Mother's Day

We had a wonderful, super-sweet, peaceful, cozy, lazy, fun, low-key family day at home today for Mother's Day. :) Donnie made breakfast, we had lunch out in the backyard on a blanket, DiGiorno pizza for dinner and lots of cozy family time in between and we watched the Mavericks destroy the Lakers in a history making game.

Here I am with our 3 kiddos! wow! I am so blessed and SO honored to be their Mommy! Throughout the day, as I do many days, I pondered on the great gift of Motherhood. Donnie said that I love being a mom "too much"... He said it when I was joyfully feeding Elia her dinner because it is fascinating to him that someone can thoroughly love every part of being a mommy so much! I do! Changing diapers, spit-up, all of it, is truly and honor!Handsome Daddy! :)

She had her shades on for at least 2 hours and not once tried to take them off... her hat too!

Donnie took Noah to wash his car and Liliana, Elia and I went for a neighborhood stroll. Elia was so chilled out for the entire walk. She loved it! The sun was shining bright and the temp was perfect! It ended up being the sweetest nature walk! Liliana was busy the entire time observing and commentating on her every observance and collected different items along the way. When we got home, she and I glued it all onto a paper and she wrote "Mother's Day 2011" on it. So sweet!

After dinner we played a few games of Thomas the Train Uno... Look at Elia under the table! :) She had been traveling everywhere... will post on that separately. :) Donnie and Noah brought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers... no picture of them yet, will post soon. In summary, a WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL day!!! :) Blessed, blessed, blessed.......

New Years Eve

Blaine and Heather came to visit us! They spent last night and most of today. Being around Heather for me is like sticking my finger in a light socket...pure energy, joy, laugher...just one of those amazing friends!!!! She is a children's pastor in the chicago area and is way super fun and super cool and super awesome and super sparkly...just like me...we just have the best times together!!!

Here we are saying "where's Noah" because he was napping...

The kids absolutely LOVED both of them, as I knew they would! They are so awesome with kids! The ultimate adopted Auntie & Uncle! Liliana wore them out with this find the animal game that Heather made up the night they got here...what did she get herself into!? Haha! "If you can't find your zebra, just call someone!" was what Liliana would say as she went off to hide pretending to be the missing animal (zebra, sheep, mouse, bunny, hippo, etc.). We would all help in the search, a very tough one as she would hide in the exact same spot every time!

Before they left she painted Liliana's nails and Liliana painted ours so we can all have the same blue sparkly nails while we were apart. Awe!

After they left we all took a long cozy nap and later made star and gingerbread man shaped sugar cookies...yummy!

Thank you, God, for 2009!!!

Another SWEET Day!

Dance class was so cute as usual... Noah was putting his thumbs on his face...doing somethin..??

Liliana had a small cup of white cranberry peach juice this morning and later on asked for some more and I said "no honey, you already had some juice today, you need to drink some milk now". Later on I heard her having the same discussion with her baby doll! Her baby doll wanted juice but she told her that she already had juice and needed to drink some milk... too cute!!!
We baked and we baked today...about 6 dozen cranberry walnut cookies and 6 dozen oatmeal chocolate chip pecan cookies for our cookie exchange...Liliana was my sweetest helper and they both had a blast with our guests...a bunch of laughing women...Donnie stayed upstairs and enjoyed time alone while the kids were the life of the party...we did not plan it that way but the ladies asked for the kids...so they joined us. Liliana said "this is the coolest party EVER!"...awe! Noah ran back and forth had the best time!

Yet another...SWEET day!

P.S...I LOVE being a mommy and all that it entails SOOO MUCH...MY OH MY!!! If it weren't for c-sections, money and age...I would have like 5 more kids...

Labor Day 2009

What a big, FUN-FILLED day we had today... we did so much... so many special memories! We started off with a walk.

Here are Noah and Liliana trying to catch up with Donnie on the trails. Donnie is the one way ahead on the far left with the white cap on. He is running with his friend, Josh.

My sweeties! They are so close it size... I love it!

I love this bench.

I had them say "bum!" (thier word for gum) to get them to look at me for the pictures.

Liliana is so proud of her new toy, a pink cat from the Little Pet Shop collection. She takes such tender care of it.

As soon as Noah saw this sign he said "map!" and pointed to it. He ran over to it and sang his version of the Dora, "I'm the Map" song. Too cute! I can't imaging life without Dora...LOL!

Sweet Noah on his tricycle...a hand-me-down to Liliana and now to Noah. He is still a little too small for this, but he loved it. He also enjoyed taking his helmet off and on. He called it a hat.

Here he is trying to buckle his helmet strap all by himself! Too cute! Look at those tiny hands working so hard!

He got it semi-buckled and he was making sure it was on good.

Liliana's getting really fast on her bike!

Noah really wanted to push his tricycle back to the van. He was carrying it with such determination. It was hilarious!

Yostin' time! Woohoo!!! We had the best time with our wonderful friends! They had us over for a Labor Day picnic.

This swing was the coolest thing according to these three! They would not stay off of it inspite of it knocking Noah down multiple times... he would get right back up for more! Kids - Fun at any price!

Mr. Yost gave Noah a new nickname today, "cornbread" because he ate so much of the cornbread! He kept going back to the table and helping himself to more. He loves to eat!

Beautiful Flowers along with our Wonderful Friends!

Noah loved this whatever it is called! He put a chair right in the center of it at one point and sat down.

Noah trying on Will's cool helmet and holding onto his bike. Way too cool!

Liliana's new scooter that I got at Saver's today for $2.50. Ha! Liliana and I went there twice today for their 50% off sale! What an awesome store!

Annual Church Picnic

Today we had our Annual All Church Picnic. It was lots of fun. Here is Noah with Lyana. She is 1 year older than him and she LOVES him. Ha! She talks to her mom at home about what she will do when she sees Noah. She says "I will touch him, hug him and kiss him." And that, she does! He hates it! haha! She rubs his head and kisses his arms and holds his hands and hugs his neck. He finally began to submit to it. She is a super-cute and sweet little girl. We love her family!

Miss Liliana curling her tongue.

Noah LOVES pony rides. His whole face lights up when he sees a pony! He smiles and laughs the whole time. So sweet! :o)

A wild flower.

Mr. Munchy. :o) Eatin' fruit.

Thank God for our Freedom! May He keep and preserve our country through men and women who will stand up for His truth on which we stand!

NO MORE PACI

Mother's Day this year was EXTRA SPECIAL for so many reasons... gifts I could never have planned or predicted to recieve.

The first one is that I got to spend it with all of the most special people in the world to me, Donnie, the most amazing husband in the whole world, Liliana - my baby girl who is getting so big, Noah, my LOVE-BUG, and Courtney and her mommy Pam! Had my mom been there too, it would have been PERFECT.

We began the day with a lovely service at church. Courtney loved the choir and they both loved the message. They felt so revived and energized by all of the fellowship with the sweet people at our church.

After church, we got in some more casual clothes and headed off to Mystic, CT for some delicious seafood and a walk through town. It was lovely! Before we drove out off to Mystic Donnie gave me a beautiful "MOM" heart photo pendant necklace and a card. Very sweet! :o)

Now, here is the most SPECIAL part of this years Mother's Day for me... the day before Mother's Day, we were driving home from bowling...

Liliana's first time bowling. We all had a blast!

...and Pam was having a heart to heart BIG-GIRL talk with Liliana about her giving up her paci. I had never seen Liliana so serious and quiet, she was really thinking hard about this challenge to take that big step into "big-girldom"... it was huge... Liliana LOVED her paci so much!... well that night, she went to bed and never even asked for it and when morning came, I asked her how she did all night without her paci and she giggled and said, "I found it in my pillowcase and put it in my mouth". ha! So, she started the night on the right track, but ended back at square one. Well, the next night, Mother's Day night, after going to Mystic and having a long day of fun, we brought her to bed without her paci and some more encouragement from Pam and SHE DID IT... SHE GAVE UP HER PACI!!!!! FOR GOOD... She has not used it since and only half-heartedly asked for it one time! What a big girl and a HUGE thank you to Pam for using your skills to help bring our baby girl over that big threshhold without a hitch... believe me, Donnie and I were dreading having to wean her off of that thing, but a third party is often-times much more convincing than mommy or daddy... because mommy and daddy are suckers! ha! What a wonderful gift that was for mommies day! :o)

After we laid the kids down for bed, we headed downstairs for the finally of The Celebrity Apprentice - ha! We had fun looking at photo albums during commercials and Donnie and Pam telling Courtney and I to "hush" through the show. Well, at 11:00, when the show ended, being that it was Pam and Courtney's last night in CT, we asked Courtney if she wanted to stay the night at our house (she was to shy to stay the other nights). She said "yes, I want to stay", so I drove Pam up to the hotel and Courtney got her pjs on and we headed back to my place. We had the coolest sleepover ever! We ended up sleeping in the duo-recliner sofa together and talked for a few hours until sleep took over. It was a special bonding time for us and a very special gift for both of us! We are so thankful that Donnie and Pam let us have time together like that. Pam was so excited for Courtney to have such an opportunity and so was Donnie... they both knew how magical it was for us.

Columbus Day 2008

What a perfectly beautiful day we had! We didn't plan anything big, we just met some friends for a late simple lunch cookout at Wickham Park and to our surprise we ended up being SO BLESSED by the BEAUTIFUL sights and some priceless photos... not to mention kindled friendships. :o) It was like God set us up for a surprise party by showing us His beauty though the colors or fall. Liliana got to ride her tricycle! She did awesome and loved it!

Daddy helping Liliana up the hill.

Up and down and up and down the slide.

Noah, our little climber!

Noah surrounded by girls (Savannah and Kinzie)... "he's the man!" :o) So sweet!

Simply Beautiful!