Veronica turns 5

Veronica is officially 5 years old.. wow that was FAST!
we are having her party combined with Vals Jan 9th, she is so excited to be turning 5.
Four generations!7lbs 3 oz

will this matter in 5 years

yep I think this pic matters alot, lol.
Me in the glory, pregnant with my first child! It is almost her 5th birthday, and gearing up for that I thought I'd share a pic! I was about 37 weeks in this pic, so not quite 5yrs exactly but close enough!!
and a funny tid-bit about this shirt I am wearing in this pic.. This is one of the only maternity shirts I have held onto, and wore during all 4 of my pregnancies, and I still have it in my closet.
My pregnancy pics have also gotten way better through the pregnancies, this is one out of a handful of pics when I was pregnant with Veronica.

its been awhile!

so alot has happened that I really wanted to blog about. why I didn't, well life happens, and laziness lol.. I have a resolution though, starting Jan 1st I AM going to take a pic everyday, and at least post a sentence or two about that day.
I am leaving it open to posting more than one picture per day, but I will try not and over load the page, lol. Which is hard to do with 2 cute kids, and camera happy photog mom!
I may skip posting a few days, to then post the past days on a furture date, but there WILL be a pic to post from each day :)
hmm, I wonder if I left any "rules" out, or forgotten about.. well see :)

Veronica's 1st black eye

so it seems my older daughter has all the luck with injuries.. if you can see in the pic she has her 1st black eye! also in the pic her right (pic left) eyebrow has a huge scar thanks to another incident earlier in her life. She has also (in the past) had her pinkie nail pulled 95% off when she got it slammed in a door, it did eventually fall all the way off, then grew back normally, but sheesh this girl gets it bad, and often when it comes to injuries, esp compared to Valerie.Veronica got the black eye while attending her friend Nicole's b-day party. From what I heard, Veronica got too close while one adult was pushing another little girl on a swing, one of the teeter totter type, and bam, face injury. she ran to me crying of course, and I had no idea it was that bad cause she wouldn't show me her face at first, it was buried in my chest! she finally showed me and told me what happened. I guess you can only tell a child something so many times before they have to learn it the hard way. I had been telling both girls to stay away from the swings if there were children swinging on them. aw poor baby! here is the party we went to, taken before the black eye incident!

playin in the playhouse

(editing the date of the post to reflect date of the events)
My mom brought Kaley, Ryan, and Corey over to my house for dinner. I made YUMMY burgers for everyone. I had these cheeses from border, smoked applewood bacon, and tomato basil cheese, both were a hit, I mostly liked the applewood bacon!
I love being with my family. Seems there is always someone missing at every get together though. I miss my older brother so much since he lives in Washington state to be with his twin boys. I miss my sister sometimes cause she is an hour away. I can't wait for christmas when we should ALL be together!!!!!!
here is mama Gino playing with the girls in their playhouse. They loved this!! they brought out play food and plates to make their own dining experience.it was pretty dark out, so they used daddy's flashlight for lighting.

Vitiligo - found some spots on Valerie

While giving Valerie a bath awhile back I noticed a white spot on her back. I didn't think of it really at first, then it dawned on me that it was a spot from Vitiligo. This skin condition runs in my family, and while myself have no spots, no Vitiligo, my mom does. I am not sure about my siblings, maybe my mom can chime in on if they have it or not, but I don't think they do.
I don't know if you can see all of the spots in this picture, you may have to click it, but there are 3 spots, which at first I only noticed 1, the larger, then a second afterwards, and then I noticed even a 3rd after I loaded this pic to the computer just now! They are on the back of her left shoulder.
No big deal, just thought I'd share this interesting new fact about my Val-val... gosh those "V" words..

DISNEY WORLD 2009 - arrival day & Parks Day 1

I am so ready to go back. I had a blast and even though it was alot of walking, humid, sweating, It was a magical vacation.
We left late on Friday Sept 11, about 8:30pm. Paul was still on his night schedule so he drove all night, and the whole way. It rained pretty much the whole drive there. We arrived at the resort about 12:30 noon on Saturday the 12th, which was good time, we stopped a couple of times of course for gas and bathroom breaks, and food once, since we had sandwiches snacks and drinks in a cooler in the van. We checked into our hotel, which we stayed on Disney property at the Pop Century resort. After we checked in, we didn't do much. We left Paul in the room to catch a much needed nap, and the girls and I took the van to Down Town Disney, and took a stroll around there to check it out.
Valerie sleeping on the drive to Florida.We got closer to our destination, and we saw this bad wreck. a Truck had flipped over the guardrail. Lots of people were stopped to render aid.Don't laugh, but I started to tear up when I saw the sign and told the girls "look we are at Disney World!" they shouted and screamed in joy, lol!! our hotel Down Town DisneySunday went to the Magic Kingdom park. It pretty much rained everyday, at least a little, nothing we had to run to get out of though, well except when we got in line to ride the Haunted Mansion, it poured as soon as we got under the covered sidewalk, then it was gone by the time we got out.The first thing we rode was the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which was one of the girls favorites. Us on the ride, of course dark. After that we rode the Haunted Mansion, then headed over to Its a Small World. Daddy with the girls going to the ride.Riding Dumbo ride.. my first time even though I have been 2 times to DW and 1 time to DL
Merry go round. There was enough ponies to go around so Paul and I rode too, lol!
race track, Veronica got to "drive"Swiss Family Robinson Tree house. We had watched the movie about 2 weeks before so they knew what it was all about.
After the park we had reservations to have dinner at Chef Mickey's inside the Contemporary Resort hotel right down from Magic Kingdom. On the looooong walk there, the girls took a snoozer lol. We had walked ALOT!
At first Veronica did not want to get up with the characters, but after we bribed her with ice cream, she got up and was excited to see the characters.ahh what a day... Day 2 coming soon

Dinner outside - missed post Sept 5

The girls wanted to eat outside so bad, so I agreed. We have a nice new patio table we got over the summer, and it was a nice cool evening with storm clouds rolling in. We had Meatloaf (recipe here), velveeta shells n cheese, corn and sunbeam dinner rolls, with sweet tea to drink.
it was thundering and lightning as we were finished eating!! perfect timing!

Lots of Picnic n Park fun!!

I was really pondering what to do today. Picnic was suggested and I thought that was a great idea. I packed us a lunch and away we went with our stroller down to our subdivision's park, just down the road.
We unpacked our sandwiches, chips and drinks, and had a yummy lunch, under the shade of a nice oak tree. Haha, Veronica's picture smile is rather toothy.Veronica had to potty, so thankful they have a bathroom down there. We then went onto the playground. The slides were pretty hot esp on one side, but they went down a few times anyway. They also love to play on the monkey bars. They need my help to cross, being so short I hold their legs while they swing across with their arms, lol. Valerie went first, Veronica didn't like that too much :Pthen Veronicanow THIS is a REAL smile!!!
After the monkey bars, we went and looked for acorns, Veronica loves to look for these, and Valerie was a big help to her sister in finding a bunch today.While looking for acorns, I saw some of these little plant things. They close their leaves when you touch them. I showed the girls and the thought it was very cool. I have no idea what the name of these things are.They were touching them together, getting very close to see the leaves closing.shortly after, we all agreed that it was time to go home.
BYE

view all the pictures from today here..
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=134948&id=656893254&l=d910c48ed3

From scratch cinnamon rolls

My first time making cinnamon rolls, and icing from scratch. Thanks Paula Deen for THIS recipe.
total time from start to finish 3hr 15 min
finished product... yuuuuuummmmmyyyy !! the girls of course had the same reaction