My Thoughts Exactly...

Holy Cowtown.....

2012-01-31T15:08:00.003-06:00

Like I mentioned in my last post, my resolution of trying to get into better shape is really going well. I haven't been losing as much weight on the scale as I would have initially thought or hoped for. But, I have really been noticing changes in my body. I'm toning up my midsection, legs and arms. So, to me, that's even better that I can see it all changing.

Well, I just realized I dropped a pant size! I was able to fit into a pair of jeans I bought about a month ago, that was a size (2 sizes smaller than some things!) smaller than everything I've been wearing for the last 9 months since having Noah. Oh, what a GLORIOUS day!!

Spin classes are working really for me. Especially that I'm doing them 5 times a week and combining that with watching what I'm eating. I am so beyond ecstatic that this is finally working with my body and I'm seeing results.

To celebrate my newly-fitting jeans, this afternoon I signed up for the Cowtown 5k in Fort Worth at the end of February. AHHHH! My very first 5k race. I'm so excited. Thankfully, I'll be running with some of my favorite people. My handsome hubby, one of my best friends - Jessica, my brother Jimmy and his girlfriend - Amy. YAY! No turning back now. Money is paid and my name is in. Let the countdown begin to February 25th!

Oh, and would any of you like to volunteer to have a stretcher available for me at the finish line...just in case?? Ha. :)

Resolution Check-In

2012-01-23T16:08:00.000-06:00

I'm proud to report that after 3 weeks, I'm still going strong with my resolutions!! Here was the post with all of them written out.

I've been waking up early and working out about 5 times a week. I've already noticed a big change in my body and lost some weight. I've had a lot more energy and feel so great. Can't beat it! :)

I've already read 3 books and started a 4th!

Meal planning is going really well. The last 2 1/2 weeks all of our meals have been planned out and ready to go. It's so nice to not be scrambling at the end of the day for dinner ideas and/or have to run to the grocery store multiple times in the week. In addition to planning out the meals and avoid the aforementioned items, it's also helping us not waste things. We're using more things in our fridge before they go bad and I'm realizing that I have way more in the pantry than I realized! Also, I was pretty bad about rotating the same 5-10 meals over and over. But, once I sat down and wrote down all the things I could make for dinner, I realized my list included over 45 dinners I know how to make and we like. So, now that they're all listed out - I let Badi pick 4 things he wants for the week and I work them into the meal plan. It's giving us a nice variety, too. I love, love, love it!!!

I've been trying to keep a positive outlook and enjoy every moment in the day.

I was going to start writing a few letters, but, I can't find any decent stationary! I went to Office Max, Target and a few other places. The only thing I see is notecards or 5x7 note pads. I was hoping to find 8.5x11 sized paper with a cute background, other than the printable paper. Oh well, I might just start using notebook paper. I'm excited to get started on those.

Our next Mom Time group is getting together on February 2nd. Can't wait!!!

Lastly, in taking a little more time for myself....I FINALLY set up a hair appointment. It had been SO long since I had gone to get my hair done. It was crazy and my hair was getting out of control. It ended up curled and usually in a ponytail every day. I never had time to straighten it or anything. Anyway, it was way overdue. I chopped off a good 6 inches and had it colored to cover up some of the grey that was starting to sprout through. I love how it turned out. :)

I'll check back in again soon to keep myself in check and make sure I'm sticking with them. Now, I just need to set up a date night with my handsome husband!!! :)

Happy Birthday, Jenny!

2012-01-21T10:09:00.000-06:00

Today is my baby sister's birthday!! I can't believe you are TWENTY! I remember when you were born. I remember being in the hospital when Mom had you. I remember your full head of dark black hair. I remember wanting to play with you all the time. After having two brothers, I was so happy to finally have a sister to play with. Since I was 8 1/2 when you were born, I wanted you as my personal baby doll to hold all the time and take care of.

I can still remember running into your room when Mom and Dad would put you down for a nap and I would make a loud noise, or bump into your crib, or something to wake you up. As soon as my mission was accomplished, I would run out of the room and tell Mom that I thought I heard you waking up and I would go ahead and go pick you up. Poor girl. You never got any good naps. No wonder you love them so much nowadays, I never let you sleep before! :)

I loved when you got older and we could watch Disney movies together and I could play with your hair and dress you. I loved teaching you things and playing games. We had so much fun growing up!

I remember when I got married and you were my maid of honor. You were only 14 at our wedding and everyone thought you were at least 18. You have always appeared older than you are because of your maturity level. You're such a great help to us with Jacob and Noah. When Jacob got out of the NICU and a few months later it was time for me to go back to work - I wasn't quite ready to put him in daycare. You were so selfless in basically giving up your summer to come to our house and watch him every day. You're the best AJ! You take such great care of both of them, they love you so much and Badi and I are so grateful for all that you've done for us. You're going to make an amazing Mom one day! :)

You are always so willing to help us out. You are always offering to change Noah (unless it's a poopy, haha). You always want to feed him. You were such a lifesaver on vacation this summer. You were the best travel buddy and biggest helper to us with the boys. :)

You always do so many sweet and thoughtful things for us. You make us the sweetest presents - banners for our birthdays, t-shirts for when both boys were born, whale shirts for both boys, you're always helping me cook/bake and run errands. We can't thank you enough. I love you so very much and am so proud of the person you've become. You're already a sophmore at UT Austin, preparing for medical school and you're doing so well. I know whatever you end up doing, you'll be extremely successful.

Happy 20th Birthday, Jen!!! :)

Noah is 8 months old!

2012-01-09T14:06:00.000-06:00

About a week ago our cutie Noah turned 8 months old!!

You are still about 27 lbs! (over 100 %)
You are about 30 inches long!! (over 100 %)

You are looking so much older these days. Still, no one believes us when we tell them how old you are. Everyone thinks you are much, much older.

You wearing a size 5 diaper! And mostly all 18 month clothes now. Good thing we didn't go out and buy a ton of new clothes for you, that would have been a waste considering you were only in a few sizes for a couple of weeks! Thankfully, your brother took care of his clothes and you're wearing some things he was JUST wearing!! :)

You are eating more and more food these days. You tried a lot of new fruits this past month. You still love mashed potatoes, pieces of bread, a few small pieces of cheese and you tried a smoothie for the first time. You loved it and could probably have had an entire glass yourself!

Your Tia Mil came home for a few days from Boston and got to spend some time with all of us. Before she left, you made sure to give her one of your very special (and slobbery) kisses! :)

You're still a great sleeper. You take usually two long naps a day and one or two short 20 minute ones. Typically going to sleep for the night around 8:30 or 9 and waking up about 7 or 7:30am. Sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night and may or may not want to eat before being put back down.

Unlike your brother, you are happy to go to sleep whenever your tired. Jacob didnt (and still won't) go to sleep when he knows there are people over and we're having a good time. When you're ready for bed...you're out. The other day you fell asleep in the middle of your Uncle Greg's basketball game! :)

You are showing more of a personality! You said "ma-ma" for the first time a week before Christmas. YAY!!!! Since then, you've also added "ba-ba" to your vocabulary. You are constantly smiling and "talking". You especially love having conversations with your brother.

You got to celebrate your first Christmas and have Santa come visit you!

Your Nana (the family hair dresser for the boys!) gave you your first haircut after Christmas! Your hair was getting so long. You were not a fan of the haircut and your swirl isn't as prominent in the back of your head anymore, but, your hair looks so nice.

You are really interacting even more with Jacob these days. Anytime I'm driving you both around or if you're just playing on the floor at home, at some point, you start babbling and Jacob starts talking back to you. In no time, you're both cracking up laughing. It's the most hysterical and adorable thing ever!! It happened the other day when I wanted to take Noah's 8 month picture. You had to get in the picture, too. Next thing we knew...you both were cracking up!!

I especially love this first picture of you both smiling with your George's!

You love to reach for us now. When I take your carseat buckle off, you immediately lift your hands up for me to pick you up. So cute. Also, when I pick you up, you face plant yourself into my neck as if you're giving me a huge bear hug. I love it!!

You had your first bad cold over Christmas. Actually everyone in our house had it. It wasn't fun at all and I hated hearing you all congested. Thank goodness for your humidifier!

You love to be outside, just like Jacob. I try to take you both in the backyard every day to swing. You could sit in your swing and watch Jacob play for hours!

You are extremely ticklish. Especially on your legs, tummy and underarms. It's so cute. These pictures were from one night at the bowling alley. Uncle Greg kept tickling you. :)

Your still not technically crawling, but, you're moving everywhere!! You roll around everywhere and scoot like crazy. You don't crawl, but, you definitely know how to get from point A to point B!

You are such a happy, happy boy and are always in the best mood. Everyone that meets you comments about what a relaxed and easy-going baby you are. We are so thankful!

Lastly, here was your 7 month bear picture as a reference.

And now your 8 month one!

We love you so much, Noah Bear!!!! Hard to believe that in a few short months your brother will be THREE and you'll be ONE! Ah! Slooooooow down the clock! :)

New Years Resolutions!

2012-01-06T14:49:00.005-06:00

They say the best way to make sure that you fulfill your new years resolutions is to write them down. So, here we go!

This year, without sounding super selfish, a few of my goals just revolve around me and becoming a better me. But, rather than just listing them..I'm trying to also include an action plan to make sure it's going to be done!

1. To get into better shape. I know that's so cliche. But, really, I need to buckle down and get serious. I don't want to put a specific # of pounds on here that I want to lose, or, a specific date to have it done. But, I know I need to lose the weight that's leftover from being pregnant with Noah (and a little bit left from my pregnancy with Jacob!). It's time to drop the excuses and get it done.

I already have a new gym membership. Lucky for me, my family is very active and healthy, too. The reason this hasn't worked in the past is because I don't have any time to work out. I watch the boys all day and don't want to burden anyone with watching them every day while I work out. I don't want to do it at night, because then I won't see Badi as much. So, only solution is for me to suck it up and wake up at 5am and hit the gym to be home before Badi leaves for work and the boys are still sleeping. This week, I worked out 6 out of the 7 days!!!! Thankfully, my Dad is really supportive and works out with me at 5am...even picks me up from my house. I don't think I would be as diligent if he wasn't helping me. Thanks, Dad aka Jillian Michaels!! :)

2. Meal planning. To go along with #1, I'm going to try meal planning. It will help with our budgeting, eating better, going to the grocery store less frequently and eating out less. I used to be religious with coupon clipping and matching sale ads with coupons for the best deals. I'm going to get back into that and tie it in with meal planning. Can't wait!

I've already organized all of my coupons and started a list of meal ideas for the month!

3. Read 25 books this year. I got into reading again toward the middle of last year and read some really great books. ('The Help', 'Something Borrowed', 'Something Blue', 'Baby Proof', 'Facts of Life', etc) But, this year, I want to read even more. It's so nice to read when both boys are down for a nap and before I go to sleep at night. It's so relaxing!

This year, I've already finished 'The Notebook' and I'm almost done with 'Heaven is for Real'!

4. Making more time for myself. Being a stay-at-home Mom is the best thing ever. I'm so fortunate to be able to do that and so thankful that Badi works hard every day for this to be able to happen. But, as much as I love spending all of my time with the boys, I still need to make some time every now and then for me. When I was working, I wasn't seeing my friends as much as I would have wanted. But, now that I'm at home...it's even less because I don't see my work friends either.

So, I started a Mom group! Unlike play dates or family dates....this is only for the Moms!! Last week was our first get-together and it was a blast! Everyone kept thanking me for coming up with the idea and said they couldn't wait for the next one. I'll write more about that later. :)

5. Along with #4, I want to stay in better touch with people. I love getting mail and emails from friends. But, with Facebook and texting...that very rarely happens anymore.

My goal for this year is to actually sit down and write 12 letters to a friend or family member and put it in the good ol' fashion snail mail box. With a stamp and everything! Who knows, this may prompt some writing back and forth with the people I choose to send a letter to. I'll shoot to get one done a month. I'm excited about this one, too! :)

6. I want to be more cognizant and aware of others. In that, I want to be more attentive and appreciative. For example, the other night we had an outstanding waiter. He was really working his butt off and very genuine. He was an older guy and something just told me that he probably didn't hear compliments very often. So, before we left, I made sure to ask for the manager and really go out of my way to explain what an excellent job out waiter had done. You could tell immediately how relieved and grateful she was to be hearing praise and not complaints.

So, I'm going to make sure I try and let others know when they're going above and beyond and stick out in a good way to me. So, complaining less and complimenting more....(when it's deserved.) :)

7. Lastly, making more time for my marriage and my husband. It's SO easy for us to get into our routines and do the same things every day. But, I want to make more of an effort to have time alone with him, just the two of us.

Not necessarily going out to dinner or the movies, etc all the time. But, making more time for us to watch movies together at home, cuddle, etc. I love him so much and am so grateful to have him as my husband!

Glad I have this written down so I can keep myself in check and look back at the end of the year and see how things went.

Do any of you have resolutions?

Holiday in the Park

2012-01-04T14:17:00.000-06:00

I've always wanted to go to Holiday in the Park at Six Flags. As a kid, I think I went once - maybe twice. But, now that we have kids of our own - especially Jacob being older - I wanted to go back! With Jacob being SO into Christmas, lights, etc...and the fact that he loves rides and being outside, I figured this would be perfect. My Mom was able to get some discounted tickets through her old company. When she went to buy tickets for us, they decided to get tickets for everyone else to come, too. Perfect family fun night!!!

Badi's parents graciously offered to watch Noah for us. We were SO thankful that we decided to do that. The night we were there, it dropped to about 40 as soon as the sun went down. It would have been so miserable for poor Noah. We saw a few other families there with small kids in strollers and it just looked awful. So anyway, on to some fun pictures of our day!!

Jacob loved this ride the most. He got to "drive" a truck! :)

On the ferris wheel!! :)

They even had sledding!!! This was Jacob going down with Greg's girlfriend, Jenae!

Jacob was slightly terrified the first time he went down the hill with me, haha.

Driving the old timer cars. Jacob drove his Pops. :)

Then, we rode the bouncing cowboy boots. Jacob LOVED this one, too!!

About to ride the Looney Tunes boat. This one scared Jacob a little bit. Oops!

The mini mine train ride. This went a lot faster than I remembered and Jacob did way better than I thought he would! :)

On to one of the best parts of the night. You could buy unlimited hot chocolate for $6.99. I'm not even kidding when I say we filled this and drank it at least 23 times that night. Jacob loved all the whipped cream and sprinkle toppings! :)

It started to get SOOOO cold, so a few of our group had to leave early....Jacob included. Here he was with Jenae before leaving. :)

They had a sleigh for you to take pictures on!

The whole park was decorated SO pretty with lights and Christmas decorations.

Getting our picture taken with Sylvester. Right before we took this...he dunked his dirty nose in my fresh cup of hot chocolate and covered his face in whipped cream. I was so annoyed. I went and asked for a new cup. See Sylvester embarrassed and saying "sorry" in the picture? :)

Picture with Daffy Duck who made Jenny and I feel like giants. Ha.

We had such a fun night! I think we'll make this a tradition and definitely go back again next year!! :)

Christmas Day 2011

2011-12-29T18:02:00.000-06:00

Christmas Day this year was a little different than usual. This year, my Dad actually got 4 tickets to the Mavericks first basketball game of the season. The one where they were going to hang their championship banner from last season and play the Miami Heat...who they beat last season! Pretty awesome. He orginially got the tickets for me and my 3 siblings to go. But, I gave my ticket to my Dad because I didn't want to miss most of Christmas Day with Badi and the boys. I'm glad I decided against it, it was worth it to be with my little family of 4. :)

So, because the game was at 1pm - we had to squeeze in gifts at our house first thing in the morning, then rush to my parents house for a big Christmas breakfast, then gifts with everyone over there before they all left for the game at 11am! Whew! It was a whirlwind morning, but, a lot of fun! After Christmas at my parents, we headed right over to Badi's cousin Leyla's house for lunch and family time with his side of the family. We also took my Mom with us so she wouldn't be home alone while everyone was at the game. :)

Before we left for my parents, we went to see what Santa left for Jacob and Noah...

Jacob got his train set! Badi set it up for him later that night since we were in a big hurry. (good thing, too, it took him like 2 hours!! poor guy!)

Noah's big gift from Santa was an activity cube!

I had to take a picture of our tree this year because the amount of gifts under it was unreal. I told my parents we may need to start drawing names next year, haha. :)

Badi got me the sweetest sign. He actually got into my pinterest account and looked around at things I was pinning. He found something similar to this sign and contacted the lady and had one made for me. It says "there's these boys that stole my heart, they call me mom." I LOVE it!!

Another absolute favorite....the first thing he ever bought me was a diamond heart necklace for our first Valentine's Day. I have no idea how, but, I lost it a few years ago. I was absolutely crushed. I used to wear it every day. He bought me a replacement this year. :)

I got Badi some boring clothes. Then after all the gifts were done. On the way out of the door, I told him he had one last surprise gift. He opened a small bag that had one of Jacob's matchbox racecars in it. I told him that his gift was he was going to have the chance to go to Texas Motor Speedway and actually DRIVE one of the cars on the race track! It's actually a 3 hour NASCAR experience. We're not really into NASCAR, but, I knew he would be so excited to have the chance to drive one of the racecars!!!! Here's the link. Even better, I called his cousin's wife and she ordered one for her husband so they can go together. He was so excited. :)

Then we headed over to my parents house. We thought our tree was filled with gifts, then we saw their tree. WOAH!

I didn't take as many pictures of gifts because we were trying not to take 3 hours to open everything and I was taking video and helping the kids. But, here are some of the highlights and some of my favorite things! Noah got a personalized/recorded book from my sister. It's a Thomas the Train book with my sister reading it to him. I LOVE it. And, on the last page, she says "we love you, Noah Bear!" Then, all of my family members say their name and in unison say "we love you Noah". I definitely started crying. :)

This was the year of the Keurig! Badi bought me one. He told my brother about a good deal he found. So, my brother bought one for his girlfriend, Amy. Then, we saw the deal was still going...so we bought one for my parents. Ha. K-cups for everyone!!!! :) We love it!

Jenny wanted her own cookie press to make Spritz cookies! YUM! :)

This was one of the things I was most excited about. I framed the actual Dallas Morning News paper from this past June with the Dallas Mavericks Champions headline and matted everything myself for both of my brothers. They loved it! Jimmy is even wearing his jersey in this picture before he heads to the game, ha. :)

Jacob got about 6 new Thomas & Friends trains for his train set. He started opening them immediately!

We got Quelf - the board game, Kinect for our XBox, clothes, Badi - tools, me - jewelry. Awesome, awesome gifts!

My Dad has been looking for a nice VA Tech polo forever, every time we visit VA. I finally ordered one for him from the Hokie Planet store. He was excited. :)

I made custom photo 2012 calendars for my Mom and sister with all of our family birthdays, anniversaries, etc printed in.

Then, after gifts were over...my parents said they had one last gift for Jacob (and Noah later, ha). We left the room and came back in and saw this. Jacob flipped. His very own Lightning McQueen car to drive outside. Soooo cool!

He had to try it out immediately. Surprisingly, it actually goes pretty fast!

Love my siblings so much!!!

Group shot, minus Badi taking the pic.

Mimi and Pops with their grandkids. :)

Lastly, here's a few photos from Leyla's house for lunch. We had such a great day!

Noah and his cousin, Martin. They were born only 5 hours apart..but, Martin was 1am so they have different birthdays! :)

The whole group!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!! We missed everyone in Virginia so much!!

Christmas Eve 2011

2011-12-29T17:13:00.000-06:00

We had such a great Christmas this year! Every year I think it's amazing and couldn't get better. But, then it does! Having two kiddos around sure makes things even more exciting. Especially now that Jacob gets SO into everything and loves everything about it. It was a blast! Leading up to Christmas, we did so many fun things...I'll have to post some of them later. Badi was off work for the whole week leading up to Christmas and all of my siblings were in town and home. It was awesome!! We spent just about every day with everyone and got to do fun things like bowling, Gameworks, driving down to my brother's basketball game, going to Holiday in the Park at Six Flags and driving through Prairie Lights!! Aside from all of that, we had my family over for dinner several nights and stayed up late playing games, etc. So, so, so much fun! :)

A couple of years ago, we started a tradition of having all of our family over on Christmas Eve. Somewhere along the lines, we also decided to make it a big fajita/Mexican dinner versus the traditional turkey or ham. So, this year, we did it again! But, we added several people. My favorite. :) We had my family, Badi's parents, grandmother, younger sister, my brother's girlfriend Amy and her parents, then Badi's cousin and his wife. There were 18 of us!!! Definitely a house full, but, I wouldn't have changed a thing. I love having everyone over and always - the more the merrier!

To kick off Christmas Eve, my Dad followed his tradition of dressing up as Santa to visit our house. Last year, Jacob got slightly freaked out and I had to sit with him. This year he was BEYOND excited. When "Santa" rang our doorbell to come see him, he was running around the house and screaming "Santa! Santa! Santaaaaaa!!"

Telling Santa: "I was a good boy! I want a train set with Thomas, Percy, James, Spencer, Rosie, Hiro and Thomas's friends!!!" Ha, not even kidding.

We had so many people over for dinner on Christmas Eve, we had to split up between rooms. This must have been the "kids table". :)

My parents and Amy's parents!

Badi's grandmother, sister and Jacob.

Me and Nika! She is due in about a month with her first baby. Can't wait to meet Isabella!!!! :)

Some of the girls!

Some of the guys!

Villagomez family!

Lastly, we let Jacob open a gift on Christmas Eve. So, we let Noah do the same. Thank you so much Sue Sue and Hesch family for Jacob and Noah's sweet gifts. They're perfect!! :)

Noah's gift from our sweet neighbors. :)

Overall, it was a huge success. So glad we could have so much family over and enjoy another Christmas Eve with everyone. Next up, Christmas Day fun! :)

I LOVE Christmas!

2011-12-15T11:51:00.000-06:00

Everything about it! I love being around my family. I love getting together with friends. I love trying to find perfect present for everyone. I love seeing Christmas lights and decorations on everyone's houses. I love baking Christmas cookies. I love Christmas music. I love all of the holiday drinks and hot chocolates in our cute holiday mugs. I love bringing goodies to our neighbors and doing things for others. I love that everyone has time off of work/school. I love that everyone seems to forget about stress and come together....well, except if you're out shopping. :) I love all the Christmas movies on TV. The list goes on and on and on.

It's even better now that Jacob is almost 3 and knows a lot more of what's going on. He is SO into Christmas this year. He is obsessed with Christmas lights and decorations. He can't wait for it to get dark every day so that he can go turn on our lights. He always wants our tree to be plugged in. He is constantly talking about Santa. And occasionally when someone knocks on our door he gets so excited and asks if Santa is here. :) He is always telling us what Santa is going to bring him, ha. And, if he ever acts up...he PUTS HIMSELF into timeout and says he should be a good boy so Santa can come see him!!!!! Too funny!! I am so looking forward to watching him open his gifts this year.

Tomorrow night we're having a special Christmas devotional and dinner at our house and I can't wait to have everyone over. You're invited, too! :) And all of our family (and some extended family) is coming to our house on Christmas Eve. I can't wait!!

I love my sweet family so much and I love this time of year. :)

Noah is 7 months old!

2011-12-07T09:21:00.002-06:00

Our sweet Noah bear is already 7 months old!!

You are now 27 pounds! (still above 100 %!)
You are 29 inches. (still above 100 %!)

This boy just hasn't stopped growing! Every day he is looking more and more like a little man and not a baby. It's so sad to see the time just going ridiculously fast, but, then again - I'm so thrilled to watch him as he gets older and starts interacting even more with his big brother. I hope they grow up to be as close with one another as we both are with our siblings. So far, things are looking good. :)

We've really been experimenting with more foods this month. We added some bananas, actual white rice, mixed vegetables, tried some rolls and mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving. He really loved the potatoes!! Definitely my son, there. Bring on the carbs please. :)

Jacob loves to help me feed you baby food. He also talks to you just the same as Daddy and I talk to you. It's incredibly precious. Gosh, he loves you so much.

You are mostly wearing 18 month clothes now. Some 12 month, depending on the brand. But, for the most part 18 month is our standard. CRAZY! Because of the size and the weather getting so much colder now...you are literally wearing things that Jacob wore last winter. I just put all of these away. So crazy!

You are still incredibly happy! When you wake up in the morning, or from a nap, you don't even cry. I will just hear you in your crib playing, laughing and "talking". We're so thrilled that you're such a relaxed and easy going baby!

You still haven't had a tooth pop through. AHHH! We've seen it waiting to poke through for weeks and weeks now. Hopefully soon. In the meantime, you put anything and everything in your mouth to chew and/or try to eat.

You are sitting up SO well. Sometimes you last about 20 or 30 minutes watching Jacob play next to you! I love this picture of you and your Uncle Jimmy...you actually look small in comparison to him! Ha. :)

You're SO close to crawling. You scoot everywhere. When we put you down on the carpet, you are never in the same place for very long.

My side of the family must be coming through in waves. You love to play cards like we do. Especially Phase 10 and Rummy. :)

Now that our Christmas tree is up...you LOVE sitting in front of it to stare at the lights.

You still absolutely love your jumperoo. You still spend about 2 hours a day in there!

You love swinging in the backyard!! You get the biggest smile on your face when I push you and you get to swing next to to your brother.

You love taking baths with your brother! Jacob loves it, too. He mostly loves it because he thinks that since you splash everywhere...it's okay for him, too. Ha. :)

You are still a fantastic sleeper! At night you sleep 10-12 hours. Most days, you take 2 long naps and a short nap. Still, only sleeping on your tummy.

You are really trying to talk. You love to babble and have a "conversation" with us.

You love Jacob so much. The other day you were a little fussy and I couldn't get anything to calm you down. I finally walked through the hallway and pointed out a big portrait of Jacob. (He was playing at his grandparents house that day.) You immediately stopped crying, starting to smile and laugh, then kept trying to reach for him and grab the picture. So precious.

You love watching the Cowboys like the rest of your family! Even if the coach makes questionable calls and ends up icing his kicker to lose the game. :) I love this picture so much, because you remind me so much of what your brother looked like...in this exact jersey, exact same sitting position, and the exact same age and 7 month post!! Click here to see it.

Last but not least, your monthly picture!! First was your 6 month picture, then your 7 month one. :)

We love you so much, Noah Bear! Thanks for making it so easy to love you and be your Mommy. :)

Handprint Christmas Ornaments!

2011-12-01T09:42:00.000-06:00

Okay, I don't know what my deal is with being super sentimental these days. But, I'm slightly obsessed with trying to preserve everything about Jacob and Noah at this age. Obviously, I'm so thrilled to see them as they continue to grow up. But, on the other hand, I can't get over how fast they're growing up and I know before I know it...they will be teenagers and not wanting to hang out with Mom and Dad anymore. Ugh. :(

Anyway, the violins are done. And, because I'm still obsessed with Pinterest - I've been looking at all kinds of cute crafts with handprints, etc. Like our handprint turkey we made for Thanksgiving.

A while back I found this adorable picture on the site that someone had made of their child's handprint. They used paint and glitter and had their handprint on a clear ornament. I loved it. When I went to Michael's to buy the supplies I found a few other things to make the ornament our own. I had to enlist Badi to help me with Noah's handprint because I knew that would be such a challenge. He loves to clinch his fist and I knew paint would be everywhere. Thankfully, Jacob's was a success the first time we tried. Noah on the other hand, took about 5 tries. But, I was suprised we got a good print.

After the handprints dried, I added their names and the year, along with some ribbon. Here's the finished product. I love how they turned out.

Jacob was so excited to put his special ornament on the tree this year. Now, when anyone comes over, that's one of the first ornaments he likes to show off. :)

Now, I wonder what other cute handprint ideas I can find?!!? Ha. :)

Thanksgiving 2011

2011-12-01T09:26:00.000-06:00

We had such a great Thanksgiving! Typically, we end up going to at least 2 Thanksgiving dinner get-togethers. But, with both of Badi's sisters living out of state - his parents don't do much of a big dinner anymore. So, my parents invited them and his grandmother over for lunch at our house. It was perfect. We also had my brother's girlfriend, Amy, and her parents join us! So, we had about 14 people - I loved it! The more the merrier! :)

We had SO much food. It was all delicious. My Mom did a great job with everything. Then, I made two dishes, Amy's Mom made a few dishes and Badi's Mom brought 3 pies. Whew! Sooooo good, though. I didn't think to get a picture of all of our yummy food. But, afterwards, we all headed outside for cornhole! For the last few years, we've always gone outside to play cornhole after we eat. This year we had two games set up so more people could play at once. So fun.

My beautiful Momma and sister. :)

Amy, Jimmy and Jacob.

Daddy-o!

My handsome hubby and cutie pie, Noah. :)

My sister got this really cute family picture of us. Love these guys so much!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We missed all of our family in Virginia, but, enjoyed everyone we love here. Now, as crazy as it seems to already be DECEMBER...we're ready for Christmas!! :)

Handprint Thanksgiving Turkeys!

2011-11-21T10:20:00.000-06:00

I love, love, love the holidays! Along with all of the fun things to do around the holidays, there are also a ton of fun arts and crafts activities. Being that I am also currently obsessed with Pinterest, I am getting even more ideas for cute things to do.

The other day Jacob and I made handprint turkeys. He had so much fun making his turkey. It turned out pretty cute and is now hanging in our kitchen as decoration. :)

Happy Thanksgiving! :)

Let's Art Party

2011-11-20T08:53:00.000-06:00

About 6 weeks ago, my brother Jimmy called me and told me to block off this one Saturday in November. He didn't tell me why or what the heck it was blocked for. He just said not to plan anything that night and I would be doing something with his girlfriend, Amy. Amy celebrated her birthday about 2 weeks ago. One of the birthday presents my brother planned for her was to make a reservation for her and I to go to Let's Art in Fort Worth. I have always wanted to go to one of these and I guess he remembered a conversation where she had told him the same.

My brother finally told me the secret about 2 days before we were scheduled to go. I picked up Amy who still didn't know the plan. I was just supposed to drive us there and she would be surprised when we pulled up. Well, we had been at a friends daughter's 3rd birthday party right before I was supposed to pick up Amy. I forgot to look up directions on where the place was. I just knew the street. Ha. Long story short, I finally had to get Amy to pull up directions on her phone to get us there. When she put the address in her GPS it told her where we were going. Oh well. She was still surprised and excited when she saw it on her phone. :)

We had SO much fun that night!! There were actually about 35 or so people in our class. It was packed. That night we did a Fort Worth version of 'Starry Night'. It's a painting class with a different painting each night. The instructors tell you everything to do, colors to use, how to mix, etc. I wasn't sure how we were supposed to paint something so well. But, I was glad to see when we sat at our spots, there was already a slight pencil outline of what to do. :) But...turns out, we didn't really follow that either. With our step-by-step instructions it was pretty easy. Here are some of the pictures from our night.

This was the before pictures. You can't see the light pencil outline at all, ha.

This was the sample picture that would be similar to our finished product!

Making some progress with our pictures!

Just about done!

Putting the final touches on our masterpieces! Ha. :)

SUCH a fun night! Here we are with our finished products! The first picture is from their Facebook page. Our instructor took a group shot of everyone. Amy and I are on the back row against the window. Ha.

I would totally do this again. It was so much fun! They have a few locations around the Metroplex. It would be fun for a date night (except then you bring home 2 of the same paintings). :) And, I don't think this would be my hubby's cup of tea. Especially when he found out there were only about 3 guys in the entire group of women. But, definitely a fun girls night out. Or, something I may want to do with my Mom and sister sometime! :) Also, now the painting is at our house and everytime Jacob sees it he gets so excited and says "Mommy! You painted that pretty picture!!" Ugh, so sweet! :)

Thanks for a fun night out, Jimmy. Amy and I had a blast!

Halloween 2011

2011-11-07T07:31:00.001-06:00

I'm late on posting this, so I'm going to post-date this blog so I have it for later years. We had such a great Halloween this year. We're finally at the age with Jacob where he got really into everything. He would get so excited leading up to the big night. We did a few pumpkin and Halloween crafts at home. We would always talk about his costume and going trick-or-treating. And, he got invited to his first Halloween costume party (and enjoyed it!). :) We also got really into our pumpkin carving. Badi and I made Mickey and Minnie pumpkins! We got Jacob and Noah each a baby pumpkin and I thought Jacob might enjoy painting his...but, he was not interested in getting it "dirty" at all. Ha.

This year, Jacob was his favorite thing ever - Lightning McQueen from the Cars movie. Noah used Jacob's old costume from 2 years ago and was Batman. Before we left the house, we wanted to take a few family pictures before it got dark. I was soooo excited and surprised that somehow we were able to take a picture with everyone looking at the camera...and smiling! Love this one. :)

This was Jacob dressed as Batman in the same costume 2 years ago. :)

We went around our neighborhood with some of our neighbors. There are two boys down our street who are about Jacob's age and we went with them and their families. Thankfully, my Mom was also able to go out with us. We took a lot of pictures and brought our video camera, so it helped having my Mom to help us push Noah while we took pictures, video and helped Jacob run from door to door. It was so cute, after each house he and his two friends Fabian and Miles would yell out to us "Mom...we need to go to MOOOOOORE houses for MOOOOORE candy!" I loved seeing Jacob so excited and having so much fun!

Here was Noah's date....Sophia. :)

Sleepy Batman.

We stayed out trick-or-treating a lot longer than we thought. By the time we got home, there was no one left trick-or-treating at our end of the neighborhood!! Ha. So, all of the bags of candy that we had bought to pass out when we got home...had to stay in our house. Lovely for me who has been trying to lose weight, ha. We would have returned it, but, Badi had opened all the bags to prepare our big bowl of candy to pass out. Oh well. Along with the stuff we had planned to pass out...Jacob totally scored in the candy department. He didn't know what to do with all of it. :)

But, it's worked out. We keep his pumpkin on the kitchen counter and have been letting him pick out a piece to eat every time he uses the potty. Not too shabby. :) We had such a great Halloween. Can't wait until next year when Noah will be running around with Jacob and the boys, too! :)

Noah is 6 months old!

2011-11-04T13:59:00.004-05:00

Our Noah bear is now 6 months old!! It's already been half a year since he joined our family and made our lives that much sweeter!

You are now right at 25 lbs!!!!! (still above 100%)
You are right under 29 inches! (still right around 100%)

You wear mostly 9-12 month clothes and a few 18 month things (depending on the brand). You're still in size 3 diapers, but, we're about to move you up.

No one believes us when we tell them how old you are. Everyone thinks you are much older because of your size. We just love how snuggly, cute and precious you are.

You are rolling and scooting everywhere nowadays. You've been rolling back to tummy for about a month, but, you just recently started rolling tummy to back. You scoot all over the place. We can lay you down in one spot and a few minutes later you're 10 ft from the original spot!!

You're sitting up so well!! For the most part you can stay sitting by yourself for a while, then you go back to laying down and scooting everywhere.

You got to experience your first round of pumpkin carving with us. Mommy and Daddy made Mickey and Minnie pumpkins. Jacob didn't want to get yall's pumpkins "dirty", so we never got to paint them. That was okay with you. :)

You're still sleeping great. You usually go down about 8:30pm and sleep until about 7:30am. During the day you typically take two 1-2 hour naps and a few cat naps.

This month you went in a swing for the first time. You loved it. Ever since you had fun in the swing at the park, we've been putting you in the swing at home in the backyard. Jacob loves swinging with you!

You're eating lots of baby food. You've had green beans, peas, avocado, mixed vegetables, sweet potato, squash and pumpkin. We're sticking with vegetables for a little longer, then, we will introduce some fruits. Typically you eat food at lunch and dinner while we're already all at the table. That way we're all eating together. :)

You are really learning more about your voice these days. You make the funniest noises, squeals and laughs. You are the cutest thing!

You absolutely LOVE your jumperoo. Just like your big brother when he was a baby. You probably spend at least 2 hours a day in your jumperoo just going to town and jumping like crazy.

You also adore your brother. You are so content and happy just watching him play, laugh, sit by you and play with you. He also loves you SO SO much.

You had your 2nd airplane trip this month. We flew back to VA to visit with family some more and stayed for about a week. On this trip you got to meet some of your Mimi and Pops old friends, your new 2nd cousins - Isabella and Carter, spend time with your great-grandmothers and visit your first pumpkin patch!

Another big thing that happened this month was your first trip to the ER. A week before you turned 6 months, you woke up in the middle of the night struggling to breathe. We rushed you to the ER to find out you had croup and stridor. Thankfully, after two breathing treatments, a steroid shot and some medicine - you were breathing much better and we went home. It was incredibly scary and we hope to not have to experience that again. But, if it ever comes back, we know what it is and what to do. So glad you were okay and we heard you through the baby monitor!

You still don't take a pacifier. Every now and then, I'll try and give you one to help you fall asleep...but, you definitely aren't hooked like Jacob was. Probably a good thing. :)

Here was your 5 month picture with the basketball bear...

Then your 6 month picture!

You are seriously the happiest baby ever. You very rarely get fussy and if you do...you need something and quickly change your mood once we get it taken care of. You love being outside and taking walks in the morning. You love kisses and us blowing on your tummy. It's hard to believe it's been 6 months already.

We love you so very much and can't wait to see what the next 6 months have in store for us!

Potty Training...Completed!

2011-09-30T09:18:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to write this blog for a while. With hopes of not jinxing anything, Jacob is pretty much fully potty trained!!! I wanted to go ahead and write down what worked for us in case it helps anyone else, but, more importantly so I'll remember what worked for Jacob when it comes time for Noah to learn!

I wanted Jacob to learn earlier this year, shortly after he turned 2 but, our pediatrician recommended we wait to start a few months after Noah was brought him. We didn't want to make a lot of progress and then have him regress once a new baby was brought in the house. Then, we wanted to wait until after our trip to the beach to get everything underway. So, the beginning of August is pretty much when we really started to do things seriously.

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect since I had heard some people had potty trained their child in a few days, some took almost a year. I'll also say that for the last 4 or 5 months Jacob has been really interested in the potty. He would always follow us to the bathroom and we would explain what we were doing, how to wipe, flush, wipe hands, etc. He's always LOVED the flushing part, ha. We bought the Baby Bjorn potty chair and always kept it in the bathroom so after we went, we would point to it and tell him that was Jacob's potty and where he needed to go. That big boys went to the potty and babies used diapers, etc. (We use the big boy/baby example quite a bit in our house when we explain things about Jacob/Noah.)

So after "prepping" him like that for a few months...we were ready! I had no idea how to start. Jacob hates to be dirty, so I had heard that for kids like that you should just put them in underwear immediately. As soon as they felt themselves going, they would hate being wet/dirty and everything would be sunshine and rainbows and you're done. HA! Not so much. It just ended up causing me to clean up more and more pee all over our house. So clearly..we needed to try something else. I went out and bought some training underwear. Basically just underwear but it's more padded inside. Same problem as before. He would go without hesitation then look at me and say "uh oh...what happened?!!?" Just a little bit less got on our floors. So that was gone. Pull-ups didn't work then either because it feels just like a diaper. Ugh. So, I tried putting him on the potty all the time and giving him a treat just for staying on the potty. That worked a little better, but, he was on the potty ALL. DAY. LONG. I hated to take him off if he was okay sitting there, but, I also didn't know how to teach him how to run to the potty when he needed to go. I knew that wasn't right either. This had been over a week now. There were a few days where I wanted to give up and was so tired of cleaninig up accidents. I never once went back to letting him wear a diaper, but, was definitely tempted. Finally, as a last resort, I just kept him naked. Well, naked from the waist down.

FINALLY! SUCCESS! For whatever reason, him being naked worked the best. The first time he needed to go he just looked around and ran to his potty. He was so afraid to just go being naked that he sought after his potty chair. It was so awesome to see this little revelation in his brain. So, of course, we made a HUGE deal about it. Then, we started sticker charts. He would get 2 stickers for pee pee, 3 for poo poo. (It took almost 2 weeks for him to poop in the potty.) He loved getting stickers and a treat (a cookie or a few M&Ms) each time he used the potty. We made him take the bowl from the chair and dump it in the toilet and flush. If he had an accident, he then had to help me clean it up. All of this independence helped tremendously. He was finally getting it!!

We told him once he filled up his sticker chart he could get a new car. (His favorite thing ever.) When we first started, it was taking about a week or so to get all of his stickers.) Then, he started going about 5 or 6 times a day! The only bad thing was...he was still naked! I couldn't really take him anywhere if I wanted him to use the potty. If we had to leave, I just put a pull-up on him and he went in that. Finally after about 2 weeks of non-stop nakedness and him finally getting it down going about 6x a day in the potty, I re-introduced his underwear. It worked this time. After about a week of that, he wore his shorts over the underwear. Another success! Also, anytime we went to someone else's house, we just brought his big potty chair and he would use it there.

I also want to make sure I note that we taught him how to pee sitting down. I read that if you teach a boy to potty by standing up to pee, then, it will be incredibly hard for them to learn to poop in the potty because they think they're supposed to stand to use the bathroom. So, thankfully, he has no issues with pooping in the potty and we can learn standing up later. Well, his Daddy can teach him that one. Ha. :)

We noticed that Jacob was holding it longer and longer. He would sometimes hold it for up to 6 or 7 hours at a time! I always have underwear on him unless we leave the house or he's sleeping. He was keeping his pull-up dry at naptime and sometimes overnight!! We were so proud! Last step was getting him to go in public on the big potty. We couldn't drag that potty chair around with us everywhere. So about 2 weeks ago, he did it for the first time with our help holding him and now he's been several times since. I am soooo happy, excited and proud of him. I wanted to quit a few times, but, it's been awesome to watch him do this (a lot of the work all on his own!) One of the times I was BEYOND frustrated with trying to teach Jacob, I was reading online for some tips. I read that potty training is super frustrating and it can be so easy to get upset with your child. But, it's just like teaching them anything else. We didn't get mad at them when they were learning to walk and would occassionally stumble and fall down. So, we can't get upset at accidents. I haven't forgotten that and it changed my perspective with the whole thing.

Each day he's gotten better and better. I used to have to be in the room with him to remind him and ask him 87 times a day if he needed to go. Now, he goes all on his own! He got to pick out his own special underwear and he loves them. It's amazing how much older your baby looks in underwear and out of diapers.

But, I'm happy to say that he hasn't worn a diaper in almost 2 months and he's been accident free for the last 2 weeks. Also, I'm phasing him out of stickers/treats/rewards. We got to a point a few weeks ago where I had to start putting 50 spots on a sticker sheet b/c he was burning through them so fast for a new car. We even reduced the stickers to 1 for pee and 2 for poo poo. He doesn't ask for stickers as much anymore, it's just part of his routine to go in the potty. He's doing awesome. So, all in all, I would say it took us about a month and a half to get it completely down...almost 2 months. But, I'm so happy we're back to just one boy in diapers. What a relief!!!! :)

Lindsay's Funeral

2011-09-29T14:30:00.002-05:00

As most of you that we went to school with have heard, Lindsay Breault Lewis passed away last Friday. In school, Lindsay and I weren't extremely close, but, we had grown closer over the last few years through Facebook and our blogs. Honestly, this hit me so hard. I know people pass away every day. I know there are horrible stories on the news all the time about terrible tragedies where families are left without an important member of their family unit. But, this has consumed my brain.

Ever since her husband, Gabe, started posting a few weeks ago about Lindsay's trip to the hospital and her stay in the ICU, we've been praying like crazy. She unfortunately came down with double pneumonia and mono, while in the ICU...she contracted ARDS. After almost two weeks, her lungs collapsed and her body couldn't find any longer. She passed away last Friday, September 23rd.

That night when I found out, I couldn't stop crying. I couldn't wrap my brain around how something like that could happen to someone so healthy. Someone with a loving husband, great marriage and two beautiful baby boys. Gabe wrote the most beautiful tribute to his wife on facebook and I was astounded by his strength and faith. Everything that people were writing to him to encourage and him and lift him up made me cry. I was thankful that Gabe and their boys would be surrounded by so many family and friends to help them get through this. But, I still couldn't help but feel so awful for them and Lindsay's sister and parents and all of her very close friends. That night I was putting Noah to bed and started crying again thinking about how Brody and Cash (Lindsay's boys) will never have their Mommy put them to bed again.

I think because of the way she passed away so unexpectedly and the fact that we had so much in common (we were the same age, have two beautiful boys almost the exact same ages, etc) just made this unbearable. I knew I wanted to make every effort to be at her funeral. It was held on Tuesday morning in Richardson. Thankfully, Cindy, another good friend from high school went with me. I don't think I could have handled it as easily on my own.

Honestly, the service was the most beautiful one I've ever attended, but, also the absolute hardest. I was happy to see soooo many people in attendance. It was evident that Lindsay was loved by so many people. A lot of people we went to high school with came and showed their support for Lindsay and Gabe. There were slideshows of pictures of her life, her wedding, her marriage and lots of happy memories with her two sweet boys and their Daddy. I wanted to write this post for those that were unable to attend, but, also for myself. There were a few things that really stuck out to me at her funeral that I want to make sure I have written down in case I need to refer back to them later.

The church was filled with gorgeous flower arrangements and they had a young guy, with an amazing voice, on the guitar sing 3 acoustic songs that were absolutely perfect for the day. One was Blessed be your name. Another was Forever Reign (which I haven't gotten out of my head since Tuesday) and another he sang was I Will Rise. Halfway through the song, Lindsay's parents stood up and holding Gabe's hand, they rose. The entire church followed. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. I'm even tearing up now as I relive all of this in my head. The end of the funeral, as her family filed out of the church and Lindsay's casket was brought out to be laid to rest Blessings was played. That song already makes me cry, but, it seemed so perfect as everyone left the church.

But, it was a few things that the minister said in his message that really stuck out to me. One was he was talking about people wondering why bad things happen to good people. He mentioned that life is like a song on the piano. Once he asked someone to play a song on the piano using only the beautiful white keys. It sounded awful. It was too sharp, the pitch wasn't right. But, when all the black keys were added back in, it was beautiful. It's just like life. When you mix in all of the dark/black days, sometimes it's unfair, but, it makes us appreciate everything else. Ultimately, it's part of our story that God has already written for us. I really liked that analogy.

Another thing, also related to bad things happening and we don't understand it. He mentioned that so many people on facebook would say while Lindsay was in the ICU, "I just know that God will come through with a miracle and heal her". But, she passed away. So people wonder "Why didn't God listen to me...why couldn't He heal her?!" He said, you may not see it right away...but, he listened. Right now Lindsay is the most healed she has ever been in her life. She's sitting with God, looking back over her life and is so thankful for everything she got to experience. He said some people may wonder how a life could be cut so short. Others may say she's so lucky for the long life she had because they didn't get to live until 28. It really put things in perspective and helped me understand a little better. But, the bottom line is -- God always, always answers our prayers. It may not be answered in the exact way we were envisioning or can fully understand at that time, but, it's all a part of His Divine plan and because He loves us more than anyone and anything in this world...He knows best and we just have to trust in Him.

The last thing that gave me chills, and still sticks out the most to me is about Gabe. First of all, his strength amazes me. I remember on Friday about an hour after he posted a beautiful tribute to his wife, he wrote again saying that he didn't want anyone to feel sorry for him. He felt like through all of this, it would bring him closer than ever to God. On Friday I remember that resonating through my brain and I couldn't get over how strong his faith was. It wasn't until Tuesday morning that it came full circle for me to fully understand. The minister told us that we all really need to be careful what we pray for, what we ask of God. About six months ago, Gabe wasn't feeling as religious and really wanted to be closer to God. He prayed one night that he wanted more than anything to have a better relationship with Him. He told God that to become closer to Him, if he needed to be put through hardship to get a better relationship with Him...then so be it, put him through hardship. Wow. Can you imagine?!?! It still gives me chills just thinking about that.

All of this had really made me realize how fragile and precious life is. Ever since all of this happened I've hugged my kids extra tight and kissed them more and more every day. It really makes you put things into perspective and realize that all of those little things that you worry about and agonize over...really aren't that important. Nothing is guaranteed in life and we should all be so thankful each morning when we wake up.

Lindsay, you were such a beautiful, loving person, daughter, friend, wife and mother. I will continue to pray for your beautiful family and all that know you as they get through this difficult time. I'll make sure to never forget you as your family will still need support through the months and years to come. Rest in peace, beautiful girl.

Birthday Freebies!!

2011-09-20T15:10:00.000-05:00

Last week was mine and my husband's birthdays! We're just one day (and a few years, ha) apart! As most of you know, I'm always looking for deals. My Mom taught me a long time ago that most things you really shouldn't ever have to pay full price for. And she is so right! With sale ads, coupons and other deals...you can always win! Now, don't get me wrong, I'm nothing like the crazy, hoarding, extreme couponers that you see on TLC. But, I do love a good deal from time to time. I just don't have to buy 54 of something. :)

Anyway, any good deal-loving person knows that around the time of your birthday...there's a TON of deals to be had. This year, we made it our personal mission to try and score as many freebies as possible. I signed up for more e-clubs than usual and we went to town. So much, in fact, that I'm actually ready to start cooking again and not eat out as much, ha. But, who can pass up freebies?!?!

I wanted to go ahead and make a list to help out anyone that is interested and also for me to be able to come back to later on so I can remember certain deals and use them in the future! We didn't use everything on the list, but, next year I hope this will help me better organize and remember what's out there! To make it even easier, each place has a link to their site for you to sign up.

Also, a lot of these also send you something free for your anniversary, too. So, make sure to put in that date. Not married? No prob, just throw in another date to score an extra freebie...not like they require your marriage license to get the free food. :)

Here we go!

Restaurants:
Abuelo's: FREE Gift on Your Birthday!
Applebee’s: FREE Treat on Your Birthday!
Arby's: FREE Milkshake!
Benihana: FREE $30 Voucher for Your Birthday!
California Pizza Kitchen: FREE Kids Meal on Their Birthday!
Captain D’s: FREE Fish or Chicken Dinner!
Carino’s: FREE Dessert!
Denny’s: FREE Grand Slam!
Firehouse Subs: FREE Medium Sub!
Furrs Cafeteria: FREE Buffet Meal!
Genghis Grill: FREE Birthday Bowl!
Great American Cookies: FREE Birthday Surprise!
Hard Rock Cafe: FREE Dessert!
Houlihan’s: FREE Entrée plus a free appetizer just for joining!
IHOP: FREE Meal for your bday, for signing up AND on the anniversary of you signing up!!
Joe’s Crab Shack: FREE Cake on Your Birthday!
Krispy Kreme: FREE Donut!
Logan’s Roadhouse: FREE Birthday Gift + $5/$20 for signing up! and an anniversary gift!
On the Border: FREE Appetizer + free queso or empanadas for signing up!
Outback Steakhouse: FREE Dessert!
P.F. Chang’s: FREE Cheesecake or Cake on Your Birthday
Qdoba Mexican Grill: FREE Burrito on Your Birthday + FREE chips/salsa for joining!
Quiznos: FREE Cookie (Plus FREE Sammie with Signup!)
Papa Murphy’s: FREE Cookie Dough on Your Birthday!
Red Lobster: FREE Surprise
Red Robin's eClub: FREE Burger on Your Birthday + Signup Bonus
Souper Salad: FREE Meal for Your Birthday!
Texas de Brazil - Buy 1 Get 1 Free Meal - the only time we eat here - birthdays/anniversaries! :)
The Spaghetti Warehouse: FREE Meal on Your Birthday!
Texas Roadhouse: Lots of FREE Food!
Uno Chicago Grill: FREE Gift on Your Birthday!

Ice Cream & Coffee

Baskin-Robbins: FREE Ice Cream
Bruster’s: B1G1 Waffle Cone for Your Birthday!
Cold Stone Creamery Birthday Club: FREE Ice Cream Creation
Dairy Queen: FREE 16-ounce Blizzard on Your Birthday
Marble Slab Creamery: B1G1 FREE Ice Cream for Your Birthday!
Starbucks: FREE Drink on Your Birthday

Miscellaneous
Academy Sports: $5 Gift Card!
Barnes & Noble: FREE Cupcake for Your Birthday
CVS: $3 ExtraCare Bucks for Your Birthday!
Dave & Buster's: $5 Game Credit on Your Birthday! And $10 just for signing up!
DSW: Get a $5 Certificate For Your Birthday!
Hallmark: FREE Card + 20% Off One Item on Your Birthday!
Kohls: $10 Gift Card *pretty sure you have to have a Kohls card for this. They mailed me mine with some other info about my card.
Medieval Times: FREE Ticket for Your Birthday!
Old Navy: FREE Birthday Surprise!
Shutterfly: FREE 8x8 Photo Book! (Not sure if this is every year, but, I got one this year.) Snapfish: 100 FREE Prints! (Not sure if this is every year, but, I got the offer this year.)

Enjoy!!! Like I said, there's a ton. But, feel free to pick and choose some of your favorite places or things that are closer to your house. Remember that some of these, you have to be registered with them for at least a week or so before you get birthday freebies. Some places are only valid on your birthday, within a week of your birthday, two weeks, etc. Plan yours out! Lastly, another benefit to signing up with all of these places...they send your coupons, specials all year round! :)

We especially loved Benihana, Furrs and Red Robin! Like I said, since our birthdays are a day apart, we've gotten to go out together for a lot of free food and only pay for the tip! Benihana was awesome, they even give you a free picture when you finish eating dinner and are enjoying your free ice cream!!

And, at Red Robin, I don't know if it was just our waitress or if this is something new...but, she gave both of us free ice cream sundaes after our free burgers! It was awesome.

Enjoy your freebies and your birthdays - whenever they are. :)

30th Anniversary Memory Book

2011-09-12T09:16:00.003-05:00

Today is my parents 30th wedding anniversary! What an amazing milestone. They met in high school. Back in Virginia, my Dad attended the all-boys military school on one street and my Mom attended the all-girls Catholic high school around the corner. They met at a joint school function and have been together ever since.

My parents are so incredibly difficult to buy things for. If they ever need anything, they buy it themselves. If you ask them what they want....it's always ''nothing..I don't need anything.'' This being their 30th anniversary, I wanted to think of something really, really special for them.

We had done plenty of photo books for them, gift cards to their favorite places, gifts for each, planned a date night for them, etc. It had to be different this year. Then I thought of the idea of doing a memory/tribute book. I would get pictures of them from the last 40 or so years they've known each other and combine it with well wishes/memories from all of their friends and family! I ran the idea across my siblings and husband and everyone thought it was perfect. I started working on this in June!

First, I hijacked my parents' email accounts and got all of their good friends, family members and old friends' email addresses. Then, I went through both of their Facebook accounts and found really old friends and pulled their emails off their pages to make sure they were also included. I knew this part would take the longest so I emailed everyone first. I drafted an email to let everyone know that in a few months, my parents would be celebrating their 30th. I told them about my surprise idea and asked that everyone send me a favorite memory of them, a well wish for their anniversary or just a nice sentiment to be included in the book (and any old pictures they might have of them with either/both of my parents.) I also let everyone know that it wouldn't be a success without all of their help. We needed as much input as possible to make the book work. I attached a picture from my parents wedding day and a recent picture of the two of them to show everyone how much (or how little!) they have changed. :)

I had to send several email reminders about the project, ha, but - the emails started pouring in from people. I got emails from all of their siblings, their parents, their old high school friends, friends from their first jobs in Virginia, cousins, their coworkers, my in-laws, some of my siblings and I's friends and their parents, and friends of theirs from over 20 years ago when we first moved to Texas!!! It was absolutely amazing. So, so, so cool. I loved reading through all of the fun memories that people sent in and all of the tremendously kind things that everyone had to say about the two of them.

Next up, finding old pictures! I knew my parents had plenty! My sister and I spent about 5 hours one night at their house perusing through all of their old pictures. It was so much fun to go through all of that with her. We ended up finding over 140 pictures we wanted to use for the book. Pictures of them dating, pictures from their wedding, pictures of all 4 of us being born, growing up, family gatherings and pictures of all of the major life events/funny stories that have happened over the years. My sweet husband, then scanned all of them (and the ones that people mailed me!) onto the computer for me and I got to work.

Over the next month or so, all of my spare time was dedicated to working on their book. The little time I did get to myself during the day, ha, was just for their book! I added in all the pictures (in date order!) to tell their love story, then I started to sprinkle in all of the well wishes and memories from friends and family. It was absolutely perfect. Some days I would stay up until 1 or 2am just because I was so excited about everything and loved making this for them. I finally finished and placed the order with Shutterfly. (Love that site!) It ended up being FIFTY pages long!!!

This weekend, after we celebrated their anniversary dinner with my family, we gave them the book. It was so much fun watching them go through the book. They literally took TWO HOURS going through it. Laughing at old pictures, old stories, reminiscing, crying together and falling in love all over. I loved it. We tried to record them going through it and the camera actually ran out of memory....then ran out of battery...twice! HA!

Here are a few pictures of them enjoying it together. I love you both so much, Mom and Dad. Glad that we could give you such a precious gift to enjoy over the next 30 years together! We love you!!!!! :)

Ha, love my Mom's face.... :)

We kept hearing "Oh my God, how did you get in touch with that person?!?!!?" or "Holy crap, how did you get them to write something?!?!" :)

They both said over and over that this is the best gift that they have ever received. I'm so happy...it sure was a labor of love!! :)

Happy 30th Anniversary, guys!!!! And thank you SO MUCH to everyone that contributed to the book and made it everything it was!!

2011-09-06T16:01:00.001-05:00

I know a few people that have blogged about this recently. I have a friend who was trying to get me to sign up for almost 2 months. She said she would spend more time on that site, than Facebook. I figured that since I very rarely have the chance to sit at my laptop much anymore anyway...(hence the total lack of attention to my blog)...that I should wait to sign up for another time consumer.

But, after I finished a few big summer projects I was working on (more on that later), I found out that Pinterest had an app for the iPhone. I don't have an iPhone, but, I do have an iTouch. That's literally the only way I can keep up with my email, facebook, etc these days. I don't have much free time to sit at the laptop, but, I can usually stay up to date with things on my iTouch pretty quickly.

So, I made an account. And, holy...crap. Are you signed up? I've only been on it a few days now and I'm already in love. If you haven't heard of it, it's basically a one-stop shop for all of your favorite things. I used to have a list of favorites on my web browers that was a mile long. Or, if I found pictures of things I liked (party ideas, design stuff, crafts, etc)...I would just make a folder of pictures and save it on the computer.

But, with pinterest, you can save them all in one spot! It's a virtual bulletin board and you can create mulitple boards for different features (crafts, kids stuff, recipes, etc). It saves the thumbnail of the picture and when you click the picture, it takes you right back to the website you found it. LOVE!!!

How smart/cool is this? Put kids paint in Starbucks cups. That way it doesn't get as messy when they pull the brushes out!

Also, now I have the recipe saved for peanut putter play dough and edible finger paint!

So, thanks Elizabeth. I'm now addicted. But, just in time for fall and all the holidays coming up. I've already found so many cool things I want to do with Jacob and Noah and fun crafts for the holidays. I'm still learning how to "follow" people and what they're "pinning". Right now, I've only been able to figure out how to follow people that are from Facebook and have an account. How would I find someone that's not on Facebook? And...are you on Pinterest? If so...look for me so I can follow you! Ha. So cool.

Oh yeah, and I think it's invite only to get on. But, it's pretty easy to get invited. Let me know if you need me to send you one! :)

Noah is 4 months old!

2011-09-06T12:32:00.000-05:00

Our big boy Noah is already 4 months old! That's just crazy.

I'm a little behind on his post, but, we did have his 4 mo appointment last week and know his official stats. Our linebacker is now 21 lbs 6 ozs! (above 100 %) and just under 27 inches long (almost 100%tile). So, he's a pretty big boy for only 4 months. But, at least he's proportionate! :)

- You're still in size 3 diapers.
- You're wearing mostly 6 month or 6-9 month clothes. I feel like I'm constantly getting down bigger clothes for you. I have a feeling you're about to slow down with growth, though.
- You LOVE your jumperoo. Just like Jacob did! You started in it a few weeks ago and you go crazy every time I put you in there. Another reason, I think you're about to start to slow down with growth since you're more active these days. :)

- You've pretty much abandoned your pacifier. You never really got into it too much. The last month or so, you would only take it for about a minute if you were really fussy and needed help falling asleep. Now, you won't even take it then. COMPLETE opposite of Jacob. We always had to have 2 or 3 paci's with us at all times with Jacob. Not you!
- You still only sleep on your tummy for naps and bedtime. But, during the day, you like napping on people every now and then. Especially your Pops! :)

- You LOVE bathtime and water. We give you a bath almost every night before bed. I think it helps you sleep longer. :) You go to bed around 9:30 and sleep until about 8am. The last week or so you've been waking up around 5 or 6 am to eat, but, go back to bed in about 20 minutes or so. I think you're growing again.
- You're definitely still teething like crazy. You drool everywhere and always want to put things in your mouth.
- You're doing such a great job at focusing on a toy or something and grabbing it with both hands.
- You love play dates with our friends. You got to have fun with Abby, Eli and Paxton this month. Here are a few pictures of you and Eli, then you with Paxton, Jacob and Everett!

- You tried rice cereal for the first time for your 4 month birthday. You LOVED it! This also meant you tried your high chair for the first time! We're so excited to start new veggies with you soon.

- You love watching your brother all day long. You both love each other so much and it makes me so happy. :)

- You got to meet your cousins Peter and Paul and Uncle Kevin and Ameh Martha a few weeks ago. They live in NY and were so excited to come down and see you and Jacob! We did a lot of fun stuff with them while they were here...like go to the Aquarium for your first visit!

- During their visit, we made sure to take a picture of your great-grandmother with all EIGHT of her great-grandchildren! :)

- You're still extremely happy and easy going.

- Everyone tells us how adorable and sweet you are. We think so, too. :)

Lastly, your monthly picture! Here was 3 months then, 4 months.

And comparing Jacob at 4 months to Noah...with George. :)

We love you so very much, sweet boy!! :)

Noah's Massive Gigglefest & Dino talk!

2011-08-15T18:14:00.000-05:00

This video makes me laugh so much. This was the first time Noah really laughed A LOT. Thankfully, we got it on video. Also, his "dino talk". When he "talks" to us and babbles, it slightly resembles a dinosaur, haha. Love this sweet boy! :)

Jacob singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

2011-08-15T18:09:00.001-05:00

I finally broke down and made a Youtube account to store some our videos and make it easier to show/send to family. Just in time, too! In the last week alone, I got this super cute video of Jacob singing Twinkle Twinkle and a cute video of Noah that I'll also post. Our kids are too cute!! Don't forget to pause the music at the bottom of the page! :)

Noah is 3 months old!

2011-08-04T16:10:00.004-05:00

Noah, you are 3 months old! Actually, you were 3 months last Friday...I'm just a little late in posting. :)

You are such a big boy!! You now weigh 19 lbs!!! (above 100%) and 26 inches long (95% tile). Everyone is so surprised to hear that you are only 3 months old. You definitely look much older. As a point of reference, at 3 months your big brother was only 11.5 lbs and 23.5 inches. :)

- You're wearing size 3 diapers! You could wear 2s, but, we put you in 3 to avoid your messy poopy diapers exploding everywhere, ha.

- You're wearing mostly 3 month or 3-6 months clothes.

- You are so happy!!

- You sleep really well. I want to have it down that you only sleep on your stomach. If I try to lay you down on your back, you are up in seconds. You also don't use a swaddle at all, complete opposite of Jacob!

- You usually go to sleep around 10pm and sleep until 7 or 7:30am. During the day you take at least 1 two hour nap and several cat naps. You love your sleep!

- Because of all the sleep on your tummy, your head/neck have gotten really strong, just like your grip! You love to hold onto our fingers, a toy, washcloth, etc.

- You are still very gassy! When you burp, the whole neighborhood hears it. When you poop, it's pretty much a guarantee that you (and sometimes Mommy!) need a new outfit because it's a mega blowout! :)

- You LOVE the water. We give a you a bath most every night and you love splashing in the water.

- This past month you took your first trip on an airplane. We flew to Virginia to visit all of Mommy's family, then drove down to North Carolina to spend a week at the beach. You did so well on the plane!

- You always love being outside. But, you especially loved being outside at the beach. Your Daddy liked sitting and relaxing with you, watching the ocean. :)

You LOVE to be around people and be in the middle of everything. Your absolute favorite way to be held is like this...facing everyone so you don't miss out on anything. (just like your big brother, again!)

You got to meet both of your great-grandparents on Mommy's side this trip. Here's a pic of Mommy's Granny. She was so excited to meet you!

You went swimming for the first time while we were at the beach. You LOVED it. Of course, since you love water so much. Actually, after about 15 minutes - you fell asleep on Mommy. Guess it was pretty relaxing for you.

You are still such a happy boy! You are always smiling and this month you started "talking" to us. When we talk to you, you talk back like to have conversations with us. So sweet.

You got to see your 2nd cousin, Martin, a few times this month. Martin was born just 5 hours after you!

Your big brother just thinks the world of you. He is always wanting to be near you, laying on you, kissing you, holding you, anything. You are sooooo loved, sweet boy!

You love your play mat. We have this one that you like to grab the animals on and we have one that makes noises and plays music. You just love to stare at the lights.

Cool guy in AJ's shades!

Big brother helping you drink your milk.

Lastly, here's your monthly picture! Here you are at 2 months:

Here's the 3 month shot! Such a big boy sitting up!! :)

For comparison, here was Jacob's 3 month picture (top) and Noah underneath.

We love you so much, sweet boy! You've added so much to our already lovely family. Can't imagine you not being with us. Happy 3 months! :)

New Job :)

2011-07-27T15:00:00.000-05:00

I think the best way to start this post is to just copy/paste what I put on my facebook page last week...

My maternity leave isn't officially up until August 1st, but, last week I told my boss that I wouldn't be coming back. I'm not taking a new job at another company, rather, taking one at home full-time with Jacob and Noah.

First of all, I always grew up wishing and hoping that one day I could be a stay-at-home Mom. I thought it would be such a fun job. But, the older I got and the more involved in my career I got, the further that idea went from my brain. When we first got married, we had talked about it some, but, decided we would see what happened when we had our first child. Boy did things change then. When I was on leave with Jacob, for me, I knew I couldn't stay home. I ended up getting so lonely, bored, feeling useless and really missing all of my friends at work. Looking back though, I think a lot of that had to do with not being able to take him out of the house until he was about 2.5 months old. After his 19 day NICU stay, we couldn't really leave the house with him for fear of him getting sick. I just felt so secluded. Also, I was the first of almost all of my good friends to have a baby...so I felt alone in that sense as well. When I got pregnant the 2nd time, I still wasn't thinking I was going to stay at home. I just felt like it wasn't for me. I mean, let's face it, it's a HARD job. I didn't know how so many women did it. After Jacob, I honestly felt like I was a better Mom to him by working and enjoying more one-on-one time as a family when we got home from work. Not sure if that makes sense, it's hard to explain.

It honestly wasn't until we brought Noah home from the hospital that I started thinking, oh my gosh....Jacob is almost 2 1/2. I felt like we had just brought him home from the hospital. Now looking at this newborn, it was like Jacob all of a sudden was this grown boy. I felt like I had missed out on so much. But, I knew that just like my last maternity leave...my mind would change 100 times. And it did.

I went back and forth quite a bit. I kept waiting for this huge rush of "you need to go back to work!" to come like it did the first time around and it never did. If anything, I fell more in love with all the time that I was getting to spend with Jacob and Noah. Every day Jacob was learning new things and I didn't want to miss out on anymore of that and especially not miss out on Noah's big milestones during his first year. As my good friend told me, "You will never regret the time that you spend with them, but you most likely would regret the time you spent away from them at work." And that's so true.

But, even though I knew in my heart that this was the right decision for me and my family - I couldn't help but feel awful for leaving my friends at work, leaving them with one less person to take on our (extremely) busy fall semester. I really struggled with this for almost a week. I wasn't sleeping well. I hated how my decision really hurt them and put them in a bad spot. I didn't want this to hurt our friendships or make things really weird. But, thankfully after several conversations with them, they assured me they understood and were glad their own Moms could stay home with them!

So for right now, I have no set "plan". No timeline on how long I'll be at home. No idea when I'll go back to work. It's so different from how I usually operate with everything planned. But, it is pretty nice to just take it day by day and soak in every minute with these two cuties. We have a great routine set. I've already managed to get both Jacob and Noah's long afternoon naps to be at the same time (most days). Things are going really great. I'm really thankful that we're able to do this right now and I look forward to watching them grow up.

Back to my facebook post above, I must say that this particular update was the most "attention" I've received with likes and comments. It was so awesome to see so many of my friends/family supporting me and offering kind words of encouragement and congratulations. I can't thank everyone enough for that. So, for my SAHM friends - bring on the play dates and for my work friends - bring on the lunch dates. I love you all! :)

Happy Anniversary!

2011-07-22T08:35:00.000-05:00

Today is our 5 year anniversary! I hit the jackpot when I got to say 'I do' to my best friend! I can't believe how much has changed in just 5 short years. On one hand, I feel like we just got married yesterday. On the other hand, I look at our precious family and realize that so much has changed.

I seriously have the best husband on the planet. He is my best friend. He makes me smile every day. He supports me in everything I do, 100%. He does so much for our family. He is one of the nicest, most patient people I know. He does so much for others. He is an extremely hard worker. He loves family as much as I do. He is absolutely perfect for me. I am so lucky to call him my husband and even more grateful that my kids get to call him Daddy. I love you so much, honey. Can't wait to see what the next 5 years brings our way. :)

Noah is 2 months old!

2011-07-01T07:56:00.000-05:00

Noah, you are two months old! How is that possible?!

- You are definitely already trying to prove to your big brother that you're not so little. At your 2 month check up you weighed 15 lbs 4.5 ounces! Your little dot on the growth curve was about an inch higher than the 100% line, ha! You are 24 in long (95%!). BIG boy!!
- You're in size 1-2 diapers...not for long though!
- You're wearing mostly 3 month clothes. A few 0-3 month clothes and a few 3-6 month things. Wow!
- You're still an incredibly gassy baby. You're constantly burping, tooting and grunting. So noisy! :)
- You're still eating about 8 or 9x during the day (3-5oz each time).
- At your ped appt yesterday, the pediatrician showed me that you're cutting your first tooth!!!!!!!!!!!! It's the bottom middle one on the right. I was shocked! You're only 2 months! I guess you're getting ready for some real food, ha.
- Last night you slept from 10:30-6am!!! You had been doing 10:30-5am, last night you gave us an extra hour. You're still in our room right now, but, might be moving to your own room in the next few weeks. You're a great sleeper. You still prefer to only sleep on your stomach. Completely opposite from Jacob. He hated his stomach.

- This month you got to meet your Tia Milly for this first time. She came to visit right before her graduation from Yale!

- You've been coming to the zoo with us and seem to LOVE it. Ha, actually you just sleep pretty much the whole time and I try to keep you from sweating too much in there. We try to only stay a few hours so you don't get too hot. :)

- You started smiling A LOT this month. This was the first one I got on camera while you were playing with Jacob. So sweet. :)

- After Jacob goes to bed every night, your Daddy and I love playing with you one on one. Your Daddy especially loves this special time with you. He's the best Daddy!

- You are SUCH a happy baby. You very rarely get fussy. You're such an easy-going and sweet baby. You are pretty flexible and go with whatever our schedules do during the day. As long as we have a bottle and clean diapers nearby, you're good to go!

I love making you smile...it's so cute watching you coo and "talk" to us.

- You can sleep pretty much wherever! The car, the stroller, on anyone that wants to hold you, in the baby carrier....wherever! Sure is a tough life being a baby!

I don't usually leave you on the couch like this, because, someone else always wants to come lay down next to you and usually it's hard to stay asleep with Jacob poking you and wanting to cuddle. This time, he pretended to be asleep when I went over to tell him to get up, haha. He loves you SO much! Always wants to be around you and wake you up from your naps to play with you.

Lastly, here's your monthly picture! As a comparison, here is your 1 month picture....

You can definitely tell how much you've filled out since last month!

And, just for fun...let's compare Jacob's 2 month picture with George to yours! Obviously, you weigh more than Jacob did who was playing catch up from being a preemie. But, other than that...I think you guys look pretty similar! Such cuties!

Noah, we love you so very much. We can't wait to watch you continue to grow and change. Happy 2 months! :)

First of many...

2011-06-27T08:04:00.000-05:00

Becoming a Mom means a lot of different things. One of them is, eventually, you have to face some of your own fears for your kids. As Jacob is growing into a little man, I'm trying to let him grow into his own without too many of my quirks...or fears. I try to let him get (just a little, ha) bit dirty when he's playing outside. Well, because he's a boy and they're supposed to do that. I try not to chase him down all day with soap and a paper towel. I also try to let him play with whatever he wants...even if I know I would never (ever!) do it myself.

Case in point....

We still have our memberships to the zoo. We've been trying to go once every week or 2 weeks. It's pretty smouldering outside, but, we still enjoy going every now and then for a few hours in the morning. Last week, we were there with my Mom and sister and stopped in one of the indoor exhibits to see some reptiles, amphibians, etc. For as long as I can remember I've been afraid of just about everything that's housed in this little building. Bugs, bugs, more bugs.....,but, most afraid of snakes.

My parents live on a lake and I always remember seeing water moccaassins in their neighborhood. Once, there was one inside my neighbors pool, while we were swimming in it! Then, once or twice we found small green garden snakes INSIDE the house. Uh, vomit! Lastly, once I think I was in about 6th grade. We were playing outside with some friends and about 2 houses down, we found a snake in the street. The snake was literally the size of a small anaconda. I'm not even joking. It was probably at least 10 feet long and at least a foot wide. My ran to get my parents and they came to run over it a few times with their car...didn't even phase the snake. It was disgusting!!!! Needless to say, I've had more than my fair share of nasty snake experiences.

So, back to the zoo, we're walking around and get to the end of the exhibit - where a lot of the snakes are. Ewww. When we came around the corner, a crowd of people were around a ledge. We walked over and one of the snakes was out of it's cage to let everyone pet it. Ahh. Jacob of course runs over to see. I had to decide quickly if I was going to start to relay my fears on him or try to act brave. As much as I was cringing and screaming inside, I attempted the latter...

Look at that thing! Gross!!!!! I think my face explains how I feel in this picture below, ha.

I was pretty proud of myself afterwards. Jacob actually loved it. He wanted to call his Daddy afterwards to tell him about it and he talked about it all night when he got home from work. For the record, we sanitized after touching the milk snake. :)

Here are a few other pictures from the rest of our day at the zoo last week. I love having a great zoo so close to our house!

I'm also thankful for my Mom and sister who always go to the zoo with us. There's no way I could take both boys by myself right now. :) Looking forward to our next zoo trip! Not so much to see the snakes, though. ;)

Jacob's Swim Lessons

2011-06-23T08:49:00.000-05:00

Earlier this month, we started Jacob in swim lessons. He LOVES the water, so, originally I thought we would just sign him up for lessons as something fun to do together. Being only a little over 2, I didn't think he would really learn as much - it would just be fun to swim around. I was definitely wrong! He learned so much and had such a great time doing it!

We signed up through the city doing a 2 week intensive class. He went every night for a 30 minute class, for 2 weeks straight. We're going on vacation to the beach soon and wanted him to be a little more acclamated to the water before our trip. So, rather than a few times a week or one lesson every Saturday (which would have taken all summer), we went for them all at once. It actually worked out better that way for us. Not only for vacation purposes, but, I think it was easier for Jacob to learn things in that shorter time frame rather than spreading it all out when he could forget what he learned/practiced.

After lessons during the week, we've also been going to my parents pool on the weekends to practice everything we've been learning. Jacob's doing GREAT! There were only 3 other kids in his class, so he got a lot of one-on-one time with the instructor. The lesson was done in the shallow end of the pool, but, either Badi or myself were always in the water with him during lessons.

Here are some pictures we took over the last 2 weeks!

He practiced floating on his tummy and his back. Getting his ears under water while on his back and using a noodle!

And doing those floats without a noodle, just a little help from Mom or Dad.

He also learned how to be by himself in the shallow end, walking around and jumping up and down!

He LOVED jumping in the pool and doing the "Humpty Dumpty Fall", where they sit on the edge and fall in. I love his face in this picture, haha.

He learned how to climb out of the pool by himself using the wall and climbing out using the ladder!

He learned how to put his face in the water and blow bubbles. Also how to hold his nose and go under!!!

I'm so glad we got Jacob to do this. He had a blast and really learned so much by the end of the lessons! We'll definitely continue lessons every summer. His instructor and some of the other parents kept telling us how great he was doing for only being 2. I think we've got a serious fish on our hands. :) Can't wait to see how he does when we go on vacation!

Happy Father's Day!

2011-06-19T08:11:00.000-05:00

Happy Father's Day to my wonderful husband who is such an incredible father. Jacob and Noah are so blessed to have him as their Daddy. He is so loving and patient. He is constantly teaching them new things, putting them (and me) before anything and anyone else, laughing with them, and being extremely hands-on. I couldn't have picked a better Daddy for them! Happy Father's Day, honey. Every day, seeing you with our boys - I fall in love all over again.

Also, sending the same wishes to my very sweet and loving father-in-law!

And of course to my own Daddy. Thanks for everything you've done for me and my 3 siblings over the years. For me, you taught me everything I needed to know about meeting new people, being extremely friendly, learning the art of sarcasm and how to tell a good joke, the importance of family and what a good man and husband should look like. Thanks for always protecting me and calling me your little girl. I love you very much!

Happy Father's Day to three amazing Dads, I love all of you!

Video of My Sweet Boys

2011-06-12T19:30:00.001-05:00

I know I've told you guys how sweet Jacob is with his baby brother. But, I finally have a short vide clip to prove it. He's SUCH a sweet boy and so loving with Noah. My Mom got this video the other day and I had to share. This is no exaggeration, he is always wanting to hold him, kiss him and talk to him. And sweet, laid back Noah just goes along with whatever and lets Jacob love on him all day. It melts my heart watching them together!

Make sure to pause the music at the bottom of the page so you can hear Jacob talking! :)

When the moon hits your eye...

2011-06-08T08:07:00.001-05:00

....like a big pizza pie, that's amore!

I'm really enjoying my time at home with both boys right now. But, it's also tough at times to constantly think of new things to keep a very active 2 year old entertained. With it already getting to be over 100 every day, I don't want to be outside as much. Poor Jacob. It's just too hard to get outside with him while I have Noah, too. Thankfully, Jacob has been great and understands it's really hot.

I was getting ready to make lunch the other day and usually struggle if Noah is awake. I'm constantly running back and forth from the kitchen to the living room to make sure Jacob is careful with Noah. So, I thought this time I would have Jacob help me make lunch. It would help him to stay where I can see him and it would be a fun activity for both of us. So, I got all all of the ingredients and Jacob pulled a chair up to help out.

Adding lots and lots of cheese!

Jacob LOVED doing this! He was so excited to finish it and place it in the oven. Well, I put it in the oven because it was hot. But, I put the timer on and told him when it beeped that his pizza would be ready.

When the timer went off, Jacob RAN over to the oven. It was so cute. I made sure to make a really big deal out of telling him what a great job he did and how he made it all by himself. He was so proud.

It was such a fun activity. Can't wait to think of more things that we can make together. My little chef is anxious, too!! ;)

Locks of Love

2011-06-06T22:18:00.000-05:00

My baby sister, Jenny, has been growing her hair out for a while now to donate to Locks of Love. She's already done it once before about 3 or 4 years ago. She's such a sweet, giving person...I just wanted to brag on her. I've never been able to donate because I spent too much time highlighting and coloring my hair all throughout high school and college. I wish I could. Here was Jenny before we went to the salon....

And...after! Doesn't she look so much older?!?! I LOVE the haircut and I'm so proud of you, Jenny. I know at least 2 or 3 people will feel so beautiful when they get to share your hair. I love you! :)

One Month Old

2011-06-02T20:01:00.001-05:00

A few days ago, our sweet boy Noah turned 1 month old!

It's so crazy how fast time is flying by. I feel like it's going even faster with two boys than it did just having one at home. Things are going really well with both boys at home. Of course there are a few moments in every day where I have to sit back and take several deep breaths and calm down. But really, overall, they are both doing great. Every day Jacob gets sweeter with his baby brother and tries to help out. He's really great at giving him kisses, replacing his paci when it falls out and he's fussing, bringing me things I need (burp cloths, diapers, etc) and cleaning up his own toys. It also has helped that Jacob is becoming a little more independent. He has his own independent play time during the day, he watches Mickey Mouse Clubhouse once or twice a day or reading books.

Noah is doing great. He's still very laid back and rarely gets fussy. Right now, on average, he's eating 10-13 times a day. I know....a lot. He's one hungry boy! During the day, he eats every 2 hours, sometimes a little sooner than 2 hours. At night, he eats about 3 or 4 times in the last few hours before I finally get in bed around 10 or 11pm. Then, he will usually sleep until about 4am. So, I'm thankful for that nice stretch of sleep. He's very alert. He opens his eyes so wide sometimes and loves to look around. Especially when he's looking out the window! I can already tell Noah will love to be outside just as much as his big brother. Yesterday, I went outside to go walking. Noah got cranky when I put him in his carseat...literally, the second I pushed the stroller outside and closed our front door - he was silent and just staring outside.

He's not as big of a fan of the swaddle as Jacob was. We still swaddle him at night, but, I can already tell he won't last as long as Jacob did with it. Partly because he's so big - he's super strong and can almost get out of it already! He loves to snuggle with anyone that is willing. Because of that, when he naps during the day - he actually prefers to lay on his stomach with his legs tucked under him...just like he would be on someone's shoulder.

We don't go back to the pediatrician until Noah is 2 months old so we don't have official Dr growth stats for him. But, by our at-home guesstimations - we think Noah is 23" (I know...crazy!!!) and almost 11lbs. BIG BOY!

Speaking of big boy, I'm doing the monthly growth pictures with Noah like we did with Jacob. For Noah, we debated for a while what object should be the constant in his pictures. We decided to go with the Mavs bear that Emily actually got for Jacob. Since, Noah has a sports theme and Jacob got it for becoming a big brother...we thought it fit well. Here's his 1 month shot!

But, just for fun...we'll also be taking month shots with Noah next to George. Noah has his own Curious George and we thought it would be fun to have these to compare both boys. In this, you can definitely see a big difference with how much bigger Noah is than Jacob was (understandably so, since Jacob was so early). Nevertheless, should be fun. Here's month 1 for Noah with George...then Jacob's 1 month shot.

Can't wait to see how much he has grown by month #2! Tomorrow we're headed to the FW zoo with my Mom and sister. I love being home with the boys during the summer when all of my sibling are around and we can do so much with my family!! :)

Lately

2011-05-24T22:15:00.000-05:00

Lately, things have been pretty consistent in our house. I consistently change about 18 diapers a day between both boys. All day long, Jacob likes to help with his brother. He loves to bring me diapers, throw away Noah's, give him his paci, help me pick out his outfit for the day, help me pat his back to burp him, etc. Also, we can always count on me watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I think I've memorized every episode ever aired on the Disney Channel. But, thankfully, Jacob doesn't mind watching them over and over. I'm glad we have something he really enjoys and loves.

We spend hours reading books, playing basketball in the living room, playing with cars, trucks and trains. We like to color and draw shapes on paper. Go over our ABCs and numbers.

I feel like I'm consistently feeding the appetites of two VERY hungry boys at home. Jacob loves to snack during the day and during meals, he eats plenty! Noah must be trying to keep up with his big brother. That, or he hit another growth spurt this week. We have, thankfully, gotten him into a pretty good routine of sorts. The last few days, between 11pm and 6/6:30am he only wakes up once. ONCE! That's so awesome. I'm so thankful to be getting a few extra hours of sleep than normal. But, leading up to when I go to sleep at 11ish, he goes on a feeding FRENZY! Usually he eats like 3 or 4 times within about 3 hours. It's nuts! But, I'm so glad he's doing so well and is a healthy boy. I can't imagine what our grocery bill will be like when these boys get bigger!! :)

Noah continues to be such a great baby! He's very laid back and easygoing. Jacob continues to amaze me with what a smart, loving, funny and kindhearted boy he is. I love being at home with both boys right now. Having Noah in the house now is making me realize how big Jacob is. How fast time goes and how much I really need to soak in every second of these two because before I know it...they'll both be in school and not wanting to snuggle with their Mommy, give me kisses or hugs.

Here are some pictures of what we've been up to lately! Love my boys so much! :)

I love my life right now. Things are absolutely hectic and crazy...but, I wouldn't change one single thing. :)

Big Brother Jacob

2011-05-16T13:12:00.001-05:00

Things surely are different going from one kiddo to two kids. For at least the last half of my pregnancy with Noah, we were talking about and planning ways to make the transition easier for Jacob to have a new sibling in the house. For the last 2+ years, Jacob has been the center of our world and the focus of all of our attention.

We knew and heard from several others that Jacob would probably regress some in a few areas of development once the baby arrived, so we planned accordingly. He hadn't had a paci in at least 7 months so we weren't worried about that. We got him successfully transitioned to his big boy bed a few months ago and out of his crib, so that was great. We made sure to talk about his baby brother and baby Noah ALL the time with him. So, all that was left was for Noah to arrive and just see what happened!

The first time my parents brought Jacob up to the hospital, he saw Noah for a few minutes and then wanted Badi to hold him and go play outside. Ha, not quite what we envisioned, but, still better than some horror stories I had heard about new sibling jealousy. For the most part, each time he came up to the hospital to visit us before going home...he did well and wanted to kiss and hold Noah. He didn't start showing much jealousy until our first day/night home from the hospital.

The second we pulled into the driveway, he ran outside and wanted Badi to pick him up for a hug. Annnnnd, that didn't really stop with the hug. Poor Jacob wanted to be held ALL. NIGHT. LONG. He saw me holding Noah and wanted the same for himself. He had several extra tantrums that night and was super clingy. He would steal Noah's paci and run into another room and hide while he put it in his own mouth, ha. But, by the next day, he was starting to warm up some more. Each day he got better and better.

Now, a little over 2 weeks in..he's a fantastic big brother. He LOVES to help us out. Getting a new diaper for Noah, throwing away diapers, he loves to help me pick out a new outfit for him to wear, help him put his paci in his mouth, hold him, kiss him, anything! Another idea we had to help with the transition was to get Jacob a gift. For a while now, we had been looking at getting Jacob a chair to sit in while he watched cartoons, played in the living room, etc. We had one picked out, but, just never got around to going to buy it before Noah came. Turned out, it worked out perfectly that we waited. We went to buy it a few days after getting home from the hospital. Badi had the ingenious idea to tell him it was from baby Noah to thank him for being such a great big brother. So now, if you ask him who bought his chair he says "present from baby Noah!!" It's so sweet. :)

Here's some pictures of my two sweet boys together. I can't wait to watch them grow up together and become close brothers and friends. I can only hope and wish that their sibling bond is as strong as the bond with my own siblings. I think we're off to a great start...

Haha, jealous much??? Shortly after getting back from the hospital. Had to turn away from Noah and didn't want to smile for the picture. :)

Muuuuch better! :)

Cuddling with baby brother... :)

In his new Mickey Mouse chair from Noah...watching his favorite show - Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!

Introducing Noah to Jacob's favorite park to play at...he was telling him about all the fun slides and swings he will get to play on later. :)

More kisses for Noah!

Good grief I love these boys so much!!!!!!! :)

Introducing Noah James!

2011-05-05T19:22:00.001-05:00

A lot sure has changed in our family over the last few days. Friday was the big day for my scheduled c-section. The night before, I had high hopes for enjoying a perfect "last meal" before needing to not eat or drink after midnight and have real food for a few days. All last week I was getting the most ferocious heartburn. I was running more and more out of room in my stomach and it seemed like if I ate slightly too much, I would totally pay for it later. That being said, I had a smaller dinner around 7pm and called it quits for eating after that. Friday morning, we woke up early and got ready to go to the hospital. My parents were going to come over to watch Jacob around 9:30am so we could arrive at our scheduled 10am appointment.

I was told at my pre-op appointment to call the hospital before we left on Friday morning just to make sure everything was still on schedule for the day. When I called, I was informed that apparently all of North Texas went into labor on Thursday night. We were definitely looking at a later c-section than 12pm, just didnt know when. So, the good part about that was at least we could wait it out at home until the hospital called us, versus just sitting around in the hospital twiddling our thumbs. Thank goodness we did that...another FIVE hours went by before they called and asked how long it would take for us to get there. Meanwhile, this entire time....still no food or even water for me. The food didn't bother me as much as not drinking any water. I was so thirsty! But, I did get to watch the Royal Wedding that I had recorded! :)

When the nurse finally called at 2:15pm, we assumed that by her asking us how quickly we could arrive at the hospital, that they were going to squeeze us in pretty quickly after we got there. Not so much. We rushed in, got into a room, hospital gown, IV started, etc. By then it was about 3:30pm and we were all set! About 20 minutes later, one of the nurses came in to let us know that my Dr was still a little backed up. With the "little" backup he still had...we were looking at about a 7:30pm surgery. AHHH! We later found out that I was the last scheduled c-section they took for the day. Everyone after me had to be bumped to Saturday! (The nursery told us later that night that they delivered over 20 babies in about 8 hours on Friday afternoon/evening!) So glad I made it in on Friday. I wouldn't have wanted to go through all that waiting again for a 2nd day.

So, we continued to wait around and watch TV. I tried to bribe my nurse for some ice or something...no dice. :) After what felt like an eternity, there was a shift change in the hospital and then it was time to walk down to the OR at 8:00pm. I got my spinal and laid down for prep work. Badi came in and next thing we knew, it was time to meet Noah! We all knew Noah would be a big boy, but, it wasn't until my Dr was trying to pull him out and had some difficulty because of his size that we really knew. At 8:34pm, Noah James Villagomez was born. He very quickly let us all know he was hear by letting out his first cry...which made me cry. That's what we had been waiting almost 10 months to hear. :)

I peeked behind the blue curtain to watch them weigh Noah. At first I saw a 6 and I was thinking...gosh, I really thought he would be bigger than that. And yeah, he was. He was a whopping 9 lbs 1oz and 21 3/4 inches long!!! SUCH a big boy!! He was perfect in every way. This time around was so much nicer than my first c-section with Jacob. There were about 16 people in the OR when Jacob was being delivered and he was whisked away to the NICU immediately. This time, there were only about 4 nurses, the anesthesiologist and my Dr in the room. After Noah was born and cleaned up, Badi got to sit next to me and hold him for about 10 minutes while they were cleaning me up. Badi left with Noah and followed the nurses with him to the nursery while they finished taking care of me. I was taken back to my room where Badi was waiting for the report on how great Noah was.

After about an hour of recovery, I was brought up to a post-partum room where we got to see Noah again. By then, it was about 11:30pm. At first I was a little upset at how late everything happened because that meant we couldn't have anyone come up to the hospital to see us and meet Noah. But, after the fact, we were so thankful to have all that time to ourselves and bond with our newest angel.

We got to come home from the hospital on Monday afternoon and we're loving life. It's definitely and adjustment to having a newborn in the house again, along with a VERY active 2 year old. But, now that he's here...I can't imagine anything but our family of 4.

Here are some pictures of Noah's first few days. Here's my last belly picture in the hospital. I was 39 weeks and 1 day when he was born. :)

BIG BOY! :)

First picture as a family of 4. :)

Big brother giving kisses to baby brother. So sweet. :)

Close up of sweet Noah with his eyes open.

We can't thank everyone enough for all of the calls, emails, texts, gifts, cards, etc. We're so beyond appreciative and grateful. It's so amazing to see how God works and all of a sudden after 10 months in your tummy, a precious baby can come into this world and change your life. I never knew I could love 3 boys so much in my life. I have the best husband and two perfect little sons.

My cup runneth over. :)

Tomorrow is the big day!

2011-04-28T08:16:00.000-05:00

Yep, I'm STILL pregnant! I can't believe it. Badi says he knew all along that I wouldn't have any complications this time around and I would easily make it full-term and easily right up to my due date. He was right! I'm 39 weeks today and tomorrow we're scheduled for our c-section. As much as I feel like I've been pregnant for about 2 years now, I also feel like these last 2 months or so have really flown by!

Tuesday was my last full day of work. It was getting harder and harder to sit at a desk every day. I know for some others that are on their feet more, it's equally as hard. But, gosh, it gets so uncomfortable sitting at a desk and having even more pressure on your stomach. So, I'm glad I have a little bit of time leading up to the big day!

Yesterday morning I had to go up to the hospital for my pre-op appointment. I was thinking it would mainly just be to take care of insurance stuff. Man, what a difference when a c-section is planned and not an emergency. I did about 20 minutes of paperwork and insurance junk. Then, I went to another room where I answered a ton of medical questions, took my blood pressure, gave about 6 tubes of blood, got the full rundown of Friday's agenda, got the paperwork to fill out for Noah's birth certificate and even was issued my hospital band. I don't think it really hit me until she put a hospital band on me! Pretty crazy. With Jacob we did all of that while I was in a hospital room.

When it's scheduled ahead of time, they take care of everything in the pre-op appointment. So, tomorrow, we literally will just walk in, go right up to our room, get prepped and go meet our baby! It will be nice to not have to worry about anything at all the day of.

We're going to drop Jacob off at my parents house on the way to the hospital in the morning. Since there is a chance that I might get bumped if there is an urgent c-section that comes up, we're going to just call our parents tomorrow afternoon after the surgery is over. We don't want them to have to wait for a few hours if I'm bumped back. My parents offered to watch Jacob for us this weekend while we're in the hospital. They even offered to just stay at our house since all of Jacob's things (especially his big boy bed!) are here.

We're so excited and ready to meet baby Noah. We can't wait to see if he looks anything like Jacob or looks completely different. We're also really anxious to see how big he is. My Dad has been compiling guesses for his length/weight. Some of them are pretty funny. It's definitely a LARGE range of guesses, so we'll have to wait and see who's closest. :)

If you get a chance tomorrow (Friday), please say a prayer for Noah and I. We just want everything to go as smoothly as possible for both of us and that we have the most uneventful hospital stay known to man. It would be so nice to not have any issues come up and to actually be able to leave the hospital at the same time as our baby! Thanks for all of your love and support these past 39 weeks. We love you all and can't wait to introduce you to our sweet baby boy (#2!). :)

I have awesome friends!

2011-04-20T15:27:00.000-05:00

I've always known I have some pretty dang awesome friends. But, it was further proven a few weeks ago. I've been meaning to post about this for a while now, but, I've been slightly preoccupied with last minute preparations for baby Noah's arrival.

One of my very best friends lives in Georgia. Emily moved there right after high school to attend college in north Georgia. Thankfully, we've still remained super close and she's able to come back to Texas once or twice a year. I've been to visit her in Georgia 3 or 4 times now, but, obviously it's harder for us to make the trip out there nowadays. Lucky for me, all of her immediate family still lives in this area...so, she has to come here more often to visit everyone. :)

That being said, Emily had her first baby last December. She had been trying to plan a trip to Texas to introduce everyone to her sweet baby boy, Ryder. She planned a long weekend trip in the middle of March - actually on our Spring Break. It was so great to meet Ryder and spend time with Emily. She's always been like a sister to me and I think my family unofficially adopted her about 10 years ago. :)

Since I didn't have any time off work during Spring Break and I knew she had a lot of visits to squeeze into her schedule, Emily made sure to plan a night that we could all grab dinner together. That afternoon was really hectic and Badi had planned to stay at home and let us have a girls dinner. I really wanted to have that, too, but - Emily really wanted to spend time with Jacob. He wasn't in the best mood so I almost left him with Badi. Thank goodness I didn't......

I walked into Cheddars, running about 10 minutes late of course and Emily met me at the door. I thought it was a little strange since she told me already where she was sitting, but, I just assumed she was super anxious to see Jacob. (I had already seen her a few nights prior without Jacob). We rounded the corner and I saw a FULL table with about six of my closest friends, my Mom, my sister and my younger brother's sweet gf, Jenae. I was SHOCKED. Emily had planned all of this ahead of time. Since she wasn't able to be in town for either of my baby showers, she wanted to do something special for me. She organized a big dinner with several friends/family of mine and thew me a "Jacob's about to be a big brother" party!

Everyone that came bought a special little gift for Jacob. He got a new "big brother" shirt, some Mickey Mouse coloring books with new crayons (his FAVORITE!), new clothes, a special teddy bear with a Mavs outfit from Build-a-bear. The bear has a special recorded message from Emily telling Jacob what a great big brother he will be to Baby Noah. It's so incredibly sweet. Emily even had a sweet cookie cake made for him that read "Jacob, #1 big brother!". He was definitely the star of the night. I was so beyond grateful and appreciative.

Here are some pictures from the night. I love you all so much! :)

How sweet is this picture of Jacob wiping slobber off of Ryders chin?!?! PRECIOUS!

Group shot!

Best friends since high school!

Emily, Sarah and I! :)

Thanks again for organizing such a special surprise for me, Emily. I love you! :)

Bon Qui Qui!!!

2011-04-19T16:42:00.001-05:00

Please tell me that you've heard of Anjelah Johnson!

If the name doesn't ring a bell, then maybe you've seen the skit from Mad TV with Bon Qui Qui? *Make sure to pause the music at the very bottom of this page. You won't want to miss this!* Ha.

MAD Tv - Bon Qui Qui at King Burger. Watch more top selected videos about: Burger King

Or, what about the Nail Salon clip?

I think this girl is HI-LARIOUS!!! She is from California and some of our cousins have actually seen her at some comedy clubs in SoCal. I'm so excited, she'll actually be performing tonight at the University I work at. I can't wait!!!! I'm going with a few girls from my office along with Badi and our cousin's wife, Nika.

Whoop, whoop! Maybe all the laughing I'll do tonight will help push Noah along? :) The countdown is at NINE days! I'm ready whenever he is. If he wants to come early...it's okay with me. Or, I'm happy to wait until next Friday. :)

Big Boy Bed!

2011-04-08T15:03:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned before that Jacob had been taking naps in a "real bed" for a few months now. I had been putting off having him sleep over night in the bed for a while because it made me super nervous. I was nervous about him falling out of the bed, wandering around the house in the dark, getting scared, getting up and out of the bed too much, etc. Pretty much any and every thought surrounding him sleeping in the bed at night crossed my mind and made me anxious.

But, at the end of the day, we were up against a timeline. Noah will be here soon and there was no way I was going to buy a whole 'nother crib just so we could stay comfortable with the norm and not transition him. With that, I knew that we would have to hurry up and get the process started so that by the time Noah was sleeping in the crib, it was nothing but normal that Jacob was in a bed. We've really tried hard to think of things (like the bed) to change early or ease into Jacob's routine well before we bring a 4th member into our family. I know it'll be a big adjustment for him when his baby brother arrives. So, we're trying to keep the change as seamless as possible so it's not too many big changes at once.

That being said, about 3 weeks ago we took the plunge. We went to the store and bought some bedrails, set them up and we let Jacob sleep in his bed overnight for the first time. Much to our surprise.....he went down without a peep and did not wake up ONE TIME in the middle of the night. We were shocked. I kept thinking "gosh, why the heck did we wait so long to make this change?!" Then, night #2 rolled around. I think I jinxed it when I was praising Jacob and his big boy bed abilities on facebook. Night #2 was not so praise-worthy. He must have gotten up 3 or 4 times and each time it took a good 15 or 20 minutes to go back down. The last time he got up, he only wanted his Daddy and would not let him leave his side. Poor Badi fell asleep next to him and didn't realize it until it was about 4am. Not a great night for everyone.

But, ever since then...it's been pretty painless! I think Jacob is actually sleeping a lot better in the bed. I'm sure it's got to be more comfortable than his crib. He's so dang tall he was starting to really outgrow the crib, so he can stretch out a lot more in the bed and the bed mattress is much softer than the cribs. We do have a few nights where if we have family over, Jacob does not want to stay in his bed. He'll defintiely climb out and walk right back into the living room like "hellooooo, I know you guys are all still out here having fun....so, why the heck would I want to go to bed?!?" So, some nights we literally have to shut down the house. If we have people over, they have to pretend to leave the house, say goodnight to Jacob, open/shut the front door...the whole nine yards. If it's just Badi and I, we'll turn off all the lights in the house and tell Jacob that we're all going to bed. That boy doesn't want to miss out on ANYTHING. So, if he knows people are up having fun....forget about getting him to bed!

So, now that we've worked out all of the little kinks....it's been great. We went to the store and bought new bedding. We let Jacob pick it out so he would get that much more excited about his bed. It's a dinosaur set and he LOVES it. He also is a big fan of jumping on his bed. I'll pick him up after work and one of the first things he says is "go home and see the dinosaurs??" or "go home and jump on my bed??" Too funny. I'm glad we got well into this before Noah came. Also, since Noah will be in our room for the first 2 months or so, we'll have even more time for him to get used to his bed. Last weekend we bought Jacob some new furniture - a big boy dresser, nightstand and a headboard. Our first baby is growing up so quick!

One last thing that's helped Jacob's transition to the big boy bed....he got to bring along some of his favorite people. Here's two pictures of Jacob about a month ago sleeping with his bff...Mickey.

Jacob will not go to sleep unless he has his Mickey or his Curious George with him.

It's so sweet watching Jacob with his "animal friends" like George and Mickey. He holds them so lovingly, gives them endless kisses and hugs and tells them he loves them. Hopefully he'll be just as sweet to his baby brother. Countdown is at 20 days!!! :)

T minus 25 days!

2011-04-04T15:18:00.000-05:00

The countdown is officially winding down! Baby Noah will be here in less than 25 days. That's absolutely crazy to me. The last few weekends we've spent time finishing up the final touches on Noah's room. It took a little longer than we wanted to get all that organized b/c we didn't want to buy a new crib and nursery furniture for Noah. So, we finally transitioned Jacob to a big boy bed and on Saturday we finally found some furniture we liked for him. He needed a new dresser and nightstand so we could bring all of that stuff into Noah's room.

On top of all that, it's been getting down the baby swing, Boppy, clothes etc that Jacob used and washing everything for Noah to use. Whew. We're also preparing Noah's setup in our bedroom where he'll be staying in the pack 'n play for the first 2 or so months. It's been pretty exhausting, thankfully, Badi has been a TREMENDOUS help!

He says he waited until later to do all of this because he knew Noah would wait until his room was 100% done before he tried to make his arrival. So far, that's been the case. :) I still can't believe that I'm almost 36 weeks pregnant and we haven't had any big issues this time. I'm so, so, so thankful!

That being said, I'm also trying to get our freezer ready with some meals for when we get home from the hospital. Any of you lovely friends have good recipes to share that freeze well? I have plenty of great recipes, just have no idea if any of them freeze well and if they're any good when thawed and re-heated. So, any help with that would be very much appreciated!

Lastly, that pregnancy countdown on the top right corner of this page is so silly. That pregnant girl definitely doesn't look like she's almost 36 weeks pregnant! She just looks like she had a big lunch!!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Family Pictures - March 2011

2011-03-28T16:38:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, one of our friends took family pictures of us. I had so badly wanted to get some family pictures done since the last one of the 3 of us was taken when Jacob was about 6 months old! Also, I never got maternity pictures taken when I was pregnant with Jacob, so I wanted to get a few of those done this time around in case we don't have any more kids.

I was really hesitant to book anything with anyone b/c I was so nervous about being put on bedrest and I didn't want to do them too early and not look as pregnant. Funny how things work out when you want/need them to. :) Some very sweet family friends of ours moved to Georgia several years ago. Their eldest has recently taken a really strong interest in photography and she's quickly become really great at what she does! She recently got accepted into an awesome photography program in Hawaii and will be leaving in a few weeks. Before heading to HI, she came back to Texas for a quick visit to see some friends and family that are still in the DFW area. To help raise money for her trip to HI, she booked a few photography sessions....we were one of them. It worked out so well.

So, we met Grace at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. We had gorgeous weather that day! It was pretty difficult to get Jacob to look at the camera, smile and pay attention all at the same time. But, we still got a few pretty good ones that I'll be putting up in our house. Here are some of my favorites from the day.

Oh yeah, and don't worry. We cut Jacob's CRAZY hair a few days after (of course...ha) these pictures were taken. Oh well. :)

LOVE this one...just wish Jacob was looking up at the camera!

My FAVORITE! Love this boy so much! :)

Love how Grace snapped this right as he tossed her the baseball. :)

Ignore my face of determination and anguish of being in that position...haha.

So cute! He looooovvvves to kiss his baby brother! :)

Be sure to check out Grace's facebook page to see more of her awesome work. Click here: With Charm & Grace. Thanks again for everything, Grace. Good luck in Hawaii, we know you'll continue to do great things! :)

Milestone Day!

2011-03-23T18:54:00.000-05:00

I'm 34 weeks pregnant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It might not seem like that big of a deal to a lot of people, but, for anyone who knew what I went through when I was pregnant with Jacob...it's a huge milestone! At this point in my 1st pregnancy, I had already been on bedrest in the hospital with severe pre-eclampsia for 3 weeks. I had already been told numerous times that Jacob would have to be in the NICU, that nurses were amazed that I hadn't given birth yet with how high my BP readings were when I first got put on bedrest, I had basically been secluded from everyone for weeks. I couldn't really have visitors or take phonecalls in the hospital because my blood pressure would sky rocket. It was all pretty terrifying and pretty much the big elephant in the back of my mind ever since I was pregnant with #2.

Every day of this pregnancy, especially the last 8 or so weeks, I've been replaying everything that happened the first time around. I was especially terrified when my Doctor decided to give me the two steroid shots (that I got with Jacob at 31 weeks) to develop Noah's lungs...at 28 weeks. I thought for sure everything was going right back to what happened the first time. I thought for sure we were in for another round of bedrest, early delivery and NICU.

After asking for prayers, prayers and more prayers.....here we are today! I've never been so happy to see the #34. My next Drs appointment is Friday morning for my weekly BP check. I can't tell you how ecstatic I am. Noah's healthy and so far (fingers remain crossed), things are looking great. Thank you to everyone for all of your good thoughts and prayers for us. They help so much!

We had some family pictures taken a few weeks ago. I'll do a separate post with some of my favorites from the shoot. But, for now, I'll end this post with one of the pictures that I love so much.

How timely that at 34 weeks with #2, I'm healthy...baby Noah is healthy and my sweet baby Jacob who was born right at 34 weeks and spent 3 weeks in the NICU....is healthier than ever and so excited to meet his baby brother.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. God is so incredibly good! :)

The End is in Sight!

2011-03-15T15:13:00.000-05:00

At my appointment last week my Dr went ahead and scheduled a date for my c-section! It's crazy how all at once, I feel like I've been pregnant forever, yet, I feel like I just found out we were expecting again...and now he'll be here in about 6 weeks! The date is set for Friday, April 29th! I'll be 39 weeks at that point and definitely ready to meet our 2nd little munchkin.

I don't know if I'm more excited about the idea of getting to finally see him and hold him in 6 weeks, or, if I'm more thrilled that this pregnancy is (seemingly so far) going a lot smoother this time around. I've already lasted 2 weeks longer without being put on bedrest than I did with Jacob. Not only is my BP stable right now, but, Noah is measuring about a month ahead of Jacob! Jacob always measured a week - week and a half smaller than where I was in my pregnancy and Noah is measuring about 2 weeks ahead! On top of him being much bigger in my tummy and lasting longer without bedrest, just for good measure, we also got the 2 steroid shots to kickstart his lung development.

So, worst case scenario, even if I were to all of a sudden be put on bedrest and Noah would be delivered via an emergency c-section like his big brother....I'm at peace with where everything stands right now. I'm not nearly as worried as I was when I was going through this with Jacob because the odds are really in our favor right now.

I'm not trying to jinx anything at all, but, I definitely feel like things are progressing really well and we hopefully won't have to deal with the NICU this time around. Of course this all means that much more since we had a scare with my Dr around 27 weeks thinking that my blood pressure was creeping up. That's why I got the steroid shots and started weekly BP checks. But, so far so good! I couldn't feel more elated and blessed right now.

Anytime anyone asks me how I'm feeling, I almost feel bad for talking about the typical 8 1/2 months pregnant ailments. Achy back, can't sleep at night, slight swelling, feeling huge, etc. All of that just seems like a cake walk and so manageable given what we went through 2 years ago. I've found myself rewording my response to that question to be something along the lines of: "Well, I can't complain!" Because honestly, I really can't. I'm too thankful and appreciative to be at this point in pregnancy with both Noah and I healthy as can be to be complaining about small things. :)

So now the new countdown is working our way down to April 29th. I can't wait....well, I can. He needs to cook a little longer, but, I'm so anxious to bring our sweet boy home. Thanks to everyone for the prayers....they mean the world to us. I know that's why we've done so well this time. Thank you. :)

Baby Boy #2s Name! :)

2011-03-08T16:16:00.002-06:00

I know, I know. Everyone's been asking, calling, emailing, facebook'ing, everything! It actually took us a lot longer this time around than it did with Jacob to agree on a name. It was crazy how even our "back up" names for Jacob...we didn't care for anymore. It wasn't until a few weeks ago that we finally agreed on a name and I couldn't be more excited. Since it took a while to pick it, we thought we might be able to keep it a secret until his birth. But, that didn't quite work out.

Badi has been calling baby boy by his name a lot at home. So, Jacob hears it. We talk to Jacob about his brother, etc. A few weeks ago, my parents were over and Jacob (randomly and totally unprompted) started yelling out his brothers name. I think he had seen another gift come in for his brother and was associating the two.

Anyway, we thought we better start telling people ourselves before Jacob told the world. :)

Without further adieu, our sweet boy's name will be Noah James Villagomez. I've always loved the name Noah and thankfully, Badi grew to love it as well. I love the story of Noah in the Bible. How he was chosen out of all of mankind because he was so righteous to be the one to take on gathering all of the animals and build the ark. The last of the 10 Patriarchs. The name means: "peace, rest and comfort". Sounds pretty perfect to me.

Just like Jacob's middle name...we wanted a family name. Jacob's middle name is after Badi's late grandfather who passed away about a year before I first got pregnant. He and Badi were extremely close and Badi always wanted to carry that name on in one of our children.

So for our second son, we picked James as the middle name. James is after my Dad. One of my brothers also carries the name James. My family means so much to me. My parents (and Badi's parents) have done so much for us over the years. We wouldn't be where we are today without their love and support. My Dad got really emotional when we told him the full name. I only hope that we are able to raise our children like my parents have raised us. To always put family first and make them a number one priority. To always be there for each other no matter what. To support each other in everything. I'm so thankful to be so close with all of them.

So, in a few days I will be 32 weeks. That's a big milestone for us! Last Thursday was my 31 week check up. It was the exact day in my pregnancy (and day of the week!) that I was put on bedrest with Jacob. This is especially significant because about a month ago, my Dr got a little nervous about my blood pressure potentially rising. He went ahead and gave me the two steroid shots to kickstart Noah's lung development. Since that appt, I've been going in weekly just to check my BP. It's been pretty nerve-wracking, but, so far everything is stable!

The other exciting news is that I got another sonogram recently to check on Noah's progress and growth. At 30 weeks, Noah was already almost 4 lbs and 16 inches long! That's almost exactly what Jacob was when he was born at 34 weeks!!! A full month ahead of his big brother. So, even if he were to come early...Noah's a big, healthy boy! I'm glad, too, because I've gained about 22 lbs so far (yeah, I know looking at my belly below...it amazes me too! ha), that's HALF the weight that I did with Jacob and was nervous that he might be smaller. Not so much. :)

Here's a few pictures of our cutie pie from a sonogram about 2 months ago. He was in a really weird position a few weeks ago so I didn't get any good pictures from that one.

We can't wait to meet baby Noah! As long as everything goes according to plan, I'll have a scheduled c-section at the end of April. It's stable right now and everything's looking good, but, it can definitely change on a dime. I'm hoping to at least make it into April and I'll be 35 weeks at that point. Anything after that is icing on the cake. But, please pray that I have the strength to accept God's plan whenever He is ready to get things going. I know that He knows what's best for all of us and I just hope to be confident enough to accept it when it happens. :)

As always, thank you all for your love, support and prayers. I can't wait for you all to meet baby Noah. We're dying to see who he looks like and if his personality will be anything like Jacob's! We have so much to look forward to in the next few months. I feel so incredibly blessed....

2nd Birthday Party!

2011-03-06T19:53:00.003-06:00

Last weekend we had Jacob's 2nd birthday party at our house. I've talked about how much Jacob loves Mickey these days, so, we went with a Mickey Mouse theme. As opposed to Jacob's 1st birthday party, we chose to keep his 2nd birthday a little smaller. We just had our immediate family, a few close friends and a few neighbor friends that Jacob loves.

We planned the party around lunchtime thinking that we could plan around Jacob's afternoon nap. I was afraid that if we did anything later in the afternoon and Jacob didn't get a nap, it wouldn't be a very happy party. :) So, we had plenty of snacks for everyone and Badi grilled hamburgers and hot dogs.

Jacob's monkey cupcakes from his 1st birthday were such a hit, that, I wanted to do cupcakes again. I prefer to try and make them myself, so I found a few cute ideas online and made these. I think they turned out really cute and were definitely easy to make!

Here are a few random shots from the party. I was hoping to get more, but, I was so worried about making sure we used the video camera, I didn't get as many pictures I wanted. But, I remembered to get the important shots. :)

We had one of our front rooms set up with a lot of Jacob's toys so the kids could all play together while the adults ate and talked.

Two years ago I had a conference for work in Orlando. I came home with a red Mickey tshirt. Little did I know that it would be perfect for his 2nd birthday party! He loved the shirt, but, when it came time for his cupcake and singing 'Happy Birthday' we made sure to take it off. :)

Before we sang and he dove into the cupcake, we remembered to get a family picture with the cupcake in tact! :)

A few shots of our family/friends right after singing Happy Bday to Jacob!

Us with Badi's grandmother/Jacob's great-grandmother. She loves Jacob so much! :)

Jacob wanted to share some of the cupcake with Mommy :)

Both of Badi's parents unfortunately had to miss the party. We missed them being there. Here's a shot of Jacob with my parents, his Mimi and Pops. I love that the way Jacob was eating the cupcake left a perfectly formed chocolate icing mustache on his face. So hilarious!!

We were so glad that Jacob's AJ, my sister Jenny, could be up from Austin for the party.

Last year the one picture I forgot to take at his party was a picture of him with all of the kids that came. Thankfully, I remembered this year! It was a gorgeous day for his party so most of the party the kids were in the backyard playing on Jacob's see-saw and playset. I bribed them with their goodie bags to line up for this picture. It looks like a mug shot. Ha! But, I was pleasantly surprised (and shocked!) at how well they did for this! I actually got about 6 before everyone gave up. Aren't they cute? And, you can see Jacob's Mickey shirt.

Here are Ronan, Jacob, Fabian, Ellie, Sophia, Emma and Ethan

Overall, a pretty successful party. It was nice and low-key, just what we wanted since I was about 8 months pregnant! :) Thanks again to everyone that came to celebrate our sweet boy's big day!

Jacob's 2nd Birthday

2011-03-03T16:41:00.001-06:00

Two weeks ago was Jacob's actual birthday. Gosh, I've been slacking with the blog! But, I wanted to make sure I documented everything from that weekend. The night before his birthday (Friday) we went out to PF Changs for dinner with my family. Jacob LOVES rice so we picked that place for him...and well, we really love it, too. After dinner, we went back to our house and let Jacob open one of his gifts.

All of my extended family is in Virginia, so Jacob had accumulated a nice pile of birthday cards and a few gifts. Rather than opening everything all at once and being done, we spaced all the cards and gifts out over Friday night and his entire birthday on Saturday. The first gift on Friday night was from my Aunt Patty. He loved his new book, thank you!!!! :)

We wanted to get a quick family picture of us since my parents were going to be out of town on his birthday and we knew we probably couldn't get someone else to take one. Jacob LOOOOOVES his Mickey and George. He had to make sure they weren't left out of our family picture. :)

Early the next morning (on his actual bday) before my parents left town for my brothers basketball game, they stopped by to surprise Jacob with several birthday balloons. So cute. Thanks, Mimi & Pops!

On special days, we make cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Jacob always has at least 2 of them, sometimes 3! His birthday was no exception.

After breakfast and showers, we headed to the park. We wanted to fill the day up with things we knew Jacob loved to do. He got to play on the park for about an hour or so. He loved it! I love these pictures of Badi and Jacob playing together. :)

After playing on the playground for a while, we went over to feed the ducks. I love this park, I grew up going to it. It was so nice growing up on the lake and having such easy access to this park. I love that we get to take our kids to it, too. Jacob loves going to see the ducks and feeding them.

He gets so into feeding them. Check out him raring back to fire off some bread...ha! :)

After feeding the ducks, it was time to feed ourselves! Keeping with the outside theme, we had packed a picnic lunch to just eat outside at the park. We were lucky that it was such a beautiful day that day!!

Once we got home, we were pooped from the park. All 3 of us took a nap! When Jacob got up he got to open some more gifts and cards! This picture was from my cousin, Cindy. Thanks so much for the cute shirt!!! :)

This was from my aunt Sue. Such a cute book, thanks guys!! :)

That night, we made one of Jacob's favorite things to eat...tuna fish casserole. That boy can tear up some pasta/carbs and cheese. Just like his momma! We gave him a bath and let him stay in longer than usual. I think it was a pretty successful birthday for him. Hope he thought so, too. :)

And, of course we had to take his birthday picture with George. Since he can't go in the crib for those pictures anymore, the new tradition will be at his growth chart. :)

I'll post again soon with the recap of his birthday party. We had it last weekend so that more of our family could make it. It was a lot of fun and Jacob seemed to have a great time. Thanks for everyone that sent cards, gifts, well wishes, emails and facebook messages for his birthday. We're all so lucky to know so many wonderful people! :)

2 Years Old!

2011-02-19T23:10:00.005-06:00

Two years ago today, our lives were forever changed. Your birth didn't exactly go the way I had grown up imagining having a baby. You were delivered via an emergency c-section and 6 weeks early. You were immediately whisked away to the NICU at only 4lbs and 17 inches. I have never been so scared in my life. You looked so fragile and tiny. The hardest part was that I actually couldn't even see you for the first 2 days.

I was still on magnesium for my blood pressure and couldn't leave the bed. It had almost been 72 hours before I made it into the NICU for the first time. Other than seeing you right after you were born, this was the first time I saw you.

You were still having a few problems breathing so you had a CPAP on to help your lungs. Daddy and I stayed in the NICU for a little while and said a lot of prayers over you. The next morning, we got news from the Dr that you were doing a lot better and they would probably be taking the CPAP off that day. You just got better and better from there on out. All you had left to learn was how to eat on your own. Here you are at 5 days old. Looking so precious. :)

You were in the NICU for just under 3 weeks before we were able to bring you home. We couldn't wait to show you around the house and finally introduce you to all the people that had been praying so hard for you. You have been such a fighter ever since you were born. You immediately started growing like crazy. It was originally anticipated by your Dr that you would take 12 months to get on the "normal" growth curve. At 4 months, you had already surpassed all the averages! You've been growing like a weed ever since! Here you are at about 6 months!

This was you last year on your 1st birthday. You have always been such a happy, happy boy. You love to smile, laugh and make others laugh.

Right after your 1st birthday, you got to go on your 1st big trip! We took a cruise to Mexico with your aunt, uncles, Mimi and Pops. We had a blast!

Here you are at 18 months! We went on another trip up to New York to visit your Aunt Martha, Uncle Kevin, cousins Peter and Paul and Aunt Amelia. We even made a special trip up to Canada to see Niagara Falls. You've gotten to see so much in your short amount of time with us! Such a lucky boy! :)

Last night for your birthday, we went out to celebrate for dinner at PF Changs with Mimi, Pops and Uncle Jimmy. You LOVE to eat their rice! Afterwards, we wanted a family picture for your birthday. (You are obsessed with Mickey Mouse and your Curious George...they come everywhere with you. Even into our family pictures.) :) In the very near future, we'll have another addition to our family picture so we wanted to make your 2nd birthday as special as we could. I'll do a separate post about all the fun stuff we did today for your birthday!

At 2 years old you've got quite the personality! You're incredibly smart, loving, kind-hearted, generous and sweet.

- You weigh about 29 lbs (60%tile) and are just over 36 inches tall (95%tile).

- You haven't gained much weight in the last 6 months but you keep getting taller! Everywhere we go people comment about how tall you are. Guess you're still trying to catch up to your tall uncles! You're definitely long and lean!

- You still love water and could be in the bath forever.

- You love to be outdoors playing. When we play in the backyard or at a park and have to leave - you get pretty upset. :)

- You love waving, saying "hi" and "bye" to anyone you see. You're extremely social.

- You LOOOOVE Youtube. You could sit in front of the laptop and watch youtube videos all. day. long. Some of your favorite videos are the ABC songs, Wheels on the Bus, Old MacDonald, Twinkle Twinkle, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or any educational videos about shapes, colors and the alphabet sounds.

- Speaking of colors and shapes - you know and can say circle, square, triangle, oval, diamond and rectangle. We're working on even more. For colors, you can recognize and say yellow, red, purple, blue, green and sometimes orange. If you're not sure...it's always red or yellow ...or as you say "wed and ye-yow".

- You also know a lot of your alphabet! You can go through and say most of your ABCs in order. You skip a few letters and sometimes need help, but, we're so impressed with your skills!

- You can count from 1 to 10!

- You love to give hugs and kisses. You especially love for Mickey and George (who you always carry around) to give kisses to people. Mommy always gets kisses from Mickey.

- For the last month or so you've been taking your daily nap in a big boy bed! Now, we just need to work on sleeping in there at night. Almost there. Just in time for us to have the crib back for your baby brother.

- You love calling people. We call your aunts, uncles and grandparents using speaker phone VERY frequently. You love to say "hi" and "where are you?" to them. It cracks us all up.

- You love to point out the moon, stars and airplanes in the sky.

- You love cars, trains and buses. You point all of them out when you see them on the road.

- You're incredibly sweet and thoughtful. You're extremely helpful around the house. You're really good about picking up your own toys and love to help wash dishes (standing on a chair by us).

You change so much and we're so amazed at what a sponge you are. We'll tell you something one time and a few days later you're repeating it and still remember. You make us laugh daily and Daddy and I go to sleep talking about you every night. What silly things you're up to. You're such an incredible gift to us. We're so thankful to be your parents. I can't wait to see you as a big brother, I know you're going to be great. We love you with all our heart and can't wait to see what this next year brings. Thanks for making it so easy to love you so much. We love you, sweet boy! Happy 2nd birthday! :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T22:26:00.001-06:00

Almost 7 years ago I met my Valentine. He's my best friend, my shoulder to lean on, my everything. We never go overboard and do a whole lot for Valentine's Day, but, I still remember each one that we have had together.

Our very 1st Valentine's together, I was a senior in college. He lived about 45 minutes away and I had a big test the following day. I took a break from studying to call Badi. We chatted for a while and just when I was about to let him go to finish studying, he knocked on my door. He drove up when he got off work around 10:00 at night just to see me, drop off a beautiful heart-shaped diamond necklace and give me a kiss. We didn't get a picture that night, but, I'll never forget it.

The next year, V-Day 2006, I planned our date. We reenacted our very first date. Went to the same restaurant and same movie theater. It was perfect.

V-Day 2007, we celebrated as a married couple in our 1st apartment together. When I got home, there were a ton of pink and white balloons on the bed. Badi had written a reason why he loved me, folded the paper, and put them in each balloon. Such a romantic!! :)

V-Day 2008...I don't have a picture. Oops! Another low-key night at home. I made Badi one of his favorite meals for dinner. :)

V-Day 2009 - I was 8 1/2 months pregnant with Jacob, in the hospital on bedrest. Feeling like a total whale and complete blah...Badi still made the day so special. He made a homemade heart-shaped card. Also, he gave me a handful of folded up notes. Every hour that day, I was supposed to open up one of the papers to read one of the many ways he loved me. Under the circumstances, I couldn't believe how beautiful and loved I felt. He's so great at that. :)

V-Day 2010, we enjoyed a quiet night at home with our cutie pie. Badi gave Jacob his very first haircut and I couldn't have been more happy to just stay at home and spend the time with my boys.

V-Day 2011 - Gosh, Jacob has changed so much since last year! What a difference! Badi ordered flowers for me and had them delivered to my work. He's bought me flowers maybe 6x since we met. I'm perfectly fine with that too. Because when I do get them, I'm completely surprised and caught off guard.

I don't need a special day on the calendar to remind me how much I'm loved or how much I should be thankful for. I get to experience that every single day when I see my husband and precious little boy. Can't wait to have my 3rd Valentine arrive in the near future. I'm one lucky girl! Happy Valentine's, everyone! :)

Beautiful Story & Video

2011-02-07T14:10:00.000-06:00

During my 4 day stint at home last week, I got to catch up on my DVR. One of the things I always record is Oprah. Clearly, this is usually the show that builds up the most because Badi wants to watch other shows with me when we actually have time to watch something on TV. So, it was an Oprah fest on my couch all last week. Loved it. :)

As most everyone knows, this is her last season on air, after 25 years. At the beginning of this season, she made news everywhere by offering her entire studio audience a 7 day trip to Australia...with her! So, a few of the episodes I watched recently were all recapping their trip together with her viewers and a guest. What a trip of a lifetime!

Anyway, one of the tapings in Australia, Oprah featured a young couple who had recently been in the news. Kristian and Rachel had been married about 7 years, had two young boys and when Kristian was 34 - he was diagnosed with cancer. They agreed for him to undergo very aggressive chemo to try and get rid of the cancer quickly before it spread. The mounting hospital bills caused Rachel to pick up a job as a teacher to help pay some of their expenses. Rachel took care of the 2 boys in the morning, got them ready, headed to work all day, then went to the hospital to take care of her sick husband. It was such an incredible video montage of their story involving so much faith, courage and love. In the interview, Kristian was explaining how thankful he was for their community who stepped up to help raise money for the couple. He then teared up when he explained that someone from their church called them one day, told them to put all their hospital bills in an envelope and mail them to the church. Their church took care of everything that had pending. How AMAZING!

But, another reason this super adorable and precious family got on the news and Oprah found out about them was because of something else. As a huge thank you and small token of his appreciation for his wife, Kristian made a video for his wife. Before he got sick, he was a TV/film editor. As a birthday present for her last year, he made this video. I had to give some of their backstory before you watched the video. It makes the video that much sweeter. Oh yeah, he even pulled some strings to get the Prime Minister of New Zealand (where Rachel is from) and Hugh Jackman (love it!!!) to have cameos in his video tribute.....and tell me that their little boys are not the cutest things ever!

Pause the music on the player at the bottom of this page and then get out your tissues.....

So, after the video was shown, she had the couple come out on stage. After talking about their story for a while, Oprah mentioned that time is so valuable and you have to live every day to the fullest. She then told Rachel, she wanted her to quit her job to spend more time at home with her family. Then proceeded to give them a check for $250,000 to ease their financial worries. They were incredibly appreciative and I loved this story (and video) so much, I just had to share it. They also shared Kristian's blog for anyone that wanted to keep up with his progress. So amazing! http://howthelightgetsin.net/

Freedom!!!! :)

2011-02-05T18:57:00.000-06:00

The last time I wrote, I was on cloud nine that I was getting so much one on on time at home, alone with Jacob. That was all good and true. But, we ended up basically shutting down Dallas/Fort Worth all of last week. My work, along with every other school and university in North Texas (and beyond) were closed Tuesday - Friday. I don't think my university has ever shut down that many days in a row. It was nuts. Typically, when Texas gets bad weather and ice...it only takes about 24 hours or so to warm up and melt everything. Last week, the highs were only around 15 or 20 every day. So, nothing melted. Just as we thought we might be in the clear, on Thursday night - another inch - 3 inches of snow was expected to fall. We woke up and found this in the backyard.

The predicted "1-3 inches" turned out to be about 5 inches of snow overnight and it continued to snow for about 4 hours on Friday morning. At least the snow was a lot prettier than the ice. But, by day 4 inside...Jacob and I were starting to go a little stir crazy!

Let me out of here!!!!!! Ha.

My cutie pie...wearing Mommy's slippers! :)

Thankfully, my sweet parents came over around lunch time. They brought us Subway to eat. My Dad shoveled our driveway for Badi and after lunch, Jacob and I bundled up to taste freedom. It was my first time to even put shoes on in four days! Ha, Jacob and I were like kids on Christmas morning when we got to head outside!

Once we got out there, we found my Dad a few houses down from us. One of my neighbors' husbands was also stranded at work, like Badi. My sweet Dad was shoveling her driveway for her. After that (and my driveway), he shoveled a 3rd person's driveway on my street!! What a sweet guy! :)

While my Dad was shoveling our neighbors driveway, Jacob got to play with her son, Fabian. He just turned 3 and Jacob loves playing with him. Fabian got a new ATV for his birthday and it was perfect timing with the snow for him to drive around on it. Jacob got to ride on the back (with my Mom following to make sure Jacob didn't fall!) :) Jacob LOOOOVED riding on this thing!

I love my handsome boy so much!!

We have a ton of kids on our street, but, surprisingly - Jacob and Fabian were the only ones outside playing on Friday morning! After a little while, another one of our neighbors came out with her son, Miles. He's also 3 and such a cutie. Miles is on the far right...check out his awesome hat and mittens! :)

I missed you, outside world!!!!

Pops (the driveway shoveler) with Jacob!

After about an hour outside, we headed in to thaw out. My brother Jimmy got off work early and came over. About that time, the sun really came out and we headed back outside to make a snowman! Here's the finished product!

We used a lot of the snow in the front to make the snowman, so then we headed into the backyard to play with even more snow. Jacob loves his slide.

We had so much fun outside yesterday. Today, the temperature actually got above freezing for the first time in almost 5 days. Everything started melting across North Texas and people actually got to resume normal activity. We made it out to BabiesRUs for their big diaper sale and to Party City for Jacob's 2nd birthday party goodies. Can't believe my sweet baby will be 2 in a few weeks!!! It was a great week at home and it was really nice to get out today!

Now that everything is melting around here....we're supposed to get more sleet/snow early next week. Yayyyy....... (total sarcasm) I'm going to have to remember this post when it's 110 in Texas this summer. ;)