Being Brave.

Reyna is in a program called TOTS.

Teams of Tomorrow.

They practice once a week at school and work on ball handling skills with a educational curriculum.

Every year they get to perform.

We chose the Baylor Basketball halftime show.

She was much more hesitant than last year but she practiced being brave.

She even made it on the jumbotron!

 

She is very good at following directions!



Pictures with Santa.

This year she "got" Santa.
She believed in his story.
She was excited for the chance to see him but chickened out a few times that we tried to visit him.
 I didn't want to force her or get any of those crying pictures.
But she genuinely seemed to WANT to.
So I knew there was onnneee more opportunity to see him (for free) and offered one more time.
After four failed attempts, she walked right up to him and though she had her nervous hands, she talked and hugged him and I got these sweet pictures!

Christmas 2017

We celebrated Christmas Eve and my parents house.
This year, we decided to let Reyna "buy" gifts for them.
Eventually, I hope to have her earn some money to do this but at this point picking out gifts for others was a big step. I took her to the dollar store and directed her to "pick something for Popo", "Pick something for Nana", etc.
She was sooo thoughtful in her choices.
She picked a bouncy ball and a football for Popo -"because he loooves to play and watch Baylor"
She picked a hairbrush for Nana - "because she has pretty hair and likes to brush my hair"
She picked a color book and crayons for Tia - "because she is the best colorer and always colors with me"

Now, I realize they all had herself at the center of the thought but I think it speaks to their relationship and bonds forming. And she was so excited to see them open the gifts she pick out.

We went home and had Christmas Eve candlelight service at church.

 

 

Baked cookies for Santa.

The next morning, she was READY to see what santa brought her!

This is when we also exchange gifts from eachother (mama, papa, and reyna)

On her Santa wishlist was Anna and Elsa "Burbees".
I also want to remember that she was a very gracious gift receiver.
She really wanted Elsa but opened the Anna one first. When she saw that it was Elsa, she made a sweet excuse for Santa - "he probably didn't have enough room for Elsa but this is such a pretty Anna Doll!"

But Elsa was in fact there ;)

Then its was time to play!

Look how sweet her Papa is helping her into her dress.

I gave her a kite and she was pretty adamant that we try. We did. We failed.

After a full day of playing with new toys, we had our 2nd annual Christmas dinner at the Hippodrome.
This year we added a stop at "The Christmas House". The owner lights up like this every year and this year was on ABCs "The Great Christmas Light Fight". And She WON!
It was a hit and it will now be a part of our Christmas tradition.

 

It as a great Christmas. Simple and chill and our last as a family of three!

Christmas Card 2017.

I love Christmas Cards!
Giving and receiving them!
This year, I did them REALLY early and we used our phone camera to take them in our front porch.
Now, there was some editing but I used shutterfly and they turned out great!

Baby made their first appearance!

Teacher Christmas Gifts

I ran across these flannel tote bags in the dollar section at Target and snagged them up because the quality was pretty good!

I decided to add the initials of all Reyna's teachers with iron-on-vinyl and I LOVE the way they turned out!

(I used the Silhouette cutting machine to make the letters)

The teachers seemed to really like them and I bought an extra for myself!

DIY Papel Picado

I grew up calling them Fiesta Flags but the official name is Papel Picado flags.
Its an art form or sorts that I grew up seeing in many celebrations.
I wanted an art piece to match our Fiesta theme for Christmas.
I used a poster board, drew on it with chalk and then hand cut the design with an Exacto knife.
It was one of the more tedious projects I've done but it turned out great!

Next year, I will add a frame or backing to make it look better!

MLK - Making it Meaningful for a 3 year old.

For MLK day, we wanted to celebrate it in a way that OUR 3 year old would understand.

She is familiar with MLK mostly because of a book we read that's on regular rotation throughout the year but they also talked about it at school some.

So we celebrated through service.

 

We visited a park that we frequent and did a trash clean up. Just us. And it was beautiful.

She got it!

and she enjoyed it!

 

We want her to know that we are all responsible for our community.

 

 

 

"Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

 

-MLK

37 weeks.

We are at the stretch!

37 weeks pregnant and feeling every once of it!

I went to the dr. yesterday and I'm already 5cm dialated so it could be any day now!

We are hoping another week though. Baby is about 6.5 pounds so we'd like a little more growth but, ready just in case!

 

The nursery is ready. Bag is packed.

Names picked out....

December little things.

The whole month of December flew by!
She was into Christmas this year! I am a celebrator. Neil is not. So I was happy to have a partner through the season! I did as much as I thought she could.

We spent Thanksgiving in Iowa but had the tree up ready to decorate when we got home.
Turns out this was the best think about Christmas this year. We didn't have a star so I tool her to pick one out and she picked this one!

Also, Rex loved it.

She redecorated almost daily and was definitely a quantity vs. quality decorator. LOL

She worked with Papa to put the star on our 9 ft tree!

We also worked on handmade gifts together.

 

We also went to Christmas on 5th Street at Baylor and she loved the live nativity.

Waco hosts a Winter Wonderland and we made it out there to visit Santa. That was the first of many failed attempts but we still got to ride the ferris wheel!

 

They are in the pink cabin on the left.

We painted a village house together.

We decorated LOTS of cookies throughout the month.

 And found a love of snow globes.
We experimented and made three! She was very proud.

She worked on a Gingerbread house with Tia Mae.

 

And helped me stamp and address label our Christmas Cards.

We stayed busy and festive!