She's So Jumpy!

We celebrated Grace's three month birthday on April 3rd (yeah I know...sounds hoaky, but I needed an excuse to buy her a jumper.) Grace and I jammed over to Target and I bought her a Little Einstein Jumper. It took about 20 minutes to put together, but it was so worth a little frustration. Most of the frustration came from Alliah and Angel dancing around the living room singing Happy Birthday to Grace (about 10 times) and asking if we could make her a birthday cake. Once we put Grace in the jumper, she sat and played in it for about an hour! It's amazing what leaps and bounds my baby has made in just a few days. Grace sat and cooed at herself in the baby mirror and was hitting the toys, making them spin. She'd stop and stare at her newly discovered hands and then would spin the little froggie and laugh out loud. She was smiling and laughing all by herself. We took some pictures, but I'm on the laptop and not able to upload them, but I will tomorrow on my home computer. After about an hour Grace rested her little chin on the front of the jumper and just sat there. No crying, no noise. She was tired out! She slept through the night. Man, she was tired.

Horray...Gracie loves her jumpy!!

Busy, busy, busy...

Sorry I haven't had time to write these last few weeks. We've been CRAZY busy. Thank God the kids went back to school on Monday after a 2-week break. This is our schedule for just this week:

Monday - Both kids had ball practice, and at two different parks
Tuesday - Alliah had a game in Carmel
Wednesday - Angel had a game (we won 17-7)
Thursday - Working on media for church
Friday - Bill paying day (yikes!)
Saturday - Angel has a game
Sunday - church and working on the ball field (we're getting a new field!!)
Monday - Social workers are coming to visit *thus I have to clean my house really good! Then the baseball spaghetti dinner in the evening

And it just goes on and on and on.... But you know what? I wouldn't trade not one minutes of this madness because I've waited to do these things with my babies all my life! :D

Grace has made amazing strides these last few weeks, too! I'll write about them maybe tonight? I'll try. Love you all!

Late Night Apples

My kids are on spring break so, of course, the kids asked if cousin Fermin could spend the night tonight. Angel, Alliah and Fermin all play really well together so played everything you could imagine all night. Alliah finally fell asleep on her daddy's lap so he carried her up to bed, but the boys planned on sleeping downstairs and staying up late. It was about 11pm and they boys were still playing playstation. Being the growing boys they are, Angel and Fermin got hungry. Because it's so late I told them they could have an orange or an apple, no ice cream or cookies or any other sugar. They are already hyped up enough - naturally. They decided to have apples. Angel grabbed his out off the counter and started chomping down. Fermin asked me to peel his because he doesn't like the skin. Angel went and sat on the couch and waited for Fermin to come sit by him. I peeled Fermin's apple and he walked over to Angel and said, "Hey Angel, what does this apple look like?" Angel's response? "That's a NAKED APPLE!" LOL Fermin shouted out, "I'm eating a naked apple? He paused and looked Angel eye to eyes and said half laughing, half shouting, "I'm eating a NAKED apple!!!"

A Piece of Dry Bread

This morning me and the kids were doing a morning devotion together and we read Proverbs 17:1, which says, "Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting with strife." Angel asked, what does that mean? I asked him to tell me what he thought it meant. He said, "It means that it's better to eat a dry piece of bread and have peace than to have lots of food and fighting." Precisely. I asked Alliah which one she would rather have. Alliah quickly chose a piece of dry bread and a quiet, peaceful house. Angel, on the otherhand, said, Ooooh...that's a hard one. I want lots of food and sometimes fighting, but not just a piece of dry bread...except if they're biscuits." Oh my child!!!

Made In China

So we were driving to Salinas to get the kids pictures taken at JcPenny yesterday afternoon. On the way there Alliah was looking at Grace's bib and read, "Made In China." She followed it by saying, "Made in China? Why is everything made in China? My pencils, Grace's carseat..." Then Angel, who had been listening intently chimmed in saying, "I'M NOT MADE IN CHINA!" LOL - Only Angel... :D

A New Discovery

Grace is now two months and two weeks old and she has discovered her tongue! We have been enjoyng hours of entertainment as Grace sticks out her tongue and then pulls it in again. She is cracking us up!

"So you want to see my newest trick, ay?"

"Okay...Here' goes..." "And a little sideways action..."
"And now the 'Finale..."
"Tada! "

"Mommy's right...I am SOOOO talented!"

"Now beat THAT!"

As you can tell by the pictures on our blog, Daddy and Gracie like to hang out quite a bit. As you can also tell, Mommy takes all the pictures because I'm never in any of them. Grace LOVES her Daddy (but I know she loves her Mommy more!) LOL

A New Book of the Bible

We went to the Bible Bookstore this afternoon to get Angel and Alliah "big kid bibles." They had the little devotional kiddie bibles we had bought them when they were smaller, but now they are embarrassed to take them to Awana and to church because they are "babyish." They were so excited to get their new bibles! Angel got the Adventure Bible and Alliah got a Veggie Tales bible. On the way home we did "sword drills" (where I say a scripture book, chapter and verse and they had a race to see who can find it first). Needless to say, Alliah whipped Angel every time. We continued this for about an hour more when we got home. Alliah was quick because she knows all of the books of the New Testament by heart. Angel isn't one to lose nicely, so he decided to start working hard on memorizing them, too. He laid on the couch for about a half an hour and then asked Larry if he could say them to him. This is what he said:

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1st & 2nd Corinthians, Galations, Ephesians, Fallopians...

We laughed so hard!! At least he's being "productive". Hee-hee-hee! :D

She's Amazing

Tonight I was competely blown away by my little Alliah. Both Angel and Alliah attend Awana Club on Wednesday nights at the church around the corner from our house. Awana is a bible club for boys and girls, kind of like a christian version of boys or girl scouts. In this club the kids are rewarded for memorizing scripture, attending church, paying their dues, inviting friends, etc. Well Alliah came home last night and asked me if she could tell me the scriptures she's memorized. The girl has memorized over 20 scriptures!!! All I had to do was tell her the first word of the verse and there she went... all 20+ verses. I was SO proud of her! I mean the girl probably can rattle off the scripture verses faster than I can! Not only does she know the verses by heart, but she's memorized the books of the New Testament and can say them ALL in order, by heart, and in about 30 seconds. I told her she needed to take a breath - made me out of breath just listening to her. If you've ever heard Alliah talk, you know what I mean. She talks so fast! The highlight of all of this news is the expression of complete JOY on her little face when I told her how very, very proud of her I was for all the hard work she's done to memorize her scriptures and the books of the Bible. I had no clue she had been working so hard. She almost brought me to tears, I was so proud. The bible says, "Train up a child in the way (she) should go and when she is old she will not depart from it." I'm standing on that promise and am believing Alliah is hiding God's word in her heart and His word will not return void! Alliah has amazed me!!!

Blog Update

My Grace took two four hour naps today. During the first nap I got alot of work done and caught up on alot of paperwork. During the second nap, I got a chance to update our blog! We've all been sleeping better (and longer) so today I felt good and rested. My creative juices were flowing (amazingly enough) so I decided that I'd take advantage of the opportunity and viola! A blog page update. Whatchya'll think?