Halfway There ! 20 week picture

Jaime's Birthday Celebration, and we are having a Boy!!!

Our weekend started out with a surprise trip to Arizona, Tucson to be exact!

We stayed at the beautiful Loews Resort Ventana Canyon, and Jaime played 18 holes on a Tom Fazio course. It's rated top three in Arizona! He is a great golfer.












After all the fun we had swimming, hiking, golfing, and relaxing in Tucson-it was time to head home and prepare for Jaime's birthday bash! My sweet friend Traci made his birthday cake, which also contained the answer to our surprise, "is it a boy, or a girl?" She adorned the cake with Black Label Skateboarding stuff and of course threw in a Double T, for good measure! It was a very cool cake! (Delicious too)


We had a very special night with our closest friends and with my family. We are very blessed to have so many loving, caring, FUN, prayerful people in our lives. It was nice having a house full of kiddos, and a house full of love on this memorable occasion.












Ready to sing to Jaime!!!

Make a Wish!!


Such anticipation!



It's BLUE!!!!!!! We are going to have a SON!



Can't wait until he's here in our arms.



Time for more celebrating



Happiest of smiles- Eliana and James

Happy Birthday Babe! I love that you're my baby daddy! :o)

It's A ......!!!!!

Haha, nope, we don't know yet! It's just a sealed envelope away from where I'm sitting, but the surprise we'll have for Jamie's bday will be so special! The appointment went really well today. If you can see in the picture, the baby is sucking his/her thumb! How cute. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at that picture today. My heart melts everytime. The sonographer said that everything is measuring just fine, and I'm measuring right at 19 weeks. Perfect! It was special having my mom and Jamie there today to share in the excitement.
They measured the brain, the lip, heart,cervix,legs,arms, head, and spine. I was relieved to see that the head is not measuring off the charts! We both have big ol' noggins! The legs measured longer than 19 wks and 0 days. So, we're not sure if it's really mine! :o)

I feel like I've been feeling the baby move a little bit this week, but as soon as I turn my focus to the movement, it's gone. It will be nice when I can feel the little one moving around consistently! I will go in on Wednesday just to see the doctor and get scheduled for next months appointment. Thanks for all the prayers.

As for us, we are doing well. I start back to work next week! Summer's over already! Over the weekend my brother and Paul were here and we really enjoyed being with them! I feel like I don't need to eat for a week though! Jamie has Friday off and we are hoping to relax and enjoy a long weekend together. This week we have a guy coming to check our a/c duct work. Apparentely , it's common with evaporative coolers to experience rusted out ducts. That's what is happening here, so we are losing lots of air into the attic. Money, money, money!! Thanks Murphy! We are also getting a new window tomorrow for our bedroom and for the nursery...or the room that will eventually be the nursery! Super stoked about the windows because they should cut out quite a bit of outside noise and DUST! Woohoo!! Then, hopefully we can start to buy our baby furniture! We have themes picked out for each sex and are thrilled either way.

Top Ten Reasons to Use Cloth Diapers

10 Reasons to Use Cloth




1. The CUTE factor!! If you’ve been out of the ‘cloth diaper loop’ for a few years, you may not even recognize them. Modern cloth diapers are trim, easy to use, and come in a wide array of colors and styles. Who can say that about their disposable diapers!
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2. More economical. Disposable diapers are extremely expensive when you consider a 2-3 year diapering period. You can easily cloth diaper one child for 3 years for as little as $400!! That’s a savings of over $1600 considering the average family spends well over $2000 in disposable diapers over 3 years.1 These savings could be doubled if you use the same cloth diapers on a second child. Additionally, your used cloth diapers may be resold for as much as 60% of their original cost on websites like Diaperswappers! Try doing that with your used disposables!
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3. Better for baby. Disposable diapers contain trace amounts of Dioxin - banned in most countries (but not the US) and listed by the EPA as one of the most toxic poisons known, with a cancer risk as high as one in 100!2 They also contain: chemicals, TBT tributyl tin, perfumes and dyes, that are all harmful to your baby. Disposable diapers contain Sodium Polyacrylate (the small crystals used to absorb and hold in moisture). This substance was removed from tampons because of its link to Toxic Shock Syndrome!!3 Considering we have such great alternatives today, why take the risk?
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4. Better for the environment. In the United States, 570 disposable diapers are thrown away every second!4 That’s 49 million diapers per day… Gross! Disposable diapers create 1 ton of garbage per year per child. It is estimated to take 250-500 years for a disposable diaper to decompose.5 Cloth diapers are the obvious answer, even when considering the amount of energy and water used to make and wash them. An updated report by the UK Environment Agency confirms that reusable cloth diapers, if used and laundered according to manufacturer’s guidelines, can cause up to 40% less damage to the environment than disposable diapers!6
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5. CONVENIENT! It’s much easier to toss your cloth diapers in the washing machine than it is to load your baby in the car and drive to the store to pick up a package of disposable diapers! No more late night emergency trips to the store!! And with all the innovative cloth diapering accessories available today, using cloth diapers is EASY and CONVENIENT even when you’re ‘out and about!’
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6. More reliable than disposables. Is there anything worse than a blowout? Disposable diapers are notorious for leaks of all kinds! Correctly fitted cloth diapers are much better at containing leaks and keeping messes in the diaper and off your baby’s clothes.
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7. More comfortable for baby. Think about it. Would you rather wear paper or cotton? I don’t think anyone enjoys those paper gowns they make you wear at the doctor’s office! Why would your baby think any different? And babies who wear cloth diapers tend to have less diaper rash than those in disposables.
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8. FUN! That’s right, cloth diapering is fun! With all the choices in styles, fabrics, and colors, building your cloth diaper stash is a great way to indulge your shop-a-holic side and STILL save money!! And now that there are no pins, plastic pants, or dunking involved, cloth diapering really can be easy and fun for Moms and Dads, Grandparents, Babysitters, ANYONE!
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9. Potty train earlier. Children in cloth diapers tend to potty learn faster than children in disposable diapers. It is easier for them to feel when they are wet. Yea for changing less diapers!
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10. Did I mention how CUTE cloth diapers are? Modern Moms (and Dads) love showing off their cloth diapered babies, including famous celebrities like Dave Matthews, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Matthew McConaughey, Julia Roberts, Brooke Shields, Denise Richards, and Brad Paisley!7


Choose cloth -- Make a statement!!


For Even More Reasons, visit “Why Choose Cloth?” at the Real Diaper Association!!
1Calculation based on Mothering Magazine’s estimate that the average child goes through 8000 diaper changes before potty learning times an average of $.25 per diaper = $2000.
2 Greenpeace. The Real Cancer Cure: A Dioxin Prevention Plan. June 12, 2000.
3Diffin, Elizabeth. Cloth diapers benefit baby health and the environment, advocates say. Medill Reports Chicago. April 30, 2009.
4Clean Air Council. Waste Facts and Figures. http://www.cleanair.org/Waste/wasteFacts.html
5 Link, Ann. Disposable nappies: a case study in waste prevention. April 2003. Women's Environmental Network
6 Priesnitz, Wendy. Ask Natural Life: Cloth or Single-Use Diapers?. Natural Life Magazine. September/October 2009.
7 Peters, Holly. Hollywood Celebrities Use Cloth Diapers / Nappies. Associated Content. May 19, 2009.