July Birthdays!

We celebrated two great birthdays in July-Daddy's and Aunt Gina's. We celebrated Jeff's on the morning of David's wedding day-complete with Dora balloons. Gina came down the NC for birthday-palooza the week after the wedding.

It's not a birthday at the Costa house without birthday hats!
Kate helped Mommy make Gina's special birthday pie and helped to blow out the candles, of course!
Too much partying...

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there, especially to our two moms who taught us so much-including how wonderful and important it is to make special memories with your children. THANK YOU for all the special memories you have given us. If you love your mom and/or are a mom, you should check out this video by Taylor Swift called "The Best Day" . (It is a country song, but it's good and I dare you not to cry).

We had a Mother's Day outing to Pullen Park today. It turned out to be a gorgeous afternoon. Kate loved it-the playground, the boat rides, the train ride, the wildlife-everything! Here are some pictures of our adventure. Yes, we were pretending to be Dora the Explorer half the time-watch out for Swiper the Fox!

Here she is climbing the stairs, for about the twentieth time, to slide...
Piloting her boat...
Train ride, all aboard!

Paddle Boats

Daddy was nice enough to paddle his girls around the pond at the park. It was quite the adventure. We saw two snakes (yuck!), four turtles, and many ducks and birds. The snakes were swimming around the dock used to get on the boats. They were almost a deal breaker for me. Although they were pretty big, my biologist father would be so disappointed if I let swimming snakes scare me off, so away we went. Kate sat up front with Jeff and I was in the back making sure Kate stayed seated and keeping a look out for snakes! Yes, I'm a wimp.

One of our wildlife finds:
Thanks for all your hard work Jeff!
I have to thank Dora for setting such a good example for children. Kate had no complaints about wearing a life jacket or staying in her seat because Dora says to stay safe every time she and Boots (the monkey) get on a boat. We had a wonderful adventure!

Superstar!

Need I say more... 

We're Back...

I know, I know, how long has it been since I've posted? It has been so long that blogspot has tons of new features that make it even easier to compose this things! I'm going to follow my friend's advise and TRY not to let a calendar month go by before I update because I've heard loud and clear that you all do miss having updates. Jeff told me the other day that I only needed to do two things to be the perfect wife-tell him "I love you" every day and update the blog. Since I'm pretty sure I do the first thing on a daily basis, here is my attempt to finally be the perfect wife! I'm just throwing many pictures at you without a lot of commentary, but hope you enjoy. A lot of these posts have been sitting in here as drafts and I'm finally posting them, so they go back all the way to Christmas!

Paint the Earth

To all my Chapel Hill girls (Go Heels!)-remember our outings to Paint the Earth? Well here is my little artist doing her own version. She took it really seriously, I don't even think she got any paint on Aunt Gigi's old painting T-shirt that was passed on to us, although she did get it all over her arms.

Hola-Hola

Sadly, my Grandma, Yolanda Hurtarte, died at the end of February after a long, courageous battle with cancer. Kate called her Hola-Hola and still asks about her, but she will tell you that Hola-Hola is with Jesus. We have missed her dearly. Fortunately my aunts from Canada and Guatemala were able to be here and it was neat to see all of them together. Here they are from left to right-my Mom and Kate, Sandra, and Ana.

Uncle Dave

David came to visit over his spring break in March. Jeff enjoyed relaxing with his brother and Kate enjoyed showing off her new playroom and playhouse.

Valentine's Day

We had our neighbors over for a Valentine's Day dinner. Here are Kate and their son Jack enjoying a gourmet meal of hot dogs and macaroni and cheese.

Turning Two

Our baby turned two, so I guess she's our toddling girl now.  I was more emotional about this birthday than about Kate turning one, but feel completely blessed to have this smiling, sweet, growing girl.  We had a Dora the Explorer party and it was a great day.   
All the kids really enjoyed hitting the Pinata.  I was a little worried about Kate's reaction to everyone hitting Dora, but she didn't seem to mind-maybe I should be worried about that.  Aunt Gigi came in for the festivities and helped Kate gather her candy.

More party pics

The party continued with cousin Scarlett spending the night-here are the girls eating breakfast on the couch while watching cartoons.

Later that day we went to Nana and Papa Tom's house to eat a great seafood meal before Aunt Gina left for the airport.  Even Kiwi got into the party spirit.

Snow Time!

Snow fell in NC over inauguration weekend.   It was Kate's first real snow and we had a blast.  

More Snow Pictures

Kate's favorite thing to do in the snow is to eat it. Here she is in action-

The Wedding

Yes, we celebrated a wedding and an engagement over the New Year.  Surprise number one-Nana, Jeff's mom, married Papa Tom the weekend after New Year's Day.  We went to the mountains for a lovely ceremony.  Here is Kate getting ready for the big day.

It was extremely difficult trying to keep Kate from standing up at the front with Nana during the ceremony.  During the reception lunch, she would not be denied.  It was a beautiful and sweet ceremony-they said their own vows which had me crying.  We enjoyed celebrating with them and Jeff did a great job with the toast.  Papa Tom is well on his way to spoiling Kate, just like the rest of her grandparents! Nana and Papa Tom just returned from a honeymoon to Hawaii and we are looking forward to spending a lot of time with them this summer.
Surprise number two-Uncle David and Meghan got engaged!  Here is the happy couple at the wedding.  We are so excited to have her join the family and I'm looking forward to having another sister-in-law!  Wedding is in July and we're working on the perfect flower-girl dress for Kate.