Little Lady

What a little lady! Here is Isa in her christmas best walking through the hotel lobby carrying my purse and blowing kisses to everybody. Masyado!!!

A Very Merry Christmas

I love that Disney has special events like the "Not so scary Halloween" and "A Very Merry Christmas Party." For half the price you could visit the Magic Kingdom and really get into the spirit of the holiday season. We've had such a good experience with this that it may possibly be the new family tradition each year if we stay in Florida. It's too bad that Isa probably won't remember this but hopefully it will embed some subconscious excitement or feeling of warmth and joy whenever Christmas rolls around. After all it's not the presents we remember from our childhood but the warm fuzzy feelings. I think that is what we try to recreate for ourselves and our children each year. Erick and I both really love this time of year and hope our children will too. I must say though that it was a little harder to get into the spirit of things this year considering how long it took to get our house back to the way it was prewater damage. It took Erick really putting the pressure on the contractors to finally get everything done. We literally had less than a couple of weeks to put Christmas together and enjoy it. We dressed Isa in her Santa hat and off we went to see the Magic Kingdom in its holiday best. The most spectacular part of the evening was watching the fireworks in front of the castle.
I know it happens every night here but I think around Christmas time is when it looks the most magical. With his new camera, Erick was able to capture some cool images.

The parade and the rides were icing on the cake to a wonderful night.


I could tell from the smile on her face that Isa had some sweet dreams that night. It's too bad that Disney doesn't keep these prices all year long. I'm sure this is what Mr. Walt Disney would have wanted if he was still alive today: to enjoy his vision without ripping people off.

Happy Birthday Isa!!!

Well Isa's first birthday finally came. I can't believe it has been a year already since I gave birth to her. It's funny how the pregnancy seemed to drag on but now that she is here, I can't seem to get a minute to savor this moment in my life. She is growing up so fast. We were scrolling through photos of her the other day and remarked at how much she has changed in such a short amount of time.



I am so glad that I was able to witness it all. I think it was worth the sacrifice of being poor to be with her and watch her grow.
Erick and I decided to celebrate her first birthday with the people that meant the most to us: our family and friends in Charleston. I'm so glad that Isa is somewhat of a roadie. She pretty much slept the whole way through except for maybe 2-3 "I can't take it anymore" moments.
The drive seems to take us longer now but luckily the weather was nice and crisp that day. We arrived a couple of days early so that we would have a chance to unwind and not feel so rushed. It was nice to play tourist for a day especially in Charleston. My mom offered to watch Isa so that Erick and I could go out on a date. He treated me out to SNOB (Slightly North of Broad). I can't believe that was our first time to try that place. I had been avoiding it thinking that it would be stuffy in there but it wasn't at all. My duck was delicious. With my mom babysitting all night we made grand plans to watch a movie afterwards but I guess our age got the better of us. We must be getting old because we were ready to pass out after dinner. Movie plans aborted. Nevertheless just the two of us being out alone was refreshing! Since Ricky's birthday was a few days shy of Isa's, Erick thought it would be a good idea to surprise him. I think we got him (kind of). Erick (the party planner) wanted to have it all stress free by having Sticky Fingers cater it. Thanks to his sister Cher who offered up her place for the special occasion. Erick's Mom and sisters did a great job decorating. I can't believe my mother-in-law individually cut all the colored dots we decorated the table with just so it would match the cake. That is love for you! The cake Erick picked was fun and colorful. I painstakingly tried to redecorate the smash cake to match it. It ended up looking so hideous that even Isa didn't want to touch it. I was disappointed that she did not dig into it like I thought she would. Ricky tried to help things along by showing her how it is done but to no avail. It made for one hilarious moment though. I couldn't stop laughing. Not giving up I thought it would be a great idea to have her father show her how to smash the cake. I thought for sure Isa would imitate her daddy. Bad idea because Erick who thought he was being funny decided to smash it on me which sparked a small food fight and left Isa bawling at the table. I don't think she got into the actual birthday ritual of blowing candles, greeting guests, and posing for pictures.Luckily she has a very sympathetic uncle.
I can't thank my family and friends enough for their generosity and for being there to help us celebrate Isa's first year.

I hope everyone had a good time...I hope this was a sign of too much fun. Oh well, at least I think the kids did. That was what mattered most. They went to town with the little gifts we bought them.
I am so glad we did that.

I didn't realize that Erick had bought me a gift as well. To commemorate her first year he had made a shirt for me with the goofiest picture of Isa I had ever seen. I was caught totally by surprise and could not stop laughing and beaming. Too bad he didn't order more, they would've been great party favors for our family. My mom found out it was too small for me and happily snatched it away. I never even got to wear it. Hopefully Erick will get me another one (hint, hint...)
All in all I think everything went well. I only regret not really being able to talk to everybody and I did get frazzled a bit with both grandmothers yelling at me to try to keep my daughter's hair out of her face as she was blowing out the candles. Oh well. I'm so glad I have a husband that likes to plan parties (although it made me feel like a bad mommy.) I think what matters most is that I hope it made a good memory for Isa. Thanks everybody!

My First Children's Book

Isa Goes to th...

By Eleanor Pineda

Book Preview

Just finished my book before we went to Charleston. It was just something fun that I wanted to do to commemorate Isa's first trip to the aquarium. She had such a blast there that it was worth writing about. What's next? Maybe Isa's first Christmas or Isa's first birthday. So many "firsts"....so many possibilities.

Fall

I am definitely a fall person. I love the crisp cool weather it brings. The colors of orange, mustard, amber, and brown everywhere. We don't get the luxury of leaves changing here in Florida but we sure get some really nice weather this time of year. I think this is my favorite season in Florida with the exception that everything stays green. We took advantage of the climate change a couple of times already. Celebration could not have picked a better weekend to throw their annual Oktoberfest. It was about four weeks ago but I still recall how wonderful it was that night. The air was breezy and cool. They had a band of old German men playing folk songs. To top it off they even went to the trouble of dropping tons of paper leaves every hour on the main square just to make it feel like fall. I wondered who was going to clean it all up. We took Isa on a hayride around town with a crazy driver who thought he was a stuntman. He drove the cart standing on the horses backwards! It was fun in a nervous sort of way. Too bad it was too dark to really get a good picture of him. The pumpkin patch was spectacular this year. It looked like a scene from "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown."




It was nice to wander around in it and take pictures with Isa. It really got us into the spirit. Speaking of Halloween, we could not wait to get Isa into her cute Ladybug costume. We even did a trial run weeks before.
Because Erick had to work on Halloween, we opted to take Isa out to the "Not So Scary Halloween" at Disney the Sunday before.


I don't know why we never did this before. We had so much fun. I think toting Isa gave us an advantage as far as getting candy. Her bag was stuffed to the brim with candy at the first pass. We took her on a couple of rides. My favorite of course was the "It's a Small World" ride which I hope will be her fave in the future. She looked mesmerized by all the different dancing dolls. I didn't really hear a peep out of her. I dont know if she was enthralled or just tired.

I had never done the Monster's Inc Interactive Laugh Floor. I think it was new but we had a lot of fun in it. It was basically 3D and 2D animated characters that interacted their comedy with the audience. As they told their skit they would flash pictures of people in the audience that most closely resembled that Monster's Inc character. To our pleasant surprise, the person they flashed up on the screen for the character "Boo" was Isa. I heard the whole audience say "Ahhhh" in unison. After the show was over, I heard someone say "She really does look like Boo." I was beaming with pride. It also gave me an idea for next Halloween's costume. All in all I think this Halloween was more for our enjoyment.

I can't wait for the time when she starts enjoying it although it's too bad that trick or treating is not like it used to be when we were kids.