The Noriega Family: 2011

Friday, December 30, 2011

Christmas Day

Christmas morning was so much fun. I knew that Natalia would be so excited so I couldn't wait to see it all. For some silly reason Natalia thought she should be able to eat marshmallows for breakfast. She asked really nice and was very set on the idea. I guess all the talking about how special Christmas morning was in her head meant that we should be eating marshmallows. So of course we let her have some.

After we feed our cute little munchkins we let them into the living room to check out the stockings that Santa brought them. Natalia saw the candy canes sticking out of her stocking and she was so excited. She kept saying, "cany canes, cany canes!" She was so excited. If that was all that Santa had brought her, she would have been perfectly happy. Then she saw the Barbie Doll in her stocking; "a Bobby, a bobby, I have a bobby!" I just love the cute things that she says. We had fun watching her open everything in the stocking. Sienna grabbed hold of Hector's phone and she was so interested in the phone that we could not do much to interest her in any of the presents. Natalia did not really have a problem helping Sienna open her presents though.

We had another train set hidden under a blanket and Natalia ripped that blanket off so quick.

My friend Jodee joined us again in the morning and it was so enjoyable having her there. Sienna came around to the idea of opening presents after she discovered what fun things were in the gifts.

There were many gifts that Natalia was excited about. The Piano was one of those. She started playing the piano before Hector could even get it out of the box. Then she sat it on her lap and started playing and singing. So cute. Jodee also got us a singing and dancing Teddy Bear. Natalia loved it and played it over and over. I am not sure if I am grateful for that gift or not. She is so cute dancing with the bear.

We also had a doctor kit that I picked up at a garage sale a couple of years ago. I thought it would be perfect for her this year and she loved it. She walked around and started giving everyone shots.

I got Hector some great camping/emergency preparedness stuff; a tent, a stove, etc. I also had to add in a portable toilet just because it was funny.

We were a little rushed in the morning because we had to get ready for church at 10:00. I like the idea of having Christmas on Sunday. It helps to keep a day dominated by gifts and Santa focused on the Savior and the many blessing in our lives because of the gospel. Church was packed and that made it take over 30 minutes to pass the sacrament. It was really hard to keep Natalia settled. Needless to say, she just couldn't last the entire hour and thirty minutes of church. Even though church was a bit of a struggle and it definitely wore me out, I was still glad that we went. After church we left our home in chaos and headed down to Hector's parents' house. I am so glad that we could have Christmas morning in our own home, but I am also glad that Hector's family is close enough that we could spend the rest of the day with them. It was so enjoyable to spend time with them, eat more food (way to much food really), open more presents, and play lots of games. Santa even showed up to bring more presents to the kids.

Natalia wanted nothing to do with Santa, but Sienna thought he was cool. Natalia just wanted to watch from a distance.

Sienna and Elijah were so cute playing together. They were sweet with each other and we had so much fun watching them crawl over each other, share toys, and giggle.

Natalia was so excited about her new dishes and fake food. I knew that she would like it. She made all of us lots of yummy food over the next couple of days. She would get rather upset if any of us would try to eat it before we blessed it.

I was excited for Lourdes to open the family calendar that I made this year. I had so much fun making it. I hope everyone enjoyed them, because I plan to do it each year now.

Natalia made homemade painted ornaments for everyone. She had so much fun painting them, picking who would get each one and wrapping them.

Hector's Cousins Maribel and Jaime got the girls these cute little headbands. Natalia is trying to start a new fashion trend. I think it will catch on.

We stayed at Hector's parents' through late Monday night. Our house looked like a tornado had wrecked havoc on it. There was wrapping paper everywhere, all the presents we opened Christmas morning, a few that we did not have time to get too, plus all the stuff that we brought back from Hector's parents. Hector worked on Tuesday and I spent all day cleaning up while the girls played with their new toys. Natalia LOVED putting on her new apron and Sienna had fun eating all the food that Natalia made to eat.

By the end of the day it really hit me that Christmas was over. We really enjoyed the season and and all the fun that came along with it. We had a blast starting some fun traditions this year. We are so grateful for all the gifts we received. Our girls had a great time. They both slept so well Tuesday at home...They had been over tired from all of the excitement. We loved Christmas this year.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Christmas Eve

We had the best Christmas Eve. We spent the morning hanging out and playing. I did some good cooking and we spent the evening with a few friends. The woman that I visit teach had to work all day and that meant that her teenage daughters would be all alone all day and evening so we had them over to our house. It was so much fun having them join us. They helped me cook and played with Natalia and Sienna. My friend Jodee came too and she is like family so of course it was fun to have her here too. We ate great food and played some fun games. Pin the carrot on the snowman was a big hit. We also had fun playing the present guessing game. Everyone really got into it. We read the Christmas story and after we put Sienna to bed we let Natalia stay up and watch a Christmas movie. We also let the girls that joined us open their stockings. Natalia had so much fun watching them. I think she enjoyed it so much because she helped put them together. The night was so perfect. I got home from dropping off the girls around 9:30 and Hector and I stayed up late getting our girls Christmas stuff ready. We went through all the stuff I have collected from garage sales and had fun helping Santa wrap some good gifts for the girls. I had fun getting the stocking together for Hector and the girls. We had such a nice night, stayed up too late, and thoroughly enjoyed the anticipation of seeing our girls in the morning.

Natalia wanted to snuggle with me for awhile while we watched the movie and then she wanted to watch the movie like her dad next to him. What fun she is.

The Final Count Down to Christmas

We had a few more fun activities leading up to Christmas. We went to the National Harbor one night. It was not as exciting as I hoped it would be, but we still had fun anyway. The tree was beautiful and the night was a great night for walking around. Natalia had fun with some of the fun activities. The Dream Works characters were at the Gaylord Hotel and even though Natalia had not seen any of those shows, she LOVED seeing the characters. We found a place that the characters kept walking by on their way to their break and Natalia would wave and give them high fives and just laugh at them. She loved it.

Sienna was super chill. She has been so good about tagging along with everything that we do. She was so cute when we went out; she plopped her little feet up on the stroller bar and totally lounged.

The tree was on the harbor and there was this great little sand area just down from the tree. Natalia loves to play in the sand and she asked really nice if she could go down and play. I let her with the rule that she could not sit in it. She loved it and did not want to stop, but we had to go home. Two minutes after getting in the car, it started dumping down rain; perfect timing.

We also did some more fun activities at home. Natalia helped my make pies and wrap presents. We went to the store one night and Natalia got to help pick out gifts to put in stockings for our Christmas Eve guests. We tried to help Natalia understand that we were doing something nice by putting together stockings for our guests. We let Natalia bring one of the stockings with us to the store to help her remember what the the focus was. She was so cute. She totally got it. She walked around with the stocking and every time she saw something small, she would say, "look mommy, this would fit. Can I put this in the stocking?" She was so cute. She filled the sock and carried it around the store until it go to heavy. We were so excited for Christmas to actually come and we really enjoyed all our fun activities as we counted down to Christmas.