I know she is listening

We've been talking about the Christmas story especially at dinner when we light the Advent wreath. We've talked all about how Mary was pregnant with Jesus and how He was born in a manger, etc. We decorated the house last weekend, and one of the kids' favorite decorations is a handmade, kid friendly manger scene. It has just the Holy Family, and the baby Jesus is probably about the size of Grace's hand. Well, as you may know, Grace LOVES playing babies. So, the other day she was sitting in her little chair in the living room plying with this Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, and I look up as she is rocking and cuddling the little baby, and she says, "Look Mommy at my little baby Jesus, she just came out of my tummy. She's a newborn, isnt she tiny and cute?" She had the sweetest little question mark on her face as she said it. I could only laugh, it was so sweet and innocent. She's our little tender heart. I guess we need to go over the details of the Christmas story a few more times...

Learning to Talk

Annie is 18 months now and she is learning new words everyday. Some of her words are easy to understand and others, not so much. Earlier today we made cookies and the kids had them as their bed time snack. So I am getting the kids ready for a bath and Annie keeps putting her hand in her shirt and saying, "icky". Well she had spilled some milk on her shirt and I thought she was saying -sticky. Well, I take her onesie off for bath and she had a cookie in the waist of her diaper! So her "icky" was really "cookie"! Poor thing, she was telling me, I just didnt understand! But not only did she have a cookie in there, she had every color of sprinkle you can imagine. Good thing we were headed to the bath!

Happy Birthday Grace!

We celebrated Grace's 3rd birthday on Monday, Nov 10. I can't believe she is 3 already, and I know I will continue to make some comment on how fast the time passes with each of the kid's birthday that comes and goes. We had a small family party for Grace this year on Saturday. She is very into the Disney princesses, so it was a dress up party. It really was a fun day. As with Gabriel, Grace's 3rd birthday was sentimental for me. Turning 3 seems to be a turning point of sorts. At 3 they are so innocent yet aware of their little world. It's such a blessing to be able to share the world through a 3 year old's eyes. The best way to describe Grace is to say that she is such a tender heart. She is very affectionate and caring. Her favorite expression is, " I love you past seven" which is actually copied from her brother, but he says, "I love you past Heaven". When she plays with Annie she calls her, "sweed heart", and she loves trying to teach Annie how to play house with her. She likes to make up songs and she likes explaining her baby dolls' activities to you. Grace loves warm chocolate milk, she loves books and cuddling in our laps. As I mentioned before, she is a girly girl, with a messy side, but she is as sweet as they come, and she has brought so much joy and grace to our lives! We love you sweet girl!

Generosity

Generosity is... Little Gabriel being awarded one M&M at the end of the school day for good behavior, and saving two quarters of it for his little sisters.


When I pick up Gabriel from school on his good behavior days, he walks happily to the car carrying ever so carefully two little pieces of a smudged sweaty M&M to give to Grace and Annie. It makes me tear up nearly every time. He could eat his one little candy and the girls would never know the difference- it just makes my heart burst!!

Princess Grace

A little story about Grace:

So yesterday the girls and I went to the mall while Gabriel was at school. As many of you know Grace is a girly girl up and down. One of her favorite things to do at the mall is to put perfume on from the sample bottles. We went to Macy's and she not only wanted to try the perfume this time, she asked to try the lotion as well. Well, I looked away for one second, and look down and she has lotion all up and down her arms. "Look how creamy I am Mommy!" she proudly exclaimed! Creamy she was and so I became as well trying to help rub it in. Anyway it was cute. Now, skip to today. On the way home from picking up Gabriel from school, Grace asked for a snack, and I gave her one of those handi-snacks- you know with the little cracker sticks you dip in the cheese. I was asking Gabriel all of the 100's of questions I do each day after school, and didnt notice Grace being so quiet. Gabriel starts saying that he smells something stinky and Grace calmly replies, "it's me". I turn around and she has handi-snack yellow cheese from fingertip to shirt sleeves ! (she was wearing a short sleeve shirt). Not as sweet smelling as the perfume counter the day before. These things tend to happen when you are far from a red light and unable to do anything. After a 4 wipe clean up job, the mess was gone. Although it was frustrating and messy, it makes me laugh at the same time, because this is the same sweet princess who was once caught licking the floor of Wal-mart, who likes to drink the bath water, and who when she was much smaller used her hair as her napkin. For as sweet as she is, ee-gads does she have a messy side!!!

Happy Election Day!

Thinking about election day being tomorrow, I thought I'd share this funny story about Gabriel. Oscar and I voted on the first day of early voting, and we decided we'd go that night after dinner. Gabriel following the conversation said that he was going to vote for John McCain. This is funny because Oscar and I don't really discuss politics much in front of the kids. It's also interesting to note that both he and Grace know both of the names of the candidates. Both parties have done their jobs at getting their names out there! Anyway, we tried to explain to Gabriel the whole voting process and how you had to be 18 to vote. So then he switched his part of the conversation to making sure we would vote for his choice. Well, we left after dinner to go to our voting place and before we got out of the car, I told him, "now listen, who you vote for is private so when we go in, just stay quiet about who we're voting for". We vote at a small community center, so I could just imagine him running around chanting "John McCain, we want John McCain!" Ok, so we go in and I'm standing at my cube voting and the whole time Gabriel is whispering very loudly, "did you vote for John McCain yet, did you? did you?" After trying to persuade him to be quiet, his next question was, "Mommy when do we get to meet the presidents?" Poor little thing, he was expecting to see the 2 "presidents" there! Well we made it back to the car and the ride home was then the explanation as to why John McCain and Obama weren't there. Who knew the voting process could be so much fun! It's so sweet to see his little mind work!

under construction

Hi there! I am in the process of setting up this blog spot. While posting updates on Annie's carepage, we found it a good way to let people know what was going on. We thought we'd set this up to share more about all 3 of the kids, their sweet stories and everyday going ons. If you haven't visited Annie's carepage, you can find it at: www.carepages.com website name: anniececelia. We hope to have things here set up soon!