BIG NEWS!

Kathy and Sonny are engaged! On Thursday night (July 16) Sonny surprised Kathy in front of both of our families while celebrating Carmela's birthday and popped the question! It was so neat how he did it. Sonny plays the guitar and so he sang and played the Brad Paisley song "Then" and in the middle of the verse where he describes proposing, Sonny stopped the song and went and dropped to one knee. We are so excited to welcome Sonny into our family! Congratulations you two! Here are just 2 pictures I managed to snap during the moment. However, in the midst of all the celebrating afterwards I didn't get a shot of them looking at the camera or of Kathy's incredibly gorgeous big ring! Oh well, another post another time!

Down on one knee!

Aww how sweet!

Levi's 1 year checkup

Levi's one year checkup took a suprising turn today...Here are the stats.

Head - 18 inches (25-50%)

Length - 30 inches (50-75%)

and then there's the suprise:

Weight - 19.6 lbs (5-10%)

Yes I said 5-10%! It seems that Levi is now following in his big brother's footsteps. Apparently between his 9 month and 12 month appointment he should have gained an average of 9 grams per day. Instead, he only gained 7.2 grams per day. The good news is that this time around the doctor is not alarmed. She said since she now understands Stevie's history of high metabolism (oh poor Stevie) and since they have done tests on Judah and see that nothing is wrong, then we aren't going to worry so much about Levi. She instructed me to do the same things I was told to do with Judah-increase his milk intake, add butter to his food when possible and make sure he's getting good fatty foods like cheese, yogurt, beans, etc.

The funny thing is, we would've never guessed this was going to pan out like this today. Stevie and I were SO SURE Levi weighed at least 20 if not 22 lbs. And then to top it off, he eats SO MUCH! I give him the same serving sizes as Judah, he often eats what Judah doesn't touch and then he also asks for food all throughout the day. There are some moments where I have worried that we are feeding him too much-apparently I'm not feeding him enough!

You can't tell by this picture though!

Happy Birthday Levi!

I cannot believe it! Our little firecracker is one year old today! We celebrated this 4th of July in bigger ways than past years since it was Levi's first birthday. We spent the day swimming, eating, playing and just having a good time! He tuckered out too early to see the fireworks show though....that's ok-he'll have plenty more chances to see fireworks on his future birthdays!

It's so funny how life is....14 years ago Stevie and I were at church camp on this day. We snuck out to watch fireworks from a rooftop of a building on the camp grounds. Who would've guessed that so many years later, we'd be celebrating the birthday of our second child!

Mami and Levi on July 4, 2008

Mami and Levi on July 4, 2009

Conversations with a 2 1/2 year old

In the last month or so, Judah's conversation skills have really taken off. From the moment he wakes up (and starts calling for me) until the moment we lay him down at night, he is almost continually talking....to us, to Levi or sometimes to himself and his toys. I decided I needed to to take some time to document some of his typical conversations.

Judah telling jokes:

-"Mami, ¿Papi es Doc?" (mami, papi is Doc (character from the movie Cars)
-short pause as he gives me time to make a "are you crazy?" face
-then Judah says "NAAAAAAA!" and laughs at his own little joke

He repeats this joke many time throughout his days, interchanging different family members and different Cars characters, but laughs likes its the first time he's told the joke every time!

Judah asking for something he really wants:

-"Mami, ¿vitaminas de Cars?" (mami, cars vitamins? - as he points to their location)
-I then ask him and clarify "¿Quieres tus vitaminas de Cars?"
-and then all in one sentence (so as to avoid me telling him no) he rapidly says "Si, ok mami!" (Yes ok mami)

His new thing is to say Yes OK mami to everything in hopes that if he gets that sentence out fast enough I won't remember that I probably wanted to turn down his request!

Other funny things...
* He now likes to "read" his books and tell the story himself (of course he puts himself in the story)
* Judah now calls himself "Judah" and also calls himself "tú" (you)...so he's not using personal pronouns correctly yet but at least he's started using them!
* He is always trying to get Levi in on his shenanigans. He will yell (very loudly) for Levi to come - "¡EEEEE-IIIIIIII ven!". Then at that point he will usually give him whatever toy it is he has decided Levi needs to play with. They love playing with cars most of the day. They also love jumping up and down and falling down in Judah's crib.

Levi isn't talking yet but he does a lot of grunting and babbling. He is also very into pointing at things at the moment. Whatever he wants, he points at.

They both keep me laughing so much! Man, God is good!

An Update!

At the park just hanging out!

My blog is in dire need of an update! So here goes:

* Yes, to my once thought potential detriment, I did it. I have become a minivan mom! After months of thinking it over, researching it and getting plenty of input from minivan and non-minivan friends, I finally settled on getting the Honda Oddessy. The truth is that I absolutely love it. It is super comfortable in every way and the older I get and the more kids I have, COMFORT prevails! The boys love it as well :0) And Stevie, well, he's happy that I'm happy but you won't catch him driving it that often-oh well-his loss!

* I got a new job. Next school year I will be back in my original element-the high school setting. I took a position as a counselor at Plano Senior High School-let's go Wildcats!

* Stevie got day shift which starts in July! I am BEYOND excited about what this means for our family!

* Judah - I don't know what the boy version of Chatty Cathy is but Judah would qualify! From the instant-and yes I really mean instant-that he wakes up until he goes to be he is talking about anything and everything! We are on our way with potty training-he definitely gets excited about saying bye to it all as he flushes it! Of course sometimes we have to call different family members to tell them all about it afterwards!

* Levi - almost a year old! He has a grand total of 2 teeth. He now officially eats more than Judah and often helps Judah finish his meals :-) He wants to walk but is still scared by it and so holds on to our hands the entire time he walks. He LOVES the water! We went to Hawaiian Falls for the first time two weeks ago and it was a huge hit with both boys. Levi would crawl into the water as deep as he could and the crawl back to the shallow end and laugh about it!

* My sisters turned 8 on June 8 and so the Martinez clan went to their birthday party at my dad's park. Here are the cousins/aunts/nephews from left to right (Judah, Victor and Levi in the wagon, and Tifani, Carmen, Sofia and Estefani behind them).

Our Family

It has been quite some time since I've posted and that has been due to some joys and sadness in our family. It's taken me a while to write this post but both Stevie and I feel that it is something we must do and want to do, without hesitation.

In the past several weeks we found out we were expecting our third child. Our family was filled with such joy and expectation and of course, like with most couples, the planning started immediately.

Sadly, I had a miscarriage and we lost our baby.

These last two weeks have been filled with grief and tears, ups and downs. Our family has been of great support to us as have my best friend Kerri and a few other dear friends.

Before I miscarried, I dreamt about our baby. In this dream, I saw our baby girl at age 3. Unlike my other two pregnancies, Stevie as well had a very strong feeling about the sex of this baby from the beginning and he felt she was going to be a girl.

Once I started miscarrying Stevie and I and our families and closest friends began praying hard. Several rosaries were said and we entrusted this child and her future to the Lord's mother as she too knows what it is like to suffer the loss of a child.

For whatever reasons beyond our understanding we will never be able to hold our baby girl or see her smile and hear her laughs. Judah and Levi will not be able to play with her or be big brothers to her here in this life. But we know without a doubt that she is in heaven with our Lord interceding on our behalf, her family here. We've named her María, after our Lord's blessed mother. There are some other things we intend to do privately as a family to recognize this sacred moment in our lives, but for us, writing about it on our family blog was an important part of the process.

Please pray for us and our healing and that in God's perfect time, he will allow us to participate with him in bringing another precious child to life.

Just plain cute

Lately Levi and Judah can be found sitting in the reading chair in the playroom together. Levi hasn't quite figured out how to get into it when Judah is in it but always gets interested when Judah takes a seat there. Judah, in return, asks me to put Levi in the little space he creates next to him. As the picture shows, this arrangement will physically not be able to last much longer. They will either need a "reading couch" or Levi will have to have his own chair! How cute is it though when they sit in it together?!

And I had to throw this picture in for good measure....look closely at that face Levi is making! And that is him playing with cars and trucks just like his big brother does...sounds included...I can't believe he's growing up so fast!