She's Beautiful

I remember in the hospital when Lilia was born, one of my dear friends, Katy Manni came to visit. I remember her clearly saying of Lilia, "She's really beautiful."
Throughout the baby/toddler years I would hear that phrase repeated. When strangers met Lilia they would comment on her beauty, but it goes way beyond her outward appearance.

She, no doubt, has a beautiful heart toward animals. She cares for them with a deep conviction and passion that only God can give a person. Here she is in these three pictures dissecting owl pellets (pellets are throw up - because they can't digest the fur and bones of the animals they eat whole). It's sterilized and you can buy the kit on Amazon. She got it for her birthday and couldn't wait to work on it.

Back to my story though...I picked Lilia up from school today and as usual I asked about her day. She told me she started a prayer group today on the playground.
Yesterday we were visiting another church and Lilia watched a 12 year old boy with epilepsy have a seizure. She talked about it here and there through the rest of the day and her heart was really touched. She said she prayed for this boy 3 times today and enlisted her prayer group to pray too. She walked around the playground at recess, and asked kids if they were lonely and wanted to pray. One of her classmates joined her, Rayana. Together they prayed for this boy and for Rayana's family.
My heart is overwhelmed at the profound beauty that God is cultivated in my 8 year old daughter. Wow. I reminded her today how honored and glorified God is by her prayer group. I reminded her that she is beautiful on the outside, but she is even more beautiful on the inside and that is what really matters. Wow. God is good and it's days like this that cause my heart to beam at the work He is doing in Lilia. Praise be to God!

Laughter

Changing weather

 The changing of the clocks, and the shift in the weather bring such incredible hope. Something internally changes and hope in renewed that winter will end.
This past week we were sure to spend time outdoors. The kids rode bikes on campus. (Lilia has the biggest smile on her face in this picture.)
Alex and I went hiking on Wednesday when it was almost 60 degrees. We stopped for lunch at Pei Wei and headed to the Wissahickon.
We started at the Valley Green entrance and headed to the left of the parking lot, maybe north. We hiked all the way to the next bridge and back. It was a grand total of 2.5 miles! The trail was muddy and icy in most places, but we loved it. One thing my dad passed on to me was a love for nature and the outdoors. Now I get to pass that onto my kids.
As we started off on the trail Alex's words were beaming with excitement. At one point he said, "Can we do this every day after school?"
The guy at Pei Wei gave us a ton of fortune cookies. We packed some for fuel to hike. However by the end, no amount of fortune cookies helped Alex. He was wiped! I was so proud of him once we reached the last stretch on the trail, which sadly is up hill. He's my long distance, endurance guy.

 He asked me at several points to take his picture. He also wanted to take mine. Oh, that boy is so cute! What a joy and a delight he is growing up to be!

Yellow Belt!

On March 4th the kids finally got their yellow belts! They've worked so incredibly hard focusing on formations, punches and kicks. Now that they are in an older class they do a lot more sparring.

Lilia's 8th Birthday

 This year I gave Lilia the option to go to Sweet-n-Sassy with a girl friend or to have a party at our house. She chose a party and she wanted it to be a Lego Friends themed party. I was thankful to already have some great ideas in my arsenal of party planning. We stole some ideas from Alex's in October. However I did try to keep things more simple.

On Thursday, March 6th we had a huge snow storm dumping 7.5 inches throughout the entire day. The kids had no school Thursday nor Friday. That also meant that I could use the flowers I bought for the demonstration of an American wedding that was to be held on Penn's campus Thursday evening. So our house was booming with flowers. It looked like a flower shop!

 Aunt Karen and Jesse were able to come in for Lilia's party. It was so wonderful and special to have them there. I know it meant a lot to Lilia (and my mom) to have her there.







We FaceTimed with Grammy and Grandpop back in CO. They watched Lilia open her present. They got her a riding lesson with Sarah. Mom made Lilia the most thoughtful journal as another gift.

 She got three Lego sets and had them all built by dinner Sunday evening.






We played a few awesome games. I did another Lego Bingo, but a Friends version. I found another game on Pinterest. You have a bucket/pile of legos. Roll the dice and what ever number you roll is the number of legos you pick up. Go around the circle until all of the legos are gone. Then the kids create something and explain it. There were some pretty fun creations.

And of course...photo booth! I made new girl faces (this time out of yellow cardstock, DUH - why didn't I think of that last time!)

We sang to my beautiful birthday girl. Oh I love her smile, and her laughter. It brings such joy to my heart. Happy 8th birthday my beautiful, sweet little angel pie! I love you Lilia.

Happy 1st Birthday Twins!

Myself with Claire

 Their birthday was February 4th, but you can see from my recent history that I haven't been as up to date on blogging. I blame it on Instagram. The pictures/moments/stories I would post here, I just instantly upload for family and close friends to instantly enjoy.
Alright, enough excuses...
So Claire and Naomi turned one!!! Matt and AnnMarie had a big party with family and friends, including a parade around the inside of their house. The girls were kind of clueless as any one year old would be. But we had fun celebrating them none the less.

Nannie with Naomi

Naomi

 They loved their cake as you can see from the pictures. The twins did it well. They kept shoveling whole pieces into their mouths enjoying the sugary treat of birthday cake.

Claire