Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays everyone! I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years. We've had a busy couple of weeks around the Vargas house so let me try to get everyone caught up. Before the holiday break, I got promoted at work which was nice. More money is always a good thing! :-) Work has been keeping me and Toni very busy so hopefully things will slow down. We took the girls to see Santa which was fun. They both kept saying they were going to be brave and were fine. Until they called us to come to Santa and they both froze. We were lucky to get either of them in the picture and the only way we could get Caitlin in the picture was to promise to take her to Build-A-Bear Workshop. They both got a stuffed animal there and I recommend it to parents. It's a fun experience for the kids. Caitlin got a stuffed dog which she named Lana and Emma got a stuffed cat which she named Kitty. Christmas was pretty good this year. Both kids had a lot of fun spending a week and a half off at home.  On Christmas Eve we went to Nana Bev's house and had dinner and opened presents. Christmas day was a lot of fun. I got the girls each a pair of earrings with their birthstones in them. I just got them cheap pairs for now but when they get older, I'd like to get them nicer ones. That night when we got home Caitlin left reindeer food on the front lawn so Santa's reindeer would have something to eat and we opened a few more presents. Emma was worn out from the excitement and was asleep by the time we got home! Caitlin said goodbye to Sasha (her Elf on the Shelf) and is looking forward to her return next year. Santa was pretty busy that night, he even left presents under every tree in the house (all 6 of them). It was so cool to watch the girl's reactions when they were opening presents. The funniest thing was when Caitlin came downstairs, she immediately ran to the stockings that were hanging and got excited to see stuff in them. She completely ignored the Christmas tree and all of the gifts in the living room! I managed to get that on video. :-)

The rest of the week was pretty quiet. Toni spent the break pretty sick and has seen the Doctor twice now for a sinus infection. Hopefully this round of meds will get her feeling better. Caitlin and Emma both had coughs. Emma started getting a fever again the last few days so she's also been in to see the Doctor a couple of times. Over the weekend she developed an ear infection and today the Doctor prescribed some medication.. New Years wasn't too big of a deal. We watched the fireworks show put on by all of the people in our neighborhood and stayed home. Yesterday we started taking down all of our Christmas decorations and then last night took down all of the Winnie the Pooh stickers from Caitlin's room and putting up Disney Princess stuff. It was kind of sad to take down all of the Pooh decorations. I have a lot of good memories of putting Caitlin's room together and changing everything was an instant reminder that she's growing up. :-(

2012 was a mixed year. Early on, it wasn't very good. My grandmother died, I got pneumonia and then an eye infection. It ended better than it started with the news of my promotion though so I'm hoping 2013 is going to be a good one. I cant believe that this year Caitlin will be starting kindergarten... Emma has grown by leaps and bounds this year. She's talking so much now and is very independent. With the new year, I really hope to be able to update the blog more. I hope everyone has a great 2013!