Aleigh Elizabeth's birth event!

Aleigh Elizabeth Aquino was born September 28, 2009 at 9:20 PM. She was 7# 1oz and 20 inches long. She was alert and wide eyed. Aleigh is a beautiful little girl! She has the perfectly rounded head just like her two older sisters. I think she looks a whole lot like her Mama. She has a long neck, small dimples around her mouth and the most adorable puffy cheeks. Leigh did great. She was induced that morning and labored all day. She didn't make much progress until the very end when Aleigh decided to come all of a sudden! Mom and I missed being there for the actual birth by about 10 minutes!

Below you can see Lerin's version of holding Aleigh. She was kicked back with a baby on her lap watching cartoons on the TV. Miss Aleigh is definitely going to have to be one tough little chick!

There she is just minutes after her birth! Wide eyed beauty!

Here is Dakota playing outside the day of Aleigh's birth. The three couins had a ball playing outside finding sticks and helping grumps kill all of the fire ants! Notice Miss Priss and her bracelets on each wrist!

Lerin and Robbyn excitedly anticipating the birth of their new baby sister!
Robbyn holding Aleigh for the first time. Robbyn said, "She's an angel!"
Proud Mama loving on her baby!
Aleigh already trying to talk minutes after her birth. Definitely a part of our family!!

I Remember

I wanted to share with you a song by Sara Groves that overwhelmed me with the goodness of God this afternoon. As most of you know my Friday afternoons at work are very slow. Generally, Fridays are my grumpy days where I pine for 5 o'clock ALL-DAY-LONG. I spend my day facebook stalking and surfing the web. Well, today...God made himself real and reminded me of all the ways he has allowed me to see his faithfulness in my 25 years. I am convicted and in awe of him right now...tight chest, watery eyes and all. My small gripes of today (work, overwhelming school work, marital tensions, and general worries) seem very small in light of the hugeness of my God!


I remember today God's incredible provisions in my life and in the life of those around me. Too many to count and too many to list. The people, places and experiences that I have had that shape me in to the person I am today. Many of which are only known and felt by myself and known by God. Many too powerful to put in words. I hate that I forget that I have seen God completely transform people. He still does transform people. And He continues to transform me day by day as I move closer to the day Jesus returns. The song by Sara Groves says, "I saw what I saw and I can't forget it." I remember today. Do you remember?

Interesting Video

Check out this You Tube Video. I found it on a friend's blog and thought it was very relevant. While I've never been in a classroom of 115 students, I can relate to pretty much every other part of the video. What do you think?

Denver/Estes Park, CO

Below are some snap shots of our trip. Blogger is not cooperating so I can't move the first pictures where they need to go. They should make sense once you read below.

Cliff and I just returned from an amazing weekend away to Colorado! Cliff is now enjoying the Cowboy's game and I'm updating you all on our trip. We began our trip in Denver where we stayed Thursday night. Cliff took me to the Denver Aquarium. We had alot of fun checking out all of the awesome fish. Then for a late lunch we went to Casa Bonita. Casa Bonita is this crazy restaurant in Denver that seats over 900 people and has live diving and rather strange skits. I remembered visiting this place as a kid after showing up. Our friend Robbie told us we should check it out and we definitely did that. The pic below is us at lunch there. You can not see it well, but behind us is the diving area. We saw a couple of dive shows and one random gorilla skit. Needless to say we laughed ALOT!

We also got to see some of our HPU friends who have recently moved to Denver: Chris and Robin Richardson, Jessica Cogsdil, and Grant and Desire Kinser! Thanks Chris and Robin for meeting us for dinner and for letting us watch The Office at your place. We were so thankful to get to see you guys!

The next leg of our trip took us to the beautiful Estes Park, CO about an hour and a half north of Denver. Estes Park was a busy place this weekend! The town was packed with people. This weekend marked the beginning of the elk rut season and the color changing of the leaves. All of the people wasn't much of a bother for us. It kind of added to the excitement of being in town. We even got to enjoy the local arts and crafts festival. Below is the little cabin we stayed at near town. Saturday afternoon we fished at the trout pond, played putt-putt, and ate at the delicious bbq restaurant all within walking distance of our cabin. The cabin faced towards the mountain stream so it felt like there weren't many people around.

The place we stayed at was called Trout Haven ranch cabins and they offered "free" fishing to all guests at their trout pond. We were pumped when we heard this. The pond is stocked often and there were thousands of fish!!! We learned that you could not just catch and release and when you caught the fish you paid 95 cents per inch for each one you caught. We decided we had to fish and catch at least one. We caught the one below in like 10 minutes! We only used one worm! Ha! So for 12 bucks we had quite the thrill and one of the families fishing near us enjoyed our catch for dinner. We got ripped off, obviously, but it was still fun!

Next we went to play putt-putt at this local place near where we stayed. In the pic below you can see our row of cabins in the back! The place was soooo cute with flowers everywhere! Cliff beat me by 2, but I did have 2 hole in ones!

On Saturday morning Cliff and I went in to Rocky Mountain National Park. What a beautiful place!! I am so thankful God allows us to view his beautiful creation up close and personal. We hiked nearly 3 miles round trip to see this waterfall. There were so many people in the park that we had to line up and take a bus out to where the hiking was! Cliff was skeptical of doing the whole park and ride thing, but it ended up being such a wonderful morning together!

I posted the pic below so that my family could see that I am starting to show a bit. I am 15 weeks along. My next appointment is this Thursday. I swear that I can feel the baby move sometimes already, but everything I've read says it is a little early. Mostly though I just feel fat.

I am so thankful for the chance to get out of town for a few days together. It was a much needed getaway for my sanity and our marriage. I am so thankful to be married to Cliff! We will celebrate our third year of marriage next week and I look forward to the years ahead together.

Vacation Coming Soon!

Starting Thursday Cliff and I get to go on a mini vacation! I am sooooo excited. We are flying to Denver to stay the night, then we'll drive up to Estes Park for the rest of the weekend. We'll fly back in town Sunday night just before the new week begins. I am looking forward to getting away from Amarillo, hanging with Cliff and enjoying beautiful Colorado! We are also hoping to see some of our HPU friends in Denver who moved up there to start a church.

Sorry for the Confusion!

Apparently I have confused several people with my mentioning Pinkie in the baby announcement post. (I am laughing as I write this!) We have not named the baby Pinkie, although I guess that would be cute if we had. We're not that creative, only calling the baby "baby" right now. Ha! As you can see from the pics, Pinkie is our sweet little bunny! I just had to share because if you were confused, you were definitely not the only one. Ha!

Picture of Pinkie

Below you can see two pictures of Pinkie, our bunny. She is almost 3 months old and is so cute! She likes being held and loves hopping around the house.

Dreams Really Do Come True

I can finally announce that Cliff and I are going to be parents! Today, I truly feel like my dreams are coming true. Our baby is due March 21st. On Monday we got to hear the baby's heart beat and hear from the doctor that everything looks great!

My whole life I've wanted to marry a prince and have lots of his sweet babies! Well, almost three years ago I married my prince. My prince pushed me to continue school and finish my Master's so the babies had to wait a little bit. I graduate in December and now I get to have my baby! With that brings lots of fears and questions for the future...but mostly, I'm just really stoked!

Honestly, we both wrestled with God about His timing for all of this. I have felt, and still do to some extent, the pressure of the world telling me to get established in a career. To practice what I've been learning for so long. My world tells me success is having a career, having an identity outside of my family. And actually, I do have a desire to be a competent social worker. However, at the same time, my core desire is to be the wife that Cliff needs and to have babies! To enjoy those toothy smiles and be the one who raises my kids.


While I know I will struggle with these decisions for many years to come I am feeling sooooo relieved and thankful that I am actually getting to live out my dreams. The dream I've kept in my heart for so long is coming true. It is strange, but when I think about this part of my future there is really no fear in it. Not the tightening in my chest that I get when I think about what job I'll have next, will I have learned in school what I need to know for the career, will my personality mix well with my co-workers, can I be myself enough in the work place to feel alive and productive?.....no this dream, I feel confident and sure of myself to complete because I know it is what God has given me, I know this is what I'm made for as a woman, and He will be the one to equip me and Cliff. It feels so natural. What a great feeling. It is very freeing! I look forward to what new dreams God give me as I continue walking with Him.



~From a Thankful Heart

PS: Pictures of pinkie coming tonight. Cliff is away hunting so Pinkie and I are going to hang out and clean the house.