More Photos

So I have officially uploaded 3 out of the 5 cameras I have developed and here are some more pictures. Again they are from a few months back but these are some of my favorites of the memories I have in my mind. It just amazes me how fast time goes by and to see how different and yet the same my children are. These photos are from August - October 2008.

Here I am with Alex.

Isaiah enjoying the Texas sun and the backyard sprinklers.

The best brother and sister I can ever ask for.

Everyone ready to eat this cake my sister made.

One of the kings of my house.

Another king spending time with Grandpa Curiel.

Isaiah playing with jump ropes at the circus.

Isaiah working hard with his daddy at putting our new table together.

Our house after decorating it for Halloween.

Isaiah carrying pumpkins at the pumpkin patch.

There are many more photos to come but these are the ones I have uploaded recently. Hopefully I will get caught up with all of the photos I have so when the baby comes I can post pictures of her and our new memories at a much better rate. We shall see. Hope you have a great week.

In Christ,

Aleida

Nearly 36 Weeks...

It is funny because last Tuesday I was telling my mom that I don't see this baby coming any time soon and how great I feel for being this close to the end and a few days later I started to feel differently. Friday evening I began to have some pretty painful pains and for the most part I only feel this pain when I walk because I begin to feel pressure. I also feel like she is starting to drop a little and I am not carrying her so high. I have kind of just put myself on bed rest because I really want to wait until at least next Tuesday so my midwife can check me out again and let me know what she thinks.

Saturday and Sunday, Alex had to work so I worked on tax returns and then scrapbooked on Nathanael's album. I am trying to finish this so I won't be so behind on Naomi's album when she gets here. I was able to complete 3 months worth of pictures in two days so I was pretty impressed given my time frame. I normally do scrapbooking during the few hours that the kids nap so they don't get into any of my things.

Today and tomorrow, Alex is off because this is his weekend and I will take it a little more easy now that I have help for two days and enjoy my time with him. He is ready for the baby to come but I want to wait just a little longer just to make sure she grows as much as she needs to. After he goes back to work we have a really short week and then we celebrate Easter which will be a nice break.

Please pray that the Lord continues to keep his hands on this precious baby I have in my belly and continues to give me the strength to endure the last few weeks. I never realized how tired I get during the end of pregnancies. Maybe it is because I have two active boys and one of them I am in the process of potty training and the other I am trying to keep from destroying everything. Hope you have a good week.

In Christ,

Aleida

Good Times with Old Friends

Yesterday one of my old roommates from Teen Mania came to Maine to visit. She is doing an east coast tour with a friend and they perform at open mikes up along the east coast. They wanted to come to Maine so I told her if she was ever my way we would host her and her friend. We were so blessed to have her come up here and stay with us for an evening. I hadn't seen J. for about 9 years now and it was nice seeing what she is up to now while being able to show her what my life is like now. Alex was excited to just meet another friend of mine from Teen Mania because he enjoys meeting all of the people I spent a few years of my life with. Our time was short as she left this morning around 10ish and they were heading to Boston. They have some open mikes set up for the next few days and I am sure they will stay busy. Please pray for J. and S. as the Lord directs them through this tour and that they have safe travels.

I know my time with J. and S. were short but it was so refreshing to see a familiar face and to be able to enjoy the company of fellow believers. I even got to try Thai food for the first time. Alex and I have been wanting to try this little restaurant since we moved up here but have been hesitant because we only go out to eat like twice a month if we are lucky and when we do get the chance to eat out we rather spend our money on food we like just in case we don't like the food but J. mentioned the restaurant and how her and S. wanted to try it out because they love Thai food so we said well lets try it out. We ordered food in and Alex and I fell in love with our orders and we will definitely be trying some new food from that restaurant.

I thank the Lord that he has blessed me with such wonderful friends and for blessing me with times of encouragement which is what he did by bringing J. and S. to visit. Both Alex and I were very encouraged and sad to see them leave but we know we will see them again someday.

Photo and Baby Update

Baby Update first - We had a check up again today and everything is going well. Her heartbeat is strong and she is growing very well. I have finally put on another 2.4 pounds so now we know we are at the end because she is having me put on the weight now. The midwife told me at our next appointment in 2 weeks that she will start checking me for dilation and schedule me for my final sonogram to make sure she is where she is supposed to be. She told me that I need to try to take it easy and make it at least 2 more weeks before having this baby so we can be in the safe zone according to her standards. She wants me to make it past 36 weeks. I am about to enter my 35th week so if I can make it till then that would be awesome. I don't foresee her coming as early as 2 weeks but we will just have to see. I think if she comes early she will come somewhere between 3-4 weeks from now. If she doesn't we will just see her when she comes. I am happy either way knowing she is growing well and everything is looking good. Now to the picture update...

In the past few weeks I have finally gotten five cameras developed but have only had time to upload one camera so I thought I would post a few of the faves from that camera. These photos were snapped during the June - July 2008 time frame.

Here is my Nathanael right before his first birthday after he successfully made it to the top of the slide.

Isaiah running to catch up to other kids at a birthday party. This makes me smile because Nathanael is starting to do a similar run but it looks like he adds a skip to his run and this picture makes me think of that.

Nathanael stuffing his face with birthday cake.

Isaiah after eating birthday cake.

Me with the boys in Boston about to start a walking tour.

My little family but Nathanael is taking a nap in the stroller.

Isaiah and his big ole smiles. I love to watch him smile and laugh. He has a contagious laugh.

My handsome men taking a break on our walking tour.

Hope you enjoy some of these pictures.

Aleida

Four Day Weekend

I don't know where to begin. It has been a while since I have gotten on this blog and I have finally caught up on reading what is going on in everyone else's life so I decided to post a little update of my own. Last Thursday on the 26th, Alex and I celebrated our four year anniversary. Since our anniversary fell on a Thursday he decided to take a four day weekend so we can just have family time. We have been debating for months now what we were going to do for this special occasion and we threw out several ideas such as visiting Boston again, maybe visiting New York, we even checked out some bed and breakfasts because that is what we did for our first anniversary and we both enjoyed it very much. In the end we decided to stay at home and go around town because I am just too far along to take chances in visiting other areas for long. I am very uncomfortable and we didn't want to chance me going into labor early.

Thursday consisted of having breakfast at a little restaurant I love to go to on Alex's days off named Friendly's because I love their french toast. After Friendly's we went thrift shopping and found a lot of cute little outfits for the baby. We were surprised to find so many outfits for her because every time we go we can't find anything. We then went to Portland which is about 45 minutes away and enjoyed lunch for half off just because of the military discount. We then went to Edible Arrangements and picked up a beautiful bouquet of chocolate covered strawberries that Alex bought for me. I have pictures but I will post them later because I do not have my camera with me right now and it is too much work for me to go downstairs to get the camera right now. We ended our day with going to the school and picking up Alex's cap and gown for his graduation day which will happen on May 9th just days after the birth of our baby girl. We decided to go home early and enjoy dinner at home and played Sorry for hours. We have become very addicted to that game recently.

Friday consisted of getting paperwork done for me because my military id was about to expire and my tags for the car to get on base was about to expire so we took care of that and then we rested at home for a few hours and then we went shopping at the outlets in Freeport which is about 15 minutes away from us. We ended up purchasing Isaiah's wardrobe for the year for a very good deal. Pretty much the same prices we would have spend at the thrift stores. Everything we bought ranged from .99-2.99. We were very pleased. We then drove again to Portland to enjoy dinner at a hibachi grill much like Kobe's in Corpus. We really enjoy Kobe's so I had to have it at least for our anniversary weekend.

Saturday consisted of cleaning out our car and rearranging how we are going to want the kids to sit once the baby comes because after all we are going to have three car seats in the backseat. The rest of the day we just stayed at home and did some mild housekeeping.

Sunday we woke up so late which didn't make any sense to us because we had been waking up so early for the past few days but I was completely wiped out. We ended up missing church and when we finally all got dressed for the day we decided to head to Portland again and had lunch in town and then we went to Babies R Us so I could purchase a my brest friend pillow. Once in the store we realized they were doing a Baby Fair so the boys got to go around the store to collect stickers and then took their stickers to the front to get a free little gift. I also entered a drawing and turns out I won one of the gifts they were giving out. I still don't know what it is because I have to go back to Portland to pick it up so I decided I may just wait till the weekend.

Thursday was the only sunny day we had and then Friday-Sunday consisted of clouds and darkness and then on Sunday it actually rained. It has been raining most of the day today and that has been a little depressing but we feel refreshed. I know our little weekend doesn't sound like we did a whole lot of what normal couples would do for their anniversary but we had a blast hanging out as a family. We knew we couldn't do anything without the kids because we do not have a lot of people up here that we trust to leave our kids for a few hours with but we had so much fun. This morning the kids woke up and were upset to find out that daddy wasn't home like he had been the past few days. They got used to having him here.

Tomorrow we will go for another check up and hopefully all will be well. I am 34 weeks now and about to be 35 weeks and we are getting more excited every day. We can't wait to see her little face. Well I hope you have a great week. I am going to join my family for dinner now since my husband made some lasagna.

Aleida

First Day of Spring!!!

I am so glad that today is a new day and it happens to be the first day of Spring. This is a day all of us that live in Maine have been looking forward to. This has been one long long miserable winter. Normally winters for us are not that bad because at least you can have a little fun in the snow but this year the snow was so icy and hard most of the time that the fun was dwindled to maybe two or three times during the past 4 months. Winter started over here in early December and we still have snow on the ground in late March. We are entering what is called mud season because the snow is starting to melt but everything is muddy and hopefully soon we will see some green grass and so forth. The weather has been warming up which is always a good sign but today is officially the first day of the season we know as Spring. We are so excited because we love to see the weather change and once this yuckiness clears up it will be absolutely beautiful outside. One thing we noticed yesterday was the sun was still shining around 7 pm over here which is odd because it normally goes down around 4:30ish but that is another sign the seasons are changing. We are finally going to be able to go for walks after dinner and let the kids go to the park. I am excited!!! I just wanted you all to know how excited I am.

Aleida

14th Birthday

As I sit in complete silence this morning I have had time to do some reflecting and have time to tell you about it. This past Saturday, March 14th I celebrated with my husband my 14th spiritual birthday. March 14, 1995, I became a believer in Christ and accepted Him as my Savior. I must admit that throughout all these years I have not been as faithful to Him as He has been too me.

These past few months I have been so selfish and putting my own desires and plans first that I don't take the time I need to to really seek His Will. Yes, there are certain things I have entrusted to Him like our job situation, move situation, my kids, my husband but He has made it very clear to me that He wants all of me and not just parts of me. Why is it so hard for me to just give it all to Him? This has been my struggle and yet He comforts me and shows me He loves me all the time. I am so undeserving of His love but He gives it to me all the time. I don't deserve His grace and He shows me bits and pieces of this everyday through my children.

I am very grateful that He calls me His child but I realize that I need to change. I have been thinking and praying on this often within the past few months and I have seen how He has used certain situations to mold me into a better woman but as I have reached this milestone in life I have realized how far I am from where I need to be.

Hope you have a good day...

Aleida