And now for a Serrano family announcement......

The Serrano family is excited to share with you that we are expecting Baby #2!  Baby Serrano is due on February 14, 2012, and promises to be the sweetest Valentine's Day gift imaginable.

We are doing well!  Jason is excited about the baby in Mommy's tummy and has recently started to say he has a baby in his tummy too.  Natasha is getting as much sleep as possible and enjoying a bit of downtime from work to get caught up on projects and stay grounded.  Alberto is ramping up for a busy fall and we are hoping to launch his own business for tile and stone work in the coming months.

We have had a great year so far, and have a few photos to share with you -




You can take the boy out of Texas, but you can't take Texas out of the boy! March 2011

 




Jason is a great helper in the garden. April 2011

 


I've got Easter candy in my pocket! Easter 2011

 



Jason and his first Chuck E Cheese experience (or as he call it, "the giant mouse") May 2011



 




All finished with Montessori training! July 2011





An awesome visit from his Houston friend, Sasha! August 2011

  


Goofing around with our neighbors Alyson and Case August 2011

 

2011 is going to be full of activity!

Greetings all -

We hope that everyone had a fabulous holiday at the end of the year and that you are still resolutely sticking to your resolutions! :)

We expect 2011 to be a big year for us both personally and professionally.

Alberto is studying hard to prepare for his contractor license for the awesome tile work he does.
I am working to expand my skillset into SRS Reporting, javascrpting, and becoming the resident expert of all things CRM 2011 (which, by the way, releases one week from today in case anyone is waiting...)

Jason is making leaps and bounds at his wonderful school, Montessori School of Oceanside.
He is 2 now, and has started potty training in earnest.  He is entering the last stage of the unconscious absorbent mind, and often treads briefly into the world of self-awareness and expression.  It is awesome to witness this transformation, and I am grateful for my extracurricular classes in the Montessori Method to help me identify these milestones.

I made my new commitment to Christ known on December 5 and have now been baptized, or "born again".  I don't particularly like that term since I associate many negative connotations to it.  But it is true that I feel like a new person and I know that the Holy Spirit is at work inside of me.  It's a wonderful feeling to be embraced and loved and I am making efforts to reach out to the church I am now attending so that I can have a support network in this still very new journey.

Alberto is hard at work finding new ways to damage his mountain bike and loves to be outdoors and riding through the trails on the nature preserve behind our home.  Jason still occasionally rides with him, but at 34 1/2 pounds, Alberto isn't as eager to cart him around as he once was!

I am also working on learning to sew and quilt, and am having a great time with it, even if I move slower than a snail's pace.  :)  And of course, I am beginning to plan my new season of gardening and hope to have an even more fruitful bounty of veggies in the back yard this year.

And, in our spare time, we are hard at work trying to stay in contact with our beloved friends and family all over the U.S. and Mexico and make sure we do a better job at keeping in touch.

So, we are busy and loving every minute of it. 

What are your plans for 2011?

Merry Christmas!





#1 Helper for Christmas Cookies



 Merry Christmas and joyful thoughts too,

from the Serrano family to all of you!

May your days be merry, your nights be bright

and you catch a glimpse of Santa in flight.

And that we remember the singular reason

we have in our world this wonderful season

that the Lord Jesus came to set us all free



so that we may have new blessed life heavenly!

  





Our Christmas Cookie batch




See you next year!







New articles about baby Izaiah and his family

The San Diego Union Tribune has just published two new articles about the Wallis family this week, and I wanted to share them with you here.  Please click on the following links to learn more:

New Reality for the Wallis Family:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/dec/11/parents-toddler-hurt-oceanside-crash-deal-new-real/

Parents kick off campaign for "Izaiah's Law":
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/dec/14/parents-kick-campaign-izaiahs-law/

Please help in any way you can, and include this sweet child in your prayers.

Little angel - Izaiah Wallis

Anyone who sees me tweeting or posting on Facebook has probably come across messages I have been posting recently about a sweet little boy named Izaiah who lives here in San Diego. He is just 3 months younger than Jason, and his maternal grandparents live in my neighborhood.

I have been posting about him for the last few weeks to help raise awareness of his desperate situation. This is not a joke, nor is it some kind of internet hoax. Please read on....

Christmas Spirit

Hello all!
It has been a long year. A fabulous year. A challenging year. All in all I am ready for 2011!

Today is Jason's birthday - he is now officially a "terrible two-year old"! We have already started saying around the house that "T" is for "troublemaker" or "travieso" (depending on who is saying it ;) )
But one thing is still certain, he is the most awesome kid imaginable. He loves his Montessori school. He loves to learn and sing and dance....and work! Seriously, if you try to take his broom from him it does not go well!

My birthday was last week and went relatively well too. I enjoyed taking the day off and having a "me" day of just whatever I wanted to do.

And now the Christmas season is in full swing and we have our lights hung and our christmas tree up. Christmas feels different to me now than before - partially because I am a mom and partially because I have traveled a great personal journey with my faith this year. I am so thankful for the wonderful life that I have and just wanted to tell all of you that I am thankful to you for being a part of it.

Merry Christmas to everyone and may the spirit of the season remain in your heart all year long!

XOXO,
Natasha

Aloha!

We just got back from a trip to Oahu with my parents and had a great time! It was pretty windy and overcast while we were there but we had a couple of great beach days and spent the rest of our time touring the island.

We also hit a few bumps in the road - Waikiki/Honolulu highways are *ridiculously* confusing; the wind was so bad while we were at Pearl Harbor that we couldn't go see the Arizona Memorial; and Jason had a very unfortunate tumble in the ocean water our very first day there, causing him to be terrified of the beach the rest of the trip!

We overcame these things though, and made the most of things. Here are some of the things we did:
- Watched the sea turtles (honu) in Hale'Iwa
- Had some delicious shrimp dishes at Romy's Shrimp Shack outside of Kuhuku
- Bought a ton of cool stuff at the swap meet in the parking lot of Aloha Stadium
- Found a Honolulu Senor Frog's!!
- Had a shave ice treat from Island Snow in Kailua, where President Obama goes when he is vacationing. We had the "Snowbama", named for his favorite variety - with lemon-lime, cherry and passion-guava flavors.
(Read an article on President Obama's visit here)
- Kayaked to Flat Island, off the shores of Kailua Beach
- Visited the Japanese Byodo-In Temple. BEAUTIFUL!

My favorite part of the trip: Mom and Dad gave Alberto and me a "date night", where they took Jason in the afternoon and freed us up to do whatever we wanted until the next morning. It was a blast and I needed the break!

Jason enjoyed things the whole time except when we were on the plane (6 torturous hours each way) and when we were on the beach. He was a real trooper with all the driving we did, and also slept like an angel each night. He enjoyed trying the fresh papaya and mango, and also strolling around Kailua town (where he made sweet eyes at the majority of the female portion of the local population) and waking up each morning to the singing of the birds all around the vacation home we were staying in. Every day he cooed and chattered back at the birds while he snuggled in bed with us before breakfast. Paradise definitely suits him!