On to a new year!

Ricardo and I always enjoy the week between Christmas and New Years and try to make fun plans to fill the days. This year was no exception and we had a full agenda. My mom left early Monday morning and Ricardo took the day off to take a friend out to do a bunch of errands. He was gone most of the day, but came home in time for an early dinner with the kids and to let me go out for a Girl's Night Out, which was a blast. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Ricardo went in late to work so it was wonderful to have him at home until almost 9am both mornings. On Tuesday afternoon, we headed over to La Fonda for an early dinner and had a great time. We had not been there for some time so the kids were thrilled when we told them we were going. We put the kids to bed as soon as we got home, put out some desserts and Aaron and Helen came over at 8pm to play games with us. We had a really fun evening, playing games and catching up. Ricardo left work early on Wednesday and we headed over to dinner at Dave and Megan's. Our kids took off with their kids and we only saw them for dinner and dessert time, the rest of the time they were downstairs playing and watching Veggie Tales.

Ricardo took Thursday off, but had some errands to do so Ruth and the kids came over for a play date and lunch. In the evening we had some friends from El Salvador over for dinner. Ana Julia and I have gotten together with the kids, but it was the first time we had the complete families together and we had a blast. We had take out pupusas (typical Salvadoran food) and they were delicious!

We had a relaxed morning on Friday. Ricardo took the kids to Whole Foods to get goodies for our NYE dinner while I stayed home so Marco could nap. Our friends, Jake and Jen came over at 12:30 and we all piled into the van and drove down to Piedmont Park together. Jake and Jen used to live in Atlanta, but moved to Orlando in July so it was so wonderful to hang out with them, catch up and celebrate the news of their first baby on the way! We had lunch at Willy's, right at the entrance to the park and then spent a couple of hours, strolling around the park and playing on one of the playgrounds. It was hard to believe that it was the middle of the winter because it was in the high 50's - it was amazing!

Ricardo and I continued with our New Years tradition that we've been doing for 6 years now. We pull out poster boards and do a recap of the year, month by month. We write down big events by the month, truths the Lord has imprinted on our hearts and prayers of Thanksgiving for blessings. We also review last year's year-end prayer requests and see how the Lord has worked in our lives and reflect on the coming year and write down our prayer requests. We made a wonderful meal of seared tuna, fresh crab and shrimp cocktail and enjoyed some champagne while we worked on our project.

Saturday was an indoor lazy day and it was great!

Our backyard on Sunday, after the Christmas day snowfall

Out with the ladies: Vanessa, May, me, Megan, Janelle and Leigh Ann. We had a great time at Chili's, eating yummy food, drinking margaritas and talking the night away. Between all of us, there are 16 children!!

LOVE those chubs!!

This is how they watched Veggie Tales, all lined up on the couch.

These two boys are so precious together. They have very different temperaments and they are funny to watch. Callen was all over Marco, poking at him and pulling on him and Marco just sat there, letting Callen carry on with whatever he wanted to do.

Sweet boys!


Our kids had the best time with Rodrigo, Julian and Dani. They played like wild for hours and were wiped out by the end of the night.

A few minutes of quiet time when they played a game on the floor

We let the 5 of them eat in the kitchen while the adults ate in the dining room. Here are the kids enjoying key lime pie.



Enjoying our lunch at Piedmont Park on Friday

Alexia adores Jen and was thrilled to have her push her on the swings

I asked Alexia if she wanted a ride in the baby bjorn. She really did not feel much heavier than Marco. She's actually only weighs 7 pounds more than him (he weighs 20 and she weighs 27)!

Ready to reflect on the year!