Christmas

In honor of Washington's Birthday, we'll post pictures from another holiday ... Christmas! Here are just a few lovely highlights from our bigger-than-life Texan Christmas.

Santa and Mrs. Claus drop in at the DeLuca's on Christmas Eve with presents and candy canes for all!

Bruno goes present diving.

Thelma and Louise on Christmas morning.

Child of the Week

A few weeks back, Nina was Child of the Week at her school. The main event is creating and sharing a poster with pictures of your family. Nina and I picked some photos from her Beach Birthday Vacation, and we painted up a poster board and glued on the pictures. Nina was soooo proud to bring it to school to share with all her friends. On Tuesday of that week, she made a special presentation, standing in front of the class and telling them about each picture, and then taking questions and comments from the audience. Needless to say she loved being the center of attention, but I was impressed how she thanked each of her friends after they made a comment on the poster.

This was the one that Nina was the most proud of. She told everyone about the baby in the bucket, and how Willie took her (but not Lola) for a ride around the block.

Walking on the beach the first morning.

The Birthday Girl posing with Marbella, Palapa Joe's morning cook and mother of 5 year old Anna who Nina played with on the beach.

Whacking the birthday piñata! It was filled with spicy chicken and beer flavored lollipops (not kidding)

Lola!

This one was Nina's school friends favorite. We heard "I like the one of you running out of the water" about 15 times.

Beach Palapa Restaurant

Crocodile! I expected more of a reaction from the kids on this one, but apparently everyone sees scary looking reptiles on their vacation.

And here is the final product!

Somehow none of these made it onto the poster, but they are just so adorable, I'll include them here!

First Steps!

Lola took her first steps over the weekend! We weren't sure if she was going to make it before her first birthday, but she snuck it in at 11 1/2 months. She is still rather nervous about the whole thing but is getting more comfortable with free standing. Of course with her being a second child, there are, as of yet, no pictures or videos of this event. You will have to settle for this shot taken right after Lola managed to climb up into the high chair all by herself. It was rather impressive.

Look at me!