Merry Christmas!

                            

                              We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Luke 2:11-14

11 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! 12 And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,

14“Glory to God in highest heaven,

    and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”

Ten Things to Smile About This Month: August 2015

I stumbled upon this awesome blog which has inspired me to write and document our life. I have always tried and have failed at it, but she has these fun link ups and I thought this was such a neat idea about posting 10 things that made you smile. Because being a mom can be hard and sometimes it is good to have reminders of the sweet joyful moments. So for the month of August here are some things that made me smile.

1. We were able to visit the beach as a family one more time before vacation ended.

2. We took Sofia to meet her great grandpa Jesse. 

3. School started!! Here's Gabriel and Jimmy's first day. Gabriel is in 2nd grade and Jimmy is in 7th... I can not believe how time sneaks up on you.

4. Des and Danny helped me make banana bread. 

5. Baby girl turned 2 months. My gosh I'm trying to savor my moments that I have with her at this stage. It is my favorite. 

6. We finally made it to our first Dodgers game of the season. 

7. Jorge and his Dad built me a workbench for me to work on my jewelry. I love it!!! 

8. Daniel started Tae Kwon Do.  

9. I loved this shot of Gabriel with Daniel holding hands at his cub scout outing. 

10. We made our first sale with our t-shirt business!! 

Friday Highlights

This week we started back to school and Tae kwon Do after a long summer break. We made homemade pizza which was so yummy. 

Michael started high school! Oh my gosh he is growing up so fast. 

Daniel helped me bake banana muffins!

And  

little miss is struggling with gaining weight but we are managing. They took more blood to check her out and see if their is anything else going on with her.  

She is still being a happy little one, so sweet and sleepy still. 

I love all her little expressions, I just want to freeze time. So precious my baby girl you are. 

Update: Sofia's blood work came back normal and she is gaining weight. We found out she has a lip tie and we will be correcting that soon so she can nurse better. 

July 2015 Highlights

1. We went to Las Vegas for week and celebrated 4th of July with our cousins. 

2.  Jimmy won a huge stuffed dog at Circus Circus.

3. Jorge was chosen to go on stage at a comedy show we saw in Las Vegas.

4. Baby Sofia has been giving us the sweetest smiles. 

5. Daniel turned 4!! We celebrated with a Pirate theme birthday of course. 

6. We visited the beach a lot and with a newborn it was challenging. Especially since Jorge had to work, so I braved it with all 6 kids. They were so helpful.    

7. Sofia turned 1 month old. Oh my time is flying by. 

It's Girl!!

Sofia Isabella

Born June 13, 2015 8:39 am 

Easter Memories 2015

Easter weekend didn't really go as I had planned, actually lately it feels like nothing goes how I've planned it.  Anyways it was still nice and I think the kids had a good time. Here are some pictures of our weekend.

Usually we start saving eggs to dye and fill with confetti a few months before Easter but this year I was really behind. Thankfully grandma was on top of it and saved some for us.

On Friday, we went to her house to dye the eggs and fill up with confetti. Does anyone do this tradition? I'm not sure why we do but my family has done it since I was a little girl. We do hide the plastic ones with candy and money too. Jorge really doesn't care for the confetti tradition but he is wonderful and participates anyways. Love him.

                   Sunday morning, we went to church and after we got the kids snow cones.

I love Daniel's smile and seeing his cute little painted hands that made a cross. 

Then we headed to my Mom and Dad's house for a BBQ and Easter egg hunt. My parents always make such a good BBQ. 

We celebrated with the cousins with a Easter egg hunt.  

Then we came home and did some games. 

It was a nice and simple Easter! Just perfect as long as I'm with them. 

Mt. Rubidoux

Since Gabriel has became a cub scout we have been having more adventures and seeing different places we normally wouldn't. This weekend we went with Gabriel on his cub scout hike to Mt. Rubidoux. 

  

Baby #6 Update: Week 18

I'm trying to catch up here on this pregnancy journey before I forget everything. If you missed the first post you can read about it here.

In late January, I had my pregnancy check up and at the end of the month we were also scheduled to have an ultrasound. This scan would hopefully show if the hemorrhage was dissolving and the baby's gender.

However, since it had been a month of no bleeding, the doctor believed that I should be fine and have nothing to worry about. Which brought so much relief to hear that he wasn't worried and I shouldn't be either. Before I was really scared and having bad dreams of miscarrying. It has been a real struggle for me to embrace this pregnancy and enjoy it. I have been in fear of losing the baby since the beginning. 

My whole first trimester I was nauseated, vomiting and occasionally bleeding, so it has been very hard to enjoy this pregnancy. It definitely was not like any of the others, thats for sure.

Then a week later I get a call from the nurse letting me know that the scan showed I have placental lakes. Which is lakes of blood, near the placenta. Okay, now I'm a little freaked out and thinking what does that mean?  Supposedly the lakes will dissolve on their own and that I shouldn't worry. She scheduled me for another scan in a few weeks. They want to monitor them and see if they are starting to dissolve. So that's where we are at right now. Just back to waiting. But this time I'm feeling okay and not worried. I believe God will take care of me and this little one. 

Baby #6 Update: (The Beginning to Week 17)

This pregnancy has been a different kind of journey than I expected. I never experienced this with any of my other pregnancies. So I thought I'd document it here. Where to begin? I guess I should start at the beginning of this pregnancy journey. 

In October, I had a feeling I might be pregnant so I took a pregnancy test at home. The lines were real light but it was showing positive. So I did it again the next day and it was showing positive.  I couldn't believe it. At the time we weren't really trying for another one. In the spring, we talked about getting pregnant and we both agreed that we wanted to try. But then in the summer I started to develop some health scares. I wasn't feeling very well. The doctors started to do a lot of testing and telling me that it could be this or this. Which brought lots of stress on me and then I was hoping I wasn't pregnant because of all the testing and possible illness. Anyways, thats for another post. So we stopped trying. I guess we stopped trying a little to late. We found out we were expecting baby #6, so this put a temporary halt on any further testing. So far I am healthy and will continue the testing after the baby comes. 

Our new journey was about to begin with this little one. Early November, I started to bleed and thought oh no….a miscarriage. I called the doctor and they wanted to do an ultrasound to see if the pregnancy was viable. I was hoping and praying that everything was fine. We went in and they found a heartbeat. They told me to go home and rest. I did and the bleeding soon stopped. Things seem to be going smoothly,  I was feeling exhausted and wanted to sleep any chance I could…check. I was nausea and throwing up, so yeah morning sickness.....check. My first official doctor appointment wasn't until late November. We saw the doctor and he did another ultrasound to just make sure everything was fine and it seemed to be. 

             

Saturday morning, 2 days after Thanksgiving I woke up to a lot of bleeding again. I mean a lot! So much that I thought oh no this has to be a miscarriage. We called the nurse which she said, to rest and if it increased to go to the hospital. It started to decrease and was completely gone after a few days. The doctor ordered another ultrasound to check on the baby and this time they found that I had a subchorionic hemorrhage. Which could threaten a miscarriage if it continued to get bigger. The doctor gave me my instructions to take it easy, no strenuous excersise and rest as much as possible. Easier said then done when you are a mama to 5!

                                     

December 20th, was the last day of school for the kids Christmas break. I was so relieved because that week had been crazy busy with all the Christmas concerts and parties. I was stressed out and tired. Oh so ready for a break from that routine. That evening I went to the restroom and found more blood. I couldn't believe it! I was so frustrated and tired of feeling like are we having a baby are we not? I was seriously scared every time I had to use the restroom. 

                                               

On Christmas Eve I had another doctor appointment. The doctor had a hard time finding the heartbeat, which was nerve wrecking. She said that I needed to really rest and she ordered another ultrasound. 

3 days later I get a call from the nurse saying that the blood clot had grown. Oh my gosh, I was so scared and nervous. I thought I had been doing everything right. The doctor's orders were just to rest.

To be continued…..

Where to begin again

It has been so long and so much has happened in the past year. I don't know where to begin. We've been through the good, the bad, the sad, the struggles, the trials, the sickness, the joy, the mercy, and been shown grace in the last several months. God is good and is always there even in the moments when we we are in the storm. He is there. Although we can not see Him or know what His plan for us is, we need to trust in Him and REMIND ourselves His plan is ALWAYS better than ours. Things are good for now and I don't know what lies ahead but I'm going to keep my Hope in Him and trust that He will take care of us.

I'm not sure how much I will document of the this last year on the blog. I'm hoping I can document it all. So that brings me to where should I begin. I think what I'll do is start where we are now and go back little by little and update by doing a monthly post.

Here are some things I'm hoping to share here on the blog.

1. Peeks into our everyday life.
2. And updates about the shop.
3. And anything else I can think of.


So for now, I'm going to leave it at that....talk to you soon! :)

A Fresh Start!

Hello?? It has been awhile…. the end of the year is always so busy with the Christmas season. Lots of festivities, crafts, get togethers, birthdays, anniversaries and such. It is so filled and so exhausting but so worth it. But making memories are worth the chaos and craziness.

Anyhow, everyone is making their new years resolutions or goals, and to be honest I've never been good at these. So I don't. But I do want to improve in many things. Whether or not you participate in creating resolutions for yourself or not, you can not deny that the beginning of the new year feels like a great time of reflections and the time to just refresh yourself.

So I thought I'd share the things that I'd like to work on. So here is my list:

1. Quiet time with God: I really want to be intentional and have my quiet time with God. I remember a few years ago when I only had 3 kids, my devotion time was every night. Now I feel so rushed and I want to have that time again with Him whether it's in the morning or at night. So I will be working on this.

2. Health: I 'd like to take better care of myself, I mean.. I only have one body and I should really take better care of it. So for me this means to be more active and to make healthy choices.

3. Journaling/Blog: I really, REALLY need to be make time here on the blog. This is a place where I want to share the stories of our family's adventures. I can not remember everything and there are so many kids I can't keep up on making a scrapbook for each of them. So I need to make more of an effort in this area and set time for this.

4. The Shop: I love creating and designing meaningful jewelry, I love hearing peoples stories about the piece that I've created for them and what that means to them. I have dreams for the shop and I really hope that I can get them going.

5. Be consistent: Sometimes I get so distracted and forget my goals or plans. Then I wonder what happened to such and such idea. Yeah, then I'm like oh yeah I remember trying to do that.

6. Simplify & Letting Go: In all areas of my life from house chores, to saying yes to things I just don't have time for. I always try to please everyone and this just adds to my already crazy busy life. I sometimes feel like I'm going in all directions, lose focus on what is really important and become just plain exhausted.

I hope you will come & tag a long on this journey with me.