What an amazing afternoon this was for so many of us. We were so blessed to be able to visit these incredible children and families at the Ronald Mcdonald house. We got the opportunity to spend time with them, share a home cooked meal by none other than my wonderful hubby and bring them Christmas gifts. Watching thier faces glow as they opened their gifts was amazing! When we left the house, all I could think of was how thankful I am for such an amazing Savior who loves us so unconditionally, and how nothing else in this world matters. What a blessing these children were to us as we were able to show Christ's love to them and their families. This is why we do what we do! Thank you to my volunteers for bringing gifts and sharing their love. A special thank you to Officer Kathy and the Doral Police Department for blessing these children with so many gifts as well!

God bless and love you all!!!
Mirna

First Impressions Christmas Gathering

 

This was a great night with awesome food and awesome friends! We had our very first First Impressions Christmas gathering at our home. It was so much fun! Everyone brought their favorite appetizers and desserts and it was all very delcious! We also got to celebrate Jay's birthday with a very yummy cake! I am so thankful to have such wonderful friends who give so much of themselves every Sunday to serve such an amazing God! I truly appreciate each and everyone of you.

God bless!
Love you guys,
Mirna

Tonight we had the Lighting Ceremony for the City of Doral and we had the opportunity (Thanks to the awesome Diana) to spread the word about The Gift Revolution! We had our FRC carolers go around the park singing christmas songs to everyone - they were AMAZING! People would just stop and listen... it was very cool. We gave out a bunch of great gifts! God is GOOD! and who knows what life we touched today by a simple gift or word of kindness... this is what it's all about! Sharing the good stuff - JESUS!!! Our volunteers did an amazing job tonight reaching out! I love you guys so very much! Thank you all for taking the time out of your Friday to bless others! You inspire me! We also got to see our princess sing with her class tonight - she was one of the angels you see in the picture. I truly feel so blessed! Tonight as I looked around I couldn't help but think how AWESOME AND GREAT is our King!

Christmas Staff 24 hour Challenge!

What an amazing and challenging 24 hours we have just gone through!!! I learned so
much about God, leadership and myself! Pastor Troy and his crew did an amazing job in setting up this whole challenge for the staff. Pete and I met some amazing people from the other campuses! What a blast I had with my team "Stealth" Pastor Chris was such an awesome leader and the whole team rocked!!! Gloria you have made me laugh so much throughout this whole thing!!! Love you girl! I am so thankful for such a wonderful church that is reaching so many people!!! Gift Revolution.com baby!!!

Love you guys!
God bless,
Mirna

This year I have so much to be thankful for...my family, my hubby, our children, our health, an awesome church that we absolutely love and great friends! Our Thanksgiving day started with church and lunch with my parents, my sister and her beau and the kiddos. But Peter's highlight of the day was his first try of Jorge's famous deep fried turkey! yummy!!! My sis in law and husband had us over for a very delicious Thanksgiving dinner! The fried turkey did not dissapoint! and let me not forget Peter's awesome cajun sausage stuffing! Needless to say after all that pie, stuffing and turkey we will have to run a marothon to shed the extra pounds, but all worth it!

I feel so blessed to be loved by such an AWESOME and ALMIGHTY God!!!

Movie Night

Can someone please explain to me what all the hoopla surrounding Hannah Montana is about? I mean really, she's spunky and all, but the girl can't even sing. Was that too mean? But for those of you like myself that were children of the 80's and LOVED "Menudo", I guess they weren't exactly considered to be the most talented group either... Anyhow, putting all that aside, my daughter like many little girls is a big fan! She even convinced her little brother to watch the Hannah Montana concert on movie night. Needless to say, it took a lot of ice cream to bribe him. My daughter had one of her friends over and they had such an awesome time singing, dancing and oh yeah, melting over the Jonas Brothers! Too cute!!! They ate pizza and had tons of ice cream!!! It was a total sugar overload! Sorry Elaine and Jourgen. All and all, it was a super fun night!

God bless,
Mirna

The Garcia Home Makeover

This week we had the incredible opportunity to give a much needed family from our church a home makeover...The Garcia Family. Although we had been planning this for several weeks, nothing prepared us for the adventure we were about to encounter. If you've ever seen the movie "The Money Pit" then you have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about. I have to say that throughout this whole project, I was so amazed at how many volunteers showed up to help out. All I kept thinking throughout it all is how Awesome is God!!! I want to personally thank every single person that put their heart and soul into this project to make it a success! We had times that we weren't sure if we were going to EVER finish, so I really want to applaud those who stuck it out with us to the very end. I feel so blessed to have such awesome friends like you all in my life. I have to give a shout out to Julieta for the idea of the beautiful painting that will always be a reminder to the Garcia family of how God can work miracles in their lives.

A new home, a new beginning...

God bless you all,

Peter and Mirna

4th of July

Every year the kids look forward to the 4th of July! We have made sort of a tradition where they love to go with their daddy to buy the fireworks and then after dinner we open the trunk of the car and we all sit there and watch him light them up. This year we did it a little differently. We were able to participate in the Doral 4th of July parade with our church. Wow, could it have been any hotter, I think I lost 10 lbs from sweating so much. Wait! come to think of it, that's not such a bad thing after all! Anyhow, the kids couldn't care less if it was hot or snowing, they had a blast giving out candy and other goodies from church. We had an awesome day!

Our Weekend...

We kicked off our weekend by having David, Vicky and the kids over for dinner on Friday night. We had tons of fun sharing silly stories about our little ones... God knows I have plenty of those! While the boys were busy eating mac and cheese and LOTS of chocolate ice cream, Mia was with her grandparents at "Art in the Park", where she was doing what she loves to do best...Paint. (Well, at least for this month...we'll see what next month brings) =-)
I am proud to say that our "Little Picasso" won 3rd place overall!!! Way to Go Sweetheart!!! She definitely didn't get the artistic gene from me. On Saturday we got enough courage to venture out to the Youth Fair with the whole gang! I have to say it went better than I expected. It was pretty smooth sailing for the most part. (Sigh of relief) We ate and ate and ate....and ate... boy those cinnamon roles were Yummy!!!!!!!!!! By the time Sunday rolled around, we really needed a break...so we went to the BEACH! Well, needless to say there is no such thing as a break when you have 3 kids. Do you know how much STUFF you have to take with you to enjoy a couple of hours at the beach???? It really is quite exhausting...but so very worth it to be able to spend time just hanging out as a family. In this crazy busy world we live in, it just seems we don't get a chance to do this often enough. So enjoy every minute of your children's life, it really does goes by very fast. (Am I starting to sound like Dear Abby???)
God bless!

Small Group Fridays

Well, we officially kicked off our new series: "A Life God Rewards". We really have a great group of friends that we're excited to be doing life with. It's cool to be able to share our thoughts and learn from each other. I love to see the different ways that God is working in each of our lives. Igor, thanks for teaching me your ever so popular "cafe con leche" recipe. Don't worry...your secret is safe with me. Just make sure you don't get too comfortable in that chair! I have a feeling that this is going to be an awesome, awesome series. And with all of the yummy desserts, we might have to turn our small group into a Weight Watchers support group. :)

Thank you to everyone for being a part of it.

God bless you,
Mirna

Easter Sunday

WOW...what an awesome day it turned out to be! We were blessed to have so many dear friends and loved ones join us for a special service at church. Jason, are you sure you had enough bagels? Need some Coke to wash down that cake? And yeah Andy, the people really are "that happy" all the time! :)

The kids had a blast tearing apart the baskets that Mirna spent all night preparing. Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. It was like Willy Wonka's factory blew up in the middle of our family room. I even caught the dog chewing on some M&M's...which could've been a whole other kind of explosion. This Easter was definitely very special in so many ways. What a wonderful way to celebrate the fact that our Lord is alive and making such a difference in our lives!

getting up and running...

Well, we finally did it. It took a while, but we decided to join the 21st Century! Here's our first official entry...let the revolution begin.