lily

Lily is now 6 months old! I can't believe how fast it has gone by. It seems like last week when I came home from the hospital with her.

It's amazing how quickly babies learn to do things. She is now sitting up pretty well by herself, although not completely. Her favorite things include:

BATH TIME!

Even when she's tired, hungry, or has a pretty nasty double ear infection like the other day she still LOVES her baths. Isaias was the same way, and I'm sure he would live in water if I let him.

She loves to have the water sprayed in her mouth. 

She also really loves to grab hair (and eat it) and loves touching peoples faces.

Lily loves her brother so much. She gets the biggest grin on her face when he walks into the room. He makes her laugh pretty hard too. He's such a good big brother. :)

Another of Lily's favorites:

Auntie "Em" and her cousin Juliana

I started calling my sister, Mariana, Auntie Em because it reminded me of Wizard of Oz. 

DAILY ROUTINE:

Lily usually wakes up between 8am and 10am. If she's still asleep by 10 I wake her up. That won't happen for much longer since Isaias will start kindergarten in August though.

She takes about 3 naps a day. About 45 minutes each. 

We're still working on solids, but, as you can see here she really doesn't like them. This is a picture of her first time eating cereal. She kept gagging, and eventually by the third day threw it up. She did the same with regular baby food too. I've been trying since 5 1/2 months to give her baby food but she doesn't care much for it. Today however, she actually ate about 1/2 TB!

Lily usually goes to bed between 8:30 pm and 10:30pm and sleeps most of the night. She'll get up once and eat and go right back to sleep. Every so often though she wakes up at 4am wide awake. I let her put herself to sleep those times. :) She likes to grunt and groan a lot when she puts herself to sleep. Right after she was born she would make soft noises when she'd sleep. Erik would put his head right next to her mouth so he could listen to her. He said it was soothing to hear. 

Here are a few other pictures I wanted to include too.

Lily got her ears pierced last week!

Her "Chuckie face"

.....that's just a little update on our Lily bean. :) 

graduation

This past week my son graduated preschool. He kept counting down the days left. It reminded me how I used to do that when I was in school. The days would drag on and on forever! Now, I can't get the days to slow down!

Here is Isaias on his first day of preschool in September

Here's Isaias' class. He's on the front row, grey Adidas shirt.

They sang their "Hello" song they sing each day in preschool, followed by the Chicken dance. I could definitely hear Isaias singing. He did really good and loved it!

My preschool graduate!

We asked Isaias where he wanted to eat for his special treat afterwards. He chose Chuck E Cheese. :)

I kept thinking about how sad it was that Isaias was going to kindergarten in just a few months. At the same time though I feel excited about each new stage of life he's going through and how I enjoy each one. He's growing and learning at such an amazing rate and I'm so proud of what a great boy he is, and what a great man he'll be someday. He has a gentle nature to him. He told me a couple weeks ago that his teacher said his last name wrong in class. I said, "Well, did you tell her the right way to say it?" He said "No, I didn't want to hurt her feelings." He's such a sweet boy. :) 

I'm excited for all the fun things he's going to do in kindergarten. I explained to him how he will be going to school Monday through Friday, and that it he will leave right after breakfast and won't come home until a couple hours after lunch. He looked kind of sad and said, "But I'm going to miss you." 

I managed to not cry at his graduation ceremony. I was excited and I know he was too. He still had to go back one last day though after graduation. As I waited to pick him up in my van on the last day of preschool, it was then that I cried. I quickly wiped my tears away though so he wouldn't worry and be sad. I wonder if God does that with us when we succeed in life. Does he cry happy tears?

For now, I plan on having a fun summer while we still get all day together, cause I know I'll miss him tremendously when he goes to school. 

misty

The day before Mother's Day my mom's dog, Misty ran away. This was what I put on Facebook since I didn't have a blog at the time:

I don't typically post notes on here, but I believe God prompted me to post this. I don't know if it means this is how my mom's dog will be found, but I'd like to be obedient to God.

Late Saturday night (5/7/11) my mom's dog ran away. She's done this several times before, but has always been home within the same day. She's been found as close as just down the street to several blocks away and even ended up at the dog shelter. As of late tonight (5/8/11) my mom's dog is still missing. She even has a collar and tag with info on it. My mom and step dad searched the Oakland area pretty well last night and today and handed out papers with info on it. 

I know my mom is pretty upset about losing her dog she's had for 8 years. My mom was thinking that somebody probably just kept her since she has all her info on the tag and where to return her. I shared with her a verse a friend of mine posted on her blog: 

What's the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. He pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! ... You're worth more than a million canaries."Matthew 10: 29-31 

God cares about our pets, and I'm believing that Misty will come back. I'm not a pet lover at all. We don't own any, and I don't want to own any. However, Misty has been in the family for so long and I know she's been very therapeutic for my mom as well. We serve a big God, and he DOES care about what happens even more than us.

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A couple of days after Misty went missing we took a trip to the shelter to see if she was there. We walked down the short hallway of dogs making sure to look thoroughly in each kennel. We had reached the end. We walked back up the hallway just to make sure. Misty wasn't there. Every day after that my mom went to the shelter to check, but never found her.   

I must admit I was losing hope. Let's face it. Misty had been missing since May 7th. I knew God didn't want me to give up. He had showed me in circumstances even bigger than this the many things he can do. So I kept praying Misty would return. 

This evening I got a call from my Mom's house. It was my niece Juliana. She had gone over there to help  around the house so she could earn some extra money. When I answered she excitedly blurted out, "We found Misty! We found Misty!" She was found about a mile or two away from home where she had to cross a busy bridge to get there. A couple had seen her collar and tags and returned her home. She was in good shape other than some ticks. 

So, tonight Misty is reunited with her family again. I'm reminded again that God does care about the little things. :)

my reason for blogging

I've known for a while now that I've wanted to start blogging. I've let little things keep me from it. (such as time...and I forgot my gmail password!) As I began thinking about the reasons why I wanted to start I wanted to make sure they were for the right reasons.

The first reason is because I want to share all the good things that God has done. He is a BIG God and I want to share my stories and experiences with people. I've read other blogs and have been encouraged by them.

The second reason is because God has blessed me with a beautiful family that I love and I want to share stories (and pictures) of them with those closest to me. It's part of the many great things God has done.

I'm not saying I won't share other things as well, but, these are the most important to me. You know how churches, groups, and organizations have purpose statements? Well, this is mine. :)