New Year's Eve 2011

It was Carmen's 1st New Years!! Of course she wasn't up AT New Years time... but she still got all dressed up and partied for an hour before she went to bed!!!

BUT, Vince was up AT New Years time. He actually went to sleep and woke up 2 minutes prior to midnight. I was trying to get him back to sleep when I heard counting, and we ran out to celebrate! It was his first time awake for New Years! 4th time around is a charm!!

one more pic of the family...

Here is to a wonderful 2012!!

Saenz Xmas 2011

Christmas 2011 was extra special because it was Carmen's 1st Christmas!

She of course could care less what Santa or anyone bought her. I really should have just bought boxes and water bottles for her, but she ended getting a few good things... noticably, the ball popper that she loves playing with and dancing to the music and her new bike! Vince got too many things to count. Santa was extra generous to him. He even bought him "Cranky", a huge crane that carries Thomas trains around, controlled by a remote!

Vince only got one train because we have the other 65 and there is not many left! But there is one or two that are unavailable at stores that we don't have. Think we are going to leave it that way... :)
A few picks before the unwrapping began...

The ever famous, Cranky!!! and Grandpa!!

My sister's family came over Christmas morning and we all had a great time playing with all the new toys!!

Another of Carmen's big gifts... a tricycle that you can push that converts later to a real trike. I don't know why she isn't wearing pants here!

Carmen's 1st Christmas and Vince's 4th was a big success!!

a couple more pics..

this is at the Gaylord.. I have pics of Vince on this sleigh when he was 1 and 2!!

4 cousins!!!

Tiana is 30!

My birthday falls a three days before Christmas. Some view that as a bad thing, thinking less presents. I actually like it because I get to spend my day with my loved ones.

Especially my little ones - here is Carmy looking too cute...

David suprised me with that wonderful double dozzie cookie cake - my favorite! He also showered me with several gifts when I woke up. One special gift was my baby bracelet that he and my family got fixed for Carmen, with her name inscribed and all (with my birthday still there).

As I mentioned, I get to be with my loved ones... and a big family we are! Most of my past birthdays in recent memory, we have gathered to make Christmas tamales! It's so fun to get together with my mom, sisters, cousins, aunts, and extended family... to drink wine.. I mean make tamales. We even have our own aprons...

notice my special "30" cup!

It's was a big milestone birthday, the big 3 - 0. And I couldn't have spent it in any better way then hanging out with family, and tamale making (and eating!).

Myca's Birthday - Dec 2011

Myca - Carmen's buddy, or slightly older cousin turned one mid December. Our whole family had a blast getting together to celebrate at her cupcake party!!

Grandma helped Myca hit the pinata. Everyone had fun hitting it, except Warren! Unfortunately for him, we went in order of age... but we forgot cousin Jacob is a baseball player... he tore the pinata apart easily! (One day we'll watch him play for UT! - I said it first here - of course he is only 9ish, so we have a few years).

Here is baby Carmen, 9 months old, with cousin Erica.

Myca really enjoyed her cake...

and here is one bonus pic of my kiddos that night! I love them!!

Thanksgiving 2011

It was Carmen's first Thanksgiving and she did wonderfully as she sat at the table with us eating her squash (she's a great eater and prefers veggies over fruit!). We ate outside. The weather was beautiful!

We had a great Thanksgiving day at my sister's house with her family, inlaws, and my parents. I got some great pictures of my parents and the kids, but forgot to capture myself!

Aren't these the best turkey bibs? The girls loved them...

It's impossible to get a great picture with 2 kids and 2 babies, but I sure tried!! Here are the cousins minus Noah...

and my little ones!

David was actually at the Cowboy's Thanksgiving game but we met up with him later in the evening to watch the UT/A&M game, which I actually missed the last quarter of because I went black Friday shopping! I couldn't help it!

It was a great day all in all!

Vince - just shy of 4

Vince my prince has grown up so much! He's a clown and a genius, all rolled into one. He doesn't stop moving or talking, EVER! lol.

His vocabulary is limitless. If he doesn't understand a word, he asks about it. He sings songs and interchanges words to make it his own song. He dances around and makes silly noises to entertain his sister constantly.

He says the funniest things... he tells us we live on Mulberry road because that's where Hucko, from Busytown Mysteries lives. He watches him on his (mommies) ipad. He loves watching Netflix on there! Some of his favorite shows are Diego, Chuggington, Little Einsteins & Backyardigans. He can navigate the ipad very easily, sometimes showing us or my parents stuff we don't know. It's loaded with books and games for him of Thomas and Toy Story. He loves playing angry birds, and recently started using a link from there to go to Youtube to find more cartoons. We have to watch him closely when he does that ;).

He's probably in the minority of three year olds that have a computer in his room. We recently hooked up my old college computer and he plays games on it, mostly "Putt Putt". A game he navigates a little car around to get gas and save animals. And he of course has Netflix on there.

He loves drawing. He draws me monsters and trains all the time. The monsters usually have a ton of feet! and the trains have a lot of tracks!

He still plays with his trains a ton (I vowed this year not to buy him any because after all, he has over 60 trackmaster trains!). I almost succeeded until the Thomas franchise put out a new movie with new trains - Day of Diesels. We just bought him one and have a couple in tow for Christmas.

He loves going to Grandma's house and would rather be there than at our house anytime. Grandma and Grandpa love playing with him and pick him up everyday from his "school" at 2:30.

He is so observative like his daddy. We went to a Ranger's game a couple months ago. About a month later, we were going down the same road, Industrial/Collins, and he asked if we were going back to the baseball game. We asked him why, he said, we passed that golfball place last time we went! He also memorizes things easily. He learned a prayer at school on for their Thanksgiving feast and recited it to us after school on Tuesday. At the dinner table on Thanksgiving, I asked him to say grace and he did it flawlessly. It wasn't short either and I couldn't recite back immediately.

He doesn't always listen or sit at the table when we want him to eat, or share toys for that matter, but he is still our prince. We love him so much and glad he is the big brother to our little girl.

Here are some pictures from the last couple months...

at his pumpkin patch at school...

at my work for Halloween with Carmen...

and at home, when he decided to make every puzzel that he owned, many couldn't fit in the picture...

We let his hair grow long so he could be Diego for Halloween. Everyone loves it but us, so we'll see if we continue to let it grow or not!

Carmen - 8 months

Our baby Carmen is 8 months old. Her face and personality are changing so much. She started to crawl at 7.5 months and still does not crawl a lot. She is very slow when she does too!

She is a huge mama's girl right now, which means, if she's with anyone and she sees mom, she starts whining until she gets to her mommy. She still has a great, laid back personality and does not fuss much unless it's warrented with hunger or tiredness. However, don't take anything she has in her hands away from her because she'll get mad!

She loves her big brother so much and laughs at all the silly stuff he does. Brother returns the love and always wants to hug her. He calls her his baby and will only let me refer to him as big brother around her.

She walks all over the house in her walker. She loves to visit Vince in the playroom and watch him play. She also loves taking the kitchen towels from the oven, taking magnets from the fridge, and grabbing the trash bag from the trash can. This week she knocked over the trash can and a stool back to back! She's funny the way she controls the walker, she'll go into the laundry room, then look back and reverse as if she's driving a car.

She loves waving at everyone. Maybe not at the correct times. She just waves and waves. After she waves, she puts her hand to her mouth back and forth to make noise in what I call the Indian. After a bit of that, she grabs her other hand and pumps them up and down, doing what I call the hammer. I love the wave, Indian, hammer combo.

She started babbeling as if she is talking to us this week. She especially does it if you put her in front of a mirror.

Unfortunately she is somewhat sickly. For the past month she has been sick non-stop and she's had congestion and coughing problems since birth. Antibiotics couldn't get her healthy recently. It probably stems from allergies. She is actually on steriods right now to try and get her better. She had chest x-rays recently that showed either pre-asthma (Vince has asthma) or a broncial virus, but her dr thinks it's both. I'm learning all about the respiratory system and asthma so we'll get her better soon with all her treatments we do daily!

We are blessed to have this angel with us. She loves and is loved by our whole family. Her 8 month birthday fell one day before Thanksgiving and 2 days before daddy David's 32nd birthday. Happy 8 months Carmey!