Christmas 2012

 It was a good Christmas.

Aside from the fact that my laptop died.

Someone dropped it and it is dead.

Luckily the pictures will be able to be recovered,

 but lots of the Christmas fun is stuck at the moment.

Luckily I had not taken these off the camera quite yet.

 

 

We had a whole lot of fun with Rosie.

she did some zip lining,

hot air ballooning and a of lot treat eating.

Lily loved Rosie this year.

You may recall last year she insisted

I send her straight back to the north pole.

This year Lily mourned her loss

when she went back

with Santa. 

Yet another reason that poor Santa guy is

only aloud to grace our presence cause he brings gifts.

She is still a very hesitant fan of his. 

 

We did our traditional cookie baking.

We also made gingerbread houses with our friends Jake and Sofia.

 I had to work right up until Christmas this year.

Which made shopping and planning much trickier

but I did manage to still make tamales.

They were really, really, good this year.

I must say I am getting better and better each year.

I sure hope to learn to make them in Antigua

one day.  Lily has worn nothing but underwear for the last

2 weeks.  It doesn't matter how cold the house gets.

And as you can see she still has a love hate relationship

with a certain mommy and her camera lens.

 On Christmas Eve we went and opened presents at

my parents house.  Lily got just what she ordered and

we also got a nook which I am super excited about.  I've been reading on the small screen on my phone for several years.

I just feel so sophisticated reading from a full size page.

 On Christmas morning Santa did make one baby very happy.

She is now a full fledged rock star.

complete with a pink and purple wig, guitar, microphone and

sequin bedazzled outfit.

 Santa even made the furry creatures feel loved.

 Daddy gave Lily some treasure.

They are golden coins from Union Pacific.

Now our pirate girl is complete.

 Lily insisted on a rock star wig for Christmas.

Santa found one free with another purchase.

As he predicted someone won't wear it but Daddy is not shy.

 Our little Rock Star in all her bejeweled glory.

When you are 7 there is no such thing as too much sparkle.

Hmmmm.......

come to think of it that might be true of 37 too.

 On Christmas day we visited Peters parents and then went to       see my brother at his new home.

He had to work Christmas day but he stopped in for a visit.

The girls got to turn on the lights in his patrol car.

That may have been Lily's favorite part of Christmas.

My brother and his family recently moved back to our home town.

Ava now goes to my former elementary school.

Their house is farther up the hill from where we live.

So after we were done with the Christmas festivities

we drove up the hill and found the snow.

We weren't dressed for snow at all and the sun had gone down

but this was my favorite Christmas memory.

My little family laughing teeth chattering trying to catch snowflakes on our tongues.

Spontaneous.

I hope I have many more spontaneous moments in 2013.

Halloween and cousins

I did not get many pictures of Halloween.

I desperately wish that Halloween always landed on a weekend.

I love, love Halloween but,

every year it is so stressful getting little miss ready

for the tricking and treating.

This year was no different.

Someone decided the day of, that her costume was itchy

and she would rather be something else.

I was having none of that, her costume

was not cheap and I wasn't going to have my hard earned money wasted.....

so we unwillingly went as a sea fairy.

She made a darling sea fairy but was not much into

smiling for the camera or cooperating with her mean mother.

These smiles came after we had a boat load of candy.

 We did have fun despite the face below.

We went with our buddies Jake and Sofia.

We always have fun with them.

 Yesterday we had our cousin over.

Goodness me oh my she is cute cute cute!

Love this little one.

She is turning one this month.

I can not wait to help her celebrate.

 My little pumpkin is finally growing teeth.

I was beginning to think we'd be a toothless wonder forever.

I will miss this gappy toothed smile.



Happy 7th Birthday Baby Girl!

Lily Pie turned 7!

It was an absolutely beautiful day.

We went back to the pumpkin patch to celebrate.

We did this same party a few years back when she turned 4.

What is a party without some spectacular party clothes.

 Some of our best party friends!

  It pays to have talented friends.

Check out these gorgeous cupcakes!

Thank you so much Meg we loved them.

They were almost too pretty to eat.

ALMOST

After we sugared up on beautiful cupckaes

we added a little more with some pinata candy.

Silly cousin Ava

Here's what this skirt was made to do.

It was a great day with some of our very best friends.



First Grade

Lilyana (as she likes to be called now) is an official First Grader.

She started a new school again (poor girl)

I tried to get her into a charter school last year

and we did not win the lottery.

Two weeks before school started we got a call that we were in!!

I made the decision to leave our last school for several reasons.

It was a great school had wonderful scores, a little diversity, in a picturesque neighborhood.

But we had an awful teacher last year,

which we could deal with for a year

but the school did not take teacher requests so there was no way to assure that it would not happen again.

Also the school only went to 5th grade so once we were in Junior high we'd be on the hunt again.

Her new school goes until 8th grade so we don't need to worry again until High school.

She is going to a Montessori School.

They work primarily in concrete concepts until 4th grade.

Lily is a hands on kind of learner.

I'm so excited for her that she will learn in a way that

makes sense to her.

She is in a multi age classroom

which caused me some lack of sleep.

As a traditional teacher a first - third grade classroom

would cause me to have a nervous breakdown,

but there are 23 children and 2 aids.

I know she will get the attention she needs.

I wish I had a crystal ball to see into the future

to know if I made the right decision.

In the end I can only take a leap of faith.

My instincts tell me its a good spot for her.

I hope I'm right because she's gone to 3 different schools in 3 years.

We are ready for consistency!

Anyways here is my beautiful First Grade Girl.

Probably the one and only time she'll wear a skirt to school.

This picture was taken with my cell phone

She just looks so tiny here.

See she is still my baby :0)

Yellow Belt!

It was a big day in the Delap household.

Lily graduated to her yellow belt

and she got to do her first class demonstration.

There is not a shy bone in this child's body when she is at karate.

Karate makes her mama's heart sing and Lily absolutely glows!

I never thought I'd love an extra curricular activity so very very much!

And lastly this picture does not fit here

But......

Do you think that if she starts kissing toads now

she won't have to go through so many when she is an adult?

Here's to hoping.

It's not an actual toad its a polywog found at the river.

I figure baby toads will work too :0)

Guat Swim Party

We had a fun day at Nonnie and Papa's house with our girlfriends.

All the girlies are Kinders or First Graders.

It's hard to believe that they are school age.

I think these girls were 3 when we first started our little group.

The raft and the diving board were huge hits of the party.

Lily has not brought herself to even stand

 on the diving board before.

She walked right to the end like all the other girls.

I looked on thinking hmmm this is interesting.

She looked down determined to be brave.

Then she sat her bottom down and held on by her hands before dropping into the pool.

I was proud of my girl that was pretty darn good.

Sofia is the dare devil of our group and has mastered the dive.

She is pretty amazing!

 Irma and Maya have some serious style too.

Tres Amigas

 Some seriously cute goggles on a seriously cute girl!

Love these two!

Even if they are not into the mamarazzi!