Our past two weeks.........On too a NEW YEAR

I know I haven't updated for awhile but below are photos from our December 2008 with the Cota's.

As I sit here anticipating the new year with Lil Ed(Big Ed and Diego are asleep) I can reflect back to what a good year 2008 was for our family. Although Little Diego was very sick with his food allergy in January then RSV in February and the worst Mastoiditus in July he is now better and is our healthy little boy.

As for Little Ed he has had an excellent year with school- he made honor roll and perfect attendance and has kicked butt with reading, we are very proud of him and his accomplishments.

Next is my amazing husband, December 5th he celebrated two years sober, wow how life has changed for us all. I am very proud of the man he has become and especially proud that he has succeeded an addiction not only for himself but his family as well!

As for me I am excited I have managed to lose close to 40 pounds thanks to my loving husbands everyday support and cooking.

One very special thing that has happened to us all is we found a church home - New Hope and have come to find the Lord! We have found an amazing church family and enjoy our weekly attendance learning more about life and the Heavenly Father.

Now onto a new year in about 2 more hours!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!

Diego climbing on our fold up table with no fear of falling.

Here we are visiting Big Eddie Sr. in Shafter-Adriana (mother-in-law) Big Ed, Diego and Lil Ed-We miss you Big Eddie Sr!

Christmas Eve before opening gifts.

Big boy Diego waiting to open his gifts.

Diego's first haircut.

Big brother helping Diego for the big snip!

Almost time.........

Here we go........... Ta Da-Look at me now!

Our visit with Santa although Diego doesn't like Santa at all!

IT'S BEEN A VERY LONG TIME- BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE VERY BOTTOM VIDEO

Wow- what a November we had! The pictures below are all taken in the month of November, enjoy! Be sure to make it to the very bottom to check out the "broom" video!

We are so excited for Lil Ed! At his awards assembly he received a "perfect attendance" award and we are very proud of that! But most exciting is that he got on "Honor Roll". We are very proud of him and his accomplishments thus far in the 4th grade. The most exciting is that Lil Ed got an "A-" in reading. For those of you that know his past this is a huge accomplishment for Lil Ed.As you know our weather here seems to be very nice in fall and we were able to enjoy our time at Pismo Beach!
Diego, loves to be free and especially loves the dunes!

Here is our good family friend Garrett playing the sand making mud castles with Ed and Diego!

Look at me mommy!

We finished our soccer season and celebrated our home for an "ice cream" social. Here are the "Red Barons".

Diego loves to be on top of everything and in everything. Here is a picture I got when I was teaching him to "smile" on command.

Our house is as baby proof as it can be but we are having a hard time keeping Diego out of the drawers, bathroom and the pantry-oh yah and keeping him from escaping out the front door. Our door's have lever handles that he has figured out how to open as he stands on his tippy toes. Below are pictures of the one of many times he has gotten into the pantry. It has gotten so bad we have to lock ourselves out of the bathroom. Soon were going to by all new door knobs to help this situation :)

MMM this is yummy-he acts as though we don't feed him!

To darn cute to punish!

Auntie Marie, got this broom for Diego and he loves it. He sees me constantly sweeping up after him and once he got his broom he was an instant sweeper. He even manages to make his own mess so he can clean it up-yah right! ENJOY!

Our boys-Our love-ENJOY!

This boy has NO fear!Look at me!
Lil Ed loves staying the weekend at Tia Jax especially the NERF gun wars!

So Veteran's day was suppose to be a day off for me? Staying home was alot more work especially when this is how your morning starts!

I guess Diego is a bit young for a cup without a lid?

Nothing better then this - the love our boys have for each other.

For those of you that grew up with Lil Ed you know and remember how easy he was. Life was simple he was simple. Ok, now on to Diego - OH MY GOSH WE HAVE OUR HANDS FULL!

Yup, this is the look I get. Oh yah and the mess! This is how we know he is done!

Halloween 2008

We had a wonderful Halloween and below are some pictures to prove it! We started out on Thursday the 30th at downtown Farmer's Market. Although we got there late and most of the stores were out of candy we were able to observe the excitement with the "No on 8" and "Yes on 8" which Lil Ed absolutely loved (he is for "No on 8" of course)- my little political boy!

On Halloween day I was able to attend Lil Ed's classroom party with lots of yummy treats and afterwards we were of to trick or treat in the Village Of Arroyo Grande. We managed to get there by 3 and hit every store. Diego, was not sure about the whole thing but he sure did enjoy the Twizzlers!Here is Diego wiped out from Farmer's Market!Yum I like this Twizzler- luckily daddy is at work!
Here he is at my mom's neighbors trick or treating!

Being a Lego is not the best costume for a shy boy! At both farmers and the village Lil Ed got tons of attention from both kids and adults about his costume! You would not believe the excitement when people saw his costumes, he even got extra candy for having such and original costume! Thanks Grandma Lee for making his costume!

And were off! This was before we started our AG Village journey! After the Village we were off to my parents and Lil Ed was able to pass out candy to the kids that came to the door!

Now it's on to Turkey Day!

OBAMA 08!!!

Diego's 1st Birthday

Hit the arrow to see Diego enjoying his birthday cupcake!

I know it's been awhile but life has been extra busy at the "Cota" house especially celebrating birthday's for Big Ed and Diego.

Another reason we have been so busy is that my parent's were gone traveling the country for 39 days. Me and Big Ed had to adjust to picking Diego and lil' Ed up after school and getting Ed to soccer practic, since my parent's usually do this every day. They totally deserved the trip, but were gone longer than I liked, and we are so grateful that they are HOME.

The next important thing is that the boys got "dedicated" at our church on Sunday the 19th. I will add more pictures soon.

Below are pictures from his birthday BBQ celebration. We had a wonderful time although we missed Daddy's nieces and nephews and both of his sisters. We were blessed to have family and friends enjoy a nice Sunday afternoon with us. It was especially nice to have Buelo (Big Ed's mom) come along with Eddie's Tio Ruben and family and his cousin Dawn and her family, especially since they drove from the valley.

Diego loves hula hoops and that is what he got from Grams and Gramps.
Me and my big boy!

I loved this pictures because Diego has this look wondering what is all this about!



Here is his very own 1st birthday cake.

He enjoyed us all singing "happy birthday" too him especially having big brother by his side.

Here he is, on his actual birthday, enjoying his cupcake that mommy baked. We enjoyed his special evening with just the four of us which made it extra special!

As mentioned above we celebrated Daddy's 32 birthday on the 7th and enjoyed dinner at home and he got to watch the final presidential debate, which is what he wanted to do on his birthday!

OBAMA 08 for our house!!!

Diego's 1st Gymnastics

This is my morning! Also notice the red kitchen tool in his right hand. Always into something! So even though Diego is still coughing like crazy and up all night we decided Saturday morning we were going to try out gymnastics for our little guy. The night before he was walking backwards and laughing and then you tell him "to spin" and he spins in circles so we decided we would try a class. The class was for kids walking to 3 years of age. Diego was of course the youngest and the other 5 kids were at least 3. I would have to say Diego and another girl Justis were probably the only ones that followed directions-amazing for a 12 month old huh! Below was a long trampoline which he loved. He got to do this more then once and each time he would run faster and faster!
In this room he was able to do an obstacle course which he enjoyed. Here he had to jump over the scary spiders.
We found out during WOW parent weekend that Diego loves hula hoops. He managed to walk all over the UU plaza with the DJ's hula hoop. In class the hula hoop was suppose to be Diego's car and he had to GO on green and STOP on red, he loved driving his car! Although Tia Jackie needs to work with him about red lights since he ran a few :)
Jump Diego Jump!


PRESS THE TRIANGLE TO WATCH HIM ROLE!

Check out Diego's trophy...........

I was able to snap a few pictures of Diego and his trophy- Enjoy!

Our Boys Are Super Stars

We are so proud of Little Ed and his soccer skills. Today his team ended the game with a 4 point tie. Eddie made a goal for the team and then he played goalie 4th quarter and blocked 2 shots. He played in amazing game and had a winning attitude. BTW- for those of you that didn't know Ed in previous years was scared to death of being goalie now he asks to play the position.

Ed-in deep concentration watching the ball.Below are pictures of Arroyo Grande Harvest Festival Diaper Derby. Diego entered into the boys"toddling category" . It was very exciting especially considering we had know idea what to expect. Below he is practicing before the big race.So nervous I was right before we started.............................(actually as you can see I am busy chatting with the other contestants)Ready--Set--Go-- I was on one side and Daddy and our fans were cheering and yelling on the other side.

GO DIEGO GO!!!!!!!!!

Yah Diego won 2nd place!

We are very blessed to have such good friends who were able to join us! The Gardner family, our wonderful neighbors which includes 3 boys and a girl were all cheering Diego on and we also had Auntie Marie from work with her two friends who helped get us pumped up and also was our photographer who took great pictures. Thank you all for your support we had a blast!

Below is Auntie Marie with Diego and his trophy and of course his bottle which is why he won.I got the best idea from my creative co-workers and friends in ironing on "Go Diego Go" for the big race. With Daddy's help this was the final product-we thought it was very cute.After an already very busy day we went to Los Osos so Big Ed could do a plumbing side job and while in OSOS we were able to visit with my sister and Melody then my Uncle Jim and Debbie and then my grandma! How nice it was to see my whole family in one day except for my parents. On the way home we went to see Daddy's job in Avila Beach and all the nice work he has done and on our way home we decided to stop at the Avila Valley Barn.

Here is little Ed exiting the hay maze!

And then we have daddy and Diego, this was Diego's first time in the hay maze and as you can see he wasn't quite sure what it was all about.

This is going to be Diego's 2nd Halloween but this year he is able to enjoy pumpkins. Here he is trying to get the baby pumpkin and then he tried to eat it.

It was so cute to see Diego checking all the pumpkins and their stems not quite sure what to do?

Now this was the funniest thing--Diego versus the pumpkin! He was very determined to move the pumpkin but the pumpkin seems to have won!

ERRRRR-he screams because it's NOT moving!!!!!!!! SO SO CUTE!