family: our Christmas card 2012

splash time times two

Unfortunately this video turned out sideways and I have no clue how to fix it so turn your head and enjoy it! Haha! Julianna and Olivia love having bathtime together. Olivia discovered how much fun it is to splash and spends 90% of bathtime doing this! I love how much the girls are starting to interact with each other! Makes me smile so big!

Elf on the Shelf: Day 1-10

We started Elf on the Shelf the day after Thanksgiving and it has been a huge hit!

I wasn't sure if Julianna would really understand the whole thing but she definitely understands way more than I thought she would. She knows that Joy moves every night and that she is making sure that she is a good girl. Has it helped her behavior? Um... probably not but it's fun! Here's what Joy has been up to the first 10 days...

Day 1:

Day 2:

Day 3:

Day 4:

Day 5:

Day 6:

Day 7:

Day: 8

Day 9:

Day 10:

Merry and Bright

The Christmas season is finally upon us! Christmas is so much more magical when you get to celebrate it with your children. We are excited for for Julianna to understand so much more about Christmas this year, not just about Santa and presents, but about the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I am so thankful that we have a wonderful church that is also working with the children to help their young minds understand what this season is really all about.

We LOVE Christmas around the Soto house! We started decorating before Thanksgiving- we usually wait until the day after. We just couldn't wait this year. Here's what we've been up to...

We picked out our very first real Christmas tree. It was quite the interesting experience trying to get it to stand up straight but nothing a little string and ingenuity can't fix.

We even busted out the Christmas lights for the outside of the house that we purchased when we just started dating. I love these lightbulbs!

And of course, the girls are dressing up festively. Christmas pj's, Santa hats, and red polka dots and stripes! I love it all!

 

Even our little small town is decorated for Christmas...

 

The most fun thing we have started this year is Elf on the Shelf. We have a girl Elf named Joy... more about her shenanigans coming soon!

 

May your days be MERRY and BRIGHT...

Thanksgiving 2012

This year, Thanksgiving was our first as a family of 4. It was a super fun, family day. We started off the day by waking up way too early, thanks to our lovely toddler. We enjoyed watching our first Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade with our girls. Julianna loved it and her favorite balloon by far was Hello Kitty. Watching the excitement on her face was priceless!

We spent the rest of the morning/early afternoon being lazy and doing a little decorating for Christmas. I bought the girls matching Thanksgiving shirts because I want them to wear matching clothes as long as they will let me do it. I think it's precious! But of course when I bust out the camera, Julianna is no in the mood. Full on temper tantrum. Lovely!

Since I was dealing with an incredibly irritable toddler, I just decided to take a few pictures of happy little, Olivia.

Then we made the mad dash to complete 2 family meals that were at 3pm and 4pm. We arrived early for the 3pm meal with Josh's family and made it to the 4pm with my family a little late. We were absolutely stuffed to the point of being miserable by the end of the day but we had a such a wonderful day celebrating our many blessings with our families!

Olivia- 6 months

Olivia is 6 months old! In the last 6 months, Olivia has blessed our family with such a happy and sweet personality. She can sit up completely on her own and enjoys playing with toys, especially books. She had her first baby food, sweet potatoes:

At her 6 month check-up, she weighed in at 16 lbs. (50th percentile) and 25 inches (25th percentile). She's a happy and healthy girl!

And here she is playing at 5 months, 3 weeks old: