Our Christmas

Aaron playing with a new toy.

So I guess I better post this pictures before the end of the year right? I will post about our visit to VA next year...
I am happy to say that we were able to send out Christmas letter before the 24th but I am sure most of you got it after that. At least it got there I hope. That is one thing that we have been doing for years since we got married, I used to make them by hand but it was only sent out to Dan's brothers and then we got some friends and met more people so no more handmade stuff. We ordered 100 cards this year and we used most of them. I really do love getting letters from all the people we know but I was kind of sad that we did not get that many this year.
We went and delivered our traditional Christmas goodies to a few friends and the kids sang some Christmas songs, that was really cute. Don't they look good?
These are the cookies that did not make it :(
These were the lucky ones!!!

Also we went on our traditional search for the houses with the best Christmas lights. THE WINNERS GET THIS AS A REWARD

The kids were a little wild that night so we only delivered three trophies and certificates, but it always makes us feel good to see the reaction on people's faces. Some people really do wild with the lights and we sure enjoy them.
This year for Christmas we decided to stay home and invited some friends over for dinner. I did not want to go anywhere and talking to my friend we found out they were staying in town and thought it would be fun to do something together and it was very fun, I am glad we did it. They brought some food to go with our dinner and dessert (it was so good!!!) then Shayna had prepared the program for the night, she even printed out the program to pass along to everybody. She sang a bunch of songs, took care of the Scripture reading with Victor and even played a couple of songs on the piano. It was kind of weird to see her being the center of attention since she is the shiest little girl I know. We then proceeded to open presents, the kids always buy presents for each of the siblings and then get to open one present on Christmas Eve, Dan took Shayna shopping for present for my friend's kids so they would not feel left out. It was also fun to see them open their little presents. After they left the kids went to bed and Dan and I stayed up late watching TV and waiting to see if we could see Santa, no luck. The next morning Victor woke up first and then we all went down to see what they got. Shayna and Victor both got their PS3 games, Tristan got what was supposed to be a reading system but Santa did not realize that the box only came with books, the pen that reads was not in there so we will be going to the store tomorrow to fix that for Tristan, Aaron got some building blocks and that's about all they got from Santa this year. It is always so nice to see them get so excited about their presents and play with them, Dan got them so comic books again and that made Victor very happy, he is already done reading his. I am glad we were able to get them some presents and make their lives a little brighter. On Christmas day we went over to Steven and Amber's place to spend some time playing bells and singing songs, we also had a nice dinner.
Yesterday our good friends from VA, Alma and Oscar Garcia came to visit us and that was great. They are thinking about moving here so they wanted to explore the area, I hope they make up their minds and end up doing it. We could do some great Christmas celebrating with them, Alma is from Guatemala and she is fun to be around with. We went shopping just the two of us and that was cool. We made a traditional barbecue meal for dinner and stuffed ourselves. The spent the night and got up early this morning they could leave.
So far it has a been a great weekend with the exception of all of us getting sick with a cold, we are ALL so sick and hope that we can get better before Shayna's birthday and New Year's celebrations. We hope everyone had a great Christmas and hope to read all about soon on your blogs.

Here is a few pics of the kids:
Our future doctor Brown



Shayna trying out her new game Sing it Disney, we actually don't like it that much because you can't download more songs. But she can learn to sing with it :)


Victor is into money and saving, so I got him his own ATM machine, but he thought it would have a real credit card and get free money...

Aaron's WT fell on his toe and broke his nail :(

The aftermath of Christmas, lots of trash bags...

Too emotional for blogging.

I had written a post but decided not to publish it. I am just a mess with all this thoughts and feelings later that I am just taking a break from blogging. Things are still too fresh and I think we need to heal a little longer, but remember I'll be back!!!

A sad day for many

This morning as we came back home from church (cleaning duty) Dan got the worst phone call of his life. His brother Steven gave him the news that his dad past away last night while sleeping. Dan always talked about how he thought his dad has about 10 more years left in him or more. He always seemed to be full of energy and excited about life. My in laws were planing a trip to South America next year and were very excited about it too.
The first time I met him was when Dan finished his mission, I used to be scared of him but once I got to know him as my soon to be father-in-law he turned out pretty cool. He was an easy guy to love and he was a good example to many. He knew everybody, literally. When he came to visit us the kids always were so happy to see him and spend time with him. It was not difficult to start calling him "Dad" when I got married since my dad was gone already it didn't feel weird calling him that. He has been there fur us many many times and it makes me really sad to know that we wont be able to share special moments with him anymore. It seems surreal and it brakes my heart to see Dan suffering so much. We will miss him but we also know that there is life after death, we know he is not gone forever, that we will see him again. I would like to think that he and my dad finally met and were able to exchange stories about me, that would be cool.

We will be leaving Monday morning for VA and will spend almost a whole week there. I feel like we need to be there as a family for a final goodbye and to show support to the Brown family. It will be great to see the family again even if it is not a for a happy occasion. We also hope to see old friends and to drive the kids around so they can enjoy once again being back home.

I am so glad for the gospel and the many blessings it brings to our life, for the promises that we get when we go to the Temple as we get married for time an eternity, that definitely makes situations like this one a whole lot better.

My new toy

Dan is very good at doing things without me knowing every once in a while. I am very good a reading all the signals and question him until he tells me what he is thinking of doing. He had fun tricking me into thinking he bought me the wrong memory stick for my camera, which I thought was very clever. Turns out he bough me a new digital camera. He has been wanting to buy a digital video camera for a long time now but I told him that I rather not since then you have to carry two cases and switch from one to the other and I am ALWAYS the one taking video and picture. He did his research and went and bough the best option for us out there. It is a Sony Cyber-shot 12.1 mega pixels, it has the option for recording videos in HD and still images in HD. It is great and I have been playing with it since I got it. Close ups are great and it is a very smart little camera, it does all kinds of tricks. It also has some funny feature for turning a not so great smile into a wacky looking one. These just a few of the pictures I took yesterday. I can fix pictures while they are in the memory card, it is like having Photo shop in it. I know I'll be having lots of fun with it. I love how the colors come out so great.


This is a great close up of Aaron and the one below was really fun to do, I added the sparkles around Shayna and they make the picture look very festive :)

Dr. Mehmet C. Oz

I started watching the Dr. Oz show a couple of weeks ago since they had some interesting topics, I don't think I am addicted to his show but I do enjoy watching it twice or three times a week. I have been able to learn a few things that I didn't know and have discovered that some things I knew were all wrong.
Here are a couple of things that really got to me yesterday:

#1 When you get pregnant the muscles in your tummy stretch so much that some times they tear and you can never make them come back together. That explains why my tummy looks kind of funny. Lucky women out there don't have this issue and that is why their tummies are so flat once they get rid of their baby weight. I am pretty sure I don't have the worst case and can still work really hard to make my muscles heal I guess but now I know.

#2 Weight gain during pregnancy. I remember how people used to tell me "you are eating for two now" and practically shove food down my throat. I used to think that I was doing the right thing and was helping by baby and that she or he would be a beautiful 8 pounder at least since I got so huge. I went from 113 lbs to 160 lbs with Shayna and was amazed when she was born at 6.5 lbs. Are you serious? After gaining almost 50 pounds that's how big she was? I could not believe it and so my battle to get rid of the baby weight began. It took me 14 months to loose most of it. The second time around I got smarter and only gained 30 lbs, the third time I gained 35lbs and the last time I only gained 16 lbs. Now how the heck didn't I gained that much when I got pregnant with Shayna? Things sure change in a few years. So I learned yesterday thanks to Dr Oz that the extra intake of calories for the first trimester should be 100 calories a day, 150 for the second trimester and I think about 200 for the third trimester which basically equals a banana and an apple. So the extra stake and 3 or 4 serving of ice cream are not necessary.
I didn't know any better back then, I was so new to the pregnancy thing and had nobody to talk to, now I see all the women that get pregnant and they look so skinny and are back to their old self one month or two after they deliver, that is because the doctors are advising them the right way. What helped me gain only 16 lbs during my last pregnancy was my gestational diabetes, I was on a strict diet and I felt good.

I have discovered many many more things thanks to that show, but those are the two things that were an eye opener for me :)

Day #30

I thought I was done on Thanksgiving day and then I realized that it was supposed to be 30 days of thanks, so here is the last one.
Today (Monday) I am thankful that we had the chance to send a Christmas card to Noah, the little boy who was dying of cancer. We sent the card a couple of days later than we were supposed to and I felt kind of bad about it, but I found out later that he made it all the way till the 25th of November, he passed away peacefully at home with his family. He got more than a million Christmas card. I am very thankful that we were able to be part of his last wish. He was a cute little guy, I saw a video of him and it broke my heart to think that he was the same age Tristan is, how hard it would be to deal with the loss of a child, I can't even begin to imagine that.