Just a rambling...

It feels weird not having a doctors appointment this week...  I have gone to the doctor just about every week since the first of December...  my bank account is thankful but it just seems odd to me...

I don't go back until April 8.  That is my sweet nephew, Gavin's first birthday!  I can't believe that he is going to be one!!!

I am still feeling great and I'm so thankful for my little Jellybean!  I am so anxious to start decorating the nursery.  I already have the crib picked out.  My parents are going to buy the crib for us (we are going to put some money towards it too because the one we picked out is a little more expensive than the one I had originally picked out, we changed from that one because of recalls.)...  I have been looking at bedding also...  I have it narrowed down to two for a girl and four for a boy...  Decisions, decisions...

I know I'm not that far along yet but I am so ready to start my registry!  At lunch I sit at my desk and browse Babies R Us and Target's baby section...  There are so many cute things!!!  I'm not sure what is an absolute must for a registry so any help on that would be great!

The bedroom that is going to be the nursery is kind of small so I have been thinking of how I want to arrange it...  I need to draw a little diagram of the room and work it out that way...  I'm a visual person so just imagining it in my head doesn't work for me...

Also, I have a chair that I am going to recover to go in the nursery...  It is one of the chairs that I got at the local antique mall for my birthday...  I have no clue how to recover a chair so if you know of any good websites that have step by step instructions that would be awesome!

Let's see, what else was I going to tell you???  Oh yeah!  Zach and I have been talking about me staying home with the baby instead of putting him or her in daycare...  Will you pray that if it is in God's plan for me to stay home with our Jellybean that everything will work out?

Thanks everyone!  That's all I have time for right now...  I hope you have a great Wednesday!

Gavin Update

Zach's Aunt Margaret posted an update on Facebook...

Right now they have him hooked up to I.V's and putting in a catheter. They will be doing the same x-rays and sonars to see what they can find.

Hopefully they will know more soon. Keep praying for them.

Prayer Request

OK, Blogging Buddies! I have a prayer request for you!

My nephew Gavin is on his way to Children's Hospital again. He started throwing up again this morning like he did last weekend so they carried him to his pediatrician and they are sending him to Children's.

I will update as I know more. Please keep Erika, Lee, and Gavin in your prayers.

Patrick and Heather's Wedding

On Saturday we officially added a new member to the family! Patrick and Heather got married!!!

Welcome to the family Heather!!!

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures...

I am at Karmen's using her internet so I thought I would upload a few pictures, in no particular order...

Just plain ol' me

Do you ever have so many thoughts running through your head you just don't have the time to sit down and write them all out... yeah that has been me lately! I have so much going on that I don't have the time to sit down and write it all out to post on here. But today I am making time to do that...

Warning: lots of random stuff here...

I read so many blogs about people who have kids, people who are trying to get pregnant, people who are funny, people who have dealt with tragedies and all kinds of other scenarios. But I don't have any of that. I am just plain ol' me. I don't have a baby, I am not pregnant nor am I trying to conceive, and I haven't dealt with any kind of tragedy... it is just me and my hubby and our day to day lives. To some it may seem boring but me? I'm thankful for what I have and where I am now. This is exactly where God wants me to be right now. I can't change what he has planned nor do I want to change that...

We have been moving stuff back to our house and I have been going through things to set aside for a yard sale... and I have been reminiscing over pictures, collectibles, our wedding invitation (which we still have oodles of), things from family members that have been passed down to me, just so many different things that bring back so many memories... I found pictures from when Zach and I started dating back in 2002 and it brought back so many memories!!! I found the handkerchief that I carried in memory of my Granddaddy Parker at my wedding. (It was a white handkerchief with a blue "P" embroidered on it so it was my something blue too.) I found nick knacks that I had in my room at my mom and dad's house, I found wedding gifts that got put in the closet that are still in the box, I found my smock from when I worked at the pharmacy... So many memories and I had a blast going through everything.

I can't wait to get my house in order so that I can go through and take pictures and show it to you all. Kelly over at Kelly's Korner is doing a Show us Where You Live Friday series that I completely missed because I have not been at my house so I may do one or two rooms each day for a week so I can get caught up... I want to share our little house with you... and when I say little I literally mean little. We live in a 2 bedrooms 2 bathrooms garden home, but it is perfect for us for now...

Ava and Gavin are both growing like weeds. Ava is so funny and she talks all the time, I sure do miss that little girl... It was so weird to go home yesterday after work and not get a hug and a kiss from her... she made my day everyday with her hugs and kisses. Now Mr. Gavin, he is absolutely precious! He is smiling now and it melts my heart for him to smile at me. It melts my heart even more to see Zach interact with him... he is going to be such a great daddy some day!

Do you remember me saying that I won the book The Love Dare? Well I started it last night. I didn't know that it was a 40 day "challenge"... so the next 40 days of reading is dedicated to The Love Dare... I will try to share my thoughts each day... Last night was about patience, and patience is something that I struggle with daily because I am an impatient person but I am working on it.

Zach is in the process of find a job. Something that uses his training from the Army. His MOS is 25U-Signal Support Systems Specialist. If you would like to Google that and give me any ideas of what he could do we would greatly appreciate it... When he processed with his unit today they gave him a website to look at so maybe between that and you guys he can find something.

I am in desperate need of new pictures of me and Zach not just your ordinary candid shots, I want professional photos to hang in our house. I guess the last professional pictures we had were our wedding pictures and that was almost three years ago... My only hold up is the cost... It is so expensive to have professional photos taken and then I end up going crazy when I actually order the prints. When we had photos taken on the beach several years ago I spent over $200 on prints! There were so many that I liked!!!

Do you remember my friends Katie and Joseph... well if you have been following her blog you already know that Joseph made it to Iraq safely. Please remember to keep them in your prayers as they go through the next 15 months apart!

These are just a few of the things running through my little ol' brain right now and that is just a glimpse at little ol' me!

Happy Mother's Day!

Now, before you start leaving comments that say "Kristen, Mother's Day was like two weeks ago..." I realize that, but my mom's gift from me and Zach is a little weekend getaway... which is taking place this weekend!

Mom will be making the trip with me to Augusta on Friday and we plan to sight see and eat lunch and just hang out together until Zach gets out of class for the day and then eat dinner with him. Then we are going to spend the night there and pick Zach up on Saturday morning at 8:00. Then we are making the drive back to Birmingham!!!

We are both so excited to go and are even more excited that we will be bringing Zach home with us!!!

I am so excited about spending this weekend with Zach! We were so excited when they approved his pass to come home and everyone else is excited to see him too!!! I think he is most excited to see Gavin because he is six weeks old and he has not seen him yet! That will change on Saturday though... Uncle Zach will be a Gavin hog! And that is just fine by us!

I have one more full day to work this week and then I am off for five whole days with my huggy hubby!

You guys may not hear a lot from me while he is home but I am sure you understand!

Happy Wednesday!

Enough with the pictures Chickie...

Get used to it little buddy... your Chickie is a picture taking fanatic!

What a week and it isn't even over yet...

I have accomplished so much this week at work... With the transition to my new position a lot of things fell behind and I finally got caught back up! My goal was to get it all caught up by Friday and I have been working like a mad woman to get it all caught up and I did it and finished ahead of my goal!!! Go me!!!

I got to love on Gavin last night. He was fussy when I got there so I just loved on him and rocked him and he went right off to sleep... I love to snuggle him. I can remember when Ava was that little and I used to snuggle her too... She isn't all about snuggling anymore, but she will give hugs and kisses... I will just have to snuggle Gavin until I have my own child or someone else in my family has a baby.

Zach has a 4 day weekend at Memorial day and guess who has a 5 day weekend at Memorial day? Um , yeah, that would be ME!!! I am off on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, AND Tuesday! I am so excited to spend some extra time with Zach. We both really need the long weekend... he is really homesick and I am really ready for him to come home!

If you haven't visited Karmen's blog yet you need to head on over there and check it out... I am so glad she is back to blogging!!!

Yes I know this post is filled with completely random stuff but there is so much going on, I had to share it!!! I need to get back to working, have a happy Wednesday!

* edit: I am thinking of doing a giveaway sometime in the near future... not sure what it will be or when but I am thinking about it, any ideas??? *

Introduction...

Hi, I am Kristen...

My Huggy Hubby is Zach...

I am the twin sister to Karmen... who is married to Matt... and their daughter (my fabulous niece) is Ava!

I am the daughter to Jerry and Marie... and the daughter-in-law to Kathy and Larry...

I am the sister-in-law to Erika who is married to Lee and they have my fabulous nephew, Gavin... I am also the sister-in-law to Patrick who is engaged to Heather.

Why all the real names you ask??? Well the reason I started using nicknames was because my sister, Karmen used nicknames for her family and I didn't want to use their real names here and people go back to her blog where she tried to keep their real names secret! Well, she is coming back from a blogging hiatus and she has decided to start using real names and I am so glad because it was so hard for me to try to come up with nicknames for everyone (I mainly just used initials) and I had to triple check my posts to make sure no real names were used!

Thank you Karmen for switching back to real names, you just made my life a whole lot easier!!!

Baby Watch 2009 *update* *again*

Baby G was going to be here today no matter what. My SIL was scheduled to be at the hospital at 5 this morning to be induced... well she didn't make it to 5! Her water broke at 1:30, she got her epidural at 5:30, and at 6:30 when she sent me a text message she was 8cm! Then her mom called me at 7:30 and said she was at 9.5cm! They are supposed to call me when he is here! I can't wait to meet the little guy!

I have come up with a nickname for baby G. He will be Grover on my blog, not in real life though! I read The Nanny Diaries several years ago and she called the little boy that she babysat Grover and I thought that was cute! So baby G = Grover (like the Muppets character), got it?

As soon as I hear from someone at the hospital I will let you all know!!!

*11:00 am: Just talked to my MIL, E has been pushing for 2 hours with no luck so they are going to do a c-section.

*12:12 pm: My MIL just called and Grover is here!!! She doesn't have his weight or anything yet but she said that they told them that everything went well! As soon as I know more I will update again!

Pictures from this past weekend

The beautiful sunset!

Huggy Hubby, Me, J, and Miss K (It has been so much fun to hang out with them, Miss K has a special place in my heart because she actually knows what I am going through and it is so nice to finally have someone to talk to who has been where I am.)

Me and Huggy Hubby all cuddled up on the boat!

Prayer Request: My SIL, E, has to be at the hospital tomorrow morning at 5! Baby G will hopefully be here when I get off of work tomorrow afternoon, I can't wait to finally meet him! Please pray that everything goes well for all of them!

*On a side note: K will now lovingly be known as Miss K because I like how that sounds! Hope that is ok with you Miss K!

More things to come... *updated*

I uploaded the pictures from Saturday evening's boat tour but I haven't had the chance to edit them yet, as soon as they are edited I will post them! It may not be tonight or tomorrow, there are some big things happening tonight and possibly E will have the baby tomorrow (more on this in a minute).

The big things happening tonight I can't really elaborate on right now but please pray about tonight and I promise I will tell you about it this evening when it is over.

E goes to the doctor today and if she hasn't progressed they will "get things rolling" so hopefully they will tell her to be at the hospital early tomorrow morning to induce her!!! I can't wait to meet Baby G! I love holding babies, the only bad thing is that holding a baby makes me want a baby... but no baby for us anytime soon!

My MIL started her new job today, I hope everything is going well for her! I will call her later and see how it is going.

HH and I had a great time this weekend with K and J. We didn't eat at the German restaurant because it wasn't in the best part of town so we went to a Mexican restaurant instead! It was fabulous! After we left the Mexican restaurant we went to Wal-Mart to buy swim suits because K and J's hotel had a hot tub and we all decided to use it! It was nice but it was extremely hot.

So anyways, I made it home yesterday around 6:30. When this is over with I will hate driving even more than I already do! I have already told HH when he graduates he is driving home!

I only have to work 4 days this week and I have not made our reservations in Athens for this weekend yet, but as soon as I get word from HH I will!

Okie dokie, another post coming tonight, I promise!!! Until then, have a great day!

*I just talked to E and she has to be at the hospital at 5:00am on Wednesday so baby G will be here in time for Easter!*

This has been such a long week!!!

It is finally Friday and I will be making my weekly 300 mile, 4 hour drive to Augusta today after work. I am so excited because I get to see HH. I miss him terribly and I look forward to Fridays because I know I will get to see him!

I am particularly excited about this weekend because we are hanging out with K and J again! We have all agreed to try the local German restaurant on Saturday and we are also going on a sunset boat tour!!! K and I are super excited, now the boys I am not so sure about. Hopefully I can get a picture of the four of us this weekend to post!!! They are so much fun!

My SIL, E, goes back to the doctor on Monday and if she hasn't progressed past 1.5 cm they are going to "get things rolling" so we will have Baby G here next week sometime!

In my family we have a tradition of dying Easter eggs with My Nanny, my mom's mom. We have never done this with my mom it has always been at My Nanny's house! But this year I will be missing out on the fun because I will be in Augusta with HH! Yes I am 23 years old and still dye Easter eggs, its tradition!

Notice I called my grandmother My Nanny she isn't just Nanny she is My Nanny. That is what my sister and I used to call her when we were little and it sort of stuck! I will have to get a picture of My Nanny to show you, she is so much fun and such a wonderful person! I love her to pieces!!!

Anyways, I am going to go and count down the hours until I can leave to go see HH! 6.5 hours to go!!!

Hello, looney bin, can you pick me up?

Today has been absolutely crazy at work. I have had stuff piled all over my desk since before 8:00 this morning! First I have a certain report that has to be finished and locked in by 10:00am. Well at 9:57am I was still working on said report! I just took over this report and I am still learning how to do it... I was almost to the point of tears because I didn't want to be late, but I got it locked in on time with less than a minute to spare!

It has been one thing after another all day, I get close to finishing one thing and someone else brings me something else to do! I mean, I like to stay busy but come on people give me a break, I am only one person!

I finally got enough things caught up to post a short update!

HH made a 100 on his test today!!! WOOHOO!!!!! I am so proud of him!

HH's sister, E, goes to the doctor this afternoon, in about 10 minutes actually and hopefully they will call and tell me that we will have a nephew today (or tomorrow, I'm not picky)!

My friends Winks' grandfather is going to be buried on Friday, so continue to keep them in your prayers.

I have joined a website called Paperback Swap. You can put your books that you have read on there and people can request them from you. The site is free to join but you have to pay for the postage to mail the book... when you mail the book and the person who requested it receives it you get a credit on your PBS account and you can request a book with that credit! If you are interested in joining the site please email me at i_love_you_to_pieces (at) yahoo (dot) com and I will email you a subscription email for you to join under me!!!

Anyways, that is all I have time for right now! Have a great evening and be sure to watch LOST tonight!

Baby Stellan and my nephew *updated*

Baby Stellan is still in need of our prayers... you can click on the button to the right that says "Praying for Stellan" to go directly to MckMama's blog. She has a new post up... PLEASE remember them in your prayers today!

**MckMama has another post up.**

Also, my sister-in-law (SIL) is going to the doctor this afternoon and they are going to decide if they will induce her or not. So I may be an aunt again this evening or tomorrow depending on the doctor's decision today!!! I will let you know! Just pray that the doctors make the right decision and that everything is ok.

*PRAISE*: my MIL got the job!!! She starts April 6th!

Introducing...

My fabulous niece, Peanut... She is such a joy to be around!!!

I will also be the aunt to a fabulous baby boy who is due in the next couple of weeks... (HH's sister, E is pregnant) Baby G will be making his appearance soon and I will be sure to post a picture or two when I get to see him!

Have a fabulous weekend, I am!

UPDATE: I just found out that Baby G will be making an early arrival. E is going to be induced on Wednesday...