Toothless

On Saturday RJ had a little fall. He was riding one of his old push toys, which he does all the time, and he sped onto the hard wood floor from the carpet and went over the steering wheel and hit his 2 front teeth. He bled quite a bit and after consulting the dentist we decided to just keep an eye on it. His gums were very swollen and bruised but he didn't complain about pain.
Last night RJ came down with a high fever. We gave him and bath and tylenol and the fever went down and we went to bed. Then this morning he woke up with a fever again and I decided to take him to the pediatrician. We weren't sure uf he'd caught a bug or if it was all related to his fall.
Well I was in a hurry to get to the pediatrician because we were late and I wasn't paying attention to the speed limit. Of course I got pulled over and my none other then our policeman neighbor. I think it was a blessing in disguise because he didn't give me a ticket but it sure was embarassing.
Anyways the pediatrician doesn't think he has the flu because his only sympton is the fever. They did a strep test and it was negative. She recommended we see the dentist to make sure there wasn't an infection of some sort related to his fall.
When we saw the dentist, after looking at his X-rays, they concluded that his teeth needed to be taken out. They were barely hanging on by a thread.
They put a laughing gas mask on him which they called the elephant mask (which he liked off course) to help relax him.


Then they came in a they took his 2 front teeth out. I think it was more traumatic for me than it was for him.
I guess in the moment on an accident, crisis, or worries we remember how much we need to trust in God. It was very hard for me to watch them take my 3 year old baby boy's teeth out, but I was powerless, there was nothing I could do. Thats when we remember that God is in control, not us. He is the one that is able to take care of all things, if we let him.
So I was reminded today of how much I forget to trust in God and how much I really need to! Praise God that he is in control, it certainly makes our lives easier!


Even though RJ has had a fever off and on all day, I trust that it will be okay because God is in control!

Missing my Hubby!!

Rodrigo left yesterday for a class in Orlando and I already miss him so much!! He is such a wonderful husband and always so helpful! I struggle the days he is not home...today was one such day!
Heres a small idea of what my day has been like:

5:30 AM I hear Natalia start to wake-up, I pray she falls back to sleep...

6:00 AM She hasn't gone back to sleep and now RJ is awake...time to start a new day I guess. Natalia is very warm and fussy...I'm wondering if she has a fever...take her temperature...no fever...

6:15 AM Get Natalia's bottle made and start getting ready for work.

7:00 AM Almost ready for work but battling with RJ about leaving his sister alone instead of torturing her with wrapping a blanket around her...

8:00 AM We are all ready to head downstairs for breakfast...

8:10 AM RJ won't sit still to eat his oatmeal...Natalia doesn't really want to eat her yogurt and makes a mess all over her clothes.

8:20 AM Head back upstairs to change Natalia...

8:30 AM Make a lunch for RJ and get Natalia's diaper bag ready...

8:50 AM Finally walking out the door....late again!

9:00 AM Arrive at church...Leave kids with Donna in nursery...walk down hall listening to Natalia cry at the top of her lungs...

9:15 AM Finally starting a work day with her 3 year old class....

12:30 PM Finish class with kiddos and head upstairs to pick up her kiddos.

12:35 PM Decide to go to Monkey Joes with Paige and Ellie...

12:40 PM Natalia is very fussy because she did not sleep at all this morning...yet I still decide we should go to Monkey Joes.

1:00 PM Go through drive through at Taco Bell for some lunch and then head to Monkey Joes

1:30-3:30 PM Watch RJ and Ellie have a great time playing together! RJ is big enough now to climb the jumpies all by himself! He is so proud of himself! What a big boy. Natalia even took a 30 minute nap...Paige and I actually feel rested after having some nice girl talk :)

3:30 PM Leave Monkey Joes...I decide I want to stop quickly at Office Max and Publix to get the BOGO yogurt I have coupons for.

3:40 PM Arrive at Office Max...I discover RJ has taken a shoe off yet I don't want to put it back on so I carry them both into Office Max...we get the organizers I was looking for...pay and go to the car and strap kids in only to realize Natalia doesn't have her pacifier...unstrap kids, go back in store and look for paci...paci is MIA!!

4:00 PM Enter Publix...get yogurt...go to checkout only yo realize the great deal I was after...ended yesterday!

4:20 PM Finally arrive home after a long day...

5:00 PM Heat up some leftovers for dinner...

5:15 PM Natalia refuses to eat her food...it is all over her now...

5:30 PM RJ can't sit still...

6:00 PM I decide to run to wal-mart for a Redbox movie and orajel for Natalia who seems to be in pain and once again feverish.

6:30 PM Finally head back home...

6:45 PM Go to turn on bathtub for kiddos and discover and surprise Natalia left the night before...ok to the other bathtub...

7:00 PM Natalia finally in pajamas and all cleaned up and now has a fever of 101.3...give her tylenol and her bottle and put her to bed...

7:05 PM RJ yells from bathtub that he has a bloody nose...

7:15 PM Both kids are in bed...

7:30 PM Scrub bathtub and sanitize toys after Natalia's little surprise...

7:45 PM Take out trashes and discover diaper pail bag had leaked...yuck...clean diaper pail...

8:00 PM Relax time!

Praise God not all days are like this! It is so easy to feel overwhelmed yet I tend to forget to look to God for help...Lord please help me get through days like these and help me remember my many many blessings, one huge one being my husband who would help me find humor in the situation and my desperation!!

Reflections of a Proud Mother

I feel very privileged and blessed to be a Mommy! It is the best job, of course second to being a wife ;)...but there are days that I am faced with difficult decisions. God is my guide and His word is the book I follow on raising my children but it is still hard...there are many days I don't know if I'm doing the right things...if I'm making the right decisions. I know I overreact, I yell, and there are days that I am impatient and just not nice. I just pray that I am not the only one who feels this way sometimes. God is good and he is forgiving and I praise Him that He gives me strength to go on everyday and follow His will.
And there are days that I feel so wonderful that I am a Mommy to my precious baby boy, well really big boy who is almost four (yikes!). He has the sweetest little heart and I love him so much! It has been a long week with much transition and tension and impatience. Yet as I was putting him to bed tonight, even after lost patience and yelling about listening to mommy, all he could say was how much he loved me and to quote his exact words "I love you too much all day!" He obviously has a way with words ;)
Then he turned to me and asked me if I loved him, I said"Off course I love you, you are so special to me!" We continued a back and forth I love you and why for about 10 minutes and then he went on to say "Well Jesus loves me too!"
It was so sweet and wonderful to see that he is beginning to understand the love God has for him!
I feel so proud of the boy we are raising! Since he started walking he has been unstoppable and at times one wild kid that never seemed to lose energy, he was the unstoppable energy bunny. At times it was good and and at times not so good. It has caused Rodrigo and I to question ourselves and our way of raising him. I read a wonderful book by James Dobson called, "Bringing up Boys"...he talks about all the aspects of a boy that make them boys and later on men. It talks about the different importances of a mother and father for their son and most importantly why their personalities and traits are so different than a "calm girl." It helped me look over my expectations I had for RJ and makes some much needed changes about what I should expect from him.
Lately RJ has changed so much. He is going to preschool 4 days a week now and it has helped him mature so much. He is so much calmer and he actually enjoys spending time coloring and learning. It's amazing watching him and the new things he is discovering!
He makes me so proud and I praise God for his life! He is so special and I felt I needed to share that, more than anything for myself. To remind me that my baby boy is special and amazing in his own little ways despite our daily frustrations! I can't wait to see what an incredible man he will be someday!

Our goofy, handsome little guy!

Gardening

This year for Mother's Day, Rodrigo made me a beautiful planter box and we planted a small garden. We planted 4 strawberry plants, 1 cilantro plant, 1 serrano chili plant, 1 bell pepper plant, 1 red bell pepper plant, some carrots, and 2 tomato plants in pots. We had high hopes for our little garden!Well we planted the garden the end of May. Unfortunately due to going out of town, although our good neighbors watered the plants, they seemed to be failing. So I decided I needed to fertilize. It seemed to help and the plants started to do well. The most successful has been the serrano chilis, so far we have gotten 5 chilis from it. The strawberry plants have always looked wonderful but there have been no actual strawberries. The tomato plants have really started to look good over the past month and we have harvested 5 cherry tomatoes from the smaller plant. The larger tomato plant had finally sprouted the flowers and we had 2 large green tomatoes growing with a couple baby ones coming in with it. It rained most of last week so I had not gone out to water, but this morning I went out to water and was dissappointed to find these a very few leaves left on the plant:

Can you spot the two horrible little creatures?

We obviously have not had not much luck in growing a garden this year. I guess maybe next year. Luckily we have been blessed by neighbors and friends who are kind enough to share thier yummy homegrown veggies.

Falling in Love...

Our wedding day...5 years ago

Today Rodrigo and I are celebrating 5 years of marriage. It has been a wonderful 5 years full of joy, trials, and triumph. God has truly blessed us and I can say I fall more in love with my husband everyday! He is a true gift from God and I am so thankful. He is an incredible husband, father, provider, lover and servant of God.
It's hard to believe it's been 5 years since we stood before God and our family and friends to declare to all our love to each other and to dedicate our marriage to our heavenly Father.
Over the past 5 years we have:
-RJ was born
-We moved to the US from Mexico
-Rodrigo recieved his greencard
-Rodrigo got a job at Northbrook UMC
-I got a job at a school
-Got pregnant with Natalia
-Lost job at school due to pregnancy, due to loss also lost insurance coverage causing many problems with pregnancy bills
-Natalia was born
-Rodrigo and I are both in school and still have a couple years left
It seems like so much has happened over the past 5 years but we are thankful for each other and the encouragement and love we share.
I can't wait to see what God has in store for the rest of our lives!

Rodrigo and I...5 years after the wedding

Natalia's Baptism

Natalia Rose was baptized on Sunday. She was absolutely beautiful in her sweet pink dress and pink princess shoes. I am in awe at how much she has grown. She is now crawling everywhere and is as happy as can be.
This Sunday reminded me just as everyday does, how precious our Lord Jesus Christ is. He has given Rodrigo and I this precious baby girl to take care of and raise in His ways. I feel honored that He has chosen me to be Natalia and RJ's mommy. There is no better job! I pray that God will guide me and encourage me as I raise these kids. It's not as easy job to know what to do about everything, but I know God's strong hand will guide me. He will guide me, listen to me cry, encourage me, and lift me up. I praise God that I have Him, without Him life wouldn't be worth living! He is the reason for everything and I pray that I can teach my children that precious lesson!

Disneyworld 2009

I know it has been a long time since I've posted anything. It's been a crazy month full of activities for us. When we returned home from Mexico we only had 3 weeks before going to Disneyworld, which we just returned from. In the time in between RJ had swim lessons and soccer camp. Swim lessons went great and totally worth it, soccer camp on the other hand was not as enjoyable for RJ. Maybe next year.
Last week we were at Disneyworld with Rodrigo's whole family. Rodrigo's parents, sister, brother and brother's wife and son all flew in on the 18th and just left today. We had a wonderful time at Disneyworld despite the horrible heat and crowds. RJ will definitely remember seeing all the fun Disney characters, especially his favorites Lightning McQueen and Mater.

Natalia did so well the whole trip, and despite our nephew (only 2 yrs old) getting very sick, neither of our kids did, praise God!!!
We feel very blessed to have such wonderful family and we had a wonderful time! But we are also very grateful for our space and our own time, and I think you learn to value you that when you don't have it. We felt a little overwhelmed being with people all the time since we are so used to being on our own. We miss our families but feel it's best where we are. We love our lives and we feel tremendously blessed by one awesome God!!



This is a picture of Natalia enjoying watching the Spectromagic parade at Magic Kingdom!

The Joy of Family

I was not really looking forward to this trip to Mexico. I knew I would be by myself and it would be hard to control certain situations. It was just going to be hard to not have Rodrigo as a buffer.
But I was completely wrong! This has been a wonderful trip, and I am so happy to be here. My mother-in-law has been absolutely wonderful and helpful. My sister-in-law has been so great to just play with the kids and help wherever needed. I feel so blessed to have married a man with such a great family. They truly love me as their own daughter and I pray that I can bless them at least half as much as they have to me!
Rodri has also been able to play with his only cousin on this trip. Joaquin, Rodrigo's brother's son, is almost 2 and just as energetic as Rodri. They had a wonderful time this afternoon playing with cars, wrestling and just being silly. It's wonderful to see them get along so well.
Rodri is having a WONDERFUL time too with his Tita and his Tia Sana (Rossana). He truly loves them and enjoys spending time with them.
Natalia has even gotten over her need to be with me all the time, at least when her Tita or Tia Rossana are around, she now goes to them without crying with is absolutely wonderful!
Tomorrow is my father-in-laws b-day, Sunday is father's day, Tuesday is my sister-in-law Idalia's b-day, and Wed. is my sister and my sister-in-law Rossana's b-day. We have a full week of celebrations ahead of us. Even though we won't get to celebrate father's day with Rodrigo, at least we will be with his family. And we feel very blessed!

Traveling

Today was a hard day. I knew it would be, but I started today with high hopes. We flew from Atlanta, GA to Laredo, TX and then my in-laws picked us up in Laredo and took us to Monterrey, MX. When I say we, I mean the kids and I.
(Rodrigo will be in Dallas the next 2 weeks taking a seminary class which I'm sure will be a HUGE blessing!)
Thank goodness Rodrigo was leaving the same day a couple hours later and was able to help me get through security and to our gate. The security line was long and took forever. We had to use a total of 8 bins for all our stuff- between 2 laptops, formula, bottles, babyfood, then shoes and toys- plus a stroller and carseat. We were a sight to see with all our stuff, hahaha. I just don't understand how some people can be so inconsiderate and walk right over you even when you have kids.
Anyways we finally get to our gate and say good-bye to Daddy. RJ is still asking when Daddy will get to Tita's house, he will miss him desperately.
After we get on the breezeway to board the plane, the flight attendant came out and asked us to fold up our strollers. Well I did so and loaded myself with our 3 carry-on bags (diaper bag, backpack with laptop and Rodri's bag full of toys and activities) and Natalia. Then I waited.....and waited.....I stood like this for at least 10 min. while at the same time trying to round up RJ to stay in line. Finally after 20 min we boarded the plane, with the help of a flight attendant.
Plane ride to Houston, TX went great. Natalia slept the first 40 min, RJ slept the other 40 min. Houston layover went great, although I must say they need to enlarge their bathrooms, hahaha.
Well the real problems started when we boarded the next plane. I got down the breezeway and loaded myself up once again with bags and baby. It was nearly impossible for me to carry the carseat as well but I tried. Can you believe the flight attendant stood in the plane staring at me as I TRIED to carry all the stuff, drag the carseat and hold Natalia and try to keep RJ with me. JUST STARED!!!! We finally get on the plane and he was not helpful at all, I ended up knocking half the passengers as I walked down the aisle with my bulging load of bags and received some not so nice looks.
Then the flight attendant had the nerve to go to the intercom and apologize to the other passengers for the "delay" I had caused.
Flight number 2 went well and we arrived to Laredo. Once again I recieved no help getting the stuff and kids out of the plane. I went to pick up the stroller and it had been broken!!!
Boy o boy things were not going well!
But we made it here to Monterrey, MX safely! I praise God for bringing us here to enjoy a nice time with family!
JUST PLEASE PRAY ABOUT MY RETURN FLIGHT!!!

Listening

It has been very difficult around our house lately. RJ has been more "curious" and "active" than he has been in a while. It wouldn't be a problem if his "selective hearing" wasn't in such high gear. He doesn't listen to anything and it gets to a point that he won't listen till I raise my voice. It is very frustrating. I am constantly praying that God will give me patience with this precious creature he has blessed me with. Besides not listening, RJ is so good in so many other areas. He is smart and fun, and loves to cuddle. I love this little boy so much and I pray that God will help me see the good despite his disobedience. I pray for patience and love everyday, I don't want to damage his character by being hard on him when he doesn't listen.
I guess thats the way God feels about us many times. We tend to not listen to his constant reminders and encouragement. Many times we are so busy with our own schedules and activities that we forget to listen to that small voice that is reminding us to slow down and remember him amidst everything else. Many times we expect God to listen to our prayers when we forget to listen to him and his answers. I know I am guilty of this more times than none.
Today I am reminded to be a "good listener" to God, to take the time to learn from Him and listen to Him. He is the almighty powerful Father and I praise him for everything he does and did for me! I pray God will help me be a good listener and a patient mommy for a little boy who has just as much trouble listening to his mommy as his mommy has listening to her everlasting Father in Heaven.

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
James 1:19-20

Things I Don't Want to Forget...

I recently read a blog about a mother's desire to remember the sweet things her children do. After reading it I decided it was something I needed to do. I'm finally taking the time to do it.

Rodrigo Josue (3 1/2 years old)

• His sweet goofy smile
• The way he says "I miss you" when he really means "I love you", it is so cute.
• His hugs and kisses
• His love for "CARS"
• The way he loves to be with both his parents at the same time, you can tell he really enjoys it and feels most secure.
• His happy, energetic, loving, and noble personality.
• He always tries to make everyone happy, it seems to be his purpose in life right now.
  

Natalia Rose (7 months)

• Her love for her mommy, she makes me feel important and loved
• She loves to hold fingers or hands when she is tired or insecure.
• The way she'll be screaming in the car and if I put my hand back to hold hers, she leans her head on my arm. It is so sweet and I know it's her way of saying I love you and need you.
• How her big brother can make her giggle like crazy. He is her favorite person to watch and play with, even though he is rough sometimes.
• Her hair has flattened out now, but before she had some hair at the back of her head that would stick straight up, there was nothing we could do to flatten it, it was so cute.
• She's our little rolly polly now and rolls all over the place.
• Her cheeky smile.
  

My Children

• How different my 2 children are. It's amazing how different their personalities are, RJ is a bright, happy, energetic child and Natalia always looks more serious, shy, calm, and at times moody. I am learning so many things through each of them and praise God for their precious lives. My heart is full of joy, love, and thankfulness everyday because of them.
• Each day is a gift to watch them grow in God's love.
  

Cheerios

This video is of Natalia trying Cheerios for the first time...

Natalia's New Skill: Rolling All Over the Place

This a cute video of Natalia rolling all over the place. Her big brother tries to get in on the action...

Growing Up

I have come to realize that time goes by very quickly. It only seems like yesterday that I met my husband. We have been married for almost 5 years and we now have 2 kids. My son is 3 1/2 and has grown up so fast. He's no longer a baby or toddler but a little boy who I am proud to watch grow. Natalia is already 7 months old and growing into a happy baby girl, who will soon be crawling, walking and talking. It's in times like these that I reflect on the many blessings God has bestowed upon my life. He never ceases to amaze me, I am so grateful for his presence in my life!

"For I know the plan I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11