i heart valentine's day

As long as I can remember I have always loved Valentine's day. Even back in the day when I did not have a valentine, I loved it. I loved exchanging valentine cards with the other kids in the class in elementary school. I loved having secret pals during love your neighbor week in middle school and high school. I loved coming home from school and mom had left a little something for us to show us that she loved us. I loved getting flowers from my dad.

I love that there is a day to remember the ones that we love and make our life rich. For me though the day is so great because it is a day devoted to celebrating what God is. God is love. Now, of course we humans have done what we do best and have commercialized a perfectly wonderful holiday, but your day is what you make it. As for me and my house we will celebrate the love of God today! I encourage you to do the same.

Here are my valentines: I love them so much, they make my life so rich!!!

Here is Lexi preparing valentine cards for the kids in her class. She mostly just liked the puppies on the cards and the stickers.

My Sweet Valentine!

Lexi is giving her puppy a ride on her horse for Valentine's Day

Glory Days

Here is a little video of Lexi dancing to Bruce Springsteen's half time show...this particular dance is to her daddy's favorite "Glory Days." She cracks me up!

Baby Update - Week 30

I am 30 weeks pregnant!! We went to the doctor last week and she told me to tentatively plan for March 24th to be delivery day!! That is only 9 weeks away! We are so excited. We heard baby girl's heartbeat and she is growing perfectly.

We have not made any more strides with the name. Rabu has one that he is leaning towards and I have one that I like...but we need to spend some more time thinking about it.

Ok so we don't have pics of the room yet but we are getting there...hopefully we will have some pics by next week of the room with furniture and all. :)

Lexi tried to give my belly her milk...she said "baby" and put her sippy cup to my belly and made yum yum sounds.

Baby girl will be here before we know it!! Yay!

Night at the Movies

I went and saw the movie "Marley and Me" last night. It is a very cute movie about a family and their ornery dog Marley. It is also a very sad movie because it shows the reality of owning a pet and how people usually out live their animals that they love so much. There were some slow parts and some boring parts, but I think that mostly is attributable to the fact that I am just not a dog person, I am not really an animal person. Rabu and I have always agreed on the fact that we do not want any pets. Well while watching this movie and the emotions that the owners were going through while they lost their beloved dog I realized one of the reasons why I do not want a dog, cat or any other animal. I am just not that brave.

To have a pet means to me that I am choosing on purpose to bring another "person" in my life that I will love and have to lose. I just don't think I am willing to inflict that kind of pain on myself. I completely respect those who dare to love animals and give them a good home knowing that one day they will no longer be there to cuddle and be a companion. I do think that miss out on the rewards of having a pet, they are so fun, caring and don't care about all the silly things that people care about. They are unconditional in their love and are wonderful companions. I had a cat when I was younger and enjoyed having him, but when he passed, I thought I don't want to have to do that again.

So who knew a sweet movie about a dog and his family would give me an enlightened heart, maybe I should be more willing to love without fear of losing that person or our lives growing apart. Now to those who think I am going to go out and get a pet... uh no, I was enlightened not brainwashed. :o)

Lexi Bear

I thought I would share a few pictures of our sweet Lexi Bear. She is growing up so fast. In just the last few weeks she has begun to show so much more personality. She loves playing with her animals. She knows so many different animals, some by name others by sound. For example, cows are "Moo" and dogs are "puppy, arf arf". Enjoy the pictures of my sweet little girl, she is truly a blessing and I love her so much!!

My Beautiful Baby Girl!

Lexi loves to "organize" the movies. She has picked out one of my favorite movies here, "While You Were Sleeping."

Lexi is trying to fill daddy's shoes. She and daddy have such a fun time together.

Lexi loved opening presents! She got a book with a stuffed Elmo. Of course to Lexi it is 'Mo. She loves 'Mo!

Lexi got some small stuffed animals in her stocking from daddy. She got an "ahh ahh" and a puppy. She loves monkeys and puppies.

Lexi and a few of her friends.

Baby Update - Week 28

Baby girl is growing and growing and so is my belly. Everything is going very well. I am 28 weeks pregnant and baby girl is about 2 1/4 lbs, blinking her eyes and can tell when it is light or dark outside the womb. God is also developing billions of neurons in her brain. It is pretty amazing that she will be here in 3 short months.

We have made some very big strides in preparing for baby girl's arrival. We have picked out and purchased the furniture for baby girl's room and we will pick it up next weekend. Pictured here, we got the crib and the dresser, the armoire would have been a bit excessive for the size of her room. Rabu is painting the room as I blog. I picked out a very light green color for the walls. I will post pictures when we get the room all set up. I would not look for them any time too soon, we move kinda slow these days, especially with busy season lurking.

We are still working on names, we think we may have found a few options and a possible middle name, but for the time being we are keeping them pretty hush hush. I know very annoying to many of you, but its how we roll. We are still not in love with any name yet so the search is still on. I am praying that God will just send an angel in a vision and say you will name your child "fill in a name". Wouldn't that be awesome? But then what if I did not like the name...ha ha that would be ironic. OK so maybe I do like that God is letting us find the perfect name simply being led by the Holy Spirit and not waste any angel time on a very small issue.

Lexi is still so sweet and says hi to her sister and gives her kisses through my belly. She was rubbing my belly the other night saying, " aw little baby". It was so sweet.

Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year!

We have had a wonderful past two weeks celebrating Christmas and the New Year. Christmas was a lot of fun this year since Lexi has become more aware of toys and presents, but most importantly baby Jesus. She loved playing with her Little People Nativity. She would always want to find the baby first and put him in the barn. After the baby came the "moo" and the "baa". At least she knows the baby is the most important. When we opened presents she loved taring open the gifts and finding the fun toys inside.

This year Rabu volunteered to stuff the stockings. He had a lot of fun shopping for Lexi and I and trying to find things that we would love and appreciate. Afterward, he said he had so much fun that he wants to do it again next year but he will not wait until 2 days before Christmas. I definitely enjoyed sharing the Christmas shopping experience with him.

We went to Tahlequah to spend a couple days with my parents, siblings and their families. It was a very enjoyable holiday. Lexi loved playing with her cousins but was not too thrilled about Molly, Mom and Dad's new puppy. By the third day she found the courage to pet Molly all on her own. We were able to get a few games of Scrabble in and Melissa made sure that we knew she was a force to be reckoned with by winning one of the games. After pounds of sweets and mom's famous green chili soup I was so full I did not need to eat for days. Pretty much a perfect Christmas.

We spent New Years Eve watching a basketball game and on the way home I was craving some sushi, but with a sleepy baby girl in the car I knew that dining in anywhere would be impossible. So that is when I thanked God for In the Raw - to go!! We called in an order and picked it up on the way home. Lexi went to bed and Rabu and I watched a movie and ate sushi. (no worries all my sushi was cooked or veggie, no raw stuff for this preggo) We wanted to have a laid back New Years Eve and this was pretty much perfect. We nodded off to sleep shortly after the New Year.

It was a wonderful holiday season, relaxed and family focused. I could not have asked for a better two weeks. Now back to work for Rabu and strait into busy season for me.

Baby Update

I am now 24 weeks pregnant. I am amazed how quickly this second pregnancy is going! Lexi keeps me plenty distracted and busy. I have managed to pick out the bedding for baby girl's room. (pictured) Now I need to go order her furniture and pick out a wall color so that Rabu can paint the room during his Christmas break.

We are still working on a name. Every night I get the name book out and flip through it. As I usually don't find anything, I ask Rabu to pick a page number and a number between 1 and 10 and I look that name up in the book. Last night it gave us the name Zsa Zsa...uh yeah... we won't be using that one. Oh well we still have 3 1/2 months until the kiddo gets here and we have to name her. My career is deadline driven, so maybe I am subconsciously procrastinating. It would be nice if God would just let us know...all in His time.

Lexi has noticed my belly getting a little bigger. She has mostly noticed daddy talking to and kissing my tummy, and of course she wants to do what her daddy does. She is really sweet, she waves "hi" and then gives my belly a kiss. She is going to be an awesome big sister.

Sometimes I wonder how in the world I am going to love another child as much as I love Lexi. The Holy Spirit reminds me who's image I am created in. I am created in the image of God, who is Love Himself. So it is in my DNA to love my children completely and uniquely. I know that I will have plenty of love to give because God freely gives His love to me every day.

So those are the random thoughts of this preggo.

Oh Christmas Tree

Monday I spent all day cleaning my house so that I could put up my tree in a clean house...in my mind it adds to the splendor! Anyway Monday night after Lexi went to bed I finished decorating the tree and I was very pleased and very tired. Tuesday morning I went into her room got her ready for the day and we went to the living room to begin our morning ritual of Backyardigans, breakfast and doing her hair. Then she saw the tree in the corner of the room. I put her down in front of the tree and she just pointed and stared for a minute, then she said "WHOA". She had found the Backyardigan ornament on the tree. She pointed and smiled and then said whoa about 49 more times! She was in awe of this beautiful tree in our home. It made my heart warm. I hope she enjoys the Christmas season as much as I do, I look forward to sharing memories with my sweet little Lexi.

Now to make sure that she has ten times more awe for the Reason we celebrate then how we celebrate...all in good time. :)

Tagged...with reflection

So, by virtue to reading her blog on the subject, I have now been tagged to do the following blog-thanks Laura.

1. Go to your pictures folder and open the fourth folder

2. Upload the fourth picture and explain it

3. Tag four friends

1.

2. From the folder with some pictures from my sweet friend Amanda, pictured with me. Amanda and I are at one of my baby showers. I am 37 weeks pregnant with Lexi. Amanda came from Arkansas to see me and to help me get the room ready for Lexi-Bear. Amanda and I have known each other for since summer of 1999. We met at the best kamp in the world, Kids Across America. www.kidsacrossamerica.org In 2000 we were co-counselors and we had the best time! She is a very faithful friend, and she shares the same love for the Texas Longhorns as I do. Love you Manna!

3. As far as tagging... Joy, Karen, Mindy...you are officially tagged. Can't wait to see your pictures and memories.