Kaycee hits the big "three-oh"!

Hello everyone,
Just wanted to show off some of the pictures from my birthday dinner celebration.
I had a wonderful birthday on January 16th and Ruel wins the grand prize for great planning.
The day started off with a prenatal massage (the first of 3, one for each trimester) at Florida Hospital's Eden Spa, then we went for lunch in Winter Park at Panullo's, one of our favorite Italian restaurants. After lunch, he took me back to the car where he presented another gift basket full of wonderful pregnancy pampering items and a gift certificate to Motherhood Maternity. He wanted to take me on a shopping spree prior to dinner. It was so much fun to have him there while I got to play fashion show. What a guy.
Dinner was fabuluous. Stone Village Tavern is relatively new near the Mall at Millenia and I was humbled to have so many friends and family present to celebrate.
Below are some of the pictures Yizenia took.
I wanted to thank everyone again for such a wonderful party, I will remember it always.

Big Happenings in the Manuel Family

It is with such pleasure that we publicly announce that we are expecting our first child in July of 2009. Kaycee went for a check-up at the end of her first trimester last Tuesday (1/13) and everything looks great! We are excited, nervous, and awed about this amazing time in our lives. We know that life will change forever, but can't wait for this next step in our relationship and family.
Below is a picture of the seven week ultra-sound. We should have another this month.


We found out on the morning of November 20th at four AM (since Kaycee couldn't sleep) and spent the day in a daze over the thoughts of the coming months.
Thanksgiving was the next week and we both decided it would be nice to give thanks for our impending new addition by announcing to Kaycee's parents prior to dinner. Of course, there were hugs and tears by everyone. They are thrilled to hear that they will be grandparents again (they have two granddaugthers that are Kaycee's brother's children Adeline and Blaine).
Kaycee has had a rough trimester, being very sick for most of the days. It was ironic that when she went back for her second appointment she had actually lost a few pounds, but they say that's normal. She's starting to feel better, but we're all taking it one day at a time.
We do want to know gender, but that information won't be available until around the fourth or fifth month.
More posts to come as we upload pictures of Kaycee's big three-oh celebration.
(there is some catching up to do on the blog)