Home Sweet Home

We are unpacked and settled in; there are a few pictures below to show the new place. Check out facebook to see all of them! This means, we are ready for not only baby, but visitors as well!!!

In other news...

Friends: We have already made some friends here and feel very, very blessed to have found them. They work at the church we have been attending. Finding new friends is always fun and exciting!!

Doctor's Appointment: We have a doctor's appointment on Friday; I am excited to hear about "Blessing's" progress. We have not had an appointment in a while, so it will be fun to hear the heartbeat again. "Blessing" moves just about constantly---rolls, flips, kicks, punches and sometimes a few of those at the same time. It trips me out when you can see "Blessing" moving around through my shirt. I guess "Blessing" got cramped early because I have felt movement for so long! I kinda hope they do an ultrasound on Friday (even though we don't need one) so we can get a better idea of how big this thing is getting!!

Christmas: I LOVE CHRISTMAS :) I am so looking forward to our first Christmas together and beginning our family traditions! I am certain it will include food of some kind since I LOVE cooking! I think one of my fondest Christmas memories growing up was the fancy dinners mom and I used to prepare each Christmas Eve. The menu was full of complicated recipes and included salads, soups, centerpiece rolls, main course, dessert and it was always delicious!! We spent nearly all day on Christmas Eve cooking--it was ALWAYS worth it.



Before Unpacking


Christmas Cheese Log for a party we went to--SO GOOD!


Dressed in our Christmas Reds for a party!


Guest room and BABY room!! That means WE ARE READY FOR VISITORS! Look at all the greens, browns, yellows, etc.--still not finding out that gender! YAY---SO exciting to see this all come together! (PS I know that "mobile" is not supposed to just sit in the crib like that, but there is not a baby yet, so its just for looks now)






Blessing has a stocking now :)

Finished With School...FOREVER

As of Thursday, December 10, 2009----Matthew is finished with school....FOREVER!!! His parents took the pictures below when he finished his last final exam of his life at The University of Alabama at Birmingham!!! I am so proud of him and I am SO glad he went to school in Birmingham, life wouldn't be the same if he hadn't :)

Walking out from the last final with a smile of satisfaction!

No more school!!

I love my husband!!!!! :) :)

Christmas Time Is Coming!!!

For those of you who know me well know, I LOVE Christmas time. There is NOTHING I do not love about it! I especially love all the decorations and this year, I am more focused on unpacking than decorating for Christmas. We will not have a tree this year (I know SAD day), so I did two things:

1) Hung the stockings by the chimney with care
2) Have a reminder of Christmas time jumping around my houses (Piper)

See pictures below...

That middle stocking is actually Piper's (it has some prizes in there for her). I am still trying to decide what to do about "Blessing's" stocking.

Her little dress says "Santa's Favorite" on the back. Its glittery. She is cute, just admit it :) Funny thing is, I like to dress Piper up in cheesy things but I am not sure if I will like dressing our baby up in silly things. We shall see in March!

I am not sure if she really is Santa's favorite, but she sure is MINE :) I love this sweet little "Piper-roni"!!

Blessing at 24 Weeks

Here is our little Blessing at 24 weeks. Supposedly, Blessing is currently over a pound and about the length of a banana. However, I still maintain that our baby is bigger than the average. I could be wrong---but with my family history, I think it will be a porker :) It is crazy to feel Blessing moving around so much; my tummy moves when it rolls around and kicks! I have to say, so far other than being tired and one other thing----pregnancy has not been bad at all. It's borderline fun. I know, I know, I have been lucky by missing the morning sickness and swelling and tremendous weight gain so far.....so....I am blessed!!! By the way, I am LOVING not knowing the gender of the baby; I want to do this for the rest of our kids too!!!!! With so few genuine surprises in life, I would encourage everyone to wait to find out the gender.

In other news.....

MATTHEW: Matthew has finals next week and then hopefully he will be "Masta' Matthew"! I know he is looking forward to being done with school......forever :) He is still enjoying his job and gets to go to the office in Maryland sometimes, so at least that mixes it up a lot.

KELLY'S JOB: I got the job at the hospital starting on 12/14!! YAY!!! Its only 20 hours a week and close by the house. After much back and forth--we decided I should just stick with this job and not take on the additional job at the bookstore for the Christmas season. Again, we are blessed!

SNOW: It snowed from about 10:45 AM until 6:00 PM; accumulation began almost immediately. When we went to church at 6:00 PM, there was about 3 inches of snow piled up on the car. Pictures are below. My dreams of a white Christmas may come true this year :)

Snowing hard!!

Some of the accumulation before the sun went down.

Matthew is even dressed in Christmas colors, how festive is HE :)

Piper running through the snow with her hood on!

Piper recovering from playing in the snow by snuggling up to the fireplace. She is cute, isn't she??

We miss you all!!!

Finally Home

FINALLY, we are one family in D.C.; what a relief!! The drive from Mississippi only took about 15 hours. If the little bit of Thanksgiving traffic had not slowed the drive, we would have made it in about 13.5 to 14! For those of you interested in driving to come visit....I promise it is not a bad drive. My father and I both agreed it did not feel like 15 hours and we enjoyed the Father/Daughter time :)

Although the pictures below do not accurately represent the tremendous amount of unpacking accomplished thus far, these boxes represent about 8-10 boxes slammed full of kitchen and wardrobe items! Still a lot of unpacking to do, but at least we are making progress. I have even put out a few Christmas items!!

In other news, I should hear whether the hospital job is mine later this week or early next week; I am very optimistic. After speaking with the HR manager, I was surprised and impressed by all the fabulous employee benefits and programs available. From on site subsided child care to short term disability benefit---all available for part time associates!!! Keep praying this position works out quickly!!!

Love to all!