our week in Virginia

We all flew to Virginia for my brother, Kevin's wedding and Jason and I stayed for a week.  We all started out by rushing over to the rehrsal dinner on Friday night.

Jason and I eating dinner

My brothers and I at the rehearsal dinner

On Saturday morning we spent time with the Moreiras.  We knew they would be awake with their sweet little 6 month old boy, Troy.  They made us a wonderful breakfast and we got to hang out and catch up.

Jeff getting back into the baby groove

Smilely little boy with his mom

The guys.  Jason has decided he doesn't approve of posed pictures

the wonderful Moreira family

We had to say goodbye and get ready for the big event.  We enjoyed spending time with family that we don't get to see all the time.  The next morning everyone, including Jeff, had to say goodbye at a brunch at my parents house.  Later that week my father, Jason and I went to the B&O train museam.

Jason's favorite train!

helping Grandpa work the engine

exploring all the trains!

Jason was in heaven!!!  Although I don't have pictures of the rest of the week we enjoyed spending time with Grandma at Claud Moore Farms and at story time.  We got lots of shopping done (mostly for Jason) and relaxed a lot.  All in all a great time.

The Wedding

This is mostly a picture post because Jason's movie is almost done and I won't be able to type much, but I wanted to share photos of my brother's wedding.  I will be sure to post to talk about the rest of the week we had a little later.

 



 













 




 

Until Death Do Us Part

With my little brother's wedding coming up in a little while (7 days, eeek!) and a bunch of marriages I know of breaking up, I have been thinking a lot about what keeps Jeff and I together.  Why do we have a strong marriage?  Are we just lucky?  Am I declaring victory too soon?  I don't know, but I do know that we made a commitment on that May afternoon and we both knew it was for life.  Jeff has seen me at my best and defiantly at my worst, but he still loves me.  We moved away from family as soon as we were married so we always had to lean on each other and be each other's best friend.  We couldn't turn to anyone else when we had issues, we had to work it out.  It was kind of us against the world.  We have certainly had our ups and downs, but that is the cyclical nature of relationships. 

Some of the things that have helped us stay together is how we try to hard to have dinner together without any distractions every night we can.  And living in the middle of no where has helped.  We always have long drives to get to town and we spend a lot of that time talking about life.  Also we keep trying to do and say sweet things for each other.  At the mall on Wednesday Jeff pointed to the poster in Victoria Secret and said to Jason "look it's a picture of Mommy!"  my heart melted!  And I know what his favorite meals are and make them as often as I can. Which is why we have half an apple pie in the kitchen right now.

The most important thing that keeps us in love is the fact that there aren't 2 people in our marriage, there are 3.  We have made God a part of our marriage.   There is a difference between the married parties having faith and actively making God a part of your marriage and we try our very best to be the second way.   That is not to say that if you put yourself in a compromising situation God will swoop in and save you, not that he won't, but you have to be responsible for yourself.  We each have to do our part and have faith that God will do his.  Paraphrasing Lon Solomon, if you are on a diet, what are you doing in the buffet line!  God does help make sure that an aggressive super model with a crush on Jeff doesn't work in his office and he also helps us forgive each other for the human errors we make.  This is not to say you couldn't have a good marriage without God, but it sure makes it a lot more work.

So with Thanksgiving coming up I remember the most important thing that I am thankful for and although I love my adorable little boy, it isn't him.  It is the wonderful marriage that Jeff and I have.  I know I am so lucky to have found him.

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone had a wonderful time trick or treating or partying or enjoying the weekend!  We went out camping to try our new pop-up camper.  We had a good time, but have found that sleeping in a new place is difficult for our little man.  Mommy spent half of the night in Jason's bed, at least the second night we got a little smarter and put out a sleeping bag there to keep Mom warm.

We also got in a little hike that wore Jason out completely.  All in all I think we enjoyed ourselves.

We all went out trick or treating last night, also.  At first we started out in our neighborhood, but soon discovered that all the lights were out and no one was handing out candy, but we did get a couple of bucks from our neighbor (not exactly what we were looking for.)  So Jeff thought that maybe we would drive to downtown Truth or Consequences to see if we could figure out where everyone was!  We did find people and once Jason realized he would be getting candy he was very happy to go and visit new houses.  At the first house we went to Jason recognized the dum-dum that he got and was almost trying to bite off the wraper when we decided he could have that one piece tonight.  After about three blocks we figured we had all had enough trick or treating so we headed back home to scrub the sticky mess off our little boy.

We are pleased to announce...

...That Jason will be getting a little sister in March!  This is going to be short because we are all exausted, but I wanted my (limited) blog audience to know first

The "money shot"  To the left you can see her feet

Legs crossed just like a little lady

Our best profile view

I guess all the begging and praying payed off because Jeff took the family to the elective ultrasound place on Friday night where we got to spend about a half an hour watching our little girl.  We are working on names and are a lot closer in opions than we were at this point with Jason.

Boy or Girl

Jason's face in 3D ultrasound

So we got to hear baby #2's heartbeat on Wednesday and scheduled our next appointment.  When I was pregnant with Jason in Phoenix we had a level 2 ultrasound to check out Jason's hands to see if he has polysyndactily like Daddy (he does.)  I didn't think we would be getting another level 2 for this one because we are not in as major an area.  The good news is that we get the better quality level 2 ultrasound for this one also, but the bad news is that due to scheduling and insurance issues we won't be getting it until January.  Since this will be replacing my anatomy scan we would not find out the gender of our baby until January when I will be in the third trimester and 28+weeks (most people get theirs done by 20 weeks.)  I am begging Jeff to allow me get something called a sneek peak in Albuquerque in the next few weeks, but he still says he will think about it.  So if you talk to him soon you would mention how much you want to know boy or girl right now :)

cute Jason foot!

People ask if you would rather have a boy or girl and it has become a little cliche to say we don't care as long and the baby is healthy.  This really is true for me!  I will admit when I was pregnant with Jason I did lean a little more toward wanting a girl, but now that we have our sweet boy I couldn't imagine life any other way.

Pros for a Boy:

• A brother so close in age would be a wonderful playmate for Jason.  I saw my brothers growing up together and would love that comradery for my sons.
• We already have all the cute boy clothes and stuff and they will still be in style
• In our master plan this would not be the last baby for Jeff and I.  Not having a girl at this point would encourage us to jump back into the newborn stage after we had been out of it for a while.

Pros for a Girl:

• Adorable pink stuff!
• new clothes and lots of shoping
• I have always wanted a girl

Ok so my reasons for a boy are more concrete than for a girl, but I would really honestly be thrilled for either one.  I just want to know NOW!

So tell us what you think it will be on the poll to the right!

Trains and Taos

This weekend we decided to take advantage of the cooler weather and go out camping.  It took about 5 hours to get a little north of Taos, NM and by the time we got to our campsite it was pretty dark.  Good thing we are experts at putting up tents in the dark.  We did discover that Jason loves flashlights!  He was wound up after spending 5 hours in the carseat and loved stealing our flashlights to run around the campsite.  Luckly there weren't too many stumbles or falls.  I think the only injury incured was a little fat lip from falling down.  We discovered that the nights up there got VERY cold.  We had suspected as much so Jason was bundled up in no less than 3 layers.  Although he loves to cuddle with blankets Jason will not keep them on top of him.  In the middle of the night we thought he might have woken up from being too cold so I brought him into my sleeping bag to cuddle.  This ended up with him taking over my pillow with his whole body and me using my sweatshirt as a pillow.

He pointed out every tree on the way up there!

Jason woke up in such a good mood the next morning.  I guess the lack of sleep didn't bother him too much.  He cuddled with Mommy and Daddy and was thrilled to play peek-a-boo.  He must have known we were off to do fun things.  We drove up to Antonito, Colorado to take a train ride through the mountains and see the trees changing colors on the Cumbres & Toltec Railroad.  Jason LOVED it!  He was thrilled to see the engine and look out the open air observation car.  He was only disappointed when Mom and Dad wouldn't let him wonder the train by himself.  After 3 hours on the train we stopped for lunch and got on the train heading back.  We had one tired little boy by that time and he passed out almost as soon as the train started moving.  Mom was all too happy to cuddle her little one while he slept.

Jason inspecting the engine



The next morning Jeff decided it wouldn't be camping if we didn't take a hike.  So we hiked all the way down the gorge to the river.  I dreaded the trip back up the mountain the whole time and Jeff carried Jason on his back.  Jason wished we would have let him play in the river, but since it was so cold he had to settle for throwing rocks into it.  We did make it back up the moutain and don't tell Jeff, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  After I caught my breath back at the campsite we packed up and started the long drive home.  There was so much to do that we just didn't have time for, but all in all it was a good trip!





See that river WAY down there? Ya, we hiked to and from that!