Goodbye 2007, Hello 2008!!

A lot can happen in a year.... In 2007 Isabelle grew so much! She turned 2 this year, Isabelle discovered her love for pink and ponies. She also started Mommy and Me ballet classes. She graduated from a crib to a big girl bed. She started the year in love with Elmo and now loves all things Cinderella. She took her first plane ride to Virginia. Was a pumpkin for Halloween and stole our hearts with her bubbling personality.

Freddie and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary in July. Freddie left his job at Ford after nearly 10 years and started a new job with Sacramento County and LOVES it! I got a new camera in January and haven't put it down since, discovering my love for photography. I also ran in and completed the Nike Women's Half Marathon.

We are looking forward to 2008!
Enjoy some of our pictures from 2007 in a slideshow I made (Thanks Andrea for the idea!!)
Happy New Year!

Christmas Day!

Christmas morning, Isabelle woke up and jumped into our bed at 6:40am...that's pretty good, she is usually up before then. We sent Isabelle to wake up Uncle Garrett and all headed down stairs to see if Santa came....Isabelle immediately ran for the tree and stood in awe for about 2.5 seconds and then grabbed the first present she could and sat down and smiled, without any prompting. I think she knows by now that we like to get in a picture before all the fun happens, so I took the opportunity and snapped a quick picture. We suggested she go look to see if Santa came, before we opened presents. She got up and ran to the dinning room to find the plate empty and the soda gone as well. She was quite upset. She kept saying "they all gone, cookies all gone." She was sad that Santa ate all the cookie! The funny thing is that is all she could talk about all morning, that the cookies were all gone and this morning (the 26th) we were eating our breakfast and she just randomly said "Santa ate all the cookies, we go buy more cookies at the store Mommy?" Poor thing, I think next year Santa is going to have to leave her a cookie. Oops!

Isabelle enjoyed opening presents, but didn't have the patients to wait while each person opened a gift, so she had to help everyone, which was cute. She wanted to open each gift and play with them, until she realized that there was another for her to open. Her camera was a big hit! She loves it and has taken over 100 pictures so far! Freddie gave her a quick tutorial on how to use it and she caught on quickly! She has enjoyed taking her own pictures, as well as posing people or posing herself and asking someone to take a picture of her. She is too cute!

Isabelle was cracking us up all morning as she was opening her gifts with all the different things she said, I finally got a pen and paper out and wrote them all down so we wouldn't forget. Here are a few things she said....

*To a gift that wasn't even open yet - "WHAT IS IT!!!!!"

*When offered help to open a present that had a lot of tape - "I do it myself!"

*Garrett asked her "What is it?" She repyed "I have to open it first!"

*When she couldn't get a present open she said "It isn't working anymore!"

Grandma and Grandpa G and Auntie Sarah and Gabe joined us around lunch time and they brought Isabelle a red Schwinn tricycle...another hit! She enjoyed riding around the house and then outside for a while. She likes that there is a place on the back to put her dolls. We enjoyed a Turkey dinner and had fun playing a family game of Scene it!

It was a great day! We feel so blessed to have such a wonderful family!

Pictures from Isabelle's new camera... She took all but the last one, that one she posed herself and asked Freddie to take it..... When I was going through them there were several of her feet and of the Christmas tree so I had to include those, along with one of Grandma and Grandpa G she took while I was taking one of them! I enjoyed going through her film to see her point of view!

The Night Before Christmas....

Today my twin brother Garrett came to celebrate Christmas with us. Isabelle hasn't seen him in a very long time so I wasn't sure how quickly she would warm up to him. Freddie picked him up on his way home from work and Isabelle saw Freddie pull up through the window, so we ran outside and she greeted Garrett with a big hug and as soon as he got in the door she asked him to chase her and he did. There was no need for a warm up this visit. They played games and read books while Freddie and I made dinner, it was cute to watch them play.

After dinner we got Isabelle all ready for bed in her Christmas jammies and decorated gingerbread cookies for Santa. Isabelle enjoyed decorating the cookies and couldn't understand why she couldn't eat them. So we let her nibble off the arms of her cookie, and we left the rest for Santa. We all decorated a cookie, but the best part was watching Isabelle get excited about decorating hers we helped her with the icing but she put on all the candies by herself and ate several candies in the process.

Isabelle colored a card for Santa and I put the cookies on a plate and set them out with her letter and a Coka Cola...It was something we did when I was a kid instead of milk. I had the hardest time finding Coke in glass bottles this year.... But we found one and Freddie was super excited cause he loves Coka Cola...well Santa was excited I mean.....

After we set out Santa's treats, we called my Dad and he read Isabelle and the rest of us The Night Before Christmas, another tradition we had growing up. It always feels like Christmas after hearing my Dad read us that story on Christmas Eve...even as an adult. Isabelle enjoyed listening to the story too this year.

Right before bed we checked to see where Santa was on Norad http://www.noradsanta.org/ and he had just made it in the US, so we told Isabelle she better get to sleep.

She is asleep now and went to bed without a hitch. I thought for sure she would be too excited to go to bed, but I am sure the running around with Uncle Garrett helped.

Merry Christmas!

Issy and Uncle Garrett

Decorating her cookie....
Our finished cookies....
Waiting for Santa...
On the phone with Pops, listening to The Night Before Christmas.

Merry Christmas...

This week we received a visit from Samantha, When I am telling people about her, I make the mistake of saying the little girl I use to babysit, but she is all grown up now. Samantha lived with us last year while she was attending college here in Sacramento. She was a big help and we miss her so much. Isabelle loves when Samantha comes for a visit. They make tents and read every book we own a hundred times and Samantha chases Isabelle all through the house. Isabelle loves to be chased. She asks us a hundred times everyday if we will chase her and we often do. Most of the time when we are needing to get out the door, I chase her to get her moving.

This evening Isabelle and I spend a few hours wrapping Christmas presents, with the exception of hers of course. I gave her the task of handing me gift tags and bows and she also would hold down the paper while I taped the paper. She did a wonderful job, she was quite as a mouse and watched everything I did. She really enjoyed her tasks, I would ask her to get a bow and she would say "red?" or whatever color she saw as if asking if it were OK. She would do the same with the gift tags, handing me all the ones with Santa on them first until they were all gone, then handing me the ones with penguins and so on.

I am really enjoying this Christmas season watching Isabelle get excited about everything. This is the first year she actually gets Santa and baby Jesus. Presents she has that down for sure! But what 2 and 1/2 year old doesn't? She can sing three Christmas songs all on her own, Jingle Bells, We Wish You A Merry Christmas and most of Silent Night. She loves our Christmas tree and every once in a while she will grab her Cinderella ornament off the tree and bring it to me and ask me if I bought it for her. I am pretty sure she knows by know who bought it for her, she just wants an excuse to touch it. She doesn't like that the cat is always under the tree, but I have had Taffy longer than I have had Isabelle or Freddie and Taffy has ALWAYS loved Christmas trees. She will sit under the tree the entire season.

We are getting excited sharing many of our favorite childhood Christmas traditions, and making some of our own. I can't tell you how many times we have made cookies this season already. We plan to make a birthday cake for Jesus closer to Christmas.

We are looking forward to having Freddie's family here on Christmas day as well as my twin brother Garrett.

This season, we are so blessed to have good health, each other, our wonderful families and awesome friends. We hope that you all experience the true meaning of Christmas this year!

Merry Christmas!

The Gallardo's

Snow Day!

Freddie had to work today and I needed a day of fun after a long couple of days... So I thought it would be fun to have a snow day. I called my friend Amy and her family and we decided to make the trip together and since my parents aren't far from where we were going they met us. It was cold but the snow was soft and we enjoyed taking a fun walk through the snow and pulling the girls on the sled. Isabelle enjoyed seeing her Nana and Pops and they brought some fun snow toys for her to play in too... along with some cookies of course... We played for a while and then had lunch and as we headed down the mountain the girls both fell asleep along with Steve in the back...and Amy and I enjoyed a nice visit! It was so much fun I can't wait to go again with Freddie next time.... Seeing the snow really put me in the Christmas Spirit.

My little Snow Bunny

Making a snowball with Nana
Pops pulling Isabelle on the sled
Mommy and Issy

Issy and Molly

Molly, Amy & Steve

Santa Baby

Yesterday Isabelle asked us if she could go see Santa. So we took her this evening... The line was a little long so Freddie waited while Isabelle and I walked around. We walked by and could see Santa, he saw her and waved, and she waved back without prompting and said "Hi Santa!" He couldn't hear her but it was cute! We walked around a bit longer then headed back in line and she waited patiently for 20 minutes, not a peep or complaint! When we finally got to the front of the line, she hopped right up on his lap and told him she wanted a pink present, smiled happily in all 3 pictures they took and Santa gave her a toy and she walked towards me, turned around, waved and said "Bye Bye Santa!" So adorable! This Christmas has been so much fun, watching it though her eyes. She is learning so much and enjoying everything. She knows several Christmas songs and gets that it is baby Jesus' Birthday, she wants to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus everyday!

She loves her red dress she calls her Santa dress we had fun taking pictures of her in it, You can tell this girl LOVES Christmas!

Christmas Shopping...

This week Isabelle and I were in Target and we always walk through the $1.00 section to see if we can find something fun. 99% of the time Isabelle is in the shopping cart directing me to things. But on this particular day she didn't want to sit in the shopping cart she wanted to push it. So she was wondering down the aisle with me and she picked up a toy and handed it to me and said "Pops wants this!" and walked away. I laughed so hard that I had to buy it of course. Then I started asking her what Nana wanted and she said "Umm..." and walked over and picked something up from another bin and she repeated the process with Grandma and Grandpa G and Auntie Sarah and so on, until our list was crossed off. Well her list anyway. The gifts are random...but her intentions were genuine and she had so much fun, she talked about it all afternoon. I think we may have started a new little tradition for her. She certainly had a great time and I can't wait to see what everyone thinks about the special little gifts Isabelle picked out for them!

The Polar Express!

Today we went for a ride on the Polar Express. It was so much fun! Freddie and I truly had just as much fun as Isabelle did! We went with Isabelle's buddy Ty and his family. The kids got all dressed warm in there Jammies, and we headed on down to Old Sacramento and boarded The Polar Express. The kids were excited!

The entire staff were dressed as characters from the book, As the train took off, the kids were looking out the window waving at the people as we passed by. Then the train car was suddenly greeted by tap dancers with trays of hot chocolate and cookies! That was so much fun! As we were enjoying our yummy hot chocolate and cookies, the conductor read us the story of The Polar Express. When he was finished a bum walked through (part of the story) and did a little skit with the kids. Then the conductor came through and punched each child's ticket. This was Ty's favorite part! Then suddenly we were magically at the North Pole! and Santa was there! Isabelle was so excited she waved with both hands. Santa waved to the kids for a while and then disappeared. Isabelle turned to us and said "Where Santa go?" The train began to take off again and Santa appeared a few minutes later in our train car with a special gift for all who still believed. Everyone cheered! It was a bell (again part of the story). He talked to the kids for a while as he passed though and when he left, all the kids cheered again! Isabelle waved frantically and yelled, "Bye Santa!!" She was just too cute, she has a huge smile on her face the rest of the ride as she clutched her bell! She was so happy!

Natasha, Ty and Issy getting ready to leave on The Polar Express...

Looking out the window...
Isabelle waving to everyone as we passed by....
Arriving at the North Pole....
Isabelle was so excited she waved to Santa with both hands....
The bum...

Santa passing out the bells....

Isabelle waving goodbye to Santa...