Christmas activities 2010

Every weekend in the month of December we try to do something festive to celebrate the holiday season. The first weekend we went to Glendale Glitters. I have NEVER seen it SO packed. I didn't get any pictures because it was absolutely insane with people. My favorite part is the little booths that they set up to sell little knickknacks and trinkets and we couldn't even make our way to some of them. Guiliana did enjoy the lights and we did share a M&M caramel apple and some kettle corn at least so it wasn't a complete waste!
Last weekend started off with my Company Christmas party Friday afternoon/evening. All of the Doctors have kids so it always becomes a family event. Guiliana came with me this year and had fun. Towards the end of the party Santa showed up and she actually wasn't afraid. Now we aren't ready to sit on his lap but we made eye contact, waived a bunch of times and blew kisses. She talked about seeing Santa non-stop that weekend. I think next year we will finally make it onto his lap! Then Saturday night we went out to dinner and then took some pictures in front of the BIG tree at Desert Ridge. After,we took a trip to the JW Marriott at Desert Ridge to see the HUGE gingerbread house. It was AMAZING! Every year they pick a different scene and this year they created the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. That was one of my favorite movies when I was growing up so I was very excited. There was so much attention to detail. Guiliana's favorite part was the train that went around the factory. She is really into trains.
This weekend we didn't go out and do anything festive (Mommy and Daddy enjoyed a night out while Guiliana hung out with her Grandparents) but we did follow one of our traditions of creating something out of Gingerbread! This year we chose the Gingerbread train. It was A LOT easier to put together than the house we did last year as it stuck together easier and didn't fall! Gules loves creating (and eating the candy too!!) so this was a fun thing to do together. Then later in the day we went to Guiliana's friend from school's Fairy Princess party. We were asked to find some fairy wings but I wasn't able to find any. So we went to the store and she picked out an adorable purple frilly dress (meant for dress-up) She LOVES it and twirls in it and says she is a ballerina. She actually decided this morning that she needed to wear it all day today too!! After we picked out our dress it was time to get a gift for Sarah. I wasn't sure how this was going to go over... her picking out something and understanding that it wasn't for her. Well, she did great! She picked out an Ariel doll (her favorite) that she already has herself. She kept telling me this is for Sarah but I have one first. We also picked out some princess PJ's. It was adorable when Sarah opened her gifts. Gules kept saying, "I got that for you"
Things to look forward to this week: Short work week for Mommy and Daddy and baking cookies for our traditional "Making Cookies for Santa" all together on Christmas Eve. Guiliana had an option to make a plate in school and after the kids decorated it the parents could choose what they would like the plate to say. I wanted it to say "Cookies for Santa Love, Guiliana" So we are excited to make and decorate cookies and leave them out for Santa on her new plate. Guiliana also has her Christmas party this Thursday that she invited Grandpa to. ( I always attend these parties but she always thinks that when she sees me that it's time to leave! So I am going to sit this one out and see if she enjoy the party with Grandpa)
Here are all the pictures from the last couple of weeks.

Putting up the Tortora Christmas Tree

One of the many traditions we have continued in our family from my childhood is putting up the Christmas tree and all of the decorations the day after Thanksgiving. Having a three piece pre-lit tree helps make this possible. Last year I hit up the after Christmas sales at Target and spent $20 to completely redo my tree for this year. I wanted it to look more kid like and girly for Guiliana. With colors including pinks, greens, oranges, blues, reds, and silver, and the best part is some of them are glittery and sparkly, it reminds me of something out of Who-ville! Guiliana was very excited to help, but with these being new ornaments we had to attach ornament hangers to each of them, she kind of lost interest during that process. She wasn't very interested in putting the ornaments on the tree, she decided that she wanted to go through the Christmas bins and play with everything. After it was all done she said "Thank you for my tree mom, it's so beautiful. You did that for me mom?" She did enjoy once it was done looking at all of the ornaments on the tree. Her first Christmas we ended up buying like 3 "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornaments between Grandma Tortora and I. I started a tradition with Guiliana last year. Every year I want her to have an ornament that represents her interest for the year. Last year she LOVED Tinkerbell, so her being so young still Grandma picked out and bought her a Tinkerbell ornament. We have gotten her last 2 ornaments from Hallmark so I thought we should continue that tradition. So today we had to run out for some things and decided to stop at Hallmark and let her pick out her 2010 ornament. I wasn't surprised when she picked out an Ariel ornament. I love that we started this tradition and that all of these that she continues to pick out will someday be on her tree when she grows up.
We finished our Christmas decorating with the outside today and now our house is complete. I love our house during the holidays!
Her ornament:














Love this picture! This was taken today at Johnny Rockets. Gules and I shared a chocolate milk shake.

Thanksgiving 2010

This was our 3rd year hosting Thanksgiving at the Tortora House. We have our family tradition of watching the Thanksgiving parade as a family and this year it was cold enough for a fire! There were 8 of us this year and everyone did their part in making it a super yummy day. I am so thankful for the family and friends in my life and continued to feel blessed everyday!
















Here are some pictures at Guiliana's Thanksgiving Pot Luck for her school. She loves her Best Friend Zoe and they are so cute together!

Guiliana's love for music!

We have really noticed over the past several months that Guiliana's love for music continues to grow everyday! She loves to listen to music and has her fair share of her favorite songs. One in which is "Just the way you are" by Bruno Mars and Iridescent by Linkin Park in which she knows all the words. When we are in the car, she will tell you as you browse through the stations which song she wants to listen to. She will say either, "No, I don't like" or "Leave this one on" and then ask me if I like that song too. She likes fast music and always says "I need to dance" She is in a dance class every Friday at school and I think that has helped develop her love for both music and dancing. More recently she has really started paying attention to the instruments in a song. We love Josh Groban and we were watching one of his concerts on TV. When he played the piano she was very interested. She can listen to a song and pick out the part of the piano and then make believe that she is playing it too which is very impressive. Just this past couple of days she has started listening to Celine Dion on her own, which for me is VERY special! We were coming home last Wednesday (the night before Thanksgiving) and I decided to give in and listen to a little Christmas Music (I refuse until the day after Thanksgiving usually). Well, a Celine Dion Christmas song came on and it was beautiful. I turned to Guilana and said who she was and that she was Mommy's favorite. She said that she was her favorite too, but I knew that she was just repeating me. After the song had ended she said that she wanted more "Celine Dion" I was surprised!!! We were just pulling into the house so I told her that we could listen to her inside. She loves visuals so I thought she might enjoy watching her "NEW DAY" Las Vegas concert. It is very colorful and full of special effects. Needless to say... she watched it non-stop for 2 days! I hope that her love for music and dancing continues. We see how much she enjoys it and she is quite the little dancer!
Here is a video of her that we shot yesterday morning. We caught the tail end of her favorite song!