My Baby Turns 10 (Pic Overload)

Today my baby turns 10!! I can't believe time has flown by so fast. Just this morning I was telling Lena her birth story. I went to Dr. Hailparn on a Thursday for my final appointment. She told us that if I didn't have Lena over the weekend she would induce me that coming Monday. I was telling Emil he needed to get the crib. The baby would be here in a few days and we still didn't have the crib. So he left with Stas and said they were going to get it. He came home much later....and with no crib!! I was furious! The next morning I was still mad at him. I woke up having contractions. I laid on the couch on my left side like Dr. Hailparn told me to...this would slow the contractions. Emil came and checked on me and asked if I was still mad. I told him of course I was! Then Charlie jumped on me. Emil said, "See, even Charlie is worried about you." I laughed and when I did my water broke. I remember him driving like a maniac to the hospital after dropping CC off with my mom. My goodness we were so unprepared. I don't remember when or how but the crib was there by the time we came home with our new baby.

This is Lena on her first birthday in Dallas.

Here she is around 2 maybe 3. This was typical Lena. Always in makeup.

And playing Barbies with anyone who would play with her.

I remember my sister gave me some really pretty Elizabeth Arden lipsticks. I fell asleep and this is what I woke up to. I didn't have one lipstick left but I got this cute picture. How could I get mad at a face like this?

I didn't have a lot of her younger photos downloaded. I need to work on that. So here she is about 4.
This picture was taken right after we moved into the house we are in now. She was 4 at the time. CC and I made her up to look like Marfushka, the lazy mean stepsister in the Nastenka fairytale.

This is my little princess exactly 5 years ago. It was a tradition to make my girls a cake or cupcakes and let them have it for breakfast. They would then open all types of little gifts I got for them the night before. I slacked this year. I have no cake and no gifts! The weather has been cold and wet and we worked so long today. I plan on waking up super early and having everything ready for her when she wakes up this morning.

New Years Eve 2005-6. Just a few more days and she will be 6! I look at this picture and can't believe CC was so chubby. She looks NOTHING like this now!!

Lena and CC on Lena's 6th birthday.

This is possibly my favorite picture of the girls. It was taken the night before Lena turned 6.

Notice the 6 cupcakes? Great breakfast before school!!

And now we skip straight ahead to her 7th birthday. Poor baby, bless her heart. She is still half asleep!

And I must have been too...there is only one cupcake!

That weekend we had a party for her and her friends at a salon that did fabulous dressup and karaoke parties. It was a huge hit!! This is Lena and her best friend from school Emma.

The party was on Saturday. Sunday we were in the ER...she had strep!

This is my girls on their first day of school. Lena was going to 1st grade and CC to 6th!

Lena on her 7th birthday. We took Mom to Pasha for lunch for her birthday as well, then we spend the day going to model homes!

Me and Lena here....

CC and Lena. I had already started blogging by this point. Sooooo....now there are tons of pictures of her downloaded.

And here my baby is at 8 years old with Abdelkrim. He used to call her his little devil.

My baby 9 years old. This was our first night in Galveston.

And here we are on her last day as a 9 yr old. She did homework, played on the computer (Howrse) and listened to music. 30 Seconds to Mars and My Chemical Romance are her favorites.

And she delivered another lovely message to me and my camera....NO PICS!

I managed to snap a few pictures around 11:45 p.m.

I coerced a half smile from her... still pretty fake...but at least it's a smile.

My sweet baby Lena. I know you read this blog everyday. I love you so much and I am so proud of the smart, strong girl you are becoming. These qualities will last you long through your life. I hope you always stand your ground when you feel something isn't right and fight for what you believe is right. I love your stubbornness though at times it can be trying. I love that you are as solid as a rock on the outside but inside you are the softest, sweetest girl. You know exactly what you want and what you mean and no one has any luck changing your mind. You are so creative and artistic. You amaze me all the time. I love looking at your drawings and creations.... I am always in awe because it's hard to believe a 9 year old is capable of those creations! Keep creating, whether it be drawing, writing songs or skits. Never let that passion die. I love you so much my darling! More than I ever knew was possible!!

Our Weekend with a Scare

This weekend started with Friday being a wonderful smooth day! Thank goodness! It's been a long time coming!!
Saturday we met Mom and went to the park for a walk. The weather was/is supposed/is turning cold and wet so we wanted to catch up on some of the walking we've missed out on since Christmas. My Lena looked so pretty and I wanted to try to snap a couple of pictures of her in her last days as a 9 year old.

My CC was just as beautiful as always. It's hard to snap any pictures of her because she and Luigi are always so far ahead of us. sigh...it must be nice to be skinny!

Mom wanted us to go over to her house and visit a bit but I had been planning to make homemade flautas all week and we were all hungry. It took a while and CC helped me but my goodness it was worth it! They were the BEST flautas ever!! Seriously...the best!

Today I had a pretty big scare. Mom texted me to see if I was going to church. I replied right back that I was just about to ask her the same thing. I got no response. Nothing. For hours! She didn't answer her cell phone, home phone or texts. I called my sister and she hadn't talked to Mom all day today either. I called her neighbor and he said her car was gone and she wasn't answering the door. I was freaking out! Mom calls me if she just goes to Wal-Greens to pick up medicine and she didn't call me to tell me she was going anywhere! I was so nervous. I loaded up the car and was driving over to her house when she called and told me she didn't hear back from me after her text this morning and she went to church with out me. I felt soooo much better!

Lisa invited me and the girls to go see Little Fockers. It. Was. Hilarious!!! We laughed so hard!! It was so funny... Papa Bear wants to go see it now and I definitely wouldn't mind seeing it again! Papa Bear called as we were walking out and reminded me that he wanted some movie nachos. So while I ran in to get them Lisa snapped these pictures of the kids....

Not great quality but it's all we had!! After the movie we went over and visited Mom for a while. I rubbed some of the knots in her leg and showed her some stretches to help loosen her muscles. Then we girls came home and I made rice with tortilla encrusted tilapia. Sooo good!! The weather is getting colder and I love it!!

Right now the girls are in bed, Papa Bear is finished working for the night and I just want to go snuggle up with him and watch TV.

Pink Saturday - Pixie Tree

It's Pink Saturday over at Beverly's beautiful blog "How Sweet The Sound." This is also my first Pink Saturday post for the year!!
Today I am showing a beautiful gift that my daughter received in the mail from another one of our favorite bloggers, Tobi at The Pink Pixie Forest.

My daughter is absolutely in love with Tobi's blog (as am I!!) and can spends hours upon hours just browsing through each lovely post! And Tobi, being the wonderfully sweet and generous lady she is, made my daughter this beautiful pixie tree, packed it in layers of pretty pinkness and sent the box down to Texas! My daughter almost cried when she saw this packed neatly inside....
The little pink ballerina's around the tree are the perfect compliment!

I love unicorns and so does Lena... she also loves ballerinas, especially after seeing The Nutcracker.

I love the golden color of the tree....and how perfectly the pink accents it!

It was truly a perfect pink present for a very sweet little girl!!

Tobi also included this sweet card.

I just recently wrote about why I blog....this is exactly why. Blogging allows us to meet such fun, sweet people we otherwise never would have met. I have made many friends here and I cherish each one of them. You can visit Tobi's etsy shop here. She has so many pretty creations you will have trouble choosing just one. And I can tell you, these are truly beautiful pieces in which she put into time and love.

As I was entering Lena's room to snap pictures of her pretty pixie tree this is what I saw....

She had her purple spider wrapped around her back. She reminded me of the Evil Mom on Coraline!! This sweet girl will turn 10 in three days. I can't believe time has flown so fast. I love this little girl so much more than I ever thought it was possible to love. She is so unique and funny and smart and sweet and I could go on and on. And I know that there are shoes all over the floor (guess she gets the shoe fetish from me, and me from my mother and grandmother) but I didn't want her to remove them because I want to remember her in this moment just like this.... shoes and all!

Don't forget to stop by Beverly's blog to see more wonderful pinkness!!

Why I Blog....

Today's Blog Dare asks us why we blog...

A couple of years back I joined a Mom Group in my area through meetup.com. As I was browsing some of the member's profiles I found one had a personal blog. I thought that was pretty neat. I honestly had never seen anything like it before and I thought it was the coolest thing! So I clicked on some of the blogs she read on her side and found Baby Bangs, then Hello from Housper and finally KellysKorner. I would check up on each of them every few days and began feeling like I was getting to "know" these people. It was weird and fun all at the same time.
THEN something strange happened... as I would make my way through each day I would find little things happen that would make me say, "That would be good to put on a blog!" or "I could just see that being discussed on a blog..." Finally I gave in a started my own blog. I wasn't very regular on updates at first, mainly because I had such trouble downloading photos. Then, once I got the hang of it..forget about it!! I was hooked!
My husband often tells me I shouldn't put private details about our life online...and I don't. I guess that shows you how much he actually reads my blog! I look at my blog as an online diary of our life... what we did, what we cooked, current events that are happening and our reactions to it....things like this. And a huge plus is that our family and friends that live far away from us can stay updated with whats happening. I don't divulge street names or school names. I try to not even speak very much about areas of town I visit or the one I live in. I do keep that private. I feel better doing that.
One thing that I love more than anything is being able to look back and say, "Oh..this is where we were a year ago today.." or six months ago today.....
That is fun! If it weren't for my blog I would have forgotten lots of those details. Sometimes I just post pictures of my girls in everyday life..sleeping, playing on the computer, doing homework, etc. I want to be able to look back and not only remember those normal events, but also see those events. So many times it's the big memorable events that we retain. I want to be able to look back and see it all!
The fabulous blogging community has also allowed me to meet such wonderful, sweet ladies from all over the country. Ladies that I feel are real friends. Ladies I have something in common with and those who inspire me. It's fun.... it's bonding! I love it!!
I also have found new recipes, different twists, decorating ideas on the cheap, easy DIY projects...honestly, if it wasn't for blogger I would have never ever even imagined such a thing as a coffee filter wreath!!
Blogging is a perfect outlet for me that combines many of my favorite things in life....friendship, love, memories. Writing has always been something I love to do and blogging allows me to do that while meeting wonderful people, finding new ideas and creating memories for my family to look back and share. What could be more wonderful than that?