Happy St. Valentine's Day!

Sweets to our sweets! We love you and are so grateful for each of you and all the beauty and wonder and goodness you bring to our lives and the world around you.

                                                L    O     V  E!

 

 Enjoying the festivities at our 3rd annual St. Valentine's Dance on the upstairs veranda. Bittersweet days as we embark on a new journey elsewhere. We have loved our dances here. But, we are taking the best part of the dances with us.... each of our little treasures!

Happy St. Valentine's Day!

(From our 2nd Annual Valentine's Dance tonight.)

1 year since the 1/2

One year ago today, we ran a 1/2 marathon as a family... all 6 of us! We had just found out 2 days before the race we were expecting Miss Penny, although we had no idea that the sweet little person inside was a little girly. One year later, here we are. Thanks to God, we have a sweet little happy girl healthy, happy and sound asleep, growing by the minute. What amazing things can happen in one year's time!

Please, join us in prayer

Today is our sweet little person's due date, October 17, 2012, but we will leave the timing to God and see when He desires this little soul to enter the world. Until that time, would you join us in prayer as we near the last stages of time for this sweet little soul growing inside me before entering the world to accomplish the mission God made him or her for:

                                                  Labor Prayer
                                   (Delivered in our birth kit from InHisHands.com)

“Dear Father, thank you for this new baby.  Would You protect and nurture this baby and bring this pregnancy to full term.  In labor, would You remove all fear and replace it with faith and expectation.  Please give those attending the birth wisdom to take the best care of mother and baby.  Please let this baby be born normal and whole, healthy and strong, and at home with no complications with baby or mother.  Father, thank you for hearing my prayer, for I pray in the name of Him who is called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.  Amen.”

(Bl. Mother Teresa:)
“What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.”

"Smile at each other. Smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other- it doesn't matter who it is- and that will help to grow up in greater love for each other."

“Love begins at home and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put into that action.”

“We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.”

(Bl. John Paul II:)

"To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others."


 

Grateful and Glad

We had such a good time together. Thank you for sharing a work trip with us: many adventures, yummy meals, pool time in cool weather atop the roof of a hotel in Sao Paulo's open-air Fall weather (memorable!), taxi car rides, enjoying the beauty of 4 little people lying on top of us in the back seat of a taxi, praying the Rosary in the taxis as we crossed the city from here to there and there to here. I love you.

23 Week Ultrasound

 

Pictures of the Kids

From yesterday's photo shoot: Madeleine, Guadalupe, and Caleb. Mom and Dad love you guys so much! You enrich our lives and brighten our days. Thank you for your love, your joy, your simplicity, your laughter.

Pregnancy Pics

Yesterday evening, we went to a location near by our home for an informal photo shoot. It was a pregnancy photo shoot, slash family photo shoot. We need to document the bump! Little baby #4 is growing each day and we don't want to miss the moments! (Last night, he/she was kicking and kicking in Mares' stomach. Adorable.) The backdrop was a mini bamboo forest. (Little Caleb loves to say the word bamboo, which he says bam-bu.) Boy, am I lucky to have such a beautiful (and growing) family!