First Day of School!

Friday was Juliana's first day of school and she was SO excited. The night before she could not sleep and was up at 5:30 in the morning ready to go. She wanted to ride the bus but I had to talk with the bus driver to see where and when she would pick her her up so we all took her. It was a little strange being at home with just the younger 2. It felt like I had more free time but I didn't really. What I had was more individual time with my youngsters. It was a nice change that I have been looking forward to, but also sad as we said goodbye to our 3rd grader.
I went to pick her up and she was all smiles. The teacher had walked her out of school and talked with me for a few minutes and said that she did really good! I really like her teacher and am so thankful that she got her for her first school experience here. We definitely have a social butterfly on our hands as we went to the store afterwards and she saw someone she just met today and she was waving and saying hi like she was a long lost friend :)
Since I picked her up, she has been talking non stop about her day. While we were at the school I talked with the bus driver and Juliana wanted to get on it and ride it home instead of coming with me. I hope she continues to keep up her enthusiasm for school!
What a great blessing as we were a little worried how things would go for her, but I think she will do just fine!

Maybe we are doing something right.......

I know we have only been parents for 3 months now, but we often get hard on ourselves and wonder if we are doing anything right. Well tonight was a special night as Juliana said she wanted to ask Jesus into her heart! A few days ago I was having lunch with the kiddos and was talking to them more about Jesus and asked them why he died and where He lives. They didn't seem to know so we talked about it for a little bit. Later on Juliana said that she wanted to ask Jesus to come live in her heart. I told her that we can talk with Jim tonight and she said ok. When we were going to bed she didn't want to say anything about it so we just said ok. We were really wanting to make sure she understood and wanted to do it for her and not because we told her to. So we have been praying for her for a couple days and tonight she told Jim that she wanted to ask Jesus into her heart to live. We prayed with her and used her spanish and english bible and read some verses to make sure she understood as much as posible. It was a precious moment!! August 2 2008. What a great day!

2 posts in 1 night!

There is just to much to share! So there has been a name change. 2 weeks ago Catalina came to Jim and told him she wants to be called Juliana. So we have been going back and forth with the 2 names. We finally told her she needed to decide which one she wanted and stick with it. So she said she wanted to be called Juliana! Of course we love the name and we all have names that start with a J so that worked out great. We haven't leagally changed her name yet so when we do we will be changing it to Juliana!
I also wanted to share some other pics of us on the water. The Sunday before last some friends invited us over for dinner and took us out on the water. We had a great time! Thanks guys!!

Road Trip # 2!

Can you believe we are at it again?! Jim had to work in Canada this last week so we decided to take another road trip and visit the other half of the family. We had a great time visiting with lots of cousins and aunts and uncles. The kids did great again in the car as we drove through the night they slept almost the whole time and then when we got to my In-laws we slept a bit while they watched the kids. The next day we went to church and they met lots of new people that had been praying for us and following our journey. On Monday Jims 2 brothers and their families came over and we had a crazy fun day as we had 10 kids under 8 running or crawling around. The kids had so much fun playing with the cousins!! We had one crazy day when myself my father in law and my oldest 2 went with my sister in law Heather and her 2, her sister and her 2 and her parents with 3 of her nephews to an awesome theme park. The only draw back was when it started to down pore and the kids only got to ride 3 rides. The rain never let up and of course me from the warm states thought it is the summer and it is always hot in the summer. Well it was cold and the kids and I were shivering in our shorts and t-shirts. All other canadians had pants on and had brought jackets. I ended up buying the kids a jacket, poor things. I guess I will be prepared next time :) We went to the mall for lunch and then went back home. We will defiinatly have to try it again some other time. It was great just spending time with family and made for some good crazy memories!





The fun hats Aunt Heather and Uncle Joe got :)



Dancing with Cousin Leila


Ten of the G-kids, Sorry we missed ya Nathan, Steven and Jessica


Learning to ride a bike on the second try!!!




At the park, the stores ran out of ponchos so the lady gave us bags :) The kids were such troopers!

Our sweet dog

Road Trip!

Man, I can't believe it has been this long since I posted last. I have been getting emails from friends telling me I better update or else.... :)
So, I took the 3 kids and the dog on an 11 hour road trip to Orlando to see my family. Everyone kept telling me I was crazy, but the kids did so good! Jim was very busy traveling to 5 different states in the 1 week, so I thought it was a good time to go. We left at 8:30 in the morning and got in at night with Jaysa sleeping only 20 minutes and listen to this, No TV (DVDs). I didn't really plan it that way but I started out wanting to see how long they could go before breaking out the dvd player and before I new it we were there! Jaysa did get fussy at times but I kept pulling out different toys and little snacks and for the most part that seemed to work.
My mom and I took the kids to Universal and Islands on monday only hitting the things for kids and they Loved it! I loved the fact that when we saw Shrek and Donkey, Donkey spoke spanish to them! It was so cute!! We had 2 days where we just stayed at the house, swam and did a little shopping. One day we had a lot of family and friends come by to meet the kids during the whole day, and the last day we went to Aquatica, which is Sea Worlds new water park and it was SO much fun!
We are back now and my mom is here for a few days. It feels good to be back home and the kids did pretty well. So here are some pics!









My Little Princessa


Catalina dancing in the streets with the entertainers waiting on Shrek








The 2 kids with Tio Shaun


They had a lazy river where you went by a fish tank and also the dolphin area and Catlaina and Mami Loved watching the Dolphins!!

Happy B-day John!

Yesterday was John's Birthday! He is 4 yrs old now!! We started off the day by picking up my brother who has come in town for the weekend to meet the kids and then to the Doctors in Huntsville for Jaysa. We are really glad to hear that he thinks she will not need surgery. He wants her to stay in her brace at night and come back for more x-rays in 3 months. He said usually they see good progress using the brace, so things look pretty good!! We then went to Brigde street town center, which I love, and met some good friends of ours and had lunch. I then let the kids ride the carousel and then headed back to Florence. John wanted hamburgers for dinner so that's what we had! And I had made an ice cream cake, with the "Cars" theme of course. He first said he wanted to have cars for dinner, silly guy :) He opened up gifts and then spent the rest of the night playing with them. It was a pretty fun day!!

Tio Shaun with the Kids!

Kids rooms!

OK, so I know it has taken me a bit to post the pics of the kids rooms. I know a few of you have been asking me to do it. This is a much over due thank you that really needs to be said. When we were getting things ready after getting the referral, we got a very unexpected surprise. My Tia Norma bought the kids their bedroom suites and I mean they are awesome! Thank you Aunt Norma for everything!! We have been SO blown away by her and our family's generosity during this time! Thank you just doesn't seem good enough. I know in an earlier post we had mentioned some of what our family's did but I just need to say thank you all again for all you have done!! WE love you!!! Also, we did have Jaysa in a small room off of our bedroom, but while we were in Colombia we decided to put her and John in the same room. Our parents did a great job putting up a room divider for them! Sorry,I didn't show the pics before but things weren't set up and the rooms were a mess when we left but here they are...

Jaysa's Room



John's Room



Their Dressers


Catalina's Room




The Kids Play Room