A New Year

I am really looking forward to 2012. I have such a good feeling about this year. I realize that sounds very cliche, but its true! The Salas family needs to have a good year! The past few months have been really stressful between school, finances, and the emotional toll of experiencing a miscarriage.  God has carried us through everything, and I am grateful.  Okay okay, I hate making resolutions because most of the time people make ridiculous resolutions that they cannot keep. I am making my resolutions because I want to see how many things on my list will happen. I think it will be so fun to look back on this list next year and see my accomplishments and growth. Think of these as goals rather than resolutions. Goal just has a nicer ring to it, don't you think?

New Year's Resolutions (goals)

1.Graduate with a degree in Nutrition and Dietetics. Can I get a woot woot! I am scheduled to graduate fall 2012.

2. Band success. This is more a goal of my husband's than mine, but it is also my goal because I support his dreams.  It is my hope that the release of their new album will bring a lot of success and greater opportunities to play music and spread His word.

3. Have a baby! I realize that this is really not in my control. I guess this is more of a desire than a goal. I desperately want to ring in the new year for 2013 with a little baby in my arms. My heart is aching for another  baby in a way that only my fellow mothers can understand.

4. Get our finances in check. We have some debt right now that I am really stressed about and sometimes it keeps James up at night thinking about... I'll spare the details here, but I hope that this year will be the year to get us to a very financially secure state!

5. I want to be more assertive in my desire to feed my family organic, unprocessed foods. This is a really hard topic to try and make our families understand. A few family members will continue to try and give Sophia junk food and I hate feeling like the bad guy and having to repeatedly tell them that we don't like to eat processed food. I want people to have an understanding of why I choose organic and to not think that I am a crazy ridiculous snob for not letting my daughter eat very much junk food. I guess my goal is to help my family have a greater understanding and maybe even hop on the "whole, unprocessed foods bandwagon" with us!

6. Possibly my greatest goal for the new year is to delve deeper into my faith. I have recently had a really strong realization that teaching my daughter about her faith does not start at any certain age, it starts now! I hope that this year we can develop stronger prayer habits as a family and begin to teach Sophia in more and more ways about the church and our beautiful Catholic faith.

Happy New Year!

Jesus' Birthday!!!

I am still in shock by how quickly Christmas came this year! I wanted this year to really be about traditions and family rather than the gifts. I wanted a simple and meaningful Christmas and I think in a lot of ways that is what I got. We did a lot of celebrating (too much if you ask me) which was a really great reminder of the reason for the holiday. Being surrounded by family and traditions that I grew up with made Christmas feel special. My dad makes delicious sticky buns and a festive meat pie that are both to die for! (Probably shouldn't tell you how sick I got over the week of Christmas because I ate so much meat. My GI tract hates me right now. I haven't been eating animal products lately.) I think both James and I are still trying to figure out how to separate from our parents and start our own traditions. It will be a work in progress as our family grows.  My favorite thing about this Christmas was Sophia's fixation on Baby Jesus. I spent a lot of time telling her that it would be Baby Jesus' birthday soon and that it is a very special day. A few family members told Sophia about Santa, but she wanted nothing to do with him! She spent the days leading up to Christmas completely fixated on our nativity scene and singing songs to baby Jesus. Knowing that my daughter has a small understanding and Knowledge of the true reason of Christmas brings me so much more joy than any amount of gifts ever will.

My parents gave us this nativity scene last year and I love it so much!

She is holding Baby Jesus and marveling at the sight of him! I am so glad that I was able to capture this photo. She was completely fixated on Him and trying to hold Him like a little baby in the same way she holds her dolls :)

I have to include a few more sweet photos from December. My dad really wanted to bake cookies this year and so we had a cookie extravaganza at my parents' house. It was a lot of fun but also drove me a little crazy too. Sophia does not understand the concept of baking yet. She wants to eat whatever is in front of her and keep eating it non stop. She threw a fit when I wouldn't let her eat the batter and I think she ate at least 4 cookies that were covered in frosting! UGH. Its Christmas right... Hopefully next year we can keep the cookie eating under control. It was a fun afternoon needless to say. Oh yeah  and we also celebrated my birthday... I had to include a few cute photos:)

So much frosting! ugh. I really need to look for some organic frosting that doesn't involve yellow #5 and blue lake #6. GROSS!

Sophia and her Grumpy eating (a very small piece)  birthday cake*
*Shame on me! This is not my birthday cake as I originally thought it was! This is from my sister's gender reveal party. In case you can't tell by the pink cake, she is having a girl in early May! So stinkin excited to be an auntie!

Happy Birthday to me! Yep that's right, I'm 25! I am all of a sudden feeling old. I'll be 30 before I know it. eeek.

Me and my big sis. Can you tell who is who? Yeah me either. Did I tell you she is preggo? Baby Evangeline is due in early May. I am so thrilled to be an auntie!!! I wonder if I will be as crazy and protective of her as I am of my own daughter...

Winter Photos 2011

When Sophia was a baby, we used to take her to portrait studios for all of her photo sessions and every time we left, I would be angry because the photos were always so mediocre! I got fed up with photographers who were lazy and only took 3 shots and expected them to be good. I think this was the start of my love for photography. I wanted desperately to be able to capture photos of my daughter that expressed her personality and that I could be pleased with. I am definitely still learning, but it is something that I enjoy A LOT! These photos may not look very professional, but there is so much joy in enjoying an afternoon with my daughter and capturing all of her sweet smiles! Its just too bad she is so darn squirmy at this age. As she gets older, I hope it becomes easier to get her to sit still!

This one makes my heart melt!

Any kid will smile when you give them a snickerdoodle!

Birthday Dinner

I have a confession to make. I am obsessed with delicious food! Most days of the week, I eat ridiculously healthy, but when there is a special occasion I like to eat my heart out! My birthday was this past Thursday. I really wanted to go to Postino's Winecafe, but due to our very tight budget, I knew that going out to eat was not a good idea. My genius husband had the amazing idea of recreating Postino's bruschetta in our very own kitchen. It really was an amazing idea because the end result was delicious! I honestly probably ate more cheese than most people should eat in an entire month! We started with a caprese salad loaded with fresh mozzerella and basil. I even impressed myself by making a balsamic reduction to drizzle it with. We also made a green salad because even though its a celebration, I am not okay with not eating my veggies! We modified a salad that we are obsessed with from Cibo. It is mixed greens with shaved parmesan, pine nuts, grilled potatoes, and cherry tomatoes with balsamic. YUM! Last but not least, we made bruschetta with brie, apples, and apricot preserves, and another bruschetta with an artichoke spread. We also drank two bottles of wine.... Is that too much?

Oh and want to know something awesome? One of my nutrition professors saw some of my food photos, and she told me they were "beautiful" and said maybe I should start a business on the side. Food for thought I guess....