Today we decided that we were going to take the picture with Santa. We had our pick of dresses to put on Daniela and we decided to go with one that was given to us by Raul’s ex-manager from KPMG Mandar and his wife. The funny thing about this wonderful dress was that when Mandar told Raul he was coming to Puerto Rico, Raul told him he had a child who was 11 months old. Well Mandar understood 1 month old. So his wife proceeded to ask more questions about the baby and her size than a man would want to know.

The day we meet up with them (after Thanksgiving Day) we were provided this great gift from Mandar and his wife. They bought her  dress for 3-6 months. Thank goodness Daniela is petite. The dress has a little bolero jacket with fur at the top. The dress was beautiful and we appreciated the gesture. Mandar’s wife explained to us the whole scenario and we laughed about it.

We decided we would use it immediately and today we got the chance to do just that. I was so excited to put the dress on her. It felt like dressing up a little doll. We did fight with her when it came to keeping the little pin on her head.

We waited in line and there was only one little girl in front of us. Her mom and the photography were trying to coax her on to Santa’s lap. After seeing the torture the poor little girl was going through, I decided to give Daniela to Raul. It is easier to try and hand her off to someone else if Dad, has her instead of mom. The photographer finally got the baby to smile as the mom was hiding on the side. Once Raul went with Daniela over to Santa and the photographer, the first attempt and she reached out for Raul and let out a yell. It was like um Ahhh get me off this guy. The second attempt was the same thing and Raul looked over at me and said to come over. We decided we would forgo the torture and get in the picture.

We took two pictures and the result was what we posted.

Well On December 6, 2011 Great-Grandmother America passed away after being diagnosed with cancer back in September. It was sad to hear of her passing and we pray that Grandfather Luis aka Tito and his brothers and sisters can peacfully come together during this sad time.

Daniela never got to meet her in person, but we did do a video chat while Raul went to visit. So Say a little prayer for Doña America in your own way.

O M G The year has flown by so fast that I can’t even tell you how much we have seen Daniela develop. This month Daniela celebrated with us ThanksGiving. And since she is eating whole pieces of food, I really didn’t have to cook anything different for her. Granted that Raul and I had a cold, and my food came out bland, she enjoyed every little piece of our meal.

We also baptized her on the 20th and it was a simple quick ceremony. You can read about this event in a seperate post on the site.

Daniela can do these things:

Stand up in her crib and pulls up on our furniture that she can grab onto. Its time to lower the crib for when she takes her naps.

She is crawling on all fours. I have even caught her standing over and not erect by herself. I think if we giver her until next month she maybe walking. It is amazing to see our little lady zip around on all fours.

She is pointing to things when she wants them and also blows kisses to let us know that she wants something.

When we take things away she is going into a defiant fit. Sounds like me when I was a kid. And from Raul he has said that Javier used to do the same by throwing himself back.

She is trying to pronounce and imitate words we say to her. The other day I was reading a book that has a cat in it and she was trying to prounounce cat. She is saying Dada, Mama, Ga (for JuanGa) Da, for dog. Since we live on a street that is littered with dogs, she will hear them bark and say Da.

I have caught her looking at herself in the mirror and blowing kisses to herself. LOL Yeah really funny.

When she eats food, she will taste certains food items. If she doesn’t like something, JuanGa gets a prize.

She wants to do everything herself. Uncle Tito gave her a little computer and she wanted to open and shut the computer by herself.

Daniela has also had a couple of bang ups with the tile. She split her lip, bumped her cheeks, and forehead since she started crawling.

She has graduated from a sippy cup with handles to one without. We are still breastfeeding and as I have read, weaning off the breast is up to her.

She also does a scooba rotation on her bottom. She flips one leg over the other to turn around. She will also lift one leg up as she turns.

Her and JuanGa are the best of buds as he lays there while she tugs at his ears, snout, and teeth. Since she is following me all over the first floor, she is going to JuanGa’s bowls. One day she was half way out the door before I turned around and scooped her up.

She loves going for walks and basically loves seeing me get the carriage ready to go out. But because she is crawling and this past weekend we were out and about, she was not liking the car seat at all.

She loves dancing and on Thanksgiving while I was cooking Raul noticed her moving her torso left and right while a dance number was going on during the Macy’s Day parade.

Anytime she sees water, or something she likes, she lets out a squeal of approval.

Check out the pictures we have included. I am sure she does more things, but we have to enjoy every minute. And I can’t quite possibly write them all down.