Snow, in Texas?!?

Day 2 - Snow in Texas

We unexpectedly all got to spend Friday together after one foot of snow blanketed the area. I felt like we were skiing... never have I seen snow like this in Texas! Here are pictures from the day and some from our house... pay attention to Vince's shoes in the last pictures... we didn't have boots so had to protect his shoes!

and these next pics are from yesterday, playing at my mom's house!

Birthday Boy

Vince is 2. Crazy. I look back at baby pictures and hardly remember him so small, thankgoodness for pictures and videos to help jog that memory. For his birthday, a few of his 2 year old friends came over... 5 to be exact. That means six 2 year olds running around... when you couple that with additional family and friends and really cold weather, it makes for a crowded house! Everyone was in good spirits and had a great time. Some pictures from this wonderful day...

First things first. Almost immediately Vince migrated to his presents and started opening them... not my plan, but it worked. He got some much needed & appreciated pajamas, books, towels, plates, cloths, and toys!!

My dream for his party was to wrangle all the 2 year olds to do one activity at a time, including eating... well here's 5 of them! I consider that a success! This was the most toddlers we had together at one time!

A friend from my indoor soccer team stopped by to paint faces... Amazingly, Vince is sitting here calm as can be while he gets a train painted on. Several of the kids had their faces painted... a real treat!

Tia Jessica, or Yaya as Vince calls her, bought Vince a tricycle (that's what I called her when I was young and it stuck). He hasn't mastered the pedals yet, but he enjoys walking it :).. or in this case, sitting on the back while a friend drove!

A party is not a party unless there is a pinata right? It was too cold to do outside, so we did it in the garage. This pinata was actually a number 21 but my dad doctored it to have just a 2. It's funny how vince is such an expert at hitting the pinata (amoung other things).

My attempt at being a homemaker with a train cake... looks a ton better in the picture. And we almost went out and bought one the night before when the face looked really bad... but then my creative mom cut out a thomas from a giveaway bag and made it 100% better.

Vince did so well when it came time to sing and blow out the candles. We've been singing happy birthday all month, so when everyone started singing, so did he!! He also blew out the two candles!! We were so proud (yes, we are easily pleased!)

A couple of our friends stayed pretty late in the evening, and their daughter was the only toddler at the party. Vince had a BLAST with her. They played and played and played. I tried hard to get a picture of them together LOOKING at the camera, but of course did not... check out this sequence of pictures...

Glad we have a bunch of great friends and family.. thanks for sharing this special day with us and we missed those who weren't there!!

And here's one more picture that I wanted to include because 3 kids are looking!

Phone Phun

I don't always have my camera around to capture precious shots (if I was supermom I would, but it's just not possible), but I do happen to have my phone 98% of the time. Luckily my phone has an ok camera and allows me to capture some pictures "in the moment". These phone pictures are so important to me because they capture the here and now (or the there and then), whether Vince is acting silly or just playing away. Most of the time, these pictures just stay on my phone, ready for me to show off to the random co-worker, but I thought it would be fun to post the recent ones.. especially since I don't get to the home computer much to download the actual good pictures I take.

Here goes my phone stories...

Picture 1: Swim school / tonight. We enrolled in swim class again. We went to this same class when V was 7 months to 13 months old. He did very well then and I think he remembers because he did AMAZING tonight. He couldn't stop dipping himself in the pool (he must trust me with his life to pull him up each time!) He consistently went under for 6 seconds at a time (long seconds... one one thousand.. two one thousand). I'm so looking forward to the next 4 months of swim class. I'm glad to because it's hard to get all our gear ready and get our butts there after work/daycare!

Picture 2: Our house / this past weekend... I kept telling David the past few weeks "Vince needs a small table because he has no where to play with his playdoh" .. I really wanted a place that he could sit comfortably and play/draw/eat. So we finally made a trip to Ikea to buy this little table on Friday night. Saturday morning David had to work so I got up with Vince, put the table together, and let Vince play with his playdoh! I was so surprised on how well he played and how clean he was with it!

Picture 3: Our house /A couple weeks ago at bathtime... when V didn't want to take a bath, I told him we had to wash his butt because it was dirty... about 5 minutes into the bath he stood up and backed it up... I figure this picture doesn't show anything so it's ok to post! To me this was Hilarious!

Picture 4: Cooks Children's Hospital - one month ago. Vince got tubes put in his ears due to constant ear infections. It required a quick hospital stay. We had to be there by 6 and we were out by 8:30. I have to say the hardest part of it all was not being able to give V anything to eat or drink after midnight. So far, I think the tubes have helped tremendously. I would recommend them to anyone who has a child with a lot of ear infections..

Picture 5: Our bathroom / a few weeks ago... he fit himself in a little tub!!!

Picture 6: on the plane / I think heading home from Cali during Thanksgiving... little dvd players are a godsend sometimes!

Anyways... I love my phone pictures... and since I don't download pictures from the camera much, this is all for now!! However, we did just get a new video camera (Vince broke our last one) so hopefully I'll be able to upload some videos in the near future!

Then and Now

At the Gaylord a couple weeks ago I tried to recreate a picture that we took one year ago... so here we are.. Vince and me Now... Xmas 2009

Vince and me Then....xmas 2008

Now why couldn't I get that smile in the recent one? I think it's because he's smarter now... we can't fool him anymore by people making funny faces in back of the camera... Now that I look at the different pictures, I see they changed the sled! And here I thought I was on the same sled...

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...