Happy New Year!

Since I haven't blogged in a few months and I never got around to sending Christmas cards/newsletter, here is a short summary of the year's happening for the Cruz family.

At the end of 2009 we moved into the home that Eric and I built in the Eastwood neighborhood of Houston. Our home was featured in a historic neighborhood home tour in October of this year. We had over 400 people come through our home in two days. It was enjoyable, and it definitely forced us to finish up our never-ending home projects! It fell smack in the middle of a very busy campaign season, but we survived!

Isaac is 5 and attends kindergarten at our neighborhood school and loves every minute of it! He is very social, and thrives at school and at church. He started piano lessons this year, and has picked up on it quickly. He loves to write. He is constantly carrying around a notebook and pen, and writing little notes and stories. I kept asking him what he wanted for Christmas, and every time he replied "a notebook". (I hope his wishes are always this simple!).

Javier just turned 3 in October. He is quite the conversationalist, and loves to talk to anyone who will listen about his trains! He enjoys wrestling his brothers, playing with his trains, and being very active. He is still not potty trained :(!

Baby Benji turned 1 in October, also. He continues to enamor everyone with his head bobbling. He loves moving his head to music, and enjoys throwing balls and anything else he can get a hold of. He is not walking yet, and mommy’s arms are very strong from carrying around a 25 lb. baby!

I had quite a life-changing experience. I ran for the school board for the Houston Independent School District. I never imagined myself as a political candidate, but the inequities in the quality of public education drove me to want to fight for change. The campaign consumed our entire lives. Our extended family and close friends really stepped in and helped with the kids and volunteered hours upon hours of blockwalking and phonebanking! They made it possible to even consider running! I led on November 2 with 14 percentage points among six candidates. I went into run-off and lost by 44 votes. We were disappointed after having worked so hard, but felt that it was a huge learning experience for all of us. We were shocked at how dirty the politics got, and never expected that in a school board race. But, we held our heads and high, and ran a clean campaign. The kids enjoyed the attention and meeting so many people. Isaac asked me just yesterday if we were going to campaign again. He really enjoyed blockwalking!

Eric started a new job in the summer at Cornerstone Mortgage, which was named one of the top 10 companies to work for in Houston. He works as a report writer/database administrator. He will be taking classes next year for project management. He was very supportive of me throughout the campaign, and really helped in every aspect! I couldn't have done it without him!

My youngest sister, Esther, moved in with us in the summer. She just graduated from Texas State in social work, and is now working in Houston with Baylor’s community outreach. She is planning on starting her master's degree this year, also in social work. She, also, helped out tremendously with the kids and the campaign!

We finally got to meet our niece, Vinisha! Jen and Vinisha came for a visit to the U.S. this summer and stayed with us for almost two months. Mohan came briefly since he is busy with all of his many jobs! We were ecstatic to see them after two years and thrilled to meet our only niece! The boys had a blast playing/fighting together. Javi still calls her "Meneesha". We were all sad to see them leave and hope that they will be here soon (They say they are moving back in May!)

The boys are growing so fast, and it saddens me that they won't stay cute and little forever!!! They keep us busy and on our toes, and they remind us how precious our relationships are.

We feel extremely blessed to be surrounded by loving and supportive family and friends. We are grateful to have each of you in our lives. We hope that you had a restful and peaceful holiday season. We wish you peace, health, and happiness for 2011!

"Cabecita"

Baby Benji continues to be a little bobblehead! He enamors people wherever we go with his head dancing. He seriously does it all day long, and I still get cuted out by it! Here he is with my brother, his namesake, dancing to the beat. He is either going to be a musician, a composer, or a dancer! Or maybe all three! Its funny that my brother is also a musician!

He just turned eight months. He is sitting up, and finally eating some solids--mostly squash and banana. He is more interactive and "talkative". He moves around the floor just from wiggling, but he is not crawling yet!

Piano and Ballet Folklorico

My friend, Danae approached me about teaching her girls ballet folklorico. Although, I haven't taught kids that young before, I was up for the challenge! In exchange, she is teaching Isaac piano lessons.

The dance classroom? my garage! Here are my beautiful students: Tori, Lani, and Sienna. We also have Javier (not my Javi, a much bigger boy), but he was not here the day we took the picture!

When I filmed this video of Isaac, it was at the beginning of his lessons (about two months ago), and since then he has learned so much! He has really taken an interest in it (much more than I imagined!). So, I hope he doesn't ever lose that interest!

Isaac's First Year of School

Isaac completed an entire year of Pre-K at Lantrip Elementary. Here he is pictured with his teacher, Ms. Anna Aguilar. He got off to a rocky start, but he ended up LOVING school, his teachers, and all his buddies. He would come home everyday and re-enact his school day. He learned to read and write in Spanish, so we are working on English literacy this summer. We are excited that Isaac will be attending kindergarten at the same school but in the magnet program for environmental science: one of his favorite interests! It is ranked very high amongst all of the Houston area elementary schools, so we feel very blessed! Way to go Isaac!

Abuelito's Visit

My eighty-seven year old grandfather came to visit in April and stayed for six weeks. The boys got attached to him, especially Javi, who followed him everywhere! He made a kite for the boys, which we were able to fly a couple of times before it got stuck in a very tall tree! We really enjoyed his visit and we hope we can go to Guatemala to visit him soon!