Hello family and friends! There is so much to talk about this month with Christmas and New Year's Eve. Joana is now 20 months old and Julia
is celebrating her 5th month. They are doing very well and continue to be healthy and happy babies. In particular Julia, who seems to think everything and everyone is hilarious. She has learned how to giggle and likes to do it as many times a day as possible. She has also realized that she has a voice and has been using it by "singing" (more like screaching....) and cooing loudly throughout the house.
is celebrating her 5th month. They are doing very well and continue to be healthy and happy babies. In particular Julia, who seems to think everything and everyone is hilarious. She has learned how to giggle and likes to do it as many times a day as possible. She has also realized that she has a voice and has been using it by "singing" (more like screaching....) and cooing loudly throughout the house.The pictures above are of us on Christmas Day opening presents . The other picture has the girls posing with their matching froggy pajamas that they got for Christmas. Below are two videos of the girls opening their gifts. In this first one Julia is attempting to open her first present. We are all very impressed at her dexterity at such an early age....lol. The second video shows Joana opening her present from Namaw, the doll she sleeps with quite often now. And also the presents from vovô and vovó: the personalized backpack and traveling bag.
Joana's vocabulary is increasing by the day and we have to be careful with what we say around her because she is definitely listening and immitating as much as she can. Her latest additions to her vocabulary include calling daddy by "John" and mommy by "Ana" when she wants to immitate the way we call eachother when we are at opposite ends of the house. She knows who Santa is and likes to say his name and she was mesmerized by the Christmas decorations around our neighborhood and everytime she saw the lights she would say "WOW" or "WWWWWOOOOOWWWW" (very slowly) if there were A LOT of lights on the house. Her vocabulary is quickly increasing every week and she does say complete sentences but all we understand is one word out of the whole thing. The video below also has a few fun bits on how she is using her new words. This one is all in English. Enjoy
Julia is now purely on formula and starting to taste her first actual meals. We started with carrot and, though her tongue seemed to try to push the food out of the mouth, it eventually went in and she seemed to enjoy it. She continues to wake up everyday with a smile on her face and is known amongst our friends and family as the "happy baby". Here is a video to prove it.
Both girls enjoyed spending Christmas with Maw Maw Whitney, Namaw, Titi Jen, and Jody, who came to visit us for the holidays. We were surprised on Christmas Day with a thin coat of snow. The girls had their first White Christmas in good ol' Texas. Go figure! The picture below is of our backyard showing the snow that only lasted that morning. It was a great sight to wake up to, though. 
We went to the mall to do some after Christmas shopping and there was a little stage there for a company that was recruiting models a few days previously. The company had left but the stage was still there and Joana managed to clim on stage and started modeling for the crowd. Here's the video.
As far as New 
Year's Eve is concerned, we decided to host the party at our house and loved to have all our friends over. It was a lot of food, fun, and dancing!! This picture was taken on New Year's Eve with our party hats and the girls with their tiaras. We decorated the whole house and had a blast welcoming 2010!!!
