Mommy's Birthday WEEK!

Donnie always treats me so good on my birthday but this year he was more into it than ever! :o) We have a thing in our family to celebrate birthdays for at least 3 days... This year my birthday fell on a Friday and the festivities began on Tuesday, making it a 4 day celebration.

Tuesday Donnie came home with these beautiful flowers! I love the green and white palet, very calming and pure and gentle!

Love them!

Liliana was all into them and whipered into daddy's ear asking him if he would buy her flowers when she is 5! AWE!!!

Wednesday Donnie came home with a big gift for me... a new camera! I love my Cybershot, so he got me a couple steps up in that line... nothing too fancy, but I am so thankful for it and am really enjoying it! :o)

Thursday night, Daddy took me and Elia on a birthday date to Cheesecake Factory! YUMMY! On the way to dropping the kids of at they Snyders (our family away from family) I took this picture of the MOON! My first picture of the moon! I was so excited... haha! It is blurry because it was a curvy fast ride in lots of traffic, but still... it is the MOON! Noah said it was his fingernail... Too cute! What an imagination!!!

Friday morning, my birthday DAY, Liliana told me that she was going to brush my hair for my birthday... AWE... my favorite thing!!! Here she is brushing my hair... AWE... see Noah putting on his pj pants! :o) This was just after birthday ice cream cake and their bath!
Noah sang Happy birthday to me many times and Liliana made me 2 or 3 Birthday cards... 34 Here we go! Wooh!

Noah's 3 Year Well-Visit

In a nut shell, he was NOT havin' it! He wanted to go to the doctors office and was all jolly about it UNTIL he was asked to take his shoes off to be weighed... ... ... ... :o) We did manage to get his weight (34.8 lbs) and height (39"). The rest of the visit was interesting and in the end the doctor and I felt it to be successful... haha!

Our little guy just does not want anyone messing with him and, as a mommy, I think that is a good trait and a good instinct and I know he will outgrow most of it... it did not stress me out or bug me ONE bit because I understand him... Donnie is amazed by how well I speak his "language"... Love you buggy-bear!!!

Family Fun!

It is hard to think of a title for each post... ha!

Here is Elia holding Liliana's stuffed koala bear named Blueberry. AWE! Look at that sweet little hand!

Sucking her thumb and in the swing a friend let us borrow. She LOVES that swing!!! Loves it!!! She swings and sleeps and looks all around and is so super cozy in there!

On our way to the library! We hadn't gone in a long time... too long!

She was not diggin' the library... haha! She looks tired in this picture, like she is thinking "why are we not at home, on our cozy couch???" haha!

Often times Elia's poopy diapers make reason for me to have to change her clothes... in between outfits yesterday evening I took some of the cutest pictures! Here is Elia shoving her fist in her mouth...

She made full eye contact... this is her intense "Whoa, Mommy, what you doing?" look:
LOVE it!

Check out that tongue!!!!!

Elia came down with her first cold yesterday and is already almost over it! Wow, she got rid of those boogies fast! Thank you, Jesus!!!

Fun with Friends!

Our CCC Staff Christmas Party was postponed last week due to a power outage in East Hartford from high winds, I suppose. Well, we met up with three other families at Red Robin, since we were all dressed up with nothing cooked to eat at home.

Daddy was so smart to order the bottomless Rootbeer Float!

Elia and Levi got to spend some time talking to each other! He did most of the talking. It was so sweet watching him look at her and talk to her! He is 3 weeks and two days older than her. We were teasing that it was their first date... too sweet!

Full-Time MOMMY!

For the past two and a half years I have had the honor and pleasure of serving our church as the Nursery/Toddler Division Coach. This meant that I was responsible for recruiting volunteers to staff 8 classes per week. In a church our size, we have somewhere around 100 children under the age of four (fluctuating) and at least 75 volunteers... in real terms, this is the size of most churches in America. I loved getting to know the moms and dads of the children and the workers and seeing people become more fully devoted followers of our Jesus! :o)

All this to bring me to the news that I have felt the Lord's direction to have me step down from this role for the time being to concentrate on being the wife and mother He has called me to be! :o) I will continue to teach, preach, write, work on marketing my dvd, hospital visits, etc, etc...

All in All, I am blessed beyond measure and anticipate God to use me to bring His Love and Life to people in some way each and every day.

Elia at 11 Weeks!

When I had my 16 week ultrasound Elia did the CUTEST thing and I will never forget it... all of a sudden she opened her mouth as big as she could like a little/big circle and tried to shove her hand into it. The technician and I laughed and thought it was the cutest thing! It was a true indication of her super-sweet "get-er-done" personality! When she was born she had blisters on the top/side part of her hand/wrist where she had been sucking on it so hard in the womb. She still shows the same personality and self-soothing impulses. From her first days in the hospital and even now she hold her paci in her mouth with her hand and shoves her thumb or fingers in her mouth! Here she is sucking her thumb! While I know it may be an ordeal to get her to stop one day, I love it for now and think it is SO SWEET!

This is what Elia did the moment I pulled out my camera and started taking pictures! She was hamming it up for the camera... at 11 weeks!!!


Tonight she laughed for the first time in response to my tickling her cheeks and belly! It was too sweet! She didn't make a lot of noise when she laughed... she is discovering what laughter is! I am having SO MUCH FUN and am SO THANKFUL for our baby girl!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot imagine life without her!!!!

Noah's Third Birthday/Thanksgiving Day

Noah's birthday fell on Thanksgiving Day this year! He turned the big 3!

We had a fun filled day planned with the Grosvenor's that day, but since I woke up with a bad stomach bug, I sent the kids and Daddy over there for turkey dinner and a few bounces on the trampoline while I tried to sleep.

We presented Noah his toy piano in the morning and boy was he pleased with his gift!

Happy Birthday, NOAH!!!

Since his Birthday fell on Thanksgiving Day, something that won't happen again till he turns 14, we decided to have his little party today. We had his two little buddies, Jeremiah and Manny join him for some fun at Timbergyms.
We had some of his favorite things: Peanut Butter and Fluff sandwiches, curly cheese puffs (yuck), juice pouches, and chocolate cupcakes with M&M's.
They had a great time! We LOVE you our BIG BOY!!!
I tried to take more pictures of they boys, but they turned out very blurry... I think they we running too fast... ha!