December 20, 2008
Seasons Greetings to all of our family and friends! After seeing so many of your wonderful letters each year we finally decided to start doing a family Christmas letter as well.
At the beginning of this year we were preparing for the birth of Gabriel. We attended a birth preparation class and were the only ones in attendance that were having our second child, so we were looked to as the “experts!” Yeah right! J On April 4th, we welcomed Gabriel into our family! He has fit right in and is completely taken with his older brother! He watches whatever it is that Ayden is doing with complete focus. It has really been a joy to watch them interact and be able to start playing together in recent months. Gabriel turned 8 months on Dec. 4th and has taken off physically in the last month! He sat up in the his 6th month and then last month right before turning 7 months, he started crawling after a couple of weeks of practicing on all fours! It seemed like only 2 weeks after the crawling began that he started pulling up on objects. He liked to stand from the get go just like Ayden! Now he has been practicing his balance by standing in one place with no hands holding on, over and over. It is his favorite activity, aside from playing peek-a-boo. He will lift just about anything over his face (his bib, blanket, etc.) so that we will play this favorite game!
Ayden has done a lot this year as well! He of course became a big brother, which is a very important job to him. He always tells us how much he loves “baby” as Gabriel is called often times. He already wants him to play with his toys and act like a big boy with him. I even found Ayden trying to sword fight with Gabriel using tinker toys! Ayden is in the 3 ½-4 year old preschool classroom and will move up to the next room in the new year. Ayden has spent a lot of time this year progressing at letters/word sounds. He loves to guess what letter is at the beginning of all kinds of words. Ayden is also particularly interested in geography. He said today when talking about a flashcard of a place in Israel, “It is not in the United States, but it is still on the earth!”
It was about the early spring time that our “still very new” neighborhood started taking off with more families moving in, which means more neighborhood friends for Ayden!! He now spends many evenings and weekends playing outside with his many new friends or in one of their houses. We have had several gatherings in the neighborhood including an early Summer block party, several girls nights, a Halloween BBQ party and most recently we hosted a Christmas gathering! The neighborhood men even have a regular poker game. It is amazing to see how the neighborhood has progressed from the time we moved in August, 2007!
Julio finished up his training at Davita not long after Gabriel was born. He took on his role as regional operations director for our area in the beginning of May. Though he spends a lot of time in the car and on the phone, he loves his job. Working in healthcare seems to keep him motivated. He is doing his best to stay in shape and spends a lot of evenings watching the kids outside and tossing the football with the other neighborhood dads.
I started attending a women’s bible study in February. I found out about it through a friend from Mops (Mother’s of Preschoolers) who invited me to join. We attend a non denominational church called Crosspointe Church and both the women’s bible study group and Mops are affiliated with Crosspointe. I currently serve a couple Sunday’s a month in the 2 year old Sunday school classroom. I’ve also been participating in a fun neighborhood womens group called Amberly Angels who get together socially on a monthly basis. Of course my main job is taking care of the boys and if any free time happens upon me, I spend it scrap booking, blogging or doing my crafty projects!
We wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and many blessings in 2009!
With love,
Cindy, Julio, Ayden and Gabriel Quinones
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Amberly Angels!
Not long after we moved into the apartment here in Cary last year, we got connected with a Yahoo group that sends out information about the developement that we now live in. It is called Amberly. I heard through this yahoo group that a woman in the neighborhood was starting up a womens group called the Amberly Angels. I was so excited because this was exactly what I was hoping to find here in our new neighborhood! It took the group a few months to really get going, but we have had some awesome gatherings in about the last 6-8 months including a monthly bunko game group, making cards for the troops night/karioke, dirty santa in August, a movie night and much more! In November we decided to combine our efforts and sponsor a family in need so that we could provide a full Thanksgiving dinner (and then some) for this single mom and her two kids. Here is a trunk full of the grocieries that we put together that were delivered to the family so that they could cook a free meal on Thanksgiving and have plenty of leftovers the next week! It was great to give as a group! This neighborhood has really been a blessing!
November Highlights
Good thing there wasn't a car out in the road! Papi snapped this mid air!
Just some shots from November while Granny and Papi were with us. It was a fun month!Granny & Papi Visit in November!
Thanks Granny and Papi for coming out to stay with us from mid November through Thanksgiving! We had a great time with you and as always appreciate your willingness to help us with everything! You are the best house guests ever!The "Head Tilting" Gesture Among Brothers!
This is an old photo of Ayden when he was almost 8 months old, I believe. He did this cute little head tilting gesture when he wanted to be playful. We loved it and would tilt our head back in response. :) Well...look who else knew just when and how to do the same little gesture:
Gabriel! He started doing it right at 7 months and in the same cute little playful way! It was a passing habit because not long after turning 8 months, he stopped doing it, even when encouraged. From what I remember, Ayden didn't do this cute little gesture for very long either. Do genetics really work this way??? Did their genetic wiring somehow make each of them do the same little behavior at the same age in the same way? I really wonder with this one or is it one of those little cute things that all little babies do? Hmmmmm.....Ayden Loves Robots!
Ayden is into robots lately! His new favorite movie: "Robots" of course! He also loves "Ice Age." He has been getting so creative lately with all things crafty that he made himself (with Papi's help) a robot costume out of paper! He really is a very imaginative child. :)
November Play time!
In November at about 7 months for Gabriel, the two boys were able to start playing together nicely because Gabriel could get up to a stand and play at the train table. A mother looks forward to this moment after having a second child! It was fun to watch!
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Gabriel is Crawling!
On November 2nd, Gabriel started crawling. Of course a lit up baby monitor was motivation! :) It was really exciting because Ayden never really crawled until he nearly walked. So, we now have a crawler on our hands!
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