Fun with Cousin Sydney

Sydney came to stay with us for a couple days and Reese loved having a playmate around. They played babies and kitchen and ran around outside all day.

Today we took the girls bowling and out for ice cream. They had a blast bowling for the first time!

Reese got a strike!

They both did really well...and Reese scored better than I do most of the time :o)

Then off to ice cream we went.  Much to the girls' excitement, the kid-sized cone was huge!

Come back soon Syd!

Baking with my girl

Reese has definitely taken an interest in helping me in the kitchen lately...and I love it :o) 

Today's project was Valentine's cookies.  Of course, eating the frosting and sprinkles is the best part :o)

 Reese was loving doing the frosting and sprinkles on her own...and we only had one bottle of sprinkles fall all over the floor - a victory in my mind :o)

Cookies! If it looks like I decorated most of them...you would be correct.  I think my mom can attest to the fact that kids usually decorate a few and then move on to something else, leaving the rest to you! 

Either way, it's fun!

The things this girl says...

Reese cracks us up on a daily basis just being her. Here's a few of her recent musings:

"Hey Dad, can I have some mac-a-cheese and ronis?"

"Mom, this is some great food"...while eating Cheerios.

After getting dressed and having her hair done, her Aunt Jen told her she looked cute, to which she responded "Yeah, I look awesome."  :o)

Apple Chips

In college, my roommate, Nicole, got a dehydrator for Christmas one year and it was the coolest thing.  We started dehydrating all sorts of food, just for fun.  It makes the perfect snack - dried fruit especially.  I loooove apple chips. They are one of my favorite snacks, but I never buy them because they're so expensive.  I don't know why I never tried to make them on my own (I, unfortunately, do not have a dehydrator).  I found a "recipe" (um...it's apples and cinnamon...that's it) and made them today. Delish. I highly recommend them.

It's a....

Jesh and I have been so excited to find out if the baby is a girl or boy and this past weekend while in Phoenix, I had my 20 week ultrasound.  We are happy to report that the baby is healthy, right on target for my due date, and kicking up a storm!

We wanted to do something a little different to "surprise ourselves" with the gender and we found some cute ideas on Pinterest.  We tweaked a few of those and decided to have the ultrasound tech write down the gender on a card with the picture (for evidence!) and seal it in an envelope. We went and picked out a girl's outfit and a boy's outfit (the suspense was killing us by now!) and had the cashier open the envelope for us and ring up the outfit we were going to buy...turns out we are having a BOY! We are both so excited and can't wait to meet our little man :o)

Garcia Family Christmas Weekend

With four Garcia brothers and lots of extended family, we decided to celebrate the Garcia Christmas over MLK day this past weekend in Phoenix at Micah and Jen's house.  We had lots of fun, went to the zoo, played games, ate good food and opened gifts. Overall, an awesome weekend with the ever-growing family. We ended the weekend with our 20 week ultrasound down in Phoenix to check on baby and find out the gender (check the next post!)

Reese & Sydney

Hangin' in the kitchen

Nana Cia

Micah & Emery

The Garcia brothers & families

 My sweet girl

All the Garcia kids

Caleb, Jesh, Jacob & Micah

On the bloggin' train once more...

After a sabbatical of sorts from the blogging world, I'm coming back on a mission. Since scrapbooking has become a thing of the past for me (who has time??), this will be my new platform to document our days and remember those little, seemingly insignificant things that I know I will want to look back on in 5, 10 or even 50 years. Here is a recap in pictures of our 2011 - eventful, I'd say - and we're looking forward to an even greater 2012!