A year ago today...

One year ago, at 6:35 am the Lord blessed us with a precious little girl, Grace. She is beautiful inside and out. Already we see a sensitive spirit in her, sweet innocence and amusement. In the nature of our little family she has her own little 'spicy' side, too. We like to think of it as the very emotional manner that is common in all four of us - our emotions run strong.

Like all blessings should, Grace, is a constant reminder of how undeserving we are of the things that the Lord grants us out of his goodness and mercy. Moreover, this is why we chose her name, as a namesake for the amazing love and grace that God showed us in his greatest gift to us; giving us His son, Jesus, to bear our sin on the cross and be the perfect substitutionary sacrifice that redeems us to God. The Lords holiness is so beautiful, awesome and perfect. Alex and I are truly humbled by his sovereignty that saw to bring us to himself. Beyond that....everything else is just....a gift of love, which we are so undeserving.

For that reason, today, we praise the Lord for Grace and all that he will do through her life. Happy Birthday to my beautiful, sweet little Gracie-Grace!

A little comparison

Caleb at 12 months...


Grace at almost 11 months....





And just for fun...

Here are Caleb and my niece, Maya, being a couple of silly monkeys...

Summer fun

We had a little technical glitch which resulted in being unable to download my camera. Namely, that the projects for our family photos was also stored in external drive that stores all of Alex's client work -- which is stored securely away from our computer. So...I had to wait for him to move those projects back onto our computer.

Nonetheless - we are back and ready to catch up on documenting the kids' fun over the last month or so.

First - this is huge - we went to Disney World! Alex and I tried as hard as we could to avoid introducing Caleb to the Mouse. But it is futile, the Mouse is too powerful. It was, however, really, really fun; absolutely exhausting, but fun.









After Disney, we made a very, very wise decision and spent 3 days in Bonita Springs Beach over on the west coast - to relax after the vacation.



Then, as if that wasn't enough fun for everyone...right when we got home, my best friend, Lourdes arrived in Miami with her girls - Sienna and Ellie. So we spent even more time at the beach with them.



Ellie and Grace in a staring contest....

We also got invited to Lourdes' dad's birthday party - we love joining in on Molina family celebrations!!!






Sienna was in desperate need of a bath - which she was not interested in taking. We used Caleb as a human bribe and he took a bath too. It was super-fast and there were still tears involved, but at least everyone was clean!


This summer is really hot, but we are exploring all the fun ways to keep cool and stay outside to make Caleb nice and tired. This is a new favorite - the Pinecrest Gardens Splash Park - it is SO fun and safe. It only costs $3!

At first, Caleb was afraid of running under the big waterfall feature - but he was in love once I helped launch him under the water. Mommy knows best.

Give Pee a Chance

We are beginning to prepare ourselves for the onset of potty training....


We will probably start something resembling a concerted effort after the kids and I get back from our visit to family in Chattanooga. We'll be heading up that way w/ my mom and dad, we'll leave on Caleb's birthday and return a week later. Then it shall begin.

Aside from the obvious - of looking for cues that he's ready, and not making it a fight - I pretty much have no idea what I'm doing. I can't help but wonder what makes me qualified to help a little boy learn to pee. I like how my mother in law did it - she went straight for teaching Alex to pee standing up. Seems logical - why not just do that the first go around?

I'm mostly nervous about this b/c I can see that the potty - like food - is one of those unique places where Caleb could figure out pretty easily that he can take complete control. This is obviously what he does w/ food - or else he just doesn't get hungry at all. But I believe it's the former - he can be in control over eating and not eating. Just like peeing, pooping - in the potty or not. Sigh.


The kiddos at play...

Gracie-Grace all dressed up and 'at the races.' We went to Gulfstream race track w/ Alex's family last weekend. Notice the appearance of two teeth!


Grace and Isabella, Alex's beautiful niece!


We didn't even coordinate those outfits - but they look awesome together! By the way, the onesie Grace is wearing is an awesome custom design from my friend Jackie (see previous post about fabulous Yo Gabba Gabba party). She knits these awesome appliques and sews them to onesies. I had ordered it for Coraline and now it's been handed down to Grace. Jackie is so talented. I tried to find her shop on Etsy.com but she may not be doing that anymore....I'll keep you posted if she is still on there.

More pictures

Here are some fun pictures from the past few weeks.

A couple of weekends ago we had a BBQ with our CF Downtown small group. It was awesome to have more time for fun and fellowship outside of small group time

The menu included Carolina pulled pork (the super-yummy vinegar-based bbq) for the adults. Someone's gotta do all that pullin' - what's better than two Cubans and one Colombian? (Pastor Dave, Alex and Mauricio)


...and milk for the littlest partiers.


We had an awesome visit and baby play-date a few weeks ago. Grace and Hannah are 8 weeks apart in age. She is the first baby for Mauricio and Andrea - our dear friends who used to attend Downtown w/ us, but moved on to help launch the Miami campus of Harvest Bible Chapel. They are going to be good friends!

Caleb is a big helper - he loves to help give Grace a bath. He doesn't do much except throw water in her eye and wet the counter - but who cares?


Gracie Grace and Mommy...

The best picture to date of Caleb and Grace. I love them to pieces!

See - I've been telling you people...Pure sweetness...


Finally...a little something for you basketball fans... :)

Announcing......

Pictures, pictures and MORE pictures! Why?? Because my darling husband got me an awesome camera for Christmas. Just LOOK at how the volume of photos of my kids has increased just since December 25th!

We started the day at our house with a nice breakfast. We made eggs, and I had prepped some sausage balls with (hidden) spinach (sneaky mommy!) Then we went to Alex's sister's house to open gifts with her kids.

Here is a rare picture of me with my beautiful kids!


Alex's sister gave Grace this super-cool giant zebra - every inch of it is covered with something stimulating and fun for years! Caleb likes it too.

Yes, Caleb is funny and cute...but this is a face we see all too often. What's Christmas without a tantrum (or 6)?

An even rarer picture of Alex!!



We had the wonderful pleasure of having my niece, Maya, visit us for a couple of weeks. She was here on Christmas. She's the sweetest little girl!



My parents gave Caleb this basketball hoop. He's in love. He loves basketball. So many things about Caleb make me happy. But when he started playing with this, I was SO happy because after he would make a shot he would exclaim, "I did it!" I'm so happy to see him express that he is proud of his accomplishments!

Here is Uncle Aaron and his girlfriend, Mandy with Gracie Grace. Uncle Aaron is just awesome with the kids - what else do you expect from a guy who's able to be a goofball?


It's been really cold here the past few day, so we've been nice and bundled up!


Grace's new favorite plaything didn't cost us a penny! Her foot!

Our new tradition over the past 3 years is that on Christmas day my friends the Stapletons come over since Lourdes is visiting from Dallas with her family and my mom makes pizza. This year was really interesting with three toddlers, Sienna, Maya, Caleb, Grace and Ellie (who's six weeks younger than Grace)