Catching up..

Well, it has been a super busy month. Draining, really. For both Wes and me. First I'll start off with Valentine's Day because that is the earliest I can remember from this month. First of all he woke me up with a beautiful Pandora bracelet with one charm that was a heart (for me and him) and another charm that was a little baby carriage (for Teddy Graham). I loveddd it!! I wear it pretty much everyday. :) I now also have another charm from my mother in law from Valentine's Day that is a cute "G" for Graham. Love it!! I told everyone that I only want charms for special occasions and charms that represent something. I want a true charm bracelet that helps me remember specific points in my life and no fillers. :) I'm on to a good start! Anyways, Wesley kept telling me all day that we are doing something that we have been wanting to do lately..I was racking my brain and couldn't think of any one thing we have been wanting to do.  When he got home from work that evening we got in the truck and he said we needed to go pick something up. After a few minutes I realized we were heading to my parents house. Confused, I asked if mom cooked us dinner or something. He said "no, and we aren't picking someTHING up, we are picking someONE up." About that time we were pulling in my parents' driveway and he told me we are taking Granny on a date since he had asked her to be his other Valentine a few days prior. :) Made my heart smile, because if you don't know, I LOVEEEEE my Granny. He went in to get her like a real date and she came out all dressed up and looking beautiful. She was in the best mood too, which is a hit and miss lately, because so many days she just doesn't feel good. She had felt good all day that day though. I love days when she feels good. She got in the truck and we made our way to Konomi because she said she had only been to the kind of restaurant "where they cook in front of you"once and that was when she went with PaPaw's work sometime in the 60's and she has always wanted to go back. She always said she can't remember the last time she went out for Valentine's Day...PaPaw has been dead since 1990, so you do the math. She enjoyed the heck out of the little show the cooks put on at Konomi and she wouldn't stop talking about how good the soup was! She was so cute all night. I was on cloud 9 because A. I was with 2 of my most favorite people in the world and B. That I have such a SWEET, kind-hearted husband who doesn't mind sharing our Valentine's night with Granny and knowing that would be right up my ally.
After dinner we came back to our house and videoed Granny answering all kinds of questions about her childhood and early adulthood and telling us story after story. Wesley's family had done the same thing with his Great Grandmother before she died and ever since I've seen that, I have wanted to do the same with Granny. It's definitely something I will cherish forever!! Her stories would make you cry from laughing so hard. It was a great night, one I'll never forget!! Neither will Granny. She's still talking about it. :)

A recap of our past Valentine's Days...
2008--Best one EVER!! This is when we were dating. He took me to his house and I walked in the basement and he had the walls covered with black cloth and pictures of us hanging from the ceiling with candles lit everywhere, music playing, and a steak dinner waiting on us. It was just the first time I had had anything that romantic and the whole night just melted my heart. One of the nights I realized how lucky I am that he's all mine. :)
2009--Worst one yet.. Wes was playing at a youth convention in South Dakota.... I missed the heck out of him.
2010--He took me on a scavenger hunt all around our special spots in Birmingham. We videoed at each stop and he had little questions I had to answer on camera. We went to spots that meant a lot to us like our first kiss, our first date, where he asked me to be his girlfriend, where he asked me to be his wife, etc. It was so cute!! I loved it. And I love that we now have a dvd to remember that night!
2011--surprised me with a couples massage!! Woohoo, sexy! Loved it!
2012-- Date with Granny :)

After Valentine's Day was over, we got ambushed with busyness. Test after test is coming up in school along with observations hours that have got to get done ASAP and papers to write. Plus work. It's getting harder and harder to manage my time....on top of either being nauseous or having a KILLER headache. I thought I was over my sickness, but this past week, it's crept up on me. I think it's mainly just really bad headaches that are making me sick. I got some medicine called into for my headaches today, so hopefully that will start to help. Because Tylenol is for the birds. 
Also, this past week is when Wesley's baseball games started. It's his first time to coach baseball, and he's the head coach. He is enjoying it, but every night last week he didn't get home before 9:00...and those 13/14 hour days were really starting to wear him down. I felt sorry for him because he was just so exhausted. It doesn't look like it'll ease up for the next couple of months though. I kept reminding him when he would get discouraged about it, that God has him doing that for a reason!! He doesn't see it all the time, but he is pouring into those pre-teen boys and being a great role model for them. I am SOO proud of my husband. He is such a good man and does so much behind the scenes that only I see sometimes. And stuff I don't even see. He's such a blessing to me. So glad I have him to go through this busy life with.

My tummy is getting harder and harder. Every morning I wake up with my hand on my stomach and think "it wasn't that big yesterday!" I look in the mirror sideways constantly waiting for me to look pregnant. I have a faint little line from my belly button down now. I love it. I will be 15 weeks tomorrow...that is 1 week away from 4 months!! 4 months sounds farther along than 15 weeks :)  Wes is so cute when he talks about the baby. He always says he's not nervous right now, he's just SO excited!! We both are. I'm SURE the nervousness will kick in soon, but right now, it's pure and total excitement. We are both itching to find out if Teddy Graham is a he or a she. We have our ultrasound appointment on March 29th, and March 30th we are having a Reveal Party!! I can't wait. No, seriously, I CAN'T WAIT to know!!!! My thinking changes from day to day on weather I think its a boy or a girl. The Chinese Calendar says it's a girl. The Needle test says its a boy. The wedding ring test says its a girl. haha...soooo there's no telling. I want both! I can't mean it more when I say, "I don't care!" I just want my baby! Can't wait to feel the little peanut move inside me. Can't wait to be settled on a name. Can't wait to decorate the nursery! So many exciting things coming up. We're so blessed.

Something excited we are looking forward to before we find out the sex of baby, is our Spring Break trip...or our BABYMOON!! We are heading to Los Angeles, California for 5 days. Only 23 days til our trip of a lifetime! Can't wait!

I thiiiiink that's everything that is going on in our life right now...I'm sure I'll think of something as soon as I post this. And I'm sure there is some awful spelling going on because I wrote this in a hurry. Oh well. :)

Also, I have realized more than every lately that I am SOOO blessed and beyond thankful for our family and friends. They are ALWAYS there for us. When I'm not feeling good, I can text my mom to be praying for me and I feel I am completely covered with prayer from that moment of the day on. When I was sick today, my mother in law texted me a million times telling me if I needed anything to let her know. Yesterday when I missed church, I had more than a dozen people write on my fb wall or texting me telling me they hoped I was feeling better and they missed me. These little things mean so much to me and I am so thankful for the friends and family God has blessed me with. Ya'll mean more than you know.

See ya soon... :)

Catching up...

As we were ending the month of January, I realize it's been over a month since I've last updated! Ooops.. :) Although we have been ridiculously busy this month, only a few things are different. I'll start off with the most recent happening... and the scariest. A little over a week ago (January 23rd) a tornado came TOO close to our home in the middle of the night. UAB woke us up with a call, text, AND email at about 3:15am...Glad I signed up for that automated thing when I first enrolled! Came in handy! (Not that both sets of our parents  and some of our friends would have failed to wake us up or anything, but still..any extra can't hurt.) Wes turned on the tv and I immediately got my blanket and pillow and doggie and sat my hind-end in the closet...it was still pretty far away from us, but I am terrified of storms!! Once we heard it was getting close to Center Point, Wes got in the closet with me. He was still not unnerved by the storm and was trying to keep me calm. A few minutes later our lights started flickering and once they and the tv went out...we heard the wind. It was AWFUL and LOUD and I can't even describe the way it spooked me. This is what got Wes to the back of the closet with me. We were trying to connect our legs and cross them together in case the wind tried to pull us apart or something, but thankfully, it didn't even poke a hole in our roof. We had zero damage!! Thank God! But that wasn't the case for about half of our neighborhood.
It's still so eerie to drive into our neighborhood and not to see the two story houses that used to be at the front of our entrance...they are completely gone! Just like that..makes me sick to my stomach that it was that close to me, my husband, our first home, Pip, and my baby!! While we heard the wind screaming and the walls were rumbling as the tornado was happening, Wes and I were praying and squeezing each other and Pip. The louder the wind got, the louder Wes screamed at me to, "PRAY LOUDER!!" haha! It's funny thinking about it now, but he was serious as a heart attack!! I did as I was told too! And boy, do we believe that is what kept us safe that morning- God's favor and protection. I just kept thinking, I am SO glad Teddy Graham isn't here yet, bc I would have been even more of a nervous wreck with that baby outside of my body. I know storms will come once he/she is here, but goodness I pray they are never that close to us again!!!! I can't begin to tell you  how many times I've thanked God for keeping us and our family safe. It was a weird, SCARY feeling...but makes us realize what is important in life and what's not. I kept saying "I don't even have my rings on!!!"...not that that mattered in the long run, but I'm so thankful that I still have my wedding rings! And everything else I own.
Changing subject to a few days before the tornado, but Wes and I heard Teddy Graham's heartbeat for the first time!! SWEETEST thing I have experienced thus far. Made it seem real that there IS a baby growing in my tummy! Not that the ultrasound, sickness, and daily app updates on my phone haven't made it seem real, but this put a stamp on it. I heard the sweet sound of my baby's heart--the same heartbeat I'll hear when I put my head on it's chest when I'm loving on my baby once they are finally here! We heard the hb on Wesley's birthday, Jan. 19th at about 10:00 at night. We were going to wait to hear it at the doc for the first time, but as soon as he brought that at-home doppler home for the first time, we couldn't resist. Aaand figured it'd be pretty cool to hear it on his birthday. Aaaand thought it'd be neat to video it. Aaaand thought it be cool for it to be just Wes and I there. Needless to say, it was super special. So glad we ended up doing it that way. I'll love to show Teddy Graham the video one day. Hopefully he/she will be able to tell how excited their mommy and daddy were about every phase of their life, starting from the beginning.
I am 11 weeks and 2 days as of today. Since about 9 1/2 weeks, the sickness has really eased up! Instead of an everyday battle, it's become about a 1 or 2 day a week battle and doesn't last all day anymore. THANK GOD! I am starting to have a bad headache every other day or so, but I would much rather that than tossing my cookies every time I ate. My appetite is coming back too! I still can't eat just anything, but it's much better than it was! Things are looking up, and I'm getting MORE and MORE excited about the weeks to come! I'm so close to my 2nd trimester, I can taste it!
 This is going to be the best spring/summer ever, and I'm so ready for it! :)