10 Years!!

On December 28th, Jeff and I celebrated 10 years of marriage. I can't believe I haven't blogged about it until today because it was such a fun time. We got up early that morning and said good-bye to my sister and her family and then headed to Nashville. My Mom stayed a couple days extra so she could take care of P and E. We got to Nashville around lunch time and decided to go on to the mall and eat because we had reservations at a nice steak restaurant for dinner and we didn't want to spoil it. So, we ate in the food court. Real romantic. :) We walked around the mall for a while, but didn't buy a thing except or the 2 small chunks of fudge we got at Bass Pro. We left the mall and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Hermitage Hotel as a special treat. It was the nicest hotel we've ever stayed at and we really felt like royalty. At this point, it was raining pretty hard so we decided to stay in and enjoy the room and watch a movie. We got ready for dinner and headed out. I had done a lot of research to find the perfect restaurant for us. I knew it would be expensive, but it was 10 years right?! We went to a local restaurant that looked very romantic and nice. Let me just say that I learned (again) that you can't always judge a book by its cover or website! We walked in and were practically seated IN the fireplace and on top of other people dining. We were so close we seriously could have had conversations with them. Ok, so no big deal right?? We ordered our food. We both got filets with a baked potato, mine was medium well and Jeff's was medium. Well, mine came out charred and Jeff's was bleeding. We did have lots of laughs between the fireplace, too close for comfort diners, and the horrible steaks that were barely eaten, but left there disappointed and still hungry. At that point, it was still fairly early in the night, but still raining so we decided to go to The Cheesecake Factory for some dessert. Just to prove that I'm pregnant, I had to order a side of fries with ranch dressing to go along with my delicious cheesecake. It's sad to say that the fries and cheesecake were the best food of the night! We left there and went back to the hotel where they had prepared our room with romantic music, slippers, little cookies on the bed, and bottled water. We woke up the next morning and decided to go home. We walked outside and it was snowing. Not a ton, but enough for me. It actually snowed on us while we drove home until we got to the other side of Jackson, TN. It was a great 24 hours full of laughs and relaxation. I'm so thankful God chose Jeff for me and feel incredibly blessed to be doing life with him.

We're Almost There!

Well, today marks the beginning of week 38. I'm officially over being pregnant and ready to see this little one that's been so active in my belly. It's been a wonderful pregnancy with very little complaints and I've thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'm so ready to find out if we have a little boy or little girl not to mention hold him/her in my arms. I also can't wait to watch Preston and Emily with him/her. They are both still very excited. The house is ready for baby. We've rearranged furniture and done everything we can think of to transition easily once we get home. I went to the Dr today and I have lost 2 lbs and have started progressing!! WHOO HOO!! I've had contractions all day so we decided to eat mexican tonight. Maybe it will help with the laboring or maybe it will just continue to give me heartburn. :) Either way, it was nice to go out to dinner as a family of 4. I wanted to set my induction for March 8th (my due date), but the hospital was booked so I had to bump it up to the 5th. My prayer is that I will go into labor on my own before then, but I don't want to go past my due date so I'm just praying hard that God will grant me my desire. :) God wants us to pray boldly right?! At least that's what our Bible study was about on Wednesday night. Either way, we will be a family of five by/on March 5th!

Chick-fil-A Kids Night

Every Tuesday night, Chick-fil-A has kids night. They give free away free kids meals and do a craft for the kids. Our family has always enjoyed going because the kids have fun and Jeff and I always get to sit and talk uninterrupted. This last Tuesday night, we went and Preston decided to keep his book this time. It was a Mad Lib booklet and we had a lot of fun filling them out. He laughed and laughed at the story and I couldn't resist taking his picture. It's not every day that we get to see this laugh and smile so I felt it necessary to blog about it. Preston is a happy boy, but he is just reserved.

32.5 Weeks!

WOW how time has flown by! It's so hard for me to believe that this baby will be here in less than 2 months! I have gotten so much done, but feel like there is still so much that needs to be done. Especially when it comes to loving on Preston and Emily before this new little life joins our family. I remember being overwhelmed with a guilty feeling the night before we had Emily. Preston was my baby and he was no longer going to be the baby once she got here. The kind of emotions I'm feeling now isn't that Emily won't be a baby anymore, but that Preston and Emily are going to have to share their time with Jeff and me even more. They have no idea how much time and effort will go into this baby. So, I just have to pray that they will be reminded each day how special they are to us and how much we love them. I do think they will be tremendous helpers and I know they are both so excited. We put the Pack n Play up in our bedroom on Sunday and Emily has loved playing with it with her baby dolls. Another prayer of mine is that this baby will ease right into our lives and home. Emily was such a hard baby and it was hard to do much of anything without a crying baby. Yesterday we had freezing rain pretty much all day so schools were closed and I worked from home. That evening, Jeff and I started going through Preston and Emily's clothes so we will have them split up and whatever gender this baby isn't, we'll take those clothes to Goodwill. It's such a grueling process, but we had to do it so we would know what we still needed for this baby. That being said, and after discussing it with a couple of people, I have registered at Target. I really debated because this is our third baby, but there are still things we need and several friends have asked. There are a couple of "fun" things, but it's mostly things we still need. Thankfully, we have been able to buy a lot along the way and Jeff has a teacher friend that we were able to buy several things from. It's not something we will "announce", but will be there if someone asks. Other than all that, I'm feeling pretty good. Definitely feeling pregnant, but can't complain. My belly is getting huge although people are telling me that it's still small. My face is huge including my nose. :) I'm still able to wear my rings and most days they are still pretty loose.

Thanksgiving 2012

This Thanksgiving was a little low key, but perfect. My Mom came in town Wednesday night and we enjoyed some shopping and then got up Thursday morning for parade watching and cooking. We loaded up all our goodies and went to the Shands house. We ate until our hearts were content and our tummy's couldn't handle anymore. Then we went fishing. We saw a HUGE catfish that kept coming to the surface to eat the hotdog buns we were throwing in the water, but we couldn't catch him. He was too wise for us. After fishing, Jeff dropped my Mom and me off at Target so we could sit in line (for 4 hours) to get the camera I had seen in the Black Friday ad. He then dropped the kids off with Roy and got his Mom and went to Walmart to get Preston's Christmas present. He said it was absolute chaos. Of course, what else would we expect from Walmart?? He picked my Mom and me up at 9:18 (Target opened at 9pm might I add) and we went home. Friday morning, Linda, my Mom, Emily, and I went to Charleen's in Halls, TN. We try to go every year and always have a great time. We noticed this time that the food and decorations were more expensive than years past. My Mom got me some pretty decorations to go in my garland and I got a little tree for our half bath. She also got a beautiful frame for the baby's room. It was an all day adventure, but it was fun to have time with just the girls. Jeff and Preston also had a great boys day. We got our Christmas tree that night, but were too tired to decorate it so we waited until Saturday night to decorate. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and look forward to an even more enjoyable Christmas.

Nursery Update

We decided to hire someone to paint the nursery since Jeff and I really only enjoy the first 30 mins of painting and that's about it. It's just one of those things in life where it's easier to have a professional do it. The painter came Friday morning at 9 and was done and gone by 12 noon. He used none of that blue tape and got green paint on only the walls. I can assure you that Jeff and I would have had to repaint the ceiling and clean it up off the carpet if we had done it! Oh, and chances are it would still not be done. :) I had ordered some letters from an old friend that does vinyl lettering. I was anxious to get them up before my Mom left so I started to put them up Saturday night. They had a really hard time sticking, but my friend said it's probably because the paint was not all the way dry. Because I'm impatient, I preformed what felt like surgery and got all the letters up and done by Sunday night. The nursery is now complete minus some paintings that I would like to find to hang on the walls as well as figuring out where I want my little shelves to go. Oh, and the major item... the baby!!

Nursery

Well, the nursery is starting to come together. I have had the bedding for a little over a month now and I still love it. We got new bedding for the daybed, and bought a glider rocker. When I bought the bedding, I bought 3 yards of fabric to make curtain panels. I should have known better, but I didn't measure the window before I purchased. I got the fabric and immediately held it up to the window to make sure it was going to work. You guess it... it was too short. So, after talking to some friends and looking on Pinterest and changing my mind a million times, I finally decided that I was going to make a cute cornice board. Easy enough right? At least the people on pinterest made it look easy. After three trips to Lowes for wood, we finally got some we could work with. The first trip left us with sheets of styrofoam. That was a site! Try figuring out how to get that sucker drilled into the wall! The second trip left us with wood shelving that weighed a ton and wouldn't stick together. The third trip left us with 1/4" thick wood that I was determined to make work regardless. Well, we FINALLY finished it last night. Jeff and I almost divorced over it (we do NOT do projects well together), but it's up. I guess I was imagining that the room would look perfect once I got it up, but I stood back and felt that something was missing. First I thought it needed some panels and after talking to family and friends, we've determined that the walls need PAINT! UGH! I was hoping to avoid that catastrophe. AND to top it all off, that sucker is not coming off the wall for us to paint so we'll just have to paint around it I guess. So, Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday, Happy 10th anniversary to us. We're painting a nursery! Can you sense the sarcasm?!!! In all seriousness, I'm so thankful and feel extremely blessed to have our house and that the baby will have his/her own room. I'm just a bit overwhelmed with all the $$ that has gone into this little room. Here's a picture of the cornice board. It had to be that big because our blinds only go up to the bend of the window and the sun shines right through the open part and into the crib.