on them!

Here are all the Solis girls... no longer Solis's anymore!!!

While we were making tamales it started snowing. Warren and Jacob were running around outside and Vince desperately wanted to join in. So what does unprepared mommy Tiana do? Found some old baby socks and put them on Vince's hands, grabbed the camera, and went outside to the snow... or as Vince calls it, snowball. He had so much fun out there. Here are some pictures from V's first snow encounter and also of his cousin Warren and Grandpa.

I still have to post pics and write about the Northpole Express... stay tuned...

Gaylord on Ice

David, Vince, and I have been fortunate to spend a lot of time together during the holiday season. So many pictures and stories to post... but I'll start with the first of the first... the Friday David got out of school he went with his student council to the Gaylord to go to the Ice exhibit. We had planned all along for Vince to accompany them, so they got him a sweatshirt so he could fit right in.

The Ice exhibit is one where everything inside is made of ice... it was 9 degrees in there!! So, they give everyone a Parka to wear... it made Vince look like a little penguin!

I was glad I was able to join them on the trip last minute.

After seeing David go down the big ice slide, Vince wanted to do the same... he told us so by saying... "baby weeeeee"... he refers to himself in 3rd person by saying baby :)

We were a little scared of him going down... he went down twice... both times he ended up going down head first!!! And at the end... he said "Addeee" which of course means again.

He also had a wonderful time looking at the decorations and trains that were throughout the building.. I have some pictures from last year at the Gaylord that I will post later to compare then and now.

Warren, the Tree Train, & good/bad Santa photos

Warren came to town this past weekend... Vince loves Warren, his 8 year old cousin. He calls him Awan. Warren will spend 3 weeks here since he is on break from his year round school. Now that Warren is here, I have a hard time getting Vince out of my parents house. He runs away when I get there saying 'no mama'.

Warren, Vince, and my dad spent the better part of the other day putting the train around their tree. As an aside, my dad loves having his two grandsons around, especially since he only had daughters :)

Vince is so fascinated by trains. He loves using the remote to turn the train on and off.

On to Santa.... when Vince sees Santa, he says 'no ho ho'. He does not like it when Santa is around.

Above is our good Santa picture. It was taken a bit after the picture below in which Vince was freakin out. I decided to ask for a retake since this picture shows Vince's slobber running down his crying chin.... not to mention I really didn't like sitting on Santa's lap. So after some time passed, a candy cane, and a toy football, we quickly stood by Santa to snap the good picture. Vince had no idea we were even by Santa. I just leaned in for a second and go the snapshot!

We are taking the Polar Express train this weekend where Vince will see Santa one more time and get to have his first train experience... we are so excited!!

Vince's photo shoot

Before we left for Thanksgiving, we met up with our friend Evan to take some pictures of Vince and the three of us... below are a couple of the shots. The first one is David's favorite. Vince wasn't very cooperative during the shoot so I am just glad we got some good ones. I made the mistake of bringing out some toys half way through the session, not thinking all Vince would want were his toys!!! I also didn't have any real plans on what he was going to wear. Thankfully, I found this sweater last minute before we left and threw it in the bag... it was perfect!

Trains, Trains, Coo Coo's

Okay, I know I talk about trains a lot but they do dominate our lives at the moment. In fact, my dad is on the way to Toy's'us as I type this to buy Vince a train table with all the bells and whitsles. I asked him if he wanted to wait until Christmas to give it to Vince and he responded, "why, he doesn't know Christmas". I tend to agree as I am eager for Vince to have a nicer train table (versus our coffee tables).

This video shows Vince in action at my parents house. He plays with these trains most of the time he is there. The video shows the different emotions Vince goes through... our favorite is when something goes wrong like a train gets derailed... he responds... "ooohhh nooooeee". He also says that when he is watching football and someone gets tackled. It's our favorite response from him.

While on the subject of coo coo's (it's sad that we talk in his language, I have found myself refering to nana's [bananas] on more than one occasion when I am speaking to adults)... here's a picture from last night at Toys'r'us when we were checking out the table my dad wanted to buy. This one isn't it, but Vince sure didn't like it when we made him leave the store. He let us know over and over that he was dissatisfied.

HALLOWEEN

I didn't get to spend Vince's 2nd Halloween with him since I went with David to NY for his marathon. Not being with him sure didn't stop him from dressing up 3 days in a row! Thursday, he had a Halloween party and parade at his school. Grandma and Grandpa showed up to watch! I'm so surprised he has the hat piece on in all these pics! He sure didn't like it when I dressed him up! Thanks to my friend Cassel for letting us borrow this costume!

Friday Vince went to my sister, Jessica's, office and trick or treated at their cubes. He's so funny, my mom said he was picking out the candy he wanted, mostly lolipops. That's mostly what he's been introduced to so he likes them!

Saturday was the real trick or treating day! Vince and my mom dressed up one last time and went trick or treating. They also had fun answering the door for other fellow trick or treaters. My mom said Vince started getting lazy and didn't want to answer the door anymore!

This last picture is of Vince and his coo coo's at my mom's house. He can play with these all day long, he's so in love with trains. He watches Thomas movies and plays and plays around the train tracks. When he got sick a few weeks ago we felt so bad for him so we bought coo coo's for the house too. He can't get enough!