Happy New Year

Well 2009 came and went... I know a lot of good things happened to a lot of other people so I'm happy for those who had a great 2009! The year wasn't as good to me. 2009 will always be the year I lost my best friend... The year my mom died. A lot of heartache this year. A LOT of loss... between a house, good friends, lots of personal items and of course my mom... it was just a year of a lot of loss and lots of stress and crying on my part.

I do have to say 2009 did bring some good things in my life. Montgomery Palmore was born and got me to go back into a hospital for a great reason! We had a great trip to Colorado and a great experience with best friends. This year working at Gymboree got me out of the house for my own sanity, let us have some play money but best of all, let me meet a great new friend! Someone who I really cherish as a friend and know that the only reason God put me there was to meet her! An old friend of mine from Grade school and I have reunited and it's made me so happy to have her back in my life! This year through all the hard times my husband still has a great job. We celebrated our baby girl turning one! Alana has learned so many new things this year and has grown into such a beautiful little girl! Twice this year my dad has been in the ER and has had surgery but came out on top of it! My family and friends have all been so good to me and I've needed them so much too! So I guess as I think about all the good this year it makes me feel better, but still is kinda sucky :) If that makes any sense.

Time to put all of the bad behind me and move onto a new year. 2010 is looking up already! In a few weeks we'll be moving into a nice 4 bedroom house with a BIG beautiful back yard and tons of space for us to grow into. We've outgrown the place we've been in already. Victor has the opportunity to move to another hotel that the owners of his current hotel bought and take on a lot of responsibility and great experience! The place I've been volunteering at is "hopefully" going to hire me part time, it will be a great, happy place to work at that I really like! February is my big 3-0! April is our trip to New York, June Alana will be the big 2!!! (That's scary) 2010 will be the year to think about adding to our family. LOTS of fun stuff to look forward to when I wake up in the morning. Although I'll be waking up alone because Victor has to work all night, (miss you babe) it will still be a great year to come!

Welcome 2010!!

Random Cheesy-ness

From the day Alana was born I've been trying to teach her "Cheese". She's got it down now, but it's so much Cheese I laugh every time I see it!

She is STILL so in love with Mickey Mouse. She started to take this one to bed with her every night now.
"Mice love cheese"


For Christmas Auntie Crystal got Alana some new crayons and a coloring book. She hasn't gone a day since without requesting to use them.
"Colorful cheese"


Victor and I got take out Sushi the other night and Alana tried to learn how to use chopsticks! She did pretty good, getting some rice and putting in her mouth. She even ate a sushi roll!
"Sushi and Cheese"

Words

Alana is talking so much these days, I tried to get a few of the words on camera. I only got a few of them and sorry it's dark. For some reason every time I told her to say Ashley, she would say it and then run around the table saying, "Ashley, Ashley, Ashley"... pretty funny! More video's to come. I'm trying to get her singing but every time I pay attention to her she stops so I'll have to set it up so she doesn't see me.

Merry Christmas

Christmas eve is always spent with Victor's side of the family, which makes it really easy on Christmas day and less traveling for us! My mother in laws house was warm and cozy and full of tamales!!! My home away from home!


The kids LOVE Alana and she loves her cousins!


Alana made out this year with so much stuff. She really enjoyed tearing open presents, A LOT more then I thought she would.


When we came home and tucked Alana in bed, Santa came and filled Alana's Mickey Mouse stocking and left her all kinds of fun presents!

Christmas morning was early, headed out to my parents house. Everyone was waiting for us to come so we could eat and open presents! I was greeted by these two beautiful girls!

Evans girls

Alana and her Aunt Jacquie

Then out of no where someone was pounding on the front door, we heard jingle bells and Santa came in with a bag full of presents! Of course most of the kids went to hid behind their parents.

All I could hear Ellie say is "Mom, is that the real Santa?"... it was so cute!

Not so much with Lexie.

My mom's girls with their girls... and Santa

It was awesome to have my brother and family here from Utah.

My brother and sisters

Daddy and Alana

Alana was snuggling with my brother

The girls were sharing their baby dolls

To be honest I was dreading Christmas this year because it's the first year I wasn't going to have my mom. My mom always loved Christmas and was always our "santa". She would always wear one of her Christmas sweaters. It was hard being at her house with the entire family, without thinking "where is mom", she's just in the bedroom and will be out anytime. I spent a few minutes in her room and felt like I could feel her there. I missed her Christmas morning. And every day of my life... but Christmas was hard.

We did have a great time with family although we were missing my mom's family which was really sad and felt like we were missing a chunk of our family. Breakfast was great and it was nice sitting and visiting with the family. We still missed you like crazy mom. I'm glad Christmas is gone and we have a new year to look forward to! We've done a lot of our "first's" without mom this year, and maybe next year it won't be as hard?

Cookie Monster!!

Today we went to my friend Jen's house in Murrieta to decorate cookies! Alana wanted to sit and eat the frosting rather then decorate.


Needless to say I did most of the "frosting". Alana was full of frosting, on her pants, in her hair, in her arm pits... not kidding. I found frosting on her everywhere!


We had a great time with Jen as usual, it was Festive-ish enough for the both of us!


Alana's dirty green frosting face with mommy!

Me and Jen

We had a great time and a great lunch afterwards! Thanks Jen for the company and the cookies!! Hopefully next year Alana will be more into decorating then just eating.

Disney Christmas!

Last year we made our first annual trip to Disneyland for Christmas with Alana! My sweet baby was so tiny last year!


Same crazy cheesy smile! A whole year older! 2nd annual Christmas trip, ready for a great day at Disneyland!


She LOVED Minnie from afar... not so much up close... again.


It was such a beautiful day out, daddy picked a great day out of this week!

My big girl on the carousel.

We all enjoy it!

Alana and I standing in line in Fantasy Land. (Where we saw Holly Madison from "The girls next door".... I was so excited, but didn't have my camera on me :(... )

Daddy and Alana on Dumbo

All smiles going into "Small World Holiday" where we sang the whole time!

I'm so cleaver! Hidden Mickey?

Alana's holiday picture with Santa at the Happiest Place on Earth!

She's never meet Santa and so I wasn't sure how she was going to take it since she doesn't like being close to any of the characters. I sat her on his lap and for the first 2 seconds she wanted to get down. He talked to her and she was all smiles! Thank God... I saw that going a LOT worse!

Craziness

Goof ball is sitting in my strainer from the kitchen!

Oh Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...

Christmas this year has come too fast. We finally got up our Christmas tree!! Alana had so much fun putting up all the bulbs and candy canes. She couldn't wait to put on more!

At first Alana didn't get the concept and kept tossing everything into the middle of the tree in one spot sitting on a branch.


With a little help from Daddy she was able to help a bit better!


She could have done it all night.

**Merry Christmas**

Yes, my little model at work!

So... putting up our Christmas tree did put me a bit more in the Christmas mood!

If it wasn't for Alana this year and her love for lights and doing things like this and all the traditions I can't wait to start and keep with her... it just wouldn't have gotten done this year. Lots of things that have happened this last year have tried to ruin my Christmas and I'm trying very, VERY hard not to let it. It will be a hard first Christmas this year, but I am trying to look at Alana and how happy this all makes her and take her happiness for me too!

Merry Christmas to me!!

Victor and I went to Sprint to add another line to our plan and I got a new phone out of it!!!! Meet my Palm Pixi!

Isn't she beautiful?!?! I was due for an upgrade to my phone, which was my Palm Centro that I loved, but was dreaming of this phone because it can do some cool things. I wasn't going to get it but Victor insisted that I do and I couldn't argue too much with him! He has the Palm Pre, so this one is a mix between my old phone and his phone. It's perfect and does SOOO much stuff! I've been using the hell out of it for the few days I've had it! It has a great keyboard, you can move between apps so easily, it's a full MP3 player, holds tons of great quality pictures.... does all kinds of stuff and I LOVE it! I use my phone ALL the time so it's very important to me to have a good one! Thank you hunny for forcing me to get it!!

15 girls, 24 years old = FUN!

For my little sester's 24th birthday this year she wanted to have a slumber party. So invitations went out and everyone came out for it! It was a blast! These girls were crazy! They taught me new drinking games I'd never played before! They were a lot of fun! I brought over my Rock Band, Crystal and I made Purple Hooter shots for everyone and we played cards all night! The only difference from Jacquie's 13th birthday slumber party and her 24th was they were all of age to drink now! Which made games a lot more fun to play.


Happy Birthday Sester!


Some birthday cake?


More pictures to follow, when they get emailed to me! Thanks to all the girls that came and made it a really fun night!

1 and a half!

My little baby girl is just no longer a baby! She is now a year and a half! My, my how time flies when you are having fun!! Today we had her 18 month well visit. Her doctor's office make's me put her in a mini gown which I think is always so funny looking on her. Makes me sad for a split second to see what she'd look like if she ever had to be in a hospital. (knock on wood) I had to take a picture of her cause she likes the gown and thinks it's fun to put on!
She weighs in at 24 pounds and is 2 feet 9 inches. Super healthy and right on track for development the Dr. says. The Dr. was impressed with all the body parts she knew and the letters she was trying to point out in the books. It was great! I'm so proud at how smart she is and her love for books! She sits and reads books and tries to guess what letters are on the page. Of course she's got A down. LOVE IT!! I guess having two creative parents who also love to read can't really hurt her! Gotta love this age!!

Today was terrific...

At the Aquarium of the Pacific... Today Victor had off so we decided to make it a family day out in the beautiful sun! It was a bit chilly, but warm in the sun. We headed out to the LBC with a free ticket to the Aquarium!

Alana got to watch the birds feed really up close!


I didn't get a lot of face time from Alana today with the camera because she was more intrested to see what was going on, of course. She was scared of the Sea Lions at first, but then warmed up to them once she realized there was glass between them and her.


She was able to touch and feel star fish, and all the fun little creatures in the tide pools.


Jelly Fish are mommies favorite!!

Not sure if you can read this sign but it was SOOO intresting and makes so much sense. Basically it says that some of these fish start out as females and when they get stressed out they turn into males... hmmmm.... It just makes sense and made me laugh so hard!

After hours at the Aquarium we headed out to walk around the bay, Alana was up and running around the entire way. The sun gave her energy I swear!

A quick break.

The sun was shining so bright out today, it was a very pretty day out!

We saw birds and Alana went running towards them. You can see her behind all the birds, she LOVED to make them fly around and she was so happy every time they flocked around her.

Too many to count!

Amazing day with my great family! I am a lucky girl. Thank you babe, these are the days we live for!!