Too Much TP

So this afternoon just before I put Karina down for her nap, I had to use the restroom (I know, TMI) so I go in the bathroom, lift up the toilet lid to find a MASS of toilet paper in the toilet bowl, and none left on the roll. She had emptied the entire roll into the toilet. I immediately said, "Karina! What did you do? Why did you do that?" (all the while, I'm holding in my giggles) and she is looking at me like, "why would you be asking ME?" and she just got this confused look on her sweet little face and says, "I don know!" So she recieved a severe punishment of tickles :) We needed some excitement in our day, we have cabin fever after all...

Enough Already!!!

Ruler in the snow...okay so this picture was take at about 10 am this morning. We had about 4 more hours of snow, so I'm thinking this ruler would be completely buried if I checked right now...enough already!!!

It's That Time Again...

Oh the joys of living in the midwest...but thanks dad for the snow blower!!!

Finally!!!!!!!!

YAY!!!! Karina finally has a bed!!! We have been waiting on this bed since October I think! It was on backorder at Ikea and it finally came in.

Here's the dilemma: She did fine in it the first night, but then last night, she was up three times crying and saying, "I all done with my bed". Uuuugggghhh. Then this morning we asked her why she was crying and she said, "I want my green baby bed", meaning her pack n play which she has been sleeping in for the last two months...hmmmmm, what to do, what to do...we'll see what happens I guess...

It's Still Christmas!!

Since we had been gone over Christmas and New Year's, we had not yet celebrated Christmas with my family. So on Sunday, everyone came to our house! My brother, Todd and his wife Cheryll, and their kids Kristin, Tyler, Kalli and Cassie came from Indiana and my mom and dad and sister Donneta and her husband Joe and thier kids, Luke, Kolton and Alli came from Champaign. We had a great time even though our house is small, we still fit everyone in and we had a lot of fun! Got some great gifts and had some great food! Thanks for coming everybody!!


All the Kiddos...top row: Kristin, Alli, Tyler, Karina, Cassie

bottom row: Kalli & Yoyo, Luke & Daisy, Kolton

All the Kiddos...silly style!

Opening presents...

Karina with her new doll "Stacy"

Playing with her new dress up princess and in her silky jammies...thanks Grandma & Papa!

Princesses, Princesses Everywhere!!

Karina's best friend, Jalese turned 2 this past weekend and she had a Princess Birthday Party, her favorite! Here are some pics of the party!

Princess Karina!


Karina & Jalese



Karina, Gigi & Daniela


"Princess Jasmine" (Jen's Aunt Lola), "The Fairy Godmother" (Jen's Mom), "Belle" (Jen)

All the Princesses!!

We're Baaaaack!

Wow! It seem like forever since I posted!! We were gone over the holidays on a much needed trip to see Abel's family. We had not spent the Christmas or New Year's with them in about seven years so it was definitely time to go and especially since a lot of Abel's extended family had never met Karina. In fact, this was the first time that Abel's brother in law, Waldo was abel to meet Karina. And let me tell you, they became best friends the first day we were there!

Ok so this post might be kind of long and have a lot of pictures so if you want to skip the reading, be my guest!

Our trip began with us flying to San Diego, and to make a long story short, our flights to San Diego were delayed because of the weather here in Chicago (go figure), and with Sand Diego being 2 hours behind us, we ended up getting there at 1:30 am our time, and then actually getting to Waldo & Leoni's house (Abel's sister and brother in law) at 3 am....oh my goodness! Karina did great through it all and she is such a great traveller! The only time she cried was at about 12:30 am when we were still on the airplane and had another hour to go!! She was trying to find a comfy place to sleep and just couldn't handle it any more.

Here she is with Curious George by her side!

Poor Karina, she was so tired....

So we were in San Diego for 3 days and Karina loooooved her Tia Leoni and Tio Waldo. The first day we were there, Waldo got out his guitar and started playing songs for Karina and she got out Leoni's umbrella and they were singing and dancing...it was so cute, he played with her for about and hour, she didn't want him to stop. We really appreciated Waldo sitting and playing with her, it meant a lot to me that he took the time to do that and I know that's why he became Karina's best friend! The weather was GREAT!! Most of the time it was in the high 60's...beautiful!

Taking a walk to the lake to see the duckies

The view from the lake

After being in San Diego, we headed to Mexicali, Mexico where Abel's parents live. It's about an hour and a half drive from San Diego. It's a beautiful drive down, first you drive up into the mountains and then down into the desert area and then into Mexico. Again, the weather was GREAT!! It was usually in the 70's...so warm!!! While in Mexicali, we spent Christmas Eve, Christmas plus 2 more days there. On Christmas Eve, we went to Abel's cousin Nanette's house, and some of his uncles and cousins were there.

Karina, "Nona" (Leoni) and "Bayito" (Abuelito, Grandpa)

Presents from Nanette

Karina, Luciano and Sebastian

Then on Christmas day we opened presents at Abel's parent's house...

and that evening we went to Abel's cousin Osvaldo's house where more of his family was there. That night they had a pinata there for all the kids and after about 15 kids and adults had beat the thing, it still wasn't breaking open, so, Abel's turn comes around and he literally beat the thing till the candy started spilling out! It was crazy! Karina really did't want to have anything to do with it!

We had carne asada at Osvaldo's house that night...yummy!! And then they decided to bust out the karaoke machine....oh my.....those people are LOCOS!!! It was really funny though, they sang and sang, and sang and sang...finally we went home :)

The last day that we were in Mexicali, Abel's mom had organized a "belated baby shower" breakfast for Karina. This was Karina's first time there and there were so many people from his family and church that wanted to meet her and give her gifts. The breakfast was so nice and it was really so sweet of Abel's mom to do that...Muchas Gracias Oba!!!

Leoni, Me, Abel, Karina, Abel (Abel's dad) and Leonila (Abel's Mom)

Karina and her "Nona"

After the party we headed back to San Diego and a couple of days later we went to Anaheim to Disneyland!!! YAY!!! Karina was so excited to see all of the characters! We were there ALL...DAY...LONG! We got there about 10 am and did not leave till midnight when the park closed! It was so fun though. That night we stayed at a hotel and went back the next day.

What a bunch of nerds!!! Like father, like son...like daughter :)



Wanna-be pirates!!

The Princess Fantasy Faire...the princesses and the prince taught all the kids how to be a princess or a prince and how to dance...so cute!



Karina loved "flying" with Waldo...she always sang, You can fly, you can fly, you can fly!!

This brought us to our last two days with family...our last day there was on New Year's Eve. We went to Waldo's side of the family and had the best pozole (soup) I have ever had in my life (way to go Monica!!) We were at Waldo's sister Monica's house celebrating New Year's Eve. The girls all made a gingerbread house...So cute :) We actually ended up going home before we rang in the new year because our flight was leaving at 8:30 the next morning...ahhh! So we celebrated 2009 for about 5 minutes and then went to bed!

This is Monica's dog "Pinky-Bella". Karina thought she was so funny :)

Waldo, Karina and Lissi (Waldo's neice)

Making the Gingerbread house

The finished product...

So the day came when our lovely visit had to come to an end... :( Waldo took us to the airport and dropped us off...we said goodbye and then went to the check in area for our flight and we were met with a HUGE line of people...So we decided to go back to curbside check-in to save some time. The porter proceeded to tell us the line was so long because a flight got cancelled and they were trying to figure out what to do...yes...it was our flight...uuuggghhh! So we went back upstairs to the check in and the line had dwindled down quite a bit and we could hear bits and pieces of what the agents were saying and the mumblings of other passengers and yes indeed our flight was "delayed" till 5 pm that night with a connection in Minneapolis...yeah...right! By this time the agents were all in a bad mood trying to figure out how to "help" everyone and one of them just kind of threw some papers at some people and said...call this number...maybe they can help you. Okaaaayyy...so I told Abel, just call, there's no harm in trying...so he called and as soon as they pulled up our reservation, they said, oh yes Mr. Vargas, we have already booked you on another flight at 11:30 am. Whaaaat? Okay! So we go over to the American Airlines counter and indeed they had rebooked us on that airline, the flight was direct (which it wasn't on the other one), we didn't have to pay for our bags, (which normally it's $15 per bag, we had 3!) and we got great seats!!!!!! So all in all it, I'm glad it happened because #1 we were travelling on New Year's Day, #2 we originally had that connection in Minneapolis, which I knew we would have gotten stuck there, #3 American Airlines is just better! So by the time we got home it was about 7:00 pm. Abel's sister, Grethel picked us up and then we went to pick up our beloved furry friend, YOYO. Oh how we missed YOYO, but we know he was well cared for and a big THANK YOU to those of you who took care of him...you know who you are! Yoyo, however, was a little mad at us, I think. That night when we picked him up he just kind of walked around the house looking at us as if to say, are you guys staying or leaving me again??? But then the next morning he was fine and back to his old self.

So back home it is! It was sooooo nice to get away from the cold and be in a warm place and just be in a different environment. Sometimes you need that just to refocus and get out of your rut!

Well, I know this has been soooooo long, and if you made it this far reading...KUDOS!!!