Christmas Eve & Christmas Morning

It is our 5th Christmas since we got married and the 1st one
that we spent on our own. We had a delicious Christmas
diner that we all made together. This was definitely a
special Christmas in which we got to set some family
traditions and try to teach our daughters the real meaning
of Christmas. For obvious reasons Julienne really didn't get
it, but I think Catalina did. We taught her what happened
on Christmas and we even played a little bit with our
nativity set. At the end we told her that Santa is a good
old man that gives presents to the children on Christmas
to remember the birth of Christ and the presents he got
when he was born. We also sang Christmas carols and
repeated like 10 times Catalina's favorite one "Deck
the Halls" before going to bed.

On Christmas Morning we all woke up after Catalina and she
was very surprised when she saw all the presents around
our Christmas tree. We were amazed when right after she
saw the presents she turned to me and told me "I want
cereal con leche", and didn't care about opening anything
until she finished her breakfast. Opening presents is always
fun. Catalina was so careful in opening them, she really didn't
want to tear the paper off, and Jules enjoyed putting
everything in to her mouth. At the
end I think they learned that "Grandma is better that Santa".
And I hope to keep it that way so they may truly understand
that it is not all about presents. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa
for all the great presents!

Christmas Gretting

Here are a couple of quotations and some pictures I'd like to share with you...

"The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other." (Burton Hillis)


“True happiness comes only by making others happy—the practical application of the Savior’s doctrine of losing one’s life to gain it. In short, the Christmas spirit is the Christ spirit, that makes our hearts glow in brotherly love and friendship and prompts us to kind deeds of service."

(President David O. McKay)


May the timeless message of Christmas fill your heart and home with joy today and throughout the coming year.

Love,

Andy, Gaby, Catalina, Julienne & Cuba DuBois

Our November Updates

I've been lazy lately about updating our family blog. To do it every month will be one of my new year's resolutions. We've been enjoying our girls and all the cute things they've been up to. We are also loving the great weather and our life here in Paradise.

Catalina makes us laugh so much. She comes up with all kinds of funny things. The other day I was washing the dishes and I didn't notice she was playing on top of some storage boxes. Andy came by the kitchen and saw her, and told her to get down. Catalina got kind of mad because I guess she was having fun, and told Andy "you go do your homework" (pointing to the living room). She is also getting into a lot of singing lately. She loves to sing the songs we have learned in the Kindermusik program that we took this year. She also loves to sing church songs, her favorite one is "I am a child of God" mingled with "I am a little tea pot" (when she sings the first one, she almost always ends with the second one).


Julienne is our mischievous little one. She always manages to get into stuff she shouldn't. She has washed her hands in the toilet, disorganized my laundry basket, bitten her big sister's fingers, eaten some parts of my phone book, just to mention a few. She does a lot of cruising and standing up on her own. She also loves to walk along with Catalina holding one hand.




Here are my 2 little monkeys jumping on the bed. Luckily none fell off and bumped their heads.


I love and adore these cute smiles. Julienne has 6 teeth now.


This year Andy marched at the Veteran's Day Parade here on the island. I was so lucky to capture this great image of my handsome husband in uniform.

Finally we ended November and Thanksgiving with
Mom, Dad, and Alex at Disney World. We really took
all we could from the season passes we got. It was our
4th time there this year. We had a blast with our
family. We did a lot and sadly the week went way too
fast. We miss them so much.
Here is this kind of long slide show of Disney, enjoy.

Happy Halloween!!!

Yesterday was a very exciting day from the beginning to the end. We first got up and went to the Library's Halloween Party. Catalina wore her butterfly costume from last year's Halloween. Julienne wore a pumpkin costume. We had a great time. There were so many children and they were trick and treating around the different library departments. Then we all gathered in the main hall for more candy, music, crafts and fun activities.

In the afternoon Andy came back from being out of town for a couple of weeks. We picked him up at the airport and then dressed up the girls to go to the "trunk or treat" party at our chapel.


This year I decided to make the girls' costumes. It took me more time that I planned because I really don't sew, but it ended up looking pretty neat.
Catalina is all about princess stuff and her favorite one is the little mermaid. So I made her a mermaid costume, it was very challenging but I loved the results. I like mine better than the original one.
Julienne was a little easier. I made her a "Pebbles" costume.


They both looked so cute and we enjoyed seeing them all dressed up, and of course eating their candy was the best part of all.



Here are some of the primary children. We had so much fun.

Time flies and there are lots of new things...

I bet I’m the only one that can do this type of things with an 8 month old baby’s hair.


Here are my twin girls Julienne and Jules.

Here are Julienne’s first teeth.

Here is Julienne with her 4 teeth.

Julienne started to eat her crib…

…and here you can see how far she’s gotten.

She loves watching Curious George on TV. She also likes to read and learn how to be more curious.

And finally here is Julienne showing her new abilities. She’ll be walking pretty soon.

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I love this picture of Catalina. She’d changed so much over the last year. She is so beautiful, but I miss her baby face.

Here is Catalina playing the harmonica.

Yesterday after I helped Catalina to get ready for bed I went upstairs for a few minutes to turn off some lights, the computer, and get a cup of water. Then I went back downstairs and I couldn’t find Catalina anywhere. I checked both rooms and bathrooms and since she knows how to lock and unlock the entrance door I started to panic a little bit. Then while checking the closets I called her name and I herd her voice in my room but I still couldn’t see were she was at. I called once more and she suddenly came up from under my pillow saying “here mommy!” Excluding the scare I thought it was pretty funny the way she hid because she didn’t really mess up the pillows or anything, so I grabbed the camera and took this picture.

Here are my happy girls. I love to see them playing together. Catalina is a very good big sister and mommy’s helper. She shares and plays with Julienne. She enjoys everything the baby does and learns. She takes care of the baby and tells me everything she does. Not wonder why Julienne loves Catalina so much too.

Silliness

Sorry but this video has some audio problems. Enjoy.

"18 de Septiembre"...the Chilean 4th of July

This week we celebrated the Chilean Independence Day (from Spain). In Chile it is a huge thing. We have 2 holidays (the 18th and the 19th of September). The 18th we get together with family and friends and eat "empanadas", and lots of grilled meats & kabobs with various salads. People also drink "Chicha" which is a mild alcoholic beverage made of grape or apple. We hear folkloric music and dance the national dance "La Cueca". We love to dance cumbia too. Some people go to "Fondas" which are places that provide all the entertaiment and the food so you just pay to eat and have fun. The 19th we get up late and go to watch the military parade. All the military brunches get together and make a huge parade that runs for several hours during the day.
So we had a little celebration here at the house with the Alfaro family. The "gringos" I invited couldn't come ha ha. I made my famous empanadas and a chocolate mousse cake. I also dressed up the girls and sent this picture to my family to show everyone that I'am teaching my girls to love their Chilean heritage.
Note: I KNOW the flag you see is similar to the Texas one, but the Chilean one is much more precious.

Hurricane Ike Evacuation...

Packing the most important things we have...



So we had a mandatory evacuation. We left the morning of the 6th for Orlando. It felt like a long drive with the girls and the dog. Our 7 1/2 hour journey ended up being a 9 hour one. We stayed in Shades of Green on Disney, and once more we took advantage of our season passes for the third time this year. We had a great time doing more shows than rides (because it was very hot). The hurricane ended up not hitting us directly so we headed back home on Wednesday the 10th. The house was just as we left it. In the end it was a very nice little payed vacation.

My 28th Birthday on September 2nd...

I had so much fun on my birthday. On labor day
we had a celebration with some of our friends at the house.
I cooked dinner and we had a yummy cake made by
Mr Albertsons. On Tuesday Andy arranged everything to
give me a surprise. After work we left the girls with friends
and went for a very romantic dinner at Sunset Key. The food
was delicious and the setting just perfect.

Julienne's Update

Our baby is doing wonderful. She is a very happy little girl and this time Andy finally got his "Daddy's little girl". I have never seen Catalina get so exited and happy about seeing daddy like Julienne does. She has changed so much in just a couple of months. She is talking a lot saying da-da, ta-ta, tla, ca-ta, and just when she is fussing she says 'ma-ma" (so unfair). She is also very close to crawling but she still gets around in her own way. She turned 6 months this past 15th. She now weights 15 pounds and she is 26 inches long. She just started to accept solid food. She didn't like it until now and I waited until she was ready, just as the doctor recommended to me. We also pierced her ears while in Virginia. She cried for about 3 minutes but the good thing is that she won't remember it. She looks SO cute.

Catalina's Update

Catalina is all about developing Pre-K skills. She knows the alphabet and like to spell every single thing she sees. She also knows the colors and numbers. It is fun to watch her recognizing things she has learned and asking about EVERYTHING. Her favorite quotes are: What's this? What's that? What're you doing? and Que es este?. She still struggles to make sense on her speech but I guess that is a delay of being a bilingual child.

Virginia Beach, VA

So Andy had to go to Virginia Beach, VA for training and
we decided to accompany him. It was very boring from
Monday to Friday because he was so busy and we didn't
really get out from the hotel room. But we surely did have
fun on the weekends. Here are some pictures from the
many places we went during those 5 weeks in Virginia.