Happy Birthday Rome!

May 10th was Rome's third birthday! We all had a great day long celebration and felt very lucky to be able to do so since Jeff was off duty.
Rome's day included:

A Haircut
Jeff is already saying, "It'll grow back!". He's handsome as ever of course, but we loved his "long locks"!

Chuck-E-Cheese


Cake and Ice Cream

Presents
Notice how we didn't quite get all the cake off his face.

Some facts about our handsome boy:

1) His full name is Rome Valentino Runyan. He was named for the city of Rome. Even though Jeff served his mission in the Rome, Italy mission it actually never occured to us to use that name. It wasn't until Jeff spotted it on a box of tissues in our kitchen at the time that we thought about it. We had NO other geographical boy names on our list that we liked.
His middle name comes from a tv show we were watching. There was a Ferrari test car driver named Valentino. We both loved the name, and in fact until we found the name Rome we had nearly decided to just go ahead and name him Valentino.

2) He was born in Palm Springs, CA and weighed in at 9 lbs. 9 oz. My body KICKED him out - he was actually born 10 days early.

3) Rome LOVES to lounge. He can find a comfy place to lounge ANYWHERE. He has even been seen relaxing on our hard, scratchy, brick fireplace hearth.

4) Rome is a very, very nice boy. Some have even gone so far as to call him "the nicest kid ever". He has his moments of course, but on the whole we'd tend to agree.

Happy Birthday Rome! We love you so much buddy!!


Mother's Day

I didn't get anything posted for Mother's Day but I had a really swell one. I got some really cute cards, chocolate, and Jeff signed me up for the June Crop at Archivers (exactly what I wanted, in fact I put the ad for it on the fridge and said to him, "This is what I want for Mother's Day.") Jeff also made a really delicious pasta with meat sauce, it was so good we ate it for lunch AND dinner.


To all those "Mother's" out there, I love ya!! We've got a tough job, but it really is the best job. I feel so fortunate to have so many awesome motherly examples around me in my friends and family.
The following is a from a short talk President Hinckley gave at General Conference in November of 2001. Most of the address has been taped to our refrigerator since nearly the beginning of Jeff and my marriage (we were married in September 2001). I have read this part more times than I can count.

"I hope that every wife will look to her husband as her dear companion, the star of her life, her supporter, her protector, her companion with whom she walks hand in hand “equally yoked.” I hope that she will look to her children as sons and daughters of God, the most significant contribution she has made to the world, her greatest concern with regard to their achievements, and more precious than any other thing she has or could hope for."