Prayer Requests & Praises

You might have noticed I changed the side of the blog a little bit. I added the prayer and praise list. If anyone has anything they would like added to that for people to pray or thank God for- please let me know and I will add it. Also I have added some links to online albums and/or other websites you can go to. If you have a website (personal or whatever) you want people to be able to get to from here or online albums, let me know and I can add that also. I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Oh can I say that? Or should I say Happy Holidays cuz we can't say Christmas anymore? Ha just kidding- I will say Merry Christmas to anyone and everyone!!

Kid Update

Aaron is almost 3~I can't believe it! He talks up a storm and I can't believe the conversations he comes up with. They are actually understandable and make sense. He can remember certain conversations he hears and repeat them pretty well. (Which isn't always good, I guess.) He can say his whole name, spell his first name, and recognize it written out. He can say his ABCs and identify all the letters individually. He can count to ten and sometimes to 20. He knows his colors- even some of the different ones like gray and pink. I am teaching him the meaning of some road signs and of traffic lights. He loves to learn. He has a little desk now and likes to draw and color in his books on it. He plays with his brother sometimes but usually if I am watching or near- he is mean to him. If they are upstairs in their room or something, he is a lot nicer. I have no idea what makes the difference but whatever, as long as they are not fighting! I don't know how my mom did it with 4 kids fighting all the time-it's frustrating! Aaron still loves to help Daddy do anything and everything. He is getting better at bedtime now that the boys share a room. At the old house, he always said he was scared but here he hasn't said that at all. They are a lot better than I thought they would be with sharing a room. Sometimes there is a problem of waking each other up but not often. (Usually when Mommy REALLY wants just a little more sleep!) Aaron still loves his cars, trucks, and balls. He loves to line them up all over. He has a lot so it makes a REALLY long line!

Tyler is a year now. In the slideshow you will see some pics of his birthday. We just had a few people over to help celebrate. He wasn't sure what to do with the candle so he just grabbed the flame. The look on his face was so funny! He didn't dig in and get messy like I thought he would. (Now if I had made the cake out of dirt and mud-I'm sure it would be a different story!) He did have a small piece of cake which he enjoyed though. You will see pics of carving pumpkins. Tyler liked his first pumpkin- he thought it tasted great and those seeds? He wanted to eat all of them. Yuck! He still doesn't talk- I think he could if he wanted to but he's content with learning every form of motion in the world other than moving his mouth and tongue! He climbs everywhere and wants to do everything Aaron and Daddy do. He has all but 4 of his teeth and is almost off the bottle completely. He has a sippy cup most of the time. He stopped baby food a while ago because he only wants what we eat not mushy stuff! He loves music and dancing. I took him outside yesterday for the first time in the snow. I will add those pics later. That was fun- he enjoyed trying to sweep the driveway most of the time. That is his favorite toy- if you get out the broom expect him to be there. He prefers the big broom to the little dust broom though!

Thanksgiving 2007

Thanksgiving 07

Usually we have Thanksgiving at Deisy's house, but this year we had everyone to our house- now that we actually have lots of room. We had 18 peoples in our house and we weren't stumbling over each other. It was great! Everyone brought something and we had a lot of fun. Check out the pics- you can see some of our new house in some of the pics. Cody and Stacey and their friend, Megan, came up the day after. We just hung out, played games, and relaxed. We went to play laser tag (Dad too!) and in our first game, Heather got first place. I actually beat Wilmer in one of the games too!! It was a lot of fun.

Stacey's Wedding

I figured out how to put a slideshow of certain albums on here so I decided to give it a try.

October 13, 2007
Stacey and Cody Lepley were married and it was a gorgeous day for them! She looked beautiful and everything went fairly smoothly. Emily, Hannah, and Aaron were all in the wedding. Aaron was the ringbearer and the "pillow" he carried was a wrestling championship belt with the rings attached! It was pretty cute. He did well for the rehearsal but come wedding day, he wasn't in a cooperative mood until the reception so Wilmer had to walk down the aisle with him. (So, technically Wilmer was the ringbearer too!) =) Emily and Hannah did good as the flower girls and instead of the typical rose petals, they threw leaves (fake) in the aisle. Everything was autumn themed so it was different but in a good way.
Emily was really caught up in the "married" thing and she kept asking Aaron if he would "marry with her". Typical little boy, he just wanted to run and play. Then the dancing started at the reception and she pulled him out on the dance floor. They danced until the music stopped. Then she took his hand as walked off the floor with him and told the crowd of people as they walked thru that "We're married now"! It was so cute! A fellow New Yorker there told us to take our boys home away from these backwoods people who marry their cousins!! =)

NEW HOUSE

October 15, 2007
Yes, we moved into our new house. If you go to our online web album the pics are there for Evergreen Dr. We bought this house earlier this year thinking about flipping it, then the economy for selling real estate went horribly bad so we could not sell it as quickly as we hoped. So we decided to sell our old house and move into the bigger one as the other was getting pretty tight for us. A bunch of guys from church came and helped us move since Wilmer's arm was in a sling and I can't move couches and all that by myself. It was great- about 10-12 people came and we were moved within 1-1 1/2 hrs. They were so helpful and thank God for our friends and church family. Our old house has not sold yet though, so please be praying with us on that. We cannot afford 2 mortgages so one needs to go or be rented or something. But we do love our new house, esp the extra room and fireplace!

Miles Mountain Motocross Track

Miles Mountain 10-6-07

Saturday, October 6, 2007
There is a motocross track that one of Wilmer's friends showed him just over the border into PA off Rt15. So we went there so he could ride. The plan was for me and the kids to meet my mom at the track and go home with her so I could help with the prep for Stacey's wedding only a week away. Then Wilmer would come down for the wedding. Mom and Stacey weren't coming until early afternoon so the boys and I watched Daddy and our friend, Mike, ride. I was taking pics and videos of them. They were actually both riding pretty good. I was surprised how well Wilmer was doing because he hasn't ridden in quite a while and he was also on a new bike which was a lot different than his old one. Aaron and Tyler were having fun and it was a gorgeous day, nice and warm, so I didn't have to worry about cold and miserableness! Then Mom and Stacey got there and decided to watch for a little while so I could get some good pics and movies without trying to watch the boys too. The practice ended at 4pm so the last time out was for everyone- good and bad riders- usually it is split between the Expert and Amateur class (class A) and the Novice and Beginner class (class B). Wilmer and Mike said- ok we will go out this last time together and then pack up and go home. Mom, Stacey, and I stayed and watched for a little while then decided to leave for Jersey Shore before they were finished. About 20 minutes after leaving, I got a call from Wilmer. "Can you come back? I had an accident and hurt my shoulder again!" Apparently Wilmer left the ground to do a jump and another rider stupidly stopped and pulled over right where he was going to land. Once you're in the air you can't really control much about moving over from where you planned on landing. So he landed pretty much on the other guy (who walked away with no apparent injuries) and separated his AC joint in his shoulder for the 2nd time on that side. He had separated it about 10 years ago snowboarding. This time was much worse. It really sticks out but now it matches his other shoulder which he separated the AC joint about 7 years ago while racing his bike. So I ended up staying home with him for the week then we went down to PA on Thurs to help as much as we could. The first week he was in quite a bit of pain but after that, he healed up pretty quick and didn't need the sling after the 2nd week. So we thank God that he didn't get hurt any worse than that and that it healed quickly as we were in the middle of moving as well.

Stokoe Farm

Stokoe Farms 2007

September 29, 2007
We went to Stokoe Farm again this year with Allan and Margaret Wells from our church. They have a son, Brandon, who is great friends with Aaron. Tyler wasn't too sure about everything. He would do what we wanted but didn't have much expression about anything. Even going down the big slide with Daddy, he didn't cry but he didn't smile either. I'm not too sure about what he was thinking all day but at least he was pretty good. Aaron had a blast. He and Brandon ran and just wore themselves out (lucky for us later!). There are pics in our online album if you click the pic. They started out in the "cornbox" which I would love to have at home as it is sooo much cleaner than a sandbox. Then they moved to the potato sack slide where they wanted to go over and over and over, much to the dismay of the daddies who were getting tired of climbing the stairs and sliding. =) Next, we had doughnuts and apple cider then played in the tunnels under the haystack. Then we rode on the little train twice and visited the animals-llama, calf, sheep, rabbits, chicks, pig. Then we rode the hayride back to the peddle race cars where once again the daddies (who really got their exercise today) took Aaron and Brandon out on the track. Then the giant tractor wheel that you walk in and the pumpkin shooter (where Aaron hit the big van target)- with jsut a little help from Daddy. Then we went up to the playground, corn maze, and big black tube slides. The slides were the biggest hit of the day and we spent a lot of time there. Allan and Wilmer got the boys to do the slides themselves so they could sit and relax at least a little. During this time Tyler was sleeping so we were trading off holding him because he was heavy!! Aaron was asleep shortly after getting in the truck. It was a great day to just relax and have fun with friends and each other.

Vacation- Beach Fun

NJ Beach 2007

Click on the picture to see more pics of the vacation. You might notice all the rocks we are sitting in- most yards in this area are rocks not grass. Saves on mowing and I don't think the grass grows well. The rocks do look pretty nice and not a lot of upkeep!

We went to New Jersey to the beach again for vacation this year. My parents, David, Melisa, Emily, Hannah, and Heather all went with us. We rented a 15 passenger van so we could all ride together and save some gas. Actually it turns out that it was good because everytime we got lost, or went the wrong way, we would have had a hard time with 2 vehicles trying to follow each other.
So we started out in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, and went to the Jersey Shore! David started out driving and Wilmer took over about halfway. Now, if you have never been in New Jersey- their roads are strange. I mean, they have these goofy turnarounds instead of left hand turning lanes- it is all very confusing and we always miss the turns. So it was about 11pm and we stopped at a gas station for a potty break. (Yes we had a pregnant woman with us who needed to stop! Melisa is pregnant with their 3rd child!) The kids were all sleeping. Wilmer was driving and when we were trying to get back on the road- we found we couldn't get back on the road going in the same direction we were. There was a road right next to the gas station that went to a light where you could turn in the direction we wanted to go. However, there was no way to get on that road from the gas station. The only exit from the gas station was to go the opposite direction for who knows how long before we could turn around. So my creative (crazy) husband decided to make his own exit to the road we needed by taking this huge 15 passenger van over the curb thru the trees onto the road. And yes there were some people around! But at 11 pm after a long drive, that was the funniest thing we had ever done and all of us were laughing so hard. That was our funny story of the trip.
We reached the house we were staying at around midnight. The parents of a friend of ours were letting us stay in their house by the water. It was really nice and fun to be all together in a house instead of a couple rooms in a hotel. So that just started our vacation of craziness and little sleep. Aaron loved the sand and playing and digging but didn't want to go near the water the whole time we were there. Tyler loved everything, esp the waves. He just wanted to go running into them so we had to watch him close. If he wasn't doing that, he was trying to eat all the sand off the beach! I'm glad both boys seemed to have fun though. Of course, Wilmer boogie boarded with David and Heather most of the time. He loves riding the waves and it is so fun to watch him enjoying himself and relaxing. Every day coming back from the beach, (it was about a 20 minute drive back to the house) all 4 kids would fall asleep. It was so nice- we didn't have to fight them to take naps.
The last day we didn't go swimming because we didn't want to be all sandy on the way home. So we decided to go paddleboating. The big boys wanted to go jetskiing but it is way too expensive. Anyway we went in 2 boats and yeah, it didn't work. Between the waves (even in the bay where we were) and the wind, we were useless in controlling our boat much. Paddling did absolutely nothing- well except give me a good workout on my legs. So we just drifted back and over to the shore and got out. they came and towed the boats back up to where we started. Then the kids played on a playground for a while then we decided to leave. We stopped at the Cracker Barrel before we got out of NJ. Wilmer and I hadn't been there before so it was nice to try something new. Then we were about 1 1/2 hrs from my parents and Tyler got really sick and threw up all over. So we had a nice little story about going home. Poor guy was so sick and we still had 3 more hours to get home to NY. We left the next morning for NY so he had a little time to recover but not much. We had a good time but it was nice to come home! My sister, Heather, came home with us for a week so it was nice to have some help while Wilmer was at work and at night, so I caught up on some of my sleep.

Family Update

Kids Pics Aug/Sept 2007

We have had a great summer and now comes the cold weather again!
Aaron is growing up so fast. He talks a mile a minute. I taught him the ABC song on our way to PA one time and since then he has not stopped singing it. So now he knows his ABCs and we are working on recognizing them by sight now. He can count to 20 but has a hard time saying 13 and 15. He pronounces words better and better. He also picks up so many words every day (especially ones you don't want him to!) He went to VBS this year and he also goes to Pioneer Club on Wednesday nights at church. He loves it and even participated in singing a song up front in front of parents. That's something his Daddy won't even do! He did a really good job.
Tyler is almost 10 months now! He was walking before 9 months and now he is running. And so am I, trying to keep up with him. He climbs everything and puts everything in his mouth. He is so active but does not want to talk. He grunts, screams, and giggles but won't utter a speaking sound. He just laughs at me when I say mama or dada. He wants to copy Aaron in everything but that. He does manage to keep up with his brother and Dad pretty good now. He also gets into their wrestling matches and laughs the whole time. He still will not give me good nights of sleep every night but once in a while I get about 6-8 hours of sleep.
Overall they are both doing great and growing well. They are so much fun!

Strong Museum

Strong Museum

July 4th we had great plans to take the kids to some nice parks around here and just spend the day outside together. Then it rained and was crappy ALL day so we needed a new plan. If we stayed home it would be the same old thing as every other day. We decided to try out the Strong National Museum of Play. We have heard all kinds of things so we thought we would go there for an hour or so. We ended up coming home about 5 hours later! There is so much there to see and do for kids of all ages. Even Wilmer and I were looking at some of the display cases they have and saying "Oh I remember that game- I had one- I remember that doll/toy.." That was scary- does that mean we are old?!! There was even a lunchbox there that I still have at home! There were all kinds of hands on exhibits for both Aaron and Tyler to do. There was an indoor train ride. Aaron wasn't sure he wanted to ride on it, so I took Tyler. Of course then he wanted Daddy to take him! There were mazes for Tyler to crawl/walk thru. There were cars for Aaron to drive and play with. There is even a miniature Wegmans with working scanners and registers and receipts!! (Aaron was not impressed by this but Mommy was.) I can't believe how many things there were to do. No wonder people say you can spend all day there. It was fun! If you are ever in Rochester, especially if you have kids, you need to visit this place. It is great! Click on the picture to see more and videos too!

New House

Evergreen Dr

We bought this house the last day of May. We have been trying to get it since February. Wilmer saw it on foreclosure.com the day it came out. When he contacted the bank, they gave us the combo for the lockbox and said to feel free to go in and look around. So we did and we took a lot of other people to look too. It was a beautiful house. We had planned on trying to get the house to flip but when we looked around, we thought maybe we could keep it. It is a 4 bedroom house with 2.5 baths. The master bedroom is huge and has its own bathroom and walk-in closet. There is a formal dining room and formal living room, eat-in kitchen, family room with fireplace, first floor laundry room, HUGE full basement, and a back deck with a pool. Oh, and there is an in-law apartment. The house is gorgeous. If you click on the picture, you can see a lot of pictures before and after. Anyway, we started to negotiate with the bank and couldn't reach an agreement by the end of March so we told them we had to let it go cuz they wanted too much. We kept praying about it and in the beginning of May, the bank called us back to negotiate some more. They finally dropped to what we wanted and so we closed on it May 31, 2007. We began repairs right away and had our first open house to try to sell it on July 1. We have been going back and forth about whether to keep it or sell it. We have the potential to make enough money on it to get ourselves out of debt and breathe a little easier as far as bills. At this point we believe God is leading to try to sell. We are still open to move in but we have both reached the point where if we have to stay in our little house for a while longer, it will be ok. Eventually we will find the right house to move in. Anyway, when this sells, it will be our 2nd flip so that is exciting for us and especially for Wilmer, who is dying to get away from the call center!

Family Update

Tyler- Monthly Photos

Tyler is almost 8 months! I can't believe how time is flying by. He is intent on learning to walk. He will stand for a few minutes alone and he walks with a push walker. He loves being able to be do more with Aaron and Daddy. He has 6 teeth now and loves to use them. He is still not sleeping thru the night consistently. The past 2 nights he has slept until about 5am. So maybe he is finally starting to realize that Mommy needs sleep too! =) He is so mobile but not really interested in vocabulary yet. I try to get him to say mama or dada and he just starts to giggle. Then Aaron joins in the giggling and it's hopeless to get him to say anything! Tyler loves swimming. The temp of the water doesn't matter he just wants to be in the water.

Aaron is getting big too. I can't believe how much he can do and understand now. His vocabulary is just so extensive now and those of you who think he is quiet...yeah I don't think so! He plays with his brother only if no one else is around. When someone else is here he has to show off by beating up on him. For the most part, he's pretty good except for the terrible two thing! =) As for swimming, he's like his daddy, water has to be just right! But he would prefer to swim where he can touch the bottom.

My mom, Heather, and I went to Wisconsin in June to a reunion for our school from Papua New Guinea. (To see pics of the reunion and mumu go to www.zhzellers.blogspot.com my sister's website.) We camped out in a tent for 2 nights. We also travelled the 13 hours during the night so the boys would sleep. It was quite the adventure. And the nights were FREEZING!!! So it was nice to get home so we could actually get some sleep. The boys were pretty good travelling for that long. I was surprised but thankful.

Click on the pic above to go to the web album to see some new pics of Aaron and Tyler.

Wilmer's New Toy

Aaron riding with Daddy on his new toy! Tyler's first time on a bike! They both have gotten rides. I'm afraid Tyler is going to be a daredevil. He loved his ride on the bike and could have continued all day. Aaron prefers to just sit on it and not move. He will ride occasionally but would rather watch Daddy.

Boys Update

May 2007

The boys are getting so big! Click on the picture for more pics from the web album. Aaron loves his brother most of the time like when the camera comes out! He loves to play outside. I am so thankful for the nice weather now so we can get out. Because we only have the truck, if we want to go anywhere, we walk. So now we are able to go places within walking distance anyway. There is a playground close that we can go to. Aaron's friend, Brandon, comes over to play with him and he and his mom go for walks with us also.

Tyler is almost 6 months! I can't believe it already! He sits up now just fine and is able to get on all fours and go forward. I don't know that I would call it crawling but he is up and can go pretty fast., especially when he sees something he really wants (but can't have!). He eats cereal every night and has started baby food also. He has had bananas, carrots, and pears. He is progressing quite fast with everything except the sleeping. He doesn't like having a schedule. Usually he doesn't do anything at the same time as he did the day before, no matter how hard I try. I never know if he is going to take 2 naps, 3 naps or just a few catnaps or just one! And sleep thru the night? No way, can't let anyone in the house have one night of sleep uninterrupted!. He doesn't sleep in our room anymore but that isn't helping any. This kid just doesn't like to sleep. He will wake up at 2am just talking away and then if no one is there to listen (like we can't hear him anyway) he has to cry to make someone come. Then he is fine. It is quite frustrating but I know it will pass someday!

Last of the Remodelling Finished!

Finally all our big projects are done except for the driveway, which we will only do if we have time and money before selling. One weekend we ripped off the old ugly orange carpet on the stairs and upstairs hallway and replaced it. The new carpet is the same as the rest of the house but we have a whole roll we have to use up. Then the following weekend we decided to do the kitchen floor. We thought we would just rip up the old stuff and put down new linoleum in one afternoon. Yeah right! We started to scrape off the old stuff and could only get the top part off. That took until late Friday night.
Saturday, we had other plans so we weren't able to work on it until nighttime. But we now had to get off the glue part of the old linoleum. Wilmer looked online to see if anyone had any helpful info and one guy said he used boiling water. So we boiled water and poured it in puddles on the floor. After letting it soak we scraped up the residue. It worked very well! So by late Saturday night we had it all off. Underneath was probably the original floor of checked tiles but we weren't about to start tearing that off. It was all nice and smooth so it was fine anyway.
Sunday, we went to Henrietta to pick out some linoleum from a floor place so they could give us good advice. We ended up spending a little more than we planned but we got what they call floating floor. It is thicker linoleum that you don't have to tape or glue. You cut it and place it where it goes. So by Sunday night, Wilmer had it all completed! It looks so nice and bright in my kitchen now! To see the pictures of this- go to http://picasaweb.google.com/wilmer.caballero
Then click on Aaron-Tyler-New Remodelling album and go to the end of it.

Kids Update!

Tyler- Monthly Photos

Tyler is 4 months old. I can not believe how time has flown. He has changed a lot so quickly. He is trying to sit up now. He does not like to recline partially- it has to be either all the way up or all the way down! There are no teeth yet but not for lack of trying on his part! He is a drool machine. He is working on turning over consistently. He has turned over from belly to back and back to belly at least once each but it is starting to become easier for him to do over and over. There is a movie of him turning over in the web album entitled 'Aaron-Tyler-New Remodelling'. If you click on the above picture of Tyler, it will take you to the web picture gallery.

Aaron is 2 but we keep forgetting that! He is learning and progressing so fast, it seems like he is much older. He knows all his colors- red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, black, white. He can count in order 1-10. He is working on 11-20. He can identify all the letters either by name or something that they start with. As far as language%2

Good News!

We were able to sell our house in Pennsylvania that Dad and David helped us to fix up. We signed the papers on March 30 and the folks moved in this past weekend. It is actually a lease option which in the long run will pull in more money than if we sold it outright. The sale price was also much higher than we had anticipated so we are very happy about that! Now we are looking for another rehab- possibly one we could move into after we are finished if it is in NY.

Other News

We are putting our plan of getting Wilmer out of his 8-7 job into action. We have taken our first- well actually second step towards that goal. The first step was buying some rental property. We have 3 2-unit houses in the city of Rochester that we own. Then we created a company to do business under to protect ourselves from sue-happy people. The second step was to buy a house cheap and fix it up to resell- this is called a flip for anyone who doesn't know. We bought a house in Jersey Shore, PA under our company name. My dad and brother fixed it up for us during the month of January. Now we hope to get it on the market before the end of February to resell. It looks beautiful. We hope to continute this practice between Rochester and Jersey Shore and eventually have that become Wilmer's fulltime job instead of Paychex which takes away from spending time with his family. Also this year we are beginning to look for a new house for ourselves. Our house is busting at the seams with our growing family and we need someplace bigger. Here's the situation: We have a very small 2 bedroom Cape Cod house for 4 people, 2 cats, and LOTS of toys. Then my family comes up to visit and we crawl around on top of each other for a couple of days until they get tired of it and go home. So we really need more room! Please pray with us as we look at places, that we will choose the right place and the right price at the right time. We will keep you posted!

Fun Times

Aaron & Tyler

Click on the picture to see more updated photos in the album of the boys.
We are all doing well- just the minor colds that are common this time of year. Aaron is adjusting very well to his new little brother. He likes to play with him and show off. He has his moments where he doesn't want him around or wants us to put Tyler down and play only with him. But for the most part he has accepted Tyler as part of his life now. He even takes his blue dirt bike (his most prized possession) and shares it with Tyler. He will take whatever toys he wants Tyler to play with and put them on Tyler's belly. He loves to get in his face and make him smile. Tyler is a very happy baby. He is all smiles now for the most part. We had our first vaccines last Friday and poor guy was out of it for the rest of the day but he bounced back quickly. God has truly blessed us with our 2 beautiful boys. I thank Him every day for my wonderful family.