The Noriega Family

The old basement bathroom. Yes, it does look like something is growing in there. The new and improved basement bathroom. Upstairs bathroom. The sliding door on the shower was supper nasty. That had to go. The new bathroom. Funny story about this bathroom. We worked on the house for two weeks before we moved in. This was the only working bathroom at the time of the move in. It was still under construction, but it was the only place we could take showers. We had taken down the sliding door, but we forgot to get a shower curtain. We did not realize this until 5:30 in the morning when I was getting ready for work. That made for an interesting shower. Plus we had not used our hot water yet or realized that the knobs in the shower were backwards. It was freezing. Hector stopped on his way home from work that night to pick a curtain up. He does not pay as much attention to detail as do, so he ended up purchasing a stall shower curtain, not a full size one. So, yet again, shower time was interesting in the morning. Main entrance and stairs. If you look close, you can see that there is a smiley face drawn on the wall. What nice interior decorating the previous owners had. Stairwell leading to the basement. The new entry. The bookslelf looks a little cluttered now because of the Christmas decorations. I painted the handrail and walls. New carpet and wood floors helped a ton. We finally got a new door. When we bought the house we thought the front door looked pretty good. We were not planning on changing it. As we began doing improvements the door gradually began to look uglier and uglier. The door was not actually changing, but compared with the new home improvement, it no longer looked up to par. So we finally replaced it. The new stairwell to the basement. Paint can work wonders. So does scraping the popcorn ceiling. Seriously, popcorn is for eating, not for decorating. What were people thinking in the 70s We finished all the big projects on the house before Natalia was born, but I was looking at some old pictures yesterday and thought I would post some before and afters. This is mostly for my own self indulgent pleasure. I feel really good about myself when I see what Hector and myself's good hard manual labor has accomplished. I should feel good about myself. I was on my hands and knees painting floorboard the weekend before I gave birth to Natalia.

Natalia had her sixth month doctor checkup today. She did really great until the shots. Poor thing...the look of horror on her face kills me every time. She now weighs 17 pounds which puts her in the 70th percentile. She is 27 inches long which puts her in the 90th percentile for height! Surprisingly her head is only in the 40th percentile. I guess I only see the cheeks when I look at her head. They do not measure them though. If they did, I am sure she would be in the 100th percentile.

We have lived in our house for a little over a year now. We have felt guilty about not getting to know our neighbors. It is a working class community and everyone seems nice, but people go to work, come home in the evening, and pretty much keep to themselves. Even though we are in townhouses and live very close to one another, we never run into each other. Well, that changed on Sunday. Because every car in the parking lot was covered in two feet of snow, everyone was forced to head outside to shovel snow. It was Sunday, so everyone was home. Everyone wanted to work while the sun was out, which meant everyone was out at the same time. Hector shoveled snow for four hours (yes, he was a little sore...and he went to bed at 8:00 that evening). The snow had to be dug out around the cars before anyone could actually get to their car. The blessing was that everyone just pitched in and worked together. Literally the whole neighborhood was out working together. Once Natalia went down for a nap, I strapped on the baby monitor and went out with hot cocoa and muffins and passed them around to all the hardworking shovelers! It ended up being a really nice way to meet all of our neighbors.

Last Friday was a good day for the Noriegas. I had a teacher in-service in the morning and ended up winning the grand prize of a raffle. I got a free day off from work that I can cash in at any time. Very convenient being that I had just bought tickets to Washington for the Holiday that overlapped a day of work. That same day Hector's work had a Holiday party. They also had a raffle and Hector won a 32 inch flat screen HDTV. Not a bad day for us. And to top it off, Natalia got her first tooth. Well actually she got the tooth the day before...but close enough.

So much snow! It started snowing last night and did not stop until about eight this evening. Hector measured and we have two feet of snow. This is the most snow we have seen out here in the five years we haved lived in the DC area. Hector shoveled our walkway and now we have four foot heaps. We thought about taking Natalia out in the snow, but we figured we would lose her; she would be totally engulfed. She did have fun looking out the window as the snow fell. One of my favorite aspects of the snow is that everything looks so pure and clean. I love the look of fresh snow. All the dirt and grime is covered and the world appears encased in beauty. These pictures show how deep the snow is. This is a regular size garbage can in our back yard. Look at how much snow is on the lid. The next picture was taken in the morning before anyone plowed or shoveled. That is our car...can you find it?

So Natalia is still not a big fan of the real food (clearly she did not inherit her mother or father's eating habits). While she has made leaps and bounds in the eating department, she certainly displays a look of complete discontent when attempting to feed her. Or, she just spits the food right back out. I frequently think I have succeeded in feeding the child because my jar of food is empty, but sadly, most of the food is on her belly, not in it.

But really; why eat food when you can suck on a toe! She is so funny...her feet have become her new favorite toy. She discovered she could play with her feet a couple months ago, but it has not been until recently that she truly developed a love for them. She was so funny today when I was feeding her pears for dinner. She kept leaning over in her chair to grab her big toe and shove it in her month and then proceed to suck away.

She really is starting to eat, but she is so easily distracted by all her extremities that somehow all end up in her mouth. What a cute kid!

I played in my first volleyball tournament since giving birth. I was a little rusty at the beginning of the day, but but by the afternoon I was back into my old swing of the ball(no pun intended). It felt great to play competitively again, but boy was I sore the next day. I am still feeling it today.

On Tuesday, we celebrated Natalia's half birthday. She is six months old! I find that hard to believe. In the mornings when I get her up, it appears that she has sprouted over night. I cannot believe how fast the time has gone by and how big she is getting. She does not have her sixth month appointment for a couple of weeks so I do not know exactly how much she weighs, but she has really started to chunk out. I just put here three month cloths away right before thanksgiving, but now she is filling out the nine month cloths. She wore a dress last week that only three weeks earlier had seamed over sized, but now look me twenty minutes to get off of her because it was a little tight on her arms. I think I want time to slow down. Natalia can now sit up on her own. She loves to stand up. As long as she has something to hold on to, she does not need any help with that either. She is really strong. She is still not much of a smiler. She does smile back at us now, but most of the time she sports her serious look. Even with the serious face, she is happy most of the time. It is so much fun to watch her grow and change. Her personality is busting through the seams.

Hector, Natalia and I drove up to Buffalo, NY for the Thanksgiving Holiday. This will be my sister's last Thanksgiving in Buffalo, so we decided we would celebrate with her and her family. Because both Hector and I work, we had to wait to leave until Wednesday afternoon. What should have been an eight hour drive took us twelve. Even though we were in the car for what felt like forever, it was definitely worth it to spend time with family. It was fun to see our nephews and new niece. It is hard to believe that Rachel has three kids. Rachel and Tyler are fantastic parents. Hector and I always get good ideas from them that we can incorporate into our own parenting style. We decided to take some family pictures on Sunday before we left for the long drive back home. The way back home only took us ten and half hours...again, normally it would only take eight. At one point in the drive home we covered fifty miles in three hours, but when we stopped at a random gas station just outside Pennsylvania, I ran into an old friend I had not see in a long time. What are the odds. Thanksgiving was great. We went to the Buffalo Turkey Trot in the morning and watched Tyler and Garret run a five mile race. We were all very proud of little garret, only four years old, for finishing the race. They were very cute in the supper hero costumes! Rachel had done most of the cooking the day before we got there, so I really did not help with much this year. I did make orange roles(not my best batch). We set them on the stove to raise while the Turkey was cooking and sure enough the heat from the oven cooked the roles from the bottom up. Hector was actually able to eat one of the roles before we put them in the oven to cook. Rachel and I went shopping on Black Friday. We were not planning on going until five in the morning, but both our girls woke up early, so we went at four. It was really fun. We both justified spending some money on good deals and came home pretty happy. On Saturday we took the boys and girls to Chuck E Cheese. I have not spent much time here in the past, but not only was it fun to watch the boys, it is not half bad for the adults. Let me tell you: Deal or No Deal at Chuck E Cheese...pretty fun! Hector and I bought a bunch of candy to make Gingerbread houses later that evening. I thoroughly enjoyed watching Garret and Spencer display their creative abilities. Garret made the best looking Holiday Helicopter I have ever seen and Spencer, with the help of mom, made a nice looking train. We had soooo much candy left over, but it did not take Hector long to solve that problem. Our trip was great. It was fun to finally meet Adele...the newest addition to the Beck family. We love spending time with Garret and Spencer. I love hanging with Rachel and Tyler. We are really going to miss having them near by.

Natalia gets to eat real food now. She was really funny the first time we tried to feed her. For the last couple of weeks she stares in complete wonder whenever Hector or I eat in front of her. She finds the whole process utterly fascinating. She drops whatever she is doing and focuses one hundred percent of her attention on us. I thought she would tackle eating with the same enthusiasm...boy was I wrong. The next pictures speak a thousand words.

Clearly, not yet a fan of the cereal.

Natalia can hold her little lips together rather tight. It is hard to even get anything in. Most of the cereal ended up on her face. Tonight we fed her cereal again. This time we took off all her cloths. She was covered in cereal long before we had finished. Even when I would get it in her mouth, she would spit it out. Hector and I got a good laugh at the faces she would make each time we actually got some in her mouth. She looked confused, mixed with wonder and a little hostility. I can sense her thinking, "mom, why are you doing this to me?"

Natalia is now five months old. She had a doctor's appointment this past Monday. She is over 25 inches long. That puts her in the 90th percentile. She weighs almost 15 pounds. She is in the 75th percentile for weight. She still looks long an lean, with the exception of the cheeks. They are as big as ever and oh so cute. She is perfectly healthy and a very happy baby. I cannot believe how fast she is growing. It is hard to imagine that some day she will no longer be a baby. I thought I would dislike the baby stage, but I absolutely love it. Natalia is so perfect and innocent. I love spending time playing with her. I am not sure I want her to grow up.

Natalia was a flower for Halloween. She is so cute no matter what she does or what she is wearing. We went trick-or-treating with some friends of ours. Natalia did not do any actually trick-or-treating, but it was fun to watch the other little kids proudly obtain candy. We were given some Halloween pajamas in a bag of hand-me-downs. They fit perfectly, so Natalia got to finish the night in her cute pajamas. Hector and I did not dress up this year. Next year I plan on calling my sister in law, Heather, for ideas. She is the Halloween Queen. She had three different costums this year and each was fantastic.

I meant to write about this awhile ago, but I have been slacking when it comes to blogging. On the 22nd of October, my volleyball program hosted a Dig Pink Event. We raised over $4,000.00 for Breast Cancer research! All three of my teams got involved. They made posters, we had a pink bake sale, great raffle tickets during the games, online donations, event t-shirt sales, etc. The girls really go into it. We got everyone to wear pink to the game. Even Natalia got in on the fun. It was easy to find something pink for her to wear. My favorite part of her outfit was the pink piggy shoes. So cute! My volleyball girls all had matching pink warm up shirts, shoe laces and socks. Next year we want to get pink uniforms. We of course kicked some butt that night, which only made the night that much more fun. It was really great participating in a good cause. I am amazed at how many of my girls are dealing with parents who are currently suffering from Cancer. It was nice for us all to come together to support one another. I am greatful for the supportive parents in my program. We would not be able to put great events like this together without them. I truely love coaching volleyball and I am glad that I am able to use the sport of volleyball to reach into the lives of others in so many ways that really have nothing to do with volleyball.

Saturday was a busy day. Hector worked on the house in the morning (We are putting new trim around the windows in the master bedroom) while I ran errands. Then we met up with our friendings Jason and Vanesa and their baby boy, Nicolas. We went to a Halloween event at the Air and Space museum. There were tons of kids proudly wearing their costumes. It was poring down rain which only added to the fun. Later that evening we went to barbeque at another friends house. Our friends have several fish tanks and Natalia discovered that the little fishies are fascinating.

So we finally got a rug for our living room. We were able to get all of the big projects in our house done before Natalia was born. Now are just working on the finishing touches. It is nice have a rug because we can now let Natalia play in the floor in the living room. She loves hanging out on her tummy. She can even role from her back to her tummy as of this week.

Hector and Natalia have become quite the volleyball fans. They attend most of the games and enthusiastically watch from the bleachers. Hector has been going to the high school games since we have been married. This is my fifth season at West Springfield HS. The girls all know him and notice when he is not there. This is of course Natalia's first volleyball season, but she is already a fan. Granted, she does not fully comprehend that she is at a volleyball game, but there are so many lights and a constant flow of movement that she need not ask for more. I love coaching volleyball and I am so pleased that I have a husband and now a daughter who enjoy coming to my games. My team is doing very well. We are 11-3 at this point in the season. Hopefully we will continue to do well. I really love coaching my girls. I like seeing their confidence increase and I enjoy pushing them to accomplish tasks they did not realize they were capable of. I love sharing something I am passionate about with these amazing girls.

Natalia was a giggling machine tonight. We just finished reading in the scriptures about the good spirit enticing us to do good. Every time I would say the good spirit, Natalia would start giggling. It was so cute. We got a good ten minutes of giggling out of her. Both Hector and I were thoroughly entertained. She was cute before, but now she has taken it to a whole new level.

Natalia is now four months old. It is hard to believe that she is that old already. Time really flies by. Before Natalia was in our lives, I was terrified of having a little baby around. Now I absolutely love spending time with my little girl. I am much less scared for a second baby (no I am not pregnant).