Intermission

After a long break from the Blogging world, we are finally back! Life for our little family is hectic but good. During our hiatus we have celebrated Valentines Day, said goodbye to my Canadian-bound brother for the next 2 years, visited NYC, forgot our 4th year anniversary (yikes, we will be making that up soon!), celebrated Mother's Day, toured potential preschools for Peach to attend this fall, attempted potty training (again!), and Q and I will begin our 4th consecutive semester of school next week.
Here's what the Munoz munchkins have been up to lately:
Peach- Oh sweet Peach. She is certainly her own little woman trapped in a tiny toddler body. Case in point: last week while playing in the car (the car was NOT turned on-her favorite thing to do these days is to pretend to drive) she found the hidden valet key, turned the car on, blasted the music, turned the wipers on high, and rolled up the windows. Q swears she would have thrown the car in reverse and headed down the interstate if I hadn't caught her in the act at that exact moment! Knowing sweet Peach...that's not hard to imagine. In other areas of life little Alliyah has proven to need much more intellectual stimulation than I can give her. We have been checking out preschools in our area to see where the best fit will be for her this fall. As sad as it will be for me to start letting her leave our home for a few hours at a time, she wants and needs it. She loves to be challenged and learn new things. I know it's been hard for her because I have to divide my time with Stud who's 15 months younger. His wants and needs are totally different. Her little self is a force to reckon with and I love her for that. She is just like me in so many ways. My favorite part of the day is when my strong-willed girl gives up the fight and just wants to snuggle before bed-time. She gets her blanket, her stuffed Penguin, and a book for us to read, and we quietly connect for a little while.
Stud- Mr. Anthony is stuck to me like glue, as usual. He's very tender-hearted, loves to snuggle all day, loves to eat anything and everything, loves to play really rough, loves to tease and chase his sister (seriously, this early in life?), and play in the water (pool, river, puddles, etc...). He's totally different from Peach and his personality resembles Q: always laughing, content, and teasing! He will officially enter Nursery next month and we anticipate a difficult transition because he is so dang attached to me! I'm ready for it, though. I want to see him grow and develop on his own and learn more about who he is as an individual. He, like his sister, loves books. But, when it comes to play-time, he would rather tickle Peach, destroy whatever she tries to create, run away with her dolls, or chase after her with his stuffed dog. The noise level gets pretty high around here! He will only be quiet if he's being read to or if he watches a short Baby Einstein video. I relish those few moments of serenity!
Here are some pictures and videos of our life in the last few months:
Day trip to Richmond where we visited the Children's Museum-

I love how Anthony is looking straight at me in the pic below :)

At the Museum's play farm, Stud thought the life-sized cow was so funny. Then, he leaned over and kissed it :)
Near the Museum is a large lake and park. The babies had fun exploring and especially enjoyed watching the ducks swim and catch bread crumbs.

Happy Spring, everyone! More updates to follow soon...and hopefully not so far behind as this one :)

Snowed In...Or Were We?

The last two weeks have been crazy! Snow has dumped and dumped and by the end of the first day, we couldn't stand being cooped up inside anymore! So, Q got to work shoveling out the initial two feet of snow and off we went to Chuck E Cheese. Not my first choice, but the kids loved it. The next few days businesses closed down all over town...including Verizon! It was SO nice to have Q home uninterrupted. At the end of his break, Peach was surprised to wake up and not find her Dad. Here we had a little conversation:

Peach: "Where's Da-da?"
Me: "Da-da went to work little Peach"
Peach (throwing up her hands): "Come on!"
Me: "I know, but he'll be back for lunch to eat with you."
Peach: "Da-da and Peachy nummies?"
Me: "Yes."
Peach: "Ok"

And all day she kept reminding me that "Da-da and Peachy" were going to have their "nummies" together. She's too cute.
Anyway, here's the blasted snow storm and our following adventure :)










These videos are of me with Peach, then with Stud. This horse ride made my stomach sick from all the movement!



And, one last video that is WAY overdue! I know most of you know, but one of my little bros, Mark, recently got his mission call to...drum-roll please....





We hope everyone enjoys this Valentines weekend :)

The house is clean, homework is done, and the kiddos are asleep...which means I finally get to update our blog! Life is nuts around here! (And so is the weather in VA lately. Just crazy! Last week we could play outside all day and enjoyed spring-like temps and today we're literally snowed in!)
I've posted bunch of pictures of the babies and some of their recent shenanigans :)
They've had lots of fun going to the park, shopping, talking on the phone, and keeping me very busy!


Sweet Anthony always smiles for me:
We discovered a new park recently and they loved it!



Down went Peach...Then down went Stud...

And pile-up!



His favorite animal is "dog-dog" and he loves his stuffed animal dog:

Little Ms Peach takes after both her mom and dad when it comes to cell phones. She plays with all of our phones and even has her own (it's not activated though, thank goodness!). Recently, she figured out how to unlock my phone and I constantly find her on the phone with people. She leaves voicemails and everything! Anyway, it's pretty funny that no matter where she is she will randomly pull out her phone and check it or answer it as if it's been ringing. So cute...but probably very UN-CUTE when she's 16 and is racking up minutes on my phone bill!!!!!! (I should know...sorry, mom).


Checking out the New Year's decorations at the mall:

And now, a picture of serenity to leave you with...just kidding!

Have a great end-of-January, everyone!

Catch Up :)

Happy New Year!
We hope 2010 finds and leaves you each happy and healthy.
Here's a quick catch-up from December to now:

December was a hectic month for our family! Alliyah caught pneumonia and Anthony caught a bad cold. They were sick and frustrated for a couple of weeks (yes, right through our week of final exams! Craziness!). They recovered in time for us to do some fun Christmas activities.

Q and I were asked to play Joseph and Mary for the Ward's Christmas party which meant little Anthony was baby Jesus! It was pretty funny. I played a blond, high-heeled Mary (with a shawl and a pillowcase over my head to keep it authentic!). I had to feed baby Jesus (who donned puppy PJ's and a blanket) pumpkin cookies to keep him quiet during the reverent songs on stage. Q, surprisingly, looked just like I imagine Joseph did once he put on his pillowcase and shawl. The whole thing made us laugh, it was a fun time :)

Christmas Eve we went to see Q's family in Reston. Their tradition is to have an enormous party on Christmas Eve up until midnight and right at midnight, everyone opens their presents. I've never seen that much food before...steak, fillet minion, ribs, swordfish, and basically anything imaginable. After Santa came and distributed the presents to the kiddos all of the adults stayed up playing games. It was so much fun we didn't leave until around 4am! Meanwhile, our babies (the youngest ones there) fell asleep at 11pm and missed Santa and everything. Maybe next year babes :)

Christmas Day we spent the morning with just our little family playing with the babies and their new toys and baking cookies. That evening we went to my grandpa's home to meet with my family. It was nice, quiet, and relaxing.

New Year's Eve we had big plans but at the last minute decided to try something new. We put the babies to bed on time, ordered dinner from El Agave, and snuggled up to some of our favorite movies. We rang in 2010 quietly, just the two of us...it was fantastic :)

We are excited to start our new semester this week. I have to admit how glad I am that we've successfully finished 2 semesters without completely wiping out from exhaustion! I admire Quiriam for working such long hours and still having the discipline to come home and study. For myself, I had no idea how hard it would be to raise the babies, take care of the home, and then study. During our week of finals last semester I thought I was going to go crazy but it was worth it. To describe our life right now, I feel like there's a huge concrete wall up against us and we're each pushing with all we have to move that wall forward. It may move just a little, but it's enough to give us hope to keep pushing! Quiriam usually gets home around 9 or 10pm and as exhausting as it is to stay up past midnight studying, I LOVE that we are doing this together. We sit opposite of each other with our laptops and books, put some music on, put some snacks in between us and get to work. I love looking up over my computer and seeing him with his "serious" face as he studies :) I love it even more when he catches me watching him and he leans over to smooch me! Yes, I'm a romantic.
So, babe- here's to another semester of late nights, good music, yummy snacks, and sneaky kisses!

Q and I often talk about this to each other but don't say it to YOU often enough: we are SO grateful to our amazing extended family and the support and love they give us. We love you and thank you for all of the things you do to help our little family :)
May this new year be all that you hope and want it be!

I want to leave you with this 5 minute video. It's a concert piece by Jenny Oaks Baker. We saw a performance of hers in November when she visited our Stake. She. Is. Amazing. My favorite song was "Be Still My Soul", especially the last 2 minutes of it. This song is both calming and inspiring...two things I hope 2010 will be for us all. Enjoy! (Updated pictures will follow soon.)

Grateful Sunday

Today I am grateful for so many things. These past few days have been so fun...VA had it's first snow-fall! It was beautiful, like being on the inside of a snowglobe :) Here are some things I love about the last couple of days:

Kissing in the snow,
Clinging to my hubby's arm while walking on ice in heels,
Having a hubby who has the patience to hold me upright when I wear impractical shoes,
Sweet Peachy who screamed "It's Nooooo!" when she woke up to find snow, or "no", falling,
Sweet Anthony who buries his face in my neck when the cold wind blows,

Quiet nights with the lights off and the Christmas tree's soft sparkle,
Our final week of homework and exams until next semester!!

We hope everyone is enjoying this winter season ;)

Peach getting used to the snow, look at that face!


When this big snowflake fell on Anthony's eyelash he didn't blink until it melted! So cute, look at that concentration!
Sweet snow Peach

Beautiful

"I will have poetry in my life. And adventure. And love. Love above all. No...not the artful postures of love, not playful and poetical games of love for the amusement of an evening. But love that overthrows life. Unavoidable, ungovernable, like a riot in the heart, and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture."

-Shakespeare-

I love this quote. It sums up the theme to the new blog I'm building! It will be my outlet to share and express all things beautiful, passionate, romantic... I love photography, poems, etc. and you can shoot me an email with any contributions, just keep it clean people! Look for it by Christmas ;)

My Favorite At-Home Date...

I was tagged to list my favorite stay at home date-night (thanks, Kristen!) so here's what our recent date night consisted of:
Yummy homemade chicken enchiladas and a movie called Tristan and Isolde. Ok, you MUST see this movie and snuggle up to your lucky lover, it's a perfect romance story :)
The trailer is below, enjoy! (Hey Lori- tag, you're it!)