Spilling the Beans!

Today was priceless.

My mom came up to have one of our marathon girl's days where we run around shopping and getting pedicures and eating yummy lunch. She had no idea what I had in store for her :)

We started the day over at the Forum at Peachtree Parkway. My mom is going to a conference next week in that area so she wanted to scope out the directions minus Monday morning rush hour traffic. We drove around for what felt like 4 hours. She kept missing her turns and driving and driving and driving. All the while she talked about how excited she is for her best friend Sherrie who is going to become a grandmother any day now. Ha.

I thought I was going to burst!

Finally, after finding her office building, we decided it was time for some lunch. We headed over to the Forum and decided to grab lunch at one of my favorite places, Grace 17:20.

Before we went in to eat, we spotted a darling little boutique/gift store called Lime Tree. We decided to swing in and peruse around a little.

There was a small table in the corner of the store filled with baby gifts. I quietly snuck over and spotted a set of note cards that said "New Mommy" across the front. I picked them up and walked over to Mom and said "I think I need to buy these".

She said "For who?"

I said "For me".

Insert silence and eye widening. Between the screaming and shrieking and crying that followed, I am sure we were quite the show! She was absolutely BESIDE HERSELF! It was a hoot!! The cute store girls came over and got in on our celebration and gave her lots of tissues for her tears.

Although I took my camera to capture the moment, I got swept away in everything and totally forgot. I have never seen her quite so happy! She was just beaming!

We spent the rest of the entire day shopping for maternity clothes and cute baby things. Totally unnecessary at this point in the game, but totally worth every minute!

What a HUGE blessing this baby is and will be.

My cup truly runneth over.

And He does everything in His time...

So it has been 24 hours since we started doing the happy dance. I have taken a total of 6 pregnancy tests. All positive. Yaaaay!

Hubs and I made a pact (ha, yea right!) not to tell anyone until after the first doctor's appointment to confirm said 6 pregnancy tests. We made this pact half laughing because if you know me, you know that I cannot keep a secret to save my life.

Seriously. I tell all, all the time.

I made it about 4 hours and then decided to text my sweet Lori to ask an innocent "are you awake?" 3 minutes later and 1 suspicious phone call from her, and there I was spilling the beans. SHAME ON ME! We shrieked and flapped our hands in the air and then I took another test, just to be sure :)

I could hardly sleep a wink last night. I laid awake with an enormous smile on my face thanking God for blessing us and entrusting us with a baby. There are no words to express my thankfulness and gratitude to Him for this gift.

I truly thought this was going to be a long hard road for us. After being diagnosed with endometriosis 6 years ago during an emergency appendectomy, fertility questions have been in the forefront of my mind. Thus, my journey of learning how to be still and wait began. Between me finishing graduate school and Hubs settling into his career, we knew that babies would need to wait a few years. Just as we decided it was time to dive into parenthood, Chris unexpectedly lost his job. So we learned to be still and wait a little more.

For the past year, we have struggled with the debate to wait for life to be perfect or to surrender to God and to trust him with our plans. On June 21, 2009 Kevin Queen, our pastor, gave a phenomenal sermon on leaving a legacy. At the end of the service he invited any of the men in the congregation to come down front and pick up an old skeleton key as a symbol of committing to leaving a legacy. During our closing prayer I felt an empty chair where Chris had been sitting next to me. I peeked (shame on me again) and saw him down front picking an old key from the basket. Hmm...

Later that day during our Father's Day celebration at the Davis' I noticed that he had the key hanging around his neck. Strange, I thought. On the way home he told me that he felt God telling him to put his trust in Him and asked me what I thought of starting to try for a baby. I sat in absolute awe. I was beside myself with excitement and joy and amazement for what God was doing in our lives. Talk about being stirred.

In that very moment, on the way home from the in-laws, we knew that God was putting it on our hearts to take the leap of faith and to put our trust in Him.

God has given his people a desire to know the future. He does everything just right and on time, but his people can never completely understand what he is doing.-Ecclesiastes 3:11

So as I sit here tonight, just 4 weeks pregnant with our tiny gift from above I remember that:

"He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted". Job 9:10 "But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more." Psalms 71:14

After I took the first pregnancy test, I ran downstairs and dropped an old key (similar to the one Chris picked up in church on Father's Day) on his dessert plate. The look on his face was priceless!

That moment is one I will treasure always. It was just as I had imagined it and just as it should be. The glory went to God; His grace to us.

Every Good and Perfect Gift...

Test One. Two lines.

Test Two. Two lines.

Insert happy dance times one million!

Decided an emergency trip to Walmart to purchase pregnancy test for dummies was in order. (This decision came approximately 2.2 seconds after Googling "Target Brand Pregnancy Test Results". Baaad idea. 6 pages of reviews where people go on and on about the high occurrence of false positives with this brand of test. Eek.

Guzzled 2 glasses of sweet tea (decaffinated, no worries) and just discovered...

SO stinkin' excited we can hardly stand it!!!!

More on our journey once I calm down a little from all of this excitement!!

"Every good and perfect gift comes from above". James 1:17

Confessions of a Chocoholic

I have a confession.

I am absolutely head over heels for... Warm Delights Molten Chocolate Cake. Yessiree.

Just add 1 scoop of vanilla bean ice cream and drizzle caramel over the top and there you have it, a makeshift-mini-Chili's Molten Lava Cake.

It's not adulterous because Hubs loves them just as much as I do. We might just have them every single night. It doesn't help that each time you purchase a 2 pack, you receive a $1.00 off coupon for another 2 pack.

Totally hooked. Totally not fitting into my pants right now. Lovely.

Don't Count Your Chickens Before they Hatch

God is good all the time and all the time God is good.

With that, I would like to say that:

Hubs'. New. Job. Fell. Through.

Like any good woman, I am refraining from heaving heavy objects across the kitchen and screaming like a wild banshee.

Stupid Macys. Stupid. Stupid. Curses.

Devastated (that's only normal, right?), but staying focused on God's plan because "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

(Thank you all for your prayers and sweet comments!)

The Good Lord was Willing and the Creek Didn't Rise!

I am doing the happy dance. I feel compelled to list the reasons why:

1. Just got home from FANTASTIC anniversary trip to Charleston, Tybee Island, and Savannah! Yay for local road trips! Yay for anniversaries!

2. On said anniversary trip, I was able to reconnect with this spectacular bathtub at the Mansion. Ahh.

3. We also reconnected with the sun and sand.

Hello tan lines. Where have you been?!
4. Hubs could hardly believe it: I parallel parked PERFECTLY on the first try in Downtown Charleston. With people watching. Without tears or profuse sweating. Seriously. Totally Happy Dance worthy. Never in my 13 years of driving has this ever happened. Ever. It was fabulous!(Yes, we did indeed take a picture to document the moment. It was that special.)
5. We got to see lots of porches, rocking chairs, and chandeliers. These are things that make me happy. There has to be some way we can live here. A pink house by the water with double porches, rocking chairs, and a spiral staircase. A little slice of heaven on earth!
Apparently I became obsessed with sparkly things on this trip. Before we left I kept saying that I was craving a change of scenery. We don't have any of these sparkly chandeliers in our town home, so there ya go.

6. I caught the perfect photo opp of Hubs on a stroll downtown one night.
I couldn't resist and apparently neither could he!

7. We celebrated 3 years of marriage. In the rain. In Savannah. It was remarkably identical to our wedding night. (Minus the whole fire fighter-power outage-lack of food-lack of AC-fiasco ordeal.)

...And last, but not least...

8. We came home to a message on the answering machine. A nice lady by the name of Amanda was calling to...offer...Hubs...a...JOBBBBBBBBB! We stared at the little black machine in total disbelief. Then we resumed the happy dance and have been going ever since.

The job, although not Hubs' top pick, is an answered prayer! It will buy us some time until his dream job comes along and oh, the sweet relief we are feeling right now!!!

Oh! I forgot to mention, the job offer is with Macys. Which means one thing: DISCOUNT SHOPPING! Woooo!

Seesh! I have officially worn myself out.

And now for a moment of serious reflection. The following verse has kept me going over the past year. Whenever I find myself with the urge to flail on the floor thinking we will never make it, this verse comes to me.

As I was stepping out of the shower last Wednesday I swear I heard the voice of God. I'm not sure I have ever heard him speak to me quite so clearly. He told me 3 times "Hold on. Hold on. Hold on." And so I did.

"The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundations on the rock."Matthew 7:25

As always, I am in awe of God's goodness. I am quietly reminded that it is His timing, not ours that always prevails. Always.

Happily Ever Now

In honor of 8 fabulous years together, a little anniversary montage...

~2009~

The Mansion at Forsyth Park

Savannah, Georgia

~2008~

Bay Point Resort and Spa

Panama City Beach, Florida

~2007~

Sawgrass Resort and Spa

Ponte Vedra, Florida

~2006~

Aventura Spa Palace

Mayan Riveria, Mexico

~2005~

Marietta, Georgia

~2004~

Loafing Leprechaun

Duluth, Georgia

~2003~

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

Atlanta, Georgia

~2002~

University of Georgia Bow Ball

Buckhead, Georgia

(and my all time favorite, the day I fell in love with the boy next door) ~2001~

Athens, Georgia

Feeling especially blessed,

Child's Play

New favorite store (for all things therapy/education related and so much more!)

The Learning Express, The Avenue at Web Ginn
My mother-in-law and I had a blast playing with this incredible creation:

Rokenbok. Our favorite piece was the Ball and Chute System. We marveled at the geniuses who came up with this crazy invention. We also played like 5 year olds when no one was looking. The motorized conveyors were fascinating!

Thankfully I was quickly distracted by...POP UP PIRATE! Yesss! Totally on my therapy toy wish-list and totally have not been able to find it anywhere. Needless to say, it came home with me :)

(Insert side note: Admittedly, I am addicted to buying toys/games for therapy. Confession: I have not bought ONE single work-related item since April when I caved and bought my own copy of "Guess Who". So there.)

Hubs didn't quite seem to understand my excitement...that is, until we played a round in the interest of "lesson plan preparation". He won. Twice.

Pros: super fun, catch-you-off-guard kind of excitement (when will the pirate pop up, nobody knows!); 4 color coded mini sword sets for multi-person playing capabilities; fabulous artic and language goals built right in (prepositions "in/out", "up/down", same/different, loads of /p/'s and final consonants...); easy set-up/break-down; flexibility of "rules"...are you considered the winner when Pop Up Pirate pops up or if he does not pop up ...you be the judge.

Cons: whoa. Pop Up Pirate jumps so high that he might just put your eye out (this could arguably be listed as a pro in my mind); lack of predictability (sometimes Pop Up Pirate popped after a measly 2 swords, other times he didn't pop until 20 of the plastic swords were crammed in his barrel...while this is obviously the point of the game, it can make maintaining a 4 year old's attention a bit difficult if the motivation factor makes itself known after 30 seconds of structured play); self-applied sticker decor can be tricky to apply.

Overall fun-o-meter: 8.5/10

Have I mentioned how marvelous it is that I get paid to play for a living!?