Isabella's Nursery finished

 Tree painted by Daddy with love

Dresser and Changing table made by Daddy with love (and lots of work!)

Ever since we found out we were going to have a baby, my mind immediately began thinking of all the things I want to build for her. My first project is a dresser/changing table. As she grows this piece of furniture will stay with her. Once she is old enough to not wear diapers, the top bed will be removed and she will still be able to use it as a dresser. When she is older I want to share with her that I made that dresser for her and how excited I was while making it the whole time. I hope that she will keep this with her when she gets older and perhaps pass it on to her daughter. I also painted a tree in the corner of the room for her to look at while she is being changed. No matter how tired I was from work I would always get all excited to finish her room. Monica painted the letters that spell her name on the wall above her crib. It was the finishing touch for a very special room. This room has taken a lot of time, but every time I walk in there I am happy to see the room that will soon have our baby girl in it.

Last Christmas just the two of us

This Christmas will be our last Christmas and holiday before we welcome our baby girl Isabella to our family. A part of us wants her here already, but then we are greatful for just one last month alone, before our world will change. We almost have her nursery complete, so we will post pictures soon! At 31 weeks baby Bella and mommy are doing well, but this last trimester is a lot harder than expected. Read more on Mommy Moni's Pregnancy Blog on left tab. As we prepare for our Christmas, we hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season so far!

She shall be named...

We decided to name our baby girl, Isabella Mia Valdez! It wasn't too hard to come up with the name, since Jesus REALLY liked the name Bella. So we compromised and both decided on Isabella, but she will be known as Bella mostly. As for her middle name, that was the second name that we both had on our favorites list. So put it altogether and she shall be named Isabella Mia Valdez! Now that we have a name, we talk to her by name, pray for her by name, and talk about her by name as if she's already part of the family! Hearing family call her by name or Jesus and I using her name, makes it feel so much more real and personal. Jesus started painting her room this weekend, and things seem to be moving right along. I have my 6 mth check-up on friday, so we are looking forward to another update on her growth and development. As for me, my round ligament pains have become more frequent and stronger, everyone says its because I'm skinny and its my first child and my uterus isn't accustomed to stretching as Bella gets bigger. Standing for too long or having Bella in the wrong position makes it worse, so I'm staying off my feet as much as possible, but as for getting Bella to move from her favorite spot, we haven't had much luck, she is already showing signs of being stubborn! We love her either way!

Our New Future of Bows, Dresses and Dolls

Moni's belly at 20 weeks

Thrilled parents to be!!

Today was another big moment in our soon to be family. After a very long night of interrupted sleep due to me wondering what on earth our child was going to be. My mind jumping back and forth from thinking, what if it is a girl or what if it is a boy. The hour had finally arrived. No longer am I pondering over whether I will be picking out little pink dresses or which cape to pick for a little superhero. Our first little baby will be a healthy and beautiful girl. The doctor immediately confirmed that our little girl is growing fast with healthy bones and a great heart. My mind and life have set sail on a course with a lifetime of memories with head bows, dolls, first driving lessons, first dates, and our little girl getting married. We both became very excited to finally know who has been growing inside mommy's belly. It's something that I am grateful to be able to experience in our lifetime together as a family.

-Jesus

The entire ultrasound took 45 minutes but here is the last few minutes of our baby girl in 4D!  

Big News FINALLY

I know its been months since we have posted on our blog, but there has been a good reason!! Sorry! A lot has happened since May...we found out in June that we were pregnant! Although we wanted to shout out our excitment on top of the roof for all to know, we chose to wait through the first trimester before we posted it via internet! In addition, I was in the process of interviews for teaching positions, so we had to be careful who we shared the news with. However, we are VERY happy to say that we are now 4 mths pregnant with a very healthy growing baby AND I got a teaching position at Hutto ISD where we live! God has truly answered our prayers this summer!

12 week ultrasound (Taken on Aug. 5th read more on my blog)

Jesus has been dying to take a picture of my growing belly... I finally let him at 15 weeks!

Growing baby and belly at 19 weeks!!

Both Jesus and I have been writing in our own pregnancy journal through this pregnancy process. (I find it adorable that Jesus feels the need to write about his experience as a new daddy as well.) I started my own pregnancy blog called "Mommy Moni's Miracle" that I will now add to our blog for you to follow. I can't explain in words how happy and excited we are to FINALLY be parents. Our families have been a great support and we love them so much for all their love. These next few months are going to be filled with lots of growth and change. We will keep you updated as the our Valdez family grows and experiences new things this year! God bless :)

Baseball Madness with Marcus

Jesus and I love to go cheer on our Round Rock Express team whenever we get the chance to go and its always fun when we invite friends and family. This particular game was our nephew Marcus' first baseball game. He must have the baseball blood of his Tio Jesus because he enjoyed it as much as we did! Its a good thing we had the camera because the game was filled with fun surprises! First Marcus was given a game ball from one of the home runs without even asking for it! Then after the game one of the players Kata autographed his ball and took a picture with him! Isaac and Jesus were in shock and a bit jealous! Then to top the night off, they opened the field up for the fans to go down and watch a free concert! Marcus wore us all out dancing and running around! The weather was perfect and we had an awesome time! It was like no other game we had been to..all thanks to Marcus and his good luck 1st time experience!

 Dancing to the band w/ Tia and Tio

  Mommy Diane teaching him how to do a cartwheel

A Clip to Remember

After a very hectic and stressful week, Jesus and I thought it was time for a date night. The marriage classes we have taken in the past have always suggested that we make it a point to have date night at least once a week. Well if your life style is somewhat like ours, we are too busy, too tired, or too broke, to do anything once a week. But this week called for a special date night, so we went to the movies at the domain. The movie of choice was Hangover II. Now your probably thinking, the movies? Well there's a few reasons behind that choice.
Jesus and I never go to the movies...maybe once or twice a year. We are a redbox, sit in our pj's on the sofa kinda couple. But my mom got us tickets for my birthday to gold class cinemas. Thank you mom! If you don't know about gold class cinemas at the domain, well your missing out! Its a real treat! Each couple is privately seated with reclining chairs and your own mini table. Your able to order wine, food, etc. and they give you a blanket if your cold! As always Jesus made the most of our date and was a complete gentleman. He surprised me with hand picked flowers from our garden and made a beautiful bouquet, then rang the door bell to "pick" me up for our date which I thought was adorable! After the movie we had a picnic at the water fountain display. The night was beautiful and the jazz music filled the area with calm and peace. Jesus wanted to capture the moment in a picture and so he did. I on the other hand wanted a picture of the water spouts, Jesus almost convinced me to run through them but I was in a dress! Anyhow, we enjoyed the night and eachothers company. The evening ended with a beautiful poem Jesus wrote and recited under our gazebo at home under the stars. Yes, this night was perfect. We don't have many of those, but I was grateful to God for giving us that moment to cherish. I went to bed thanking God and praying for all the military wives who don't get to see their husbands for months/years at a time. May God bless them and bring them home safely. Until next date night we will cherish the small moments we have during our next busy days ahead!

The chef of our home

Most of you have heard me thank God for giving me a husband that loves to cook. Call it coincidence that I happened to find a man who enjoys cooking and working his way around the kitchen, while I on the other hand don't have such a gift. I'm not sure who's more embarrassed..me for not knowing how to cook at the age of 27 or Jesus for enjoying time in the kitchen and cooking! I think its me! Well here's the truth behind why I don't cook....everything I touch seems to burn, it takes too much time and I'm always starving, there's too many steps/instructions to follow, touching raw meat/fish grosses me out, and God made the microwave for a reason! (Yes I know, those are excuses more than reasons!) Anyways I think its very masculine of him! He enjoys it so much that it changes the whole mood in our house! What can I say, I'm happy and he's happy! Its a win win situation :) So anyway about this video....Jesus has a ritual of watching the food network on Saturday mornings and I caught it on film so I can prove his passion for cooking! His nickname in our family is "chef boy Valdez!" Anyway I have his permission to put it up on our blog, so if your ever in the neighborhood stop by for a chef boy Valdez meal!

Live, Laugh, Love,
Moni

Fighting for a Cure

We participated in our second Relay for Life to fight for a cure for cancer. We started out full of energy but by the end of our shift at 1am our feet and backs were ready to hit the bed! The night was filled with emotional testimonies, games, food, guys dressed up as women for "Miss Relay," different bands, a DJ, and much more! Our team "the knock outs" had a great turn out! Each of us have a shift and when its your shift you hold the spirit stick as you walk/run the track.

The night started to get cold around 11pm but the thoughts of Grandpa Carlos, Wendy's grandma, and all the people who have lost the battle with cancer filled our thoughts as we continued! Overall we had a great time. Thank you if you donated on behalf of us!

The True American Sport



Well finals are over and I can now share an item knocked off my bucket list. So, I've only been a fan of baseball for a couple of years now and finally went to a major league game and boy what a game it was too.  It was the Texas Ranger's vs. The Yankees (BOOOOOO!). It started with me wanting to take my father in-law Jody to a game for his birthday because he is a huge fan and I like them too. Like I said it was just me and him going, but then it turned from two of us to ten going. This game turned out to be a very memoriable one sharing with friends and family. For a first MLB game, it was one that I won't forget. We took the lead the first 4 innings with two great homerun's by Young, man that boy was on fire! Then the Yankees started to come back and tied in the sixth, but Julio Burbon put us in front and the game was ours 'till the end. Now you know we weren't going to let them take the victory. We ended the game 7-5, yeah Baby! The next day we went to go see our cousin Novi and Tia Carmen, who we haven't seen in quite a while. Man that girl is growing fast. Overall all it was a great weekend that was much needed.

Our weekend in Dallas

This weekend was a special fun filled weekend. We had a great lunch date with my mom, Jody, grandparents, Tio Mario and Tia Linda. Lots of laughs around the table. Then Jesus headed to his 1st Texas Rangers game with all the guys. Jody and Jesus had been planning this trip/game for months now and you could see the excitment on their faces. My mom, Tia Linda and I stayed at the hotel and enjoyed ourselves in the suana and indoor pool. It was so nice to relax and have girl talk. The next day we got to visit a very special girl..my baby cousin Novi and Tia Carmen! Its been months since we last saw Novi and she is growing fast and adorable. She's not quite crawling but full of energy. As soon as we left, I felt the sadness of having to leave her again, but greatful for the time together. We are looking foward to our next trip for her 1st birthday! Until then, we miss all our family in Dallas and wish they were so much closer.
Check out our Dallas Trip slideshow for pictures of the weekend.

Live, Laugh, Love Always,
Moni
 (Jesus is tied up w/ finals this week and wants to write about his exciting trip and game, but said you'll have to wait till he has time, until then pray that he makes it through finals week!)

My birthday wish

For my birthday I decided to donate all my hair (well most of it) to Locks for Love, a non-profit organization that uses donated ponytails to provide the highest quality hair prosthetics to financially disadvantaged children and return a sense of self, confidence and normalcy to children suffering from hair loss. My birthday wish is that my reciepient be blessed with not only my hair, but health and happiness. Looking back at the 27 years that God has given me, I have been so blessed, that hair is such a small thing to most of us, yet priceless to a child who is teased for not having any hair due to illness. We take so much for granted and forget the small blessings that God provides each day. I feel so unworthy at times when I think of so many that are suffering, but I give all the thanks and praise for all that I have. So this year I say "cheers" to you and your family and may we all be reminded of the simple joys in life!

Live, Laugh, Love,
Moni

 On my way to donate my hair!!! Yikes...I'm a bit nervous but mostly excited!

Wow..its a bit shorter than I wanted, but it was well worth it! I feel 10 pounds lighter!

Easter Blessings

Happy Easter to you all! Its been a busy holy week preparing for this important celebration, and we are happy its finally here! This is one of our most favorite holidays not only because we get to eat lots of chocolate filled eggs, but we are reminded yet again of Christ's love and passion for each of us sinners. We, like most of you, are not perfect people and we faulter more than we wish we would, but Easter is a wonderful time to adore and thank our Savior for suffering and dying on the cross for you and me. We pray and hope you spend wonderful moments with your family and friends this Easter, but most importantly with our Lord Jesus Christ! We love you.

Mr. and Mrs. Valdez

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

So I'm on my way to work one day and notice a smoker on the street that someone had thrown away. So I drive by to scope it out and it still was in pretty good condition. So being that I wanted a pit REALLY bad for sometime now, I go back home to bring my two dogs with me to not look like a weirdo.So we walk about half a mile to the house where the grill is at and I'm thinking I can take this smoker back home one handed, but that bad boy wasn't going to be that easy. I took a few steps with it and was already tired. So being that I had two dogs with me I tied each leash to two of the legs and lifted one end of the pit. This only terrified Hope because the pit was rattling while we walked. So I now had to remove the dogs from the legs and hold their leashes with one hand and wheel the pit with my other hand. As a walked two trucks drove by me, not a single one asking if I needed help. Going the whole way home the pit was so loud rattling along with two dogs freaking out, you might think that I felt embarrased, but I didn't, I felt more embarassed for my fellow neighbors who saw this skinny man with two dogs wheeling a pit and failed to lend out a helping hand. Oh well, I scored me a free smoker and has already been put to good use. Pictures of ribs soon to come:)

Caught the toilet paper theif

Someone has been toliet papering the inside of our house, and we had an idea of who it might be. But to make sure, we had to catch them in the act. So I planted myself in the bathroom and waited for the theif..and well you will see in the video who I caught doing it!

So then after catching her, I start cleaning up after her mess, and she decides to come back for more but didn't realize I was there, so she got scolded yet again. Sorry Hope you must learn your lesson! (told by Moni)

Our spoiled dog PJ

We have a toddler bed that we keep for our nephew Marcus when he stays over, and well its in the same room that we have PJ and Hope's crates. Well PJ took full advantage last night and instead of sleeping in his crate all night we found him in the toddler bed. Some days he thinks he's a cat, other days he thinks he's a boy. Either way he's still spoiled!

Spring has finally come

Over spring break we had new carpet installed in our guestroom and office. Wow! What a difference it made. In our garden we had our first bluebonnets grow! Our pear tree has baby pears growing and our papaya tree is taking off! We plan on planting our vegetables soon, but fear that the weather can take a turn on any day. We took our first bike ride on the trails this past weekend and can't wait to do some sightseeing, camping and hiking over the next few months. We are just praying that the hot weather doesn't get here too soon!
Hugs and Kisses- Jesus and Moni