Familia Francis

January

2011-04-30T20:53:00.013-06:00

Random Pictures of Alyssa during January

I found this video of Alyssa using her wonderful imagination to sing about random things. This girl is a crack up. My dad was driving us to the airport and she just sang and sang. Every time we would applaud her she'd say, "I'm not done yet", lol!

We sent this picture to daddy when he was out of town.

While Bryan was out of town Alyssa and I went in search for a piece of furniture.
On another day we went looking at IKEA. Alyssa always enjoys playing there. It's like a huge playground.

While Bryan is gone, Alyssa sure keeps me entertained. She has a great imagination. In the following video she is playing some type of game that included monsters. I thought it was hilarious because she was really enjoying it. I guess my child isn't scared of monsters...lol...it's a happy fun game for her.

Alyssa showing off her dance moves.

Alyssa and I got together with some friends at the Discovery Gateway. It was our first time there and Alyssa had a lot of fun.

Shopping for produce.

Giddy Up

Water fun

Loving the stage.

A confused reporter

Here she was connecting a bunch of pieces together.

Alyssa was so excited to find her missing glasses

The kids would have so much fun playing, during the snowy winter months.

Nueva York

2011-04-12T20:42:00.011-06:00

Times Square
Venna, me and Dayna

Two of my best girls and I took a trip to New York back in December from the 9th-14th. It was a much needed vacation. We had a great time and thanks to Dayna's amazing planning skills we really enjoyed a smooth trip ;) It was super nice traveling with these girls, I just love being with them! This was my first time to the Big Apple and I just loved it. I'm so glad I was able to experience it with my girls.

Warning: I know that I always post a lot of pictures, but really this post has A LOT of pictures. I couldn't figure out how to limit the count. I'll try not to write as much so hopefully we all enjoy the pictures more ;)

Dayna cute as ever waiting for our dinner in Times Square.

Venna and I also waiting for our dinner.

Broadway show- Getting ready to watch "Promises Promises". The performance that the cast put on was amazing, but the storyline not too hot. Still enjoyed the show though.

Got a quick snap before the show started.

At Ground Zero, then we headed to shop at Century 21, awesome store. The site was very different than what I pictured. Very interesting to actually visit the site.

Inside Grand Central Station

The famous giant Christmas tree at the Rockefeller Center.

St. Patricks Cathedral

Inside the Cathedral

YES, we did go inside!

Visiting Central Park

Got to see the Temple! Funny story, We had to pee so bad that we actually went just right inside the temple door and asked very nicely if we could use the restroom. I think one of us even said, we do have temple recommends we can show you. It was funny at the time, but we really did have to use the restroom. At first they probably looked at us in our street clothes and thought missionary moment :) The temple workers at the entrance were so nice though, they even started a conversation with us. Hopefully during another trip I will actually visit the inside for a very different reason.

How amazing is that!

Venna, our little Juilliard!

After 2 years of wearing braces I had gotten them off a month prior to this picture. It wasn't until I took this apple out of my purse that I realized I had not bitten into a whole apple for over 2 years and what better place to do it than in the Big Apple...I know, very clever...lol.

Such a beautiful tree.

I absolutely loved this town in Connecticut. There is something about small towns that is just wonderful. New Canaan, CT was just precious! Yes, did make me remember Gilmore Girls.

Shopped at all the cute little stores in downtown New Canaan.

Empire State Building

It was so worth freezing our butts off to experience this view!

Seriously FREEZING and WINDY!!

Took the Subway, walked 15 mins through Brooklyn just to eat at Grimaldi's Pizzeria. Yes, it was all worth it.
And afterwards, crazy as we are, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge in the COLDEST weather I have ever been in. Once again, very worth it! :)

WE'RE SO EXCITED TO BE HERE!

Can you tell how cold we are, look at our faces. At that moment we needed scarfs to cover our faces. LOVE these girls! We definitely had a great time, great laughs!

Statue of Liberty from the bridge, with the zoom.

Walking towards the city.

We need to have more girls trips!! Bye NY, I miss you, till next time!

December

2011-04-03T20:04:00.019-06:00

Temple Square Lights

We made it this year to see the lights at Temple Square. Now that we are so close to downtown it really doesn't take that much planning to get there. We didn't get out there last year because we had just moved here in the Fall that I think we were so busy with work and trying to get organized that unfortunately Christmas came and went and we didn't take Alyssa to see the lights. But this year was so different. One day Bryan came home from work and we just made a last minute decision and visited the Temple grounds and enjoyed all the added hard work that is put into it this time of the year.

Isn't this just beautiful? Precious Alyssa with her handsome Daddy.

It looks like Alyssa is floating on the water. She couldn't get enough. There were amazing scenes set up every where with millions of lights.

The family shot

Christmas Vacation in CA
As every year we spent it with our wonderful family in CA. We LOVE this time of year because it's the one time that we know for sure we'll be going to CA and seeing our family. This year was even more special because we had family come up from Mexico to spend Christmas with us as well. My mom's youngest sister and her family made the trip up, finally; it was their first time out of Mexico. I absolutely love my aunt and her family. They are always the ones we spend the most time with when we go visit Mexico. My mom has 11 siblings and we do get to visit all of them in Mexico, but my Tia Maria Ester usually is always with us every where we go. We love it!

Christmas in the Park
The day Alyssa and I arrived we all went to Christmas in the Park in downtown San Jose. It was my sister's idea and we all had a great time. The kids especially enjoyed it.
At the park they had snow maker machines blowing out fake snow. I thought is was so cute how all the kids couldn't get enough. I thought, "oh they should come to Utah and really enjoy the snow." I also have to add that my aunt's family was freezing...It's very common for those that live in a really warm climate year around to think CA winters are cold. One time our cousins on my dad's side came to visit in the summer and wore thick coats in San Francisco because they were freezing...very interesting.
Here's Alyssa with Abuelito. She wanted me to carry her, but my parents, being the very cautious latinos that they are, insisted that a pregnant women should not be lifting any amount of weight. So my dad tried to help me out with Alyssa. She wasn't too sure about it. We had just arrived a few hours before and she still didn't really remember my family yet.

Happy Hollow Park
My dad and I took the kids to Happy Hollow Park. I hadn't been there in a really long time. I was so disappointed that the Japanese Gardens didn't have any fish anymore. Weird....they use to have these huge catfishes in the ponds surrounded by the beautiful gardens. Fortunately the gardens were still maintained.
The kids enjoyed all the statues that were in front of the Happy Hollow Park and Zoo entrance.

Kamely and Alyssa

Kamely

Kamely, Anayanci (china), Alyssa & Adi

Christmas Eve
I love how Alyssa can entertain herself. At the grandparents' she loved playing with these little guys.
Avery's birthday is Dec 23rd, but it's always celebrated on the 24th when we are all together. It's really nice because we can at least be there for one of our nieces' birthday. We've never missed any of her birthdays :)

Here she is blowing out the candles.

Opening her gifts

Grammie had this great program prepared for us that night. Here's Alli pretending to be Mary with Baby Jesus while Austin is helping set up the scenery behind "Mary" while Grammie tells the story.

Alli posing as Mary with Baby Jesus while AJ is entertaining himself right next to her

Grandpa helping the grand kids take turns putting up their pieces to the scenery. They really enjoyed that.

We also were able to play music with these really cool bells that when played, let out a different note. I can't remember what their name is. I was very impressed at how well we did. It was really hard to follow along the sheets of notes and remember when it was your turn to play your notes. However we really enjoyed it. I would definitely try that again.

Opening up gifts on Christmas Eve.

Everyone received PJs except for me...since I was pregnant I got a pink robe, that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE!! It's so comfy; I wear it ALL the time, really.
Alyssa and Avery

Christmas Day

Family Picture on Christmas morning.
This is my pink robe!

Christmas was so fun this year. Alyssa completely understood about Jesus and Santa Claus and was very excited Christmas morning to see what Santa brought her. It was so cute watching her enjoy the events.

Making her way around the Christmas tree.

Santa brought her exactly what she wanted. That's what she said. It was so cute. Santa left one of her gifts in Utah so when we came home she opened it and was SO happy that she really did say that Santa got her the two things she wanted, "Baby all gone" and "a car" (plasma car).

At the Abuelos' house getting ready to open more gifts.
Abuelita, Zane, Kamely, Adah, Makayla, China, Alyssa

Alyssa holding on tight to a book she got.

So excited to get a baby doll with all the accessories.

LOVED her pillow pet too. It's amazing how much she LOVED it even though she already has the unicorn...but this one is a hippo, so not the same.

Zane with the perfect gift, a guitar.

The girls all got play-doh and had a great time making things with Adah's set.

Later on we visited Vasona Park and drove through enjoying all the light displays while listening to Christmas music.

San Francisco
During this vacation to Ca we really enjoyed doing the tourist things. We got to enjoy a lot of time with our family visiting from Mexico and enjoyed all the beautiful places we grew up with.

Fisherman's Wharf

Alcatraz in the Background

Posing with a really friendly clown in SF.

Underneath the Golden Gate Bridge

At Fort Point Historic Site.

View of the Golden Gate Bridge from Fort Point.

On our way to walk on the bridge.

On the Bridge

Lombard Road

Santa Cruz
Bryan and I took our family to visit good ole Santa Cruz. Here's my uncle drawing in the sand.

One of his finished pieces.

My cousin Pamela and Alyssa walking along the beach.

It was such a beautiful day in Santa Cruz.
Tio Tony, Tia Maria Ester, China, Adi, Alyssa, Me, Pamela

While we were at the beach everyone was looking down at this sand bug Bryan found when all of a sudden the current came in high. Bryan saw it coming but couldn't get the words out fast enough in spanish to tell everyone to move. He was stuck in the middle so everyone got wet, except for Alyssa and I because we were on the upper side of them. It was pretty funny. Only after the water got them did they realize what Bryan was tying to get out.

The Boardwalk
Everyone but my aunt and I enjoyed the Giant Dipper, a really fun roller coaster at the boardwalk. My aunt bought China and Alyssa a giant jawbreaker thinking in was a gumball. Pretty funny to watch Alyssa try to keep it in her mouth.

The Carousel

On the Pier watching all the seals.

Bye-bye boardwalk. Walking back to the car along the tracks with 30+ feet of nothing underneath until you hit the water.

Pleasure Pizza on 41st.

After a long exhausting day in Santa Cruz.

Alyssa enjoyed playing with Alli. They played dress up, house, restuarant, Dr, you name it and they played it. It was fun to watch.

Visiting Zane's new house. My brother and his wife just bought a house and we went to check it out. Alyssa and Zane.

New Year
Happy New Year!!! Everyone at my parents saying happy New Year to each other. Unfortuntely Bryan had to travel out of town on business that he spent New Years on a plane and not with us :( Luckily I was with my family.

Yes these girls stayed up past midnight!

It was an amazing trip back "home"!! We had such a great time with our family that lives there and those that visited from Mexico! LOVE that time of the year!! Miss having family around!

November 2010

2011-03-07T04:42:00.012-07:00

GIANTS-

I started off the month by having this short video sent to my phone while I was at work. Alyssa watched the Giants win the World Series with daddy at home!!! It's so cute to hear her say, "Go Giants". She actually enjoyed watching more than one game. Bryan has been a Giants fan his whole life!! I know he would have LOVED to be back in SF the day they came home.

Veteran's Day-

For a small donation the youth in our neighborhood placed flags in front yards for every patriotic holiday. It was SO neat to drive down our streets and see all the American Flags! Alyssa loved them. She liked to go touch the one in our lawn. I think this was the last patriotic holiday of the year.
Flyboat-

Wonder Pets!

We're on our way

To help a friend

And save the day

And we're not too tough

But when we work together

We've got the right stuff

Go, Wonder Pets, Yay!

Hopefully you realized that that is the theme song to "Wonder Pets". Alyssa really got back into liking this show. She memorized the theme song and would pretend play scenes from the show. The cutest thing about it though is that she learned about teamwork. Every time I asked her to do something she would say, "mami, help me, teamwork". It was nice to see that she understood, but tiring for me because she made me feel guilty and so I would help her with all her chores. In this picture below she was pretending that this was her flyboat! It was very interesting and cute to watch.
An Old Friend

We kept Alyssa's baby mattress under her big twin bed. One day she decided that is was more comfortable and a good "toy" that she pulled it out and made it up with her pillow pet and her tinker bell blanket. As you can see she is also wearing her tinker bell dress. She now enjoys to play dress up :) She had to be tinker bell that day...I think she was even watching Tinker Bell the movie here too.

Braces be Gone-

After 2 yrs of wearing braces, the day arrived that they were taken off. I was SOOO excited!! Never once did I ask at any appointment for a date, so when Dr. Barrowes told me I'd get them off within weeks, it was a total surprise!!! I thought, "that was really fast"! I had wanted braces FOREVER that I didn't care how long I'd need them. I was just as excited to get them on as I was to get them off. Dr. Barrowes is the BEST and he truely has amazing people working with him. It was always so nice going to my appointments. Everyone was SO nice and pleasant.

Here's a picture of me with Dr. Barrowes the day my braces came off.
Here's a picture that same day that I sent to my sister..lol! Yes, believe it...I just posted a close up of my face including me nose just to show you my new teeth...hahaha!!!
Here's a more pleasant picture that I sent to the rest of our family and close friends!
South Towne Mall-

Since Bryan and my friend Dayna's husband were both out of town we decided to get out on a snowy evening and take the kids out to enjoy the children attractions you can find at South Towne Mall ;)

Alyssa SUPER excited and loving the carousel

Yes, I always need my little precious little girl to take a picture with Mami.

My friend Dayna and her son Gabriel

It was so hard to get a picture of these two on a moving train, especially with my phone.

SHE LOVED IT!

CHOO CHOO!!!

Snowy Morning-

We got so much snow really quick one morning that Bryan and Alyssa took advantage of it and decided to head out and play in it. They ended up making a little fort for Alyssa. She really liked how little it was, just for her!
Here they are working hard on it.
Alyssa helping daddy gather snow. (I think she ate more than she actually contributed) :)
Mr. Snowman-

Our neighbors across the street made this really cool snowman. Alyssa wanted to go see it, so I took a picture of her with it! It was really funny to see people driving by actually stop to take pictures with it. These girls actually brought there own couch chair and put it next to the snowman. They sat in it and took pictures!
Thanksgiving Nov. 25-

Alyssa's nursery class had a fun Thanksgiving feast (Nov. 28). Her awesome teachers made them pilgrim outfits and decorated their classroom. They had a great time with all the neat activities prepared for them.

This year we actually didn't spend Thanksgiving at any body else's home. We spent it in our own home, hosting Thanksgiving for the 1st time. It was very exciting, but also made me so nervous because I didn't want to mess up all the food I made. It was nice that the friends we invited also cooked and brought a lot of yummy food to share!! We had SO MUCH DELICIOUS dishes!! This picture only captures a small portion of everything we enjoyed. We didn't have enough room for everything in our small kitchen :)
The kids enjoyed bringing all the toys out to the living room and playing. Alyssa wanted to play catch phrase ;)
Play-doh

After our fun evening I was exhausted!! I just laid down on the couch and relaxed!
Christmas Decor-

After Thanksgiving was over Alyssa and I put up our tree and decorated for X-Mas while Bryan worked on the lights outside. Here's Alyssa testing the light for daddy.
Alyssa wanted to take a picture of me, while we were decorating.
This year we decorated our Christmas tree in PINK (of course, Alyssa insisted) and silver. It actually turned out really cute...it was simple, but Alyssa loved it!!
After working so hard on the X-Mas decorations, Bryan turned the fort into a small hill so Alyssa could go sledding on. It was her perfect size...it was perfect because she wasn't scared on it at all. (It took her forever to actually go down a slide all by herself)

Alyssa wanted daddy to try it too, I think I even tried it...ha.

Our finished X-Mas tree.
Bryan Turns 31-

That Sunday Nov. 28 it snowed even more! Here's Alyssa enjoying the snow and getting ready to go surprise daddy.
We decided to go surprise Bryan at work with a cheese cake for his birthday! He had no idea and everyone helped make it a surprise. We even sang "Happy Birthday" to him. I'm so glad we had this idea. I think it just makes someone feel more special on their day. It's a good thing we did because the girl that works at the office that's suppose to remember birthdays and buy treats on there day, FORGOT!! How could she!! We enjoyed it though!

Nate teaching Alyssa how to shoot daddy. She thought that was so much fun!
We had a great day for him!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRYAN!!!

October 2010

2011-02-28T03:54:00.019-07:00

Alyssa's 3rd Birthday- Saturday 10/03/10

We decided to throw Alyssa a Dora birthday party. She was so into that show. Anytime she was able to watch TV she wanted to watch Dora. Alyssa was very excited to have her party theme be Dora. She was a lot of help in choosing the decorations and party items.

Once most of her guest arrived we started the party by playing a few games, such as "duck, duck, goose", and "ring around the roses"

Maria was a great help! She always does so well with children!

After the games we started the Dora theme adventure! In the show "Dora the Explorer", Dora always goes on an adventure to reach her goal. In our case our goal was to find the pinata.

The first stop in our adventure was "the spider tunnel". We sang "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and then made our way through the tunnel looking for "spiders" and trying to find all the different shapes, sizes and colors.

After making it through everyone earned spider rings.

For our next stop we had to get to the frog forest. In order to get there we had to pretend we were frogs and hop over there. It's always fun pretending you are something else.
Once we all made it there, we were in search for purple, blue, green, yellow and red frogs.

After the frog forest we had to stop swiper from swiping our pinata. Then we finally made it the pinata!! That was the exciting part!
All the kids took a turn hitting the pinata. Here's the birthday girl going first.
It was a tough pinata so Bryan had to step in. I thought it was hilarious how when we asked the kids to step back and be careful, they took off all the way to the end of the grass.

It finally broke and all the kids filled there candy bags with lots and lots of candy!
Unfortunately, we could not find a nice Dora cake so I ended up settling for 2nd best, "Tinker Bell", one of Alyssa's other favorite characters.
Everyone was ready and excited for cake.

Then it was present time. It so cute how at this age all the kids want to be helpers. I loved it! Sometimes they even mentioned what their gift was before Alyssa opened it :)
Preschool Age Halloween Party

A group of awesome neighbors put together a Halloween party for all the little kids in the neighborhood. It was great! The kids really had a lot of fun!

Brynn, Alyssa and Libbie showing us their finished mummies.

Alyssa showing that she had a great time.

I had to include this picture of Libbie because I love it. She's adorable!

The kids were split into 2 groups (girls & boys). Here the girls are getting ready to do their activity.
They were pinning something on the ghost, but I can't remember what it was. It was cute to watch them all try and get excited about it.
Afterwards while they were waiting for the boys to return they enjoyed a few Halloween storybooks.
Here the boys are enjoying one of their activities. I think its similar to "Duck Duck Goose".
Listening to the stories still, as the boys made their way in.
For the last activity all the kids tied balloons on their ankle and were getting ready to stand up and try to pop each other's balloons. It hadn't even started yet and Alyssa already had her hands over her ears. There were a few girls that ran away defending their balloons because they wanted to keep it and did not want anyone to pop it. Alyssa was one of those girls :)
Brynn had her balloon popped, but then decided she wanted a balloon to keep, so luckily I was able to find her a loose balloon. And so here is Alyssa and Brynn showing off their treats with very happy faces.
Autumn

One day while Bryan was blowing the leaves Alyssa thought it would be so fun to jump into the pile of leaves. And she was right; she enjoyed that SO much!

Gardner Village

A few of us neighbors took the kids to Gardner Village to enjoy the Halloween displays of all the witches. The kids really thought it was so much fun. I really enjoyed it too. Each witch was dressed different and had its own unique style.

I loved seeing orange every where.

I had to add these next two pictures because every time I see them they make me smile! This is what I find in the camera every time I give it to Erin to take a picture for me. She is so tricky too, because I never actually see her take a picture. All of a sudden they just pop up in my camera...lol!

Alyssa looking cute in her Dog costume.

Take #1- Had to include it because Alyssa looks adorable in this picture.
Take #2- We are both smiling
Take #3- Alyssa is done and I'm just being weird.
Elder's Quorum Halloween Party

Bryan and I went as a cat and Nacho Libre. We didn't have any time to be creative this year, oh well!

I loved Matthew's smile here.

I thought the Kinghorns were so clever and funny. They dressed up as each other. And if you know them, I know you are laughing! Very nice!
The Handy's dressed up as characters from the reality show "Jersey Shore"; very funny!
Had to include this one too because the Bauman's made this all by themselves using fabric pant. Well actually Rich made them. Besides the fact that he drew all the bones, it was so cute that on Meredith's costume he drew a little fetus! ( she's pregnant in case you didn't catch that).
I had a lot of other great pictures of others in their costumes, but since this is already a long post I decided to limit the pictures in this section.

Pumpkin Carving

Alyssa was so excited to carve the pumpkins. She picked out her own image and insisted on getting the biggest one...lol

We wore gloves this year and she thought that was cool.

Here she is excited to get started.

Digging into the pumpkin, trying to clean it out.

We are all done with Alyssa's pumpkin. Yes she chose to make Snow White again this year :)
All three of our pumpkins.
Cupcakes

Alyssa wanted to bake some cupcakes for Halloween. She loves to bake!
After they were done baking, Alyssa had so much fun decorating the cupcakes. She used frosting, M & Ms, licorice and a bunch of different sprinkles.
She was so excited to show me her finished product, a spider!
Some of the spiders.
And some mummys too.
On Halloween we enjoyed dinner with our friends the Paynes before we took Alyssa trick or treating. We had already mentioned that we were getting ready to leave so Alyssa did not want to take this picture because in her mind she thought, "I want to go trick or treating not take a picture"!
We stopped by our house to set the candy out and took a few pictures there.

There were so many houses in our neighborhood that had these huge pumpkins! Way cool!

October was definitely a busy month. So much going on starting with Alyssa's birthday and ending with Halloween. A very fun month though!!

WA

2010-11-19T10:58:00.009-07:00

On Sep 8th, the day after we got Alyssa's pictures taken, we headed out on a drive all the way to WA. Our niece Abby was getting baptized that coming Saturday, Sep. 11th. We thought it would be the perfect time to go visit. We got to attend her baptism and visit WA in one trip. We had never been up there and it had been a year since we had seen Leslie and her family, so we were very excited!!

Every time we take a long trip like that I remind myself, "never again", but it's just the least expensive way to go. I felt nauseous most of the way. Luckily Bryan drove the first half. Then when I got to drive it really wasn't bad. The worst part of our trip was dealing with Alyssa. Don't misunderstand, she is the perfect little traveler... She looks at her books and can spend hours looking outside without ever complaining. We were surprised that she hardly napped in the car and was perfectly contempt. The thing we discovered or at least assume is that our little girl gets car sick. The first time her breakfast came back up, we were not prepared and let me just say... it was all over her and her chair...yuck! We stopped at a McDonald's in Boise and I took my poor little sick Alyssa into the women's restroom to get her cleaned while Bryan took the car seat into the men's restroom to clean it. Seriously took us like an hour to get the chair clean. Milk is the worst thing someone can throw up and have to clean!! After all the cleaning we stopped at the grocery store right next door to buy kitchen towels and cleaning stuff (for the smell). The next few times we were prepared to put something in front of her. Once we arrived at Leslie's house I cleaned out the car and spent forever cleaning every crack and corner of the car seat with the hose and liquid soap. Seriously, a PAIN!

On a better note...WA was amazing. At first we felt like we were going camping or something. So many huge trees everywhere that we couldn't even tell there were stores and houses right through the trees. It was way cool. Leslie was so sweet to take us around and show us the sights. The Market was very interesting! So many things to see.

Where they toss everything from worker to worker.

I LOVE seafood!! Everything was so tempting!

Yes, Alyssa got tired of watching the workers throw the food around so she sat herself on that dirty floor!

Carly, Lindsay, Alyssa. All 16 months apart.

Alyssa really liked that pig.

The Space Needle

Outside the Experience Music Project. I loved the colors.

Inside the Experience Music Project. Huge screen showing videos.

The guitar display.

Walking away from the Experience Music Project.

I think this is called the International Fountain. Not sure. It's HUGE!! Alyssa loved it.

At the Pacific Science Center. The dinosaur exhibit was very fun and interesting.

The butterfly house was way cool!

Alyssa loved looking at all the butterflies.

Carly and Alyssa exploring something.

Bryan getting his hands wet and showing Alyssa, Lindsay and Carly stuff.

That night we enjoyed a campfire in the Grant's backyard.

The Grants have four girls and their oldest is a boy. Alyssa really enjoyed playing with her cousins. As soon as we would get to the Grant's house, Alyssa would head straight to the kid's rooms and start playing.

Alyssa with Carly, Abby and Lindsay. I just realized I have no picture up of Meagan on this post. :( Oops

Abby's Baptism was so nice. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures there. Everyone was taking pictures, so I figured I'd asked them to send me some, but just never got around to it.

Abby is always so good with Alyssa. I just love the way she plays and cares for everyone. One day we attended Megan's soccer game.

Calvin teaching Alyssa how to play Lacrosse.

After the soccer game we went to this nice park.

The two grandpas were surprised with a birthday celebration. Grandpa Grant on the left had a birthday earlier that month (I believe) and Grandpa Francis' birthday landed on Abby's Baptism day, Sep 11th.

We had a wonderful time in WA. We loved spending time with our wonderful family and being able to attend Abby's baptism! WA is beautiful and we enjoyed getting to experience its beauty and greenness. Can't wait till next time!

Our 3 yr old fairy princess!

2010-11-11T10:55:00.004-07:00

I can't believe our beautiful Alyssa is already 3 yrs old. She is such a blessing in our lives! This past year has been incredible. She is such a girly girl at times but also knows how to be tough.

She still loves books. Loves horses and ponies and dogs. Learned to love candy a lot. Yes, I know, what kid doesn't like candy, but she really didn't care about it much before. She can dribble a soccer ball forever while saying, "I playing soccer","pass it to mami/daddy". Likes any sport that includes a ball. Enjoys bumble bees and spiders, weird I know. She really got into matching colors. Has the coolest imagination. Can entertain herself for a really long time. Loves to turn our keyboard music on really loud while dancing and running around the living room. Is actually a really big talker just not in public. Says "yeah" after every question and doesn't stop saying "yeah" until you answer. Is getting so brave and will jump off of many things (she is not much of a daredevil). Her favorite is the couch, oh and jumping on daddy.

Enjoy these pictures of her that were taken at the beginning of September. She's our girl!

She really got into tutus and fairies and magic wands. She loves to get her nails painted. Her favorite colors are pink and purple but loves green on her finger nails, I don't know why.
Her laugh is contagious! She laughs like its the funniest thing ever. She doesn't get the hiccups as often anymore when she's laughing really hard. Before every time she laughed really hard it was sure thing the hiccups would follow.
She is such a detailed person and can remember everything even from days or weeks ago.
Can be very silly. But she is still very sweet most of the time. Her feisty side does like to make an appearance at times.
Loves to sing and listen to music. Its amazing that she learns songs so quickly.
Can reason with you most of the time.
Is obsessed with mami or daddy's ear lobes. It's like a comfort thing for her to touch them.
Enjoys having tea parties and playing with play dough.
Alyssa is very careful about doing things. She still has her mellow personality. She gives the best hugs and kisses! I love how she squeezes me tight when she hugs and how she smacks kisses on my face.
She loves to make us laugh and says, "that's silly".
Loves the outdoors. Can spend hours in our backyard; even after it gets dark. She turns the back light switch on and when daddy says, "you need to come in now, it's dark" she points at the light and says, "no daddy, there's still light".
Loves to cuddle and be held.
Learned to blow her own bubbles, but can go through half a bubble container in one use.
She couldn't be more perfect for our family!! She's Alyssa!!
If there is anything about Alyssa you'd like to share, oh please do. I love to hear what others see in her or how they view her personality :) Sometimes as the parents we get so use to certain things that we can miss things in our children. I hope I learn not to though!

More Summer Pictures

2010-10-18T10:45:00.000-06:00

I started looking through pictures on my laptop and found more pictures taken this summer on my phone.

These pictures were taken at Bear Lake. Another family had this huge tent and Alyssa loves playing in it. A lot of the kids were inside as well wrestling around and so Alyssa thought it was so much much!

Bryan played softball on our ward team. I only was able to go to 3 games (was working), but Alyssa made it to almost all of them! She enjoyed watching daddy play.

Cheering daddy on!!

After the game.

Alyssa wanted to play too so Bryan ran around all the bases with her, twice!! She was so cute and thought it was so much fun! Here's a little video of her running. Hopefully you can kind of see her.

One day we went to visit our friends and found that they had a little stand outside, selling all sorts of things. This wasn't the first time they've done it either. These little guys are so creative they always find things they can sell. Alyssa bought a lemonade and then decided she wanted to join them in selling.
Another one of the activities that our neighborhood had where I took pictures was a water day. It was so much fun watching all the kids enjoy all the cool water stuff that was out. They had pools and water toys and the sprinklers going.

After a little while, leave it to my daughter to decide she wants to lay in the sun and play with some one's saxophone...lol

She seriously was just sunbathing and playing the saxophone... too funny!

All the kids getting Popsicles...yummy!

Alyssa and a few of the girls enjoying the little pool.

On the 3rd of July our ward had a delicious breakfast and a kids parade. All the kids decorated their scooters or bikes and then they were in the ward parade and went all around the neighborhoods. It was fun to watch! Alyssa can't go really fast on her scooter yet, so Bryan had to help her ;)

The parade was led by some one's big truck playing music and then followed with a huge banner held by some of the older kids then by all the other kids on their bikes and scooters. Here's a little clip of the end of the parade.

I think this picture was taken at the Real game close to the 4th of July. Here's a picture of the crowd filling up the field and getting ready for the fireworks.

Alyssa loved all the little flags they had at the game.

We bought Alyssa her first bike. She was so excited! It's a Disney princess one. She enjoyed trying to help Bryan put it together.

She was especially excited to wear her new helmet and pads.

We helped her ride her bike a few times, but then decided to save it till her birthday.

During the summer one day while I was in class a friend watched Alyssa and when I came to pick her up, this is what I found. I just started laughing because Asa and Alyssa both decided they wanted to go swimming in their clothes. They were so cute! Alyssa usually does not go down slides, but I guess she figured this one wasn't scary. They had a lot of fun and yes Alyssa do not want to leave.

I'm really bad at remembering things if I don't take pictures that's why I love pictures and I usually take my camera everywhere.

Two things I just remembered.

For one of our neighborhood activities a bunch of us rode the trax to Temple Square and enjoyed our lunch there. It was a really nice day. It was also a neat experience watching all of us load the trax and then as we got off, hurrying to make sure all the kids were off too. There was probably about 12 adults and 20 kids.

Also, in August, Grammie and Grandpa came to visit us. Grandpa had a golf tournament with all of his friends here so we didn't get to spend too much time with him, but Grammie stayed with us the entire time! It was really nice. I loved how Alyssa really enjoyed her company. Well actually, I think grandpa was with us for two days now that I remember because we all went to a Real game one day. They were both really good with Alyssa. I think this trip was really good for Alyssa because she was able to get to know them again. We always talk to her about our family in CA but she only really remembers them by name and pictures. Now you talk to her about Grammie and Grandpa and you can tell that she actually remembers them and knows who they are. :)

Summer Happenings

2010-10-12T21:30:00.020-06:00

Summer brought a lot of busy time. I never had a chance to even look at our blog let alone update it. Summer was so busy that I look back and can't even remember it, how sad! Bryan was working very hard all summer and I was working (2 jobs sometimes, just to avoid the commute) and going to school and we both would come home and take care of Alyssa. I know it probably doesn't sound busy, but it was hard. Bryan and I were so busy with our things that we worried about taking care of Alyssa but our paths hardly crossed. It was tough. Our schedules overlapped so Alyssa would have a sitter for about an hour when I left to work or school until Bryan got home. But luckily most of that is in the past. Life is still busy for both of us, but at least now we see each other a little more!

Here is all of our summer in one blog post.....yikes!

August 20-22, 2010- We took a quick trip to Colorado to visit with Greg and Trista's family. Andy lives in CA but was invited to a wedding out there and invited Bryan out to CO as well. It was nice because we got to visit with both of Bryan's brothers plus while the men went to the wedding, us girls got to hang out. Trista also had a surprise birthday dinner prepared for Greg's 40th birthday! We had a great time! It was a nice restaurant, minus the fact that they forgot Alyssa's dinner which didn't arrive till 10 mins after everyone else's dinners arrived. My poor daughter was so hungry she kept asking, "mami's where's my food?" I tried giving her some of mine but she really wanted her fish sticks. Trista and Bryan also surprised me with a birthday cake. So Greg had his and I had mine. It was so sweet and I totally didn't expect it, it was Greg's party ;) Greg's b-day 8/20 and mine 8/22.

Here's a picture of the 3 brothers before they left.

Greg, Andy, Bryan

Alyssa with her cousins. Alyssa loved them and they were so good with her! We really miss them.

Daphnie, Darbie, Alyssa and Demi.

August 19, 2010- Our neighborhood put together a trip to Bear Lake. Bryan and I really wanted to go and had look forward to it, but unfortunately it landed on the same weekend as our trip to CO. So we decided to head up there just for the day, on our way to CO. We arrived early so that we could enjoy the whole day there. It was so relaxing. We had our tent and everything set up by the time others arrived. That evening, even though it was already getting dark, the kids could not wait to get into the water so we took a few of them down there since it was going to be our family's only chance to go. It was so funny to watch them, they got in wearing their clothes and everything.

Alyssa kept wanting to go all the way out there with the older kids, but that made me nervous even though it was shallow. I just felt that if she falls I wont be there to help her up if she struggles with it. The girls were good to help her back.

Maddie and Alyssa

Here they are looking for shells.

Our car of girls. They were all soaked and cold.

July 24, 2010- I wanted to try rollers in Alyssa's hair because she has a natural curl in her hair and her hair doesn't hold a curl done by a curling iron. I was so impressed by how curly her hair got, but unfortunately it didn't last. About an hour or two later her hair was back to normal :( So sad. I don't know who's hair she has because my hair can hold a curl really well. She sure looked cute while it lasted!

July 4-6, 2010- Our niece Megan, who lives in WA, was on vacation with her friend's family here is UT and we were so happy that she came to visit with us. She is such a cute girl. We had so much fun with her. Alyssa loved having someone else in the house she could play with besides her parents.

We went to Boondocks and Alyssa was able to get on the bumper boats with Megan. Even though Alyssa hates getting splashed she really enjoyed it.

This was so funny! Alyssa was holding and playing the guitar all by herself. Bryan really had a kick out of it!

We also got to take Megan to our friend's cabin for a BBQ. Here they are swinging.

Megan's brother, Calvin, also came to visit us the following weekend but I didn't get any pictures. I remember we spend one day at our friends' house swimming and the guys played a little soccer. That was really fun. It's crazy how big these kids are getting. Calvin's in high school and will soon get a driving permit...yikes!

July 3, 2010- We went swimming and enjoyed a BBQ at Bryan's co-worker's house. Alyssa enjoyed playing with the other kids. And of course as we were getting ready to leave she decided she wanted to get back into the pool...oh kids. It was a long, hot, exhausting day that on the way home she fell asleep in the car and didn't wake up until the next day. So need less to say we didn't watch any fireworks, which Alyssa doesn't enjoy anyways. I thought maybe she got over the loud noise thing but she hasn't. We took her to the RSL games for the 4th and the 24th and both times she covered her ears during the fireworks show. At least at one of those she enjoyed the colors and even pointed at the show.

Our neighborhood is awesome. We have some ladies that put together a summer activity schedule for the kids. It was so nice to have things to do with Alyssa every week. She really enjoyed it! Here are some pictures of her bowling.

She was so protective of her pink ball...lol

Happy Father's Day!! Bryan's 3rd father's day. Bryan gets to wear a crown for his day. The last two years it has been the same crown, but this year Alyssa helped me make him a new crown. She really enjoyed it. I dipped her hands in ink and had her put her hand prints on his crown. She was so happy and cute wishing him a happy father's day.

Just a few bath time fun photos! What is new with Alyssa this summer? Yes, she still LOVES her bubble baths, but she also now LOVES showers! It's so nice because I could get her in and out quicker, well when she lets me.

Oh this girl is so much fun! She loves to splash!

She is just so cute!

June 19, 2010- Alyssa's friend Ayda had a birthday earlier that week and she had a fairy party on the 19th. It was a very cute party. They did so many cute activities for them and Alyssa had so much fun!

The birthday fairy, Ayda!

Alyssa getting transformed into a fairy.

The newest fairy member.

They poured fairy dust and grew beautiful big pink flowers.

The fairies even went fishing.

Alyssa's goody box.

They decorated their own cupcakes and then sang "happy birthday" to Miss Ayda.

After the party Ayda and Alyssa enjoyed swimming in the pool.

Ayda even enjoyed squirting her parents with water.

June 8, 2010- The Children's Garden at Thanksgiving point. I don't know if that's really what it's called, but I call it that anyways. We went there with a few friends. It was nice to let the kids explore and walk/run around. It was very pretty too!

Posing on top of the bear.

Gabriel and Alyssa trying to climb over some rocks.

The cute little light house.

Gabriel crawling in the tunnel.

There is this huge ship that squirts water every where with a pool around it. Alyssa playing in the water. I don't know why it's side ways. Oh well.

Reese enjoyed watching all the kids splash and run around the boat squirting water everywhere.

Yes it took me forever to put this one post together.

How rare is a whole weekend off?!!

2010-06-18T01:11:00.003-06:00

Two weeks ago on the weekend of 6/4-6/6 I didn't have to work at all. That is really rare! I noticed that I didn't have to work earlier that week so I told Bryan that we should invite his coworkers to go out. I was very excited because they were all able to make it that Friday at 6 pm! Finally we were going to actually plan something and get out. For a few months now Bryan and I have been on opposite schedules so we barely have had time to go hang out with friends. Usually we spend our free time together, which is nice! So Friday came and we were waiting for our husbands to be done at work! And waiting and waiting!! Unfortunately they were all busy moving office stuff until MIDNIGHT!! So much for shooting for 6 pm! I even went to bed before Bryan made it home, because I had worked the night before... I thought, well since we aren't going out, I'm going to bed.

Since our husbands worked so hard Friday night Bryan and Derick still wanted to do something Saturday night. Unfortunately the other two couples couldn't make it. I was glad to still be able to have fun on my weekend off.

None of us had ever been to "Mayan Adventure" in Sandy, so we decided to have dinner there. I thought the food was pretty good, but I wasn't very impressed with the show! Supposedly it was great because their cliff divers and fire dancers are amazing. It would have been better if it was actually presented like a show, but they just jumped into the water. I do give the divers credit though because it takes guts to jump from those heights. The atmosphere was cool though!

I didn't take any pictures there so I took this one from Cheryl.

Afterwards we went to "Boondocks" and enjoyed a fun game of miniature golf. It was Alyssa's first time and I don't think we have gone since before I was pregnant with Alyssa.

Alyssa was super excited and knew exactly what to do (she owns a play golf set)!

Alyssa would be the first to go. It was super cute. I would help her with her first hit then she would chase the ball and hit it about 5 more times until it went into the hole. At first after a few hits she'd pick it up and put it in, but eventually she would hit it in on her own!
After hitting the ball in she always did a victory dance. She would jump and throw her arms up and even bend her back back like she was yelling "YAHOO"! The four of us were great cheerleaders for her. She loved it!!

Derick waiting for Bryan to go!

Derick, Bryan and Alyssa watching Derick's golf ball go.

Lincoln (baby), Cheryl, Derick, Bryan and Alyssa.

We had a great time hanging out with them!! Miniature golf was super FUN!! And I was really impressed with "Boondocks". Definitely will have to go back there soon! It was a lot bigger than I thought! It was great to have a weekend off!!

Toddler Creative Dance

2010-06-17T21:52:00.004-06:00

Alyssa is loving her dance class. She has learned so much these last months. She has so much fun and gets so excited when the day to go arrives. Here are a few pictures of her I want to share just because she's cute!!

As soon as we arrive to the dance studio she runs in, takes her shoes off and gets on the dance floor.

This last session they worked on different nursery rhymes. It was so cute and I'm glad she was able to learn a lot of them because I'm not very familiar with them myself. Here she is stretching and doing "The Itsy bitsy spider"

Here they are doing "Pop goes the Weasel". Alyssa decided she didn't want to be in the circle and went and did it on her own by the mirror. Oh that girl!
Here they were doing "Hickory Dickory Doc". I think that's what it's called. Again Alyssa didn't want to stand in line with the rest of the girls. She was so into it and excited that she stood right in front of her dance teacher.
All the girls getting ready to jump over the candlestick just like Jack.
The candle stick was half Alyssa's size...lol so I don't think she can leap over it even she knew that's what she was suppose to do. She was so cute, she'd run across and when she reach the half way point she would do a little leap.
I'm so glad that she is really enjoying her toddler creative dance class!! It's great to see her so happy and excited to go!

Falon and Jacob'S Wedding!

2010-06-13T18:44:00.009-06:00

On May 20, 2010, Falon married Jacob for time and all eternity! Falon is a long time family friend as well as the rest of her family. She is one of the sweetest, most caring person and I always wondered who would be the lucky guy to catch her heart! She had a beautiful wedding and we were lucky to be able to attend her reception!

These first two pictures I took from her facebook, so I didn't take them :) But they look beautiful!

Their first dance as Mr and Mrs.

This is the wedding party dancing and you can also get a glimpse of how beautiful the place turned out.

While the wedding party was dancing, Alyssa was trying to dance with Joey...hahah...j/k, I think she was trying to give him a hug!

Us with the Newly Weds!

My long time friend and Falon's sister Angie and me.

It was such a pretty view. This was taken just right outside the hall. Even though the day looks beautiful, Utah weather can be deceiving. It was so cold out there!

This is what Alyssa did the entire reception...ran in circles on the dance floor...lol!

Even when no one else was on the dance floor, Alyssa was out there by herself putting a show on for everyone.

Here's a video of Alyssa still running around the crowded dance floor late at night.

It's so funny to watch how she just weaved thru people over and over again!

Falon throwing the bouquet. And guess who caught it...her oldest brother's girlfriend...lol! There might be another wedding in the family soon!

The happy couple getting ready to cut the cake.

It was a great wedding!! We had so much fun and even got to bring home beautiful flowers to put in our living room :) At the very end one of the couple's friend sang for them and it was so beautiful. Unfortunately I didn't record the first song but here is a little bit of him singing!

Here are some pictures from her Bridal Shower that I never shared either. I didn't take this first one, but I took the rest of them using Angie's camera. Emily and Angie did a great job with everything. From the decorations to the food and favors. It was such a cute bridal shower!

I didn't even recognize myself in this picture. I had food in my mouth!! I accidently covered Violeta's face. Violeta and I use to work together.

This is Falon enjoying the video that they put together where they were asking Jacob questions about her!

Alyssa enjoying the video with all the girls!

Alyssa and Solene! They were both trying to get the other one off of the box...lol! Oh toddlers!

Both looking at Falon.

Falon and the two sweet, beautiful girls.

Everyone at the Bridal Shower! I set the camera up and set the timer then had to run into my spot, but I didn't have time to put my foot down.

It was a fun bridal shower and we are so happy for Falon and Jacob!!

Two Places in One Day

2010-06-11T23:16:00.007-06:00

About a month ago, on May 15th, Bryan and I had a really fun weekend. Too bad we didn't get to spend it together. Bryan was out of town, so I asked my friend to baby sit for me, because I had to work that morning. She was so sweet. She came to my house at 4 am, so I could get to work by 5 am!! How sweet is that!!! I was so lucky that she did that for me!! She ended up taking Alyssa with her family up to their cabin. I met them up there after work. It was great!! I loved that place! It's perfect for the kids to enjoy the outdoors! My friend's two oldest kids took out a slip n slide and when they were done using it, the two younger ones had so much fun running up and down it!!

Here's Alyssa and Zachary loving it!!

Anything that has water is super fun! They didn't even care that it was a cool day!

Cute Zach!

My little girl running through the water.

A video of them enjoying the slip n slide!

Fascinated by her belly button still.

Having the river run through the property is a little scary with little ones, but Alyssa did ok staying away from it. I kept my eyes on her the entire time.

Cute Brynn set out the little chairs for them to sit on!

This place was awesome. The kids were so creative using their imaginations. So fun! Alex decided to tie a sled onto the bike. The other three wanted a ride!!

Alyssa and Zachary waiting for a ride! Unfortunately they got a little too heavy for Alex to pull so we pulled them for a short bit.

Alyssa was even having fun picking up grass piles. She wanted the big piles and would say, "mami the big one"! Then she'd take it all the way to the fence and toss it over.

After the hard work of picking up grass they both sat down to rest!

Alex and Brynn did too.

For some reason they both decided they had stuff on their feet that needed to come off! Super cute!

I love this picture of Brynn on this bike!

So while I was having fun at the cabin, Bryan was hiking through Zions. The day before the hike Bryan completed the spicy wing challenge at a local restaurant in St. George. Ten super hot chicken wings in 3 minutes... GOOD JOB Babe!! He sent me a video, that another guy recorded, and man did it look tough!! I can't believe he did it. When I get the video on my computer, I'll have to post it. Here are some pictures of the guys on the hike.

Crazy they are walking on packed snow!

Surfing the snow wall!

So that's a cliff they are walking around on. I guess there's a lot of spots like that at Zions.

Bryan on top of the mountain, but you can't really tell how high it really is!

One of the pictures he took looking down. I love it!

That's Jake in the middle, if you can't tell there is a person in this picture! What a beautiful spot!

Next time we'll have to join the other and have fun together!! :) What a great weekend though!

I'm a big kid now!

2010-05-22T16:06:00.001-06:00

I completely forgot to post this huge accomplishment!! A few months ago while Bryan was still in St. Louis Alyssa became a big kid!! YUP, that's right, she's potty trained!! The best thing about it was that it was so fast!! It only took her ONE and A HALF days to get it!!! Unbelievable, I know!!

This wasn't the first time we attempted to potty train her. We had tried about three separate times since she turned 2. Those other times were harder. She had no interest in using the potty and really didn't understand what we wanted her to do. She would have accident after accident. I looked for those clues she would give me that said she wasn't ready. I have always heard that the child will let you know when they are ready and once they are it's so much better for both the parent and child! That is so TRUE!! From those failed attempts I learned that we just had to be patient and try again in a few weeks. Finally when she decided that this was something she wanted to do, she accomplished it after 1 1/2 days of accidents (which isn't as many as it sounds). She's so good!! She has been that way with all her major accomplishments! She'll wait and wait and finally decides she's ready and gets it super fast! It's so cute to hear her say, "mami, go potty".

She is completely potty trained and hardly ever has accidents, but that doesn't mean she won't. Since she became "a big kid" she's had 3 accidents that I can think of. 2 of them were because she was playing outside at a friend's house and held it too long so she didn't make it to the bathroom. I know I'll see a lot more of those type of accidents. What kid doesn't hold it just to play longer. The other time we were at a friend's house and she had been jumping up and down the front door step. On one of her jumps she slipped and hit her knee, which I think the shock of falling triggered her to loose control of what she was already holding in. Luckily she's always been outside when she's had an accident.

Next step is getting her to use the public restrooms. She freaks out when I take her into one. She HATES the automatic flush!! She starts doing the potty dance and holding herself and when I ask her if she needs to go potty she says, "no". I take her anyway because I know she just doesn't want to use the "big" potty. She cries the entire time and as soon as she's done she jumps off the toilet and tries to get as far away from it as possible. It's so sad. So we are working on it. Luckily at home we don't face any problems!!

YAY for my little girl!!! She did it!!!

Mother's Day Weekend!

2010-05-22T15:17:00.001-06:00

I'm so grateful to have been given the opportunity to be a mom! Being a mother, especially this year, has been so special! I have such a wonderful little girl who is able to call me "mami" all the time. Even though I'm far from being a perfect mother, Alyssa and I learn together every day. She is a growing little girl ready to take in the world and I'm grateful to be there with her every step of the way.

This year I was able to spend a chill weekend with my family. Bryan was able to invite Alyssa and I to the RSL game Saturday afternoon. And even though I didn't get to see Bryan at all during the game because he's busy working the entire time we, Alyssa and I, still had a great time! Alyssa is so funny. She points at the field and says "soccer ball". During half time I let her do her favorite thing, run around the entire stadium. I was able to get a few pictures of us.

Oh my gosh, I just absolutely LOVE this little girl!!

Look at that cute face!

After the game we headed to Sugar House Park. We spent a relaxing evening feeding the ducks, walking around, playing, enjoying each other's company.

Here's Bryan showing Alyssa how to get the ducks to come to her.

Alyssa showing us what she's feeding the ducks, teddy grahams.

Oh, I also need to mention that as soon as Alyssa saw all the ducks she insisted on taking her rubber duck with her!! It was too funny and very cute!

Alyssa asking daddy for more food to feed the ducks.

Mami and daughter.

Daddy and daughter.

Alyssa climbed up to the top all by herself but then got stuck and needed help.

"Hi, mami!"

It was a beautiful day! We had a great time doing the sweetest thing, hanging out together!

The next day I awoke to Alyssa saying "happy mamas day". It was so cute! She gave me a hug and kiss and handed me a very special gift! We enjoyed a yummy breakfast together prepared by Bryan. After church we headed for a walk around Temple Square.

It was a very windy day which made it chilly, but when the wind would take a rest it was actually a beautiful day! Alyssa loved all the beautiful flowers all around the temple grounds.

My best friend!!

Our typical family shot. It was so windy!! Alyssa and I struggled to keep our hair out of our faces.

I made Alyssa pose for me. The wind made Alyssa want to jump all around...lol

Cute picture of Alyssa and me, except I hadn't finished pressing my lips together before Bryan took the shot...haha!

The flowers were so big and beautiful. Alyssa wanted to touch and smell all of them. It was adorable watching her wrinkle her nose. In this picture she was getting Bryan to smell the flower as well.

Here we are pointing at all the different colors.

The reason being a Mother is worth everything!!

Bryan keeping up with Alyssa, that little girl could run.

Our family!

Any time Alyssa sees water she is all over it!! She loves it!! I thought it was so funny that every time she touched the water her "princess" dress would pouf up!

You can see Alyssa doing this all the time. She loves to run!

Bryan was so sweet with Alyssa. He let her play with the water the whole time!

Alyssa was so funny!! She kept splashing herself in the face.

Her face was all wet!

So was her dress! But as long as she has fun, it's all OK!

Another father daughter moment :)

This is Alyssa posing for me really quick so that I would let her run around again!! Haha!

I LOVE being Alyssa's mom!! She means the whole world to me!! I love how she is constantly giving me kisses and hugs!! And she always comes to me when she needs me! She loves me unconditionally! I love her smile and laugh and even her sad face!! My only hope is that I can be the best mother to her! That she will grow up to become a loving, happy person! I pray that I will succeed at the toughest, but most rewarding job!!

Mother's Day was amazing for me! I couldn't have asked for more!

The Living Planet Aquarium

2010-05-13T21:38:00.005-06:00

I can't believe it's already been a few weeks since we visited The Living Planet Aquarium! Boy, time just doesn't give us a break!! One Friday afternoon Alyssa and I had lunch with a few friends and then went to the Aquarium! I didn't really tell Alyssa where we were going because I figured she wouldn't really get it until we were actually there. Once we arrived I noticed that she had taken her Color Fish book. I thought, "perfect". Then I told her that we were going to see a lot of "pitches", that's how she says it! She loves fishes and we had been working with her on saying the word correctly because if others don't know what she is saying they might think she is saying something very inappropriate...lol! She was very excited to explore the aquarium!

Here's Alyssa and her friend Brynn when we arrived to the aquarium.

I lifted Alyssa up so she could stick her arms into the water to try to touch....

this...YES a stingray! Alyssa is fearless sometimes.

I handed my friend my camera to get a picture of Alyssa and I touching the stingray and this is what happened...lol...hahahaha!! Erin, you're hilarious! Don't hate me for posting this picture!

Cute Brynn! This is as close as she got to the stringrays.

Alyssa and I were posing for a picture and had no idea Brynn was posing too...lol! I love this picture though. It turned out good!

Alyssa enjoying the fishes!

Sea horses!! They are SOoo tiny and cute! Alyssa amazes me most of the time with the things she knows. She saw these little guys and said, "sea horses"!

Then points at these and says, "jellyfish"! Amazing how they learn what things are before they ever actually see them! She was loving it!

Yup, this is a huge snake! I had to get a picture of it because it was cool, but I could not get a picture of the giant spiders and other insects...too weird!

It was so cool!! They had a lot of penguins there!! We went back to them a few times because they were so cute! The second time we went they were going crazy...they'd dive into the water, swim across, then jump out and do it over and over again!! It was very cool!

Here's Alyssa watching as they swam across.

Brynn and Alyssa on top of the frog in "Discovery Utah". Aren't they so cute?!

Here's a picture of all of us! Well almost, Matthew was sleeping in the stroller.

Ashlee with Jude, Me with Alyssa, Erin with Brynn.

I'm so glad we were able to go! We loved it and so did the kids! We saw so many cool sea creature!

Katie's Baby Shower

2010-05-01T17:00:00.001-06:00

I haven't blogged about this, but I mentioned it in my previous post. Bryan was gone almost the entire month of March!! I know, CRAZY!! Fortunately, I'm a very busy person, which in a way is a good thing, but can also be a horrible thing! In the end it turned out to feel like a very LONG month that went by fast, if that makes any sense to you all.

I was so lucky to have great friends that helped me with Alyssa when I needed to go to work! That was seriously the hardest part of Bryan being gone. After that I was done looking for babysitters!! SO THANK YOU all so much for watching her, especially to those ladies that have one or more kids of their own and were still so willing to lend a hand. You are awesome, I'm so grateful for you!! If you ever need a babysitter, seriously ASK ME! I also have great neighbors that kept me company, THANKS Erin! It seriously made the days so much better and I didn't feel like it was Alyssa and me alone all the time. We were able to enjoy outings with friends frequently!

OH & I can't believe I forgot this part!! While Bryan was gone Alyssa and I got really sick. I don't think I've been that sick in a really long time. It was horrible, but we survived and I was able to care for her. Our awesome neighbor even made us dinner one night, it was seriously the best too.

So one thing I was able to enjoy while Bryan was away was attending Katie's baby shower. Katie is one of the cutest pregnant ladies I've ever seen! It was great seeing her and also a few of our friends from our previous ward!

I had to share these pictures because I just love Katie's expressions in all of them. She has so many! :)

We really had a good time there. I love showers! It's so fun to watch them open up their gifts!

So Bryan finally made it back home the first Sunday in April!!!! YAY!! We are so happy to have him home. It really did feel like a really long time!! You guys should have seen Alyssa's reaction when she saw him, priceless!

Dance

2010-05-01T16:56:00.009-06:00

Alyssa started taking dance in March. I was so excited for her. I was also a little nervous because she's so young. On her first day, I had to stay with her the entire time. She would not go onto the dance floor with the other little girls. I thought "OH NO, Is she going to start being shy now". So we just sat there and I kept encouraging her to dance. After about 15-20 mins of that, she finally decided this was something she could try! I was excited for her all over again. Ever since then she absolutely loves going to dance! Every week when I tell her she's going to dance, she gets very happy. Now I just drop her off and pick her up when its done. She's always so happy there.

Alyssa had her first dance recital a month ago and I just haven't gotten around to posting about it. I was a little nervous because the last time I saw her in dance she really enjoyed running in circles....hahaha. It was hard to get her to focus. But that's ok because its a toddler dance class and really the most important thing is that they like it and have fun. Well she really surprised me during her recital because she participated and listened to Miss Angela very well.

Here she is after her recital showing us that she got a chocolate flower for doing so well.

Here's Alyssa and Brynn after they had done their leap.

I didn't really get many pictures because I was filming it and it was really hard to focus the camera and take pictures while I was trying to follow the girls with the video camera.

Here's Alyssa's class after the show.

I played the video I recorded on the TV and then recorded the TV with my phone so that I could send Bryan some quick clips of Alyssa during her 1st dance recital. He was so sad that he missed it (He was in St. Louis for almost the entire month of March, I KNOW, crazy, but that's another story)

This first video is of Alyssa stretching. I think everything she does is just adorable. There's a part in the video where she reaches for her toes and says "stretching" really loud that I thought was so funny :) You can tell I'm her mom.

In this next video Alyssa's class is working on their leaps.

I think this one is hilarious, because they are doing "dance, freeze". Watch how well Alyssa does it...hahaha! She loves it!

In this last video Alyssa looks so cute dancing like a butterfly!

I don't know if you noticed by watching the videos, but Alyssa's favorite thing is to run in circles while checking herself out in the mirror. She takes every break to look in the mirror...lol. Someone even asked me if we have mirrors at home....ahahhahaha!!! That was funny!!

St. Patrick's Day

2010-04-02T17:27:00.001-06:00

Alyssa was ready to face St. Patrick's Day! We usually have to rush on Wednesdays because we do not get up early...lol. Usually Alyssa wakes up around 8:30 or 9:00, but on this day we woke up a little bit after 9:00am. I have to get her dressed and fed before 9:45am (she has dance at 10 am). Now, if anyone has seen Alyssa eat you'll know that, that is not a fast thing. Bryan always says she takes after her mother...lol! We like to enjoy our food ;) Well she had a fast breakfast and got dressed in her green things just on time. Forever I couldn't figure out what she owned that was green and then that morning I realized she has green pants and a green headband. It was perfect! Her green pants were comfortable for dance and the green headband kept her hair out of her face.

In preparation for St. Patrick's Day we read fun books and even made hand prints in green paint. Alyssa keeps those papers in her play room and every time she sees them she says, "Mami's hands, daddy's hands, Alyssa's hands", super cute!

Here's my cute little leprechaun ready to face St. Patrick's Day.

The night before, we even painted our toe nails green! She loves color! Grandpa taught her the colors over Christmas vacation and she never forgot them. She kept saying, "green, green", as she pointed at her toes!

After lunch that day I decided to make sugar cookies. I had never attempted this with Alyssa before. I was excited! I had only made sugar cookies once before and let me say, I need practice. Bryan made them once and they came out perfect, not fair ;)

Here's my little helper, flouring the counter so we can roll out the dough.

"I GET TO PLAY WITH THAT!"

"OK mami, I'm ready."

Alyssa did very well. She was really good at rolling out the dough and she loved it. It was so cute to watch her really enjoying it!

I didn't get any pictures of her using the cookie cutters :( but she enjoyed that too. She kept wanting to do it over and over again. So after all that work, I discovered our oven was broken!!! YES, that's right...BROKEN!!! I was so bummed!! I decided I couldn't let all that work go to waste so I started calling our neighbors until I finally found someone home, YAY! So we got to bake our cookies!

Then after all that work we had to clean up, bummer. But luckily Alyssa makes everything fun.

Here's my little Cinderella!

She was such a good helper. I can assure you that that floor and these steps were very clean afterwards.

It was so fun making cookies with Alyssa. It always amazes me how big she is getting, my little girl can do so much now! She also kept saying "Happy St. Patrick's Day" all day. It was a great green day!

Just to let you know our cookies didn't look so great...hahaha! I put them too close together in the pan so it became one big cookie...lol. Alyssa still enjoyed decorating them! And they tasted just fine ;) Maybe my third time trying to make sugar cookies I'll get it!

Disney On Ice

2010-04-01T15:14:00.009-06:00

Bryan and I decided to take Alyssa to Disney on Ice- Worlds of Fantasy. One day we saw an ad in the mail and decided that Alyssa would really enjoy it and we weren't wrong. She LOVED it! From the moment we got there she was way into it. I was a little nervous because she is still little and thought maybe she would get bored, but she didn't :) She's always so good.

In the arena they had a display of a few of the Disney Princesses with a huge picture of them and some other objects from the movies. They even had the "real" Princess Tiana there waving at everyone. Can you see her right on top of Alyssa's head? Oh, and Princess Tiana took turns with Princess Cinderella. So we got to see her too. She waved at us. :)

I tried to get a family shot of us sitting in our seats but Alyssa wasn't looking in this picture and in the other one she tried to grab the camera...lol
When the show started Alyssa just about jumped out of her seat from excitement. She was super excited. It was way too cute!! Her face completely lit up and this huge smile came across it. Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald hosted the show so they were the first to come out. Alyssa could not believe that it was really them!

Every time new characters came out she got super excited all over again!

Here are a few pictures of the four stories they shared with us.

Cars. It was cool to see how they really looked like the cars in the movie. Alyssa doesn't have this movie but she always seems to remember it and loves it! The next one to come out was "The Little Mermaid". It was cute to watch!

Then they had "The Lion King". The scenes in this one were cool, but Bryan and I were disappointed with the lion costumes. Timon and Pumba looked great, but the lion costumes were lame. Alyssa got really into this movie after this show.

And last they showed "Tinkerbell". Alyssa loves Tinkerbell right now. I personally thought the beginning of this one was slow, but after Tinkerbell became a tinker it was a lot better.

Here's a picture of the end of the show.

And last the 4 hosts came out again to say goodbye.

It was really fun to take Alyssa. Watching her enjoy something was so great! I had never been to Disney on Ice before so I was also excited to go. Bryan wasn't too excited about the show per say, but he was very excited to go with us. :)

I had to include this picture because Alyssa looks like such a big girl here. It's crazy to me.

As we were walking out of the arena, Alyssa was having so much fun with Bryan. I don't know what she was doing but she kept laughing. Bryan actually looks like it hurt in this picture.

I know this is a random picture but I thought it was cute. One day while I was down in Provo I decided to stop and visit with some friends. While I was there these three cute kids all sat on Joey's toy box and Falon started reading them books. It was really cute.

(Alyssa, Solene, Joey)

Maria's B-Day:

For my friend's birthday a few of my girlfriends decided to enjoy a lunch out. There was 4 of us girls and we each have just one child. It was weird to hear us ask for a "table for 8". I thought, is there really 8 of us? Wow, that sounds like a large party. But yes we have evolved from "table for 4" to a "table for 8". Can't imagine what it will be like when our families begin to grow more :) How exciting!

Here's the birthday girl Maria.

During lunch, this is Alyssa and Ayda eating. Alyssa was in the restaurant first and when Ayda and Maria walked in Alyssa yelled across the place "HI Ayda". Then when Ayda reached her they both got really giddy and happy to see each other. I loved watching how cute they both were.

This is Gabe enjoying his spaghetti. Yummm!! :) So cute!

And the fourth child to complete our party of 8, Reese! She is always so cute.

Afterwards we enjoyed the nice sun by walking around some stores. I had to share these cute pictures with you all. Ayda and Alyssa found the perfect spot, "A bench right in front of a huge gorgeous mirror"! It cracked me up how they both went and sat down and started posing in front of the mirror. It was really adorable! Little girls are the best!

Another Winter Day...

2010-03-30T16:02:00.001-06:00

We all should know by now that just because it feels like spring is here in March, winter is definitely not gone. The weather this winter has been unpredictable in my opinion. One day its bright and sunny in the upper 50s (which feels a lot warmer here than it sounds) and the next day its a winter day; cloudy with snow coming down. Its a bummer when that winter weather returns, but we make the most of it and Alyssa does not mind it at all. Actually, she loves it!

During one of those winter days this month I decided to get these pictures of our little angel. I thought it would be nice to share with you a little bit about Alyssa.

Alyssa is so carefree. I love how anything makes her happy.

She has such a big imagination. It's honestly wonderful! We seriously live in the MOST SPECTACULAR place in her mind. She makes it that way for us too!
She is very sneaky and smart when she wants something. It's actually really cute. She totally tries to fool us and sometimes she does...haha!

She is so girly at times. She loves to laugh at everything and giggle at the most random moments. She lightens the mood no matter what. One look at her smile and she has you.

Yes she has a girly side, but she also has an outdoorsy side too; she can totally hang with the outdoors. She loves just running around whether its on the grass, in mud, on cement, in water or puddles. It doesn't matter. She'll stick her hands into almost anything: water, ice, dirt, sand, mud and rocks. You name it she's probably touched it. Her and our 3 yr old neighbor thought it was a good idea one day as they were playing with the gravel in the gutter to put the gravel on our other neighbor's car...that didn't last long.. :) I was amazed how entertaining the gravel was, maybe it was the texture. She's not scared of most things. And loves wrestling around and throwing around balls. She just got her first golf set.

She's very silly and gives you the funniest expressions. She's my "silly goose". She gets called that at least a million times a day. I used to call her goofy and I think that's one reason she became so fond of him. She comes up with the silliest motions sometimes.

She's the sweetest little girl. Even though at this age it is so hard to share, she has learned so much and always surprises me when she hands a toy she's holding to another child. I can tell at times that it's so hard to understand the concept of sharing, but she really wants to play nice with other kids. She loves making friends. Every time I tell her we are going to go see ____, she gets very excited. She's very social and feels totally comfortable around others, sometimes a little too comfortable...hahaha. She knows she's sweet and adorable and uses that ;)

She is so giving and lovable. As a baby she was not cuddly at all, but boy is she making up for all those missed cuddles. She would hug and kiss me all day if I let her. She gives the sweetest, tight hugs. For some reason lately she has come to love giving me kisses in the ear. She thinks its hilarious and does it over and over again. She even holds my head so I can't get away. I think she must know that the popping noise her kisses make in my ear drive me crazy because they hurt..lol. She also loves to giggle after she gives me cute small kisses on the lips.

Alyssa is my precious little 2 1/2 yr old that is changing so much every day. Every day is different and wonderful. We discover new things together! I LOVE HER!!

The New Fire Station

2010-03-08T04:33:00.000-07:00

My little girl went to the fire station!

Just a few weeks ago they finished building a new fire station in our area. A bunch of us in our neighborhood took our children for a tour. It was pretty cool to actually get to see the inside of the station and trucks. We learned so much. All the guys at the station were very nice. When we first arrive all the kids received their own fire hat. If that's what they are even called, I don't know. They took us where they keep the trucks and showed us what different things were used for. Most of our kids present are 2, 3 or 4 years old so most of them kind of stared at the things and nodded. But it was very cool to see how the older kids really got into it. We could hear their "cool" & "wow". Here we are getting a show of the truck equipment. They also tried to teach the kids what they should do in case of a fire...like crawl out of your house instead of standing up if there is smoke. Which is actually really neat for the older kids.One of the firemen showed us how they get ready to go out to a fire call. He got all dressed up in their gear. He even put the ski mask on and the gas mask. That scared Alyssa...he looked kind of scary so I understand how a 2 year old might think so. After that, Alyssa was pretty attached to me and wouldn't let me out of her sight. They invited anyone to try and put on the suit and only one person, Angela, volunteered...what a good sport! She said it was pretty heavy and hot to wear. They timed her so she was trying to get it on fast; here she is getting the pants on!
Here she is all done, except for all the face equipment, which they didn't have her wear. She totally looks cute in the suit! :)

They let us check out the inside of the fire trucks. I had no idea what everything was for; there were so many buttons and cords everywhere. Alyssa enjoyed walking through it and taking the driver seat, even though you can't really tell by her expression.

Here some of the kids are checking out the water hose.
This fire station family is lucky because when the building was built they gave them all their own bedrooms. I guess at their previous station they all slept in the same room. The rooms are pretty nice. I didn't get a picture because I thought that that would be weird. Here we are in the living room, which actually is very nice and they had a really nice like "46 TV. Their kitchen is beautiful too.
They let us all go down the fire pole and I wasn't going to say no and miss my opportunity. It was pretty fun. They made sure to tell us that you mainly use your legs going down and not your hands. It can burn your hands. I wanted to do it again but Alyssa freaked out when I went down the first time. I didn't tell her because I knew she wouldn't let me since she was already a little nervous about me leaving her sight. She made sure she could see me from where ever she was standing. As soon as a slid down the pole and through the "doors" that open beneath your feet she started crying. My poor girl, but as soon as a hurried back up the stairs she was good.
It was a lot of fun! And at the end of our tour all the kids received pins. Alyssa looked so cute. When we got home she put her hat on her rocking horse's head...lol.
After our tour we let all the kids play with their scooters and bikes and balls and with anything they found interesting. It was a great morning!

Little bits of February

2010-03-06T23:15:00.010-07:00

February 23rd-

Alyssa and I went to visit some old friends. We had not seen Jessica and her son Andrew in a really long time and we had not met their newest addition Hyrum (who's already 6 months, Yikes where does the time go?). We always want to make a visit but time never stops moving! We had a great time there. Alyssa and Andrew had a tea party, fought dragons, threw balls around, and built things just like Handy Manny! It was great. Jessica and I caught up and enjoyed a delicious lunch she prepared!

Here Alyssa is watching Andrew as he throws himself against the couch. She seriously could not stop laughing. It was so cute to watch them together!

This video shows a little bit of them while they were fighting the dragons...haha!

February 24-

We were able to watch our friends' little boy Brixton one evening. We learned a few things that night. Since we moved we haven't really had anyone over to our place so it had been a while since Alyssa had to share her own toys and her space. I really did not think she would react the way she did. Usually when we hang out with other people she is fine. She does have a little trouble sharing sometimes, but what 2 year doesn't? Honestly. We do our best at teaching her that she needs to share. Sometimes she wants to get it and sometimes she doesn't. Well this special evening she had a huge melt down. The first half hour was challenging. I'm glad Bryan was there to help me with her. She freaked out when I started playing with Brixton. She would not stop crying and it wasn't like a "mean spoiled brat" type of cry. Oh no, it was more like a "you're hurting my feelings" type of cry. But she wouldn't stop. Bryan took her into her room and tried talking to her. (Every time Brixton saw her cry he would start crying too, but he would stop right away with a little distraction). Finally we sat Brixton in her highchair so he could eat dinner and at that moment Alyssa was OK with him being around. They watched "Sesame Street" (Alyssa's new favorite show) for a little bit while they both ate. Then I put Brixton down hoping Alyssa would understand that she needed to share us and all her stuff with Brixton. And Phew...she got it and didn't freak out again. The rest of the night she had so much fun with him running around the living room. It was a great learning experience for her and us. We really enjoyed having Brixton over and his parents when they came to pick him up!

Brixton found Alyssa's scooter and CARRIED IT out to the living room. He's so strong!

Here's Alyssa having fun that night while Brixton was there. The other video I have shows both of them throwing balls and running around while Alyssa is screaming "sharing, sharing, sharing"...hahaha, but it was too long to download.

February 25-

After having the weather trick us into thinking we were getting an early spring it snowed about 3 inches that night. Alyssa and I took advantage of the little bit of snow we had and made a snow girl! She loved the snow girl, after I completed the project, but while we were making her Alyssa laughed and ran around enjoying the snow. She'd bring me a little bit of snow here and there, but she preferred to eat it...lol! She really liked creating the face. The rest of the day she'd point out the window and say "snowman". She even showed daddy when he got home.

Snow melts really fast at our place so by that evening almost all the snow on the lawn was already melted, COMPLETELY gone. The only thing there, was the snowman, who actually disappeared the next day :( Alyssa asked for the snowman. We had to tell her, "the snowman is all gone".

February 26-

Disney's newest princess!

Princess Tiana in "The Princess and the Frog"

I had been wanting to take Alyssa to see "The Princess and the Frog" for a long time now. I waited for it to get to the dollar theater though. Before the movie started the staff at the theater had a fun game for all the kids there. They would ask Disney type questions for prizes. It was fun watching Alyssa raise her hand along with all the other kids. The kids enjoyed it!

Throughout the movie Alyssa would laugh and smile and make comments. It was really fun taking her. Most parents don't take their two year olds to the movies, but Alyssa's been going since she was practically born. She has always done really well in the theater. It's so fun to take her to movies now, especially ones made for her. She learned a lot of new words like firefly by watching the movie too!

During our drive home that night Alyssa dumped a half filled soda drink on herself while in the car. She kept saying "wet", but we didn't notice until Bryan was taking her out of the car. Good thing it was only a 10 min trip. You can kind of see how soaked she was in this picture. Notice her coat and the bottom of her dress? Her leggings were also completely soaked...haha...poor girl. But we just absolutely love her!!!

iPhone Pictures

2010-01-31T19:31:00.006-07:00

This first picture is actually one I forgot to put on the previous post. It was taken on New Year's day. After spending a day bicycling we enjoyed watching the sunset on the beach.

Bryan's family. Kristee, Sandy, Dave, Bryan and Andy.

The rest of these pictures are ones that I forgot were on my iPhone. I love having a phone that can take pictures because when I'm out and about it's so convenient.

During our stay in CA for Christmas, my sister Janet, my sister-in-law Iris and I took our nieces to the movies to watch "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel". The little girls were so cute throughout the movie. They sat there eating their popcorn and sipping on their straws. At the end of the movie while all the chipmunks were singing and dancing Adah started dancing on the the rails they have in front of you if there isn't a seat there and Alyssa started singing to the music. It was pretty funny! After the movie we had them pose for us to capture a lot of cute pictures with our phones!

Alyssa, Adah, Makayla and Kamely

Kamely, Adah, Alyssa and Makayla

Alyssa was playing with chapstick and wouldn't hand it over!

The girls posing with the Chipmunks. Alyssa would not turn and look at the camera. She was too distracted and is actually trying to push Kamely away so that she can have a better look at Alvin...lol

I love this picture. They all just randomly held hands. My sister is leading them to McDonald's to get a Happy Meal. It's so cute oldest to youngest.

The cousins had a great time together during the movie, after the movie and in the food court. It was so cute to see them chasing each other laughing and just having a great time.

Before we left to CA for Christmas I would randomly take pictures and send them to Bryan since he was gone for a while.

Here's Alyssa playing in a coin-op play bus.

Alyssa and I after church one Sunday.

Alyssa after I picked her up from Nursery which she absolutely loves. She is always so happy when I pick her up and her teachers say that she is great and so lovable. They say she is so sweet to everyone and that she loves doing everything. They also make the cutest projects to take home.

This is Alyssa during our flight to CA. Can you tell that she loves "My little Pony"? Luckily these last couple of days she's preferred "Monsters Inc" and "Robin Hood". It gives us a little break from the Ponies. :)

Have I ever mentioned that Alyssa has this thing for toothbrushes? Well not just toothbrushes but anything pertaining to her teeth (toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss). Its so weird but it's also great for us because she LOVES brushing and flossing her teeth. She walks around with at least one toothbrush in her hands. The only problems so far with this fetish is that sometimes she uses our toothbrushes or she takes them and we can't find them...lol

Here she is having a good ol' time in the bathroom at Grammie's with her toothbrush. We just bought her a Dora toothbrush about two weeks ago with Dora toothpaste which she thought was so funny. She couldn't stop smiling.

About a week ago a few of us from my ward took our kids to the Sweet's Candy Factory. It was actually very fun. The kids loved it! My 2 yr old even loved it! I thought maybe she'd get a little bit impatient, but NO, she walked along the entire tour. Every time we pointed out a machine that was making candy she was very interested. It was really neat to see how interested she was and how well she paid attention. It also helped that every time we arrived into a new work area to look at a new machine they gave us candy to taste. How did they know that we would love candy??

Almost towards the end of our tour Alyssa turned and looked at me and said, "Mami, mas candy". Just then we were given some taffy candy...yum. Perfect timing! They knew Alyssa needed more! And at the very end of our tour they even gave us all little bags with MORE candy!! It was AWESOME! Oh and we even got to wear hair net thingys. Not once did anyone try to take it off. They even made baby Beckham wear one and he's only about 3 months old with no hair. It was very adorable though. It fit him perfectly! It was actually a beard one...lol

The kids standing in front of the door. No pictures allowed inside :(

I had to include this picture because I thought it was very cute. My friend's daughter Ayda was asking for my phone because she wanted to take a picture. So I told her, "how about I take a picture of you." She liked the idea and so I took this picture of her. Its really dark, I know, but it was so cute of her. Alyssa was in the back ground wondering "what are you two doing". ;)

Lately we've been looking around at furniture which is so fun, but also very exhausting. Every time I go I have to look at furniture for our living room and kitchen and Alyssa's bedroom. When we moved we decided to take her crib down and graduated her to a toddler bed which is basically her mattress on the floor. It was perfect for her because at the time she was still learning to stay on the mattress and not end up on the floor, but now she consistently wakes up on her mattress so we've decided we better start looking for a bed.

Here's Alyssa during one of our shopping trips. She loved this little chair. As you notice with the basketball chair next to her she also enjoyed putting it together and forming a ball.

Here's a video for you to enjoy of Alyssa. Its not the best version of her singing the ABCs, but you get the idea. I love the end of this video because she was talking really loud that it was sooo cute to me. Every time we ask her to repeat something she says it in a whisper so this is why the video is funny to me... enjoy!

December Fun

2010-01-25T02:12:00.018-07:00

So here is our huge December post! I've been lucky to

be able to get the Internet at work and therefore blog these last two Sundays. Brace yourselves for a lot of pictures, but you should be used to it by now. I just love pictures. They tell the story all on there own.

These are the last pictures that we took while we were in CA for Thanksgiving. My last day there just happened to land on Dec 1st so I decided to include these pictures in this post. :)

We actually used the following two pictures on our Christmas card!

Alyssa received this little dog one day when I took her to the ER. I had to do some work stuff so don't worry it wasn't a sick call visit. While we were there one of the nurses gave her this little dog and ever since then its been her favorite. We make sure to take it with us everywhere now just in case she needs something to comfort her. She even sleeps with it and its so cute! She totally hugs it! Also during Thanksgiving after two years of her short life she decided that she wants a blanket as well. So now she also has her favorite blanket that comforts her as well.

Alyssa getting kissed by Abuelita.

Dayna's Birthday Surprise

Since my good friend Dayna did not blog about her OWN birthday I decided I'd include it in my post! Her husband surprised her by giving her a night out with the girls. It was such a great gift for her!! I'm not going to lie it was even like a gift to all of us! We haven't been able to hang out much lately due to busy schedules, so this was perfect! It was great to be able to get together and celebrate Dayna's birthday. Bryan was still out of town so Nate was even sweet enough to watch Alyssa for me!!! Oops I don't think I ever mentioned that Bryan was out of town for like 6 weeks, I'm serious!!! FOREVER!! He was gone on business and life without him was hard but Alyssa and I managed with our friends' help! So back to Dayna's birthday...

Here's the birthday girl holding one of her birthday goodies!

Venna, Reese and Dayna hanging out while dinner is being

prepared!

Maria cooking a delicious dinner!

Reese was really into the dessert Venna was eating. She was totally eyeing it

and I think reaching for it too...lol

All 5 of us sitting down for the birthday dinner.

Later on that night we had so much fun playing a game and you'll never guess which game it was?? Twilight Scene It!! Of course Dayna and Venna beat Maria and I, but that's OK it was still fun. And the fun didn't stop there! The game was followed by a movie and I know you won't guess which movie?? OK, maybe you will, NEW MOON!! All of us had actually seen it already except for Dayna. And even though watching it a second time was exciting all on its own, knowing that Dayna hadn't seen it was great because that just added to the excitement!! I'm glad you let us celebrate your birthday with you Dayna, It was so much fun!!

Decorating for Christmas

The next day when we got back from celebrating Dayna's birthday I was feeling kinda down and I thought maybe it's because Christmas is coming up and we are not ready for it at all. So Alyssa and I decided to start decorating for Christmas, which I originally wasn't planning to do because we were going to travel back to CA in two weeks. So I put on some Christmas music and got all our decorations out, which aren't many and had a lot of fun with my little girl. We danced and sang to the music as we worked.

Here's Alyssa having fun!

This was so cute, Alyssa grabbed both sets of beads and started using them like pom-poms at one point.

She learned how to open the string attached to all our ornaments and put them on the tree. She loved it! We really had a lot of fun!

Bowling

Bryan came back from his business trip for a few days before he had to go back and we were lucky that he was here and able to attend my work's Christmas party. All the doctors in the the ER always give the staff a Christmas party at Fat Cats. They rent out the whole place to the ER department. It's very fun. We enjoyed a great night of bowling and music. We also enjoyed our free meals from Costa Vida!

Alyssa's first time in bowling shoes!

Alyssa walking around dragging her blanket behind her.

Bryan won a free ER trauma T-shirt for hitting a strike as one of the Doctors passed by!

Alyssa's first time bowling!

Christmas Eve

I finally joined Bryan in CA on Dec. 22. I was very excited to be back with him since he was gone forever, minus the couple of days he came home. I was also very excited to be able to spend more time with our families!! We spent Christmas Eve with Bryan's side of the family. We had a great dinner prepared by my mother-in-law, we enjoyed playing catch phrase and a movie. It was a great Christmas Eve.

Here are some pictures of everyone during dinner.

Alli

Andy, Avery, AJ and Amy

Mom and Dad (Dave and Sandy) and Austin.

Janel, Bryan and Alyssa

Our niece Avery's birthday is on Dec 23rd, so we always get to celebrate her birthday on Christmas Eve! This year Amy baked cupcakes so that we could decorate them. It was really fun watching the girls put sprinkles and letters and a lot of fun yummy stuff on the cupcakes

Amy putting the candles on Avery's cupcake.

The birthday girl!! So SWEET!!

Avery blowing out her candles!

Family

Mom and Dad (Grammie and Grandpa in Alyssa's case)

I was looking at all the pictures on my camera and I just cant believe that I didn't take any pictures while we opened our gift exchange gifts on Christmas Eve!!! I seriously couldn't believe it considering how I am with the camera. I did get one picture though. Here's Avery opening her gift, but I honestly I can't remember if these are her Christmas gifts or Birthday gifts. Now that I look closer at the picture I think these are her birthday gifts! Oh well!

Christmas Morning

We woke up Christmas day and took our traditional Christmas morning picture. Alyssa wasn't too thrilled because she wanted to play with her "Little People" bus that she unwrapped on Christmas Eve. You can see that we were hiding it behind Bryan. It's poking out just a little bit on his right side...lol
We enjoyed a great morning listening to Christmas music and eating breakfast. Oh and also had a great time opening our gifts. It was very fun to watch Alyssa open her gifts, she seriously loved all of them and she is so good at unwrapping now!! You know, it was actually really exciting watching the grown-ups open there gifts too. The suspense before every gift!! Aaaahhh!!!! :-D

Dad opening one of his gifts!!!

Mom opening one of her gifts!!!

After opening gifts with Bryan's parents we headed over to my parents' house. My mom cooked up a feast for everyone...tamales, posole, ceviche, capirrotada, chumpurrado, bunelos....etc. I probably spelled some of those words wrong! All my siblings and their families were there. So we enjoyed great times hanging out and socializing!

Right before we opened up gifts we asked all the little girls to sit down so we could hand them their gifts one by one.

Alyssa opening one of her gifts. And YES our niece in the background got a New Moon Lunch Box!! She loves Twilight. Of course she has never read the book cause she's only 6, but her and our 5 yr old niece love the movie, crazy!!

The four girls watching as its Kamely's turn to open a gift.

Zane's 1st Christmas! He was really good at opening up those gifts. It was so funny that while opening his first gift my brother held him over the bag and he pulled out all the hangers with the clothes all by himself!! Very strong!

Javen was our sleepy guy this Christmas. He slept while all the other kids opened their gifts. So later on that day he got to open all his gifts at once instead of having to wait his turn ;)

Some of our family members watching the kids open gifts.

Alyssa received the "My Little Pony" movie for her birthday back in October from her Tio Gerzain. Ever since the first time she watched that movie she was an instant fanatic. She can watch that movie a million times a day if we let her! When we went home for Thanksgiving everyone noticed that she loved the ponies because she always carried around the 2 she got in her happy meals from McDonalds. So for Christmas what did she get? 5 more ponies!!

It was hilarious how after she opened her 1st pony she would not take her eyes off it while opening her other gifts. If anyone made any move towards it she was all over it!! It was pretty funny. Here she is with all 5 of them. She couldn't even hold them all but she would not put them down in case someone else wanted to get them. When she did finally put them down she gave them to either Daddy or Mami to watch over them...lol

The last two years our nieces Makayla and Kamely have always performed Christmas songs for us. The difference this year was that they both had guitars to play. Tio Gerzain bought Kamely a guitar last year and this year Makayla got one from him too! They are just a crack up to watch!! Their performance was nice!

After watching her cousins play the guitar, Alyssa thought she should get a shot at it too! She is SO CUTE!!! I love it!

My brother Rafael and I chillin' on the couch after all the presents were opened.

My brother Gerzain and I.

Family picture on Christmas Day.

Jungle Place

One day Bryan and I decided to take Alyssa to this kids place, called "The Jungle." Its kind of like a Chuck-E-Cheese. Anyways, Alyssa really enjoyed it. She wouldn't leave the area made for children 4 and under though. I tried taking her to the big play area and she just would not have it. She was able to play in the ball pit, a tube maze thing, a play house and kitchen and get on a mini merry-go-round!

Our little Mozart! The entire time we were at Grandpa and Grammie's house Alyssa loved climbing onto the piano bench and playing the piano. It was so cute because she wouldn't just bang on the keys, she actually would sit there and play and sing along as well! Amazing, seriously!

After busy times, Bryan and Alyssa relaxing.

New Years Eve

On New Years Eve we went to my brother Juan's house for a party! There was so much yummy food there!!! We enjoyed time socializing, eating and listening to music before we had to go.

Here's my mom with 3 of her grand daughters.

Bryan and I

Alyssa loved playing in Makayla's kitchen.

My brother Gerzain, Zane, Bryan and Alyssa.

After the New Year's party we headed to Santa Cruz just in time to celebrate the arrival of 2010!! We stayed up with Bryan's family playing games. Alyssa even stayed up!!

These pictures are kind of backwards sorry. Later on on New Years day we went down to the beach and enjoyed a beautiful sunset. We walked around the cool beach and Alyssa actually ran around!

Grammie, Alyssa and Me.

Sunset pictures.

What is it with kids and sand? They just love it! They especially enjoy eating it! We were trying to get a family picture and Alyssa wanted to play with the sand...hahaha. "Mami put me down".

Alyssa did a quick CHEESE for us!

On News Years day we all went on a bike ride to the Boardwalk and around Santa Cruz. It was very fun! The smallest kid helmet available did not fit Alyssa too well so after a while we realized that we weren't going fast and and we were no longer near any cars so we just took it off so she could enjoy the pretty views.

Bryan, Alyssa and his brother Andy.

I wish I had the picture of all of us on our bikes to share with you, but I think my in-laws have that picture on their camera :( oh well! It would be a cool picture though cause lets see there were 7 adults, 2 children, and 3 toddlers all in a train of bikes...cool!

Nathan and Crystal's Wedding

The Saturday before I came back we were able to attend my mom's dearest friends' daughter's wedding. Did you follow that? I love these people! They have always been so good to our family! The reception was beautiful and went by so fast that I didn't get a chance to get a picture of Mr and Mrs Casper, but luckily I stole this picture from Crystal (The beautiful bride).

The Bride's Family. Sandra, Crystal, Nathan, Karina and Frank. I can't believe I taught Karina in Primary!!! She's all grown up now and in College, yikes! Where has the time gone? Love that girl!

Us at the reception!

My parents at the reception.

Right when we were getting ready to leave Alyssa decides that she wants to dance...lol.

Sunday

The following Sunday we were blessed to be able to attend THREE baby blessings!! All in the same family! Our good friends that we've known forever, now who are practically family, all had babies weeks apart. Aida had her little girl Kaylani in November and her sister Leslie (who is the pregnant one in the pictures from the previous post at Frances' wedding) had her baby boy Jacob a week later and then about 2 weeks later their sister-in-law Jenae had her little boy Lathan!!! So they were able to bless all three on the same day! It was truly a great experience!

After the blessings we went and hung out at my parents' house.

My brother Juan and me.

And a final picture of Bryan and Me...hahaha!

Then I came back to our own home and continued life as usual!! :) Bryan came back a few days after me for good this time!!! YAY!!!

I just remembered that I forgot something in this post, but I've run out of time so it'll have to wait till next Sunday!! Enjoy our great Christmas vacation post!!!