Chandra's B-day

We are sort of beginning a bit of a tradition in our family.  We go to our favorite restaurant, 3 Margaritas for dinner.  Ryan did the inspection (for work) on that place a few years back and we've been treated like family ever since.  

So that's where I wanted to go for my birthday.  Besides that way I didn't have to clean my house on MY birthday for everyone to come over and celebrate with me.  =)  We took the mess to the restaurant- including a dulce de leche cake!  It was so yummy!

This is when all the waiters were singing to me.  Of course I had to wear the sombrerro!
Then we passed it around.  It's too much fun!  We all had a great time and I had a wonderful birthday.  Thanks everyone that celebrated with me!  

This is my brother, Joseph with Hunter and Gabriella of course.

5 Months Old!

My little baby is growing up!  She is 5 months old today.  I was going to post something about her being 4 months, but I've been so behind on the blog because of the holidays that I'm just going to skip right to the 5 month pictures.  They are more fun anyway.  =)

So it's that time again- time to try solids.  She's not a big fan of the rice cereal yet.  That's OK.  I start early to ease her into it.  We try it every few days.  She'll get there.  

Yummy!

She has begun to roll from her tummy to her back!  She's not a fan of hanging out on her belly for too long.
These pictures I took right before doing this post.  They are as recent as you can get!  She has such a pretty smile.  And we are lucky she has such a loving and calm disposition.
This is her classic look she gives when she wants to be picked up.  She arches her back and often time raises her arms to us.  It's so funny!

My darling girl.  We love you Kolea!

Crib Fun and Cut Hair

Every once in a while the kids like to climb into the crib with Kolea.  Actually they like to do it all the time- I only let them do it once in a while.  They had lots of fun and poor Kolea seemed confused for the most part.

They are such posers.  =)
This is Gabriella with her pretty (longish) hair around Christmas time.  Two days before Christmas Hunter cut off a hunk of hair on the top of her head.  Luckily when her hair is all done it's really not noticeable.  
And then Gabriella thought it was so much fun to get a hair cut that she decided to cut her own hair.  She chopped off quite a bit on the left side-- up to her ear.  So I had to fix it and this is the end result.  
She really doesn't like how her hair looks.  She keeps saying she looks like a boy and that her hair isn't pretty.  Evidently that wasn't enough to stop her because she has cut little pieces of hair here and there THREE more times!  And yes, I've been hiding the scissors.  Not very successfully I guess!

New Year's Eve Fun

So we made sugar cookies as a family on New Year's Eve.  Notice Hunter's tongue.  That's what he does every time he's concentrating very hard.  The tongue goes a-wagging.  Evidently it's genetic.  Ryan's mom does exactly the same thing!

I can't even tell you how excited she was to be doing this on her own.  Mom and dad didn't interfere ONCE!  
Maybe we should have interfered.  At least this one time.  Oh well-  Yummy!

Special Children

So here is another fun little toy (thanks to the Christmas stocking at Grandma's house.)  My children are so special.  The pictures are self-explanatory.

I LOVE this last picture!  I've never been able to catch Gabriella in a laugh on film before this one.  It's so awesome.  As are they.  And if you are not doubled over in laughter at this point after seeing that middle picture of Gabriella, something is wrong with you.  =)

From Hunter's Point of View

Hunter and Gabriella got little kid digital cameras for Christmas.  They are really pretty cool.  Not only are they kid-tough, they are also waterproof (although we haven't tried out that feature yet!)  So the following are some of the pictures Hunter caught on HIS camera over the holidays.  (It's nice that he's not bugging me anymore to use my camera.)

Grandpa is so silly!

Self-portrait.  =)

Happy Ella!

Mom and baby Kolea.

Sweet picture of daddy.

Way to go Hunter!  

The Tradition of the Christmas Tree

Here is our interesting tree this year.  When Ryan and I were first married we adopted one of his family's Christmas traditions of getting a Charlie Brown or "ugly" tree every other year.  (See the story below the picture.)  However the last few years we have had so much fun finding such different trees that now it seems that every year is the "ugly" year and we just end up finding an interesting tree.  You can't really tell by the picture, but this tree has a huge bend in the middle.  Almost like how bamboo curls around- this tree was very similar to that.  It's also about 12 feet high!

When Ryan was a young boy, living in Southern California, his family would go to the tree lot each year to pick out the perfect Christmas tree.  One particular Christmas (when Ryan was about 10 years old) they were at a tree lot and his dad called everyone over to look at this tree he'd found.  It was the ultimate Charlie Brown tree.  It was thin and scraggly and UGLY.  Everyone laughed at it and turned away to continue their search for that "perfect" tree.  Everyone that is except for their dad.  

When the rest of the family noticed that dad was not at their side-- they turned in time to see him paying the owner of the tree lot for that ugly tree.  "Nooooo!"  Shouted Ryan's mom as she ran over to stop the transaction.  Too late.  The tree was bought and paid for, however the tree lot owner didn't even want money for the tree.  He wanted GIVE it away just to get it off the lot (that's how bad it was.)  But no, dad insisted on paying full price for that little, ugly tree.  As the family walked off the lot with their first ever Charlie Brown Christmas tree a new tradition was born --and the tree lot owner shook dad's hand all the way to the car!  

The Many Faces of Christmas

Baby's first Christmas!  Of course she is sporting the "deer in the head lights" look.  At least she didn't cry!

Someone is getting tired.  We were celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve with the Hitz side of the family.  Gabriella had opened a chest of fairy dress-ups and put on all of the outfits at once!  At this point, it's almost time to go home and go to bed so Santa can come.

Hunter was pretty jazed to get that enormous dog, Bolt from his auntie Lexie.

Gabriella is such a poser in her new dress from G'ma and G'pa Wilkey.  She was wearing a cute Christmas outfit- but as soon as she opened the dress she stripped down and had to put it on.
This was the first year we had the grandkids to the Nativity.  It was so cute to watch and they were all pretty good while Grandpa read aloud from Luke 5.  The three wise men are on the left.  And then Joseph and Mary with baby Jesus.
All five sisters together again for the holiday.  We are in age order.  It's funny because I am the middle child, six years younger than the oldest, Lorayne and six year older than the youngest girl, Camille.  My sisters are all so beautiful!  How did I get so lucky to be born among them?  

My Darlings

Ahhh can you feel the love?  This was the Sunday before Christmas and I had the kids dressed in their new "Christmasy" outfits.  Poor Kolea.  This is quite normal around our house.  She is always getting smothered by kisses.  Not that it's such a bad thing, right?

Gabriella's looking pretty wasted at this point.  It was after church and she wanted lunch.
Lunch?  What lunch?  Hunter immediately turned on the Wii.  Notice Kolea's tiny slippers next to Hunter's leg.
I have no idea what Gabriella is doing, probably playing with some lip gloss- but she looked cute all sprawled out on the floor.
And of course, my sweet baby.  She's wondering why Gabriella has a hand in her pocket.

Happy Birthday Gabriella!

It was Gabriella's birthday on December 11th.  She's been waiting to wear this princess dress for MONTHS!  I finally let her.  She was so excited she could hardly contain herself- as is evident by this picture.  

Gabriella wanted a princess party, but she wanted to wear this play "wedding dress" all day which isn't necessarily a "princess" dress.  Anyhow, Hunter says "yes she is a princess- she's Giselle!"  You know, Giselle, the Disney princess from "Enchanted."  Way to go Hunter!  

So, my little girl who craves the lime-light suddenly got shy when it was time to blow out the candles.  It took some coaxing from daddy to get it going!

She's all smiles now that she gets to open her presents!!

Hunter's Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Hunter!  Well his birthday was back on December 5th.  But we had a fun time.  Instead of a cake we went for a HUGE cookie with the Incredible Hulk on it.  =)

Later that evening we went to our favorite Mexican Restaurant, 3 Margaritas for dinner with both extended families.  What a lucky guy to be so close to both sets of grandparents!!
Hunter is being sung to by the restaurant staff.  He's loving it.
Of course, Gabriella had to try on the sombrero as well.