GT in the Chic-Fil-A Peach Bowl

Well, it started out a happy night! Leanne and Mike joined us for Georgia Tech's bowl game - the Chic-Fil-A Peach Bowl at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. They were on their way back from visiting Leanne's family in south Georgia. It was really great to see them and get to chat with them - that's about the extent of the good things from that night!!

Here is a nice picture of the GT band BEFORE the game.

Georiga Tech got ABUSED by LSU!!!! I think we had 1 good play the entire game!!!! It was horrible. Needless to say, Mike, Leanne, and I continued to have a good time chatting. Nathan was NOT so happy!

Here is a nice picture of Doug too! He was sitting with some of Nathan's fraternity brothers (we had to have special seating to accomodate Nathan's knee), but came over to commiserate at half-time.

The game got so bad in the 3rd quarter for Georgia Tech (mind you it was practically a home game for us, so 3/4 of the stadium were GT fans) that the Tech fans started making paper airplanes and trying to get them to land on the field. Here is the first one that landed on the 28 yard line.

Here is the scoreboard at the beginning of the 4th quarter when we left the game! Nathan had been begging us to leave since the 2nd quarter!!!

We made it home in time to watch the NYC apple drop on TV, toast with grape juice and Medalla and head off to bed! At least it was a great time to catch up with Leanne and Mike. They saved the day!!!!!!!

Georgia Aquarium with Stacy & Kelsey

The Georgia Aquarium is offering a Mommy and Me pass where you and your child can get in for $20 including parking! That's a DEAL - it's normally $27 per person PLUS another $10 for parking. So Stacy and I took advantage! Kelsey and Sofia had a good time beating on the glass walls and stealing each other's food! It was super crowded, but we had a really good time just getting to hang out with one another.


Here is a cute video of the girls beating on the glass and looking at the fish in the HUGE shark tank.

Here is Kelsey trying to grab some food from Sofia :o)


And here she is just smiling and looking cute.

Here is Sofia checking out the jelly fish tank.

And here she is smooching Nemo (I think it's the adopted symbol of the Georgia Aquarium). We did NOT buy this stuffed animal - just take a picture and run!!

It was a really great day. We were there for about 4.5 hours!! The girls will like it even more when they get a little older - CAN'T WAIT TO GO AGAIN WITH STACY AND KELSEY!!!

It's a Neighborhood Thing

Our neighbors across the street had an after-Christmas Party. We went for a little while after we got home from John's party. There we saw our other neighbor that is on crutches! And we think there is a 3rd on our street on crutches too!!! It's in the water. I'm staying inside :oP

John's 30th Birthday!

Nathan's cousin John turned 30!!! That's so young anymore :o) We had a great time hanging out with all of the cousins again - we've gotten to do that a lot this holiday and it's been really nice!!! His fiance put together the surprise party for him.

Here are John and his mom (Aunt Karen). She's such a loving momma!!!

Here are Sofia and Daddy enjoying the evening.

And here is Sofia running of with John's 30th balloon. She loves "bombas."

FELIZ NAVIDAD / MERRY CHRISTMAS

Here we are coming down the stairs to see what Santa Claus left under the tree!!

Santa Claus brought Sofia the Radio Flyer Ulimate Family Wagon. She played in it all morning. Unfortunately Santa's workshop must have gotten really busy at the last minute because they forgot to include the real axle! So, for now she has to settle for sitting in it stationary. We have ordered the replacement axle and hopefully it will arrive ASAP!!! Check out the video of her playing in the wagon.

Santa Doug brought Sofia a Radio Flyer tricycle. It's so cool! It's retro-styled and it has this big handle in the back so that Mami and Daddy can push it without breaking their backs!! She worked on figuring that out for a while too.

She loves ELMO!! Santa brought her some new Sesame Street bibs (ones that she can't take off herself since she hates to wear them), and her favorite one was the ELMO bib. You can tell in the picture that she is mouthing "Eh-ma."

Here she is opening a gift from Santa Abuelo y Abuela.

She really got into taking the paper off of the everyone's presents. She had to get every piece of paper off of the box before you could open the box!! Here is a video of her helping Daddy open one of his presents.

Santa Abuelo and Abuela brought me some much-needed, really nice maternity clothes! YAY! Here is a nice sweater!

Santa Linda brought Nathan and I a really AMAZING pencil portrait of Sofia. She took the picture that I took of Sofia at a playgroup at Deirdre's house and had the artist turn it into this piece of work!! IT'S FABULOUS! WE LOVE IT and can't wait to hang it downstairs!!!!!!!

Here is Santa Linda on Christmas morning wearing her Grinch PJ's :o) She and Doug spent the night at our house so that they could be there Christmas morning to watch Sofia open presents.

Santa Linda brought Sofia this Inch-Worm scooter!! She's a little too light to push it down with her own weight to make it move, but she'll definitely grow into it and she loved it (except for when she feel off of it :o) SEE VIDEO!!). It the meantime, it's a good workout for Mami pushing down over and over again to make it move.

Santa Abuelita brought Sofia a new puertorican babydoll with a babydoll stroller. Sofia didn't quite understand that the stroller was for the doll and kept wanting to ride in it herself. She's going to break that thing!!!

Here are Doug and Nathan enjoying the wonderful breakfast that Linda prepared. We had eggs and country ham and biscuits and cheese grits and I made Ana's recipe for french toast! We ate so much that we didn't eat again until 7 pm that night.

We hope you all had as WONDERFUL of a Christmas as we did!!!!

Christmas Eve Dinner

On Christmas Eve I cooked dinner for our family, Nathan's mom, Doug, and Nathan's Uncle Andy, and cousins Carolyn and Ellen. It was so awesome to have everyone over. I cooked pernil (pork), arroz con cebolla (onion rice), a salad, garlic bread, and a flan for dessert. Everything turned out really well (or so I think - Linda isn't pictured above because she wasn't feeling well after dinner!!)!!!

Here are Daddy and Uncle Andy trying to figure out how to get Sofia's gift from Carolyn out of the box. Looks like they are performing major surgery.

Here is Sofia with Carolyn's gift finally in her hands!! It's a cool V-tech toy that helps to learn shapes and colors. It was a late night for her as you can tell by the look on her face and her wild hair.

And here she is with Ellen's gift. It was a sweet stuffed elephant with a blanket embroidered with her name on it!

Uncle Andy gifted Sofia a US Savings Bond!! Thanks for the thoughtful gifts!!!!!!!

Christmas Party with my Girl's Weekend Crew

Tonight we went over to Deirdre's house to share the Christmas fun with each other and our families. Above is a picture of all of our kids: Deirdre's 3, Jen's 4, Stephanie's 2 (in town from Texas for the holiday), Stacy's 1, and my 1!!!! Needless to say it was CRAZY at her house that evening. It's hard to have meaningful conversations with that much craziness, but somehow we managed a few chats.

Here is a picture of the GW Crew: from left, Stephanie (who just had her 2nd baby 7 weeks ago - doesn't she look great!!), me (23 weeks pregnant), Jen, Deirdre, Melanie, and Stacy. The only one in the picture who doesn't look tired is Melanie - who doesn't have any kids yet :o) WHEW!!! Good times!!!!!!!

The husbands were there too, but sadly we didn't get a picture of them.