Dear Baby Boy...

To My Son,

Your Daddy & I loved you and prayed for you before we even knew you existed.  I feel so blessed that God has trusted you to us and hope that we can guide you and help you to do great things in the eyes of God.  I pray that God will make Himself known to you, that you will desire to know God more and that you will have a relationship with Him.

Even though we have not met you yet, you are loved & wanted more than you will ever understand.  I wish I had the perfect words to tell you just how loved you are, but I'm not sure there is any way to truly express my love for you.  I cannot wait to see your sweet face, kiss your soft cheeks, and hold you close.  I love you sweet baby boy!

Love,

Mommy

August was a loooong time ago...

It is very hard to believe how quickly time has flown by.  I last posted in August, and now it's December.  Not only is it December, but it's December 2nd - my due date.  No baby yet, but we are so excited and anxiously awaiting his arrival.

Let me update you on what has happened since I last posted...

School started (with the kiddos) August 23, and I am so blessed to have a great group of kiddos with wonderful parents in my class.  I was very worried about this year, knowing that I would be having to leave my kiddos for a while.  I feel so much better about it since I have such a great class and I've got a great sub, so it helps to put my mind at ease knowing things will be ok while I'm gone.

On August 25, Nate Ryan Brothers, was legally declared part of his forever family.  You can view a video below that Erica created that still makes me cry when I watch it.  The Brothers family will always have a special place in my heart.  I feel so honored to have been allowed to share in some of the ups & downs of their journey.

Nate's Adoption Video

 September 4th, Baby Todd got to experience his very first Aggie football game.  The Aggies beat Stephen F. Austin 48-7, so it was a great game!  I even walked all the way to the top of the zone with my big belly and all.  In fact, I did it 3 times before I had to quit going to the games.  We won all 3 games that I attended, so I think our little one might be a good luck charm.  Ha!

I have also had some wonderful showers thrown by some very sweet friends & family members.  I feel so blessed to have so much love and support from all of our friends and family.

 

Crystal, Me & Marlene (hostesses for Easterly shower)

  

Erica & Me

 

My B1 Ladies

Me & Jordan (Hostess of Church shower)

 My Kinder Team minus Janet (hostesses of my school shower)

My "old" Kinder Team

 Me & Mom

 Meredith, Me & Jennifer

Carol, Me & Susan (Hostesses for Todd shower)

My class was also super sweet and threw me a shower before I left.  However, I don't have any pictures from it.  My homeroom parent and other parents did such a great job.  The kids had a great time and they gave me such thoughtful and helpful gifts.  They definitely went above and beyond anything I could have imagined.  I am very blessed!

On November 14th, we had the privilege of taking some maternity pictures with the wonderful, talented Jennifer.  She is awesome and always does a great job.  She took pictures for us at almost the same time last year, which you can see a few here.  I loved them, and loved the ones she took this time too.  Here are a few of my favorites.  It's really hard to pick though and I don't want to overload you with pictures, so I had to narrow them down.

 

 

(The tag is where I had intended to put his name, but since it's still undecided right now, it's blank.  However, Jennifer will photoshop it in for us later :)  She's awesome like that!)

Ok, so I know I said I was going to narrow it down and just share a few...that's a little more than a few...but it was really hard.  There are still more good ones, but I finally had to stop myself.  Ha!

December 2nd - That's today, and also my DUE DATE!  It's a little crazy to think about.  I can't believe that time has flown so quickly.  There were times it felt like it would never get here, but looking back, it really has gone so fast!

Hopefully soon I will be updating everyone with our sweet little boy's arrival.  I cannot wait!!

Pictures of Our Little One

Here is our first ultrasound.  This was at our almost 9 week appointment.

This next one was at our 13 week appointment and we could not believe the difference in what you could see in just 4 weeks.

And lastly, our little one decided he/she wanted to let everyone know just exactly whether he/she was a boy/girl.  See for yourself (the second picture is just another profile picture, but we scanned them 2 at a time so that's why it's with this picture, also if you click on the picture it will make it larger)...

It's a boy!!!  And, oh boy am I in for trouble! Ha!

Here is a picture of my little bump from the same day as my 13 week ultrasound.  It's slightly bigger now (I'm 16 weeks), but I have not taken a picture of it recently.  I know, shame on me, right?

Old news, but big news :)

I know this is old news to most everyone, and I apologize for not posting sooner, but my excuse...I'm pregnant!!  I know, old news, right?  However, it's still very exciting for us and I think I'm finally on the downhill of all the morning sickness fun (ha!).  Evenings (funny that it's called "morning" sickness, huh?!) were the worst, so by the time I got home from school I was in no mood to try to think or write. 

I'm not really all that nervous or anything about it as I LOVE babies, and for the most part understand what it takes to care for one, but I must say I'm a little worried this baby is going to be beyond spoiled.  Not because of us, as I'm sure by the time our child is 5 they will be saying they have the meanest Mommy and Daddy in the whole wide world because we won't let them have an i-phone - ha!  However, this will be the first grandchild on BOTH sides of our family, so that right there tells you enough :)  (Although this can work in our favor too...we'll just have to go on lots of dates so that the grandparents can have their fair share of time with the little one :) Ha!)

Speaking of dates with the hubby, in the last post I mentioned a date to Chili's. Well, that was actually our celebration dinner because we had just found out that night that I was pregnant.  I was so excited and could hardly believe it was true, but I decided we had to go out somewhere to celebrate since we were not wanting to tell anyone just yet. We decided on Chili's since we had the gift cards and we love their salsa.  Only sad thing was that I couldn't get a margarita...those are perfect for celebrations, but oh well.  It's worth it!

We told both sets of parents on Easter weekend and then told our siblings the following weekend.  We were very mean and made them keep it a secret until we had our first appointment which was a couple weeks later.  I have to admit it was a lot harder keeping it a secret than I thought it would be.

I am currently 16 weeks and due December 2, 2010.  Just in time for Christmas!!  Oh what a different, but wonderful Christmas this will be :)  I will try to get some ultrasound pictures up soon, but for some reason it screamed "Failed" at me in red letters every time I tried to upload them.

So...I think I'm back, and I will try to keep everyone updated.  I have fallen WAY behind on all of the things I started pre-pregnancy, so I'm hoping the sickness fades and my summer allows me to catch up and even make some progress too (after all, the room that is to be the nursery is by far the worst room in the house - and that's really an understatement, so hopefully that can be tackled as well)!