Oh, Baby...Baby!

Two of our friends both had their babies yesterday! CONGRATS to the Kettner and Alaniz families! WooHoo!

My good friend Deborah (who I have mentioned on here a bunch), had a baby BOY (hello, do we remember the prediction?). His name is Kyle David and he weighed 7 pounds 3 ounces. My mom wanted me to tell Deborah (who I am so sure is reading my blog from her hospital bed, ha!) that now that she has three boys, all she has to do is wait sixteen years and she's sure to have a girl. Like that could ever happen to anyone, right?

The first couple we met at church in Belton are Becky & Steve Alaniz. Becky had a little girl yesterday, Gracyn (what a pretty name), who weighed 8 pounds 6 ounces and was 19 inches long. After Becky's fun shower in October, Gracyn will be the best dressed girl yet! She had so many pretty little frilly pink things!

I can't wait to meet both of these little bundles! We are so excited for you all: Deborah, Kelly, Jacob & Riley and Becky, Steve & Cade!

Now I better run. My mom and dad have the boys so I can finish getting all the Christmas decor out! I am on a mission.

The tooth arrived!

Well, I feel like a bad blogging mom! Jonathan finally received that tooth we were waiting on. It is so hard to get a photo of an actual tooth, though. So, hopefully this one will do!

Please Help!

Well, that was an awfully dramatic title, but now that I have your attention... I am needing to update my Christmas card list for once and for all (that means nobody can ever move again--ever!). Some of this is due to the fact that we had a MAJOR computer crash at the beginning of the year. If you know or are one of the people on the following list, I am needing some updated contact information:

1. Daniel and Heather Boyd (address) (got it!)
2. Larry and Carmen Forrister (address)
3. Stephanie Harper (address and email)
4. Cade Hooten (address) (got it!)
5. Amanda Pawlik (needing her new address)
6. Amber Pawlik (address and email)
7. Amber & Frank Peck (Have they moved yet? If so, I need their new address.)
8. Koti Templeton (Faith-- I will forward this onto you!) (got it!)
9. Eric & Kaye Vaughan (address)
10. Jami West (email only)
11. Charlotte & Larry Wittis (spelling? address)

For now, that is all I can think of. If I think of more, I'll just edit the post. Feel free to just email me if you don't want to post your address. THANKS A BUNCH!
mrsdaviddominguez@yahoo.com

Five Big Ones!

We also celebrated our five year anniversary over the holiday break! David was the mastermind behind all of the planning this year and wouldn't let me know what all we were doing until we left Killeen.
He planned such a fun time for us. For those of you who do not know our story-- we had what we refer to as a "semi-elopement." We told most of our friends that we were planning a March wedding, but decided that a) we didn't really want a big wedding and b) we didn't really want to wait until March. So, we gathered our immediate family and got married at the sweet little chapel out in Buffalo Gap, Texas. We had a fabulous time. By the time were on our way to our honeymoon, all of our friends were receiving cards in the mail letting them know what we had done. For details, they joined us in January at a reception in Abilene. It was the perfect wedding for us.
Well, we made our first trip back to the sweet little chapel on Friday. It was super fun. We had a great time just remembering our fun day together. We also went to Perini Ranch and had a lot of fun-- the boys especially loved Perini's. David also stopped along the way and picked up some beautiful roses (which he had already ordered ahead of time-- way to go, David!). It was an absolutely perfect way to spend our anniversary.
We even decided it would be fun to go on a date that night, just the two of us. So, instead of heading home, we went over to my parents' where we tucked the boys in and headed out on a big lavish date to....Starbucks!! We were so exhausted that was all we had the energy for. We'll have to save the big date for another time!

A West Texas Thanksgiving

We spent our Thanksgiving Holiday in Pecos with David's family. We had a great time catching up with everyone, eating (a lot!) and mainly watching the kids all play. Benjamin noted that he really "liked the cousins a bunch." We realized we hadn't taken a family photo with everyone since 2004. So, here is the latest...

Overall, we had a super time and are looking forward to seeing everyone again around the Christmas holidays!

The Trial Run

Benjamin is currently doing a trial run with his new sleeping bag thing for his nap right now. It is making me laugh because he has figured out how to zip himself in it entirely and looks like a mummy.
It has an airmattress-type thing and its own pump which he pumped up a lot of by himself. A moment ago he opened his door and asked if I would bring him a cup of milk and the pump, he "had some work to do on [his] travel bed." Yeah right, dude. Go to sleep.
We are off to Pecos tomorrow for the holiday (hence the new sleeping bag, we outgrew our pack & play). Hopefully we will all stay well (pray for good health, we always seem to catch something before we travel...I had a mild-ish stomach bug thingy Sunday, I am praying so hard no one else gets it).
We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Down the Muleshoe Memory Lane

We were so blessed to get together with some really good friends at the end of last week. Gary and Hollye Hooten became instant friends (actually family) to us while we lived in Muleshoe. We were so far from either of our families, it was so nice to have them. They were also like grandparents to our boys. We saw them at the end of the summer which I posted about here.
They were in Austin for a conference, along with a few other good friends from MISD, and we really enjoyed catching up (and celebrating Hollye's birthday!). Thursday night, Gary and Hollye drove out to Killeen and we had supper here at the house. There are still nose prints on my storm door from Benjamin standing there with much anticipation waiting for them to pull in the driveway!
Friday we headed to Austin to meet up with them again, along with our other MISD comrads. We just had a great time catching up.
On a side note, Gary and Hollye are expecting TWO grandbabies in April! Both of their daughters, Heather and Amy, are due within twenty-something days of each other! How exciting!
We are hoping to make it to Muleshoe sometime after the holidays to see them again and meet the new Kettner kiddo!! We still are in the dark as to whether they are having a boy or a girl. That Deborah can really keep a secret!
Anyway. It was just so good to see some truly wonderful friends that are so dear to us.

Dad & Benjamin

Hi Guys!

Benjamin and I had a fun time this afternoon. We went out together to see "Bee Movie". If you haven't seen any trailers for it, check it out by googling "Bee Movie". (Duh.)

I was so proud of Benjamin today. This was his first time to sit through a movie in a theater, aside from the time Kristi and I took him to see "Cars". (But, he was really too little that time to know what was going on.) This was the first time he was aware enough to really build up anticipation and be excited about the movie. He had talked about seeing it for about a week. Aside from a few minutes when he became distracted by the projector window behind us, he paid attention through the whole movie. I think he felt like a big kid!

Have a great weekend, and a Happy Thanksgiving!

David

Yikes! Stripes!

I have had a few emails to see our new stripes in the playroom so I thought I would post a couple of pics. I still have some touching up to do, the walls here are so textured that even with our sealing technique, we had some bleeding with thte tape. It was minimal, I am just a bit of a perfectionist about paint.
We have now put shelving and our sofa sleeper in the room so it is working out well. I still need to do a few things: art on the wall, maybe window treatments, etc. I'll try to post a complete photo when we're really done!
The reason for the pattern is that we are going with a sports theme. I am usually not a themey sort of person when it comes to decorating, but I am trying to do this in a subtle way.

Funny Little Story

Yesterday at church Benjamin was getting his money ready to put into the collection plate. We tell him that "this is your money you give to Jesus." We do this every week without much incident. Until yesterday. I leaned over and asked him if his money for Jesus was still in his pocket. I told him to get it ready for the collection. When the man for our side of the aisle approached with the collection plate, he whispers, "There he is," (pointing to the man), "It's Jesus."
He thought the older gentleman with the collection plate was indeed Jesus, ready to claim his money! He must have just realized that we all have Jesus in us!

One more thing....

Happy belated birthday to our sweet niece Ema! Hope your day was special, kiddo!

We're still here!

We're still around in the blog realm, just been a little busy lately in the real world.
David has been battling kidney stones and we are hoping they are finally gone. He was in the ER and everything, but we are doing better now-- I hope!
As of this morning, David, Jonathan and I all have small colds. I have almost lost my voice completely. I thought it was nothing, but it turned out to be more annoying than anything else. Jonathan had part two of his flu shot and it has made him a little more cranky, but not as bad as the first time. He is saying "mama" now! And clapping, too.
Benjamin is starting to realize what holidays are. He is looking forward to Thanksgiving, which he goes around saying, "is a very special day." Very true! He is also looking forward to the arrival of Santa Claus, which he also talks about everyday.
David is headed down to Houston for a conference tomorrow and will be back on Saturday. While he is gone, the boys and I are going to Marble Falls for a couple of days to help my parents paint their kitchen.
We have started on the playroom. We painted the entire base coat, which is a light coffee color. (It looks like my kind of coffee, lots of creamer!) I say, with reluctance, that the diamonds are not going to happen. Mathematically, I have tried to plot this room out on paper for hours and it doesn't work. When I did this before, I just did one wall in the room. And, in Muleshoe, our rooms were actually square, with even measurements. The room we are painting is very odd shaped, for one thing, it has five walls! The fifth wall is only three feet long, but it is what is throwing this whole thing off. So, with a heavy heart and a few sobs, I have decided to do horizontal stripes. They will be a lighter khaki and a red. I am actually pretty happy about it now. I will save the diamonds for something else-- one day!
We also had supper last week with two couples from church that fixed us the best meal ever! I am still dreaming of crabcakes with creamy dill sauce. And David has mentioned the stuffed shrimp about half a dozen times since we left their house. Such amazingly sweet people at our church. We just can't get enough of them!
Hope everyone is doing well. Sorry for the wordy blog, just wanted to update everything.