Our new little family member

We are blessed to welcome our beautiful baby girl. Karina Alejandra Gutierrez was born on December 25th 2010 at 2:37am. She weighed in at 7 lbs 9 oz. and measured 19.5 inches long. We hope to post more pictures soon.







Proud sisters and Grandma

A baby for Christmas

We are blessed to welcome our beautiful baby girl. Karina Alejandra Gutierrez was born on December 25th 2010 at 2:37am. She weighed in at 7 lbs 9 oz. and measured 19.5 inches long. We hope to post more pictures soon.




Proud sisters and Grandma

The home stretch

I'm 39 weeks. I'm at the point where everyone has an opinion about the actual day this baby will come or about my size. I guess it really started two/three weeeks ago and if you've been pregnant you can relate. Here are some quotes by random and familiar people, "I give you two weeks," "Don't think you'll make it to Christmas." "Any day now huh?" "You look like you're going to pop." And in just the last two days I've heard, the words, huge, enoromous, grande and gigantic all about how I look of course. Funny thing is this bothered me when I heard it a month and even 2 months ago. It did not feel good to be told those things earlier when I had so far to go. And, I guess now I must be immune to it cause it doesn't bother me anymore. In any case the truth is I always look large and since I feel large, ehh, why am I to argue. I'm just not the pregnant woman who hides it well.

Here are the facts. At my 37 week appointment I measured 41 weeks. Last week at 38 weeks I measured 37 weeks. So nothing unusual and the midwives always say that because of my stature and petite nature that baby only has one way to go and that is out. So it doesn't concern me. My blood pressure is good and my weight gain is right on track. Still haven't hit 30lbs. And I got to see our little girl last week in the low resolution ultrasound. They measured her head and it measured right at 38 weeks and she was just where she needed to be. :) I'm nervous, anxious, excited all at the same time. I generally feel okay. I'm starting to feel really, really tired these last few days and contractions don't just happen mostly at night they come in waves throughout the day with some discomfort and lots of pressure. Any day now (as that one person said) sounds just right!

Marisa is 3

I swear I lost a year of the 3 of Marisa's life somewhere. It seems just last year she was on my back on my carrier or crying for me in the middle of the night wanting to nurse. She is so grown up and talks so much. She says quite a few funny things. A couple I remember off the top of my head are "bu-bu fanda" and "bruhat" instead of bruja hat. At the grocery store one day I was looking for Maizena(cornstarch pronounced My-sehna) She asked, "Mama what you looking for?" I said, "Maizena." She responded, "Mama you're looking for your -cena" (sehnah). This might be hard to find funny if you don't speak Spanish. Marisa is my girly girl. She loves dressing up, princess stuff, dancing and sparkles. She will drive me crazy pulling clothes out of the closet and trying them all on one my one. When she finds dresses she says, "dancing shirt" and dances around. She is also the cuddly one. While I can't request a hug from Elena and have to wait till she's ready, Marisa showers you with affection at any time of the day. She also adores animals and Jake in particular. Yesterday I found her turning his head to look at a book she was reading to him. Ha, ha! She has taken over as caretaker for Jake. She lets him out as soon as she's up in the morning and any time he's waiting by the door she says, "Mama/Daddy" Jake want to go outside" and she'll let him out and then back in. Marisa is extremely observant and I have to be careful what I do in front of her because she will always try it out on her own later. For instance she will climb the bathroom counter to get my eyelash curler to try it herself. She recently reached for her Daddy's razor...of course it's always the dangerous stuff she wants to try out. I am sensing the the 3's behavior coming on complete with the persistence and drama. I love having multiple children if only to humble me and show me just how different their personalities are. How it reminds me that there are some things I have no control over and flexibility is always key. Happy Birthday Little one! I love these angry pictures here. Just the 3 year old behavior I was talking about She loves her dress up chest from Grandma F!

Holiday Stuff

When you don't have snow to make snowmen make marshmallow snowmen


Watching Rudolph and the Grinch at the park downtown


Baking cranberry bread

A live Nativity (Thanks Jamison for letting us know about this!)

She moves

36 weeks

Elena's Christmas program

Thanksgiving

It was a nice relaxing holiday. My family came over which seems to be the tradition with my tendency to deliver holiday babies. :) We had a delicious Thanksgiving lunch and enjoyed the beautiful and suddenly changing weather. I surprised myself at now 8 months pregnant by spontaneously deciding to try and scalp tickets to the A&M/UT football game and had good luck finding good seats at a good price. I don't think I had attended a football game since a student at A&M when we were required to stand the entire time. This was not the case this time which was nice because I was able to sit when I needed and I didn't get too physically tired.

Elena is 5

Elena is 5. What is hard to believe is that I feel I'm officially a parent now that I have a 5 year old. I know I've been parenting long enough, but I can remember thinking how experienced those parents of my former kindergarten students were with their 5 year olds; I certainly don't feel like I'm one of them but I suppose this makes it official.

Elena has blossomed so much especially now that she is in full time school. She is learning so quickly and I am so amazed at the things she says everyday and the amount of it!! She is still her bubbly self and sometimes it leads her to trouble or to being in trouble. But I love that she is so adaptable and easily gets over things that make her upset. At school her art teacher described her as a ball of sunshine. I think that describes Elena perfectly. I finally did an interview with her. I could have written paragraphs for each question!

What is your favorite color? yellow and red and also blue too. I have three favorite colors cause I love them so much!

What is your favorite food? peas and rice of Polar Express, ummm Panda Express. I forgot the name of the restaurant, and Panda Express is my favorite restaurant.

What is your favorite thing to play. I like to play with all the centers in my house, my favorite house!

What makes you feel happy? Playing at Hopping House and la senora (lady) telling me my shirt says birthday girl.

What makes you scared? The train sound in the night.

What do you like to do at school most of all? Me gusta el jardin.(I like the garden.)
Why? because I like to play together and plant the seeds.

What do you like to do with Daddy? Play games
What games? Connect 4

What do you like to do with mom? Play in the backyard and hug and kiss.

Don't worry, we cut this slice even further.


Marisa helping mix the cupcake batter
The school cupcakes


Centers

With her teacher