Leighton Valencia Maxfield

Leighton was born on May 12, 2009 at 11:40Pm. She weighs 7 pounds 3 ounces and she is 19 1/2 inches long. We are so excited to finally have her here! May 12th is a very special day to us. It's the day Jack proposed to me 2 years ago and we are so happy that it is our little angel's birthday! We already love her so much, I didn't know it was possible to love someone so much! She is such a beautiful baby and we are so grateful that Heavenly Father sent her to us! We must have done something right :) Right now, she is still in the Newborn ICU. She had the hiccups throughout the delivery and has some fluid in her lungs. They are going to keep her for a few days to stabilize her oxygen levels, but she seems to be doing well. She's our little trooper already! And I have to say: Jack was my incredible husband, as usual, yesterday! He massaged my feet, stayed with me the entire day, held my hand through every contraction, waited on me hand and foot, held my leg up during labor(only my left side really took the epidural and I couldn't lift my left leg at all!), he counted through all my contractions, and he even cut the chord!! Sorry ladies, I snagged the best man out there! He's such an amazing husband and I know he's going to be a great father too!!
Well, we just wanted to post a few pictures so everyone back home can see her!
We love our little Leighton, we're so glad she made it here safely!!

He's going to be such a great daddy!
Jack, Leighton, and Me
First Family Photo :)

On another note, we are so happy that we had Leighton before Ethan had to go home today! I've had so much fun celebrating his 21st birthday with him and hanging out the past week! It was so special for to me that he was able to hold Leighton before he left. She is so lucky to have such great aunts and uncles! We miss you already, Eeskie! I hope you enjoyed your birthday week and we're so thankful for you! Love you so much, buddy!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all of the Mothers out there,
but most especially to mine!!
We Love You, Mom! Thanks for all you do for us, we miss you so much!
Hope you're having a wonderful day!!

Good News All Around!

Hey y'all! I've been trying to squeeze in my last few weeks of work before Leighton arrives, so I haven't had much time to update! Jack is doing really well in school this semester and studying hard. The nursing program is very competitive, so he literally studies most of the time he's not at school or working (whenever that could possibly be! Haha!).

Yesterday we went in for a weekly checkup at my doctor to see how Leighton is doing. I've told my work they could schedule me up until the 15th (my due date is the 17th), as long as they had someone on call, just in case. I just imagined I'd be late.. I am related to the Dinkins! JK :) But yesterday at my appointment, the doctor told Jack and I to try to hold out until Thursday, then they would decide what day to induce me. Turns out, I'm already dilated to a 3 and 70% effaced. I still don't want to get my hopes up, I may end up going to my due date. But we are just so excited for Leighton to be here!! We feel so blessed and can't wait to become parents!

Our other good news: as many of you know, we have been saving up for a little while to go to Disney World in November with our Maxfield family. Jack and I are pretty obsessed with Disney, we had a Disney World Honeymoon and it was magical! Ha! We've planned everything, so we could fly out for Disney World, then spend Thanksgiving with our family in SC. (We have to eat at "Lana's Cafe" for Thanksgiving!) With the baby coming and me taking a month off of work, we didn't know if we'd be able to afford any vacation that soon. Jack has the fall semesters off, so it's really the only time we can leave Rexburg for more than a weekend. We've also been e-mailing the company Jack worked for last summer trying to squeeze out the rest of the money they owed him. This has been ongoing since January! Well, yesterday it seems like all of our prayers were answered! After the doctor's appointment we came home and much to our surprise, there was a check waiting in our mailbox for quite a bit more than we expected! We joke a lot, but in all honesty neither of us thought they would pay Jack for the remainder of his sales because he didn't sign a contract to work again this year. We have so much to be grateful for, especially at this point in our lives. I feel like a lot of the blessings we've received lately are directly connected with paying our tithing. Jack and I have both developed a strong testimony of the importance of paying tithing and it seems like every time we give our 10%, the Lord gives us 110% back. We're still going to save up our money for Disney and SC, but it feels like a huge weight has been lifted. We are so thankful for our blessings and so excited for November and to be able to spend time with all of our family! 2009 is turning out to be our favorite year yet!

Congratulations Jack!

So, I'm a little late in posting this.. but Jack finished his first semester at BYU-Idaho with all A's and a 3.8 GPA! I am so proud of him, so I had to brag a little!! I love you so much babe, great job! Keep up the good work!

The Last "Sunday Night Shenanigan"

This is a little late, but we hope everyone had a wonderful Easter! The Easter Bunny brought us lots of sweet treats :] and then we were able to go to our friend's Jesse and Bree Dexter's house for their going-away party. Every Sunday, we've had Sunday Night Shenanigan's (thus the title up there) and every Monday we'd have dinner together and play cards. Jesse and Bree will be moving on the 25th and they are sure going to be missed!! I'm sure they will be back to visit quite a bit, but Jesse got into school in Twin Falls, so they're going to be living a few hours away. We're really excited for them to begin this new chapter in their lives! Good luck, Jesse and Bree!

Our awesome Easter baskets!

Jack and me at the Dexter's house

A picture of us all dressed up!

Wiffle-ball baseball at the last Shenanigan

Our friend Mark climbed up the tree to rescue the wiffle-ball

Jesse being Jesse! Haha.

Jack is up to bat!

And of course there was Rock Band!

Close-up of Bree and me! I'll miss you Bree!

Jack and I goofing off at Applebee's on Monday :]

Jesse and Bree at Applebee's

On a side note, 28 more days!!!! I can't believe we're getting so close!!!!

40 MORE DAYS!!

We're just really excited! :]

A Good Weekend for a Basketball Game

Back in January, I bought Jack tickets to see the Utah Jazz play the Phoenix Suns. We took Saturday and Sunday off this weekend and fled Rexburg, Idaho to watch our two favorite NBA teams play each other. It was one of our favorite adventures since we got married, not only because it was our first live NBA game, but because we've both been working pretty hard and really needed a BREAK! Ha! Here are a few pictures of some fun things we did!

We got to hang out with Thomas, Jennive, Daniel, and Mason at the cabin!

Played some pool, of course!

This is the new flooring at the cabin, it turned out very good!

Right before the game (we like this shirt because I look really pregnant! Haha.)

We got off at 2am the night before, then left for Utah at 5am.....

Shaq shooting free-throws.

Steve Nash and Deron Williams!

The final score... after it went into overtime!!

We also went to see Monsters Vs. Aliens in IMAX 3-D! It was super cute!!

I didn't post the pictures of Chick Fila, Five Guys, and Chipotle, but we ate really well in Utah! Not to mention Daniel and Jennive cooking up an awesome breakfast at the cabin (Thanks y'all!) It was such a fun weekend, even with the blizzard (and of course the only shoes I took down were flip-flops!). It was hard to come back to work and school, but we had an amazing time! We'd been looking forward to this weekend and I'm glad I got to do some nice things for Jack because he's such a hard-working guy, but he always finds time to make me feel special! I love being married to my best friend, we always have so much fun together!