Baby Bumpdate and San Antonio

This past weekend, I traveled down to San Antonio with Bri, the head coach. We went to a huge tournament (smaller than a qualifier, but much bigger than a regular club tournament) called the Tour of Texas. It was in the AstroDome there. We found a lot of good talent, so the trip was quite a success!

Wish I could have gotten a view from up above to show how many courts there were. I'm not tall enough to give you that view, but many of the girls at the tournament were! I feel so short going to these things now that most girls are 6' and above!

Baby Bump Pics
22 weeks 5 days

22 weeks 5 days and no flash
I don't look so pale in this one though-
might be a new picture taking strategy, hmmm....

Well, my small shirts that I used to wear are a little TOO small now so I have had to put all my mediums in the top drawer. My belly button is about as close to an "outty" as it will probably get. Many many more changes to "look forward to".... At least each new problem gets me closer to when we can meet the baby.

No names yet, and knowing our indecisiveness we probably won't decide on one for sure until we meet our little man. We have two names that we like, but will probably hold onto them until we decide for sure.

Oh and these pics are in our new house- but you won't get to see pics of that until we can at least get some boxes out of the way! Sheesh, it's a mess right now but in due time it will look much better!

Houdini

On Monday, I bought MJ a GORGEOUS new dog house. It has been sooo cold lately that there is no place for him to hide from it in our new backyard. We had awesome intentions of leaving him outside while we were gone all day since he is notorious for causing mischief during our absence (which he has done at my Mom's house all the time- so we weren't too worried about him not liking it outside).

I bought it at PetSense and put it together ALL BY MYSELF- which I am very proud of! The day I bought it was the first day MJ has stayed outside without us being at the house.

new dog house!

Since I wouldn't be able to get it through the doorway completely set-up, I decided to go out in the backyard and put it together. When I am putting the last wood screws in, a nice lady walks by with her dog and brings me some news... "Um, I just wanted to let you know that your dog has gotten out four or five times today."

Awesome.

She also told me that she would see him out and open the gate and he would run right back into our yard. She said that she tried to put some bricks and wood in the gap where he is getting out but Houdini can find a way out of ANYTHING and I really mean that. He once ate his way out of his metal dog crate. No joke! I came home and two of the bars had been chewed off and he had bent the other ones so that he could escape.

He is apparently escaping between the pole and the house right next to the first window. You know, the space that I can barely fit my foot through. I have no idea how he does it!

A BOY!!

For Christmas, I gave Zach a gender ultrasound when I was at 17 weeks! Good news, it turned out to be a real present and he got his boy for Christmas!

We went to Stork Vision in Atlanta (there are lots of locations, including one in Lawton- but I wanted to be as far along as I possibly could be before Christmas so that we could get some good pictures). Stork Vision is not a hospital- it's an outside company that hires ultrasound technicians to come in and work for them. It is such an awesome idea. When you get an ultrasound done at the hospital, you have to watch on the tiny monitor (seen below next to the examining table) and the whole goal of it is to gather data on the baby and make sure it's developmentally ok.

This is our room at Stork Vision

We got a twenty to thirty minute sessions, a DVD of the whole video, a CD of images, and a sneak peek at a 3D ultrasound (even though the baby was in a really bad position for it and you couldn't really see anything).

Sweetest little face :-)

One day, our son is going to kill me for posting pictures of his goods all over the internet, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him. This is a picture up from underneath (like he is sitting on the camera). The little thing between the two legs is his man parts. He was being extremely difficult and modest. He wouldn't flash us- but we finally got it about ten minutes into the ultrasound.

Cutest foot ever!

The whole time, he had his legs crossed and his hands behind his head just chillin' out.

You can see he has his arms up by his face and his hands behind his head.

Waving at the camera!

Christmas Break!

Finally back in Lawton and back to working at the fitness center, which means I can use my useless hours of boredom and work on the blog! Unfortunately, according to the only documentation that I have, you would think that Zach and I have shunned my family- so not the case- but no one took pictures at my house!


On the 22nd we found out that we are having a BOY!! Best Christmas gift ever!


Christmas Eve we spent with the Darlings. We went to church, came back and had a great dinner and opened lots of presents. There is a total of nine people in the family now- crazy!

The first night we got to Zach's parents house

The Darling Boys

First "Real" Christmas


The Whole Family



Mistletoe Kisses

Aaron getting kisses from the girls (and Zach is apparently one of the "girls" now)

Whoa Baby Bump....

Hahaha

A "Darling University" Onesie! So Cute!

Priceless Jake

We spent Christmas Day with my family at my Mom's house. Married and pregnant and still stuck at the Kiddie Table! Fabulous! Ally, Wes, Tracy, Eston, Zach, and I will forever be a fixture of the Kiddie Table and Wall of Silence (the "adults" apparently can't hear us when we are five feet away). Ed and Susan were AMAZING enough to bring us lots of goodies like a car seat and a baby swing.

Zach left the day after Christmas to head back to Lawton (which was under feet of snow at this point- I always miss the snow. I go to Atlanta and it snows in Lawton. I come back to Lawton and it snows in Atlanta? What the heck!?)

I stayed back with my mom for a few days who was going to help my drive back to Lawton in the truck. On the 27th Ally and Wes and I went up to Dad's and had Christmas there. We got to meet the new "puppy" of the family- Shelby. I say "puppy" because she is apparently like 12 years old or something. He adopted her from a shelter. In Wes' words "Only you (my dad) would get a dog on its last leg."

Zach and I have never spent a New Years together- ever! Basketball has always seemed to take that holiday away even now. No kisses on New Years Eve, but it seems to be working for us so far! Ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory- yummy! Mom and I literally watched the ball drop and said "alright, turn off the tv it's bedtime!" amidst the gunshots- in College Park people prefer to shoot weapons rather than shoot fireworks. We curled up with all three doggies- Rocky, MJ, and Erk and went to bed.

On the 1st we drove to Memphis! It was such a great visit, and we got to see lots of family. MJ made friends with Stephanie's new dog JJ and we got to see everyone from Jeff and his family to CB and Tommy to the rest of the Memphis local clan. It was so much fun! We left on the 3rd to head to Lawton and then Mom flew back to Atlanta on the 4th- and now here I am back at the Fitness Center working.

Zach and I are working on moving into our new house! Updates on that later! The last renter left it a mess, so I have been cleaning all day long for the past few days to get it ready to move stuff in hopefully this weekend!

6 Months and Many More

Ok, so I know I never post any pictures of myself or really of Zach on this blog but I hate taking pictures of just myself (I think that's weird) and then Zach HATES taking pictures in general, so between that combination and the fact that we aren't really doing anything picture-worthy is why you probably won't get any updated pictures of us until we go home for Christmas and someone forces Zach to take a picture with me!! So in the midst of this ramble, I have scattered some actual pictures that Zach and I are in.

Six Month dating anniversary picture

At Ally and Wes' Christmas Party

In Chattanooga enjoying our favorite city

So in a few days now- (but I am going out of town sooner than that so I have to start now) Zach and I will have been married for 6 months! :-) We will have known each other for 3 years 4 months and two days and will have been dating (including marriage time) for three years three months and seven days. Weird that I remember all this, I know- but I think its pretty noteworthy! The funny thing in all of this is that we will be four months pregnant next week technically (since you have to count before the baby was actually a baby). I know some think we are crazy, but we are excited about what God has put in our lives.

The engagement- this was actually staged later but a good ring shot nonetheless

Engagement pictures!

Zach always thought this one was corny but I loved it!

Engagement Pictures

In fact, our marriage, or relationship for that matter, has never been better than it has been since we found out we were going to have a baby. It would have been extremely easy for us to have freaked out in the midst of uncertainty and taken it out on each other, like we normally do! But actually, we have been so much more understanding of each other and much calmer in general. The fighting is now a general bicker (mostly over the fact that MJ needs to not chew on things) instead of the world wars that we used to have. We know that this is going to be quite the experience- and it will take both of us putting in the effort. What we need to make it through is to work together. And even though we have never discussed this, it has just happened naturally.

Engagement Pictures

At Ally and Wes' wedding

June 20, 2010
I married the love of my life

I know it is easy for newly married couples to say "divorce is just not an option for us," but it really isn't. Even when we were dating and things got rough- and then really terrible- the option of not ending up together was not really an option.

Wedding Day

Honeymoon on the Cruise!

Best Vacation Ever

We could not be more overjoyed about the new addition to our family. I know some think that we are crazy, but I think its a good crazy. We are young, but thousands of other people are too when they start families and to be honest I am tired of defending myself about how "ready" we are. We are ready, but I shouldn't have to worry about telling people that. This is what is happening so jump on board or jump right off- it's up to you. You won't get any more excuses about our age or the amount of months we have been married. We are in a great place in our marriage and could not be happier.

Margaritaville

Tender ride to Grand Caymans

At one of the shows on the boat

Can't wait for many many more months of marriage and motherhood. I wouldn't have it any other way!

Not so shaggy anymore

MJ finally got a new haircut since Zach has been begging me to get him one for months!

This is MJ looking super happy about losing his long hair

After-pic. SO cute!

As you can see in the pic above this one, they left his nappy tail (I'm still not sure why some people prefer this- it looks really stupid to me) so smart me decided to just cut it with some scissors- and here is the final product. haha, poor MJ is going to have a complex with his butchered tail.

Weekend of Coaching and MJ

The past week hasn't been too hectic. I ended up having Friday night off and went to Zach's 9th grade and JV game. He won his 9th grade game by 15 and everyone got to play! woohoo! Then his JV team played Wichita Falls Varsity team and was actually winning at the half 34-32. In the last two minutes though they made like 4 turnovers in a row (Zach was super happy) and ended up losing by 5 or 6. They did well for playing against a bunch of juniors and seniors.

I worked it out so that I could have Monday night off and go see his 9th grade team play and they were up by about 20 or so and then in order to get everybody in he had to start subbing at 4 min left in the 4th quarter so they ended up only winning by about ten or so.

He is much calmer than I thought he would be. He never really talks to the refs (the occasional "seriously" look is about it). He prefers to keep reminding his players that they can always take a seat next to him when they are walking, don't have hands up, being lazy in general, etc. He does a great job and loves what he does!

I had a great picture of Zach during a full time out- but considering the fact that there was no memory card in the camera- no one will ever see it. So make due with the awesomeness that is MJ.

The life of luxury
By the way mom- he opened your present that was under the tree! haha! (and then he ate my shoe...grrr)