Well - it's been almost a month! Our apologies for not updating you sooner. It's been a crazy time for us. We had a lot of visitors from Colombia in Orlando for Christmas and New Years so we are now starting to really get the house ready for the baby. In the past few weeks we've painted the room, installed a new ceiling fan, fixed the shelving in the closet, put up the valance on the window and set up the crib and glider. It's really starting to look like a baby room. We are still waiting for the dresser to arrive and for our wonderful friend Scott Stafstrom to paint some cute animals on the walls. We'll post some "before and after" pictures soon.

Meanwhile, baby has been VERY active! At our last doctors appointment when we were listening to the heartbeat we kept hearing all these thumps and swishes - and the doctor said that we had "one very active baby!" He/She certainly keeps me up at night sometimes - Paul says we have a nocturnal baby on our hands! I hope not! It's really miraculous now since we feel it so much and we can really feel our little blessing everyday.

I'm attaching a few pictures from over Christmas and New Years for you to enjoy.











Our friends Sean, Donelle and Tiffany came to visit over Christmas from Panama City and San Francisco.














On Christmas Eve.











Visiting UF with my Colombian relatives. My last time in the Swamp before the Gators became National Champions! Go Gators!

Our own Epiphany

This past Saturday (which also happened to be Epiphany), I felt the baby kick for the first time!! Cristina has been feeling it for quite some time now, but I was never able to feel it from the outside. It truly is an amazing experience! I haven't felt it since, but I keep trying to get Cristina to eat and drink sweet things to make him/her more active so I can feel it again.

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Today is my birthday and the best present I could have gotten was to see new baby pictures!!! We held out and did NOT find out the sex of the baby. I decided I would just analyze the photos and video myself =) Below are some of the best that the technician took. Hope you enjoy!!


Profile shot. You can also see it's got a belly like daddy.


This one cracks us up because this is exactly how I sleep and it drives Cristina crazy!


Baby getting a little rest.

Merry Christmas! That time of year is creeping up once again and this December is going to be a lot of fun for my family. We are blessed to have lots of family visiting from Puerto Rico and Colombia this year for Christmas and New Years, so it's going to be a great time! The closer we get to Christmas they keep trickling in... =) I've been feeling great and since I'm in the 17th week, I'm anxious to start feeling the baby move. The doctor said that it could be anytime between now and week 20, so I'll let you know! We have our next sonogram on Paul's birthday, December 27th so we are counting the days to see our baby again. So make sure to check around the New Year for new baby pictures! This week we received our nursery bedding set - it's so cute. We are going to decorate with a jungle theme - which is perfect since it works for both a boy and a girl and we're not going to know what we're having. I've posted the picture of the bedding set that's in the magazine, but note that the colors appear very dark in the photo compared to what they actually look like. Once we actually set up our nursery we'll be sure to post pictures. It's much cheerier in person. This weekend we are taking our visiting family to Disney World as well as going to a big ice sculpture exhibit, so I'll try to post some pictures next week. Have a wonderful week!

Well, we're going into our 14th week now and luckily I am feeling much, much better! I can eat mostly anything now and I haven't had any really strange cravings or anything with this exception of wanting to drink everything "smoothie" style. I put all types of juice in the blender with ice and I love it!

Paul and I went camping this past weekend in Gainesville with our friends Sarah and Nathan. We all went to the Gator game, so baby had his/her first Swamp experience. =) Good thing the Gators won! We also got to see lots of friends during the weekend and catch up with people we rarely see, so it was great. We have no grand plans for Thanksgiving this year - we'll be at Paul's brother's Corey for the big feast - and we just look forward to taking it easy for the day. We have a doctor's appointment next week, so more to come!