Sweet Song

There is something so sweet about hearing little ones sing! Our kid's Christmas song performance during church service went so well! Even though we only had 4 kids show up for practice, I don't think it mattered. I feel like we could have practiced for weeks and still had the same results. Half the fun is watching the teeny tiny ones play on stage and talk to each other instead of sing. They sang so quietly you could barely hear them, but did their hand motions great!

And the older ones did great anyway singing Joy to the World.

Faith earned her standing ovation with the prettiest song that she performed so well.


So proud of "my kids!"



PS How cute is their Happy Birthday Jesus party?? I was so blessed by the effort of the teachers to make it special! They had cake, party bags, hats, balloons and streamers!

Best Friends Finally Meet

Aubriella and Kamryn don't know it yet, but I have big plans for them to be best friends- even if they live 4 hours apart! It is horrible that it has been over a year since I last saw Katie. I am so grateful we were finally able to meet up for an evening. Hopefully we will be able to see them again soon!

Velazquez Family 2010 Christmas Letter

So here it is. Our annual Christmas letter! I only mail it with some of our Christmas cards- mostly to people who don't read the blog or see us every week. So if you didn't get the letter, don't feel bad. It just means I didn't want to bore you with the redundancy of an update. And, just in case you want to read it anyway....

December 2010
Dear Friends and Family,
As I sit down to write the 3rd annual Velazquez Family Christmas letter, I’m humbled at all we have to be thankful for. This year has been so rewarding as we have become parents to the most wonderful little girl, Aubriella Joy! A year ago we couldn’t imagine how much our lives would change to have this sweet, active, and beautiful child in our lives.

January was spent enjoying our final days of being just a couple, and we tried to be conscious of making the most of our uninterrupted time together. On January 29th, our due date, Marlene went in to labor. In the most amazing experience of our lifetime, together with our moms, we welcomed Aubriella into the world the morning of January 30th. The teamwork we had during our natural, drug free birth bonded us closer than ever. We instantly fell in love with Aubriella who came out wide eyed and alert just staring and her mommy and daddy. We just completed Bradley Childbirth Education training, and are so excited to begin teaching natural childbirth classes next year. We look forward to teaching pregnant couples how to have the same positive birth experience!

The next couple of months were a blur of tired, happy, joy. Jose was able to take 7 weeks off of work during Marlene’s maternity leave. It was so nice to have nothing to do but be a family and get paid for it (wish we could find a way to make that work forever!). When Jose did go back to work at Child Welfare Services, he was able to transfer to the local office five minutes from home. You should see how excited Aubriella gets when she stands at the window and sees Daddy come home for lunch everyday!

In April we accepted the position of Children’s Pastor at our church. We are so grateful to have this opportunity to assist in teaching children how to have a personal relationship with Jesus. This job has been the biggest blessing as it has always been one of Marlene’s dreams to become a Children’s pastor, and she was able to resign from her position at CWS. Aubriella gets to hang out with Mama all day, but loves to go to Nana’s house when Marlene needs to go into the office.

In June we took a family vacation to Hawaii for a friend’s wedding. Aubriella was the perfect traveler proving to us that she should be included in all future vacations. We were told by numerous passengers on our plane that they had never seen such a happy, well behaved baby. We had a great time at the beautiful wedding and spent time hiking and exploring the Big Island.

Aubriella started walking in October at 8 ½ months. We have been chasing her around ever since! She keeps us on our toes with her inquisitive personality and her no fear attitude. She makes us laugh everyday with her growing vocabulary and the sense of humor she is already demonstrating! Aubriella proved she is still a great traveler on the 4 day cruise we just returned from, though now that she is mobile to say it was a relaxing trip would be a stretch!

2010 was an amazing adventure! It has been so awesome to see God’s provision in our lives, and we look forward to the New Year with expectation of great things. We pray that you and your family are blessed this Christmas Season!
Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! 2 Corinthians 9:15

Love, Jose, Marlene and Aubriella

O Christmas Tree!

I know there are much cheaper places to buy a tree than Holloways, but it's a tradition I love and I don't mind paying a bit more for the atmosphere.

I'm enjoying the remaining few years I have to buy a "pretty" fir, until Aubri starts asking to chop down an "ugly" tree.

Nana, Papa and Jasen went along for Aubri's first tree farm experience and to see her meet Santa.

She wasn't too sure about this man.

Papa saved her right before she was about to start crying. I want to take her to see him again because now anytime she sees any picture of Santa - or even any red velvet and white fur- she says Ho Ho Ho!

It was raining, but I didn't mind. I tried to tell the family to pretend it is snow!

Uncle Jasen is the best! Aubri LOOOOVES him. I'm a little suspicious he has been sneaking her candy or something because she prefers him over anyone. Sometimes Jasen gets annoyed because she follows him around and won't leave him alone!

My little helper!
S
She is so "helpful" finding new places for the decorations, and putting them in places I would have never thought of. She is also so creative in coming up with new uses for everything! Praise the Lord she won't touch the tree! I can't figure out why she hasn't, but I'm am so very grateful!

A little bit of this and some of that

Ok, if you thought I get a little excited for the fall season, you haven't seen me get ready for winter and the Christmas season!

As always, the day after Thanksgiving my house gets transformed! Gone are the pumpkins, leaves. brown and bronze decorations and out comes the white, silvery, and sparkly blue wonderland!

Aside from our week of cruising, it feels like the Christmas parties and festivities haven't stopped. There has been a whole lot of this....

Eating too much of this:

(Sonya what do you think about this??)



Wish there hadn't been any of this....

or this....

Just glad it didn't happen until after this....

I try to capture this...

But usually she's too fast and it looks like this....

My decorations always end up being used for this...

I decorated for an event and it looked like this...

Glad he didn't fall down while doing this...

Seriously, how cute is this?

I feel so blessed to have this!

What do you think about that?

I love it when we're cruising together!

For our first two anniversaries Jose and I have made a point to take a trip (Dominican Republic and Colorado). This year I was a little bummed that it wouldn't happen. I thought we should probably save some money and I knew we aren't ready to leave Aubriella. Still I wanted to do something! One morning I looked up cruise prices, called Jose at work, invited our moms, and within 24 hours it was booked! We wanted to invite more of our family, but school and work commitments (and short notice!) didn't allow that to happen (Next year Jasen and Adriana!).

We were excited for our babysitters moms to be able to join us, and the idea of being stuck on a boat with a very active, very mobile 10 month old didn't seem to overwhelming. Aubriella did great- though it is hard to relax when we have to chase her around. We all had a blast, and even though we didn't take advantage of free babysitters like we envisioned we were able to enjoy ourselves.

You can check out my Facebook album of pictures by clicking on this link

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111771&id=68600295&l=eef2af5cb0

Bradley Training- Anaheim

I am so proud of Jose and Aubriella for how well they did spending 4 days with only a little hotel room to call home! During my Bradley trianing they explored Downtown Disney-several times-and seemed to walk all around Anaheim. They had planned on going to Disneyland, but after finding that they had lots to see without paying the admission price they changed their mind (I was so grateful! The thought of missing her first Disney experience was sad).

You'll notice there are no pictures of me... I was sitting in the training from 8am until 10pm everyday. I did get to see them every short break, lunch and dinner!