Finally an Update! :)

Hey everyone!! Wow!! I didn't realize it has been over a month since I last updated!! Sorry for the lack of updates! We have been doing a lot since I last updated. Lets see if I can fill you in quickly and briefly...

Well, for starters, keep praying for the sell of our house in B'ham! The inspection was done and negotiations made, but now we are in limbo waiting for this guy to get financial loan approval!! We seem to be in the same predicament we were in with my townhouse!! So, we are patiently waiting and seeing how things will turn out. I can't go into much more detail, but please keep us in your prayers as far as this sale goes. We don't want it to fall through and be back at square one!

I am now 37 weeks...well, I will be Thursday. I can't believe our little girl will be here in a matter of weeks!!! It definitely has flown by especially with how busy we've been with house stuff and packing. I go to the doctor every week now! Crazy! Madilyn is still doing good. I still measure "small", so we did another ultrasound last Monday at my doc visit. She's growing fine. She actually measured at 34 weeks 6 days, but she is doing good. She weighed 5lb 15oz :) She's a growing!! :) She moves around in me ALL the time. hee hee. It's such a neat feeling. This whole experience has been wonderful! Praise God for that!!

Scott is now in Charleston! It's very lonely here without him and I miss him BUNCHES!!! He's enjoying it there and has been out finding his way around and enjoying the city. He has been there a week now. He is staying with Kimberly and Mike. We are so thankful that they opened their house up to him and are allowing him to stay there for a few weeks! He misses all his friends here in B'ham and says "HELLO" to you all!! He will be back in town on the 20th of July, so he will be able to visit around some before we leave for good. We are hoping and praying that Madi doesn't decide to come before then! :) We plan on inducing by the 24th of July cuz of all the craziness that we have with moving and Scott's job. He has his first shifts at MUSC on the 11th, 12th, and 13th. Keep him in your thoughts!!

Lastly, I had a beautiful baby shower June 29th hosted by my Jessica (I consider her my "little sister"). She is so dear to me and the effort she put into this shower for me and Madilyn was amazing!!! She is so thoughtful, considerate, and just the best friend anyone could ask for!! I have watched her grow up to be an amazing woman!! I had many wonderful friends and family there to visit with and I'm so thankful they took time out of their day to come. There are pics below from the shower. Thanks to all of you for the wonderful gifts for Madilyn!!

Me and my Jessica!

This quilt my Nana made for me and my unborn child before she passed away which was when I was still in college!! My family tells me she just must have known that I was to have a girl cuz she was set on making me a strawberry shortcake quilt and nothing neutral :) This is MOST precious to me!!!!!!

The portable Pack-n-Play will be Madilyn's "crib" for a month or so until we get moved into the house :) THANK YOU Aunt Bea, Uncle Bobby, Bethany, David, and Davis for this WONDERFUL gift!!!!

My dear friends Amity and Sarah!!!!

Some Good News to Tell!

Hey everyone!! Well, we have some exciting news to give! We got a contract on our house in B'ham on Sunday!! YAY! All praise be to God! It was a crazy exciting weekend for us. The guy who put in the offer just graduated from Auburn with his masters in business, and came to look at the house with his parents on Friday. It was funny cuz they scheduled the showing for 1100 on Friday and showed up at 1015 that morning! Eeks :) I had to grab the dogs, flip on the lights throughout the house, and get out of there quick :) The real estate agent was really nice and apologized for being early. Maybe it payed off that they say our cute little dogs and the Auburn collar on Bolus :) haha. Scott and I think it will be a perfect "bachelor pad" for him. They ended up staying at the house for an hour!! WOW! The guy put in his initial offer that evening and then the countering between everyone began :) What's even crazier is that the next day we ended up with 2 more showings on the house and both couples really liked the house also!! They would have put in offers, but one couple didn't want to make a "rash" decison and the other hadn't been preapproved, so neither wanted to put in an offer till later in the week. So, we ended up negotiating with this guy, and got everything settled pretty quickly after he found out there were other interested parties. We are way excited!

It's so neat to see how God worked in all this! We still have to go through inspection and more negotiations after that, so keep the prayers coming, but to see God work in this is amazing. Scott was starting to get real worried and the positivity he was trying to keep was getting harder for him. I just kept praying for positivity and strengh for us and God knew exactly when to put the right person in front of us! Even better is that we asked if we could hold closing till the beginning of August, and he agreed!!!! That means that we won't have to find a place to live here in B'ham for a month and no moving our things twice here in B'ham. I can stay in the house until and after Madilyn is born! WHAT A TRUE BLESSING!!!!! Madilyn will be able to have her 2 week check-up and then we will move to Charleston at the beginning of August. We are so blessed that this has worked this way and that we will not have to worry about where I will be living in July while I'm still here alone.

For those who may not know, Scott is having to go start work in Charleston at the beginning of July for a couple of weeks and then come back here for the baby to be born. I wanted to be here in B'ham to have Madilyn, so things are a bit back and forth. Scott has been very supportive of me staying here where I am comfortable, and for that I am truly lucky! He is wonderful! I just didn't want to be in a new place 9 months pregnant for someone I just met to deliver my first baby! :) We were concerned about where we/I would live depending on the sell of the house, and now that worry is gone! Thank you my Lord! It's so amazing to see how God is working this out each step of the way. I just smile each time I tell someone this story and I am smiling as I sit here and type this out to ya'll. PLEASE, keep the prayers coming in the weeks ahead as we go through inspection and more deals after that is done. We appreciate the many prayers that have been said already!! They are definitely working! :)

Oh, also, I had a check-up last Thursday. Madilyn is doing just fine!! Two weeks prior to that I had measured small, so Dr. Alten wanted to do an ultrasound this go round to make sure she was growing ok. Well, she definitely is!! :) According to the measurements of the ultrasound, she weighs 3 pounds 15 ounces right now. hee hee. How amazing this little life is! :) The first thing she said when she entered the room was, "So much for a small baby!" :) She expects her to be about 7 1/2 pounds when she is born. Dr. Alten says she "hides" in me very well cuz my stomach still measured small. I can tell you one thing though......I sure don't feel small by any means!!!!! haha. We are so thankful that she is growing just fine.

Well, I think that is all for now. I will keep you posted on updates of the sell of our house. Hope everyone has a good week!!

We love you!!

Our First Baby Shower

Hey everyone!! Well, Scott and I had our first baby shower on Monday. It was Scott's very first baby shower to be a part of! :) It was given by Scott's co-workers and the people from Scott's office were there, so boys and girls were allowed to come :). Thanks to Marjorie Lee and Dawn for hosting the shower!! It was wonderful! We had a great time eating yummy food and visiting with everyone there. We appreciate all the wonderful gifts we got!! Madi got some cute clothes, some very soft blankets, cute stuffed animals, her bath tub and some bath toys, and other great things!! Scott and I are so thankful for the time his co-workers took out of their busy day to help us celebrate our joy and we missed those that weren't able to be there because they were working! We will miss them all when we move to Charleston.

Happy daddy and mommy to be!

29 1/2 weeks

Just to clarify...the bassinet was just part of the decor. It worked very well with colors and all :)

Cute, yummy pedifores!!

Proud papa shows off some cute clothes for Madi :)

Oh yeah....Jimmie Johnson window shade!! hee hee. Thanks Jud!!!

Scott's office/co-workers

HOUSE UPDATE

Hello!!! So, I thought today I'd update on how our house is coming along. We are so excited about the house we have being built! We got to see it again for the first time since our offer got accepted when we went the first weekend in May.

We drove for the first time so we would know what the drive was like and how long it takes to get there. It wasn't a bad drive at all. It's a long drive, but not bad. We were happy with that. Our trip only consisted of house planning this go round. We spent ALL day Friday with the interior decorator at the Design Center for Weiland homes that we have been talking to on the phone and by e-mail. When I say all day....I mean 9:30 that morning till 5 that afternoon with an hour lunch break!!! Who knew it takes that long to pick out all the details for a house!! :)

We enjoyed the day and the time we spent with Becky. She was great, helpful, and laughed at Scott's jokes and craziness :) She was very patient with us and for that we were greatful. I had no idea what all we would be doing. It's amazing all the stuff you get to pick out when you are building a house!! It was pretty neat. We picked out kitchen cabinets, countertops for the kitchen and bathrooms, knobs for cabinet doors, style door handles for closet doors, room doors etc, tile, hardwood, grout for between the tiles, staircase railings, wall colors, appliances, and MANY, MANY, MANY lights and fans!!!! We had to choose how we wanted the tile laid, and any decoartion tiles we wanted too. It doesn't sound like a lot when writing it down, but it's very tidious and time consuming. We are excited to see what the finished outcome will be. It's cool to know that when the house is done, it will be exactly what we wanted and picked out and not have to settle for what someone else has already done with the house.

It was a long day, but we were happy with the choices we made once it was all done. After that, we got to go check out the house again and see its progress. The house is really coming along at a great pace!! The area we are building in is going up FAST!!! There are houses going up all around now. They have sold very fast! I'm glad we found ours when we did!! :)

We still need prayers, though! We are very excited, but we still need our house to sell in Birmingham. I'm definitely learning patience right now from God! I know in His timing things will work out, but it's very scary and worrisome to have a contract on a house when your house hasn't sold yet. God is teaching me to continually rely on him, have faith, and give these worries over to him. Just keep us in your prayers as we make our way through this. Pray for the right people to be found to buy this house, and pray for our faith and patience as we get closer to the time our house is ready. Our house in Birmingham has only been on the market for about 2 months, and our house in Charleston isn't supposed to be ready till September, so we are not in a "time crunch" yet, but it's hard not to think about. Thanks for the prayer support!

So, here are some updated pics of our house...

The outside has been painted, and they were painting the trim when we were there


The kitchen...it will have a bar style countertop.


Family room

Master bedroom

Back of house with screen in Porch area

We can't wait to have visitors, so start thinking of planning a trip to Charleston!! :) We would love to show our friends around the city we are loving more each time we go there!!

Two Weeks Ago...

Hey Everyone!!! Sorry for the looooong delay in updates! We have been busy little bees these past couple of weeks, and then I forgot to update before I started work this week, so that has made this update even later!

Well, two weeks ago we went to the NASCAR race in Talladega. Yup, that's right...we love some racin'! We had a blast. Me, Scott, my parents, Scott's dad (Ron), and Scott's friend (Gregory) all went. This was Ron and Gregory's first Talladega experience!!! :) How exciting for them. It was definitely a new experience that neither of them had seen anything like before :) It was supposed to rain, so we were afraid that we wouldn't get the race in, but thankfully the weather held out and they got to have the WHOLE race day experience!

We got there early Sunday morning, walked around all morning taking in all the different people you will see there, shopped, and then headed into the track to get ready for the race. Everyone enjoyed the race....except for the end! None of our peeps won. We were all cheering for Jeff Gordon #24 or Jimmie Johnson #48. Afterwards, we hung out at the cars for a bit and ate some sandwhiches and snacks we had brought with us. We got to watch all the drunk rednecks fight to leave as soon as possible! :) No use in getting out in all the maddess too soon! We stayed until the rain finally came and then headed home.

It was a great time overall! Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I think Gregory is gonna be a diehard NASCAR fan now after this experience! hee hee. He's already wanting to come to another race! Ron we might have to work on to become a "diehard" fan, but he enjoyed himself and all the different people that you'll see at an event like this! :)

Here are a few pics from our fun trip:

Ron getting into the Dega experience

Madi's first race! :) 26 1/2 weeks preggers!

Silly boys!

Go Jimmie!

Gregory and Melanie

Go Jeff!

'80s Prom Night

Hey everyone!! Well, last Friday night was the Children's Hospital ED '80s Prom Night themed party! It was a blast! Scott and I had a great time. It was awesome to see some of the costumes that people came up with. There was a lot of planning that went into some of them! Thanks to everyone that came and had a blast and that helped organize the party! Scott...and I...enjoyed every minute of it.

Here are some pics from the party. Enjoy!!

Scott and his pregnant date :)

Scott, Yvette, Scott, and Melanie

ER Girls

Prom Queen and King

6 Months Along

Hey Everyone. I hope ya'll had a good weekend. Ours was pretty uneventful which was nice for us. We went to Montgomery on Saturday for a surprise party for my skating coach, but that was all the traveling we did this week :) It was pretty neat to see a bunch of people I don't ever really get to see anymore!

Well, I don't have much to write. I just wanted to let ya know that my doctor's appointment went well last week. Dr. Alten actually got to measure my stomach last week. hee hee. I'm starting to feel her move a little more, but it still sporadic when I do. It's such a cool, amazing feeling! Next month I go for my glucose tolerance test, so that'll be a long visit. I will be exactly 6 months along this Thursday, and I'm feeling great. I can't believe it's already been 6 months. The time for Madilyn to arrive will be here before I know it!

Oh, Scott and I also got to make some decisions on our house yesterday. We talked with a girl in the design studio yesterday over the phone and picked out some things that needed to be decided pretty quick while in front of a computer also. We are going back to Charleston the beginning of May to spend the day at the design center and pick out other things that we want. We are pretty excited. It was nice to get some things picked out yesterday too.

I hope everyone has a good week. I will update again soon. Take care. We love you!!