And Coming.....

I don't have any pictures yet, but Aniston is now in her big girl bed! I'd been procrastinating on moving her from her crib and she wasn't crawling out of it and was still sleeping well through the night in it so I figured there was no point in moving her out. Well, a few weeks ago we found the bedroom set we'd been looking for and the deal was so good the bed, nightstand and dresser came home with us. I will update more later!

Nana's Birthday Weekend with Aniston.....

As mentioned in the prior post, Erik and I went to Seattle for the 3 day weekend and my mom, Nana, spent the weekend at our house with Aniston. It works so much better for her to stay at our house so Aniston can sleep in her own bed and mom can give Cabela her medication every day. Well, Friday was mom's birthday so Aniston and Erik made a cake for her. I remember when I was little it was my job to make my mom's cake and my sitter would help me make it while my mom was at work. So Erik and Aniston baked the cake and then frosted it while I was packing for our trip. As you can see.....Aniston LOVED putting on sprinkles. Nana loved her cake!

They had a great weekend together and we're so lucky to have Nana so close that she can do things like that for us. We love you Nana and Happy Birthday!

Nana's cake. Her favorite, yellow with chocolate frosting.

Anniversary Weekend....

December 29th Erik and I celebrated our 8th wedding annivesary. We didn't do anything that day but last weekend (Martin Luther King Day) we spent the 3 day weekend in Seattle. We have WorldMark/Trendwest and have never used any of our points before so we decided to try it. It was SO nice! We were right down town Seattle (2 blocks from the downtown Macy's). We jammed so many things into the weekend that we're looking forward to this weekend to recover.

1. Friday: Friday we left Wenatchee at 2:00 and headed over the hill. We checked into our hotel and took a cab to "Olive and 12th", which is a wine shop that was doing wine tasting. We ended up talking to the owner, which was nice because I'm just getting into wine and he was very informative without using all the fancy wine terminology that I don't know yet and didn't treat us like we were too stupid. After that we went to a restaurant that one of the wine shop employees recommended. Now, Erik is a good ol' meat and potatoes kind of guy. So we went to this little Italian restaurant and were thinking there would at least be one thing on the menu Erik would think sounded good. WRONG....the only meat that was served was duck and everything else had pumpkin filling or acorn filling, spinach here and there and lots of other stuff that I could see was making him hope there would be an Arby's on the way back to our hotel. We agreed to find another spot and ended up eat at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse across the street from our hotel. It was SO good. Erik got his big steak and potatoes and even ordered dessert...which, I don't ever recall him doing.

2. Saturday: We started off in Bellevue at the Lasik Institute so Erik could have his eyes checked since he had the laser eye correction there a few months ago. He now has 15/10 vision. Then we went to Bell Square. This used to be my favorite mall and I could spend DAYS in there but the last 2 trips there have been greatly dissappointed. After the mall we went back to our hotel and had a little nap. Then we walked downtown to do the HUGE Macy's, Nordstroms, etc. After that and on our way back to our hotel, we ran into a really nice theater and ended up seeing "The Book of Eli". Pretty good movie.

3. Sunday: We drove down to Lacy and did Cabelas. I was shocked that this is the second time we've been to a Cabelas store and we've only spent a TOTAL of $200. Then we had lunch at Red Lobster since the closest one to us over here is in Yakima. Since we weren't too pleased with the mall we'd been at, we stopped at the Tacoma mall and got Aniston a Build a Bear as her present since she was home with Nana for the weekend (more on that later). On our way back up to Seattle, we stopped by Emerald Queen Casino and I won $150....not too shabby!

4. Monday: We did the Woodland Park Zoo before heading home. I have to say I wasn't too impressed and think the Portland Zoo is so much better. We stopped at North Bend and did a few stores and Erik got some new shoes, Aniston got new shoes and I got a few outfits for work. Then we were ready to head home and see our kiddo.

We had SUCH a good time and think it's nice to get away together just the two of us. Although, quite a few conversations revolved around Aniston.

Erik's favorite exhibit, the eagles.

My favorite, the flamingos.

Auntie Lysha.....

We FINALLY got to see Auntie Lysha again! We miss having her around so much but she came home for Christmas and brought her little yorkie "Cher". Aniston LOVES Cher and Cher tolerated Aniston. Our yorkie Sophia is 8 and doesn't think a 3 year old little girl is very interesting. Cher however, played "tag" with Aniston. It was pretty cute, Aniston would chase Cher to one end of the living room, turn around and Cher would chase her back.

Neither of our two girls (Aniston and Alysha) were too happy when it was time for Auntie to leave. We need to make a trip to visit her in Spokane.

Aniston and Cher were more interested in what was on TV.

Christmas Eve....

These posts are long overdue. Sorry for the delay!

We do Christmas Eve every year with Poppy Keith, Grammy Wilma and the rest of my mom's side of the family. The tradition is Grammy makes homemade clam chowder and everyone brings appetizers and some dessert and we munch all evening. It is SOO good. The last few years have been relatively quiet as the "kids" are all grown up and graduated and we are patient when it comes to opening presents. Well, the next generation (Aniston) is finally at the point where she understands what presents are and that the paper needs to come off them. So, it was a little more rushed this year in that she was making sure people were all eating a little faster so we could get to presents sooner.

Aniston and Poppy playing with the marbles to pass the time until presents.

Aniston playing with the train set and Poppy's train whistle.

Trying on her new snowsuit. Unfortunately we have had NO snow so the pants haven't been used yet.

Poppy helping her zip.

Ta da!

What is it Aniston?

A Fancy Fancy (Nancy) doll!

Auntie Lysha and Aunt Alison.

Grammy and Aunt Alison.

We had such a great evening. We have started doing Christmas morning at our house and it works out great that Aniston gets to come upstairs in the morning and see that Santa has been to the house and there are lots of presents under our tree. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get pictures as again, the paper was a flyin'.

Family Pictures 2009.....

Last Friday we had family pictures taken in Quincy. Staci Faw took them and did an EXCELLENT job. Aniston really liked her too, which helped her ham up to the camera. We had a four generation picture taken when Aniston was about 9 months old, so we decided it was time again. It was SO cold. After the pictures we went to Gram and Poppy's house to warm up with hot chocolate.

Like I said....a total ham.

Four generation picture 2009.

We wanted a generation picture with Poppy too.

Aniston and her great grandparents.

I LOVE this picture.

LOVE this one too.

My two favorite people.

Martinez Family 2009.

Thanksgiving....

I'm finally getting around to posting about our Thanksgiving. It was great. We had a later dinner at dad's house this year and there was a ton of family there. My grandparents came up from Vancouver, dad's best friend Jerry and his family, Taleah and her family, Betsy and Dustin, and us of course! Aniston and Kaiya played no stop the entire time we were there and definatly wore each other out. Kaiya finally met her match in some one who can keep up with her.

Aniston and her namesake Poppy Lee.

Snacks to keep her happy before dinner.

Grandma Carolyn and the two girls.

Owen wiggled out of his little pants.

Aniston showing Grandma how her camera should be used.

Aniston and Kaiya spent a long time running and crawling up and down the hallway. Every kid has LOVED this hallway and running around it through the living room.

Friday mom and I went to North Bend and spent the day getting me new work clothes. Of course Aniston ended up with a few new outfits. We spent Friday night in Bellevue and had dinner at the Crab Pot. It was so nice to get away and have girl time with my mom. Saturday we did Bell Square and a few shops in Issaquah.

Erik and I were looking at the calendar last week and can't believe Christmas is only 23 days away....and every weekend before we have at least 2 things planned. It definately snuck up on us this year....but thanks to the internet....our shopping is 90 percent done and will be shipped to my office. Aniston came home tonight to find the house decorated for Christmas. Her response was "my like Christmas!". She is very excited to help with the tree on Saturday and watch daddy put up the lights this weekend as well.

No Picture Update......

Sorry, no pictures this time. I am HORRIBLE about grabbing the camera and just taking snapshots. The big news in the Martinez household is....Aniston's potty trained!! WOO HOO!! We had given up trying and knew that when she was ready, it would happen...and it did! She came home from daycare two weeks ago announcing she is no longer going to wear diapers, sat on the potty and has been potty trained since. We are lucky to have a half bath off the living room so we just leave the light on in there and she goes when she needs to. My little girl is growing up so fast!

Two weekends ago Erik and I spent three nights in Seattle and mom stayed at our house with Aniston. Erik had Lasik surgery in Bellevue on Saturday and is completely healed. Sunday was his follow up appointment and he already had 20/15 vision. They said two days after that it would be even better. He loves it. He still has a little trouble driving at night with the headlights coming at him but other than that, he's doing great.

Last weekend we spent Sunday in Quincy. Erik and Uncle C wanted to go to the gun club for the Quincy Turkey Shoot. They did well. Erik won a turkey and we got to see some friends we hadn't seen in quite awhile. Aniston did so well. It was SO cold but she was a little trooper and kept wanting to stand outside and watch the boys shooting. She kept cheering on Grandpa and everyone thought it was pretty cute. After the shoot we went to dad's for dinner and the boys shot more clay pigeons off the canyon.

We're going to spend Thanksgiving at dad's this year. Of course the boys are looking forward to more shooting of pigeons so dad is on his way to Cabelas to stock up. It's so nice to have the canyon in the backyard so they can just walk out back and do boy things. Mom and I are heading to North Bend/Bellevue on Friday. I haven't bought any clothes for myself in over a year and am in desperate need. We're going to make a weekend of it and spend the night in Bellevue. When we were over there for Erik's surgery we had dinner with our good friends Nick and Betsie and she told me to try using Hotwire.com. I did and got the Red Lion in Bellevue for only $50 a night! Through Red Lion personally the room was $109 a night! I'm definately hooked! I have such a hard time justifying spending money on myself...but with mom there, I know she'll convince me that I need it and help get over the guilt. It's so funny as I don't have ANY problems spending money on Erik, Aniston or the house....but not myself. Mom said all mommy's go through the same thing and she still has problems with it and I've been out of the house for 10 years.

We hope everyone is doing well, is healthy and ready for the holiday season. I can't get over how every year the time seems to go by faster and faster. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and I PROMISE to have pictures of Thanksgiving on here.

Love, the MTZ's

First Halloween Party of the Year......

Today is Aniston's first Halloween party for the year. All the little kiddos were wearing their costumes to school today for their party. Aniston is a little ballerina since we have a ton of money in dance clothes and she refuses to go.

I wish you could see that her shoes are covered in glitter.

Uncle Dodo....

Sunday was Erik's graduation party. Unfortunately, with 30 people in my house....I didn't get pictures of the party because I was busy playing hostess. Dan came up from Vancouver for the weekend and as you can see....Aniston LOVES her Uncle Dodo. I think he kinda likes her too.