Subliminal Message, Maybe?

You think Wesley is trying to tell me that I spend too much time on the computer? This is my clarinet case, by the way.

Wonderful Long Weekend

We had a great weekend and President's Day yesterday. My parents came on Friday night. My dad went to Dothan on Saturday to see my grandmother, who is in an Alzheimer's place. My mom stayed with me and Wesley. The three of us had fun on Saturday. We ate lunch at Red Lobster and then went to see all the kitties up for adoption at Petco. That is always fun, and I always fall in love with one. After Wesley's nap we all played outside for a little while. Arturo got home Saturday night about 11:45. It was so good to have him home. Sunday for lunch we ate at our newest restaurant, Texas Roadhouse. It was very good. I was so excited for Sunday night because Arturo and I got to have our first date in many, many months. I can't even remember the last time we had one. We went to eat at Thai Cuisine (our favorite restaurant) and went to see Taken. That was an AWESOME movie. Yesterday we showed my mom and dad our restaurant. Yes, I can say now that we got the place. The rest of our day yesterday was spent playing outside, walking around the mall, eating at Beef 'O'Brady's and grocery shopping. I hated to see Arturo leave this morning, just like I always do, but hopefully it won't be for too much longer. We're hoping for a lot of good news this week.

Wesley didn't have his nap yesterday. Arturo and I were talking at Beef 'O' Brady's last night, and I looked over at Wesley, who had gotten unusually quiet, and he was sound asleep.

Arturo and Amanda

1. What is his name? Jaime Arturo Godoy.
2. Who eats more? He does. He's always getting onto me because I don't eat right or enough.
3. Who said "I love you" first? He did.
4 Who is taller? He is by about an inch.
5. Who is more sensitive? We both are.
6. Who does the laundry? Me, but very, very occasionally he'll put a load on.
7. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Me.
8. Who pays the bills? Me.
9. Who cooks more? I do, but we go out A LOT.
10. Who is more stubborn? Me for sure.
11. Who is the 1st to admit they are wrong? Usually him, but I'm getting better, slowly.
12. Who has more siblings? He has 4, and I have 1.
13. Who wears the pants in the relationship? We both do.
14. What do you like to do together? Lately, just being able to have a conversation without interruption is lovely. We love to go out to eat, go to movies (which is very rare now), walk, ride bikes, really anything.
15. Who eats more sweets? Me, but I am so much better than I used to be.
16. Guilty pleasures? Any time that we have together doing anything when Wesley is at school or being watched by someone else.
17. How did you meet? At Old Mexico in Andalusia, 14 years ago.
18. Who ask whom out 1st? He asked me out first, but I made the first move to let him know I was interested.
19. Who kissed who first? He kissed me on the cheek during our third date, and then at the end of that date it was a mutual lip-lock and total fireworks! I'm happy to say there still are fireworks!
20. Who proposed? He did.
21. His best features and qualities? I think all if his features are beautiful. He is loving, generous, kind, an extremely hard worker, dedicated and funny.

New Beginnings

Arturo is no longer at our restaurant. He was having problems with one of his partners, who also happens to be his cousin. They hadn't gotten along for awhile, and now Arturo is gone. He has been working at another restaurant out of town, but we're hoping to lease a restaurant right here in Brooksville, which is only about 3 miles from our house. We're going to look at it on Monday and hopefully sign a lease. It's very exciting and scary, too. With the economy the way it is, starting a new business is a big risk, but it's a risk that we are willing to take and hopefully everything will work out. This is something we have wanted for awhile, to have another restaurant, but it's sad that it had to happen this way, with him basically being forced out of his own business that he had made successful. But, the Lord works in mysterious ways, and maybe this will turn out to be a wonderful venture for us.

Looking Back

Seeing Nancy's pictures of her baby Jack and reading her blog about nursing, sleep deprivation, etc. has made me think about when I went through all that with Wesley. I am a person who loves to sleep, and the sleep deprivation I had the first year was enough to bring me to tears many, many times. Nursing had its ups and downs. Like Nancy said, you have to be very careful what you eat because whatever you eat goes right to the baby. I nursed because aside from the incredible health benefits it gives your baby, think of the time and money you save not having to buy formula and make bottles! Nursing also helped me shed the baby weight in about two weeks. I only gained 25 pounds during my pregnancy, though. You think that you are never going to forget things about the time when you have a newborn/infant. Well, you do. It's hard for me to remember a whole lot when Wesley was a baby, probably because I was so dang tired all the time. It just goes by so fast. I can't believe he is almost 4 already.

Christmas, And The End of 2008

Christmas 2008 was a wonderful time for my family. My parents came up on Christmas Eve to be with us. Sometimes I wonder if I got really special, meaningful gifts for my family, but this year I felt great about what everyone received. I gave Arturo his own engraved Bible. He got teary-eyed when he opened it. My mom is lighthouse-crazy, and since she already has everything else lighthouse-themed imaginable, I got her lighthouse shower curtain rings and a lighthouse handtowel for the bathroom. She loved them. I got my dad a Cracker Barrel gift card and a Devil Rays t-shirt, which both went over very well. Wesley's main gift was a bicycle. Anytime anyone asked him what he wanted for Christmas, he said "A bicycle," so Arturo and I knew we had a winner with that. I got some soft, comfy PJs from my parents (which I stayed in all day Christmas Day), some earrings and a "I Love Lucy" snow globe. Arturo gave me a beautiful cross for my necklace and some earrings. We had thought about giving each other a Wii, but decided against it this year. We did go to Wal-Mart last night and bought a PacMan game console that has a bunch of different 80s arcade games on it. Maybe we're stuck in the past a bit, but the three of us have had fun with it so far!

Now I'm trying to think of ways to keep Wesley busy until he goes back to school next week. I took him to Michael's today and bought him an activity board where he can trace numbers and letters as well as practice writing them by himself. He loves to do things like that, so hopefully that will occupy some time. I'm really looking forward to the new year...

Wesley's Christmas Show

Wesley had his Christmas show for his preschool last night. We were pretty nervous as his last public performance (a choir Christmas program at our church) was pretty much a disaster, with him not singing at all, crawling around on the stage and being terrible for the rest of the performance even when he was sitting with us. Anyway, this performance last night was a 10 on a scale of 1-10. He did great! On his first song, he sang every word and played a kazoo. On the second song, a Hannukah song, he had his hands in his mouth the whole time. I don't know what that was about. On the last song, he was a Christmas tree. He spotted Arturo, who was recording him, about halfway through the last song and started waving to him. We were so proud of him, so afterwards we went and got some ice cream. It was a wonderful night, and I'm so glad that Arturo could take off of work and be with me to see it. These are such special moments, and I don't want either of us to miss anything.