Tamale Day!

One of my FAVORITE things to do this time of year is Tamale Day. This has been a family tradition of my dad's family since I was little (even longer than that) and I just LOVE it! It's a lot of work but totally worth it. My cousin Michelle and I took over this tradition from our Aunts and Grandma about 5 years ago. We changed things up a bit just because it's SO much work and we put our own little spin on it. Every year we vow that this year will be different than last year, and of course it never is but that's what makes it so much fun.

I love the tradition of Tamale Day, every year we do a "pre-tamale" party to get the meat ready for the next day. We tell everyone to show up at 7am, but people don't start trickling in until around 8 or 9, then we get started. We make our secret recipe for the masa and start preparing the orders of our family. We all sit around the table and talk and have champagne and laugh, it's GREAT!

The newest cousins! Jude and Benny

Tamale Makin'

This is the FIRST time Uncle Mitch has helped prepare the masa!!!

Grandma stands over and watches everyone to make sure they are doing it right LOL

This is pretty much what Ronnie and I do every year, prepare the masa

I can't wait until the 2nd generation of cousins get into this tradition and we can pass the "Tamale" to them.

A Time to give Thanks!

For Thanksgiving we drove up to Mike's parent's house in Groveland, it's about 45 minutes away from Yosemite. We were a little nervous about the long drive and weren't too sure how Jude would do sitting in his car seat for that long, but he did GREAT! It was actually Tanner that didn't do so well, she was super ancy the WHOLE time!!!

Jude got to meet his cousin Cammi and Aunt Marji for the first time, he loooooooooooved Cammi! (He met his Uncle Frank and cousin Krista a couple of weeks before)


Jude loved hanging out with his Gramma and Pop-Pop! I was really glad they got to spend some one on one time with him!


We hadn't been up there since before we got married so this trip was LONG overdue! We had such a great relaxing weekend. Mike and I both love visiting up there. We were so excited to spend Jude's first Thankgiving up there!!!

The Manzo Family!

7 Months!

Seriously this is going by waaaaaaaaaay to fast! I can't even keep up with the postings! Well our little man is 7 months old (at least he was on 11/20!)

7 Month Stats:

At his last appt he weighed 19lbs and 27.5 inches long, I'm sure now he weights AT LEAST 22lbs and is 28 inches if not longer. He totally had a major growth spurt in the past couple of weeks.

He's still wearing 9-12 month clothes, but he's just starting to wear 12-18 month clothes, with a little wiggle room of course!

He got his first two teeth shortly after my last post!! They are on the bottom and super cute when he smiles! I love it!

He's still not crawling yet, but he's pulling himself up and rolling around everywhere to get to his destination.

He makes a million different funny faces everyday and LOVES being around his "dadda". OH he FINALLY said "mama" I even got it on video!

This little boy brings so much light into our little home and we just love him! We are so blessed to have him in our lives, and I can't imagine life without him.

A Birthday, Disneyland, and Halloween...what could be better!!!

We celebrated my birthday at Disneyland and had such a great time!! (The weekend before we had our annual Halloween party, pictures to come later!) This was also Jude's first time going, what a difference taking a little one with this time. He did great though, we even took him one Pirates of the Carribean and Haunted Mansion, he loved both of them!! I had such a great birthday at Disneyland, and I love this time of year when it's decorated for Halloween so I was so glad we got to go! Halloween we spent with Holly and the twins and we ran into a our friends the Garica's! We went to downtown Brea and they had this Kid Block party thing, it was great! FREE games for all the kids, I'm sure the boys would have loved it if they were older!! Maybe next year they will get more into it??!!

I love all the "firsts" we get to have with Jude, it's so fun!

FALL!!!

I love love love love LOVE our friends Jordan and Maria Irwin. They are the best couple!! Over the past year or so we have gotten extremely close with these two people. They mean the world to us! Jordan is an AWESOME photographer and has a great style that I love! We asked him to take a new family photo for us and while we were at it, take Jude's 6 month pictures. We decided to do it at the pumpkin patch (perfect timing since I LOVE these fall holidays). Here are a few of the photos that he took for us...

Thank you so much Jordan for capturing our sweet little boy and our growing family!!! We love you both sooo much.

Jordan can be reached at jordan@takeapictureitlastslonger.com

Happy 1/2 Birthday Jude!!!

WOW 6 months already!!! I can't even believe how fast this is going!! Seriously, in no time at all he'll be 1!!

6 Month Stats:

He weights 19lbs 4oz and is 27 1/2 inches long. He totally had a HUGE growth spurt in the past two months!! He's almost as tall as me!!! LOL

He's wearing 9-12 month clothes

STILL teething, no teeth yet!!! I think he's getting one in the bottom right hand side, I'm just waiting for that little guy to come through!

He's rolling over too!! And even starting to do a little scooting action too, I love it!!!

We're going to start on veggies in a couple of weeks and can't wait to see his reaction to that.

He's totally in love with Tanner. He watches her with whatever she does and laughs at her all the time. He LOVES petting her, he's always grabbing for her. She's being great too, she tolerates him LOL.

Jude's 1st Angel Game

Typically Mike and I go to at LEAST 10 Angels game a year, this season was a little different. This year we only made it to 2 games!!! Yes 2! We went to the second game of Opening Day and the LAST home game of the season!!! I guess better than nothing. :) The game was special for three reasons:

1. It was the last HOME game of the season
2. The celebration rally for the Angels clenching their division (GO WESTERN AMERICAN LEAGUE!) and...

3. It was Jude's 1st Angel game!!!!!!

We were a little hesitant about taking him only because we weren't sure how he would do with all the noise, the people, and being confined to a little space. Well.....he did GREAT! He was totally into the game, flirting with all the girls around us and making all the guys laugh! At one point he even fell asleep!! Seriously, he was an ANGEL :)

I can't wait until next season when he can go to Opening Day and start the season all over again!!