Our Little princess

Featuring... the Backwash Queen! Dominique thinks water tastes better out of my cup too, for some reason.... This pic also shows how her front hair is coming in nicely. :)



















"Please!" in sign lanugage



















Here she is doing "Please" too. I loved this pic because this is the view I see her from so often... just precious!

The little girl has decided it is time to feed herself! At just the same age her big brother did, 15 months. Here she is enjoying one of her favorites: plain yogurt with applesause and wheat germ. YUM! Quite a lot of it actually is making it into her mouth!

It's A Boy!!

Just had to share our most exciting event of the week! One of my best friends, Kendra, had a beautiful baby boy this morning at 1:40am. I had the privilege of being with her for the miraculous occasion and it was amazing! I've been "on call" for the last couple weeks, so now I can get off the pins and needles! :)
He weighed 9lbs, 2oz and he's just perfect! Everything went smoothly and Kendra did great. Dr. Rosy attended the birth and he was fabulous ~ he is 69 years old and has attended over 4,000 births! He was funny and put everyone at ease. I think the only mishap was that she bit me on the shoulder during one of the last pushes! LOL. I am fine though. :)
The timing was perfect: I left the house at 10pm, while the kids were already in bed, and I got home a little after 4am, in time for Dominique's 5am nursing. She never knew I was gone! Dominique was my biggest concern, so I am so thankful that the timing all worked out so beautifully.

One more Tidbit for this Morning

My posts are a bit random this morning, but one exciting tidbit is that last week, we actually applied to the Bible College of Wales!!! (see link) Yippee! A first step, anyway. :) Now it seems like it might be a little more of a reality....

Blogging Tips Please!

Does anyone want to tutor me on posting to my blog??? I just had a rather frustrating experience with the post below and it still looks goofy, as far as where the pics are and where the words are and such... ARG!

My Fam

This is my lovely family!
Aaron and Colton (5)

Jessica (9) and Grandma Carol


I have two older brothers, Scott who is married and has three children and Aaron, who is married and has four children. Aaron is a Marine and is being deployed to Iraq this year. He leaves Friday for training in North Carolina, so we have been trying to get as much family time as possible lately. While he is in NC, his family with be in Georgia with his wife's family. We will miss you guys!!



Dominique and Gabriel
Seven of the nine grandkids:Cheyenne, Joshua, Dominique, Levi, AJ, Dillon, Colton




Joshua and Levi

Scott, Amanda, Gabriel
Aaron and Suzy














The boys on the couch: Levi, AJ, Joshua and Colton

Fabio had a birthday!

Yesterday was Fabio's birthday... the BIG "27"! This was his 7th birthday that we have celebrated together. :) He really didnt want a party, but we did have one couple over... my friend that was due to have her baby last week and still hasnt. So I wasnt sure if they would even be able to come or not, but turns out that they were able to! Fun, fun. :) Oh, and I feel REALLY bad, because this is the THIRD year in a row that I have not gotten Fabio's present in time! AH! His birthday just sneaks up on me after we get past the Christmas season, and so..... Anyway, I ordered his present NINE days ago, and it didnt get here in time. :(

Dominique here is doing "OISHII" which means "delicious" in Japanese. We have one little children's video from Japan that teaches them to do this when something tastes good. It is her FAVORITE, as it was also Joshua's favorite at that age. It is so cheesy, but the little ones love it. I also took a pic of her doing "please" in sign language, but she has kind of a snotty nose in that pic, so I will try to retake one later. At least the scuffage on her nose is healing nicely.

Hmmm..... about "our" digicam... one of the Mexican guys, Chupis, decided to buy it (for himself) about three months ago, and brought it over to us that same day so we could figure out how to use it for him and then show him. So he left it here, and hasnt gotten it back yet! We've figured it out for him nicely. ;-) We keep reminding him about it, and he says that he will get it someday when he has more time for us to explain it to him. So.... now I'm all about wanting a digital camera! Up until now, I really truly hadn't wanted one, because I still hadn't been completely satisfied with the quality of the prints that I had seen, compared to a 35mm.... but with this camera and winkflash.com printing, they come out quite nicely! Oh, and also, until last summer, our dinosaur computer couldnt do anything with a digicam anyway... This camera is a Sony 4.1 megapixels Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar Optical Zoom 3x. I saw it at Walmart for $129, which I thought was reasonable. So, now we are in the market. Any suggestions?

I have had a lot on my mind lately and I keep comtemplating about whether to break out of being just "newsy" on this blog and post some '"thoughts".... What do y'all think? Do you prefer light newsy reading to keep up on the happenings with people, or something more along the lines of food for thought???

Our Sweeties

I took these pictures of our children on Sunday, before church, and before Dominique yanked her pigtails out! She has a scuffed up nose, though, from falling down a couple of steps at our friends house and getting some rug burn. :( Other than that, they are doing great and being a joy to us and keeping us busy! Dominique is 14 months now and Joshua is officially three and a HALF now. :)

I have been tagged........

by kathy S~!


So, now I guess I have to write five random things about myself.......

1. I got bucked off a horse when I was four and had to have stitches on my head. So, I still have a large scar right on the crown of my head where no hair grows... have to be careful about hair styles or it will show!

2. I was a vegetarian for five years before I got married. Then I decided to quit so I wouldnt have to cook two meals all the time! I'm still not a huge meat person, though, and still a "moderate" health nut.... (depends on when you ask me!)

3. Fabio and I met at a latin "discoteca" in Osaka, Japan. Ok, maybe most of you already knew that??

4. I was raised in the country and I am a country girl at heart. I still long for at least a "hobby farm" where I could have my horse, chickens, sheep and goats. Maybe someday??

5. I never watch tv. Seriously. We do watch a movie on occasion, but I literally never turn the tv on, and in fact, I dont even think it is hooked up to anything right now! We just use it for an occasional video.


And, lol, I dont know who to tag, because I think everyone I know of who has a blog has already been tagged! If I think of someone, I will post it later! Or, if you have a blog and havent been tagged yet, and wanna be tagged, speak up!

Well, I still haven't totally figured out how to do spiffy layouts here, but anyway... here are some recent pictures. First, Joshua helping Daddy play cards; then one day last week that it was in the 50's... warm for January! So, we went to the park for a bit. Next, Christmas with our Chinese friends. They are Chinese government officials who were in the States for four months for a special training program and we had the privilege of becoming friends with them! And, finally, Joshua pushing Dominique in the laundry basket.... See what fun we have doing the laundry!!! LOL

Other than that, the most exciting thing I can think of to post right now is that Fabio and I are reading the biography of Rees Howells, called "Rees Howells, Intercessor" and it has been amazing ~ so challenging!! I think the Lord has been preparing us to read this at this specific time, because we have both been coming to a place of dissatisfaction with what had become our "normal" life with God. We wanted MORE! So, this book has been timely in that way... and inspiring us to see that there truly is MORE than anything we have ever experienced of God up to this point. We continue our seeking...

Joshua has learned to write his name....

So I just had to take a picture of it to show everybody. :) There is a little extra bonus doodle under the "A" too. The hardest part of this was trying to get him to give a decently natural looking smile! LOL He's in the age of the cheesy grins, that's for sure! And the challenge of trying to photograph Dominique is trying to keep her in one spot, looking at the camera for long enough! Well, this is likely our last day with the digital camera, so Im going to try to get some good shots, and then it may be dry around here for a while.....

Well, now that I am getting the hang of this blogging thing, I am going to try to keep updates here of what is going on with our family.

This week is the week of prayer and fasting for our church. I was trying to think of a meaningful way to participate, while having small children, breastfeeding, and for Fabio while he does hard physical labor. We decided to do a couple days of eating only rice and beans, three meals a day. So that is what we did today, with only water inbetween meals. It was a good time. I think it was good for Joshua, if nothing else, to learn to not be picky about what he wants to eat. We also talked about other people in the world who don't have very much to eat, if anything, and not much variety.
Dominique thought it was wonderful! She loves rice and beans!

One of my best friends, Kendra, is due to have her second child on Sunday and has asked me to attend her birth (at home). Yay! I am very excited! So, in order to insure that I would have a way to make it to the birth, they loaned me one of their cars a couple days ago. So, I have been trying to catch up on errands this week while I have wheels. ;-)

Today we didn't go anywhere, though. Life still stays interesting at home, though. Joshua and Dominique sometimes play *together* nicely, but it is not always nice. Dominique likes to mess things up, and Joshua is a neat nick.... so that can get sticky. Today she was taking all of his art supplies off of the shelf, and he was not happy about it! He tried to stop her, and she bit him. Ouch! He had some nice teeth marks on his hand.

Speaking of teeth, the fourth of Dominique's one year molars started to finally pop through today. It has been worse than the other three. I am hoping that now that it is actually coming through, we will all be sleeping more peacefully.

And speaking of "actually", that is currently one of Joshua's favorite words! He likes to say, "Actually, Mommy, I would like to color now", or something similar. His favorite thing now is trying to read. He is constantly pointing out words on everything and sounding them out to try to figure out what they say. A lot of times he gets it right! And the other times he is close. :) He goes around all day making the sound of "M", like "Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, McDonalds, Mommy, Mmm, Mama, Mmmm, monkey!!! All "M" words!!!!" It is too cute.

Fabio has been trying to get over a cold and working hard and tired a lot. The hispanic ministry continues, slowly but surely. Chupis came over Sunday evening and he and Fabio went to see Jose, who recently had a heart attack. Then yesterday, Daniel showed up for dinner and stayed a couple of hours to talk and pray with Fabio. Tatiana comes around a lot, and as of last week, a new lady, Maria, has been coming too.

My mom started a new job yesterday as a hostess at Teibel's. She seems to be liking it.

Well, for not having much to say, I guess I did okay! LOL. More later.

And in case you see this, I love you, Daddy!

Christmas Morning!!! Joshua had wanted an umbrella for a long time and was SO excited with this one! It's a cat. Dominique was mostly excited about the wrapping and bows and cards and stuff. ;-)

I decided not to post the early morning pictures of Fabio and I. :-D

This is my latest idea as an alternative to bath time ~ just throw the kids in the washing machine, then the dryer! They enjoyed it, but then again, they love bath time too.

This is my very first blogging attempt!

Well, I am not sure what to write for a first post, but I am excited to finally join the world of blogging! As I begin this, our children are 3.5 years old (Joshua) and 14 months (Dominique). They are currently sleeping peacefully, and Fabio is visiting a sick gentleman, so here I am trying to "chill out" and maybe even just waste some time. :)

More later when I get this all figured out.