Since my mom and Raul were celebrating Christmas up in Maine with Mimi and the kids, we celebrated on the 27th at the Gaylord.  We opened gifts at our house and then ventured out to the Gaylord.  We had dinner at the Riverwalk Cafe on the mini indoor replica of the San Antonio Riverwalk, and walked around so Luna could see all of the lights!  Todd forgot to pack the stroller so we had an active toddler on our hands!  She loved running around and seeing all of the lights.  (Miss Lu also refused to smile in any of our photos :(

Look at how much she's grown from last year's visit!

I know, I am lloonnngg overdue for a Christmas update, but my Macbook was having error messages and getting to the Apple Store after the holidays was not on my list of things to do.  But we are up and running now, yay!

As for Christmas, we spent Christmas Eve with Aunt Erika and had a nice dinner at Kirby's Woodfire Grill.  I had an amazing grilled Salmon salad there and their bread is super yummy.  They serve you bread with butter that is in a cup melted over a little flame.  Needless to say Luna loved it and wanted more!  She was itching to go though towards the end of dinner, so no dessert for us!  Her time in high chairs is pretty limited these days.

When we got home from dinner, Todd had to set up Luna's Santa gift (from Coco and Buelo), a play kitchen.  He spent almost 3 hours putting it together and we were able to watch 2 Christmas movies while he built it- Miracle on 34th St (my fave) and Todd's fave, A Christmas Story.

When we all woke up, Luna was stunned to see what Santa brought her.  Her kitchen, baby gear, a new baby crib, Sesame Street toys and some puppets.  Aunt Erika came over to celebrate and open gifts.  Then we went over to our Uncle Jeff's for Christmas dinner with cousin Meghan and Grayson.  Here is a slide show of pics of Christmas day!

This weekend, we celebrated Christmas early with Todd's family here in Dallas.  We spent Christmas last year with them, so this year they are celebrating with their other families.  We really enjoyed having them here!  Luna loved her cousins Carolyn and Rey, Jr.  Her Aunt Heather , the kids and Abuelo Richard came in town. We missed Uncle Rey but he had to stay behind in OKC to manage his new Chick Fil A store.  It's next to a Target so it is getting crazy crowded with the holiday shoppers.
They all came over on Saturday to hang out with Luna and eat dinner.  Then the next day they came over for breakfast and open Christmas presents.  Luna loved opening her presents and ripping open the wrapping paper!  Her family really spoiled her by buying her a cute Juicy pink track suit, a pink shopping cart complete with food items, a pretend ice cream set with bowls, ice cream and sprinkles, and a baking set.  She is now set to open shop!  Thanks Hartgroves!!
We then had a nice holiday dinner at Javier's Mexican Restaurant.  Luna loved the stuffed bear and her ice cream for dessert.  We then drove around to look at Christmas lights in Highland Park and our favorite, Hunter's Glen.  Luna loved all of the lights! :)

Luna and Santa.  They have a love hate relationship going on right now.  She loves seeing him on TV and from a distance (plus the gifts he brings), but when she gets up close, she screams bloody murder.  We tried to get her to sit in his lap at our neighborhood PTA Christmas party but she started crying so we nixed it.  Then we went downtown to Neiman's because we heard he was a gentle Santa.  But as soon as I was about to hand her off, she started crying. The photographer told us we had the option of a crying child in the photo or for me to hold her and get a family photo. Nice, considering I had not planned on jumping in and was not wearing makeup.  Oh well!  I didn't want to force Luna to sit on Santa's lap and develop a phobia of all things Santa, so we went with the family photo op.

Wow, what a difference a year makes!  She has grown so much.  Here is her picture from last year:

Miss Luna turned 19 months on the 13th and is on the home stretch to being a whole 2 years old. So sad.  I love this age as everything she does is soo cute!

Her major milestones this month are her verbal skills.  It seems she can say a new word every day and this week her favorite is 'Santa!'  She points to his picture everywhere we see it, but of course the couple of times we have gotten near a real one, she has gotten really scared and started to cry. 

So what is Luna up to these days?  Here is her typical schedule:

Morning:
-Wakes up between 7:15-8am and we know she's awake when we hear, "mama!"  I am trying to wean her from breastfeeding, so Todd usually gets her up in the morning since she wants her 'milk' right when I enter her room and gets extremely upset if she doesn't get it.  So Todd fixes her a cup of milk right when she gets up.

-She eats breakfast from 8-8:30am and loves strawberries, blueberries, yogurt, cheerios, oatmeal, and applesauce. Not all of them at once, we rotate a few out.  Oh, and she is now liking eggs!  yay!

-She plays in the morning, unless we have an errand to run like Central Market on Mondays, Kindermusik on Thursdays at 9am or Mom's Day Out on Wednesdays at 9am.  Here is her MDO schedule for December:

Mid-Day:
-Luna eats lunch usually from 11am-11:30am and loves eating avocado, turkey, cheese, fruit, pasta, PBJ sandwiches, black beans, tomato soup, grilled cheese, and peas

-She naps from 12-3pm and requires 3 stories before bedtime and it is so great that we can just put her in her crib and she falls asleep on her own- much improved from where she was at 9 months vs 19 months!  The Ferber method really worked and glad we did it then

Afternoon:
-After nap she wakes up and we play, have a snack of Annie's Bunnies or cheese/crackers, or PBJ.  We then either have 1 errand to run or if we are lucky, can stay in and relax and play before dinner.  I always feel so bad if I have too many errands to run with Luna. I hate strapping her in her car seat, then strapping her in her stroller, then strapping her back in her car seat, that by the time 1 errand is done, I just want to go home.  I feel like she needs to roam around and not be so confined.  That is why we are lucky there are play groups in the afternoons sometimes or park play dates!

-As for play, she is really into pretend play, wanting to put diapers on her dolls, pushing her stroller around. She also loves to dance and when I play her Kindermusik songs, she will re-create the moves we do in class, so cute!  She copies EVERYTHING we do and it is so interesting to watch her learn.  For instance, the other day little Honey Bear was outside going to the bathroom, squatting down, and Luna watched her then also squatted down next to her!  So hilarious.

Evening:
-Luna eats dinner around 5:30 and will have whatever I have fixed for dinner, such as pasta, beans, chicken, soup, chili, etc. and her only veggie she eats now are peas so I have to try to sneak in some pureed broccoli somehow.  It's play time after dinner, before bath at 6:30pm. We always sing the clean-up song before bath and clean up her toys, and off to bath. 

-After bath, she brushes her own teeth, then we comb her hair, lotion, PJ time and then storytime. She still also sleeps in a sleep sack for her size and I think it helps her sleep better and not wake up.  She loves to pick out her own books to read and right now her favorite is Pat the Christmas Bunny!  I rock her in my arms for a short lullaby and then she goes into her crib. Sometimes it takes her about 15 minutes to fall asleep but then she is out.  Of course we have the occasional night where she wakes up and is standing up, so we go in there and lay her back down and she goes back to sleep.  I think she wakes up because goes through spurts of separation anxiety and wants to make sure we are still there :)

Overall she is growing up so fast!  She no longer is having as many temper tantrums because she is able to tell us better what she wants.  Although I swear the days I have more errands to run, the more cranky she is.  She loves staying at home!

We have also been busy the past few weeks with Christmas parties and Santa and went to one party where Luna got to design her own ornament!  Here is a picture of her feeling oh so excited!

More Santa pictures to come........

Luna and I were driving around for a couple of days, Edward Cullen style, in the Volvo C30!  My car was in the shop getting new brake pads, so I asked for a loaner from the dealer with a stick shift. I miss my old manual transmission cars :( My service tech said he has never had a request for a manual car before, that I was the first..lol.. It definitely brought back a lot of memories pre-Luna, but I now know I can not ever have one again, well, as long as I am driving kids around.  Not because it was hard to drive at the same time as having a toddler, but because they make me drive way too fast, zipping around corners and switching lanes.  I need a slow car now that I have a child. That's why I got a V6 and not the V8, I needed the slowest one possible.  I wish they still made more V4 cars or better yet, I wish I had taken my great grandmother's vintage 1960 Red Cutlass when my grandfather offered it to me in high school, darn! Oh well.  I still love my Volvo XC90, safety first.

Luna was invited to her little friend and neighbor, Jack's birthday at the Little Gym and she LOVED it!  I can't believe he is turning 2.  She had so much fun and enjoyed seeing all her friends and of course the cupcake she devoured!

Luna and I headed to see the trains at Northpark on Friday the 9th with her playgroup and how did she like them? Let's just say she kept signing 'more, more' and cried when we left!

Friday we had the PTA Christmas Party for the little ones and it was awesome!  They had a little sugar gum kitchen set up for kids to play in and to decorate cookies. This was by far Luna's favorite event and would not leave this area. She downed about 3 cookies before I could stop her!

Our friends Ava and Tinsley joined us too. 

One of Luna's little boyfriends, Clay:

Her friend Caroline and Ella Grace got in on the action too:

I tried to get Luna to take a picture with Santa, but as soon as she got near him, she starting wailing!  So no photo op for us.  We are going to try Santa a little later this week and see if she does any better.  Her friend Jack was able to get a little bit closer to him without getting too upset!