Carnavale Family

Pirate Ana Elisa

2011-08-25T15:33:00.000-07:00

They took this picture of Ana Elisa at her friend, Logan's, birthday party. She was running around with her friends at the party when they called her over to take the picture. She was so busy having fun that she just poked her head into the hole and then took off running again. When I showed her this picture, she gave me a confused look and said "But I didn't wear that to the party, mommy!"

She had so much fun at the pool searching for treasure, eating fruit off of plastic swords (toothpick kind of things), and catching golden coins that they threw into the pool. It's so fun to watch her with her friends. She always has so much fun! Thanks, Michelle, for the great party!

Happy Birthday Bryan!

2011-06-16T09:03:00.001-07:00

I can't believe it's been a year! He is the most wonderful little boy ever! We are so blessed to have him in our family.

What makes him so wonderful?

--He is so sweet and loving, always loves to give hugs and kisses
--He loves to sing, if you make sounds, he'll copy you and sing along
--He looks so cute walking! He started walking at 9 months and I still get a kick out of watching him walk :)
--He has the most beautiful eyes!
--The cutest smile ever
--He plays so good with Ana Elisa and is such a good sport
--He loves to clap and gets so excited about things that he starts to dance
--He is a great eater
--He's just a little guy (very little), but he has sure thinks he's a big kid :)
--He loves going up the stairs but don't try to make him go down on his tummy, he'll panic. He would rather try to go face first!
--He wakes up earlier than Ana Elisa, so when she wakes up he gets so excited he starts to dance
--He loves to get into everything and climb everything
--He is great with the broom. He loves to sweep.
--He loves to play with Ana Elisa's strawberry shortcake remote control car and his rattle controlled car. He'll spend hours with them.
--One day he spent a good half hour entertained by a short blue ribbon.
--He loves to be pushed around in the toy car in the back yard. He'll run out there, sit down, and wait for someone to go push him.
--He loves to color. Yes! He actually gets pens, crayons, chalk, etc. and colors!
--He doesn't like to sit down in the bath tub--except when you ask him if he's all done!
--When he hears Emerson's voice or when Emerson comes home from work, he gets so excited and starts yelling "DA! DA! DA!" He does this when the phone rings, too. He always figures the person on the other end is his DA.
--He loves his family...including his Grandma, Grandpa, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins. He may be afraid of everyone else, but he knows who his family is, even though we only see them once every several months.
--I've never seen a kid with such natural soccer talent. He's been kicking that ball around since who knows when. He knows it's supposed to be kicked, and he loves it!
--If he can get a hold of a wipe, napkin, paper towel, or toilet paper, he'll get down and start wiping things down and cleaning.
--I could go on forever! He's just plain cute!

Thank you, little guy, for bringing so much love and joy into our lives!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Happy Birthday to ME!

2011-05-27T08:09:00.000-07:00

Last night we went with our good friends (Amy, Greg, Sara, and Jason) to celebrate Amy's and my birthday. We had a so much fun--it was great to have a little date night out. I think we'll be making this a new tradition for all of our birthdays!

Emerson has school today, so the kids and I will be celebrating all day as we drive around getting all of my free birthday meals around town! Yes, I'm a sucker for free stuff!!

We are also going to go to Chick-Fil-A for ice cream--Ana Elisa is so excited!! Last night we got home around 11 pm and Ana Elisa was still awake. She whispered to me that when the sun comes up it will be my birthday and we get to go to Chick-Fil-A!

What a great birthday! I got to go out with the love of my life and my dear friends, and now I get to spend the whole day with my beautiful babies :)

We Finally Uploaded our Pictures!

2011-04-25T07:59:00.000-07:00

December Fun

2011-01-19T19:44:00.001-08:00

Our Mini Einstein

2011-01-03T18:30:00.001-08:00

The Good Ol' Days...

2010-12-06T14:43:00.001-08:00

I got these pictures off of Lizsett's facebook page, I love old pictures :)

Brings back memories...

Not hard to see what decade we grew up in!

Love my hair-do!! hahaha I really hope that's a shadow!

Busy Fall Season

2010-11-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

We have had a really busy fall season. Here is a summary of what we've been doing...

Ana Elisa and Bryan have become best friends :)

Our happy little ones!

Ana Elisa started preschool (we are doing a co-op type school where we take turns teaching each week). She is absolutely loving it!

Brittney and Ana Elisa love spending time together...

I took the kids to Chick-fil-A for their birthday party celebration...it was so much fun!

We celebrated our 7th Anniversary! I love you, Eme!!

We celebrated Ana Elisa's 3rd Birthday! She had so much fun that even now she keeps telling me that she wants to go back to her birthday party :)

I had to spend a week in the hospital so Bryan had to learn to take a bottle. Ana Elisa was so good at helping take care of him!

Bryan is growing and loving all his new toys...

Bryan has started eating cereal, Ana Elisa and Brittney love to help feed him.

Ana Elisa's Halloween Bunny costume...

Mom and Dad came to visit. This picture captured the first time that Dad met Bryan.

We went to Mother Nature's Farm as a school field trip. It was so much fun. Mom got to go with us and she really enjoyed it, too.

Halloween (Sat. Oct 30th) Ana Elisa was a cow butterfly and a bunny butterfly...silly girl!

Community Halloween party...

Church Halloween party. Eme had school, so we missed him there. There were so many fun things to do...

Once it got a little cooler, my little cow butterfly made her transformation into a bunny butterfly and Bryan went from a Brazilian soccer player to a Corinthians fan.

July and August

2010-09-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

I hope you all had a relaxing and safe Labor day weekend! I promised Sherrie that I'd update the blog with some pictures, so here they are!

Brittney (isn't she beautifu?!) is the newest addition to our happy family :) She started school at Higley High early in August and is really enjoying herself there. We are so happy to have her with us, she is such a sweetheart! I always said I wanted to have 3 kids--what a dream come true!

Bryan is growing so much and is so alert. He is such a good baby!

I got Ana Elisa all hyped up for this Dora's Birthday party thing that they were doing at Walmart. She had the little invitation we got in the mail and she carried it around for two weeks. She woke up early that day and couldn't stop talking about it. When we got there, to our disappointment, all they did was hand out cupcakes. Oh well, Ana Elisa enjoyed the frosting off the cupcake at least! When we got out to the car she said, mommy, I liked the cupcake, but where is the party??

This picture wouldn't rotate :( Brittney babysat Ana Elisa while we went to a dinner for the bishopric. Ana Elisa had a blast playing with Brittney.

My baby boy is always so happy :)

Another picture taken at Dora's Birthday party...

Ana Elisa has been yearing for some extra attention, so Emerson took her out on a daddy daugher date. He took her to the acquarium at Arizona Mills mall. She had a great time looking at all the "fishies"

Mom, Lizsett, and her family came to visit us at the end of July and stayed for a couple of weeks. We had so much fun with them.

The next picture is from when we went to Organ Stop Pizza to celebrate Brittney and Breanna's birthdays.

While we had the family in town, we blessed Bryan. Here are some pictures we took after the blessing.

I am so grateful that Heavenly Father allowed my mom to be with us and that she was able to be there at Bryan's blessing. It made it all the more special.

So, as you can see, we had a great month and were blessed with a lot of family time.

Althought he had a full week of orientation in early August, Emerson officially started Grad school on Friday. So we begin a new phase in our lives. Although it will be a busy time, we are really excited for what the future holds.

Family Pictures

2010-08-28T20:17:00.000-07:00

We rarely go get our pictures taken. In fact, I think we've only done it twice since we've been married. Here is one of the family pictures we took when Ana Elisa was 3 months old (we have a similar one on our wal here at home, but I like this one because it shows Ana Elisa's personality):

Ana Elisa in her blessing dress:

Cousin's picture (we took a picture of our whole family, but unfortunately it didn't turn out):

I decided the other day that those pictures are kind of outdated, so we went to Walmart's studio and took family pictures today. They turned out okay, not great.

First of all, I completely spaced the fact that we needed to think about what we were going to wear for the pictures. So, last night when Brittney asked me what I was planning on having everyone wear I said, "Oh, yeah, you don't just walk in there with whatever you're wearing that day, do you?!" Luckily I figured out a quick fix by deciding everyone was going to wear light blue, and since all of us had something light blue, I only had to rush out and buy Ana Elisa's shirt.

Ana Elisa isn't used to going to a studio to get her pictures taken, so she got bored pretty quickly and insisted she was ready to go home (after goofing off and making funny faces at the camera for the first 15 minutes or so). Bryan wasn't very happy, he cried a lot (something he doesn't do very often). I think his stomach hurt. So, we tried to push the lady along to get done quickly. Some of the pictures turned out okay. On one of them my eyes were all wacked up and looked kind of creepy AND the lady took the picture wrong so there's black on our white background--too bad because that was the one Ana Elisa turned out great in.

When it was all said and done, Emerson said that from now on we'll just stick to taking pictures with our own camera :). I think the whole ordeal kind of stressed him out. Poor guy!

Anyway, the pictures are available online to view at www.myonlineportraits.com. Session number is 102434 and Password is BKVVM.

More Pictures

2010-08-02T20:58:00.000-07:00

Here are some more pictures, they are out of order, but it should be pretty easy to see what comes first (like my shower when I was still pregnant :))

Happy 4th of July!

2010-07-02T18:55:00.000-07:00

Love,

Ana Elisa and Bryan

Bryan Michael Carnavale

2010-06-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

We are so happy to welcome our little angel, Bryan, into our home. He was born June 16th and weighed 7 lbs 10 oz. He was born just 7 minutes after they wheeled me into the delivery room (12 min. after we arrived to the hospital). Thank heavens we made it to the hospital in time! Luckily, everything worked out and I lived through one of my biggest fears--delivering a baby with no epidural or pain medication.

Ana Elisa is a proud sister and is very good with her little brother. We are so blessed to have two such wonderful children.

It's Time for Africa...

2010-06-11T16:41:00.000-07:00

I still need to download our pictures from the last several months, so when I do, I'll put a family update on--maybe by then we'll have had Bryan and we can post some pictures of our new little

angel.

In the meantime, here is a tribute to Emerson's team. With the World Cup here, he is all smiles! 30 days of pure heaven has started for most of the world, including Emerson :) He can't wait for Byran to be born so that he can say he saw the 2010 World Cup. Ana Elisa already knows how special it is to daddy and she loves it!

REHAB

2010-03-05T19:29:00.001-08:00

Today was mom's first full day of rehab. I spent the whole day at the hospital and watched the whole thing. Let me tell you, this intense rehab is not for the faint of heart. And it can be difficult to watch at times as her mind and body are pushed to their limits. By watching the physical and occupational therapists, speech therapists, psychologists, respiratory therapists, etc. work with mom, you see how much the aneurysm and strokes really affected both her mind and body.

My dad sent this e-mail out to some of the family yesterday, so I thougth I'd just copy and paste it for a quick update to everyone else:

Today has been a remarkable day. We appreciate the faith and prayers of all those who have been helping us and praying for us. Today Martha was able to successfully pass her rehab review and to be accepted into IMC's Acute Rehab program. She is now in room 1218 in the Sorenson Patient Tower. and can see visitors after her "work day ends about 4-4:30 PM. We will need to see how exhausted she is and gage how many visitors she can handle up to about 8PM. It has now been 25 days since she suffered her Aneurysm and the stroke that followed that up when they coiled the artery in order to save her life. We have spent 18 days in ICU and 7 days in rehab preparation and I cannot say enough praise about the staff from top to bottom at the IMC hospital.

Rehab here is very intense for the patients and they will be pushed continually beyond their limits so that they can advance and relearn skills in order to be able to go home in 3 - 6 weeks. Tomorrow ( Friday ), is Martha's 1st day on her new rehab schedule, so I am going to spend the day helping her adjust to the new schedule. When we get closer to moving her home, the training and rehab will be as much for us as it is for her in order to train us how to help her adjust to her new limitations, whatever they turn out to be.

Today in her first Physical rehab session they finally figured out that the blindness she has encompasses is about 60% or if you were to look at the opposite wall side to side and call that a 180 degree view she is seeing only about 75% of the 180 degrees, all of it to the right. So the first thing the Physical Therapist needs to do is to help her align back to center. She leans to the right and stares to the right because in her mind that is straight up at this point.

In about a week after they have a better idea of some of the long term challenges she will face they will have an Occupational Therapist come to the home with some recommendations on what we need to do to make the home suitable for her usage. At that point we might ask for some assistance from some of you to do what we need to do on the home.

Anyway, from where we were on Wednesday morning, 1 hour short of discharge and being sent to a convalescent center, and now back on schedule with what is probably the best rehab center in the Mountain West is a real blessing. We all petitioned the Lord, to bless us with this opportunity, while at the same time promising the Lord we would be happy with whatever was best for her.

This experience has strengthened my testimony of the Love and Personal interest of a kind and loving Heavenly Father who does hear and answer prayers. Again we know there will be challenges, but so far Martha is in remarkably good spirits and is being a real trooper in facing and accepting the situation for what it is.

Mom is out of ICU!

2010-02-25T20:02:00.000-08:00

Today they finally moved mom out of the ICU. She will be on the rehab floor now. She still can't move any limbs other than her right arm, and she still can't talk (part of that is because she has the trachial tube in her throat). She is still very tired and very weak, and seems to be in another world a lot of the time, but she looks so much better.

We've seen a lot of miracles and hope to see many more in the coming days and weeks. Yesterday they sat her up for 2 hours, it wore her out for the rest of the day, but it sure was a big leap forward.

Update on Mom

2010-02-16T18:59:00.000-08:00

Mom made a lot of progress over the weekend. She began to respond to us by nodding or shaking her head lightly, she would lift a finger when asked to do so, etc. It was so exciting, and our hopes for her recovery soared.

Yesterday we hit a bump in the road when they decided to take out her breathing tube. They didn't know, but her vocal cords and throat were so swollen that when they took the tube out, the swelling blocked her airways and she began to struggle for air. It was a painful, tramatic experience as she struggled for breath for ten minutes while they tried to re-insert the tube. She had a lot of complications after that which left us really worried.

Today, despite her 104 degree fever, she did remarkably well. She began responding again and even kicked her right leg several times during her physical therapy session. It goes to show what a fighter mom is.

The worry right now is that the threat of vasal spasms (sp?) is high (vasal spasms are when the veins in your brain constrict, not allowing blood to flow through them, causing more strokes). This morning they found some brain wave activity that indicates that there she is in high threat and so not only are they monitering her closely, they are also keeping her blood pressure really high (today they had her diastolic pressure between 160 and 180). This causes the veins to have to open up because of the increased flow of blood running through them. It's scary to have that high blood pressure, but even scarier to think of the effects more strokes would cause her.

Tonight the doctor told my dad that they are afraid to take the ventilator tube out again for fear of her not being able to breathe again, so they have decided to insert a temporary trachial tube tomorrow. They feel that the only way her throat and vocal cords will heal are if they remove the tube. We are praying that this procedure will go smoothly and will help mom continue on her road to recovery.

My mom is still battling for her life, so we still need all the prayers we can get in her behalf. Thank you to all of you who have put her name in the temple and have kept her in your prayers. I truely believe they have helped sustain her through these difficult days.

Mom, we love you!!

2010-02-11T19:00:00.000-08:00

My mom (Martha) has been in the hospital since all week. She suffered a massive aneurysm (the nurse explained that it was a type of stroke) on Monday morning. She is in the Neuro-Critical Care Center at the IMC and will be there for quite some time. We don't know how extensive the brain damage is yet since she was just taken off of sedation yesterday and it will take some time to be able to gage her cognitive state, etc.

We had a good day today as the doctor asked me to talk to her to see if she recognized my voice. When I started talking to her, she opened her eyes. I thought my heart would burst with joy as it was the first time we'd had any type of reaction from her all week. I explained to her that she is in the hospital and that we are all there for her and that we love her. She then closed her eyes and a tear ran down her cheek. I thank our Heavely Father for that small moment we shared together today. It was a bright spot to a very tough week. The doctors did remind us, however, that she is very, very sick and that we will have good days followed by bad days. They said she is still in the danger zone and each day they are in a fight to save her life.

I am here in SLC to be with my mom while Emerson and Ana Elisa are still back in AZ. I want to thank all of those wonderful people who have and are sending so much love and support during this extremely difficult time. The Lord has truely blessed us with angels for friends. We could not get through this without you all. Thank you with all of my heart.

Thank you also for your prayers for my mom. They are felt and very appreciated.

Catching Up

2010-01-30T14:35:00.000-08:00

Here are a bunch of pictures from the last 4 months...

October 2009

November 2009

December 2009

January 2010

IT'S A BOY!

2010-01-26T18:09:00.000-08:00

We found out today that we are having a boy!! We're so excited. Unfortunatly, they just gave us printouts of the ultrasound and we can only scan onto PDF files, so I can't post any pictures of our little boy, but we did get some really cute ones.

Hopefully soon I'll upload our pictures off of our camera and then I can update on what has been going on the last several months.

Christmas Season

2009-12-08T13:09:00.000-08:00

Ana Elisa loves everything about the Christmas season--the lights, the music, Christmas trees, all the decorations, candy canes (especially the ones on our tree!), and getting a piece of chocolate every day from her Santa Clause advent calendar.

Christmas this year is so fun because we get to see it through the eyes of a 2 year old!! And to add to the fun, we have the gift of a new baby coming to join our family in June!! This little one is my excuse for slacking off on the blog. Hopefully this morning sickness will be over soon, since I am 12 weeks along now...

I'll try to post some pictures of some of the things I've missed sometime soon.

Our Trip to Brasil

2009-10-14T11:40:00.000-07:00

In September, we went to Brasil to visit our family. We got to spend a lot of time with them and loved every minute of it.

We spent some time at the beach the first week we were there. Cida's (Emerson's mom) boss let us use her beach house which was in a beautiful, quiet area where there are hardly any tourists. There weren't a lot of people there, so it was really peaceful and quiet.

There's a mall near Cida's house where they had a play area, Ana Elisa had a blast there.

Ana Elisa loved playing at her Vo's (grandma's) house.

We had a barbecue at Emerson's uncle Marcos house. It was so fun to see everyone.

Four Generations!

We got to go see Emerson's dad, it was a fun afternoon.

Cida put a birthday party together for Ana Elisa. It was so fun, they went all out for it. It was a Shrek theme. Cida bought her a princess dress and made Emerson and I a Shrek and Fiona costumes for it.

We had a cake to celebrate Marco's birthday, he was a great sport and dressed up in Emerson's Shrek costume.

We're so glad to have been able to go. We miss everyone so much and hope to see them again really soon.

October 3--Happy 2nd Birthday Little Princess!

2009-10-04T12:20:00.000-07:00

WE LOVE YOU!!!

Breanna and Brooklyn's Visit

2009-09-05T08:02:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures of when Breanna and Brooklyn came to visit last month. The pictures aren't in order, they are actually backwards chronologically. We had a blast!

Here we are at Mesquite Groves pool. This was their last day here, so we decided to spend the morning playing in the water before their afternoon flight.

On Saturday, we took them to the Science Museum in downtown Phoenix. This was at their Lego exhibit. Ana Elisa liked this dragon because it reminds her of the dragon on Shrek.

This was also at the Science Museum.

That same Saturday morning, our ward had a back to school breakfast. They made paper apples with a pencil and a gummy worm in them.

They were so fun to have around. Ana Elisa wouldn't leave their side. I can't wait to have them come visit again. Next time I hope they can stay longer. We miss having them here.

August 14 2009--CITIZENSHIP DAY

2009-08-22T16:40:00.000-07:00

Emerson was sworn in as a US Citizen last friday (August 14). I can't believe it's finally all done! It was an exciting day, the only sad thing was that Ana Elisa didn't get to be there because they told us to plan on three hours and we didn't feel she would enjoy herself very much.

We went to the courthouse in downtown Phoenix for the Oath Ceremony. They showed a video and then had them raise their right hand and swear in as US Citizens. After that they showed a video of President Obama welcoming them and then they did the Pledge of Allegience.

Before the ceremony started they had asked for some people to share their experiences about what brougth them to the United States and the opportunities they've had while here. I asked Emerson to get up and share his story, so after the Pledge of Allegience, they called him and two other people up. Emerson did such a wonderful job, it was very emotional and we both got teary eyed. He talked about how he grew up in the projects of Sao Paulo and how his mom worked so hard to provide for them. She worked and went to school so he and his sister stayed with his grandma for several years and only saw their mom on the weekends. He talked about how he dreamed of getting an education and finding a way to provide a better life for his future family. Then he talked about the opportunities he's had here in the States to go to school, find a good job, and provide a home and stability for his family. He talked about his gratitude for those opportunities and his love for this country.

At the end of the ceremony they had everyone stand up and sing "I'm Proud to be An American" while the newly sworn in citizens waved their little American flags. This was definitely a day to remember. I'm so glad that Emerson agreed to speak, it made the day so much more memorable and special. We are so blessed, I thank the Lord every day.

Summer Vacation--MONTANA

2009-08-13T20:00:00.001-07:00

Every other year my grandpa's family has a big family reunion up in Hamilton and Corvallis, Montana. We started going up in 1984 and didn't miss one until 1995. We've tried to go up as much as possible since then, and have done pretty good. Emerson's even been up a few times. The reunions used to be several days long, but now they last only one day. Our whole purpose in going to Utah was so that we could make a family trip up to Montana all together. My dad seems to feel like this may have been the last reunion there since my grandpa and most of his siblings have passed away (there were 12 of them and now there are only 3 left).

I'm so glad we went. It was great to get all of us together on a family vacation (my parents, Lizsett and her family, Sherrie and her family, and us). We drove up half way on Wednesday and stayed in Idaho Falls where we went swimming and just enjoyed being together.

When we got to Montana, we went to visit our great aunt Marge and great uncle Bob. They live on Arley Lane, a private road where they and a few other great aunts and uncles built their homes and farms. This is where we spent most of our reunions when I was a kid. Being there brought back so many memories. Like, when Uncle Arley tied a barrel to two trees and let us kids spend hours riding the "bull", and the time when we got one of our distant cousings to take us out into Uncle Arley's barn where we played in the hay until someone told us there were mice in there, so we ran out into the pasture where the bulls were grazing (we were obviousley not raised on a farm!)

We took this picture in front of Aunt Marge and Uncle Bob's house.

For several years, we stayed in the basement of Aunt Larue's and Uncle Arley's house every time we went up for a reunion. Aunt Larue passed away about a year and a half ago, so it was sad to go up and not see her there. She seemed to be such a part of the whole reunion experience for us. These next three pictures are of Aunt Larue's house--front and back yard as well as the old barn and cow pasture (the barn and pasture used to be really well taken care of, but once Uncle Arley died, more than 20 years ago, there wasn't anyone who really looked after it. So this definitely isn't how it looked when I was a kid).

The reunion was held in the back yard of the church there in Corvallis. They had a bunch of water games for the kids, baseball and golf competitions for the adults, a raffle, country store for the kids, and a really nice dinner.
I've always loved Montana and how green and beautiful it is, but for some reason, I felt like I really took it in this time (maybe it's the contrast between living in the desert now and then going there and being surrounded by so much green and such beautiful mountains. It was so relaxing!

This picture was taken behind our hotel there in Hamilton.

I'm so glad we made the trip up to Montana this year. I'm glad my dad was so adement about going, even when the rest of us started re-thinking it. It was so much fun, so relaxing, and so good to spend time with family--immediate as well as extended. I was grateful that we were able to take Ana Elisa to a place where I have such fond childhood memories.

I hope we were able to make some fond memories for Ana Elisa and her cousins.

Thank you again, Dad for knowing that we all needed to make this trip, and for making it happen.

Summer Vacation--UTAH

2009-08-12T14:47:00.001-07:00

We've been doing a lot of fun things this summer. We went up to Utah and then to Montana for a family reunion and then back to Utah. Then, Breanna and Brooklyn (our nieces) came to visit for several days. We've been having so much fun and taking so many pictures that I don't even know where to start :). What I'll do is separate my postings according to where we were.

This one will be Utah (before and after Montana), then I'll do a seperate post for Montana and then another for our fun visit with Breanna and Brooklyn.

(This might take me a few days...)

UTAH

We celebrated Breanna's 12th birthday while we were in Utah. They had her party at Classic Skating. There was, of course, the skating, but they also had a water park, video games, jungle gym, and lazer tag. It was a lot of fun. Here are some pictures we took at the party.

While in Utah we always try to make it a point to visit our close friends. Here's a picture of Ana Elisa with Ace, one of our very close friends' little boy.

My dad really wanted to see Ana Elisa play out in my grandma's backyard before the house is sold. We went over and spent a nice evening running around her yard and garden while my dad picked apricots from her tree. I never realized how nice it is to have such a big backyard when you have kids--Ana Elisa was in heaven running free all over the place. (What you see in this picture is only about 1/8 of her back yard--if not less)

We went over to the park and then to see Ryan play baseball one evening, Dad bought the kids a popsicle from the ice cream truck. Ana Elisa had to have a Spiderman one, just like Josh and Matthew. By the time they were done with them, they all had Joker looking mouths from the red part of the popsicle. They looked so cute.

Emerson had to come home for work, so he left Sunday and we stayed until Thursday. On our last day in Utah, we went up to "This Is The Place". They've really done a good job on that place. Last time I went it was just a monument, now it's an entire little village of fun things to see and do from the pioneer times.

I even got to ride the little kids train with Josh, Matthew, and Ana Elisa. I love that I got to ride with them, it's the benefits you get from having a child that might jump out of the moving train! :)

This is definitely a place I'd like to take Emerson to see when we go back for another visit to Utah.

2009-07-15T17:53:00.000-07:00

Here are some random pictures we've taken in the last several weeks.

Ana Elisa loves to say bye to everyone and everything. For example, she says bye to bugs and dirty diapers ("Bye Ewww"--they both have the same name:)), she says bye to water ("Bye Agua"), to food ("Bye Num num"), to her Shrek movies ("Bye Shek"), to her Barney PJ's ("Bye Babee"), etc. When she doesn't know what the thing she is saying bye to's name, she either babbles her own name for it, or she just says bye. Here she is saying bye to a flower that she's about to put in a vase.

We love to cook together. Today she helped me take the husks off of our corn on the cob, and washed the potatos. Here we are making pizza. Ana Elisa made sure to eat plenty of sauce and pinapple while she helped make them. I love that she enjoys cooking, I hope she will continue to enjoy it, I sure do.

There's nothing better than spending time with our little princess.

Brings Back Memories

2009-07-04T21:19:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's the Fourth of July again. I feel like it just passed. I was thinking today about what we were doing last year, and it just doesn't seem that long ago until I look at the pictures of Ana Elisa from last June/July. It brings back memories... and since we didn't have a blog back then, I'll share a few of them.

Ahhh, the days when Ana Elisa liked to watch tv just like the little dalmation puppies :)

This was taken around the first part of June 2008.

This picture was taken at the Olive Garden toward the end of June last year. Ana Elisa was 8 months old. Notice the scab on her face? (I know, it's hard to miss) That is from trying to run,--yes, she started walking at 8 months!--with my cell phone in hand and tripping and falling face first right onto the rough end where the charger connects. (Ouch!)

Toward the end of June, we had to make an unexpected trip to Salt Lake to attend my Grandma's funeral. Here are some pictures we took while we were there.

Family Picture at Grandma's house

Matthew sleeps...

While Ana Elisa and Josh play.

Fourth of July throwing the pop/snap rocks things (what are they called??)

After looking at these pictures, it's hard to believe our little one turned 21 months yesterday.

It's also hard to believe that it was 6 years ago today that Emerson flew back to SLC from Brazil to marry me :) What a better day to celebrate with fireworks?! I wish I had digital pictures of that day, it was the best 4th of July ever!

Celebrating our Fathers

2009-06-22T12:52:00.000-07:00

I meant to post this yesterday...

We want to send our love out to the wonderful Fathers in our family.

To Dad (Aka Buffalo Hump),

Who is always there for us,

Who has a heart of gold,

Who has taught us the meaning of hard work,

selflessness, love, service, and sacrifice.

Who loves to make us laugh.

To Pai (Emerson's Dad)
Who taught Emerson to play soccer with a
ball made out of old socks,
Who taught him to drive, and
Who would take Emerson to work with him
so that they could spend time together.
(sorry, we don't have any digital pictures of him)

To Wayne,

Who loves to share his passion

for fishing, sports, and movies with

his three beautiful girls.

Who has such a great sense of humor,

Who loves to tease and is just as

fun to tease back.

To Ryan,
Who loves to get down on the
floor and play with his boys,
Who teaches by example,
Who has worked so hard and sacrificed
so much to get an education to give
his family a good life.

And now I want to thank Emerson, the love of my life.

He is such a great father, I can't describe how happy it makes me to see how much he loves and cherishes our little girl. She is his world. It's such a blessing to see how his eyes light up when he looks at her. And just as wonderful is the way Ana Elisa's eyes light up when she looks at her daddy. He brings joy into both of our lives.

Happy Father's Day!!

Fun Girls

2009-06-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

Brittney came to visit for a week and we had a great time having her here. She went to Girl's Camp while she was here, so we only got to spend about 5 days total with her, but we loved every minute of it.

Ana Elisa was so excited to have her here. The day she arrived, Ana Elisa already had her name down. She would follow Brittney everywhere and would call out her name if she couldn't find her. The first night, she even went to sleep hugging Brittney's lotion bottle. She cried when Brittney left for Girl's Camp and was overjoyed when she came back. Our poor little girl has had to say goodbye too many times in her short little life. I'm sure she's starting to wonder why everyone she gets attached to and everyone who comes to stay and spoil her never stays very long.

Anyway, here is the only picture we took while Britt was here. We took it on our way to drop her off at the airport. I need to be better about taking pictures, we could have had so many fun ones.

Today I took Ana Elisa to the pool. We were there for a few hours so she was really tired when we got home. I gave her a bath and wrapped her in her hoodie towel. She insisted that I keep it on her and she HAD to have the hoodie on her head. She ate her lunch with it on, she looked so cute I had to take pictures. I love that when she saw me pull out the camera she gave me a huge grin.

After lunch she went and layed down on her little sofa and fell asleep with the hoodie on.

She's so much fun, I love spending time with her.

Time to Catch Up!

2009-06-04T21:10:00.001-07:00

I don't know where the time went! It looks like I've got some catching up to do here. I'll start where I left off...

Here are a few pictures we took while my mom and dad were visiting.

Mother's Day Dinner

We stopped at the mall to kill some time before mom and dad's flight and spent a lot of time showing Ana Elisa all the animals at the Rainforest Cafe. She loved it!

Ana Elisa loves to help me take the dishes out of the dishwasher. She used to hand me the silverware and let me put it away, but now she wants to do it herself. One day, I took a picture of her finished masterpiece.

For Memorial Day, we went with a group of friends to the Goldfield Ghost Town.

Ana Elisa couldn't get enough of the big bird cage. She spent a lot of time playing in it after she came out of the little riperian museum--which the other mom's and I happily let the dads take the kids into without us! (I'm not a fan of reptiles and bugs, but apparently Ana Elisa loved it)

May 27- Happy Birthday to me! I had a great birthday. I took Ana Elisa to the Harkin's Theater. It was her first time going to the movie theater. We watched Space Chimps, which she seemed to like. She sat through most of the movie before deciding it was time to make a run for it! I love her eyes in this picture, she's so funny.

After the movie we went to the splash pad so that she could play with her friends for a while. Here she is wearing one of her friend's cap.

For dinner, we celebrated my birthday by going to Joe's Farm Grill. It was great! The food was good, a great environment for Ana Elisa to roam...and my food was free! :) I had such a wonderful Birthday!

Mother's Day Surprise!

2009-05-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

Emerson has been working a lot lately, so I was really excited when he told me on Thursday that he was going to try to leave work early. He got home at about 3:30, just about the same time as my dad called me to ask me if I'd gotten the Mother's Day present they'd sent me. I said I hadn't and he said that he'd sent it UPS and that he had confirmation that it had been delivered. I asked Emerson if he had seen anything on our front porch when he drove in and he said that he had seen something out there. So, while I was still on the phone with dad, I went to check the door. When I opened it, to my surprise, there stood my mom and dad! I couldn't believe my eyes! What a Surprise!! My mom had just been told that morning about our mother's day surprise and had been given a few hours to pack and no method of communication (so that she wouldn't slip the surprise to me :)). Dad has been planning this since February and, apparently, Emerson, Lizsett, and Sherrie have all been in on it. It's been so much fun having them here. Ana Elisa is in heaven and has been laughing and playing with them from the minute she saw them.

Here are some pictures we took together when we got home from church today.

Emerson is making us a Mother's Day feast. He is making Brazilian food--rotisserie sirloin steak, rice, beans, grilled veggies, salad...need I say more?!) I have the best husband in the world!

The weekend has been fun. We bought Ana Elisa a little pool and a sprinkler to play in outside, and we've been out there playing with her, and watching her play when we wear out (she seems to be able to outplay the whole bunch of us!)

Mom and Dad bought Ana Elisa a pair of sunglasses since she keeps trying to wear theirs. She was so excited because they let her pick them out herself. I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful daughter. She is my biggest mother's day gift ever!

Last night, we went to Emerson's soccer game and Ana Elisa went on an hour walk with Gampa. She was in heaven. They went to see the pond and the ducks. When they got back from their walk, Ana Elisa really got into Emerson's game. She yelled and screamed to Emerson from the sidelines and would yell at anyone who would get near him.

After the game, mom and dad took us out for ice cream.

Emerson says that Ana Elisa has found a new best friend in gampa. She plays hide and seek with him, shows him which walls he should bump his head on, and insists he go everywhere she does. If he disappears, she goes on a frantic hunt for him. I'll be surprised if gampa gets any time to rest while he's here because Ana Elisa just won't let him sit down, unless, of course, she can sit on his lap...

It's been a great Mother's Day. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful mother who has sacrificed so much for me and my sisters. She is so unselfish and has always put us before herself. I can only hope that I can be the kind of mother she has always been. Thank you for everything!! I am so happy that they were able to come visit us.

To Emerson's mom, Cida, and my sisters, Lizsett and Sherrie, thank you so much for being such great examples to me of what true motherhood is. You are all so generous, hardworking, and selfless. You are raising (and have raised) such wonderful children. I wish you could all be here to celebrate with us.

(Cida, me, Emerson)

(Matthew, Josh, Lizsett, Sherrie, Ana Elisa)
-Sorry, these pictures are almost a year old!-

Happy Mother's Day!!

Weekend in Las Vegas

2009-04-24T19:51:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went to Las Vegas to meet with the Brazilian Consulate. Ana Elisa got her Brazilian passport and citizenship. The best part of the trip, though, was that grandma and grandpa met us there. Dad just happened to have a business convention to go to in Vegas that same weekend, so it worked out great. It was so good to spend time with them, and Ana Elisa was so excited to see her grandparents. I always show her pictures of them, so she recognized them right away. She calls both of them "gampa", it was so fun to see her with them. We spent a lot of our free time swimming at the hotel pool. Here are some pictures that we took at the pool.

We came home and had a pretty normal week until today. I decided to take Ana Elisa out for a walk to try to get her to fall asleep. I walked about 10 feet from the house when I realized I'd forgotten the house key and that I'd locked the door as I walked out. So, it was 2pm and we had about 4 hours to kill before Emerson would come home from work. So, I had two options, spend the rest of the afternoon in the back yard or try to find someone who would take us in. Luckily, I called some friends just as they were about to walk out the door and they said we could go over to their house. It was about 90 degrees outside, so it was nice not to have to sit out there for so long. Ana Elisa never took a nap, so by the time we got home (after going to the park for a bit), Ana Elisa was wiped out. We gave her a popsicle to cool her down and she fell asleep eating it.

Passport Pictures

2009-04-16T22:15:00.000-07:00

We are going to Las Vegas to visit the Brasilian Consulate so that we can get dual citizenship for Ana Elisa. We decided to go the cheap route and take our own passport pictures here at home. I had to go to mutual, so Emerson took the pictures. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw them. Emerson said she didn't want to sit still for the pictures, so he had to bribe her with jelly beans. She goes through a lot of emotions before Emerson finally gets a picture of her smiling at the camera...

Just Plain Mad!

This is boring!

Fine, I'll just sit here and suck on this jelly bean, then!

Where are you hiding the rest of those Jelly Beans?!

The perfect shot!

I may just have to frame her passport :)

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

Growing up, we always went to my grandma's house for Easter. She was big on holidays and always put a lot of time and effort into making each one memorable. I was sad when we moved because I didn't want to miss those holiday get togethers at grandma's house. I was sad that Ana Elisa wouldn't be able to go to the parties at her house and that she wouldn't get to make those memories that I always cherished. Now that grandma has passed away, I have thought about it more and more. Lizsett told me something very true the other day. She said that Ana Elisa can have her own wonderful memories, and they don't have to be the same as mine were. It's up to us to make her childhood memories sweet and enjoyable.

I thought about that as we prepared for Easter. We had a wonderful weekend, different than the ones I always cherished from the past, but wonderful because we are making our own new memories.

Emerson had Friday off, which was so nice. We got to spend three full days together. On Saturday, our ward had an Easter egg hunt. I was really excited to take Ana Elisa because this is the first year that she can participate in the fun. I couldn't believe it when we woke up, it was raining! It's been two months since it rained, and of course it chose to rain on the day of the ward party. We went anyway and braved the rain.

There were so many eggs! I wouldn't be surprised if there were around
1,000 candy filled eggs out there!

Emerson took Ana Elisa out to get the eggs while I wimped out and stood under the canopy to take pictures :) Here they are getting ready to charge...

Ana Elisa had a blast running around picking up eggs off the ground. The rain didn't seem to bother her at all.

Later that evening, we went over to some friends house for a little Easter party. They had another little hunt for the kids. Ana Elisa's favorite part of that evening was the little puppy that they had there! Here she is trying to feed the puppy through the glass door!

Today, Easter Sunday, we tried to dedicate to thinking about our Savior. This morning we had an Italian Colomba for breakfast (the Colomba is very traditional in Italy, when I saw it at the store, it brought back so many great memories from my mission, that I bought it so that I could share a little part of my wonderful Easter memories with my family).

After church, we had some friends over for dinner and watched the movie "Finding Faith in Christ". It was a great Easter filled with wonderful NEW memories.

Some of Ana Elisa's favorite things...

2009-03-30T14:19:00.000-07:00

It's fun to watch Ana Elisa as she develops her likes and interests. One of the things we discovered she really enjoys is music (we actually discovered this really early on). On our way to church on Sunday we put some classical music on in the car. She started swinging her arms around with her pointer fingers pointed like she was directing the music. It was so cute! Here are some pics of her demonstrating her love for music:

Here she is with her very first drum set (aka our cheap version of a drum set!)

Some ladies in our ward get together every Tuesday for a Music & Me class. Ana Elisa loves to go and especially loves when she gets to get up with her instrument and march...
(Sorry, the picture is a bit blurry, too much movement!)

On Thursdays they have a kids show called "Dewper" at the mall where they sing and dance and perform for the kids. Ana Elisa loves it. I had a hard time getting pictures of her boogieing, but here's sample of what it's all about...

Another thing she has really grown to love are the Sesame Street characters, specifically Elmo and Cookie Monster. She gets so excited when she sees them. So, on Saturday we took her to a Credit Union who was featuring Elmo live to meet the children. She was in heaven. They had popcorn and drinks for the kids and Ana Elisa kept trying to go over and offer Elmo some--which I'm sure he'd have loved since he was out in the heat! Ana Elisa is so thoughtful :)

She also got to see the woof woof...

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Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2009-03-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to Walmart and saw a lady leaving the store with a bunch of shamrock balloons. I asked Ana Elisa if she wanted one and she yelped for joy. We ran to the area where they have all the holiday things and found the last balloon there.

Ana Elisa has been so happy with her balloon. When we got home from the store she went running to the kitchen and opened a drawer and grabbed two long plastic spatula type spoons. She used the spoons to wack her balloon around the room. She did that for a long time. Now she carries the balloon around everywhere with her.

New Car

2009-03-09T13:47:00.000-07:00

Our poor Mazda has been really struggling. It's no wonder, it's almost ten years old and it suffered a fender bender almost four years ago that never left it quite the same. We've been trying to run it for as long as possible. We even decided to keep it when we saw that the car won't run when it's raining (poor Emerson had to figure that out the hard way at about 10:00pm when he had to pull off to the side of the road on his way home from Phoenix). We figured that it doesn't rain that often here, so we held off on replacing it. But we finally broke down (no pun intended) and decided it was time to get a new car when the breaks started acting up (again, poor Emerson found this out the hard way when someone cut him off in the middle of an intersection and he couldn't get the car to stop--luckily he's great at maneuvering cars and was able to jerk out of the way just in time).
I wish I would have taken a picture so you could see the pathetic state that poor car was in. The hood paint was almost all gone, and until recently it didn't have any hubcaps. Inside, though, we kept it really nice. I'm sure the new owners will appreciate that!! :) Poor Emerson called me a few months ago in a panic because one of the Directors of Honeywell wanted to go to lunch with him and wanted Emerson to drive. He was so worried about what the director would say or think when he saw our car. Hahaha...I told Emerson to think of it as a good thing--maybe the director would feel bad for him and decide that he needed to give Emerson a raise!! It didn't work, but at least the director didn't seem to mind!
Anyway, after several weeks of searching, we finally bought a new car (and got a great deal on our trade in!). Here are some pictures of our trusty new Hyundai Sonata.

The seats even move up so that I can see over the wheel! hehe...

I don't know if it was the way this picture was taken, or if it's just a reality check,
but Ana Elisa looks so big and grown up!

Now that we have the car buying out of the way, we decided to make Saturday a clean up the yard day.

Emerson worked out there for about three hours and is still paying for it--his allergies were so bad yesterday and today that he's just miserable. Hopefully, (now that we have a new car I can say this), hopefully it'll rain so that Emerson's allergies can clear up.

Ana Elisa helped Daddy with the yard work and enjoyed an ice cream cone as her reward for being such a great helper!

For those of you who know Ana Elisa well, you know that she is really full of energy. Very little can get her down. She had the croup last week and wasn't feeling well. You'd think she'd want to stay inside and rest (yeah right!), here is what she did as we stayed home so that she wouldn't get any other kids sick...

That's our girl!

Girl Scout Cookies and a Trip to the Park

2009-03-03T13:03:00.000-08:00

Family Home Evening last night consisted of two things: Girl Scout Cookies and a Trip to the Park.
Someone at Emerson's work gave him a box of Samoa Cookies. Emerson was really excited to come home and share his cookies with Ana Elisa. She has a sweet tooth, just like her daddy. At first she just laid back to relax with her favorite blankie and the box of cookies on her lap.
[A noite familiar de ontem a noite teve duas coisas: Girl Scout Cookies (bolachas) e uma visita ao parque. Uma pessoa que trabalha com o Emerson mandou uma caixa de bolachas para nos. O Emerson estava animado para chegar em casa e compartilhar as bolachas com a Ana. A Ana gosta de um doce--assim como o pai. A principio ela estava toda relaxada deitada com a caixa de bolacha e o cobertor favorito.]

It only took one bite for her to pop up. The cookies were too yummy to just have them there on her lap!
[Mas ai a Ana deu uma mordida na bolacha hummm...as bolachas estavam muito boas so para deixa-las no colo.]

Are there any more in there??
[Tem mais ai?]

After they ate cookies, we went to the park by our house. Ana Elisa gets so excited when we go. She points at it and starts to giggle. She wants to be like the big kids and climb everything!
[Depois de comer as bolachas, fomos ao parque proximo de nossa casa. Ana Elisa mal pode se conter quando ela ve os brinquedos de longe. Ela quer ser como a criancas mais grandes...quer subir em tudo.]

We stayed until it got dark.
[Ficamos ate ficar de noite]

It was what my niece, Brittney, used to call a great Happy Home Evening!

2009-02-24T19:11:00.000-08:00

It's been a good week. Here are some pictures showing what we've been up to.

Saturday morning, Valentine's Day, was a little "cold", so Ana Elisa and daddy decided to snuggle up in a blanket to keep warm.

Emerson got the camera out on Sunday morning before church, Ana Elisa was excited to be all dressed up, so it made for some fun pictures.

Emerson went to play soccer on Thursday evening, so Ana Elisa I had a little girls night together. We went to the park and then came back home for our favorite treat...ice cream!! Ana Elisa was excited that I let her eat somewhere other than her high chair.

Ana Elisa has been wanting to eat at the table with us for some time now. Lately she's been climbing up on the chairs with her books to read at the table. So, we finally bought her a booster seat and are retiring her high chair. In honor of her milestone, we made homemade strawberry waffles and had a nice Saturday morning breakfast together. She loves her new booster--she feels so grown up in it :)

Ana Elisa decided that the pots and pans, her books, and anything else she could find should all go for a ride in her stroller.

She knows how to mess up the house, but she also knows how to clean it up! She's always helping me out around the house. I don't know what I would do without my little helper.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

2009-02-13T20:29:00.000-08:00

This picture is of Ana Elisa on Valentine's Day last year.

We had our ward Valentine's Day party tonight. It was so much fun, they played games that kept us laughing the whole evening. Unfortunately, we didn't take our camera, so we didn't get to take pictures. They played the newlywed game, and even though we didn't get called up to play in front of everyone, we whispered our answers to each other. We would have done really well if we'd played for real! It's so nice to have someone know you so well that sometimes you wonder if they know you better than you know yourself! Marriage is so wonderful!!

Here is a picture of Ana Elisa this Valentine's Day. She got some new Dora slippers (that are about five sizes too big. She has to walk around like she has skis on, but she loves them!!)

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

Lemons

2009-02-07T08:11:00.000-08:00

It's lemon season here in Arizona, and anyone who really knows me knows that I love lemons and limes. So, thanks to a fantastic neighbor here, we have had an abundance of lemons. On Thursday, Brooke, a sister in our ward that I visit teach, invited us to her parent's house to pick lemons, oranges, and grapefruit. She told us to get as much as we wanted. It was heaven on earth! They had so many lemons!

Ana Elisa helped pick the lemons and the oranges. She loves helping out and felt like a big girl out there picking fruit with mommy.

She did make sure to get some play time in while we were there.

And to eat an orange...

She spent a good amount of time playing near the fence that surrounds the swimming pool. They had the sprinklers on in there and she thought it was funny to wait for the water to come around and splash her. (It was 81 degrees that day, so I didn't worry too much about her getting a little wet). I wish I'd had my camera out the first time that water hit her, the face she made as she turned around and ran was priceless!

The past few nights we've made lemonade from the lemons we picked. Ana Elisa has become a pro at making it. Last night I said to Emerson, "Look, daddy, Ana Elisa is helping mommy make lemonade." Emerson laughed and said, "It looks more like mommy is helping Ana Elisa make lemonade!"

She was so proud of her lemonade! She drank a lot, and kept telling us to drink more. I have to say, it was really delicious! We have ourselves a chef in the making here!!

Superbowl Party

2009-02-03T14:27:00.000-08:00

Apparently, since we now live in Arizona, we are officially Cardinals fans.

So, in honor of our new team, we went all out and had a Superbowl party. We had three other families over to watch the game at our house. We grilled some hot dogs and everyone else pitched in with the chips, dips, salsa, desserts, etc. We even had Superbowl plates, napkins, and tablecloths. It was great...except for the fact that our team lost :(
It's a toss up, though, to know who had more fun--the adults, or the kids. Our friends have a jumping house (or whatever those things are called) that they brought over for the kids to play on--needless to say it was a hit. Ana Elisa was a bit scared at first, (especially since the front of it has a huge Winnie the Pooh head looking down at you as you climb in) but after about 15 minutes, she finally got brave and climbed in.

After that, it was almost impossible to get her out. Other than taking a break to eat and play with a few of her toys and mini-swing set, Ana Elisa spent almost the entire Superbowl bouncing around in that thing. She fell asleep sometime during the 4th quarter (you know, around the time that the screaming and excitement of the game got pretty intense), and she slept through the whole thing. I think we need to get ourselves one of those bounce things, maybe she'd sleep through the night more often!! :P

I think we can all agree that our Superbowl Sunday this year beats last year's. We had just moved to Phoenix a month before and had finished our corporate housing time limit. We hadn't found a house (partly because we still hadn't sold our house in Salt Lake) and there were no hotels available because the Superbowl was being held here in Phoenix. We had no family or friends here, so staying with someone wasn't an option, either. We were lucky enough to have a cousin let us borrow her empty house for the month (thank you again, Jamie!!!). We moved in on Saturday with our rented futon and refrigerator and were camping out with no internet and no TV. While the Superbowl was going on, we took advantage of the fact that there was no traffic out and we drove around neighborhoods looking for a house. We've come a long way since last February!!

Growing Up

2009-01-27T11:04:00.001-08:00

I was looking at Ana Elisa's pictures and I'm amazed at how much she's grown and changed. Here are some pictures of her from the time she was born until now:

Ana Elisa is already saying words like blankie, get up, mas, beijos, daddy, mom, hi, bye, and her favorite word..."no". Every day she amazes us with her new words, the things she does, and the things she understands. We are so blessed to be the parents of such a special little angel. She brings such joy into our lives.

2009-01-26T14:16:00.001-08:00

Well, we finally broke down and decided to go ahead and start a blog. Since we are so far from our family, we feel it is the best way to keep you updated on what we are doing. It'll also be a lot easier to get pictures out to everyone this way. Of course, the star of our blog will almost always be our little princess, Ana Elisa :)

WELCOME!

2009-01-22T20:14:00.000-08:00

Hello,

Welcome to the Carnavale's blog!
Bem vindo ao blog da famillia Carnavale!

Enjoy it!

Emerson, Jennae & Ana Elisa