Our Life

It has been way too long, since I recorded any memories here and it’s definitely time to catch up. Life has been happening 100 miles per hour and I figured if I keep letting this get out of control, I will be lost in all of the pictures forever and my kids will never get to be part of their childhood through this blog. With all of that said, we had an amazing time celebrating our Papi and Papa and are thrilled for every single year God gifts him to be healthy and happy 🙂 We all love you very much Papusya!

As I looked back, I realized I forgot to post Bella’s and Joshy’s Birthdays. We all had so much fun celebrating these two little people and we tried to come up with something that each of them loved. We did hundreds of balloons for each, so for when they woke up in the morning, the hallways was full of balloons. They both loved it! It was so fun to watch both step out into a hallway and the face just lit up with excitement 🙂 For Bella’s birthday, we had a special breakfast, she opened her presents and we went to “Build a Bear Workshop” where Nana and Papa greeted us as they were the ones who gave her such a special gift. Right after, we went out to the California Pizza Kitchen where all of us ordered something that we loved. Of course, we had to finish up the meal with a trip to the frozen yogurt shop 🙂 Our sweet girl had a blast and quite frankly so did we 🙂
For our little bug Joshy’s birthday, we had a celebratory breakfast, he opened his presents and we headed out to Crispy Cream Doughnuts. Our little man loves doughnuts. After that we headed to the Fountains, one of his favorite spots. We also visited the pet store, so he could check out some of his favorite cats 😉 Then there was his favorite train ride 🙂 We concluded the day with a special birthday dinner with nana and papa 🙂 Both days were amazing and full of fun. Sometime in between the two birthdays, as they are 5 days apart, they also got to go to Wacky Tacky a super fun place for kids to play, jump, crawl and shoot some balls at each other 🙂 I am so so grateful to God for granting me this sweet opportunity to celebrate my treasures! Happy Birthday Bella! Happy Birthday Joshy! Mommy and Daddy love you to the moon and back forever!!!

Unlike previous years, we celebrated our kiddo’s birthdays in the circle of close family, making pizzas and enjoying our precious babies. It was a wonderful and blessed time. Happy Birthday sweet babies!!! (Thank you uncle “O” for taking most of the pictures)

A few words that come to mind that would describe this year, blessed, exciting, growing, challenging, busy and most definitely treasured. There is no easy way to bundle one whole year up in a short post, but I always try. I will go off whatever comes to mind as soon as I glance back in time.
My babies- boy have they grown, not only physically but mentally and spiritually. They bring us so much joy; on daily basis we learn something new about each one of them. Bella has been blossoming into loving, caring, and kind little girl. She is also a great student, eager to learn (most of the time) and constantly wants to be read to (our little book worm). She knows how to sound out words and read them, but is a bit uninterested at the moment to actually read on her own. Joshua is just a great ball of fire that is constantly on the move. His vocabulary has grown tremendously and he just wants to love everyone around. He loves to sing and each song comes out beautifully 🙂
Work- it has been a busy year for both Barry and I. He keeps expending Spotlight Marketing and I officially began homeschooling my two precious bundles. I also decided to run a small nonprofit organization, Sweet Bubblegum Drops from which the proceeds go towards rescuing people from human trafficking. It’s thrilling, time consuming but yet very rewarding. We are both looking forward to what God will do through our efforts in all of the fields in our life.
Hobbies- I will proudly say that I have finished my first painting since having children and I am absolutely in love with it. Barry and I have also done quite a bit of running and riding. I am a proud finisher of two marathons and one half this year. I would have never believed if someone told me that I would run two marathons in one year, only God knows the pain and sweat behind it. Barry and I ran California International Marathon together just a little bit over a month ago, in very cold weather conditions. We are definitely glad we ran it together but are not opposing to stopping such long distances for a while.
Service and growth- going into 2013, we both knew we wanted to make some changes in our life when it came to serving others and growing in Christ. At the end of this year, I truly feel like we have accomplished our goals, although I always feel like we could have done more. We have made serving a huge priority and with God’s help, we have witnessed miracles and major growth in our walk with our Father. It’s amazing when you pray to God to mold you into His tool that will only glorify His name. He definitely holds His promises and it was absolutely amazing to look back and see where we have come from and where we are today. My desire every single year is to be more and more like Christ, to love, to forgive, to overlook some things in people, to pray more, to not be a hypocrite, to not judge, to love, to love and to love. I never knew how easy loving can be, there are definitely moments and people that are difficult to love, but with a help of a prayer, he reveals the love you hold inside and helps you love. I have prayed for the ones I had a hard time loving and God turned things around, God turned people around, but first of all He turned me around and showed me His face over and over.
Trips- this year we were blessed to go to the ocean a couple of times and just take in His beauty and creation. We were fortunate enough to go to Pismo beach this year, which did not seem possible previous years and for once Barry and I felt like we had a vacation ever since our miracles joined us : )
New car- without having any plans to get a different vehicle, we ended up selling our Honda Civic and getting a 2005 Saab, which has been a pure joy to drive. That transaction was a pure miracle, which only God can provide.
As for goals for next year… to keep expending Bubblegum drops so that every person can hear and know the cause behind it. To see more smiles on girls that have been rescued from human trafficking. To treasure and strengthen relationships. To stick to our budget. This one has been very difficult by far, we underestimate ourselves and our so called “needs” that are truly “wants” in reality. We pray for continued guidance from God to get us through the process of eliminating debt. Mostly to reflect Christ on daily basis.

I can’t believe we are almost in February and I am finally sitting down to write about our celebration of Christ. I wait for this holiday every single year beginning in early August…yes, a little much, but I can’t help it. It makes my heart feel warm and inspires me to get out and serve people more than usual. We did just that this year, we decided to serve and we served. Some days were very challenging but at the end everything was a pure blessing. I so wished to write this while being in the motion of all that was happening, but it clearly didn’t happen due to lack of time. The most important thing is we blessed others in Christ name. It was exciting, moving, emotional and simply wonderful. Some of the things we did in the time frame from October-January…
Served at Feed My Starving Children (I was blessed to serve with my mama 🙂
Was blessed to serve at World Vision during Women of Faith Conference, I loved every minute of it.
Gifted our 7 sponsored kids with presents.
Rang the Salvation Army bell (two shifts), the kids loved the experience and so did we. Definitely on the “annual” list of places to serve.
Served at a Christmas service at church.
Baked goodies for neighbors and had the kiddos deliver them with us.
Bella and I sang Christmas carols at the children’s hospital with a Homeschooling group.
Went out and bought a big bag full of toys for sick kids at the hospital.
Barry blessed a homeless man at the gas station.
Started our own little organization called “Sweet Bubblegum Drops”, making necklaces to save lives. All proceeds go towards human trafficking.
Helped a few friends to organize their homes and moved their trash cans.
Went through toys with kids and they handpicked the ones to give to kids that do not have any (Bella’s highlight of Christmas season)
Bella and her friend Lissy made angel crafts that we delivered to our neighbors.
Donated money to build a well in Africa.
Helped a few friends by selling necklaces and bracelets and donating proceeds for their missions trip to Africa in April.
I certainly wish this list kept on and on, but those were just some of the things we were able to bless others with and in return got the biggest blessing of all. We felt complete this during this Christmas season. We anticipate to do much more next year, but all with God’s help. This post is not written to brag in any way, but to serve as a memory for our precious children to keep in focus what is truly wonderful about Christmas. We honor Christ’s birth by stepping out of our comfort zone and helping others. Merry Christmas to All!

What a treat! Thank you Nana for hosting such amazing tea party! Of course nana wanted to tend to her precious granddaughter and have everything perfect. And was it perfect! It will take me a lifetime to learn from this amazing and hard working woman. Not only what we ate was beautiful, but it was beyond delicious. Thank you again Nana for hosting one of the best parties yet! We love you!

Nutcracker, the show Bella waits for all year long and lights up each time we talk about it. What a treat for our little girl, but what a treat for her mama and nana haha. We love going to see The Nutcracker and this year we got to go with Barry, Lilya and Katya (Lilya’s niece) The performance was absolutely wonderful and the girls did great most of the time. Once the end started to approach, they were ready to eat and drink and run around. Thank you sweet “O” for getting us our annual tickets! It’s such a wonderful treat.

If someone told me I would run this marathon, I would tell them “no way!” The biggest reason for that answer would be the cold and potential rain. I am not a big fan of running in the cold or the rain. As much as I love to run, when it’s freezing outside, “no thank you!” But, God had other plans and I ended up running it. Not only did I run it, I ran it with my love : ) Him and I both wanted to run a race together and this one was way too convenient, being at home, having my parents watch the kids, it was too easy to pass it up 😉 I will not lie, I signed up for this race as soon as I found out that Big Sir sold out, so it was more of a rebound situation which turned into a great thing…. How great you might ask? Ha! It was 22 degrees outside. Yes, it just happened to be one of the coolest mornings yet. Was I miserable? For sure, did I regret the idea while running it? Yes! Was I relieved to finish it? YES!!! For the first 15 miles, I could not feel anything from waist down. Simple answer, “shorts” I wore shorts in this freezing weather. I had to, and I will not get into details why, but it was quite a run. Definitely glad I did it, definitely glad I got to share it with my better half and extremely grateful to my family for taking care of the kiddos and to the sweetest brother and sis-in-law for being there all the way! The biggest praise goes to the one and only God, without whom I could not finish this race. Not only did I not properly train for it, mentally I was done at mile 9, until He sent a miracle. Thank you God for running it with me and helping me complete it.
On the side note, I have improved my time from Big Sir and finished in 4:14, so not too bad for freezing weather and not training as much as I should have. Barry came in just behind me at 4:39. Great run honey and thank you for running it with me! “Death Ride” is our next goal 😉 Love you!

The little princess keeps dancing and is still very much enjoying it. I felt like I saw more progress this year, as she is growing and her coordination is changing. I love capturing these precious moments 🙂 I love you baby girl! Kisses!

This year we decided to do something different. Instead of going to Costco as usual to pick out our tree, we thought it would be fun to go to a real Christmas tree farm and cut down our own. Of course our trip could not have been as memorable if I haven’t plugged in wrong directions into our GPS and instead of us taking an hour to get there, it took us 2.5 hours. However once we got there, all was forgotten and we were submerged into hundreds and hundreds of trees. At first we thought, it would be the easiest thing to pick out a tree but an hour into our adventure and miles of walking and climbing with two little kids, we realized that the task was much more challenging than we thought. God had mercy on us and we found THE perfect tree 🙂 The kiddos were beyond excited and so were we 😉 We all enjoyed our experience so much that we are definitely looking forward to doing it again next year 🙂