memorial day

was spent at our annual bbq at lola and lolo's house

the girls played in the kiddie pool all day. it was rea's first time in the pool!
brian, me, tay, pey, jino, jpe, shae, mom, rae, dad, lola, joe, doreen and kris
the fam bam!

training

taylor's 5 and has been wanting her training wheels off of her bike so papa took them off today and we took her to the park. we each took turns trying to help her and hold her up. we tried the grass and the cement. she had success here and there on both. but she does need more practice before she actually gets the hang out of it. soon though, very soon. she's just growing up too fast!

firsts

peyton drew her very 1st face drawing

she's 2.5 yrs old.
she had a piece of paper and crayons and just started drawing and said she drew a picture of herself with a sad face and we look at the paper and she did in fact draw that!
soo cute!!
so proud!

the girls and a papa too!!!

so much has been going on i tend to forget to blog about the other little girls...

taylor:
can't believe it..she's graduating preschool soon. i am going to have a kindergartener!!! she had 2 graduations. 1 next week from her "real" preschool that she actually learns from and learned how to read from. then mid june she has her "play" school graduation from the Y. really, all she did was play there. sometimes they taught them stuff. i really do feel bad for those kids who only went to the Y and are supposed to be feeling prepped for kinder. oh boy! yay! and her dance recital is coming up mid june. tickets are a ridiculous amount. i'm still unsure as to whether or not i will keep her at her current studio. i hate that i keep switching too. but nothing beats Encore. really. i'd love to go back but am i up for the drive each week?! i'm all about her actually learning technique and the teachers caring and not just focusing on learning a routine for a dance. grrr.

peyton:
ahhh...our middle child. sooo sad. she really does seem to be "left out" at times. like i bought the girls some new clothes and realized i had nothing in my hand that was peyton's size so i had to go back. but all in all, she is our fun, spunky little tom boy. she's really not afraid of anything and she like to get down and dirty. you can find her usually with no shoes or pants on and if she started with socks they were probably only on for a second too. her hair is usually a bruhahaha mess but we've found throwing it all up in a bun makes for 1 cute peyton. she still sucks her thumb and loves her lion like there's no tomorrow. what are we going to do when that tail actually falls off? oh my! and she talks sooooo much. it's soo cute. you can have a full on conversation with her. it's super cute.

reagan:
our little blessing. monday she had an appointment with her pediatrician and then she wanted her to get xrays on her hips. she was doing some examining and noticed the left leg seemed to be tight and liked being in a flexed position. so she wanted to make sure it was just a PT thing and not some issue with her hips. so tues we got the xrays done and today we found out the results. and praise God it's not a hip thing!!! other than that she is still rolling from side to side-she's almost there. she'll roll over sooon! hehe. PT is still working on her lifting her head when she's on her belly. OT is helping with her feeding. we thought she needed a swallow study cause she sounded gurgly and short of breath when she would take her bottle but i changed the nipple side and she's drinking from her bottle like a charm! she's eating rice cereal/oatmeal and now she's on solid stage 1 baby foods. yay! the little one is growing!

me:
i'm growing, i'm learning and taking things 1 day at a time. sometimes it hard but u can't let yourself get overwhelmed or think too much about the future. cause really we don't know the future only God. we can only put our trust in Him. sometimes i wonder how others do it without Him. i know i'd be a mess. trying to take care of 3 kids 5 and under, 1 with special needs-and all the appointments and then managing a house and all that goes with it. i'm thankful for a very supportive family and friends and my network of HPE friends and my church family. my walk with God could always use some improvement. i hate that i tend to only really have deep prayers with God when i'm out on a run. and i don't run everyday which makes me feel super guilty. and i should. prayers with God is communication with God!!! and not to mention being in the Word. i'm working on my spiritual self as well as my physical health. i'm going to be doing a bootcamp to finally get rid of that muffin top of mine. haha. we have the mud run coming up in less than 2 weeks and maui in less than 3months. and the other thing i am most excited about is that we got the approval for a fun run/walk for HoPE in oct. at the college i graduated from!!! super excited to start working on this with the alumni board.

papa:
he's been working sooo hard and trying to better the company and get them virtualized! hehe. papa has been very supportive and praying for our little family. i know his heart just like mine breaks any time there's news about our little rea. and the weather's warming up and we have been seeing more beach days which means he's been surfing!!! yay!

fun run/walk

some of you already know that i had been praying about getting a HoPE walk to happen down here. i emailed some of you specifically to pray about this. i really didn't know how to go about even getting a walk done. i had talked to the founder of families for HoPE and asked her how they went about theirs and i even contacted others out of state who had done walks for HoPE too. so i gathered all my resources and decided hey, why not contact the alumni department at my old school and so i did. i had contacted the alumni relations manager at the college that i graduated from- Biola University (11yrs ago-crazy)!!! i told him about HPE (which of course he never heard of) and gave my little proposal. then he goes about saying how well the school has an alumni/parent weekend in october (and i immediately thought october-that's when i wanted to do it-in honor of reagan's 1st bday-and mind u i hadn't told him yet the date i was looking at and i started choking/tearing up) and how there was a gal on the alumni board who actually wanted to put together a 5K run/walk but they had no cause (and i thought oh my gosh, my reagan and her HPE is a cause and i started to choke up more) so it kinda took a backseat. so he had said it may be something they might be interested in and he would present it at the alumni board meeting (which was last friday) and let me know today. as soon as i got off the phone with him i was super excited and couldn't help but think wow God, this is perfect and it seems to be all falling into place (but of course there was that thought in the back of mind that had to say, don't get your hopes up too high cause it might not happen). so i emailed him lastnight and anxiously awaited the reply back today. he replied bearing good news. he said (here i'll just cut and paste the email):
Hi Roselle,

Yes, I have an exciting update for you! We have the general go-ahead for an event for HPE Sat a.m. 10/15/11. And one of our Alumni Board members, Jackie (who is helping plan Biola Weekend 2011 for that weekend), is interested in discussing with you what a "fun run/walk" might look like. I'm copying Jackie on this email, so she'll have your phone number. I know its tempting to jump in and email Jackie, but please wait til she can contact you, as she'll be officially leading this event from the University side.

If you have anything you need in the meantime, don't hesitate to call/email me:)

Don
so i am super thankful and feeling really blessed. God knew my heart's desire and prayers were answered (and of course we all know that God doesn't always say yes to our requests nor answer him the way we want it all the time). i have yet to hear from jackie and i can't wait for the planning to begin! please keep it in prayers!

picnic of HoPE

today we were able to attend the 1st Annual Picnic for HoPE. i was excited for this day cause i'd actually get to meet those HoPE facebook friends of mine! hehe. i was looking forward to meeting other kids/familes of HPE and other cephaly's. we got there and didn't know what to expect. questions ran thru my head like: would there be other kids reagan's age? would they all be in wheelchairs? would the parents be nice? well, we got there and they actually all were in wheelchairs and there were a couple other special needs kids there that didn't have HPE. both jino and i got to talk to different parents and ask them about their child's story. they all shared lots of good information about things they have gone through and went through regarding their child and even all the medical/insurance stuff. it was a bit overwhelming. i guess for both of us it was a reality check. will reagan be in a wheelchair the next time we saw them all? will her condition worsen (as some of theirs did as they grew another year older)? will she be able to walk and talk (because all the kids there were non-verbal and don't walk)? i couldn't and can't help but wonder these things. each case of HPE is different and no one can tell you what to expect really-only God knows the outcome. i know it's easier said than done but we REALLY DO just have to take it one day at a time. we love reagan! all the kids and families there were amazing!!! they all seemed to be happy and most of them HAVE beat the odds and gone beyond their doctors expectations.

they did a balloon release in memory of those kids that have passed away due to HPE
and here are the kids (and me holding reagan)

birthday for a bear!

we celebrated my nephew bear's (aka luke) 3rd birthday today with family and just a few close friends at the park. it was thomas themed since that's what he seems to be into these days. it wasn't a perfect day at the park-cold and windy but at least the sun was out! hehehe. nevertheless, we still had fun and mama katie still did a great job decorating and nicole did a super job with the made from scratch desserts and i got bear awesome mini cakes from my cake by tricia faye.

train bday banner by mama katie, cake pops and cupcakes by nicole, cupcake toppers by mama katie and mini thomas cakes by cakes by tricia faye!

cake time with the bestie cousins
some guests
and more
he had such a great time!
soon (in 6months) his bestie cousin peyton will be 3 too!!!

therapy

today reagan started OT and PT.
it went well.
can't wait to see her gross motor skills improve!

m o t h e r s * day

friday

started on friday at taylor's preschool where they had a little mother's day tea (but not tea, juice) and cake and then a little presentation!

saturday

was our annual mother's day beach day for me!!! we enjoyed the day with family and friends. the papa's surfed while the mama's and kiddies played. it was cold and cloudy for most of the morning up til about 1 then the sun came out and it was nice.

uncle tony and papa heading out to surf and bear who thinks he's going too

reagan just hung out
the other 2 played by the water and it was c-c-c-cold!!!

sunday
went to our church
then after headed to lolo and lolo's church to join them in their church mother's day luncheon

5 generations of martinez girls
me and MY girls
the girls with lola
typical peyton pose
the martinez family (minus dad-who went to the torrance church to go preach and jp-who lives up north) L-R: peyton, krissa, me, taylor, reagan, lola and lolalola, top: joe and papa
after we took lola (mother-in-law) to dessert
then for dinner took out my mom to dinner at uncle tim's

the tadeja fam (minus christina-who was writing reports for work)
L-R: papa, uncle ches, grandma, grandpa, uncle tony, auntie katie, bear, taylor, peyton, me and reagan who got cut off cause she was in the carrier
mom and her twins (guess we should've included the brother in this pic-hehe)

tuesday

we took out my mom (mother-in-law) to a post mother's day dinner since at coconut bay then went for shaved ice dessert at class 302 taiwainese
left side: lola, reagan, mom, kris, peyton and me
right side: joe, jino, taylor and dad
this one has brian on bottom left and doreen on bottom right...
aw still missing the last brother j.p. though!

i got u!

we've been putting toys within reagan's reach so she can be encouraged to try and touch, bat and play and them....and tonight she did just that. she grabbed it sorta. hehe.

milestones

yesterday reagan has a routine appointment with her GI doctor. She's making progress is 24 1/12 inches long and weighs 12.5 pounds at 6months. she's finally making some good weight progress and is going upwards in the charts.

today i fed her rice cereal for the first time. i don't think she liked it too much. i think she kept wondering where the milk was. oh well. she's gotta try it. she ate some of it then i fed her milk from the bottle and after she drank almost all of it she threw it all up. i guess she's was making a point to me! hah!

therapy

today Reagan had her OT/PT evaluation.
we are very thankful she has this opportunity!
we are excited to see how she's going to progress with therapy!!!
they say she is where she needs to be socially but as for the areas of gross motor she is delayed but therapy should help her out!
thank you Jesus for this next step in our journey!