Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! We hope everyone had a happy and safe Christmas. Christmas Eve we took the girls to church and then went to Nana Bev's house for dinner. We had a good dinner and had a lot of fun with everyone. All of the kids seemed to have a really good time and were excited with all of their presents. It blows my mind that only 4 years ago there were no kids around for the holidays and now there are 4! This year I decided to try a couple of old fashioned desserts - Figgy Pudding, Sugarplums and Mincemeat pie. They were all good except for the Figgy Pudding which was a little too heavy on molasses for my taste. When we got home, Caitlin put out reindeer food in the front yard so that Santa's reindeer would have something to eat and because it had sparkles in it, it would make it easier for Santa to see the house. :-) (The food was dry oatmeal and glitter provided by Nana Bev)

Christmas morning was a lot of fun. Caitlin had a great time opening her presents and Emma seemed to enjoy seeing everything and trying to open some of her presents. :) The girls did pretty good. Caitlin seemed a little upset that Santa didn't bring anything for me and Toni though so next year we may have to change our tradition a little. This year we bought the new TV so we didn't do too much for each other. I got Toni a pearl necklace from the girls and she got me a couple of shirts. :-) I can definitely say that Christmas with kids is a lot more fun that when it was just Toni and I. :-)

This week should be nice, I'm off work all week and will probably be fairly busy running errands, cleaning and doing car maintenance. This has been a good year for the Vargas Family and I hope 2012 is even better. We hope everyone has a happy and safe New Years!

It's almost Christmas!

I can't believe we're already less than a week from Christmas! The girls are both doing great and I'm convinced that Emma's gonna walk on her own at any minute. She loves walking holding our hands so I think she's close to taking off on her own. Last week we had the girls out of school for the week. I stayed home 2 days and Toni stayed home the rest with them. I think they really enjoyed the quality time. This weekend we took them to an indoor playground with Maddie and Ryan and they seemed like they had a lot of fun. This week should be pretty busy with Christmas. Tomorrow morning we have a dentist appointment which we'll probably take Caitlin to and then we'll schedule her for her own checkup soon. I think Christmas is going to be a lot of fun this year and Caitlin is going to enjoy opening all of the gifts including Emma's! I'm going to keep this post short this week but we want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday Emma!

Yesterday was a big day in the Vargas house. We celebrated Emma's first birthday! We had a small party here at the house which was nice. The theme for her party was Tinkerbell and Toni did a great job with the decorations. Everyone had a great time and Caitlin especially liked helping Emma open her presents. :) I really can't believe that a year has already passed. Emma seems like she's getting bigger every day and is learning so fast. She now enjoys turning off the lights when we leave a room and is doing it pretty much all the time. :) At school on Friday they also had a small party for Emma in her class. Judging by the pictures, she looks like she really enjoyed that one as well.

The other big news this week was that on Thursday night Toni went to her office Christmas party and won an iPad 2! Needless to say, she was pretty excited!

I know I've written this several times before but I seriously can't believe how fast time is going. It's strange but at times it seems like Emma was just born a couple of months ago and at other times, it seems like she's been with us for such a long time. It's been amazing watching both of the girls grow up and I am so thankful for this blog. It's been great for looking back on the last few years.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

This week was fairly busy for us. The weather has started turning colder and today we took the kids to see Santa! Caitlin told us while we were waiting in line that this year she wasn't going to cry because Santa was her best friend. That thought lasted until about the time Santa called us over for pictures. Caitlin pretty much used Toni like a lead blocker and tried as hard as she could to keep Toni between her and Santa. For a minute, Caitlin wouldn't let go of Toni at all and I seriously thought we were going to end up with just a picture of Emma and Santa! We were able to get a picture of both girls with Santa and as you can see, we had quite an adventure! Emma had mixed feelings about her first visit with Santa. At first she was crying but after a minute or so she seemed to be having fun.

Last week was pretty busy. We cashed in on a great Cyber Monday deal and got a new 60 inch LED tv! We got a great price and the picture quality is amazing! It's litterally only an inch thick and we're waiting on our wall mount to show up so we can hang it on the wall. The first movie we watched on it was "The Smurfs" which we all surprisingly enjoyed. Caitlin is now into the smurfs and her favorite character is "girl Smurf". Also this week we went and got our Christmas tree. We decorated most of it tonight and I'll post pics next week when it's finished. Yesterday I spent the day doing crown molding at a friends house and it came out great!

This week should be busy. I'm on call and then on Saturday we're having Emma's first birthday party! I seriously can't believe a year has gone by already! It should be a very busy week. Hope everyone has a good one!