Happy Birthday Billie!

Sunday was Billie's 30th birthday!  Unfortunately on her birthday she was in her car driving all day coming home from a wedding.  So Lindsy and I decided we needed to take Billie out for a girls night out birthday dinner.  So Wednesday night we went to PF Changs.  YUM!  Can you believe it was Billie's first time there?  (I think she liked it...at least I hope she did!) I love that they allow reservations.  I made them online...so easy!  And we walked in and past all of the other people waiting in the lobby and got seated!  We ordered lettuce wraps, yummy entrees and some serious desserts... See for yourself.

Yes, we polished BOTH of them off.  Soo yummy! 

See Exhibit A in lower right hand of picture... we really did tear up that cake!  We really should get out and do girls night more often than just birthdays.  I had a great time!  I hope you had a wonderful 30th birthday Billie.  Love you girl!

25 Weeks and a Name!!

Yesterday ended my 25th week!!  These weeks are just flying by!!  I can't believe that we already have showers scheduled and our birthing class scheduled!!!  That means that the due date is within view!! Crazy to think about it!

Here is my 25 week shot.

According to What to Expect, she is about 2 lbs and 9 inches.  And this week her eyes will actually start opening!! I can't wait for our next ultrasound to see her again and see how much she has grown!  I also can't believe that I'm getting so close to my third trimester!

On Friday we told my parents our baby girl's name.  I wanted to come up with a cute way to tell them the name since we didn't get to have a fun way to tell them that we were pregnant.  I didn't have time to get anything monogrammed so I decided to have her name written on a cake from my mom's favorite bakery!  This is a picture of the cake.

Our baby girl's name is Adalyn Crystal. 

Jonathan wanted a first name that included my middle name (Lyn) and then we decided to honor my grandmother and name the middle name after her.  I love both of my grandmothers.  They both hold special places in my heart.  Now every time I say my daughter's name, I will think of my mom's mom.  I'm so glad to finally call our baby girl by name!  She now has an identity:)  (I promised my mom that I would not post the pictures of her and my dad seeing the cake for the first time because they (or at least my mom) were crying.

Today Adalyn's bedding was delivered to our doorstep!  I'm so excited!  There are about 5 colors of pink to choose from to decorate with and I love the grosgrain ribbons and rickrack in person!!  Here is a picture of the quilt (which is the same pattern as the bumper), the bed skirt and the polka dot sheet!

We also got two canvas bins that were on clearance.  I love them!  I can picture the big on in a corner of her room holding toys one day:)

This is the cute decoration my mom found at Lily's Warehouse sale.  It was on sale from even the warehouse price!  I thought it would look so cute on a dresser!

These precious doll toys from Pottery Barn were my niece's and she has grown out of them and given them to Adalyn.  I just love them!  I think the pink and white will look so cute in the nursery:)  I think Dakota likes them! :)

I'm getting so excited to start on this nursery!  This weekend we're going to pick out furniture and hopefully paint too!  This is getting so REAL!  This baby is coming!!

Our Toledo Weekend

So I've been away from the blog world for way too long!  I can't believe I haven't posted for a week!!!  We went to Toledo on Thursday night for a golf weekend for Jonathan and my dad.  My mom and I busied ourselves at the pool one day and then shopping the next day!  We had a great time with them this weekend!  We also revealed our baby girl's name to my parents!  Hopefully I will have a blog up tomorrow with our baby girl's name:)

Here's a picture of Jonathan and my dad in their cute golf outfits (love the plaid) after their second day on the greens.  Good father/son time!

I love this picture of my two favorite men!

Jonathan was trying out our zoom lens in my parent's backyard.  My dad has tons of bird feeders in the backyard so there was always an assortment of birds and squirrels:)

Here's a picture of my cute parents.

My mom and I spent the day on Friday at my aunt's pool and thankfully hadn't planned on spending the day there on Saturday because I got burnt...again!  I guess these hormones make the sun extra potent.  The water felt absolutely wonderful and it was amazing to actually lie on my stomach on a float.  My cousin and her kids, another cousin and her daughter, aunt and some other people came to the pool so we ended up having a par-tay.  Don't worry; I did not get a picture of us in our bathing suits. :)

On Saturday we went out shopping and I got some mega great deals at Lily's warehouse sale!  I got Valentine's, Easter, and fall decorations for $1, $3 and $5!!  And I got an adorable decoration for the nursery...I might have to post a picture of that later!

All in all we had a wonderful weekend.  Even if I am DAYS behind reading and writing blogs:)  Hopefully one of these days I'll catch up!

24 Weeks

Yesterday marked 24 weeks!  I cannot believe that I have been pregnant for 6 full months!  Only 16 more weeks...which obviously adds up to 10 months and not 9! :)  I can't believe that I'm getting close to my 3rd trimester! Wow!  Yesterday I went back to Aqua Fitness class with the old people.  And yes, my calves feel like little balls of fire today so I guess it works! Jonathan wasn't home before I left for my class and I was not about to take a belly picture after being in the water, so my belly picture is a day late this week.  Oops.  Hopefully that won't happen every Tuesday.

Here is my 24 week 1 day picture

And just for kicks, here is my 20 week picture

And my 11 week picture

Wow!  I can't remember being that size and lets be honest, my face is growing as much as my belly!  Lately I feel like I'm growing soo fast.  I can put on clothes one day and then the next day they are too tight. (ahem, like my jeans I wore to work today that ended up cutting off my circulation.)  The aches and pains have definitely moved in.  My back hurts all the time and my ligaments and muscles still hurt.  And yes, even with all of the potions, creams, lotions, and balms the dreaded stretch marks have come in full force! (oh no!) Sorry if that's TMI:)  Anyway, every time I feel my little girl swimming and flipping around and kicking in my belly, it makes all of those aches, pains and stretch marks worth it!!  I think I will most definitely miss that feeling once she gets here!

Baby is the size of an eggplant (9in, 1.7lbs) and my uterus is the size of a soccer ball.  Crazy to think that all is inside of me!  I have an appointment tomorrow to hear her little heartbeat!  I can't wait!

Yes, we finally decided on a name for our sweet baby girl while we were on our anniversary date!  Maybe soon I'll post the name... not yet though!  And we have a possibility for bedding.  I found a set that I maybe like online at Pottery Barn and then I also found an Etsy seller that makes custom bedding for WAY cheaper than the custom websites.  So I'm still deciding, but feeling like I'm at least closer to making a decision.  Is it wrong that I haven't chosen bedding or furniture but I already have ideas for how to organize accessories and make a bow holder? :)  I'm so excited to get started on the nursery so I can dream about the room we will be bringing our baby home to!

Our Anniversary

On Thursday, our actual anniversary, Jonathan had a web-class that he had to participate in for his Masters.  So we did a quick dinner from Applebee's To Go.  Jonathan gave me flowers and I stopped and got us cupcakes to celebrate:) 

Last week when Jonathan gave me my camera as my gift, he told me that the camera was his gift also so I wasn't supposed to give him a gift.  Well...I was way ahead of him this year and already had his gift purchased.  So after dinner he opened his gifts! 

First was this cute outfit from American Eagle!  All of their clearance was 50% off a couple weeks ago and I couldn't resist getting him an outfit.  He never lets me buy him clothes when he is with me, so I have to buy things as presents:) 

Then I had a present hidden in the basement for him.  He had seen this hammock at Kroger for the past two summers and every week would say how much he wanted it.  It was on clearance and I just had to get it for him.  He deserves to relax after this crazy season of work and school!  He was pretty excited!

Dakota wanted to help him put it together!

Saturday was our anniversary date.  I was so excited to go on a date!  I decided to wear my Jessica pumps that I used to wear to work daily at the bank.  Um, let's just say that my feet were on FIRE by the end of the night. Ok, well actually by the middle of the evening.  Since this giant belly throws my center of gravity off, I looked like I was just learning how to walk in pumps.  I think J was embarrassed:) HAHA!

We went to Bella Notte.

They are known for their delicious fresh bread and olive oil dip. YUM!

My food looked so beautiful that I had to take a picture.

We went to see Grown Ups at the Theater and then went to get ice cream at Graeters!  It was a fun date and a wonderful anniversary!  I love you Jonathan!!  Just think...next year we'll have to get a baby sitter for our anniversary!  Crazy! :)

Road ID

I entered a giveaway from Abby at Murdock's Mama for a Road ID.  I was the first one to enter the giveaway and guess what!! I won!  I'm so super pumped!  I've heard that Road IDs are great things to have when you run outside by yourself or even to have for running road races.  But it was something I just kept putting off buying.  If you don't know what a Road ID is, it is a metal tag almost like a dog tag for your wrist or shoe.  It has your name, year of birth, emergency contacts, and any health related information.  Say I get over-heated or my asthma acts up when I'm running, if someone comes to help me, they can get Jonathan's phone number off my tag and call for help. 

On Sunday Abby emailed me to tell me I had won! Thanks Abby!!!  She gave me an ecard number and told me to log on to roadID.com and customize the model of my choice.  So Sunday afternoon I placed my order.  It was so easy to do! And my new Road ID showed up on Wednesday!!  How's that for customer service??

I got the model that actually velcros onto my shoe.  (I get too hot when I'm running to have something on my wrist.)  I love it!  I cannot wait to use it!!  Hopefully I will be using it by December:) although I'm not going to hold myself to that!

And I have exciting news for all of my readers!  Until August 18th, you can get $1 off any Road ID with this coupon number: ThanksAbby795153.  Go order one!

4 Years Ago Today...

(If you missed it, Jonathan wrote me a surprise blog post this morning {scroll down}.  Of course it made me cry!  I also think it is better written than my post is, but I already had this written and ready to post.  Maybe J should be a regular guest-poster on here!  Thanks sweetie! I love you! - Isn't it funny that we used the same picture in our posts? :) )

Four years ago today I married my best friend.  It's so fun to remember what we were doing 4 years ago today.  It's kind of sad how dim the memories of that day are getting already.  But I love to think about all the different activities that went on during our wedding weekend - pedicures, luncheons, hair appointments, time with friends and family!  What I do vividly remember is that it was the hottest day of the year! (Can you tell by this picture?)

We have had our fair share of twists and turns over our past 4 years together, but I wouldn't trade them for the world.  Those crazy ups and downs and rollercoasters we've been on have given us a stronger bond and tested us and brought us closer to God.  When going through struggles, knowing that I could count on God and my husband to be by my side no matter what, was the best feeling in the world.  I feel like we've done a lot of living in four years.

Since we've been married, we've bought one car, two houses, lost a job, both changed jobs twice, had our 5 year college and 10 year high school reunions, lost family members, had infertility issues, and are now having a baby!  So much can happen in such little time!  I'm so excited to see what this next year brings us!  I love you with all of my heart, Jonathan!!  I cannot wait to see you transition into being a daddy!  I'm so lucky to be your wife!

Dearest Abby...

Dearest Abby,

Happy four year anniversary my love.  Four years! Can you believe it? Four years of wedded bliss today! I’ll let you decide if it is “man, it’s been four long years” or “man, I can’t believe it’s already been four years”?   :-)

I feel like we have been together so much longer than that! I think it’s because I can’t imagine my life without you in it. Frankly, I don’t care to either. I would be lost and incomplete without you in my life. The favorite part of my days are going home to have time to spend with you whether we are going somewhere, running errands, or the classic sit on the couch with each other. It is simply the highlight of my day!

Our email conversations are what get me through the work day as well. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane… I think that is what truly started our relationship, our communication with each other. See, blog-world, Abby and I met at work (a bank). We had an attraction, but it seemed only as friends. As we emailed back and forth throughout the months when we were “dating” but not officially “dating” (don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about!), we grew fonder of each other and learned more and more about each other’s characters. I am reminded of this everyday as we email back and forth. Abby, I don’t think I could make it through a stressful work day without your emails!

We have been through so much in these four years. We have gotten married, bought a house, lots of home improvements, both changed jobs, had infertility issues, lost my job, started a new job, you started a new job, found out we’re pregnant – sold a house – bought a house (all in one month = no commas!), more home improvements, family planning, and who knows what else I’ve missed and what is to come.

While we have had some rough times, we have grown closer to each other. I wouldn’t trade any of the experiences that we’ve been through for anything. It has been hard at times, don’t get me wrong, but God has provided for us and has wrapped his Fatherly arms around us when we just can’t bear the burdens any more. It is amazing to think how far we have made it in four years.

Abby, it is true what they say, I love you more and more every day. I can’t imagine waking up or going to bed without you next to me. I am so blessed that God placed you in my life as my partner. I love reflecting on the last four years and look forward to the rest of our lives together. Simply put, I am glad to have you as my “Dove” and my “Lilly amongst the roses.”

I love you!

Love,

Jonathan

P.S. – Abby will have to explain the ending if she chooses too.

23 Weeks

Yesterday was 23 weeks!  I'm telling you, the weeks keep flying by.  It seems like November is so far away but it's really coming fast! I just keep growing!

Please disregard my make-up (or lack there-of) and my hair!  It was humid and raining all day and we were in an extreme hurry, so this is not my best picture, but oh well you're looking at my belly, not my face!

Want to know why I was in a hurry??  I decided to go to my first Aqua Fitness class!  I have a gym membership through work and had never used it because I always (used to) run outside, so I decided to activate it and go to an aqua class because I really do miss cardio and I thought it might help with my muscle and ligament pain in my hips!  Well, I really enjoyed it.  Me and the grey haired people! HA!  They had 50's music playing if that tells you anything.  There were actually a couple of people that weren't grey haired, but it was quite humorous.  My favorite part??  Running in the water!  It made me so happy doing laps!  I felt bad though because I really wanted to pass and lap all of the grandmas.  I think I could have stayed after class to run more laps had I not been so hungry for dinner!  Hopefully I won't be too sore tomorrow!  I'm going to try to go every Tuesday and Thursday!  We'll see how it goes.  My other favorite part?  Feeling weightless.  It was amazing to have all of the stress of extra weight off of my spine for an hour! ...Then I got out and felt 2 tons! :)  So I think I just need to figure out a way for me to be in water every single day until this baby is born because it feels so wonderful!

According to What to Expect, baby is the size of a banana and is 8.5 in and 1.5lbs!  She is still moving around a lot and I still keep feeling her kick on the outside, but it's never long enough for Jonathan to experience it.  I keep hoping that he will catch her one of these days.  No, we don't have a name yet.  Yes, I'm stressing over it.  No, we don't have nursery bedding/decorations.  Yes, I'm stressing over it.  I know it will all come together, but I keep seeing the weeks slip by and I feel like I need to get on with it and start the "nesting" process!

Mail and Pictures

Today I got something really exciting in the mail:

I got my wristband for Beth Moore in August!  She's coming to Rupp Arena and I'm so excited to see her! Should be awesome girl time with my mom and Billie!

And because I want to post some pictures from our new camera, here are a couple pictures that Jonathan took while trying to figure out how to use our new camera.

How precious is this picture??  I mean seriously.  This child is never without a smile!

This was actually a sequence of pictures of Dakota running that are really cute but I thought you might not want to see the entire sequence. 

Do you see the ugly Christmas bone toy he is carrying?  Yeah, toys never last that long in our house, but for some reason he hasn't ripped it apart and he loves it and carries it all around...and of course it's about the ugliest toy he owns.  Thanks mom and dad for that lovely present.  At least it make him happy:)

I think this is a great shot of the bacon pineapple bites I made on Saturday. 

Now I'm hungry... oh wait... I'm always hungry!

Jonathan is getting really good with this new camera! He'll be ready for some serious photo shoots that include tutus and giant bows in no time!

Annibirthday Present!!!

Do you remember my past billion posts where I mentioned (a few times) about how much I hate our dumb camera?  The camera that refused to take any indoor pictures clearly?  I'd link back to the post about complaining about my camera, but there were too many posts to link to so you'll just have to remember.  Well, our anniversary is coming up next week and my birthday is in 3 weeks, so Jonathan came home from work with an early annibirthday present for me!!  Can you guess what it was?? (Yes, like a good blogger's husband, he was documenting this by taking pictures for me!)

(Please disregard the mess that is behind me that is our office and sewing room.  It's in the basement so it hasn't been on my list of "things to paint and decorate" since no one sees it... except now the entire internet is seeing it.)

Yes, he got us a Canon Rebel T1i!!!  We had discussed the fact that before this baby got here that we would be getting a "good" camera because I wasn't going to miss my child's life because my dumb camera wouldn't take pictures.  And goodness knows that we can't just take our child outside every time we want to get a clear picture of her!  There was some deal or something that he had to go ahead and buy it now and needed to make sure it was okay in case it had to go back to the store tonight, which is why I opened my present a week before our actual anniversary.  NO, it does not need to go back to the store!  This the one I wanted!  He even went above and beyond and got us an awesome image stabilizer zoom lens!

Since there is no baby to take pictures of yet, you will probably be bombarded with Coda pictures in the days to come.  I was trying out both of the lenses and was having lots of fun.

Here's our tree in the backyard

Here's our tree with my zoom lens. 

I was looking for the cardinal that hangs out in that tree but I couldn't find it...so I went back inside with the zoom lens and took some more pictures of Dakota!

(I was standing in the kitchen and he was a room away in the living room.)

Thanks Jonathan for a wonderful anniversary and birthday gift!  I love you!!!  Now we get to look forward to going to birthing classes and beginner camera classes together:)

22 Weeks

Yesterday was 22 weeks!  There's not much to report this week.  Even my picture looks about the same.  Baby girl is moving around more and more!  It's so much fun:)  Hopefully Jonathan will be able to feel her soon!  We are still working on a name.  I think we have it narrowed down to two names, but then I go back and don't know if we're restricting ourselves.  Such a huge decision!

According to What to Expect the baby is the size of a papaya!  She is around 8 inches and 1.2 lbs.  Her weight should double in the next 4 weeks!  She is growing, which means I am too! :)  I've been having some ligament pain lately and I'm hoping that goes away soon!!  But it's all worth it!  We go back to the doctor in two weeks to hear the heartbeat!  Yay!