Baby Shower Weekend

Well, I just thoroughly enjoyed having Lamm and Cecily here for the weekend. And we had a blast at my baby shower on Sunday! I am so blessed to have so many wonderful friends!

While Lamm and Cecily visited, Matt got in lots of good practice.

We didn't get a picture of the funniest part, Matt practicing swaddling and shushing with 6 month old Cecily! It was hilarious. First of all, he was shushing her when she wasn't even upset. She looked at Lamm and me like, "why is he doing that?" But apparently, Cecily loves to be HOT when she sleeps and she loves being swaddled. Matt got her down for a nap in no time flat. I just wish we had taken pictures.

We also got to see how the animals might react to the baby. Isis could care less, Einstein is cautiously curious and a little scared as we expected (he's scared of everything), and Hurley is VERY protective (she kept using her body to block Einie from getting to the baby)!

Look at this sweet face! I had so much fun having them here.

My sweet friend Lara did the table decorations (little Sweet Peas in their pods!) which were a huge hit. All the Sweet Pea themed stuff was so precious.

We got lots of great stuff! As you can see, we are truly blessed with wonderful friends.

Autie Meghan made Sweet Pea a gorgeous quilt that coordinates so well with the nursery. Meghan and I are both only children, so we get to be "Aunties" to our friends kids. I'm Auntie Jill to lots of babies and I love it. Meghan is really excited to be an Auntie to Sweet Pea!

I love this one of me, my moms and Grandy (now G-G for great-grandmother).

Here is one of most of the party-goers. Lamm had to leave early because of snow and Lara was in the bathroom the whole time we were taking pictures and no one knew it!

Then after our wonderful shower, we got snowed in for a week! My mom wasn't able to leave until Wednesday, nor was she able to use her time here to look for apartments because we were snowed in! I boycotted taking pics of the snow. I'm not a fan. I like to look at it through a window from inside a warm house and that is about it. I'm kind of a Scrooge that way.

Nursery under construction

Hi everyone!! DH and I spent our "week off" between Christmas and New Years getting lots done around the house. DH made great strides towards finishing the bathroom remodel that we got mostly complete in my FIRST trimester (I just entered my THIRD). We took down the Christmas decorations and cleaned up the house from the chaos. But most importantly, we started the NURSERY!!!

I have been SO EXCITED about this nursery since before we even conceived. Mainly because I got the idea for it such a long time ago, and since we knew we didn't want to find out if the baby is a girl or boy (my money is STILL on boy), I knew that one day I'd be able to see my vision come to life. I originally wanted to do a playground scene mural, but I couldn't find any good art of a complete scene to use. SO, I found this and just fell in LOVE!!

I knew I wanted multi-ethnic children playing. It's important to us for our kids to have friends of all races and cultures, and what better way to start than placing their faces on the baby's wall?? I've still got some cleaning up to do (the blue tape pieces are drips that need covering), and my mom still has to round out the bottoms of the letters where the painter's tape to keep it level was. But I think it's just precious. We even painted in our kitty cat, Isis (on the railing of the treehouse), and our troublemaker, Einstein (at the bottom of the tree) into the mural. Really, what kid doesn't want their dog and cat on their wall?!

Matt and I really liked the idea of the song words around the room too, which was not part of the original picture. My mom and my papaw used to sing this song to me when I was little. And Matt's mom sang it to him as well. It's only fitting that my mom was the one who painted the letters around the room. I think it turned out beautifully. She even got a little emotional thinking about how true this is...

Even though I have no idea now, I will soon.

I will post more pics of the complete nursery once the crib is set up and everything is in place, whenever that is. I've still got lots of sewing to do! I just had to share the mural because I am so excited at how well it turned out!!

Next weekend is our first BABY SHOWER and my sweet friend Lamm and her baby girl Cecily will be staying with us. I just CAN'T WAIT!

Happy Holidays!!!

I know it's been forever, but we've been busy around here! We celebrated Thanksgiving with the Needhams. I'm so lucky to have married into such an amazing family. Truly, they rock!!!

Our family, not really sure what our moms were doing here

Mom and me being silly making "the face"

Those that started it all. Aren't they the cutest? I didn't take this pic, but I love it!

Then we celebrated the 3rd anniversary of our engagement by decorating our Christmas tree on December 6th, like we do every year.

the tree

the stockings

the precious pups. don't let them fool you, they are not as angelic as they appear.

We celebrated Christmas in Alabama with my family. We had lunch with my brother and nephew, then we partied with the Trousdales. They are good folks who know how to party!

My brother Bo, my nephew Johnathan, me

the kids, we look ecstatic!

the girls, I'm pregnant. that's my excuse.

My sweet husband got me a new-to-me Cannon Rebel camera!! I took lots of pictures of my cute animals, here is a sample. Aren't they the cutest?

We celebrated the New Year at Matt's parents' house with their family that usually gets together for Christmas. Dinner was postponed a week due to SNOW!

The Matthews family

I hope your holiday season was merry and blessed! Happy 2011!!

Rumble Tumble KICK!

I've been feeling Sweet Pea's little movements consistently every day since about week 16. At first it was just a little tap tap tapping, very subtle. As Sweet Pea grew, the movements became more noticeable. Recently, I've been able to feel the flip flops of full turns. It's been so exciting for me, and I want so much for Matt to be able to feel the baby too. The last week or so I've noticed more distinct movements that feel like kicks and punches! I think we've got a strong little baby in there!

This morning was RARE. Matt has the day off and I am working from home, so we were here together in the morning time. This has not happened in a really long time. Matt leaves really early for work during the week. I've been working every Saturday since the beginning of October, so I get up while he sleeps in on those days. And Matt and Daniel have been going to the gym together super early in the morning on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday for a while now. Matt and I haven't been home together in the morning in forever it seems.

Anywho, Matt and I were enjoying our lazy morning together this morning all snuggled up, tummy to tummy. I was getting REALLY hungry, so I knew Sweet Pea was hungry too. I had just said something about the baby getting hungry when all of a sudden, POW POW!! And then again, POW POW POW!! They were the strongest kicks I've felt so far. I asked Matt if he felt it and he said yes! Then he was frustrated because the baby stopped kicking after that. I'm just glad he got to feel the baby kick him in the stomach like s/he does me! It was thrilling for both of us, and such a nice way to spend the morning.