Holiday Letter 2011

2011 Holiday Season

After the 2010 we had it was hard to imagine that 2011 could be better, but this year has been filled with just as much excitement as the last one. We both could barely keep up with everything happening.

This year started slow until our first anniversary in April. We enjoyed a piano concert by Jim Brickman at the Van Wezel in Sarasota. He spoke of celebrating anniversaries since he had just celebrated 15 years of writing and performing in December. It was a perfect concert to celebrate the occasion. I made Kris an album keepsake that highlighted our early years together and our first year of marriage. It was a wonderful weekend of romance and reminiscing.

The most exciting highlight of 2011 was learning we were expecting our first baby in January 2012. I had suspected for some time that we might be pregnant but was too nervous to test. After two weeks of waiting, we decided to take a home pregnancy test on my 37^th birthday. Even though the line was faint, we were both excited to learn that we were, in fact, pregnant. It was the best present that I could have ever received.

The past couple of months have been quite busy trying to prepare for the baby’s arrival. Thankfully the pregnancy has been uneventful. I did not have much more than slight morning sickness and fatigue the first trimester. It had me out for the count on some days. The second trimester I had more energy and felt like I could get more things done. I tried to take advantage of these bursts of energy to get some cooking done ahead of time. During the third trimester we have been busily trying to get the house and nursery ready. It has been a slow process as fatigue has set in again.

Early in the pregnancy we referred to our little one as Special K since we did not know the gender. Everyone wondered whether our Special K had strawberries or blueberries (girl or boy). Kris had been hoping for a girl while I was hoping for a boy, so one of us was going to be right. We both would have been happy either way. In August, right around 20 weeks, we were happy to learn that we were having a GIRL. We have chosen the name Felicity after my 92-year-old grandmother, Felicidad, who went home to the Philippines shortly before we were married.

This year we enjoyed a babymoon vacation in September. We took a tour of Florida beginning in Naples with the baby shower of our friends Gary and Christine Huber. I was excited for our baby bumps to meet for the first time.  The rest of our vacation consisted of a visit to Mom and Dad Mendoza in Fort Pierce, the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse in Daytona, the hot spots in St. Augustine and a quick lunch with a good friend in Orlando. Kris climbed all 203 steps to the top of the lighthouse while Mommy and baby visited the different museums on the campus. While in St. Augustine, we visited the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche and Potter’s Wax Museum. It was nice to have one last getaway before baby girl arrives.

Other family highlights this year include celebrating my parent’s 40^th wedding anniversary, my Mom’s 65^th birthday and the 12^th birthday of my oldest niece Lexy in November. Mom and Dad hosted a nice dinner for family and friends to celebrate. We also welcomed Izabella Anna, the daughter of Kris’ brother Paul and his wife Nicole. Izabella is the 9^th niece and nephew between the both of us. It was wonderful to share the pregnancy experience with Nikki and we are looking forward to the two cousins meeting.

Here we are now at the end of 2011 and the new year is fast approaching. We both are looking forward to meeting our daughter and the many adventures 2012 has in store for us. We cannot wait to share with you all our exciting news of the upcoming year.

We would like to send you and your family the love and blessings of our Lord this holiday season. We hope you find the joy of the Lord this new year and many years to come.

Sending love, joy and peace from our family to yours this holiday season. May the new year bring good health, happiness and prosperity.

With lots of love,

Kris, Eileen Mae and, coming soon, Felicity

Our Christmas 2011 photo

8 1/2 months pregnant

Christmas 2011

First Holidays

One of the difficult things to figure out during marriage is how to divide our time between both families for the holidays. There are a couple of really big holidays during the last few months of the year that give us a great opportunity to spend time with family. But it is hard to divide our time between two different families when our family is spread pretty far across Florida. Even harder when our schedule only gives us a day or so off to celebrate holidays with family. Someone has to be at the paper to make sure those after holiday sale ads make it to your driveway Thanksgiving and Christmas morning.

This year Kris was able to get both Thanksgiving day and Christmas day off from work. With only one day off for the holidays, it was easy to decide where to go for the holidays. All of Kris' family lives within 20 minutes of one another and only about 45 minutes from us. Having just one day off gives us a perfect chance to spend time with them and be able to make it home all in the same day. The hard part is with only one day off we cannot make it to see both sides of the family. Since my family is spread across three different parts of the state more than an hour away from us, it is more difficult to visit each of them. We try to visit them all when we have a day or two off but that does not happen very often.

Unfortunately, our Thanksgiving plans did not go as well as we planned. A few unexpected events changed our family plans for Thanksgiving but we still managed to spend a little time with Kris' parents as well as his sister and her family. We were happy to see the kids and how much they had grown over the last year.

Annika - age 3

Minnie Annika

Twins Ella & Owen - age 9 months

Ella - age 9 months

Owen - age 9 months

We spent our first Christmas with Kris' family.The day started off with cookies and punch at Mom and Dad's to open our Christmas gifts. We were happy to receive many gifts to add to our display in our china cabinet. One of my favorite gifts was a picture Dad painted of our first house on a stained piece of wood. I was so surprised to see it that it almost made me cry. Dad even put our name and address on the corner. It matches well with the wooden plates Kris received of the homes that the family lived in during his childhood. It is a very touching piece and for now it completes our set of paintings of the homes. For dinner, we went over to Hannah and Olli's for a real German dinner. We enjoyed a perfectly cooked pot roast with a delicious sauce, mashed and scalloped potatoes, sweet potato and carrot casserole, and a salad. After all that food, we were so full there was no room for dessert. It was nice to spend with friends and family this Christmas. We got to see how much Ella and Owen have grown since we had seen them last just a month before. Both babies were able to crawl around. They had fun with their new toys but had even more fun with the the balls of wrapping paper. I am so amazed how tall Annika is getting. At almost 4 years of age, she stands almost half as tall as me. Pretty soon I will be looking down at her.

The painting of our first home

Aunt Eileen was making animal noises with Annika

Uncle Kris and Owen

Aunt Eileen and Owen

Owen was sitting up straight and tall...

...but he loved playing ball with Uncle Kris.

Uncle Kris had a great time too while Ella looked on

Owen thought the wrapping paper was a lot of fun.

Annika was so sad to see us go

The holidays have been great with family. We look forward to next year's holidays and all the fun with the children. We look forward to time spent with both sides of the family next year.

Holiday letter 2010

2010 Holiday Season

Brief summary of 2009

May 2009: Engaged
September 2009: Set April 10, 2010 as the wedding day.
October 2009: Vacationed to New Orleans, LA.
December 2009: Shoulder surgery, Purchased their first home

Highlights from 2010

April 2010: Wedding and honeymoon to Rome, Grandma Rosa’s 90th birthday
May 2010: First family gathering at our new home
July 2010: Became godparents to Ella and Owen Neumann.
August 2010: John and Sharon's 40th Wedding Anniversary
September 2010: Labor Day barbecue, Vacation to Savannah, GA
October 2010: Victor and Charry’s 39th Wedding Anniversary
November 2010: Mexico cruise

This has been a very busy year for both of us. With a wedding in April and keeping up with a new home, this year has been full of more excitement than either one of us have had in both our lifetimes.

The end of 2009 kept us both so busy that it spilled over into 2010. We ended 2009 with the purchase of our first home and much needed shoulder repair for me. This complicated the start of 2010 and made planning a wedding more difficult than either of us expected. Since we moved the wedding from August to April and surgery was in December, it was necessary to hire a wedding planner to be my extra hands and feet all over Orlando. Thank God for our wedding planner, Shannon Humphrey. She made it easy to balance work, physical therapy, and our new home with planning our wedding.

I counted the early days of 2010 until our wedding, and it came upon us very quickly. After nine years together, we finally were married on April 10, 2010 at Holy Family Catholic Church in Orlando. Father Kenny Aquino officiated our traditional Catholic Filipino wedding. Our reception was at held Mystic Dunes Resort in Celebration, FL. After I made the big move, we spent a week in Rome for our honeymoon. We enjoyed visiting the Vatican and all the sights throughout Rome despite a small volcano eruption in Iceland that affected most of the airports in Europe during our stay. Fortunately, we did not experience any delays in our return flight home. After our return home, Grandma Rosa celebrated her 90th birthday, and my parents held a double celebration for both of us. We enjoyed greeting family and friends as newlyweds for the first time.

In May, Kris’ brother Paul and I celebrated our birthdays on the same day. Paul turned 29 while I celebrated 29 again for the eighth time. This was our first gathering in our new home. We did not think we would have our house ready. We still had a lot to unpack, and we only had three short weeks to prepare after the excitement from the wedding died down. We managed to pull off a successful party for fifteen people including a toddler and twin babies.

In July, we became godparents to Kris’ sister’s twins Ella Christina and Owen Christopher who were born January 2010. They are the first godchildren for both of us, and we now have five nieces and three nephews between the two of us.

We hosted our second family gathering in our new home on Labor Day. The family barbecue turned out to be a big success. We managed to fit 20 adults, 4 kids, and the twins in our new home with enough places to sit and enough food for everyone. We even had leftovers for all to take home. Everyone had a great time and we received many compliments from all that attended. 

We are blessed between both of our parents there is almost 80 years of marriage experience. They have provided us with an excellent example of marriage. They have had their difficulties, but they have managed to stay together. They give credit to their faith and trust in God. In August, Kris’ Mom and Dad celebrated 40 years of wedded bliss. We hosted an anniversary dinner at Gigi’s Italian restaurant in St. Petersburg for family and friends. I made them a small scrapbook showing just a brief history of the last 40 years. In October, my Mom and Dad celebrated 39 years of wedded bliss. Mom and Dad enjoyed a weekend in Orlando remembering their own day by attending a wedding of the daughter of close family friends.

Besides our honeymoon to Rome, we enjoyed two other vacations. Our first vacation was a three-day trip to Savannah, GA in September. We saw the tallest lighthouse in Georgia in Tybee Island. We rode the trolley around Savannah to see the historical sights. We even ate lunch at Paula Deen’s famous restaurant, Lady and Sons.

Our second vacation was in November. Neither of us had ever been on a cruise, and Kris was looking forward to a vacation where he did not have to drive. This was the perfect opportunity. We enjoyed a 5-day cruise to Costa Maya and Cozumel, Mexico. We saw the Mayan ruins at Kohunlich in Costa Maya. We climbed to the top of a few of the ruins. I was able to climb to the top of two of the ruins, while Kris enjoyed climbing to the top of couple more. I could definitely tell the steps were steeper than the 138 Spanish Steps in Rome. We enjoyed a walking tour and shopping in Cozumel. It was a nice relaxing time for both of us.

Here we are now at the end of 2010 and a new year is fast approaching. We both are looking forward to the many adventures 2011 has in store for us. We cannot wait to share with you all our exciting news of the upcoming year.

We would like to send you and your family the love and blessings of our Lord this holiday season. We hope you find the joy of the Lord this new year and many years to come.

With lots of love,
Kris and Eileen Mae

Our 2010 Christmas photo card -- for family and friends

Our 2010 Christmas photo card -- for local friends

Daybook

FOR TODAY

Outside my window... it is fair and sunny and in the 80s. It does not feel like Fall or Winter but we are trying to get into the Christmas spirit by putting up the lights on the house. 

I am thinking... it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas everywhere we go…


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V8JoANTHRw

I am thankful for... quality time spent with family and friends. It is rare that we get time to visit with family and friends and when I get the chance I am so grateful for the opportunity.

From the kitchen... I am hoping to learn a new Christmas recipe or two to share with family and friends this Christmas.

I am wearing... comfy shorts and tee to help my husband put up lights all around the house and decorate the house for our first married Christmas.

I am creating... more holiday memories. I love this time of year with all the holidays in a row and getting to spend it with family and friends. This year is full of memories as we are celebrating our first married holidays.


I am going went... to the store to buy the rest of the lights and decorations for the house.

I am (still) reading... House Rules by Jodi Picoult and looking forward to the next Jodi Picoult book I will read.

I am hoping praying... that everyone have joy, peace, and love this Christmas season. May everyone always have happiness, good health, and prosperity throughout the coming year.

I am hearing... the sound of the washing machine as I continue with the daily/weekly house chores that need to be done.

Around the house... are a few Christmas decorations. We do not have much in the way of decorations but I hope to make it feel a little like Christmas around the house.

One of my favorite things... the smell of fresh baked pies, cookies, cakes, and other holiday treats.


A few plans for the rest of the week:

Friday: Visit family in St. Petersburg
Saturday: Prayer group breakfast
Continue decorating the house for Christmas


Here is picture for thought I am sharing...

We are getting ready for the holidays.

We added some lights to the front of the house

With all the lights lit up

Christmas Lights!!!

Our wreathe on the front door

Our two small trees up high so the cat does not take the ornaments.

With the tree and angel lit up

True to Florida Christmas -- Our first Christmas palm

The Nativity scene under our Christmas palm

The stocking is hung on the bookcase with care

http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/
The Simple Woman's Daybook is a brief outline for women/mothers who blog to use as a way to compose thoughts, plan the week, and keep a grateful heart. It is typically published once a week on Tuesdays.

Daybook

 
FOR TODAY

Outside my window... it is a quiet crisp, cool fall afternoon. The streets are so quiet you can hear the sounds from I-75 off in a distance. All the front lawns have been well kept in anticipation of Thanksgiving and the arrival of family and friends.

The view of our house from across the street

I am thinking... how much work needs to be done to get the house in order before the holidays. Even though we do not plan on having family here for the holidays, I am hoping to still keep my home organized so there is not much to do when all the holiday festivities have passed.

I am thankful for... quality time we get to spend with our family and friends during our first holiday season married.

From the kitchen... there is always something going on whether it is cooking a fancy meal or just soup and sandwiches, washing the dishes, or sweeping and mopping the floor. The kitchen is my domain where I like to spend most of my time and where the heart and joy of all my work can be found.


I am wearing... comfortable clothing to continue my daily chores and finish the work that needs to be done for the holidays.

I am creating... a photo collage of the past year (with the help of a good friend) for our first family Christmas card.

I am writing… our first annual holiday letter to share our joys and blessings from the past year with our family and friends.

I am going... nowhere today. There is much to be done at home. I have plenty of housework to catch up on today before the holiday festivities start.

I am reading... Facebook statuses of my friends and family as they prepare for the holiday festivities with their families and friends.  I enjoy reading interesting articles and blogs that I find on the Internet through links on my friend’s Facebook pages.


I am hoping praying... safe travels for all those who are traveling this week for Thanksgiving and in the upcoming weeks for Christmas. I pray we all have safe travels whether they are flying thousands of miles away or just a few minutes to a neighbor’s home to celebrate. May all have a thankful and blessed holiday season.

I am hearing... the sounds of the washing machine and dryer as I finish some of the housework that has remained undone for the last few days.

Around the house... there is always work to be done. You can sweep, mop, clean, and organize but after it is all said and done, the cycle starts all over again. A housewife’s work is NEVER done.

One of my favorite things... spending quality time with family and friends and making new memories that can be cherished for a lifetime.

A few plans for the rest of the week:

Thursday: Thanksgiving with my in-laws
Friday: Day off and quality time with my husband
Saturday: Florida vs. Florida State football game and a visit with friends in Orlando.

GO GATORS!

Here is picture for thought I am sharing...

The start of holiday decorations for our first Christmas in our new home

The first signs of Christmas at our new house

All our Christmas decorations which have only been in storage for six months

http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/
The Simple Woman's Daybook is a brief outline for women/mothers who blog to use as a way to compose thoughts, plan the week, and keep a grateful heart. It is typically published once a week Tuesdays.