December Recap along with other reminders of 2008

Well the 2nd half of December went by so fast that we never got to share some pics of the family.

Dec. 14th we went to the command's Christmas party.

Dec. 15th we found out we were having a baby girl. Alex took this picture of us in the waiting room.

Dec. 16th we were on a plane to Texas. This is the boys on the second plane. We took 3 planes both ways.

A few days later we went to the mall and the boys insisted on riding the carousel so here they are having fun.

Dec. 20th my sister Jessica graduated from Texas A&M. Not very good picture but if you look close enough you can see her. The same afternoon we had a little party celebrating the fact that all of the Curiel siblings have finished their Bachelor's Degree.

Here we caught Isaiah hugging a little girl.

Dec. 21st we finally had a baby dedication for Nathanael. We have the Benavides family only missing Alex's brothers and sisters and the entire Curiel family.

Dec. 23rd We decided to take this photo and frame it for our parents to have in their ranch home of all the graduates.

Random pictures

Nathanael can't wait for Christmas.

Dec. 25th We opened presents at the Curiel household.

Dec. 26th we flew back to Maine and came back to a lot of snow.

Dec. 27th In the morning we took a picture of the snow we didn't get to the night before. First angle is from the garage. Second angle is from the street. We also opened up Christmas presents within our little family.

After all of these events we just rested. Alex went back to work on Monday-Wednesdays working only half days and on New Year's Eve we waiting until midnight and then knocked out because we were pooped. We have relaxed the past four days and now Alex is back to work again. Overall we enjoyed ourselves very much but we are glad that we can rest in our own home again.

Looking back at 2008 we are very grateful and we realized so much has happened and the year just flew by.

February - Aleida finally finished all of my requirements for a Bachelors Degree in Accounting.

March - We celebrated 3 years of marriage.

April - Alex finished his requirements for an Associate's Degree.

May - Alex and Aleida walked the stage for their degrees.

July - Nathanael turned 1 while we were in Boston.

August - Enjoyed a family vacation in Missouri and Texas.

September - Found out we were expecting baby #3.

December - Isaiah turned 3. Found out baby #3 is a girl. Went to Texas for the holidays.

Those are the most memorable things that happened for us in 2008 and we know that 2009 will be even busier for us. We pray you are all enjoying the New Year!

Benavides Family

Merry Christmas

We just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. We have been pretty busy between both sets of parents so we figured now is the perfect time to send those wishes before the time passes us.

Love,

Alex, Aleida, Isaiah, and Nathanael

IT IS A ...

We posted the pics of the baby in Facebook and Myspace a few days ago when we found out but only 2 people noticed. Our entire family knows now so we decided to post it on our blog to let all our blogger friends know especially those who do not have Facebook or Myspace. We are so excited about this and our families are excited as well.

We are now in Corpus. We just arrived yesterday and we will only be here until the day after Christmas and even at that we are leaving really early in the morning. We are hoping we can get a little rest and relaxation here but we will just have to see. We hope you are all doing well.

Benavides family

Life is busy

Well needless to say that I have not posted anything about our family lately because I have been running around like crazy with appointments and just being tired. So many new things happened in November like Nathanael started walking finally. Out of nowhere he just started taking some steps and now we can't get him to not walk. He is so cute because even though it has been about 3 weeks or so he still has the look that walking is so new to him. Here are some pics of that. I couldn't figure out how to turn these pictures upright.

Isaiah was due for a haircut so he got a new haircut. He wasn't too happy going through the process but he is happy now and I am happy too because it is one person less that I have to comb their hair.

The next thing that I can remember happening was Thanksgiving. It seemed like I blinked and the holidays started rolling around. After a few hours of working in the kitchen and cooking we have a beautiful meal awaiting us. Alex helped out so much which was good because by the time we were done cooking I was pooped. After resting a little while we got the Christmas tree out and started decorating and that was the last thing I did on that day.

Here I am at 17 weeks in my pregnancy. I am now 18 weeks but we haven't taken a picture yet.

And last but not least we celebrated Alex's 26th birthday this past Monday and we had a wonderful day.

So that is what has happened but please keep us in your prayers as we enter the next few weeks. We have a pretty busy schedule. Alex works this weekend which means he has Monday and Tuesday off. This kind of works out perfect because on Monday we will be celebrating Isaiah's 3rd birthday and I have a doctor's appointment so Alex and the boys should be able to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time. They still have not heard the baby because they have not been in the room when we find it so this time they should hear it without any problem. Hopefully the midwife will schedule me for an appointment to find out the sex of the baby at this next appointment soon. So far everything seems to be going fine with this pregnancy. I can feel the baby move on occasion which is cool and Alex can't wait till it is consistent so he can feel the kicks as well. Tuesday night Alex has to go to work from 4:30 until ? so that is a little bit disappointing because not only does it cut into family time but I have no clue how to prepare for the evening at all. The positive of that is that he will have Wednesday off so he only has to work Thursday and Friday of next week. We are still praying about whether or not we want to attend the command's Christmas party because we do not have sitters up here and I am very particular of who stays with my kids. If we attend the party it will be Sunday the 14th which means that Monday the command is closed if you attended the party. If you don't attend the party you report to work. We have decided it isn't too bad because on the following day we start our leave anyway. We will be flying out at 6 am from Portland and should be in Corpus around 2ish. We will be in Texas for about 10 days. We fly back home on the 26th of December. So as you can see we are pretty busy for the next few weeks which has been causing me a little stress to be honest because I am trying to make sure everything is in order before we leave but I don't have enough time in a day and the kids add a little stress because anything I do get accomplished doesn't stay that way for long. I wish I could admit that my house is immaculate all the time but to be honest it isn't and I am just trying to figure out how to keep it presentable most of the time and not lose my mind.

Well I pray you are all doing well and I look forward to seeing some of you soon.

Aleida

10 Things Alex loves

1. He loves the Lord. My husband struggled with the fact that God loved him unconditionally for so long but he understands it now and is striving in every effort to be the man that God wants him to be.

2. He tells me he loves me and being married to me all the time so of course this one was a must to post.

3. He loves the sound of Isaiah stopping everything he is doing once he hear the front door open and Isaiah runs to the front door yelling, "Daddy" with wide open arms.

4. He loves that Nathanael stays where he is with arms held up because he wants daddy to hold him the minute he walks through a door.

5. He loves those moments where both boys are sitting on his lap and watching some TV show that he is watching usually it is news but he stops and watches the boys and his heart melts. He always whispers to me to watch them and he loves every moment with them.

6. He loves children. Believe it or not...most people would not believe it because it wasn't too long ago that when I was pregnant with Nathanael that he said he didn't want any more kids but the Lord has really changed his heart and he is always talking about how he wants a lot of kids and he can't wait till all of the kids are sitting on his laps and the sides of him with his arms around all of them.

7. He loves pizza. This man would eat pizza for every meal if I allowed it.

8. He loves Chinese food. This would be option two if pizza is not available.

9. He loves my apple spice cake. I like to try new recipes and one day I tried this dessert recipe and once he saw it was a cake he automatically said he wouldn't eat it because my husband does not like cake at all. He ended up giving in and trying it anyway and he is always asking for this cake now. I think I will make it for his birthday in 2 weeks.

10. He loves guns. He is always talking about different types of guns and I couldn't care less about it but I let him have his wants but his wants don't always meet the budget so he settles for talking about it. He did buy a gun last year and finally got to use it this past weekend when he went shooting with the guys. Shooting is what the guys like to do up here to pass the time since there is not much else to do.

I realize most of his loves have to do with family but it is because it is the truth. He tries to put on a face where he is tough but he really is a teddy bear inside.

Aleida

Update

Yesterday I went in for my physical check up with my midwife and everything is going well. The family went but because they needed to do the physical the kids waited in the play area with Alex so Isaiah won't get scared. He is funny about the midwife touching my belly. At the last visit when she was trying to find the heartbeat he kept pointing and looking at Alex saying, "hurt Mommy". We kept telling him she isn't hurting mommy she is just trying to find the heartbeat of the baby so we figured for this kind of appointment everyone will just wait outside. We don't want to scare the kid too much. Haha. The midwife is happy that I put the weight back on and have officially started putting on weight. I have gained 1/2 pound during this pregnancy which is a great start. I told her that with Thanksgiving right around the corner I am sure I will put on another pound or two. We heard the heartbeat and the heartbeat was at 160. I am so relieved to hear the heartbeat loud and clear this time because in all honesty I was starting to not believe I was pregnant even though I have a protruding belly and morning sickness which is absolutely horrible. Everyone is noticing now that I am pregnant because of my belly but I have to remind most of the people who make a big deal about it (most of the people who make a big deal only have one child or is pregnant with their first child) that this is my third pregnancy so my body is already doing what it is supposed to do just at a faster pace because this isn't my first pregnancy. In a way it makes me upset because I am definitely hormonal and I just start having weight issues but my wonderful husband Alex has been doing a great job of telling me how beautiful I am. I don't know why I am struggling with body issues with this pregnancy but I am and I wish I could just enjoy completely the fact that my body is just doing what God designed it to do in order to bring another life into this world. I guess the reason I struggle is because I started all of my pregnancies overweight and although I have lost all the pregnancy weight before I have never been able to get any smaller than what I was before. I do realize that because of my weight I technically fall into the category where I can't gain the typical amount of weight that a woman is supposed to gain during a pregnancy but at the same time I have never stressed about it until now. This has to come during a time where we (Alex and I) have already agreed that we are going to make sure that I do everything possible to make sure we have a healthy baby because of both of my boys being so small at birth. The midwife told me yesterday our goal is to make sure this baby is over 6 pounds and she will be happy. She is going to make sure we start measuring the baby more often in order to make sure we are on track with this goal. My next appointment is 12/8/08 which happens to be Isaiah's third birthday so that should be a good day and hopefully we will see more good news. By the time December 8th comes around I should be between 18-19 weeks along so I am assuming she is going to schedule my sonogram for a week or two later so we can find out the sex of the baby. We decided that if the baby shows us what he/she is then we will know if not then we will be surprised. My midwife did make a comment that some people say if you have tons of morning sickness they normally say you are having a girl and I told her that I sure hope so because I am hoping for a girl. I am already telling the boys that we are hoping to have a baby girl because I want it so bad but I will be happy if we have another boy too.

I am sorry this post is incredibly long. I started with the intention of giving just a quick update and then I went and spilled my emotions to you. Please just pray for this area for me and that I remain in good spirits for the sake of everyone in my house. Love you all.

Aleida

Garage is finally clean!

I am so happy to announce that finally we cleaned out the garage. This has been a chore that we have been putting off for some time now. Alex had Monday and Tuesday off since he worked this weekend and we spend all day Monday cleaning the garage out so I could park in there for the winter. One thing we do not like is to have our car out of our garage during the snowy season if it can be avoided because it takes so much time to shovel driveways that we didn't want to have to shovel out a car on top of all of it. Plus it helps that I don't have to get in and out of the car on ice which limits how much times I will actually fall this season. Haha. We dreaded doing the cleaning but now we are very happy because it was something that needed to be done.

Aleida