A Peek at the Pina Family

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Joshua is 21 months!

Can you believe it? This sweet little man will be two years old in just three short months! If I thought time flew when we only had Quinn, multiply that by two because it only goes quicker with two children! Joshua still continues to be our sweet little cuddler. This past weekend at Jaime's regional meeting we left the kids in child care so we could attend a dinner and when we went to pick him up the girls working there couldn't believe how cuddly he was! Melt my heart!

Some of the things Joshua is now doing.

•Saying more words now! He loves saying "mama" all day long and loves to wave daddy as he leaves to work saying "bye" in his sweetest little voice. Ball and Papa are two of his other fave words.

•Thinks anything and everything Quinn says and does is hilarious, especially while we are driving or sitting at the dinner table eating.

•Obsessed with any car or toy with wheels, loves to get down on the floor and watch the wheels roll.

•Likes jumping in the pool from the side or steps.

•Loves playing with the water hose outside or turning the tub faucet on inside.

Joshua is just such a sweet little man. He is definitely more quiet than his older sister but enjoys being an observer. He takes it all in!

La Cantera, San Antonio

Jaime has a regional meeting every June at a different central Texas location. These are always great fun as the families are invited to join and enjoy the resorts for three or four days. This year's meeting was at La Cantera in San Antonio and as always was a blast! The kids had a great time enjoying the pools and jump house at the resort and especially Six Flags Fiesta Texas which is just next door to La Cantera.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Quinn is 4 and Dallas trip!

Quinn turned four last weekend and is feeling like such a big girl now! She wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese's for her birthday and we agreed, it was a simple and easy birthday but for Quinn is was the best day ever. Now that she is four she is doing all these things that she didn't when she was three. She has now decided that she is going to take showers instead of baths and she even willingly ate her zucchini, squash, and mushrooms for dinner the other night! We shall see how long these things last. We headed up to Dallas to see a few of our friends who were in town and stayed at the Crescent Court- ohh lala it was fancy! So fancy that I think we were the only ones in the whole place with kids, ha!

We took the kids to the Dallas World Aquarium, what a cool place! I love this picture, Quinn was sooo into this fish tank, she was practically swimming with them!

This is another fave, the kids were just amazed by the size of this walrus.

Quinn was feeding this bird a blueberry. When we gave Joshua a blueberry to feed to the bird he ate it instead!

Not sure why we took a picture at this restaurant, we actually went to eat dinner at a cool pizza place called Coal Vines and had a little birthday celebration for Quinn. Super fun night!

Joshua is 18 months old!!

Let me just start off with my usual line- where on Earth is time going??? I simply can't believe Joshua is already 18 months old. I really feel like he should still be a little baby and not this toddler he's become. But alas, time flies and my baby boy continues to grow and change every day. Joshua is really still the sweet, mild tempered, curious guy he has always been. His vocabulary is expanding and for this we are very happy. He still seems to be a man of a few words, unlike his older sibling who by this age was speaking in sentences. Joshua is perfectly content with his repertoire of 12-13 words. Here they are (just so I don't forget in years to come):

mama

dada

din= Quinn

yes

agua= water, sounds like "awawawa"

papa

off

that

ball

done

This is how real men do yard work, ha!

Every afternoon is spent outside these days, what will we do this summer when the temps are higher??

He loves wearing his daddy's hats!

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Snowmass, CO

The last week of March we took a ski trip to Snowmass, Colorado. Little man Joshua stayed behind and had the time of his life with Mama Rose and Papa James. Before leaving on our trip Jaime and I were feeling really bad about leaving him here but as soon as we arrived at the airport we quickly remembered why we decided not to drag our toddler on this trip with us. Traveling with a toddler in my opinion can be a pure nightmare and why put him through that when he was able to have a blast and run free with Mama Rose and Papa James? Plus, he is too young to ski which would have meant that one of us would have had to stay with him everyday, in a hotel room. Noooooo thank you! Quinn was super pumped about our vacation and made a ski trip countdown on her snack calendar from school. I think it was the happiest time of her day for quite a while, it meant we were getting closer!

It was a breeze flying with Quinn! She watched her movies while we napped (amazing!!!). We had a three hour lay over in Dallas on our way to Aspen and she enjoyed a nice lunch with us while we waited. It was so nice to not have to stress about all that we do when little man is with us.

It was sooooo cold when we arrived in Aspen and we were not at all prepared for the drastic weather change. I mean we were, but our warm winter clothes were in our suitcases which were checked in on the plane and this was a smaller plane in which the passengers actually exit the plane and walk on the tarmac to the airport. It was really snowing when we arrived so we quickly ran into the airport and as soon as we found our bags we dug out our warmer clothes and bundled up!

We were so happy to see a hot chocolate bar in the hotel when we arrived! I think you can see Quinn grabbing a hand full of marshmallows here!

The first three days we were there Quinn took ski school which she really enjoyed. She learned how to do a pizza with her skis and even learned how to go down the bunny hill while turning by the end. While she was in ski school Jaime and I hit the slopes while he snowboarded and I skied. This was only Jaime's second time snowboarding so this day was sort of slow for him but he quickly caught on. Jaime's brother Adan lives in Denver so he drove down and skied with us for two days as well. We all had so much fun together and got kind of daring on some blue runs.

I love how I am standing behind Jaime in this picture like I am the man in the relationship! It really is just because Jaime said if he moved he would've fallen! Ha!

Quinn LOVED wearing her ski helmet all the time. Here she is eating her breakfast and looking out the window probably wishing she was skiing too! She even wanted to wear it when we would go out to eat!

She also wore her skis and boots around the room. She got pretty good at walking in them!

One night we went to eat at an Italian restaurant that Quinn was able make her own pizza complete with a chef hat. She was truly in heaven with this! You better believe that chef hat made it all the way back to Austin in her little carry on back pack too!

Another night we went to have dinner at the golf course in Aspen and the sights were simply amazing. The sun was setting in the most beautiful mountain scenery.

We enjoyed some delicious hot chocolate while admiring the view.

We even had a chance to ride a horse drawn wagon with Clydesdale horses. Quinn couldn't stop giggling because the horses were, well you know, doing their thing. It was so hilarious!

Meanwhile, back in Austin Joshua had all sorts of fun meeting Mister E. Bunny. Can't tell if he liked the bunny or not? One thing's for sure, he was loving that lollipop!

We had an amazing time and made wonderful memories. We sure did miss our little man and were so happy to see him when we got back. I think he was too as he kept laughing and screaming when he saw us! We hope to make a ski trip an annual event for us and as soon as Mr. Joshua is old enough for ski school he will join us and make the trip even more memorable.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Brave

Back in November we noticed that Quinn had a bluish/purple bump on the outside of her left cheek that wouldn't seem to go away. It looked like a bruise but when you touched it was like a hard ball. Quinn's pediatrician suspected it to be a polyp but suggested we keep an eye on it for a month or so to see if it went away. It didn't go away and seemed to get a little darker in color so she then suggested we see a Pediatric Plastic surgeon. After meeting with him he suspected it to be a Pilomatrixoma, or to the non-doctors a benign tumor. We would only be 100% sure what it was if we surgically removed it. This brings us to last week. Quinn was scheduled to have surgery on March 4 so my mom made flight arrangements to be here and help out with Joshua and Quinn after the surgery. Well my Mom arrives and then the day before Quinn's surgery we got a call from her doctor to let us know that her surgery was going to be rescheduled for today, March 12 due to an emergency surgery that came up. So on the bright side of thins we were able to spend more time doing fun stuff with my Mom but also at the same time I felt so bad that she traveled here only to have it rescheduled!

So today was our surgery day and I really can't even believe just how BRAVE Quinn was! She was such a little trooper and didn't shed one single tear. She tightly clung onto a stuffed bunny that was given to her by her buddy Easton for her surgery day and rolled down the hallway on her bed to the surgery room as we watched her off. Not a fun thing for a parent to go through but just another reminder at how precious life is and how truly blessed we are to have such a sweet gift from God. Here are a couple pictures of her post-op. She was a little out of sorts but not too disoriented to remember her true love for popsicles.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Story through iPhone pics

Part of the reason I have been so horrible about blogging lately is that I use my iPhone to capture photos rather than using my camera mainly because I always have my phone with me and my camera is kind of large and annoying to constantly carry with me. But after looking at the quality of these pictures I really need to start carrying the big camera with me daily! Here is a story through iPhone pictures of the past few months, a little out of order: