Family Valentines Day Dinner

We had a nice Valentines Day weekend. Friday night I made a special dinner for our family. It was fun planning and making something special. We had Walnut Encrusted Chicken, Wild Rice Pilaf, Honey Glazed Carrots, dinner rolls, and Chocolate Covered Strawberries for dessert.

On Saturday, Grandma Maria and Annabeth had a tea party and Annabeth took a nap while Pat and I went into Albuquerque for a Valentines Day lunch at a little Italian restaurant called Nana's. It was nice to have some date time together.

Here are some pictures from our family dinner.

Here are the chocolate dipped "tuxedo strawberries" I made for dessert.

Grandma Maria and Annabeth were in charge of decorating the table for our dinner, and they did a great job.

Grandma Maria made us all valentines with Scripture passages on them, all verses talking about the heart. We enjoyed reading them before and after dinner.

Here is a picture of Annabeth. She was wearing a heart sweater for Valentine's Day.

Pictures from our trip to Sedona

Here are some pictures of the timeshare we stayed in this time around. Overall, it was really nice. This is the kitchen. There was a little breakfast bar where Pat set up his office, and a really nice see through kitchen so we could see out when we were cooking.
Here is one of the beds. There were two bedrooms with king sized beds. The outside porch was really nice, too. We were able to enjoy it in the afternoon, even though it was January. Highs were high 50's to low 60's when we were there.

Here's Grandma Maria and a bit more of a glimpse of the porch outside behind her.
Both bedrooms had jacuzzi tubs and walk in showers, which was really nice. I was able to relax with a nice bath one night, and a couple nights we used the tub as an "indoor swimming pool" for Annabeth, especially since the resort had no indoor pools. She got scared when we turned on the jacuzzi, though, and wanted to get out really quick after that. She was ok as long as we didn't turn the jets on.

The resort did have a number of heated outdoor swimming pools, and we went several times during the week. Inside the pools was nice, it was when we had to get out and go from pool to pool (which Annabeth wanted to do more often than we did) that it got a little chilly.

Here is my first official "belly" pic. Doesn't Annabeth look like a proud big sister in this picture? :)

Here is a view of the red rocks in Sedona. It's so beautiful there! A wonderful place to think about the majestic creation of our Awesome God!

Besides swimming, Annabeth really enjoyed the playgrounds while we were in Sedona. We went to 3 different playgrounds during our vacation, 2 in Sedona, and 1 in Phoenix.

Here is a picture of "The Coffepot," one of the named rock formations around Sedona. Right along the main street through Sedona, with a good view of the Coffepot, is The Coffepot Restaurant. We went there for breakfast one morning while we were there.

Annabeth loves to swing. Here she is in action at one of the playgrounds.

Here are a couple of pictures of the view we had from the balcony of our timeshare. What an inspiration! Several days we were there I enjoyed having some devotional time in view of the Red Rocks. Again, what an inspiring place to ponder on God's creation. When it was too chilly to sit outside, there was a window seat in our bedroom where the view was just as good. There are some good things about having some down time when you have a little one that still needs to nap in the afternoon.

Maria went with us on this trip, and Annabeth and I drove her down to Phoenix on Monday and picked her up on Friday so she could spend a few days with her sister Florence. It was about a 2 1/2 hr drive from Sedona to where her sister lives southwest of Phoenix. It was neat because her niece, Missy, who lives in Washington, happened to be in Phoenix with her mom when we visited, so Maria got to spend time with her, too. Most of Florence's other kids are in the Phoenix area, and Maria also has a brother, Rudy, who is in the Phoenix area along with most of his children, so Maria did a lot of visiting in her short time there. Please be in prayer for Maria's brother, who has Stage 4 cancer. The cancer is in his bones, so they are trying to decide on treatment options for him, and they're not sure how much longer he has, especially that he will be feeling well. We are thinking through trying to get Maria down to Phoenix in the near future again so she can spend more time with him.

First glimpse of Baby Moore - Ultrasound Pics

Here are some pictures from the Ultrasound we had last Wednesday. We took Annabeth with us, and I think she enjoyed seeing "my baby." The thing she enjoyed the most was hearing the heartbeat, and she asked to hear it over and over again. ("Can we hear the whoo..whoo..whoo?")

This was such a neat profile picture that they got at the end of the ultrasound - you can see the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears really well in this picture.




Here is a profile picture.

This was a neat one, with the arm and the hand in a fist with one finger pointing up. You can see the pointer finger and the thumb really well, with the other 3 fingers curled in.

It looks like Annabeth will be a big sister to a little sister, and here's the picture proof! We actually had a couple views after this that were even more convincing, but the ultrasound tech didn't get pictures of them.