Our Christmas...2008

I am finally getting around to posting some Christmas pictures. I have actually been trying for a few days, but haven't had much success. Alberto gave me Photoshop Elements for my birthday so I have been trying to figure that out and post a cute collage of photos. I have to say, Photoshop is harder than I thought and I guess my collages are too big cause I wait and wait and wait and they never upload.. I will get it eventually. I am super excited to figure it out, plus Alberto and I decided to break down and spend the money on a new camera and it just came today. My parents contributed to the camera fund for our Christmas gift and we had some gift cards Alberto has saved up from work, so we actually didn't have to fork out too much. It is a Cannon SLR--it is so cool!





We had a great Christmas this year! We started by traveling up to SLC the weekend before to see Alberto's family and attend his step-grandma's yearly Christmas party. It was really great to see everyone and we are always impressed at the way this extended family has taken us in.
On Christmas Eve day, Alberto and I finally took Allie and AJ to see Santa Claus. Lucky for us, he hadn't left for the North Pole yet :). We dressed the babies all up in their Christmas outfits, they looked so cute! After finishing up some last minute shopping and making some quick visits to friends, we headed to my parent's house. Alberto had to work over night (major bummer) so the kids and I had a sleep over at my parent's. Uncle Wes came down from SLC to spend Christmas with us. Allie and AJ had lots of fun playing with him and showing off all their new words and skills.
On Christmas day, we all slept in and then had a late breakfast in hopes that Alberto would be able to get some sleep before all the excitement of presents. In spite of our best efforts to let him sleep, he only got about 2 and 1/2 hours, but if you know Alberto, you know that he was happy and pleasant all day! (We are so lucky to have such a great daddy) I swear every year we say Christmas is going to be small, but every year half the living room is filled with gifts! This year the majority of those gifts were for Allie and AJ. They got spoiled rotten! It has been years since we have had little ones around at Christmas so I guess we all just had a little too much fun!
After the gifts were opened, we spent the rest of the day relaxing and playing with the kids and the best part of all was that we got to talk to my little brother, Brad, on his mission! He sounded really good and only has about 5 months to go on his mission!
It was a great Christmas and we are happy to have great family and friends to share and create memories with.

My Beautiful Family

We got our family pictures done earlier this week and I have to tell you: My kids are GORGEOUS! I am a smidgen disappointed that we didn't get a really great family picture, but I am fully statisfied with the shots we got of Allie and AJ individually. I am so grateful for my babies and for Alberto! I have the best family a girl could ask for!

My Beautiful Family

More Birthday Pictures

Taking sister for a ride

Opening Presents

Playing Peek-a-boo with Stella

Time flies when you're having FUN!!

Happy Birthday Allie and AJ! On Saturday our babies turned one! It is sort of a bitter-sweet milestone! On one hand it is exciting to celebrate their birthday, but on the other hand it feels like my babies are not babies anymore. All the same, we had so much fun celebrating their birthday. Our family and friends all came out and of course, they were spoiled with a ton of gifts and they had their first peices of cake. Later, we had our families over for a big bbq!
This has been the most fun, exhausting and meaningful year of my life. I still can't believe how parenthood changes you. The other day I was driving down the road and I saw a kid on his way home from school biff it on his bike and he was crying. I felt so bad for him that I teared up myself. I was thinking later, I wouldn't have reacted that way before, but as a mom it kills me to think of my kids feeling sad or scared or hurt of embarassed. It is amazing how much I love these babies.
We are so blessed to have Allie and AJ and we are so happy that they came to us together! (I will post more pictures soon!)
Eating Cake


Opening Gifts


The Cakes

Baby Tag!! 5 things you may not know about Allie and AJ

I think it is such a fun idea to tag the babies!
1. Allie and Aj LOVE our cat Shanaynay! In the morning when we get them out of bed they both look around for "kitty-kitty". Lately Aj says, "Hi kitty-kitty!" Allie likes to lay on top of the kitty and give her loves.
2. Allie and Aj love eachother more than anything! They love to chase eachother around and laugh, we call it baby tag. They wrestle eachother and give kisses. Sometimes when they are in their strollers or high chairs they will reach across and hold eachothers hand. They are good buddies!
3. Allie is a daddy's girl and Aj is a mama's boy. Of course, they both love both of us, but Allie follows her daddy around everywhere and Aj only wants me when he is sad or sick.
4. Allie loves to make funny faces. Its like she already knows that she is funny! She is the biggest copy cat and can do so many tricks! AJ loves to laugh and play rough with daddy. It is so easy to get him laughing hard by tickling him and he is always ready to chase daddy around the house.
5. Allie and Aj love the vacumm, dishwasher, dryer and fridge. When ever I open the fridge, dryer or dishwasher they rush over and start "helping me". Sometimes when they are fussy I will just open the fridge and let them pull stuff out just for a break. The vacumm is the most fun. When ever I get it out they both start to scream and crawl/walk around like maniacs. They race the vacumm all around the house and try to get as close as they can, then scream and crawl away. It is so funny to watch!

Allie's funny face

Aj and daddy "roughing the house" as Alberto would say.

Aj and Allie loving Shanaynay

Babies helping me do laundry

**We tag Isaac, Jaxon, Hali, Jezmin & Taree, Kailani, Josh

One "Poopy" Halloween Weekend!

I am usually not a big fan of Halloween. I don't like scary stuff, I don't like to dress up or draw attention to myself, but I have been anxiously awaiting our first Halloween with kids. I couldn't wait to dress them in their adorable costumes and show them off and parade them around for all to see, which we did and it was fun. They really liked seeing eachother in their costumes. The problem with Halloween was that along with it came the stomach flu, or some crazy stomach mess. Ever since Thursday night when Allie had not joking the biggest blow-out you can ever imagine in the history of the world, the amount of poop (diarreha) our poor babies have had is remarkable. Sorry for the graphic details of this blog, but this is our truth :).
HOWEVER, Halloween was fun, luckily on Friday the illness hadn't really set in and we didn't know that is what was coming so we were able to go enjoy the babies in their cute costumes. Here are some pictures of Halloween night. AJ was a skunk and Allie was a Kitty.

AJ's first haircut

I finally broke down and got AJ's haircut. I have been putting it off for two reasons: Most days I actually think his crazy hair is really cute and I have been afraid it will make him look like a "big boy" instead of my "baby boy". Now that it is done, I am so glad we did it cause he looks SUPER cute! He was surprisingly cooperative and our friend Kristin did a great job! Thanks Kristen, we love you!! (sorry the pictures are in the wrong order, the last one is pre-haircut)

A fun Week!!

We have had lots of fun things happen around our house this week. To start with, at the beginning of the week Allie officially started walking. Both babies have been taking a few steps here and there, but she finally took off and spends lots of time practicing. AJ is starting to walk now too, as of this weekend, but is still hesitant about it. I love to watch him because he is so careful. Allie tries to go so fast and falls all the time, but AJ thinks about each step! As if walking wasn't enough, AJ also decided he would figure out how to climb up onto the rocking chair. He has been climbing for a while now, but nothing too dangerous, so I haven't really worried, but the rocking chair is a scary one! In addition to all this, Allie has learned to point and sometimes we can get her to point at us if we say "whose mama?" or "whose dada?" She will even point at herself when we say "whose Allie?" She loves to point at the kitty and in fact, both babies can say "kitty kitty". It is really cute because they each say it differently, but they say it all the time. Finally, this Friday was Alberto's 27th birthday. He took the day off work and we spent the day as a family and went on a "shopping spree". It was perhaps the lamest one ever, since all we bought was dish soap cause we had to. Later we went to Red Lobster for dinner and my family baby sat for us while we went to a movie. On saturday we had cake and ice cream. It was a fun week! Here are some fun pics!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Tagged

I just got tagged twice and they are pretty similar so I will do them together.
5 Things I was doing 10 years ago are:
1. Going to High School
2. Working at Sycamore Lane
3. Getting my first car
4. Hanging out with the same best friends I still hang out with
5. Not dating :)

5 things on my to do list for today are:
1. Feed my babies
2. Change babies diapers
3. Make calls for work
4. Laundry
5. Manage a variety of baby crisises

5 snacks I enjoy:
1. Chocolate Milk
2. Chocolate ice cream
3. Hot chocolate
4. Chocolate chip cookies
5. Chocolate brownies

5 things I would do if I were a Millionaire:
1. Pay off our house
2. Build our dream house
3. Remodel my both our parent's houses
4. Take a trip
5. Save the rest (if there is any left)

5 places I have lived are:
1. St. George, Ut.
2. Santa Clara, Ut.
3. Logan, Ut.
4. Hurricane, Ut.
5. Thats it

5 jobs I have had are:
1. Dairy Queen
2. Sycamore Lane
3. Wal-Mart cashier
4. Ross Dress for Less
5. Special Education Teacher

4 things I'm passionate about:
1. being a mom
2. my family and hubby
3. the church
4. sleeping
4 words/phrases I use often:
1. "No, No, No"
2. "Yes, Yes, Yes"
3. "Clap, Clap, Clap"
4. "Patty Cake, Patty Cake..."
4 things I want to do before I die:
1. meet all my grandkids
2. build our dream house
3. have time to enjoy hobbies
4. have a lot of land and rescue dogs
4 things I currently want/need:
1. a new mattress
2. a nap
3. shoes that don't hurt my feet
4. pants that hold in my belly and don't fall down
4 places I want to see/visit:
1. East Coast
2. Italy
3. Hawaii
4. Florida
4 favorite restaurants:
1. Mimi's Cafe
2. Jimmy Johns
3. PF Chang
4. Dairy Queen (ice cream)
4 TV shows I can't live without:
1. The Office
2. ER
3. American Idol
4. Saturday Night Live
4 things you might not know about me:
1. I am scared of international travel
2. I hate to unload the dishwasher
3. I miss going country dancing
4. I love baking
5 people I tag:
1. Nicole
2. Ashlee
3. Emily
4. Kristin
5. Shelly Cottam

Deer Hunt

Although we don't hunt, my dad and brothers do, so every year at this time we all head to the mountains and enjoy camping and hanging out together. This year was especially fun trying to keep the babies from eating rocks, dirt, sticks and what ever else one may find in the woods. The weather was awesome and we had a great time. Allie and AJ loved getting so much attention and trying all sorts of yummy food. Here are some pictures of the twins with Daddy, Uncle Wes and Gramma and Grampa Whitehead.

Delightful Dots!

The other day I was checking out my friend's blogs and I noticed one of my friends had a new background that was so cute so I went and got one too! The site is www.delightfuldots.blogspot.com! You should check it out they are lots of fun and super easy to download! If you click on my blog where it says DOTS it will take you right to her blog!

What a month!

I keep wanting to do blog stuff, but we have been so busy here at the Souza house! Alberto is going non-stop between 2 jobs and school and I am obviously busy chasing after Allie and AJ, but have also started working as an online teacher. I thought it would be a breeze to work from home, but it has been much harder than I anticipated. Allie and AJ are busy as ever discovering new skills, crawling, babbling, learning about what is edible and what is not, playing copy cat and learning how to stand up without holding on! Seems like walking is just around the corner! They are changing so much right now! Last week I had to leave them all day for FOUR days to train for my job. I thought I'd die, but as you can tell, I am still here. I swear each day when I got home they looked taller and their hair was longer and AJ's teeth were even more crazy (He has been working on getting 4 top teeth all at once, poor baby!)Below are some recent pictures of the babies! The first two is our new favorite place to play: the shoe basket. My kids are obsessed with shoes! The rest are from the rodeo last Friday. It was the babies first time staying out way past bed time and they did great! We had so much fun with our friends and enjoying an evening away from work and school!