Highlights from Winter Break | Goals for 2014

Happy Holidays to all! I apologize for the lack of posting on my part; I completely failed at Blogmas and my little series of 2013 favorites and I'm quite sad about that. I've had a sort of busy and eventful holiday season. I will get to the "why" in a bit. First I want to show you bits and pieces of my Holiday season. 

Pictured above is the train set that my family and I built at the beginning of December. It has kind of been torn apart at the point this picture was taking, due to two crazy babies and two curious cats. I love the tradition of building the train set though.

Hispanics have a tradition of celebrating what is called "Noche Buena" or Christmas Eve, where we have a huge party and barbecue a pig and eat tons of rice, beans, and yuca. This year was a tad weird, as most of my family could not attend because they just could not make it to town for the Holidays. The only picture I got was of myself when I got home, as I realized that no other picture was taken of me. I really liked the top I was wearing. It's from the Lauren Conrad collection at Kohls. I also enjoyed the "Russian Red" from MAC lipstick on my lips.

I had to throw in a throwback picture in there! This was Christmas a very long time ago, perhaps between 1996 and 1998? My brothers and I had the same hair styles back then...? HAHA! I just thought it was cute and I found it hilarious that I spot some of the same ornaments we still use today.

SANTA CAME!! I thoroughly enjoyed watching my nieces and nephew open all of their presents!

So after all the present opening, cleaning the gift wrapping (I was exhausted) and the eating of cream cheese quiche and pineapple-glazed ham (delicious), we decided to have a photoshoot overlooking the lake in our backyard. All of the my nieces and nephew are in the first picture, with their mother and I just thought the second picture was hilarious because it literally depicts their personalities perfectly!

mother, two oldest nieces, myself, grandma and aunt

twin cousins, grandma (again), two brothers and myself.

And of course, the traditional pictures in front of the Christmas tree.

Just had to share that my amazing boyfriend bought me a Michael Kors purse and bracelet for Christmas! I'm absolutely in love with it! I will do a full "What I got for Christmas" post at a later date because there are many things I'd like to share.

Then......the amazing Christmas miracle was revealed to us!

Baby Xavier Alexander Diaz de Villegas was born on Christmas Day at 11am in Tallahassee, Florida. He is my cousins second son, making him my third second cousin! He was so cute! Naturally, we went for a visit for the next few days. Hence, the reason I could not blog very much.

Max was very excited to see his little brother come home!

"He's so cute, daddy!"

"But so am I!"

Looking at their resemblances in Max's first few months of life...They do look so much alike!

Another awesome part of the trip, was getting to play with Max! He loved playing zoo with me, and pretending that we were monkeys.

And taking pictures on my iphone. It was soooo fun!

My aunt and baby Xavier. Her second grandson!

My abuela and Xavier. Her second great-grandson!

My mom and baby Xavier. Max calls her minina and so will he!

And of course, a beautiful family picture! They were really sad to see us go - we don't see them too often - but I'm really glad we went. It was a lot of fun meeting baby Xavier and spending time with Max and the other cousins.



And now for Happy New Year 2014!

I was excited to celebrate the New Year. 2013 was an amazing year! I graduated college, found a job, started or continued building relationships with people, and became closer to my brother and his family, since they moved in with us. I am ready to continue learning and growing in 2014.

I was privileged enough to be able to have my boyfriends family over to celebrate the New Year.

There is my boyfriend with my mom!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014!

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GOALS FOR 2014

Be Positive:
Yes, the year just began, but I have already had enough bad news to last me years....On New Years Eve, my father called me from the hospital, informing me that he had pain in his stomach. They have found a giant mass in his liver. He had colon cancer in 2005 and apparently it has resurfaced in his liver. I was utterly saddened by this news and could not stop crying for the first few days of the year. I have since decided that I will try to be positive about the situation. We are waiting to hear on whether the cancer has spread throughout his body, which would be terrible. If it has not, all they have to do is remove the mass from his liver through surgery, which should not be a huge deal. I am thinking positive and praying every single night until we find out.

Be Healthy:
No I don't mean the typical January 1st to January 5th diet that everyone goes on; I mean the general feeling of health. No more soda, more fruits and veggies, and most importantly take vitamins everyday.

Blog More Often:
I have already put myself on a schedule for the rest of January to blog every other day or so. It makes me very happy to blog and it will also distract me from the troubles that are happening in my personal life. I am very excited about this schedule!




This concludes my extremely long post (sorry!) about my Winter Break and Goals for 2014. I hope that all of you had an extremely safe and amazing holiday season, filled with love and family and memories that will last a lifetime. I know this will a holiday that I won't forget!




What did you do over the holidays and what are your goals for 2014?

xxxx