Such a slacker!

I've been such a blog slacker lately! Boo! Sorry to all my avid readers out there... all 2 of you! :) (However, I am not as big of a blog slacker as Jen Bennett... she is the biggest blog slacker ever!)

Friday I had SUCH a wonderful time hanging out with my friends from our old church, Bridgepointe. It was a WONDERFUL girls night - we were actually out celebrating Kristen's 30th birthday! Love you K.L.! I absolutely LOVE girls nights where you just GO and be GOOFY, SILLY girls... which I am very good at. And it's fun because 3 out of the 7 girls that went out are all prego! And we're all within a few weeks of each other. Crazy! I didn't take any pix, but Chelsea did - and I'm still waiting on those pictures, Chels.... any day now! I think I'll post this lovely picture of Chelsea on here until I get those pictures from Friday night... maybe that will entice her... These two people kind of look alike, huh?

My family was in town this weekend, and we were booted from my sisters house so that we could take care of my parent's dog... and because there wasn't room for us. I had such a great time seeing them when we could, though. It was a much too short weekend though and I can't wait til Chris and I live closer to W and D so that when family comes, we can see more of each other... even if we still have to be the pet taker-carer! Sunday was Whitney's 100th and last baby shower :) This girl has totally racked up! So glad she's my sister so I can use all her stuff next Spring when baby Hull gets here. I had a little dillemma getting ready for the shower... apparantly after I eat a big meal, I look major pregnant. My tummy sticks out WAY more than it ever used to so after we ate lunch, I go to put on a cute dress.... um... not so much. The dress was so tight on my tummy you could actually SEE my belly button through the dress. AGHHH! I did not want to show up at my sister's shower looking more pregnant that she did! I finally found a "loose fitting" shirt that left the mind up for imagination as to if it's hiding a tummy or not! :) I couldn't complain too much, though, cause I could still fit into my cute little Gap skirt that I love! Here's a picture of my sisters and I and my sisters and my mom and I at the shower!

As you can imagine, our life has been a little full of CRAZY lately. We house hunted again on Saturday... we love our realtor... and we actually put an offer down on a home Saturday afternoon - it was countered - we countered again - it was rejected. So we put another offer on another house yesterday... and we are still in process of finding out. I'm not posting any pix yet - I don't want to jinx it! I have to say that I don't know how anyone goes through anything - much less looking for and buying a house - without their faith in God. I just ALWAYS have this awesome peace in my heart that I KNOW everything will work out to his will. I would be lying if I said I haven't stressed a little bit over this decision - but the more I think about it - how can ANYTHING go wrong when I know that God is on our side and that His will WILL be done and that only He knows what our future holds.

Chris and I have this awesome church we LOVE called Vinings Lake. Yesterday's sermon was incredible and it really spoke to me. It was about the foundation of our faith and how it's really centered in on the importance of the ressurection of Jesus Christ... that is the center of our entire faith. The fact that Jesus died on the cross, then ROSE from the dead 3 days later is the only reason we are given an ETERNAL life... all we have to do is believe. It's so sad that some people just believe that just because they are GOOD people, that they will go to heaven and live with God eternally. NO! You have to believe and know for a fact the simple phrase that "He died for our sins and rose from the dead." SO many other prophets DIED for a good cause, but did any of them RISE from the dead so that you and I may have an eternal life? You go and find one other than Jesus... I dare you. (((I apologize for random thoughts here, my thoughts are always so scattered when written down... but I think I am getting my main point across here.)))

Sunday night we met with our new small group and I LOVED it! We have SUCH a diverse group this year and it's totally awesome. Ranges anywhere from single and just out of high school to mid 40s and career changing. It's incredible and I know that God is going to speak to us in SO many new ways through our group!

Anyway - hopefully Chelsea will email me some pictures soon so I can post those from Friday night and I'll keep you updated on the offer we put down on the house yesterday! Seeeeee yaaaaaaa!

I love baby Jac and Conga lines with Harlee!

I absolutely LOVE it when my baby nephew, Jac, laughs. It is SO sweet and we found a game on Saturday afternoon that no doubt always made him laugh! Everytime he'd wake up from his nap or get done eating and would be let down on the floor, he'd run straight for the office to where the fish tank was and he'd point at the big excercise ball on the floor and look up at you! It was SO precious! Here's a quick video of his SWEET precious laugh!

Here is another video we filmed forever ago and I forgot about it! Harlee sometimes jumps on me when I first walk in the door - so lately - when she does it - we make her do a conga line with us! Not sure if it's the best way to train her not to jump... we'll see! Chris actually started it... and I WANTED to film him doing the conga line with her but he refused.... he was afraid he'd look dumb or something. Whatev... I never ever mind looking dumb!

New Blog :)

Some of you may be interested in seeing another blog I've been writing... go here! :)

http://hullbaby.blogspot.com

I forgot...

I forgot to tell y'all how far along I am! I am 8 weeks and 4 days... and my due date is May 2, 2009. I am only a few days sooner than they had orginally thought.

First Ultrasound!

Yay! We had our first ultrasound yesterday. Everything went SO well... besides having to wait in the waiting room for 2 hours! I didn't think Chris was going to make it.

Anyway, here's a picture of it. It kind of just looks like a blob, but you can make out the head and the feet - which just began to form this week. In between the little brackets is the baby's heart - which was beating SUPER fast and very strong. The baby was wiggling all around which made me laugh, then the ultrasound tech couldn't find the baby for a few seconds, then it would come back. It was very sweet and SOOOO tiny.

Our baby is now 5/8 of an inch long, about the size of a kidney bean. New this week: Webbed fingers and toes are poking out from the baby's hands and feet, the eyelids practically cover the eyes, breathing tubes extend from the throat to the branches of the developing lungs, and the"tail" is just about gone (THANK GOD!) The arms have lengthened, too, and the hands are now flexed at the wrist and meet over the heart. The knee joints have formed, and the feet may be long enough to meet in front of the body. In the brain, nerve cells are branching out to connect with one another, forming primitive neural pathways.

It was a great visit and being able to see... and hear... our baby was incredible. I am beginning to feel like a mommy and am also enjoying being pregnant now that I am not feeling sick anymore!

The doggie party was a HUGE success! We had such a fun time with all our different friends and all their little kids :) I had such a fun time planning it, too! Here are a few pictures from last night!


Sydney Walzer and Buddie Hull in the pool. A few minutes after this picture was taken, Buddie peed on Sydney in the pool. Lovely. He was not happy that she invaded his personal space.

The whole group picture! 19 doggies and their mommies and daddies!


The Appenfelder family - Tanner, Doug, Whit, and Ranger.

The Ward family - Benson, Betsy and their kids, Sadie, Merlin and Buddy.

The Walzer Family - Jess, Sydney and Chris

Catherine and her dalmation pup - Callie.

Kris and Kristen and their little on - Peggy Sue.

Chris and I with our dear, sweet friend Lisa.

The Murphy Family! Sean, Kiera and Michelle and Aspen.

Ashley Hightower, her famil dog, Abby and her sweet boyfriend, Jesse.

Brooke and her sweet girl Roxy.

The Hull Family! Harlee Jane, Chris, Me, Jack and Buddie.

Kate and her sweet Leo.

Christina, her sweet boyfriend and Jaida.

Whit and Tanner :)

Harlee was OUT as soon as the last guest left! Jack doesn't seemed to concern. We actually checked to make sure she was still breathing a few times.

Buddie conked out soon after, too :)

The Baby Made Me Do It!

This is what I ate for lunch today....

I haven't eaten something like this in about 8 months.

The baby made me do it!

SOOOOOOOOOOOO EXCITED!

I am so excited for our doggie birthday party this weekend! Yay! I've been looking forward to this since last year's birthday party. This year, so far, we are expecting 18 doggies and 22 people! I just got done making all the pups personalized bandannas and they are SUPER cute. Last year, I made camouflage ones, this year, we went with a brighter color :) All the girl puppies have their name in pink puppy paint and all the boys have their name in blue puppy paint. (Yes, I am talking about puFFy paint, but puppy paint sounds so much better for this purpose.) Anyway, Saturday morning and I am beginning all the baking :) For our doggie parties, I make PUPcake cupcakes for the doggies. They are specially made for puppies with whole wheat flour, oatmeal, apple, cheese and all sorts of other really yummy puppy-type food. I also made Puppy Chow for people to eat... it's really yummy Chex Mix/Chocolate/Peanut Buttery/Sugary stuff that looks exactly like Puppy Chow brand dog food. I'm also getting together doggie bags for all our little 4-pawed guests to take home with them. They will be filled with a few little treats and chews to last them the ride home... if they can even stay awake, that is!! We have a whole bunch of fun games planned for all the little girl pups and boy pups, too! A puppy treat scavenger hunt will be lots of fun... and for the water lovers, we'll have a little doggie sized pool for the puppies to play in.

Yes - if you are not a doggie owner, you should feel very jealous right now that you cannot come to our coveted doggie party. :) Maybe if you get a doggie by next year, we'll let you in our club :)

The little doggies bandannas!

The bigger doggies bandannas!

Last year - Buddie eyed one of his gifts!

Showing off his awesome bandanna!

Jack and Buddie anxiously await all their friends!

Everyone!

Eating pupcakes!

The people get to eat food, too!

Mmmmm Blueberries :)

Baby Hull is now the size of a BLUEBERRY! I love this cause I love blueberries, however, the first image I had in my head was of that girl in the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory who turned into a blueberry for being a bad girl. YIKES! Let's hope that never happens. But I do have fun memories of picking blueberries as a child... at my grandparents house whose neighbors had a blueberry farm... and at the Blueberry Farm in Waycross.

Below is a picture of a lentil bean (the size of Baby Hull last week) and a blueberry (the size of Baby Hull this week. The baby has doubled in size this past week! And it has little webbed arms and feet, the brain is beginning to develop as well as the intestines! Oh, and the best part is that it has a tail right now! Ha ha! The baby's spinal cord is longer than needed so it sticks out some like a little tail! The pink and purple picture above is what the baby actually looks like, which totally freaks me out. It's disgusting.

Jac's Halloween Costume

OH MY WORD - HOW PRECIOUS IS THIS? My little nephew, Jac, is going to be an OCTOPUS for Halloween. SO funny!

He wasn't too crazy about the hat.

He found the zipper and decided he liked it much better unzipped!

READY FOR MY FIRST TRICK OR TREAT!

My husband, the bed breaker!

So, Chris now has broken a total of 2 beds. He broke my childhood bed in Tennessee last year and a few nights ago he got in bed and his side of the bed fell to the ground by about 6 inches. The bed in Tennessee is very old, but he TOTALLY broke it... like, when he got on the bed, it just immediately collapsed to the ground. All the way.

So, the newest bed he broke is our NICE EXPENSIVE bed in our house. I was already in bed and nearly asleep when this happened. Well, he literally couldn't even sleep on his side of the bed it was drooping down so much! I told him to go sleep in the guest room... well... The guest room is where Harlee sleeps at night and to say the least, that bed is not ready for human habitation until the sheets are washed and cleaned.

So, anyway, we get out of bed, Chris goes to get all his power tools out of the garage in the back yard and we take off our mattress and box spring and begin to re-assemble our bed. I REALLY wanted to get a picture of it, but Chris was NOT in the mood. I was laughing inside the whole time... it really was funny. He even said, "No one needs to hear about this!" Ha ha... well... he never reads my blog so this is what he gets for not reading it!

If for some reason you do read this, I love you, honey!

My favorite little seat....

My new favorite little seat is white and has a big hole in the middle of it. Yes, being pregnant makes you have to go to the bathroom ALL the time. I always thought that that came later in the pregnancy when the baby is pushing against your bladder. Well, that is so not the case. According to 'What to Expect When Your Expecting', I'm always going to the bathroom for many reasons. All the hormones going crazy in my body actually increases the amount of blood I am circulating through my body which leads to a lot of extra fluid being processed through my kidneys and therefore ending up in my bladder. The book CLAIMS that I may get some relief in my second trimester - about 5 weeks away - because my baby and my uterus will actually move up my body and away fromy pelvis and bladder. However, all women carry differently so I may not ever have any relief from this awful constant trip to the bathroom.


Oh - also - I looked up in my little book why pregnant women get morning sickness. And it's answer is... and I quote, "No one is really sure what the exact reason is." Seriously. That was what it said. Thanks a lot!!

God is Amazing.

God is so amazing. This litte person in side of me has grown 10,000 times the size that it originally was at the time of conception. 10,000 TIMES THE SIZE. How BAZAAR is that? Here is what my "babycenter update" told me last week.

"If you could see into your uterus, you'd find an oversize head and dark spots where your baby's eyes and nostrils are starting to form. His emerging ears are marked by small depressions on the sides of the head, and his arms and legs by protruding buds. His heart is beating about 100 to 160 times a minute — almost twice as fast as yours — and blood is beginning to course through his body. His intestines are developing, and the bud of tissue that will give rise to his lungs has appeared. His pituitary gland is forming, as are the rest of his brain, muscles, and bones. Right now, your baby is a quarter of an inch long, about the size of a lentil bean."

FOOD IN MY TUMMY!

I love to eat now. Seriously. I used to not like to eat a lot of food... I'm normally very content with 1/2 the food on my plate at a restaurant and some dessert. Well, I can't stop eating. This is going to be a long pregnancy. Seriously, I'm going to gain a million pounds. Today, I had a Vivanno for breakfast, 2 tacos, chips and salsa and sour cream for a 1:30 lunch from Chipotle and for a 2:30 DINNER I ate a slice of deep dish Chicago Style Pizza that my boss brought in. Seriously. Then I had a dinner mint and a Reece's Peanut Butter Cup to top it off.

In a few months, when you no longer see me because I can't FIT THROUGH THE DOORWAY, you'll know why.

Oh my oh my.

2 Weeks Later....

Okay - So - It's been two weeks and it's sunk in. For the most part. We haven't told a lot of people yet. Mostly because we haven't heard the heart beat yet so we don't know for sure that this baby is alive and healthy.

We have a lot of decisions we're trying to make right now. If we want to buy a house, where we want to buy a house, how long I will work, if Chris should find a full time job with benefits or not, what kind of car we need, what type of parents will we be, what area of town we will live in, etc etc etc. It's a never ending list right now and it's getting longer and longer every day.

I've gained about 5 pounds in 3 weeks. Enough said there. Ugh. I'm sure most of it is due to the fact that I only crave very unhealthy food at very bad times of the evening. Friday, I was sick all day and didn't crave really any food except Chick Fil A at 2 p.m. and a taco supreme and nachos and cheese from TACO BELL at exactly 1:00 a.m. Yes. If I keep this up, I am off to a BAD start.

We went to the doctor last Thursday and had a visit with our doctor. We LOVE him... he's the same one my sister Whitney is using. He's very funny and down to earth and makes a lot of jokes... which is good because we aren't exactly sure how we are responding yet. He did tell me that I looked like a deer in headlights when he was explaining a lot of things to me. He said it was normal for most newly surprised moms and I shouldn't be scared. They didn't do any blood work or an ultra sound yet but I go back next Monday the 22nd to get all that done. During the ultra sound we'll be able to see exactly how old the baby is. I am very excited about this because we really aren't sure how far along we are. According to my last cycle, we're 7 weeks tomorrow which makes our due date May 6, 2009. But - there are just a lot of things that make us very doubtful that that is correct. So, we'll see!

I haven't really gotten too, too sick. I'm just always kind of yucky feeling. I feel great about 2 or 3 hours out of the day total. The rest of the day, I just kind of feel bad. It's not fun and I hope this gets over with in the next few weeks.

I'm still trying to run about every other day or so. I just try to keep my heart rate in check by making sure I can constantly talk without breathing between every word.

What else... Am I excited yet? Unfortunately, I wouldn't say I'm excited. I guess all the nausea and yucky feeling I constantly have doesn't help that. I scared out of my mind about delivering this baby and I'm also just dreading all the decisions we have to make here in the next few weeks and months. It's just a lot to deal with and a lot going through my mind.

"Lord, give us wisdom and guidance to help us through this important decision-making time. Thank you for this blessing to our life and our wonderful families who are so supportive of us and our little family. Amen."

Last week and Weekend in Waycross

Last week was definitely interesting. Tuesday, I woke up not able to move my neck without SCREAMING my head off. Literally. I had an awful crick in it and it didn't help because I was sick all day! FUN! I stayed home feeling the worst I've ever felt in my life. I made Chris go to work which I decided later was a bad idea because I couldn't even get up without screaming in pain. It was awful. This is what I looked like all day.

Wednesday and Thursday were better - I still wasn't feeling totally better, but my neck was back to normal by Friday morning.


Oh and last Thursday night, we went to visit Amy, Jeffrey, Campbell and Dakota for dinner! I got a few sweet shots of Campbell Anne. She is getting SO big and is really entering that extremely cute stage now. She's really reacting to everything and taking everything in. She's absolutely precious.





So - this past weekend was supposed to be ANOTHER fun-filled GIRLS ONLY weekend! My plans for the past month or so was to go to the beach with my sweet friend Jessica and some other friends we knew from our days at Tech. Well... Friday morning, I felt great. I packed by bags before I left home and threw them in the car... got to work.... and felt TERRIBLE again... it's been this on again off again thing all week long. Getting very tired of this. No idea what my deal is but I felt terrible. I didn't want food, I didn't want water, I didn't want anything. Around 2 p.m. I finally decided that a Chic Fil A sandwich sounded good... well that didn't work out so well. Still felt terrible all afternoon. So, after lunch, I told all my sweet friends to head down to the beach without me. I just didn't want to burden their drive down there or their weekend by making them stop on the way down because I was sick. SO.... I was totally OK with staying home all weekend and just relaxing.


Well, since I was going to be gone, Chris had made plans to go to Waycross to see his brothers and parents for the weekend. But he wasn't leaving until 10:30 on Friday night because - bless his little heart - he has class until 10 on every Friday night! So, around 10:15 he finally convinced me that he would wait on my hand and foot in Waycross all weekend long if I went with him :)

We had a fun few hours in Waycross though - we got there really early Saturday morning and left Sunday after church. We took all our doggies and had a great time though! It's always so fun to see family and especially when you love your family so much and enjoy their company as much as we do with the Hulls. Carol definitely wins the award for most patience with having 6 doggies in and out of her house all weekend! Thanks to the Hulls for hosting our crew for the weekend and for all the wonderful food, fun and memories.


My sweet Harlee Jane in the car.

Jack and Buddie shared a seat.

So - on the way home, I realized there was something wet on my pillow. Um - it was pee. And Buddie had just been sitting on it. Seriously. Disgusting. I was so mad I threw Buddie in the back seat then threw my pillow on top of him. He didn't seem to mind. Stupid dog.

HA HA - Harlee loves to sleep with her head under beds and both the beds in our house are too low to the ground to do this so whenever she gets to a bed that is high off the ground she LOVES it! This is what she looked like Saturday morning when we woke up. So funny! It looked like she was a headless dog.

The Hull Boys

The Hull Boys' Girls!

Harlee kept a good eye on Scottie on the way home :)

And Kristen, too!