Happy Birthday My Husband

I just want to say Happy Birthday to my heart and soul. You are an amazing husband and daddy and I know I don't tell you this as much as I should. I appreciate everything in life that you do for your family and I know that I couldn't have found a better man than you. I hope that this birthday today was everything that you wished for. You deserve it! Thank you for everything that you do for this family, for loving me unconditionally and for just being you. Thank you for being by far the best Dad I've EVER seen in my life. Our babies are so lucky to have you as their daddy. Happy 27th Birthday ~ I love you forever and ever and I know that we will be together as a family for all eternity.

Breakdown of your 27th Birthday ~ You worked unfortunately. You had to be to work @ 3am. Got off at 12pm and got to open up your Xbox 360. It was what you wanted since Grand Theft Auto 4 didn't come out on the Wii. We went to dinner to your favorite place ~ Tin Tin Buffet - all you can eat Chinese food. Then back to work you went @ 7pm for a store meeting and now you're home. Drinking a glass of wine and saving your Scooby Doo birthday cake Jayden picked out for you for tomorrow. And that basically sums up your 27th birthday. No club, no partying - just you and your family ~ and I can tell that you actually really enjoyed it that way. I love you so much!

Blessing Weekend

We had an amazing weekend. Close to a year ago I met a girl named Jen. I met her on a message board that I used to be a part of and we became very close. She's LDS and actually is why I am back in church. This past weekend her and her husband, David, and their adorable puppy, Lily, drove for 6 hours to come and visit us. It was the first time that we got to meet each other after chatting endless hours online and through text messaging. We had the honor of having her husband bless Ella & Jayden in church on Sunday. The blessings were so special. Gino got to hold Ella while the circle went around them. Ella didn't scream, which I expected her to do. Jayden's blessing was done after Sacrament in the Bishop's office. He was such a little man. I'm really happy that he got blessed, even though it wasn't until he was 6. I think it's important.

She's just full of new things!

I have to come on here and talk about this so the date is recorded. I was folding laundry in my room and Ella was in there watching Yo Gabba Gabba - freaky show, but she LOVES it - anyways... she sees her baby brush on the floor and the Ella Mission starts. She crawls quickly over to the brush and picks it up, pulls herself up so she's holding onto my bed and standing. Then I glance over at her and she's standing there. Unassisted. I was so excited for her I clapped and she got excited and waved and then fell on her butt. 8 Months and 4 Days old and she's standing on her own. This only means one thing..... walking will be coming soon. And yet another milestone that shows she's growing much too quickly.

Waving

This waving thing Ella's doing is just so cute.... even at 3:15am. Ella woke up at 3:15am and stood up in her crib and started waving to us and saying "HI DADADADA!!!!" I wanted to put the covers over my head and cry, but when I opened my eyes and looked at her she had the cutest smile and her waving was just precious. She loves to wave at everything - and she gets a flirty little smile on her face as she does it. As we speak she's waving at my wedding pictures. But my question is why is it always Hi Dada? Why can't it be Hi Mama? It's just another step in her life that shows she's growing up, but I love the little personality that is shining through her. I can say one thing - she's no doubt a Leo.

Lists

This could qualify under Work's For Me Wednesday, but I feel like sharing this now. I get stressed out and stressed out really easily. Today I had a table full of papers, a couch full of papers and a weight on my chest that actually hurt. I started out slow and am proud to say there's no papers on my couch and there's organized papers on my kitchen table. However, here I sat tonight STILL feeling stressed out. I think it's the fact that I really have so much to do and it's scattered in my brain and I'm scared of forgetting important things. So, I did what I love. I wrote a list. It's a scary list. I have many things that are so important and need to be done yesterday, but still I feel better. I printed it out and it's hanging on my fridge for me to start in on tomorrow. My goal is to at least accomplish 5 things off of it.

Lists are so wonderful. They really can make you feel so much better.

A Conversation with God

2 days ago I was racking my brain trying to remember this thing I read that was a baby talking to God before coming to earth. I really wanted to find it, because I wanted to digiscrap it and print it out and frame it to put over Ella's crib.

I'm a part of a forum w/mom's who have baby's w/the same heart condition (or heart conditions like her's) and I just went there tonight to find that one of the girls posted it. Amazing. Absolutely amazing to me. And this is it.......

A Newborn's Conversation with God

A baby asked God, 'They tell me you are sending me to earth tomorrow, but how am I going to live there being so small and helpless?'
God said, 'Your angel will be waiting for you and will take care of you.'

The child further inquired, 'But tell me, here in heaven I don't have to do anything but sing and smile to be happy.' God said, 'Your angel will sing for you and will also smile for you. And you will feel your angel's love and be very happy.'

Again the child asked, 'And how am I going to be able to understand when people talk to me if I don't know the language?' God said, 'Your angel will tell you the most beautiful and sweet words you will ever hear, and with much patience and care, your angel will teach you how to speak.'

'And what am I going to do when I want to talk to you?' God said, 'Your angel will place your hands together and will teach you how to pray.'

'Who will protect me?' God said, 'Your angel will defend you even if it means risking its life.'

'But I will always be sad because I will not see you anymore.'
God said, 'Your angel will always talk to you about Me and will teach you the way to come back to Me, even though I will always be next to you.'

At that moment there was much peace in Heaven, but voices from Earth could be heard and the child hurriedly asked, 'God, if I am to leave now, please tell me my angel's name.'

God said, 'You will simply call her, 'Mom.'

Will this overwhelming feeling go away??

Do you ever get an overwhelming feeling deep inside, yet you have no clue where it's coming from? I feel utterly overwhelmed. It might be because I got so far behind on my work and I cannot stand having work to do built up. I'm so tempted to stay up all night sorting through papers and doing things of dire importance, but honestly where is that going to get me? NO WHERE! I'll be exhausted for tomorrow and then things will only get worse. I think the best thing to do in this situation is.............................................................. TAKE A BATH, RELAX, READ A BOOK & GO TO BED! And that is exactly what I'm going to do.

Tomorrow is a momentous day for me. If you know me you know that no matter how hard I try to keep up on things (housekeeping) I always fail. Even with the wonderful Flylady, she honestly does work, but only if I stick with it. Lately, my work and kids keep me so busy that I don't even have much time for the Flylady. Tomorrow a house keeper is coming into my home to scrub it down from top to bottom and I'm ecstatic. I met with her today and I absolutely LOVE her! She's so sweet and Ella even loved her. My goal is to only need her 2 days/week. I think that this overwhelming feeling burrowing inside of me will dwindle away as I put my feet up in a very clean home, with my work done. Yes, tomorrow I'm going full fledged, people. I'm putting in a full 8 hours and at the end of the day I will have a smile on my face and hopefully the best sleep of my life.

In the meantime - Twilight here I come.

Routine Method for Kids

IT'S WORKS FOR ME WEDNESDAY!!!!!

Thanks to a wonderful blogger I got the most wonderful idea that works! See below as I explain w/pictures....
Above is a poster board and I have one row for Morning To Do and I insert little cards which some samples are below to insert into the pockets. In the morning my son wakes up runs to the chart and picks out the first card. Does that task and then moves it over to the DONE pocket. He has a set for Morning, a set for After School & a set for Before Bed.

Above are some samples of some clipart that I found at www.theideadoor.com GREAT WEBSITE!! And I printed them out on colorful 4x6 cards. There's even a card that has music notes, which means practice piano.

Above you will find Jayden's reward chart. He gets a sticker for each set of pockets that he empties. He gets a sticker for the day if he does his homework (which is not in the pocket) and if he gets no x's (bad marks) at school for the day. Then I leave one last chance for him to earn a sticker which is called Mom's choice. I usually have him help pick up Ella's toys or something to do w/her.

So, this totally works for us! I'm really thankful for this wonderful bloggin' mom who threw this idea out there for me, because it really helps. I love that I can mix the cards up for after school. I try to keep morning & night routines the same, but after school it's a surprise which cards will be in there.

To find out what works for others head over to Shannon's Blog.

My Hungry Monster

Here is how excited Ella gets when given "real" food. If you can't tell by the picture she now poses when she sees the camera being brought out. She definitely is a Leo.... even more than her mama is.

Steaming Veggies - and so many more things!

Kitchen Tip Tuesday is back!!! This weeks tip is something I have found a life saver in my home. It's simple. It's quick. And it makes my veggies DELICIOUSLY PERFECT! I'm one that can eat veggies w/no seasoning, no butter so I might do mine a little differently than you might. I finally went out and bought myself glad steaming bags I toss my veggies in the bag... sometimes I mix it up with baby carrots, broccoli, squash. Then I seal it, stick it in the microwave for 4 minutes and waalaa my veggies are perfectly steamed. I don't add butter in w/mine, because I don't need it. But you could. Sometimes I put a little bit of Mrs. Dash Tomato Basil seasoning. You can also cook 2 medium potatoes in only 8 minutes. I LOVE THESE BAGS! You can put eggs, cheese and ham - throw it in the microwave and have an omelet. Seriously... there is so much you can do w/these things. Hope this helps, hope you try it and HAPPY TUESDAY!!!

Head over to Tammy's Blog to check out other Kitchen Tips.

8 Months Old Today

She's waving!! She waves and in the right direction too LOL... when she waves she either says "Hi" or "Babababa" I'm assuming that's supposed to be bye bye. Her favorite word ever is "Dadadada" This all just started this past week. She's pointed a couple of times too, but I don't know if she realizes exactly what she's doing. At first when she waved I thought it too was a fluke, but now if I do it she'll do it.

She can walk if she's holding onto something. She has a little toy that has a steering wheel and wheels and she can either have it as a ride on or a walking helper thing. She does pretty darn good at it.

She's obsessed with food. I've never in my life seen a baby her age like this. If she sees anybody eating she'll jet over to them and open her mouth and make this coughing noise. If you don't put some of your food in her mouth she will have a full blown bratty fit. She loves ANYTHING. If I put a pepper (I promise this I won't do) in her mouth she'd probably have a huge smile on her face. Looks like I got one extreme to the other in my children. Jayden doesn't eat anything and Ella eats everything.

Every day this little girl is growing and getting cuter and cuter. I still can't stop staring at her. I cannot get over how beautiful she is. I can't get over the fact that she's mine! She's not my first, but we waited 4 1/2 years to try again and unfortunately had to endure a lot. I had to go through 15 months of pregnancy and that is something I don't forget. I had to go through one of life's most heartbreaking tragedies of losing a baby. A baby that I already loved. A baby that I already felt move inside of me. A baby that will forever hold a special place in my heart. It makes me appreciate my kids so much more if that makes sense. And then to almost lose Ella when she was just 7 weeks old makes me just want to grasp onto her and never let go.

My Grandma was up visiting and asked me if I ever just lay her in her bed and let her fall asleep on her own and I quickly said no. I didn't explain to her why. I treasure every second that I have to hold her. I don't get frustrated when I have to take time out of what I'm doing to hold her close to my heart and rock her. I love to stare at her and thank God for trusting me with a child of his. There's no better feeling to me than having a baby of mine fall asleep in my arms. This life is so short and every moment that we can treasure our babies should be taken advantage of.

Marriage

Over the past year I've grown so much more closer to my husband that I've ever been in our entire relationship. I wasn't married when I got pregnant. I didn't even get married until our son was 2 1/2. And even still I can say that I don't think we were ready to get married. Many people say that there's no difference. People use the 'We're basically married' card. 'Oh, it's just a piece of paper.' There was a time in my life where I was just like those people. I didn't understand marriage. Life moved so fast for us before that I never stopped to appreciate or really understand marriage.

Over the past few months it seems like my marriage is not only growing stronger and stronger AND STRONGER, but I'm really grasping what a wonderful thing marriage is. It's such an amazing feeling to know that we are here for each other. We are here to be best friends. I feel so lucky to be in a marriage that has gone through so much. We've been at low points, points that people actually get divorced over. We stuck it out. There have been times that I was not in love with my husband. But I stuck it out. I know there have been times when he was not madly in love with me. But he stuck it out. Isn't that the point of marriage. Isn't that why we say "For better or worse?" I am so happy that we can look back on all of our hardships and put a smile on our faces, because we are now at a point in life where we are so happy with each other. We were talking yesterday how divorce is never going to be an option for us. Gino told me about how there's some famous person who recently passed away and the first date he ever went on was with his wife. They stayed married forever. Some interviewer asked him if they ever considered divorce. He says, "Never divorce, murder, but never divorce." I thought that was so funny.

I love that my husband is my best friend. I love that we have so many things in common. I love that he loves me for who I am. I love him. I will always love him - even when I fall out of love with him, I'm just going to hang on for that moment that I fall in love with him all over again. The journey of marriage is one of the most exciting journeys in this lifetime. I love it. I love being married. I love learning everyday that marriage is not just a piece of paper, but one of the strongest bonds between humans.

Family History

I believe that family history is so important. It's so important for your kids to know where they came from. I believe that we as parents have a responsibility to provide our children with records of their child hood. I have come up with the solution on this. First off, let me just say that I LOVE to scrapbook. However, with working and kids and life, I just don't have the time to be ON IT. So, while I will still do scrapbooks at some point I've come up with a new plan.

Every year I will be taking all of my blog entries for the year and putting them into a hard cover book. Blurb has a program that is awesome and will help me with this. Every year there will be a book for my family. It will have all the pictures, all the stories, EVERYTHING on my blog. With videos I will take all the videos for the year and burn them into a movie. That DVD will be put in the back of my "blog book". I can't wait for this year to end so that I can make my first book.

And that is how I will be providing to my family our Garibay Family History.

For other Works for Me tip - visit Shannon's Blog.

My Babies

I wish she'd slow down. She's such a girl! All of us girls are always so anxious to just grow up and unfortunately Ella's already started. She's not even 8 months old yet and she's already tried to take off walking. Poor thing fell right on her face. She's been pulling herself up since about a week after turning 7 months old. Today she was standing in the kitchen holding onto a chair and she was slowly pushing it while taking steps with it.

She's obsessed with food. Sometimes I have to hide to eat otherwise she will throw a screaming fit. She wants whatever I'm eating. We went out to dinner with Gino's friend on Saturday night and I kid you not she had her mouth open for the majority of dinner. Like a little baby robin. Tonight I was putting on chap stick and her mouth flies wide open. So I go to put some on her lips and the fit gets even worse - she wanted to eat it.

She's almost 8 months. How in the world did it fly by that quickly? In 4 months we'll be celebrating her 1st birthday. I give it 2 months and she'll be walking - probably running. What happened to my newborn baby? The really little picture of her is her at 3 days old. Even then she was looking like a little Diva ready for what the world had to give her. Now look at her. Already wearing a bikini. I love looking at pictures of her. I love looking at her. Sometimes I'm just completely in awe that I have a baby girl. A beautiful baby girl! She's been waking up at like 4:30am and standing up in the middle of Gino and me trying to pick our noses off of our faces. I swear it drives me crazy, but the minute I open up my eyes and see her my heart just melts. There's something about her sweet little face that just gets me every time. This time around I'm really trying to have more patience and really treasure every moment with Ella. With Jayden things happened so fast and I wish I would've known that it works like that.

I swear I have no idea where all the years w/him have gone. He's going to be 7. 7 years old. I almost can't even fathom the idea. I found some pictures from when he was a baby... such a huge change. His curls are gone. He actually is full of words, while for the first 3 years he didn't have any. His smile is still as beautiful. His heart is still as sweet. His love for his parents is still as strong. At the end of the day when he hugs me and tells me how much he loves me I know we did good with him. I look at both of their pictures I know I'm biased, but they are some beautiful babies! Their smiles could turn the most saddest frowns upside down. Their tears can break the most happiest heart within seconds. I love my kids. I love that God trusted me with 2 of his most precious children. I love that I have 2 beautiful beings that rely on me. They rely on me for life. They rely on me for love. They rely on me for guidance. They rely on me for hope. I rely on them for life, for love, for guidance and especially for hope. Kids make life so worth it.

Jayden's First Baseball Game

Jayden's first game was tonight. It was the cutest thing I'd ever seen. There was one girl twirling in the outfield, one building a sand mound LOL ~ TBall is HILARIOUS! Ella was a trooper. It was so cold out there! My Grandparent's came, and my dad & his wife were there for their kid who was also playing a baseball game... so they kept coming over and watching. Gino had to work :*( BUT! his lunch break was for the majority of the game. I'm so happy he made it. Enjoy the video!

Holy Crazy Family Time!

For the past few weeks it's been nothing but visiting, visiting and MORE visiting. I know I'm ignoring my blog, but I honestly have been so busy! As mentioned before we went to Sacramento for Easter. Then the day after we got back Gino's family showed up and stayed for 6 days. 2 days after they left my Grandma showed up and is still here and then today Gino's BFF Dave showed up. So in the midst of all this visiting my blog is getting ignored.

However! Here's a few updates going on in our world:

Rylie May is home and doing wonderful! She's so little and makes Ella look like a toddler. I still have no pictures, but will post some as soon as I take some.

Ella is pulling herself up onto any and everything and has even thought she could walk and fell on her face. Everyday I swear this little girl is growing more and more and not just physically, but smarter. She is one smart little cookie. The other day Gino and I were walking out the door and said "Be Back" and I swear she said in her little voice "Be Back". I thought I heard it and didn't say anything, and then Gino stops and turns around and then his aunt says, "OMG! Did you hear that?!?!" We continually tried and tried to get her to say it again, but of course nope.

Jayden just went back to school after being on spring break. It's been a hard adjustment for us all, but we're managing. One of his front teeth is loose. With every tooth he loses I feel more and more like my baby is growing up too fast. UGH - he's almost 7!!! I cannot fathom the thought that Jayden will be 7 this year.

Gino's new schedule has actually been working out for us. I've grown to love it and now they're ripping it from us. I HATE HOME DEPOT MORE THAN ANYTHING! Now he'll be working the original shift he was supposed to get. 4am-1pm.... UGH! My poor husband will now be waking up at 3:15am - and poor me will have to drag Ella out in the morning to drop off Jayden at school. We'll manage. We will manage.

I haven't gone to curves in 2 weeks. 2 fricken weeks! I have to make a promise to myself that Monday morning at 10am I will back in there. Because not only am I not going to Curves, but I'm also not eating as healthy as I was before going to Sacramento.

I know I told how I'd have my Tips back this week, but with my Grandma here they completely slipped my mind! So, I'm not going to guarantee that they'll be back on Tuesday, because we will probably be busy with fun tax stuff, but I will try my hardest!

Last, but not least - I've started back up My Book of Mormon Journey. Head over to my other blog and join me in reading the Book of Mormon. I'm only 5 chapters into it, which will take you no time at all. Even if you're not LDS, what would it hurt to read about it?? I post links to the chapters so you can read online. And I would love all comments over there with your opinions, feeling and things that will not only help me see things the way you do, but help strengthen my testimony as well as yours. I love hearing other's testimonies, because I believe that mine grows stronger.