Happy Valentine's Day! (a day late!) ;)

Just thought I'd share some photos from this week!

Also, my Mom sent me a great Bible verse that spells out the word Valentine ;) I can't make it show up in a line when I type it out though! Basically it's John 3:16 but you highlight in red the letters that spell out VALENTINE. I can't do it justice on here!
For God so loVed the world,
That He gAve
His onLy
BegottEn
SoN
That whosoever
Believeth In Him
Should Not perish,
But have Everlasting life;

A HUGE thank you to Thrive for hosting a very Romantic Valentine's Dinner! Chiara did such a GREAT job making heart shaped cake centerpieces for each of the tables plus decorating! Thank you :)

For fun, we got to go play with some friends this week and decorate cards and cupcakes!

A few of these photos are of Abby making Valentine's for "friends"! She got to pass them out last night :) She carefully put stickers and foam hearts on each paper plus colored on each one very carefully :) Thanks Jen for the awesome clothes saver apron!

I also put some pics of the kids Dr's appointments! Abby's big enough now that she stands on the big person scale! They gave her a gown to wear in the hallway :) Too cute!

Growing up too fast :'-(

I took both kids to the Doctors today for their "well check ups". Christian is now 16 pounds, 4 ounces and is 25 1/2 inches long. Abigail is 26 pounds and is 34 1/4 inches tall! That puts her at 45% for her weight and 70% for her height. I told Abby's Dr. I'm a little concerned by her eating habits. She nibbles at food and then after a few days downs 3 plates full of whatever we're having! The dr. told me that kids are like gasoline tanks. When they are on empty, they refuel! That made me feel a lot better! I took pictures of the kids but can't find the cord to take the pictures off at the moment! Will update this post later ;)

AMAZING WEEK!!! :)

Ok, I'm too excited to go to sleep right now SO I thought I'd catch up on my blogging! Wow, it's been a while! A lot has been going on!

First off, I'll start with tonight! Our church marriage group (Thrive) hosted a FREE babysitting night! For 3 hours, these couples watched our kids at the church so other couples could go on a date night! Robby and I went to a movie for the first time since November 23rd! It's also been our 3rd date since Christian was born (he'll be four months old on Sunday!)! This was SUCH a fun night, getting out with Robby to see a romantic comedy :) Abby had a BLAST too! She did not want to leave her class when we came to pick her up!

In other news, last Saturday, (02/02) Robby and I celebrated our 6th year of being married! He made reservations at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse! We'd never been before and it was AWESOME! The steaks are served on a 500 degree plate so that each bite of your steak stays warm! The server makes sure that any extraneous dish or utensil you're finished using is removed from the table immediately. The person that seats us, greeted us by name! Robby made our reservation on Tuesday and the earliest dinner time slot available was 8:30! it was SO nice! They also gave us a complimentary dessert :) The cheesecake with fresh berries was so good, it made my mouth water! I had to close my eyes and saver EACH bite! I brought that dessert home and enjoyed it again!!!

My sister Rosemary has been in town visiting from Germany! We enjoyed getting together numerous times over the past few weeks! I planned a surprise dinner get together with some friends of ours from High School. It was fun reminiscing and being together again!

My brother Phil turned 20 this week! For the first time since last January, my entire family got together. All my siblings and both my parents were present. With my brother being away at school in Michigan and then my sister living in Germany, it's been difficult getting us all in the same place at the same time! Rose and Phil were both home in October but my Dad was still in the hospital. Then, Nathan and Rosemary were here in July but Phil was in school. I got a group picture of all of us.

The kids are still enjoying their new beds! I included some recent pics of them! Christian LOVES this glow worm toy! It sings and it's face lights up! He sleeps with it every night! Abby has to have her 2 bobo's (blankets)! It's neat cause each of these items came from a set of grandparents and our kids LOVE them! (Glow worm from Millsaps, blankets from Archibalds) Both kids go to the Dr's on Monday for their well check ups! Christian will be getting his 4 month shots :(

We have a busy month ahead of us :) Robby and I are leaving the kids with my Mom for 2 days to attend our Church Marriage Retreat! This will be the longest the two of us have ever been away from either of them! Also, my 27th birthday is coming up :) Stay tuned....

Abby is 2 :) (Note: 1 of 3 posts from today! Scroll down!)

We had a little party for Abby's 2nd birthday! The pics are long overdue :) We had a tough time planning this one since Abby knows so many friends from all her activities at church. These are pics of the 27 kids and 23 adults that were present!

We're so blessed to have such an awesome church family!

Thank you too to my parents, brother and sister who came and kept my 2 kids entertained! Christian slept on my Dad the entire time, my Mom made the mac and cheese, Phil entertained our dog, and Holly chased Abby around the house!

Abby loves the show "Blue's Clues"so we had a Blue themed party!

Her best bud Carter was out of town for her party so we had CarCar and Chiara over for a playdate and cupcakes!

Today :)

Today, my girlfriend Jamie drove down from Torrance to visit :) She and I have known each other since 8th grade. We met through AWANA at Community Baptist Church in Manhattan Beach. We went to AWANA Scholarship Camp together, competed in AWANA National Competitions together in Chicago, camping in Joshua Tree, I introduced her to her husband, we've been in each others weddings, I was at the hospital when she had her 1st child :)

I had a fun time today reminiscing :) I don't have a lot of friends that I can say I've known for oh my goodness, 13 years! We've been through good and bad times, high school boyfriends, parents having scary surgeries. It's neat to see how our relationship changes throughout the years, how we've gone from two 14 year olds to married adults with kids!

Here are some pictures of our 5 children! Shannon is 7, Jacob is 5, Kaitlyn is almost 2, Abby is now 2 and Christian 3 months!

Sad

In the past week, 2 young actors have died of apparent drug overdose. These were guys my age, who I grew up watching in films like "Tom and Huck" and "First Knight". Heath Ledger, age 28, has a 2 year old little girl. I think about how sad it'll be for his little girl not to grow up knowing her father. Brad Renfro was 25.

News like this makes me sad. How there's something inside all of us that's missing, that's longing for completion. These guys turned to drugs instead of to Jesus. :(

My sister, Rose

Yesterday, my sister Rosemary turned 24. I wanted to take a moment to talk about how I'm so proud of the woman she's becoming :)

Almost 2 years ago (this May) she married her High School sweetheart Nathan. Shortly after that, she moved to a foreign land, Germany to begin their life together. She's been living there for over a year now. Nathan is deployed currently in Iraq but she's been a pillar of strength. She found a great job working on base with preschoolers, one of her favorite ages. She does a great job :)

My sister and I are hardly alike at all, night and day! we've had our ups and downs but we're family and I'm so happy she's in my life. I can learn a lot from my sister. Rose has a good heart. If/whenever we fight or have a disagreement, she's always the first to apologize or make things right, even when she didn't start it or cause it or was in the wrong! She's very selfless, wanting to help others wherever there's a need, great at putting others above herself. These are two things I struggle with! She also is very committed. Once she makes up her mind to do something, she's 100% about it. She's also great at keeping in touch with me. Keeping up with the two kids, I can get pretty awful at writing or calling people. Rosemary remembers every date, every birthday, every anniversary and is great at sending cards, letters, calling, etc! She's also very independent.

I admire her for moving across the World to a foreign Country where she didn't know anyone besides her husband and had a good attitude about doing it too! This was way different from me. When Robby and I got married, the first 3 years we spent living less than 10 minutes away from my parents house and saw them usually 3 times a week. That changed a lot when we decided to move to Orange County. The thought of moving 50 miles away from everything I knew was a little scary for me!

I still remember when we brought Rose home from the hospital. We had a lot of fun growing up, playing with dolls, dressing in twin dresses, roller blading, bike riding, making "fast food" mud pies! We also loved torturing our little brother Phil and making Holly get things for us since she was the baby! We have a lot of good memories together!

Happy birthday sis. I love you :)