A Soto Christmas

I can't believe how fast Christmas came and went, I wish Christmas was an all week thing so that I can get tired of it, instead it leaves me with an ache and emptiness in my heart that I want back, LOL!! I just can't wait to have a normal Christmas, with my house COMPLETE, with only cleaning and decorating to do, not last minute painting, or last minute tile hanging, I swear, this has been our life for the past...6.75 years! It'll be 7 years that we've been here and nothing has ever been complete, I don't remember a time that we were able to enjoy our house and not have something going on. There is always something and I have a feeling its always going to be that way....gggrrr. But hopefully next Christmas we'll have everything complete, our backyard too! with full deck and full play area and tree house. We've completed a lot this year and I'm very proud of Naty but again, I want to enjoy my house already! As I speak, I have 3 large Christmas containers in my living room and our fake tree as well. Naty doesn't want to move the stuff into the garage yet because he can't get to where he wants to store it because he moved a lot of things into that corner and now he's blocked out! GREAT! So I have a living room full of boxes and a big ole' tree. Oh and we can't forget the stuff he used to tile the bathroom, thats a whole other vent. I JUST WANT MY HOUSE BACK!


Ok onto our Christmas story, on Xmas Eve we went to Miguel's house to visit the kids for a bit, since we got there kind of late we didn't stay too long cause I had food in the truck that I had to take to Laura and Ruben's house. So we visited a bit, seen the cuties and then left to Ruben's house. Everyone was there and we had a good time, talking and just being with each other. The food was good the company was good, what more can you ask for!?!? Oh and it was funny cause no one knew I was pregnant so it was hard keeping it in and especially cause everyone was talking about my cousin Genna being pregnant I just kept thinking in my head, "little do you guys know!" LOL. So it was hard keeping it a secret but I did it! I was even asked about 4 times if I was going to have anymore, I kept saying, "I'm not sure." hehehe. So from there we went home and my mom and steph spent the night with us. I stood up baking cookies and treats while everyone went to bed.


The next morning we woke up at the crack of dawn because the kids couldn't WAIT to open their presents. We got up and the rest was history, the kids tore open those gifts faster than I could take pictures! hahahaha again, I was having some morning sickness that no one knew about and I had to make breakfast like that and cook the dinner too, BARF. Somehow I managed and didn't puke but it took alot of strength.





After much cooking, it was time! My grandma, Carlos, Miguel, Veronica, the kiddies, the in laws and Jesse came over, A very low key Christmas. We sat around, chatted, ate and ate and ate some more. When Miguel left, thats when Mayra and Alex showed up. Naty and I were just waiting for the perfect moment to drop the news but there never was one, LOL, it wasn't till everyone was leaving already that Naty said he had something to share, in between the craziness and the goodbyes, Naty blurted out, "We're having another kid!" LMAO! I was in shock that he said that and yelled back, "A kid? you mean a baby!" Oh man, that was classic. Well after about 5 minutes of denial from everyone, it finally sank (or sunk?) in and we got all of our congrats from everyone. I was 8 weeks by then and everyone was shocked but very happy. It turned out to be a great Christmas and I can't believe next Christmas we'll have a 4 month old baby. It's AMAZING. Thank you God, once a again!

Oh Christams Tree

The tree is up and the kids are happy, what more can I ask for?

We're having another busy weekend, Friday we're going with the in laws to church for the Virgin Mary celebration and then we're staying the night and making tamales for MIL's B-day. Her b-day is the 11th but we're gonna wait till the 13th to make the tamales and invite family over to celebrate with us, then we're gonna spend the night again and come home Sunday. We're hoping to make it to church Sunday morning, if not we'll go with them.

I have finals next week so I'll be taking all my study material with me. Can't wait to get this over with! almost....yayy!!!!!

Happy 2008

We had a fun and entertaining christmas eve. I had spent the whole day before cleaning, baking and prepping for our big dinner. My mom and Steph even spent the night to help me but after a while I think Steph felt slaved by my demands. I had her cooking, cleaning and even hanging the Christmas lights with Naty, she looked at me like I was nuts when I volunteered her to help Naty put back up our lights. We had people working on our house on the 23rd! while Christmas was fast aproaching, instead of calling the whole thing off I decided to work with what I had. To my great surprise the guys finished the outside of our house and I'm amazed with the results! The actual color that we chose for the house was a lot darker than what it came out BUT we're really happy with it since the stone on the face of the house will be really dark it will blend really nice. So back to Christmas, we had tons of food, drinks and people! It was an awesome day! I was so busy that I didn't get pictures but I'll make sure to ask everyone else for some. So we just ate, drank and were merry.

Then Christmas morning came and the kids were waiting for us and when it was time they rushed the tree. Bubbs got a lot of games, movies and very little clothes and Audrey got some games, lots of toys, movies and very little clothes. Again, i didn't get pictures cause we were videotaping and I still haven't emptied my card on my camera, I know I know! thats dumb! After the presents I went back to sleep for a while and woke up to some guests which were Naty's dad, Miguel, Veronica and the kids, they stood for a bit and then we were off to Big boy Alex's house. He had asked Naty and his dad to fix his fence that the wind blew over so we gladly went and I took some games for the kids while we waited. It ended up getting late and Mayra got home so we went out for dinner at some Chinese Buffet place. OMG! it was hilarious, I had just seen Christmas story and the part when they go eat at a Chinese resturant cause the dogs eat the turkey, it was exactly like that! I told Naty watch them come out and start singing, "Fah rah rah rah raaaaaaaahhhhh, rah rah rah rah" (sung to Deck that halls, fa la la la la...." That is the most funniest part of the movie ever! But we had a nice quiet dinner and were off.

Now for New years eve we went to the George Lopez stand up show at Nokia theatre. We went in the neighbors Limo with a fully stocked bar. Me, Naty, Ruben, Laura, Mondo and one of his friends went. We had a cool night but they had changed the show from 10pm to 8:15! we were on the road at 8pm and the limo driver is the one who told us, imagine if he didn't tell us! we would have not seen George Lopez. We got there around 9pm and he came on at 9:20p, good thing we got to see him but we missed the first half of the show, I was fine with that but I don't think everyone else was. Oh well, what could we do?!? G Lo was hilarious and I couldn't breathe and had chest pains after but it was all worth it.

Then the next day we decided out of no where to have a BBQ here at home and invite everyone over. It was a nice day.

Of course my main goal for 2008 is to lose weight, I couldn't believe how big I looked in the pics that Laura took of that night. WOWSERS!! I'm huge! I don't want to get any bigger, I'm so out of shape, gross and very unhealthy, with all of my health problems I really need to lose weight. I know if I did my health would improve dramatically. I'm in pain as I type this and just want it to end, I wish I could just rest already, not DIE either! I meant, rest from this pain.......YIKES! Oh and forgot to mention that my doctor sent me for an ultrasound the next day and I now have another appt. with him on Jan. 17th. I just want to hear that I'm fine but I know I'm not. I'm also hoping to lose 5 lbs. before I see him, I've gained a good 15 lbs. since my surgery, NOT GOOD.

Well this post took me a long time to write so I better go now. We're leaving to San Francisco tomorrow morning to visit Jose and Monica. We owe them a visit since they come down here a lot. I'm just hoping to bond and have a nice vacation with the family, hopefully we can do that. Anyway, take care everyone and Happy 2008!

Too funny! and FIRES

Naty and I were watching desperate Housewives (don't tell him I told you) and this funny commercial came on that made us bust up!

man on man!

The fires are going strong and getting worse. I can't believe people can be so heartless and ruin families lives and cause so much harm to everyone. Those evil people don't deserve to live, I wish we could find these people and throw them from a plane into the fire. The sky looks like hell has come over us with orange and red shooting from the sun and ashes falling everywhere you go. The air quality is bad, I can only imagine how bad it is for the people right in the giant mess. It is horrible out there, I pray they don't come over here again, that was a horrible time that I will never forget. Anyway, I pray they contain this demon fast and get everyone back into their homes soon.

Let's see, school is getting even harder now that we're half way in and all my teachers decided to plan their tests all in the same week. That means more studying and less me time, great! Well good thing our Vegas vacation is coming up so we'll be able to relax really soon. We were going to go on a cruise but they wanted to charge us about $300 more for that week of thanksgiving so we said forget it! I'd rather wait, that would be $1200 more for all of us, no thank you. We always have a good time in vegas so this time we'll go to at least 2 shows and go out of the vegas boundries to explore.

Oh and once again, I'm having christmas eve at my house, so you all are welcome to come. We still have a lot to do to get the house ready but I have faith in Naty and know he can do it! he put the front door in the day before xmas last year and was still working on it minutes before everyone showed up, we pulled that off great! Hopefully that won't be this year.