Maternity Portraits

Yesterday, Scott and I went and took "maternity portraits" at Sears. Will stayed with a good friend from church because he's not feeling too well. So, unfortunately he didn't get to be in the pictures with us. It was still fun and I think they turned out pretty good. What we ended up getting, I can't post here, but it's a really neat "portrait study" with 9 square black & white pictures. Below are a few of the individual shots in natural color. For some cute recent pictures of Will, visit www.pratherplace.blogspot.com :)

On a completely different note, I ask for your prayers for my grandmother. It was discovered this week that she had a mini-stroke in the very recent past (maybe even when I was there last week) and today we found out that she has a brain tumor. She's in the hospital right now...I don't really know anything else. I'm not sure what this all will mean for the future. I just know that I am extremely thankful that God allowed Will and I to spend some good time with her last week. Thank you in advance for your prayers.

Showered with Love :)

Last Saturday was my baby shower! It was so nice--very lovely with lots of goodies to eat and of course, some really wonderful gifts! I am so blessed to have such sweet people in my life. Thank you!

A few pictures from the event:

Yummy!!

Awww...

All the goodies

The lady whose home at which the shower was held had this motorcycle on the back porch (her son-in-law's). We thought it was too funny and so I had to pose with it! Just call me "Motorcycle Mama."

Best Dad Ever!

Proud dad with a brand-new baby boy (probably only two or three days old)

Cuddling after a bath

Scott's first Father's Day

Posing professionally in November 2005

Taking a wagon ride

My son has the best dad ever! He is such a wonderful daddy--never squeamish about changing diapers or handling sickness; never afraid to be the disciplinarian; always willing to give baths, tuck in, and get up in the middle of the night. I could go on and on. But these aren't the only things that make Scott a fabulous dad. He loves his children deeply and truly. We are sad because our Daddy can't be with us all day today. He is travelling on his way back from a mission trip to Wyoming and won't be home til tonight. But at least he will be home! We are ready to see him again and give him lots of hugs and kisses! We love you, Daddy!

33 Weeks and "Glowing"

I'm in the shadow because the sun was SUPER bright and it was really hot out, so we took these as fast as we could so we wouldn't be all sweaty at church! :)
In front of the pomegranate (sp?) trees on the other side of the alley. This is what I back my car into everyday :)

Overdue Update

Thank you to everyone for their sweet comments concerning my birthday and anniversary! Even though we were apart for the actual day, we still had a good anniversary and birthday. Scott and Will went to the Tulsa, Oklahoma, area for Scott's family reunion and I travelled as far as Amarillo with him and stayed a few days with my wonderful friends Chelsey (at her home) and Jen. I hadn't seen Chelsey since September, so it was really nice to get to spend some time with her. I was glad to get to see my friends one more time before Claire is born. We had lots of fun cooking, watching movies, catching up, and we even got to relax by the pool. It was an excellent way to spend my birthday :)

Scott and Will came back through to pick up Jen and I on Tuesday morning and we all headed home. Wednesday was an exciting day because some of our very best friends had their third baby! I spent most of the morning at the hospital waiting but I had to go to work at 1:00 pm. Sure enough, as soon as I got to work, the baby was born. So I played flower-delivery-girl and took some flowers up to the hospital and just stayed a little longer than normal :) Congratulations to Leland and Harmony on the birth of Reese Ann! Go look at her adorable pictures here.

Scott and I had our anniversary date on Thursday night. We had a great time enjoying a meal with just the two of us and ate waaayyy too much. We walked it off by going shopping afterward :) Friday was spent preparing for our yard sale on Saturday...finally!! It seemed like everytime I would try to do this thing, it would rain or some other circumstance would pop up. We finished pricing things and prepared ourselves to wake up at 5:30 on Saturday morning to get set up and get the signs out. Yuck. We ended up doing pretty well, though, and it wasn't unbearably hot, so that was all good! The rest of the stuff was donated to charity, so hopefully someone will get some good use out of it.

This week, we will be preparing in a couple of different ways. Scott is headed to Laramie, Wyoming, for a mission trip on Sunday. He just found out last week that a couple that was going to go was going to have to stay home (for good reasons), so he has to take over their class. So, he'll be busy not only getting prepared to lead the trip, but also putting together a VBS class for 4th through 6th graders. My dad is coming on Friday to pick up Will and I for a trip to San Antonio. My cousin is getting married on Saturday and then I am going to stay there with my grandma for about week until my mom comes through to take us back home. My baby shower is on Saturday, the 16th, so she was going to be coming back our way anyway. So I figured it would be easier for me to stay with my grandma than be without Scott for another week at home.

After all that, I think we'll slow down a little (with the exception of local VBS) and will be getting ready for and anticipating the birth of baby Claire. I can't believe that I am 33 weeks along...that means only 7 to go! Hopefully we'll find a moment to take some pictures of my growing belly sometime soon. She is really quite the gymnast/kick-boxer. Sometimes I wonder if she will actually break through my skin, she pushes so hard! Seeing Reese got me really excited to get my little one here (although I don't really want her to come quite this early!) and see what she looks like and hold her. Babies are so precious! Soon enough...

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Committment

Scott and I will have been married for seven years this coming Sunday! It's hard to believe that seven years have gone by so quickly. We have both grown and changed so much, both as individuals and as a couple, but one thing that hasn't changed is our love for each other.

Maybe I should say it has changed, but only for the better. I know that we love each other more now than we did that hot May evening in 2000. We have gotten to know one another better and that has deepened our bond. We were blessed to spend almost five years just with each other, being able to do a lot of things that we couldn't have if we'd had had children. But then in 2005, 17 days short of our 5th anniversary, we welcomed into our lives the biggest blessing we've had to date--Will. And this summer, we'll be welcoming another precious blessing--Claire (yes, that's what we're naming her!).

Our marriage isn't perfect. We're still young and still face challenges almost daily, but we're committed to working through those challenges together. That's what marriage is about--you must work together to create happiness and good things. I love you, Scott! Happy 7th Anniversary!

More of Will's Birthday

Singing "Happy Birthday"

He just blew out the candles
Mmm...good cupcakes!

Mom passing out cupcakes to everyone Chocolate-y goodness


Malaki eating his cupcake
Ryland and Harmony (and Harmony's belly :) )
The Mallett clan playing games


Lauren talking to the Rodgers clan

Raylee and Leland

Chuck E.'s drawing of Will, Papa (Harvey) and Grammy (LaDon)
Chuck E.'s drawing of Grandma Connie and Will

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! It's a beautiful day in our neighborhood, and I hope yours is beautiful, too.


Since I work in the floral industry, I've had a busy week. I worked all day Friday and Saturday and I am pretty beat. I feel like a bad mom because I've barely seen my child the past couple of days! When I got home yesterday, I crashed for about three hours. Thankfully, that little rush is over and we won't be as busy in the next few weeks to come. While his parents were in town, Scott and his dad were able to paint the baby's room. It is now a beautiful shade of buttery yellow! When we get it all set back up (currently, most of her furniture is residing in our bedroom), I'll take some pictures.

This morning we enjoyed a breakfast of assorted cereals and exchanged cards (Scott's parents and grandmother were still here). I was very excited to get a gift certificate for a massage. I will (hopefully) be redeeming it very soon!

Scott, Will and I headed off to church and left Grammy, Papa, and Grandma Connie to pack up and head on home. When we returned and before we got all our fancy clothes off, Scott took some pictures of Will and I outside. The first few are in our front yard. I wish I could take credit for the flower-bed in the other pictures, but that belongs to a neighbor around the corner. Her flowers are gorgeous this year because of all the rain we've had. So, without further ado, here they are:

Belly shot -- 29 (almost 30) weeks along.

And finally, I leave you with a few pictures from Will's birthday. I wanted to do a great big birthday post with lots of pictures from his party, but I forgot my camera's memory card when we went to Chuck E. Cheese's. We did borrow Leland and Harmony's camera, but she hasn't been able to send me the pictures yet. So, here are a few from my mother-in-law's video camera. Hopefully more will come soon!

We got Will a "Cozy Coupe" for his birthday...here he is test-driving after his traditional blueberry muffin birthday breakfast.

Wow, Chuck E. Cheese is a pretty good artist!

Will eating his birthday cupcake

Raylee and Will at the party...Grandma Connie is in the background, too :)

One last thing...tomorrow, Monday, May 14th, our baby name poll will be featured on the www.babycenter.com homepage. Head on over and vote for your favorite!

Two and Terrific!

Today, our baby turned two years old! On Tuesday, May 10, 2005, at 10:29 am, he made his entrance into the world and changed our lives forever. We are so very blessed to have this boy in our lives! Here's a look back to that special day two years ago:

And here is our big two-year old boy!:

Tonight, we are going to Chuck E. Cheese with some good friends and plan to have a ball! I will post more pictures of birthday celebrations tomorrow!

Fun with Diapers

This morning, I hostessed (is that a word?) a baby shower for my good friend, Harmony. We threw her a little diaper shower since this is her third baby (a girl) and she already has a boy and a girl with lots of baby things. So, she mainly just needed diapers, wipes, and a few season-appropriate baby girl clothes. Problem is, my friend is not a fan of the color pink :) So, we had to get a little creative on shower decorations. I was contemplating what to do for a centerpiece that looked babyish, but wasn't pink and it came to me...make a diaper cake! I had seen this done one other time at my friend Carrie's baby shower and thought, how fun and appropriate would that be?! So, I had great fun gathering up all the supplies and making this little "cake." I think it turned out pretty cute and everyone at the shower wanted to know how I did it. It was really pretty easy; it was just a little time-consuming. But, then again, I'm sort-of a perfectionist when it comes to things like this, so I might have taken more time than I really needed to. Anyway, here are some pics of my creation!

Front view

Back view

Sickness, Seniors & Storms

Sorry it's been so long, my friends! It's been an interesting week. Our family was stricken with some type of bronchial/sinus infection and all three of us are on anti-biotics. Mine started way back when I was in Houston and kept coming and going, but my body finally decided this weekend that it had gotten the best of me and put me down for a while. I was feeling quite miserable. On top of that, I had some massive back pain on Friday that was just compounded every time I coughed. It hurt so bad all day without letting up that it got me scared enough to call Labor and Delivery and see if I needed to come in and be monitored. They "said" (not really) to go ahead and come in so they could check it out. So, we spent about 2 hours in the hospital on Friday night and everything was completely normal. They chalked it up to round ligament pain. I was still hurting on Saturday, but I could actually get up and walk around, so it was better. (Sorry, Mom, if you're reading this now and freaking out, but we didn't want to call you on Friday night and scare you and I was feeling so bad the few days afterwards that I never got around to calling. You can scold me later.) Anyway, Will ended up spending the night with his surrogate grandparents on Friday night and we picked him up at around 11:00 on Saturday morning. I'm sure he would have stayed there and played all day (they live a few miles out of town in a more "rural"-type housing division, so there's lots of room to run around, and of course, they have fun things like "tractors," four-wheelers, and golf-carts to play on), but we made him come home and take a nap :)


On Sunday, our congregation honored the graduating seniors by giving them a Bible and having a potluck in their honor. I barely made it through that and got home in time to crash. Thankfully, it was also a 5th Sunday, so we didn't go back for evening services (on 5th Sundays, they have worship, lunch, and worship again right after). On Monday, I was still feeling much too ill to go into work. In fact, I still felt pretty horrible on Tuesday, but went ahead and went because I felt bad for being gone two days already. Thankfully, there was a huge stack of statements to stuff, seal and stamp, so I basically got to sit and do that the whole time. I had a doctor's appointment yesterday afternoon and had to drink the oh-so-yummy orange-flavored glucose drink. I was sort of thankful I was so congested because I couldn't really taste it! I had my regular nurse this time so I asked her if we could take another little peek at the baby to reassure me that it's a girl and not a boy. I felt bad that Scott wasn't there with me to see her (it's pretty much definitely a girl, by the way!!), but we took such a quick little look that he didn't miss too much. We basically just wanted to check those specific parts and that was it. She did get a little face shot (not great) that I'll post. I won't embarrass my daughter by putting her woo-hoo on the Internet for all to see, but believe me, I'm not worried anymore that she'll come out a boy :)

Her face is on the left, eyes looking at the "camera," her tummy is on the right.

While at the doctor, I asked him what else I could take to clear my head and he suggested gaufinisen (sp?) which is the real name for Mucinex, and between drinking the orange stuff and getting my blood drawn, I went and picked some up. It has helped tremendously! I felt so much better last night and today that I actually got my house picked up and laundry done! My house doesn't look as much like a disaster area as it did--yea!


Today, we had a big storm come through town. It looked really nasty outside. There were reports that we might get some bad hail, but it never really hailed here except for a bit of pea-sized stuff. Odessa got slammed pretty badly, though. Thankfully, we were just doused. Unfortunately, however, that meant that for the second week in a row, I missed out on Girls' Lunch Out with Harmony and Abby. I was disappointed, because I feel like I haven't seen either of them in a long time. Harmony has been super-busy with tax season and Abby has been to Lubbock a lot. So, I need to see my girls sometime soon (hint, hint!).


This weekend is Harmony's baby shower and next week my in-laws are coming to town because Will is turning TWO!!! I cannot believe that my baby will be two years old in almost seven days! Where does the time go? Enough rambling for tonight. I'm sure I will have something much more interesting next week :) Have a good one!