Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and your loved ones the most joyful and peaceful  Christmas!

I used two of these pics for our Christmas card this year. Its great to look back at our card last year (with my prego belly) and see how much our life has changed in just 1 year. This Christmas, my heart is overflowing with love and thanksgiving for all that we have, most especially my faith and my little family.    

I have been mourning these past few days for those families who have lost their child, brother, sister, mother, and friend in the happenings of Newtown. I pray for them everyday and have been holding my dear ones a little closer this Christmas. Let us continue to pray for them and for this world. 

*A special thank you to our talented photographer Kristin Eldridge for taking our pictures for us.  

oh advent tree...oh advent tree...

how i love thee...

check out that happy dance! You know your going to have the best day when your morning starts off with treats inside Advent calendars and you start busting out contagious moves like this. :) 

Since the first day of Christmas we have been opening up one of these number pockets each morning and inside I placed a scriptural verse, an picture to go with it and a small treat or note.  

This advent calendar was inspired by oh happy day's blog.

never again...unless they begged

will my children take another photo with Santa. 

{confessions from a very guilty mom}: 

Sophia has been really curious about Santa this year and I constantly battled with the idea of whether I needed to tell her the truth of his non-existence or to lead her to believe in something just for the sake of wonderful childhood. Well... truth is, we lied  deceived and have been playing on this whole "Santa" thing around here. So, when we were at the mall this past weekend..Sophia had her eyes glued on Santa and kept telling us she wanted to see him, but once we got close..she wanted to leave. We basically bribed the poor child to sit on his lap and dragged her baby sister to do the same. Sophia sat on his lap eventually knowing she was going to get a candy cane lollipop at the end of it..and our little bird (Zaylee).. got nothing but some breast milk to console her. True story. 

so thankful.

life lately in a nutshell...

has been engulfed by big moments and little moments. Lately, I've been so captivated by some big life changing moments and then yet again completely moved by the smallest moments from my two littles. Its all these moments that I don't want to forget and always remember. I'm taking the time these days to just watch Sophia and Zaylee play... step away from the computer or worse yet.. (the cell phone) to watch my own children grow..and not so much others.  

Sophia has just been blowing me away with the things she is saying lately. Almost everyday i am needing to jot down all the cute things she is saying.. because i never want to forget. Here is just one of the many things wonderful things out of my 3 year old's mouth, "mom, i need Santa's cell phone number. I need to call him." Kids these days... amazing, whatever happened to writing a hand written letter and sending it to the north pole? 

Zaylee is my mover and shaker. At 7 months she is my crawler... and my curious little monkey. She is the most joyful little baby in the world. Her smile is contagious. She is my little light. I squeeze her everyday and tell her "i love you" about a 100 times (and many times thats not enough). 

annnnd you all already know how i feel about mike, so i just wont even go there ;) 

i am so thankful for this life that i am given. 

dreaming of

farm living. as long as i can remember...i have always been in love with the idea of living on a farm. and whenever we visit my in-laws back east its a big treat for me to stay in the country with them. just recently, mike's grandpop passed away and he is truly the first real farmer i have ever met in my life. He has the oldest farm in the city of Baltimore county and his stories and love for the farm life just makes me want to pick up my family and move to a little piece of land where the pastures are green and the cows and the chickens run free.

i would love to walk outside like this every morning to grab some breakfast eggs
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can you even imagine?!!!

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just sharing a piece of my heart with you this week...or at least where my imagination has been. (I actually did beg mike yesterday if we can start an organic farm together yesterday). 

annnyways I'll save another blog entry to share about my hippie, farmer turning ways ...happy friday everyone! have a wonderful weekend..

vote

I am up early this morning and ready to march out to VOTE! This is one of the most important elections of our time...especially since morality and religious freedom is being so blatantly targeted . Praying that God's will be done in this country...and anticipating the results tonight! 

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lately.

life lately has been crazy non stop around here and this weekend hasn't slowed down. yet, we are taking some quiet moments in between to make delicious tacos at home and have one heck of a dance party in the bedroom before bedtime. (you should have seen the moves Sophia busted out.. mike and i almost peed our pants laughing. 

i'm learning more about simplicity lately. finding happiness in simplicity...and learning to live with very little. sometimes in life, i think we find "happiness" through a lot of material goods..and soon after a while.. the novelty of that item wears off... and then you are in the search for some more material goods to later find yourself empty again. our soul longs for something even greater and bigger than ourselves... and i think when you search your soul deep enough, you'll find that love is all that matters. 

"Love is the beauty of the soul." - St. Augustine 

a picture story {via instagram}

 Once upon a time...there were two little sisters...one was three and the other 6 months. They did almost everything together...from the moment they woke up to, the moment they kissed each other goodnight.

the three year old has a wild imagination and loves to play dress up and basically did everything a "grown up" did..i.e like grocery shop...(just in mini version) 

while the 6 month old is learning some survival skills of eating solid food and sitting up, army crawling everywhere and smiling a lot. 

the mom's day consists of homeschooling and breaking up "love fights"

these girls and their mama also do fun things like going to book signings and religious freedom rallys

But Sundays..ahh yes Sundays are the best...because mom gets to try new recipes and make the best butternut squash soup and yummy salads..and pack them all up for a picnic at the beach playground...to eat and watch the sunset with her girls. the end.

Fall...

is never complete without going to a farm, getting on a wagon and picking the perfect pumpkin that is your size. 

i absolutely love fall...and cheers to many more fall days to come. 

Sharing is caring + Carnival

Happy October!! This is my favorite month of the year and...the first week of October is my absolute favorite week of the whole year. There are so many great saint feast days this week...starting with one of my all time favorite St. Therese of Liseux (who we celebrate today!!)..and then St. Francis of Assisi later this week(!!). I always anticipate and look forward to this week. It is so special to me.

This weekend we did so many mini spontaneous things. It was a weekend of sharing interests and showing interests in what the other likes to do. When you show interest in what the person likes to do...your basically saying..."hey your pretty cool and totally worth my time." I've only been married for 4 1/2 years and by means no expert on marriage...but I think its very important that couples continue to show support of what the other person likes to do. Luckily for me...that meant getting up this Saturday and attending a cross fit/health booth and seeing the opening of a new gym...and even putting on one of Mike's smaller cross fit shirts to show support. He was so proud..and I was glad to make him so happy. In return, it meant he got to walk in the hot heat at a huge flea market with me on Sunday and show some interest in some antique goods. I feel so blessed that I am married not only to a faithful and dedicated family man...but that he is also my best friend.

On another note... we took Sophia to the carnival for the 1st time yesterday night. She had her first cotton candy and was incredibly courageous to try a few rides out...needless to say it was a magical night for her. I am so proud of my little girl... i know she really pushed herself last night and tried out a few rides (she is my very cautious little gal).

 

 

  

  

...Oh..and we went swimming and had an In & Out burger...anytime those two are involved...you know its a good one.