maternity pictures

Regrettably I haven't had any photos taken of me during my pregnancy to show off the growth of my belly. I am really just not thrilled with the way I look pregnant and that is most of the reason I haven't taken any. But I know that I will regret not documenting this special time in my life.
When Jamie was pregnant with Noah, she did this awesome picture of herself in the mirror. While trying to figure out what to do about taking my own her photo came to mind. Jamie, I hope you don't mind me copying you!
Here are a few that I took.

Catching Up

It seems like every few days I think about something that I need to post. It just seems like the actual appointment to sit down and do it never arrives. There are several events that I needed to post over the last month or so , but I kept putting it off. So, now I am going to cram them all into one post and just try better next time.
First of all.......at the end of last month I had the pleasure of going to Jacksonville, FL to visit my dearest friend, Jamie. It was the first time I have seen her since stopping by on my way home from our honeymoon.
This was especially exciting because I got to meet the newest addition to the Graston family, little Noah Justice.
The time I got to spend just sitting and talking with Jamie was all very refreshing. In a way, when I am with her it feels like going home, to a place that is familiar and comfortable. Her friendship is so precious to me, so necessary almost like oxygen to my soul at times.
Another great pleasure from the visit was that I got to take photos of Jamie and baby Noah together. They are very sweet pictures. I really loved being there with a brand new baby. It only made the yearning for William's arrival next year even stronger. I got some good baby 101 from the best mom in the world too. I wish she could be here to give me a refresher course when he does finally arrive.
It was a wonderful trip and I cant wait for my next one! Here are few pictures of Jamie and Noah.




I enjoyed the visit but was anxious to get home to see Shea and the dogs, what began as only a few days from home though turned into almost 9 days away on the way home.
Shea called me as I was driving back to tell me that he had the dreaded H1N1. That meant that I couldn't go home. Thank God I was gone the days that he was exposed to the swine flu. The Lord shielded me and my son.
Luckily we have a wonderful family here. Aunt Theresa allowed me to stay with her until it was safe for me to return home. As Shea rode out the flu, I was living the high life. Enjoying the magnificent view of the river from her condo, being treated life a queen. Shea said every time he called me we were always doing something. One of this family's favorite pass times is Scrabble....and we played a lot of Scrabble.
Here is a picture of that majestic view of the river.

And here is her cute dog, Willie. He dressed as Batman to pass out candy at Dianne's house.a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1UuajMR5K-Rts75l40fWk9yVHpzaXPiQt_qA_9qHz5kOhtD4yCYyx1pnwvRWaYAjpffZtsrYHHIXtMSCb6f4riyDZRqJYNJJNltjQRRPcOnv03-Wo0439v-gyRZ94muITEaeZXxFAhSLf/s1600/HPIM8633.JPG">
Last week, another one of our wonderful aunts, Aunt Cathy asked us to house sit for her and Uncle Tim. We took care of her 3 dalmatians for a couple of days. It was a lot of fun. We got to spend some time with Shea's cousin Mark too. It felt like a little mini vacation for us as well. It's nice to get away even if just for a short time. Even if it's not in a hotel in a land far away!
In case you haven't noticed.....(for the most part anyway) we are all dog people in this family!

Finally one of the last big events of this month........we celebrated Aunt Cathy's birthday with her on Tuesday. A hand full of us went to Outback for dinner and then headed over to her house for some.............you guessed it SCRABBLE. Another note on that little game of Scrabble...... I won! Just thought I would throw that in.



Now, November is almost over and the last event of this month will be Thanksgiving. Let's hope that I post photos and memories from that day before Christmas gets here.

Life is hectic right now, but it's starting to fizzle down. I have finals coming up in the the 2 weeks and a couple of research papers due. I am looking forward to this semester's end. At 25 weeks pregnant, I am noticing that my brain does not function at it's highest levels. I am praying for clear handedness the week of finals.


Pregnancy is beginning to get pretty cool! Finally, at 21 weeks I felt the baby move for the first time. I was at Jamie's house laying on the floor when felt him for the first time.
I called Shea to tell him about it and he said....." I am not sure you should be doing that, you could crush him." Once I figured out that it was easier to feel his movements whe I lay on my stomach, I did it all the time.
At 22 1/2 I began to feel him more throughout the day. It is one of the coolest experiences. Last night for the first time Shea put his hand on my stomach and felt kicks. That was also really special. I love experiencing him in new ways everyday. I think almost daily about how blessed I am to be giving the gift of fertility and motherhood.

I thought these were cute pictures of the dogs.........






This is one of my favorites!! This is how I feel 90% of the day!

Gender Revealed.........

October 15th has been the most anticipated day of the pregnancy thus far. We we got to find out the sex! It was a really special day. Shea and I shared it with his mom, Angela and Shea's aunt, Theresa.
We arrived for the appointment and we were taken back for the ultrasound. It was all so exciting, that finally we were going to know. The ultrasound tech didn't look at gender first though, it wasn't until after 5-10 minutes that she got an image of the baby and said "it's a girl." Shea and I were really happy but had felt all along that we were having a boy (of course we will take what ever God chooses).
I had even bought 2 boy outfits with airplanes on them. Shea said, "looks like you have some things to take back."
The ultrasound lasted for about an hour, and about 20 minutes after she told us the it was a girl we heard her say, "uh, ohhhh?" I, of course, thought what is wrong with my baby. She said everything was fine, but she had big news about 5 minutes later. She said "it looks like your baby is a mischievous little boy!" She told us that what she thought originally were girl parts, were actually fingers. He had his hand covering himself.
So that was the official verdict...WE ARE HAVING A LITTLE BOY!
Shea of course is to excited, he has thought of nothing but having a son one day. I am thrilled as well. I was the oldest, and being a girl I always thought it would be really cool to have a big brother. Shea and I still cant get over how we found out. It is a really funny story.
To celebrate the occasion our sweet Aunt Theresa took us the the Irish cafe, Blue Rose ("blue" to celebrate having a boy of course).
Here are a few picture from this precious day in our lives.
............ and of course a scrapbook page for my precious son, William Shea.

YUMMMMY!!

I am finding that the most enjoyable part of pregnancy is the funny cravings. I have not craved anything like pickles in my ice cream, nothing funny like that. Really it is more like things that I never really thought of before I was pregnant. I now know too what a craving for something really is. It is not just a thought of "oh, that would taste good." It is more like I dont want to eat anything other than that.
My first one at 7 weeks was butter pecan ice cream. After it was satisfied I didn't want it again.

Then while I was sick all the time, all I really wanted was popsicles and ice. Lots of ice!!! Ice in anything that I would drink. Really I just loved anything cold and soothing.

So the last 2 weeks have been very interesting. All I could think of was boiled peanuts and pizza. The funny thing about that is that in all of my life I have never even really liked pizza. I am from Georgia so of course like any southern girl I love me some boiled peanuts.

Poor Shea has had to listen to me talk about pizza every time a commercial comes on. First, I thought let's do this the healthy way and eat a whole grain Kashi pizza......but this baby wanted something better.

Last Thursday we went to Rob and Bonnie's house to watch South Carolina beat the #4 team in the country. GO GAMECOCKS! My wonderful husband ordered us some Papa Johns pizza. Yummy!

Now, the boiled peanuts request is a little tricky. It turns out that the only farm in the south that has any is the Free family farm in Swainsboro, GA (Jamie's family). Shea questioned my sanity though when I talked about taking a trip to get some. I have really searched high and low.

Don't worry there is a happy ending to the story.......Shea was at work on Saturday and a girl came in with a bag full of boiled peanuts trying to get rid of them. He told her about his pitifull, pregnant wife and walked away with a bag full. So that night I got the surprise of my life (except for getting pregnant after being married 2 weeks). I loved every bite. And much to my surprise I am still craving them.

Wow, I cant believe that I just rambled on and on about pizza and boiled peanuts......there really isn't a lot going on in my life it seems!

Gamecocks vs. UGA

This past weekend finally got to use one of the coolest wedding gifts that we received. My wonderful brother Ricky bought us tickets to the always exciting USC vs. UGA game. Shea and I are South Carolina fans of course while my family members are staunch Georgia supporters.
We drove to Macon on Friday to check into our room. I got to spend some time with my family which I enjoyed. I especially enjoyed seeing Asher. He turned 2 on Thursday and is as cute as ever. His animated personality keeps us in stitches.
We drove to Athens for the game Saturday. It was an exciting game to see in person. Shea and I were way out numbered. Our team played a great game but unfortunately did not win.
I am hoping this will become a new family tradition every year. Playing against each other was cool to see all together. It was terrific weekend full of fun, excitement and more importantly family time.

We had an awesome time! Thank you Ricky!!!

I have been told that after you have a baby that there is very little time for scrap booking. I am sure this is very true. One of the first goals I made when I found out that I was pregnant was to complete our wedding scrapbook at least digitally before the baby is here. I am sure that after his/her arrival the furthest thing from my mind will be archiving my wedding day. I am sure that all of my focus will be on scrapping first baths, smiles, etc. Our wedding was so beautiful and sweet, everything I could have imagined and I don't want those precious memories to be swept under the rug never to be archived.Before I found out about the baby I had already completed a few pages. Since then, I haven't done any (I haven't even opened span Photoshop in over 6 weeks). I am beginning to feel human again though so it is time to put my goals into actions.Completing our wedding album is among those at the top of the list.

Wedding Bouquets

This is a page of my bridesmaids and I picking out our bouquets the morning of the wedding. We went to the marioI got a ton of compliments on the flowers. I have to say that they were really beautiful. The wonderful lady that helped is one of my fondest memories of that experience. She shared genuine joy with us in the celebration of the moment and was honored to be a part of it.
It was a really creative way to take care of one of the biggest parts of a wedding.....but just awesome if I do say so myself!
This is a picture of Jamie, Me and Nicki with our bouquets. I am going to include in another page. I got it after I had already made this one. I thought I would throw it in this post though since it's us girls and our flowers.