My sweet grandmother wanted to have a nice holiday tea with us, so she treated us to a post-holiday lunch at Neiman's.  They were having a special holiday buffet brunch until December 31st at the Zodiac Room at the downtown Neiman Marcus and so my sister, mom and grandmother all met for lunch.  It was such a nice treat, especially since I have such great memories of going to the downtown Neiman's as a child for their fortnight festivals and special shopping treats!
The food was AMAZING!  They had a salad bar with fresh salads, fish, Mediterranean fare like Hummus and then the entree buffet with turkey, mashed potatoes (best I've ever had), salmon and fresh veggies.  And the yummiest part of course was the dessert sampler!  We had a great time with her, thanks Momo!

Belle just started eating in Luna's old high chair!  We dusted it off and am now wondering why I never bought the space saver high chair, because this thing is huge!  Luna has been eating in one of those booster chairs you strap onto a regular chair and wish I had the high chair version, but I do like the large tray for all of the messes Belle will be having.

Luna got a little jealous when I put Belle in it and wanted her next meal in it!  And yes, that is one of my old plates she is eating off of, I made at my MDO back in 1980!

And the next day, Luna was all happy to help feed Belle, so cute!  Here is a quick video I took.  And excuse the spoon, it was one of those days where all 8 of my baby spoons were dirty and we only had a grown-up version to use.

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE Christmas?  One of my favorite days of the year for sure, especially now that we have children.  This year, my dad and Sherry were able to come up to celebrate with us, and we were so excited!  They wanted to see Luna and Belle walk in and see what Santa left her, so we planned a Christmas brunch at our house.  Unfortunately Sherry came down with a stomach bug and had to stay back at the hotel, but my mom, Raul (Buelo) and Aunt Erika came over bright and early, as well as my Dad!  Luna and Belle both woke up at 7:30am and ran right into the living room.  I think Luna was in shock and didn't quite believe that Santa had been at her house!  She saw the cookies had been eaten and was so surprised!  Santa decided that our kids had a lot of toys already, so he brought just a few big toys that he felt the girls might want (aka a pink tricycle and a new activity play gym, and a few new books and play dough activities).  Oh and in our home, Santa brings the toys unwrapped :)

After naps, my dad had to get back to Houston with Sherry, and my mom's family came over.  We decided to order our meal from Central Market and SOOO glad we did!  It beat me slaving in the kitchen for all hours, believe me, I've done it before and I end up not enjoying the holiday.  This meal was Fantastic and recommend it to everyone!  The sides were so good and the turkey was super tasty (much better quality than their usual to-go stuff and dinner for 2's)!  My Uncle Jeff, his friend Susanna, cousins Meghan and Grayson, Uncle Bud and Aunt Lisa and my grandmother Momo.  Staying at our home made it much easier too with Belle and Luna's naps!  They didn't have to sleep in a pack and play, and we didn't have to wake them up early to get anywhere.  It was a really nice and relaxing day, watching Elf and Christmas Vacation and watching the snow come down while spending time with our family!  What more could you ask for? We can't wait until next year, and see you soon Chippy!!

We spent Christmas Eve at my Aunt Kathy's house up in McKinney.  We were also sooo excited that Grandpa and Sherry were able to come spend Christmas with us this year!!  Growing up, we always spent Christmas Eve with my dad's family and Christmas Day with my mom's.  Since my grandparents passed away, we have moved it to my aunt's house the past several years.  We were so glad she hosted and it was the first Christmas Eve we have all been together: My dad, his sister Kathy, and his younger sisters Amy and Vianne and brother Doug, and Amy's son Devin and Kathy's kids Kevin and Kelley and their kids.  That includes Luna's cousins Devin, Tyler, Trace, Travis and Kacey.  Luna had the BEST time ever, and ran around the whole night with the them.  The adults also had the annual Chinese gift exchange with Uncle Bill as the MC as usual and his grandson Tyler.  I ended up with an awesome digital photo frame.  We hated to leave, but had to get home in time for Santa to come the next morning, so we changed them in their PJ's for the night.  We got home late, and that meant Luna went to bed at 10:30pm, her latest ever!  She fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

I can't believe Belle is more than half a year old now!  I did the math and she is still only 31 weeks old- saying it in weeks makes her sound like it was just yesterday, and it really does feel like she is still a newborn.  It is all going by so fast. 

She is finally having a little ridge coming out in her gums, her lower left tooth is coming in!  She started on solids last month and is doing great!  We introduce a new food every 2 days and so far has had mangoes, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, bananas, avocado, strawberries, green beans, spinach, peaches and peas.  I still use the Beaba that I used with Luna to make our own food and freeze it.  It's sooo easy!  I also mix in her cereals with the purees to give her some iron.  The challenge now is feeding Luna and Belle at the same time, so sometimes I do one at a time, but usually I plop Belle in her Bumbo and Luna in her high chair seat.

She is back and forth on sleep.  We had to put her back in the nap nanny when she was congested last week, so she has been sleeping well in it, except when she looses a paci and we have to go back in there and give it to her.  She is waking up to eat about 2 times still at night, ugh.  They say by 9 months they shouldn't need to eat in the middle of the night, so we'll see how she is in a couple of months.  Sigh.  The under eye circles are getting ridiculous!

As far as her socially and her play, she is having so much fun with Luna!  She is good at entertaining herself too and is the happiest baby ever!!  She now only cries when she is tired or hungry.  She adores her sister and looks up to her so much.  It's so fun to see her expression when Luna walks in the room and so great they can entertain each other.  She is such a cutie!!

This Christmas we were finally able to go to Old City Park's Candlelight Christmas.  Each year that I've been living back in Dallas, something has come up to where I wasn't able to go, since they only do it one weekend of the season.  I have such great memories of going to it as a young child- caroling, hot cider, sleigh rides, etc. and was so excited we could go this year.  It's changed A LOT- like now it's called Dallas Heritage Village.  And the sleigh rides are now country tractor hay rides.  But it was still so fun and charming.  They had the whole park lit by candlelight, had carolers, dancers, bonfires and all of the buildings were decorated for Christmas.  Luna had a lot of fun and enjoyed watching the carolers in the Old School, the women spinning wool and the sheep and of course her favorite thing was drinking hot chocolate! (it's all over her mouth in the pic below).

We also of course did one of my favorites, driving around to look at Christmas lights!  There used to be this house I loved going to as a child off Forest and Marsh, where the owners had amazing lights out front, complete with mechanical moving things.  Everyone used to get out of their cars and walk around this house to see it all and we have a lot of pics of us as kids going each year.   I miss houses like that, but my favorite one now is in our old neighborhood, in a house off Newell Avenue.  The owner, Liz, is a professional artist and works year round on her decorations.  Luna LOVED this house... We also drove to Armstrong, Beverly and Lakeside drive and then the Hunter's Glenn house that does every holiday (we DCAD'd this house and it is worth 16million, well that is what it is appraised at, who knows how much it's really worth-point being that they can certainly afford these extravagant lights!!).

On Wednesday, Todd took the day off to go to Northpark to see the trains and do some Christmas shopping.  Walking around Northpark is another fun holiday tradition I had as a child and remember the Scrooge puppet show that they still have at NP.  Another thing I miss is the 12 days of Christmas they had there and wish they still did it.  But they now have a cute Gingerbread puppet show too that Luna loved!

And to add to even more Christmas activities, the Episcopal Church of the Ascension had a living nativity event on Friday night that we enjoyed going to complete with a petting zoo and hot chocolate.  It was a lot of fun and it's a nice neighborhood church where one of Luna's playgroup friend's daddy is the priest there.

Our last holiday stop this weekend was not really a Christmas event, but our first trip to the new Science Museum called the Perot.  It's really a cool building, but wish it was bigger like the original one at Fair Park.

This year, Todd's family has to spend Christmas in other cities, so we all decided to meet in Dallas for an early Christmas at our house.  Todd's dad (Buelo Richard), and Todd's sister, Heather, Rey, Carolyn, and Rey jr all came to town on the 14th.  Unfortunately I was sick with my first cold in over a year, but so glad to see them and my girls love it when they come to town!  We opened gifts and Luna got some amazing Melissa and Doug Puzzles, and her favorite movie ever, The Sound of Music.  Belle got some fun new toys to entertain her and she finally has some of her own that aren't passed down from sister Luna ;)  I wish I had taken more pictures, but being sick I guess I was just not on top of my game!
Saturday night they offered to babysit so we could go to Todd's work Christmas party!  That was super nice of them and so glad we were able to go.  I downed as much cold medication I could and had a fun time! 
We were so sad that the weekend came to an end so fast, but so happy to have spent and early Christmas with them!

Luna had her first ever dance recital on the 8th!! It was called the Suzy Snowflake Ballet Dance, not sure what Suzy meant, but it was the CUTEST thing EVER!  It was at her dance school (her May one will be offsite).  I just about died when Luna walked out in her little costume- the teacher got them all dressed herself so we didn't know what they would look like when they came out.  She was the first one to enter the room and the teacher led her out.  Precious!

When we moved into our house in March 2010, I was about 8 months pregnant and desperate for a home for our baby.  I loved the look and feel of our home when we saw it and loved the 1950's mid-century feel, and have always loved older homes with character.  (We had come from a home built in 1926, so this one built in 1957 felt so new to us, we felt like we were moving to the suburbs :)  Since we moved in, we have updated the master bath, and a few other little things like new doors, and painting rooms.  But the kitchen has always been the main room that really needed some help.  We finally got the oven re-done last year as a gift from my dad and Sherry- can you believe the oven was still the original from the 50's and still worked?  But we FINALLY went from black paint to white this month.  I never liked how small the kitchen felt with black paint, it felt like a coffin or something.  I thought I could prime and paint the cabinets myself, but after 5 hours of painting just 1 little cabinet, we decided to hire some painters and sooo glad we did!  It really brightened up the kitchen!  We also need a new light fixture above the sink which will be next month's goal.  My final wish would be for it to be more open to the living room, but we'll take the pass through for now ;)

My mom started a great holiday tradition of hosting a Christmas Ornament Exchange party, Chinese gift exchange style, a few years ago.  My sister and I loved attending it so much we decided to start hosting our own about 6 years ago.  We always have so much fun at it, that I am sad when it ends!  Luna also enjoyed taking everyone's ornaments as they entered the door and ran and put them under the tree.  We then went to our mom's party a few days later with her friends and those ladies get crazy with the stealing of ornaments, it goes on forever and is so much fun!