Happy 2nd Birthday Mia Grace!

At 9:11am (around the exact time this post will post :)), two years ago, one of my most precious gifts that God has EVER blessed me with entered this world. I certainly can't believe it's been TWO years, 730 days, 17,520 hours (I think ;)), no matter how you say it, I just can't believe it. My last two posts have skimmed the surface of my feelings for my sweet girl....I could write for days and still not express how much I love her. She and I have a connection that is absolutely indescribable and I truly can't imagine our family without her in it! ;) She makes me smile on bad days. She makes me smile even bigger on good days. She is a blessing straight from God. There are no words...(so I'll just share 3 of my favorite pictures within hours of her birth)

Mia Grace's Year in Review (Part 2)

A few things: stay tuned for an awesome giveaway I have coming up, especially if you LOVE pictures, but have no time for actual scrapbooking! :) And don't forget to visit my moms Facebook page and become a fan to be automatically entered into a drawing for a Valentines Day basket of goodies (particulary her AWESOME Italian cookies! :)

Now, on to the good stuff...my sweet Mia Grace! :)

You can go here if you missed part 1! :)

 July: Rocked the red, white and blue for the 4th of July (one of my all time fav pictuers of Mia!)

 July: Napped on the beach (our annual family vacation to Ocean City, MD)

 July: We relaxed on the beach and took awesome family pics :)

 August: Perfected our "pagent face" (via Toddlers and Tiaras. No, I wouldn't put her pagents, but I just think it's funny! :))

 August: Got dolled up for Manuel's 1st day of school ;)

 September: Celebrated Spencers 2nd birthday bouncing around :)

 September: Watched football until we fell asleep (AND WE HAVE OUR BIG PLAYOFF GAME THIS SUNDAY!)

 October: Went to the zoo for a friends 1st birthday party

 October: Made VERY important phone calls, apparently SO important that we needed two cell phones! ;)

 October: Celebrated Halloween as a duck and thoroughly enjoy WAY more candy than we're ever allowed! ;)

 November: OF COURSE we celebrated Thanksgiving, but more fun was our annual post-Thanksgiving bonfire where we rock jammies AND boots! ;)

 November: Brought unusually warm weather so we enjoyed a trip to the playground

December: Gettin' fancy for Christmas Eve! ;) 

December: Putting on our prettiest dress to celebrate Christmas and the birth of our Savior, Jesus! :)

I could post 365 days in a row about my beautiful daughter and NEVER convey the depths of my love for her. It just isn't humanly possible to express into words! In 5 days my baby will be 2 and I can hardly believe it! MIA GRACE, I LOVE YOU! :)

*And yes, I already have my Manuel's year in review ready to post at the end of the month, when he turns SIX! :)

Mia Grace's Year in Review (Part 1)

The day is coming, whether I want to admit it or not, and my sweet baby girl will be turning TWO! I can't believe that on January 18th it will be two years since Mia Grace entered our world. So cliche, but seriously...where does time go!?!??!

To read Mia's birth story, go here

Mia and I have an incredibly special bond. OF COURSE I love Manuel equally and he has my heart just as much as Mia does (I would hope that goes without saying), however...the saying, "Momma's boy" and "Daddy's girl" does not apply in our house! It is DEFINITELY "Momma's girl" and "Daddy's boy"...Manny has an amazingly close connection with Manuel, and I have an amazingly close connection with Mia. AGAIN, we both love both of our children the same! (Just need to stress that for those people who might be judging! ;))

The last year has been a HUGE year for Mia...she started and "graduated" physical therapy for low muscle tone, she learned to walk, she got her second tooth (yes, she was 11 months old when she got her first) and subsequently has gotten every single tooth in her mouth since then (except for her two year molars), she went on her first week long vacation, she experienced Sesame Place for the first time, and SO many other milestones that I have documented along the way. Miss Mia Grace is FULL of sass and personality, and much more of handful than her big brother EVER was, but I must say I LOVE this stage. Listening to her talk, learning new words, learning to express herself, etc. has truly been amazing. At the beginning of January she was a straight haired, toothless little girl who still crawled to my now crazy curls, most adorable teeth ever, walking/climbing/running almost two year old. She LOVES all things babies and could spend hours playing with all of her dolls (it's precious to watch).

Mia Grace,
  Mommy loves you more than words could ever express. I probably still baby you WAY more than I should, but I just can't help it. You are my sweet baby girl, full of so much personality and fire. You make me smile a million times a day, and I truly thank you for every moment of the last 2 years. I know we won't always be the best of friends (dare I say from 12 years old-22 year olds ;)) but know that I am ALWAYS here for you! I pray that Daddy and I raise you to be a good, strong, Christian woman who always holds her morals and values in the highest regard. I know I tell you this everyday baby girl, but you are BEAUTIFUL! Always remember that...inside and out.

Love, Mommy

And for good measure (a review of Mia's last year, the first 6 months. I'll do July-December in a part 2)...

 January: We celebrate your birthday in a Winter ONEderland :)

 February: Mia had her first official playdate at Zia Amy's with our long time friend, Shelby and her daughter, Adelyn

 March: We wore our green to celebrate St. Pattys Day (blurry pic, but adorable :))

 April: Mia's love of baby dolls began (and her curls began too! :))

 April: We celebrated Easter and Mia's 1st black eye :)

 May: We celebrated our 3 sweet angels (nephews/cousins) in Heaven, on what would have been their 3rd birthday. We sent them balloons (and Manuel wore his pajamas outside! ;)

 May: We just hung around :)

 May: The weather was warm enough to get in the pool and get splashed in the face ;)

 June: We celebrated my 30th birthday with a surprise cook out, in matching outfits with our cousins, OF COURSE! ;)

June: We started our "full sass" mode ;)

Part 2 coming soon! :)

My 500th Post

Don't forget to like my moms Facebook page here to be automatically entered in her Valentines Day basket giveaway! :)
Oh my gracious, where in the world does time go!?!?! I can't believe this is my 500th post!!! That is just crazy to me! Grant it, it's not always been the most interesting posts ;) but regardless I still can't believe I've had that much to say over the years! :) For those of you that have been reading for awhile, I say, thank you! Many of you have become very dear friends to me and I'm so grateful. Although I may never meet any of you in "real life", you all hold a very special place in my heart and thank you for reading. Here's to 500 more! ;)

And for good measure (FINALLY-Christmas Day photos! :))

 Santa came! :)

 Morning hair! :)

 It's only fair I show my "morning face" too ;)

 At my mother-in-laws

 At my Aunt's

There's a million more pics, but you the idea AND it's only 17 days after Christmas! ;)

Thank you Jesus!

A super adorable picture of Mia this morning (and yes, she's on the counter AGAIN, but that's the only place I put her where she'll stand still! :) Excuse the poor pic quality!)

But I am not writing today to show you how adorable Mia is (although that's very obvious from the above picture! ;)), I am writing today to say that I received a call from my doctor about my MRI and from all views and pictures they believe that this is all nothing more than scar tissue from my two c-sections!!! Praise God! I was really "okay" (or I tried to convince myself that I would be) with whatever results I was going to be given because I knew that God already knows how my life is to pan out and He already knew what "it" was. But I will say, I am beyond thankful and grateful that it's nothing serious! They did see a cyst on my left ovary (not the side that's been bothering me), so my primary care doctor is going to send my scans to my gyn so that he can look at them and determine if further intervention is necessary. I know cysts are totally common (in fact I had one removed shortly after Manuel's birth), so I'm not the least bit worried. I'm to assume the back pain that I'm having is just that, back pain, and completely unrelated to the scar tissue. I'm not one that will ever get on pain meds for back pain, so I'll just deal with it with some occasional Motrin and Tylenol and call it a day. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. They've meant the world to me! :) Now, off to breathe a huge sigh of relief and just be thankful! :)

And HOPEFULLY I will be FINALLY get around to posting our pics from Christmas Day. Geez, I'm a slacker! :)

"I can do all things...

through Christ who gives me strength." Those were the words that I repeated to myself over and over and over again while I got my MRI on Friday. Yes, it was an "open" MRI, HOWEVER, when you are claustrophobic (at least to the extent that I am), anything, any amount, over your face is terrifying and panic inducing. As the tech was sliding me (feet first), and the closer my face got to the top of the machine, I got more and more anxious. As my face got really close to being directly under the machine I started to freak and said, "How much further am I going to go in?" He said just a tiny bit more (as he kept pushing the button and pushing it again). Then he stopped and said, "Okay, that's as far as you're going." and from about the tip of my nose down was under the machine, I started freaking out and told him I couldn't do it. He kept saying, "But the sides are open, the sides are open." I wanted to say, "Here's the thing Mister, I don't care how much of the sides are open, I am EXTREMELY claustrophobic (which they already knew) and I'm not worried about what's to the left and right side of me, I'm worried about the mass of steel hanging over my face!" Of course I did not say that ;) but just started praying! He gave me a bulb type thingy to hold and squeeze in the event that I REALLY freaked out, and he walked out of th room. I started saying, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength" and I just repeated that to myself, alternating turning my head to the left and to the right, opening and shutting my eyes, PRAYING, and just waiting for it all to end. Well friends, do you know how long it was...ONE HOUR AND 40 MINUTES!!!!! When I stood up to get off the table I thought to myself, "Hmmm, I wonder how long I was laying there?" and was shocked when I looked at my cell phone and saw that it was 5:10...I had laid down on the table at 3:30!!!!!! Of course I then started worrying, "Why in the world did it take so long!?!??!?! What did they see?" Unfortunately I won't be getting results until sometime this week. Please pray that everything is okay!

On to more fun topics :)...

Yesterday was an old family friends surprise 70th birthday. She and my grandmother have been close friends for years and years! Our family is there family and vice versa. They are all about as old school Italian as you can get and we had a blast. It was a nice distraction from the MRI worries. Manuel made friends with some of the other children there (after getting over his shy stage! :)) and before we knew it he was no where in site and didn't show up again (well of course they sporadically ran through the basement ;)) until it was time to go (he was SO sad to leave!) I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!
And for good measure...

 A Christmas gift that I just LOVE..my "Mother" necklace :)

 Manuel and Erik

 BEAUTIFUL day in Maryland...gotta love low 60's in January! :)

 Mia and Daddy

 LOVE this pic (minus Manuel :(

 Jumping off the swing :)

 The aftermath of the homemade baked ziti ;)

 My mom and I (and my Uncle giving his little sister (my mom) bunny ears! :))

Don't forget to like my moms Facebook page here to be automatically entered to win an awesome Valentines Day basket of assorted cookies! :)