Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Bike Riding and Flower Smelling :)

Joshua all ready for a bike ride! He loves this helmet and these sunglasses..... Fabio thinks the combination of them makes him look like an alien, lol!











Dominique has sunglasses, too! At least until this pair breaks. Sunglasses for little ones just dont seem to last long around here for some reason. ;)










A few weeks ago, I was THRILLED to find this wagon at a garage sale to pull the kids behind my bike! Now we can go garage saling again and to the library and all the other fun places we went last year. (I dont know if you remember the pic from last March or so of me on the bike with Dominique strapped to my front and Joshua on the back? Well, I cant do that anymore, so we were out of the bike business for a while. :)

Anyway, I didnt know it until today, but Fabio hooked up the wagon to Joshua's bike and I thought it was hilarious to see him pulling her around the parking lot!

Oh, and we have also taken some short-distance bike rides with Joshua on *his* bike, too! Just cant get far that way. By next year, we might, though.

This is at my Grandpa's house in the boondocks. The kids love to be outside, that's for sure!











Joshua was having Dominique smell this flower. :) It was from a butterfly bush. I dont know if that is the real name or not, but it attracts butterflies for some reason, so it was *full* of all kinds of butterflies the whole time! Too cool!







Hmmm.... other news? I am nearly 26 wks pregnant now and headed quickly for the third trimester! Woo hoo! Everything is going great and I feel wonderful. Baby moves a lot, but seems more tranquil than the other two did. Smaller baby? Calm baby? Both? Neither? It will be interesting to find out.....

Fabio got rained out two days this week, which is unusual. They usually wait out the rain or find something else to do, but this rain was BAD! Or good, depending on how you look at it. But there was a LOT of it, that's for sure! It was good timing for him to come home, because we all had colds these last three days. We are all over the worst of it now, thanks to lots of raw garlic, raw honey, echinacea, Vitamin C, eucalyptis essential oil, R&R, and prayer. :)

This morning was the Bible study with the hispanic ladies and I am thrilled that they have both decided to be baptised!! The date is set for September 17. It has been a true joy to see what God has been doing in their lives over the past year.

Better go now. Dominique sounds like she's getting into something and I want to wake Joshua up so he will sleep tonight. Tempting to let him sleep now, though! hehe.

The End.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Bedtime Routine




First, they lay together in Joshua's bed to listen to Daddy read the Bible to them. He sometimes acts out appropriate parts, which they really like!













Then they pray. :) I just love these pictures! Usually they repeat what Daddy says, and Dominique is getting there. She tries!



























This was before bedtime. They do bicker and irritate each other, but they really love each other. Whenever Joshua isn't around, for example, Dominique is always asking for him: "Dosh? Dosh?" She can say "Joshua" by the way, but usually chooses to say "Dosh". :)


That's all for today, folks! :)

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Joshua's 3rd party

I apparently ran out of space for pictures on the last post, so I couldnt include Joshua's 3rd party together with the others. Anyway, this one was celebrated with family.



We actually have FOUR July birthdays in the family, but this year, only two were in town to celebrate together: Joshua, and his cousin Dillon, who just turned six.

They got quite a cake!!! They were pretty excited about it!








Dillon and Joshua













Joshua got a beautiful shirt from Dillon and fam that reads: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." Eph 6:1

(Little cousin Gabriel is standing next to Joshua.)







This was one of Joshua's birthday gifts and he is getting good use out of it so far! When I first saw it, I didnt think he would be able to ride it, since it is quite tall, but he does okay on it! Maybe next year we will be able to take the training wheels off. :)

Joshua's First Two B-day Parties

This is the second party, with our friends Esperanza, Edith, and their little girls.














Somehow Dominique got the idea that it would be fun to put water baloons in her bathing suit! It was rather comical!



















They had a lot of fun swimming all afternoon!











This is Joshua's first party, on his actual birthday. It was kind of un-planned, actually. Mom was going to come for cake, but it worked out for a girl she works with to come too. Her name is Liana and she recently arrived in the States from Romania. She brought her son, her sister and sister's son as well. It was fun!



























This was Joshua's favorite present, and my least favorite! "Boys like toys that make noise!
























Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Summer Fun



Well, here are a few pictures that I have been *trying* to post for some time now! Unfortunately, the site gives me fits, or I would probably post more often... It often only lets me upload one or two pics at a time and I dont often have time to sit around and wait for each one to get done. I am trying, though, to keep updates up here! I think I at least do better at this than email! Sorry to all of you who may have emailed me and haven't gotten a response. Internet time is a luxury these days and that is one reason why I blog... to keep friends and far-off family updated even when I dont get around to sending out personal email. :) I'm still thinking of you all and love you!





This is one of my fave summer pics of Dominique at the Dunes. This year at the beach was so much more fun than last year! Last year she mainly just wanted to stuff sand in her mouth by the handful, and she didnt really care for the water, nor did Joshua. This year, they both had a blast, *playing* in the sand instead of eating it, and splashing around in the water. It was great fun!




































They had just about as good of a time in our friend's pool a few days later! It was extremely hot out, so I had slightly less fun sitting and watching them play, but that's mommy-hood, right? Their little friend Priya, owner of the pool, is actually hiding behind Dominique, but it was her naptime and she wasn't up to getting her picture taken. Maybe next time. :)






And here is the fam right on our back patio! Joshua got a bit of birthday dough and decided to spend it on a pool, having been inspired by Priya. We found this 3-footer with the filter included for $50 and Joshua was excited to buy it "all by himself". It has just about been worth its weight in gold with all of this heat! They really have enjoyed themselves in it, and Fabio and I have had some refreshing cool-off times too. ;-)



I still have to post more pics another day of Joshua's birthday and his three parties, but here is a sample, from his second party. These three cuties belong to my friend Esperanza: Brianna in the middle and identical twins Ariana and Andrea on either side of her. They also had a wonderful time splashing in the pool and Joshua's Spanish is improving from playing with them. :)

In case you are wondering, Joshua's owie is nearly all better now and he is past the exemptions we afforded him last week in the eating and teeth brushing departments. :) That is the only drawback, in his mind, to feeling better!

Hard to believe we are nearly to the middle of August now! Im not ready to think of summer being over just yet. We have really been enjoying this one. I am now nearly 23 weeks pregnant, about 5 months and counting. I feel great and the summer has not been hard at all. We have been filling our days with swimming, bike riding, taking walks to the park, garage saling, "hanging" out in the hammock and "helping" Fabio with the basement. By the way, he is nearly done hanging the drywall now and it looks NICE down there! I can hardly wait until it is done.

We have also been filling in all the gaping holes in our schedule (ha!) with reading some excellent books, including a classic that mom used to read to me, "A Hive of Busy Bees"... stories to build godly character. It is fun that Joshua is getting a bit older and can read longer books now. We also try to work on a new memory verse every few days and do a "homeschooling" project each day. Sometimes that is as simple as just coloring in a workbook, and sometimes we spend more time doing something. And, I have been spending more time in the kitchen lately, with the kids helping, because I am in the process of revamping just about everything we eat. :) It has been a fun adventure and quite a learning curve for me.

So, by the time bed time rolls around, we are all exhausted and have no trouble going right to sleep. Usually the kids are out by 8pm, I try to be in bed at 9pm, and then I read until 10pm. Then it's lights out! The kids have been getting up at 5:30 each day and then we start all over again. I complained about the early mornings for four years of motherhood, but I have finally learned to actually enjoy getting up and getting a jump-start on the day lately. It helps so much to be eating right, because not only do I have more energy during the day, but I also sleep much better at night. (When I'm not eating well I struggle with insomnia, especially when I'm pregnant.) By 9am, we've gotten so much done that it feels like noon! :)

Well, this was rather long, and sorry if any of you got bored! I was just trying to paint a picture of our everyday life, especially thinking of Dad, Grandma, my aunt, my brother and his fam... love you all! (psssttt... leave a comment for me! :)

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Big Fat Lip


Well, we had a little mishap the other day ~ Sunday, just as we were leaving for church! Joshua was climbing on the gate that I have put up between the living room and the foyer, and he fell, flat on his chin....
He scuffed up the outside of his chin pretty good, but the real problem is the deep gash on the inside. Luckily, it didn't bleed very much for very long, so I didnt even realize he had such a bad cut until much later....
He cried most of the time we were at church, ate nothing most of the day, and didnt even talk very much ~ which is *really* something for him!


We told him that it would probably feel better in the morning, but alas, he woke up crying Monday morning too, saying through his tears, "It is NEVER going to feel better!"

Now, Tuesday, his lip is still fat and impedes both his ability to talk and eat. It is better than it was, however, so I'm sure he will be fine. It is just worse than I had originally thought.






We are fortunate, though, that this is the worst accident that we have had to experience so far in our parenting carreer. It could have been much worse, and, I bet Joshua won't be trying to climb that gate any more! Gotta love those life lessons in obedience. :)