Nana and Grandaddy!

We are so thankful to have Nana and Grandaddy here to help us unpack from NY and to watch Suzy while I am in an intensive class this week. Yesterday we got to catch a sneak peek at Baby and went up to Griffith Observatory to see some great views of LA.

Today, Nana, Grandaddy, and Suzy went off to Palm Springs for her first big girl sleepover! She made invitations and everything she was so excited. Looks like she had a fun day...I just got this picture:

a bittersweet valentines...

Today is super sweet because we are together, yet bittersweet because in just 2 days Suzy and i will be back in California and Elvis will continue on here in NY for a couple more months. To make things a little sweeter, we did get his first ticket back to visit us which will be in just 2 weeks from now...it'll be our anniversary weekend and we will have the ultrasound to see if baby Henriquez Baldwin is a niño or niña!! 

Suzy woke up with a fever today which also put a mild damper on the mood today...she didn't even finish her heart shaped chocolate donut which was an immediate clue that something's not right. We did go out for lunch with Elvis though, and we will be cooking something yummy at home tonight. Here are my cute dates:

Suzy drew this picture for me for Valentine's Day....I love that she drew baby inside too and then a close up of the baby at the bottom =) 

As we were making a card for Elvis, I asked Suzy what she wanted to write to him. She said: "Papi mira! Soy una gatita."  Literally: "Papi look! I'm a kittycat".   The end =)

Suzy and Elvis have had some special times together recently, anticipating the fact that she won't get to see him for a bit. They played in the snow all afternoon this past weekend and then went out on a date on Sunday afternoon:

easiest v-day craft evahhh

When Suzy was younger, she wasn't really into coloring, painting, etc due to not wanting to get dirty at all. However, she has turned into quite the Craft Queen, always wanting to paint, draw, make something. I love seeing her creative side coming out and seeing the skills that we take for granted develop...for example, her stick people actually look like people (she recently made an uncanny drawing of Granddaddy with "itty bitty hair") and just this week, she has really figured out how to use the scissors well to follow lines I draw for her. She has wanted me to draw fruits, shapes, etc for her to cut out which has been a great way to stay busy!

Since we are getting close to Valentine's Day, she wanted to make a craft. Since she has already used up most of her paper, paint, etc that we had on hand here in NY (and I wasn't heading to Wally world during the great blizzard of '13), we had to get creative with the basics and the little bit of paint we had left. Thanks Pinterest for some ideas!

For the record, I think this was the first time that something I tried from Pinterest didn't turn out unrecognizable/inedible. 

All you have to do is get a toilet paper roll, squish it into a heart shape, dip it in a little bit of paint and use it like a stamp.

Voila! Heart art! 

Much easier than trying to cut a heart stamp out of a potato...believe me.

We made something similar last year at playschool....celery rose stamps which were also really easy:

However, we never keep celery at our house because neither I nor Elvis can stand it...only Suzy has an interest in it because of Wonder Pets (hands-down my fave cartoon)! 

Suzy was so excited that she starting running in circles singing this song: ("Valentine's Day is almost here!")

Happy Birthday....

....to my very favorite brother in the whole wide world! 

weekend getaway

We took advantage of our next to last weekend together in NY to drive down to a cute little bed and breakfast in the countryside of Pennsylvania, where we met up with David, Lucy, Lulu and Nissa to spend a wonderful, snowy weekend. We went spelunking around nearby towns and played in the snow and ate lots of good food and had lots of fun together. One of the highlights of being in NY has being able to travel on the weekends to see east coast friends and family, and we have definitely taken advantage of seeing these dear friends several times b/c we don't know when the next time will be. Here are some highlights:

ps...David took the good pictures below (http://www.dacphotographs.com/)...i took the rest.

guess this is the first baby bump picture!

it's fun having friends that are pro photographers

lots of lovin' and huggin' went on this weekend with these girls!

Suzy is enjoying a frozen chocobanana on this frigid day... 

the bed and breakfast is located in a house where they used to make dulcimers