Our Baby Girl

These are some amazing 3D pictures of our baby girl. We had an ultrasound done today to check out some issues with her kidneys. As it turns out she only has one functioning kidney. The other kidney is not working but the doctors are certain that she will be just fine with one. We will have to see a pediatric urologist when she is born.Everything else checked out just perfect! We are praising God again for allowing me the opportunity to go to the doctor and see the ultrasound! We will be going back in 4 weeks for a recheck and Allen and I both will get to see her! Keep praying that everything continues to go well.

Ringing In the New Year!

We took a trip to the lake for a New Year's celebration and fun before we go back to school with the Kinard and Padgett families! On the way down we stopped and ate at Chick-fila! When we got to the lake house we unpacked our food. Below is what we had:
Yes, I know you ask how long were you staying? Well we spent 2 nights there and yes that is 4 dozen doughnuts you see in the picture. We had 6 kids and 6 adults to feed so we needed some food! Of course immediately after arriving this is what we did with the Padgett kids and Peyton:
We hung out talking and playing the Wii on New Year's Eve until around 2 (that is the adults plus Peyton) ! Here are some pictures of the fun:

This is the only picture I had with all three of us in it-in case you are wondering that is our sparkling grape juice for our New Year's toast we are drinking.

Kevin and Jennifer Ringing in the New Year Brad and Katie toasting with our delicious sparkling grape juice On New Year's Day we got up and made yummy munchies to eat while watching the Gamecocks and Tigers play in their bowl games. Everyone stayed in their PJ's until the late afternoon. Too bad neither of our teams won so we had nothing to celebrate! In the afternoon the kids headed to the lake in an attempt to feed the ducks but for some reason when we headed down the dock they all went away! So instead we fed one little fish who enjoyed gobbling up all our bread! It was a fun adventure and no one ended up in the water!

Feeding the fish on the dock

On New Year's Day night we decided to try and make fondue with a fondue set I bought at an after Christmas sale! It was really fun and very yummy! Allen was the master chef and added milk chocolate, white chocolate and peanut butter to our mix. We enjoyed dipping apples, bananas, angel food cake and marshmallows into the dip. As you can see below everyone enjoyed it!

Master Chef Allen and his lovely assistant Jennifer

The girls stayed up late talking and looking up baby names on the Internet. While Brad and Allen played the Wii, Kevin and the kids all went to bed around 10:30. It was so much fun! This morning I got to be awakened the second morning in a row by a sweet little blonde coming to my room! It was nice to wake up to some sweet smiling faces both mornings even if I had only gotten a few hours sleep!
Unfortunately, we all had to come back home today. Thankfully, we cleaned our house before we left so all we have to do is laundry to get everything ready for returning to the real world on Monday. This has been a great start to 2009 and I can't wait to see how God will work in our lives this year.

Christmas Recap

After our Christmas get together on Sunday we had some sort of celebration every night until Christmas. On Monday, we went to dinner and exchanged presents with Amy and Heath (this year just Peyton got presents because we cut back on exchanging this year). But of course I didn't have the camera for this event. As always we had a blast with Amy and Heath.
On Tuesday, we exchanged presents with the Dunn side of the family. Peyton and Bronson had a great time playing together and Miea enjoying looking on. I know she will be glad next year not to be the only girl in the crowd!

Peyton and Bronson opening their football to keep at Grandma's house

One of Bronson's cool toys

Christmas Eve we went back to Allen's moms for lunch and then went to my mom's for dinner. We didn't take any picture at either place!
On Christmas morning Peyton was excited to see what all Santa had left him. I was very proud of him this year. He had asked for two big things that Santa just couldn't bring this year but he was very happy with what he got.

Checking out the things Santa left under the tree

One of his favorite gifts from Santa was 4 seasons of Saved by the Bell! He loves this show and has recorded it every time it comes on so now his dad is glad he can watch in his room instead of the living room. I laugh every time I watch it because their clothes and hairstyles are so crazy and we actually dressed like that!

Modeling his rubber boots Santa got him. I guess Santa knew he wears Stuart and Kady's boots whenever they go exploring and needed some of his own!

This is one shot from Christmas morning that you don't usually see. We told Peyton we were not going to open gifts until we got the breakfast dishes done so he stepped in to help! This mainly serves as evidence he does know how to dry so that the next time I ask for help he can't say no!

Peyton and Grammie at my mom's Christmas morning

Peyton showing off a gift for his little sister, it is a pig that sings "My Girl" so cute!

Uncle Scott got Peyton a huge airplane and the boys had fun flying it at my parents house. Unfortunately it took a few crash landings and needs some repairs before it can fly again.

We also got to spend time with my aunt and cousins this week. I am so mad at myself because I have no pictures of my beautiful cousins and Peyton! But they had a blast. Peyton spent the night with my parents and got up the next morning and played Scrabble with my mom, Grammie, Great Aunt Susie and cousin Elizabeth. We had a great time catching up and Peyton thinks he has the coolest Great Aunt ever! She sung different versions of "Jingle Bells"over and over with him, taught him some lovely manners and didn't mind acting silly with him. I guess it comes from being a teacher of Gifted fifth graders to know what he likes! It has been a great break so far despite the fact that we have done nothing we planned to do! The nursery is still not been looked at and the house is a wreck but we have had a good time! Today I enjoyed shopping with Kelli where we made the mistake of going into Gymboree and picked out a few things for our baby girl. Tonight we had dinner with the Dimsdales and enjoyed catching up! We are looking forward to finishing out our break and spending more time with friends!

Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner

I entered two blog contests this month and won both!! I was so excited because I never win anything! Yippee ! Below is my loot:

I entered to win an ABC family pack of holiday DVD's and got these three movies:

I won a handmade necklace from Libby and it is so cute! I am going to be ordering some more for other people when she starts selling. Plus she threw in a bonus pair of earrings!(I don't have a picture of the earrings because I was wearing them!) Thanks Libby!

I am going to start looking for more to enter now! I did get an e-mail the other day that I had won a million British pounds but something tells me that was a scam! Hope everyone is having a great Christmas break! Thanks to my dear friend Jennifer for introducing me to the giveaway world!

Christmas Get Together

Sunday we had our family get together with my mom's side of the family. It was lots of fun and Peyton enjoyed playing with his cousins. He managed to be covered in mud after only being there for 10 minutes!

The annual Men Photo

The annual Women Photo -plus one next year :)

My cousin, Traci and Allen for years traded gag gifts. We have not done it in a few years but since she has gotten married we decided to pick on her husband, Matt. A few years ago Traci's gift to Allen was a Christmas singing fish. This year I returned it to her husband so they can hang it on their mantel! :) She was thrilled to get it and will put it right next to her singing James Brown that Allen got her a few years back! Peyton having fun opening some of his neat Christmas gifts We had a great time laughing and sharing stories of our childhood. We always have such a fun time when we get together! We said we should do it more often but then the hustle and bustle of the real world steps in and before we know it another year has passed. We are looking forward to spending time with more family this week and enjoying being off of work!

Family Holiday Writing

Peyton is in writing club at his school and on Tuesday they had family holiday writing. Allen and I joined him to write about some of our family memories. It was a nice to talk about some of our families tradition and it occurred to me that many of my traditions are being passed on to Peyton. For example, my family always opens one present on Christmas Eve and we always stay up to see that Santa has been spotted on the weather radar before going to bed. We still do both of those things with Peyton. He said his fondest memory is when Santa left a basketball goal outside for him. He said I remember waking up and thinking he forgot and then I saw a note to look outside. Below are some pictures of our time.

Peyton working on his story

Allen and Peyton writing together Peyton and his buddy Kyle

Our family

Peyton and me

It was a sweet time together and it was really touching to hear all the stories about Christmas. I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

A Wonderfully Busy Weekend

This weekend was extremely busy but lots of fun. On Friday night Kelli, Jennifer, Katie and I went shopping for our Angel tree child. We ate a yummy dinner at PF Changs, where they have the most wonderful Chicken Quesadillas (all though it says on the menu don't call them that)! After dinner we proceeded to shop, shop,and shop! We kept Kelli out way past her bedtime! When I came home I had a surprise waiting for me from my two guys:
They got me this rose to celebrate finding out we are having a girl! It was so sweet of them! Then Jennifer and Katie stayed over to watch the ultrasound of our baby girl. Afterwards we got a little chatty(that never happens!) and before we knew it they were leaving my house at 1:00!

Needless to say I was tired Saturday morning. But our busy weekend continued. We traveled to my mom's hometown to see my Grammie in the Christmas parade! She was the Grand Marshall of the parade! It was lots of fun and my Grammie looked beautiful! Allen, Peyton and I stayed the night with her and enjoyed being spoiled. Saturday night she made homemade chicken salad and salmon stew (which she attempted to teach me to make but after not knowing what a double boiler is I think she gave up!). Sunday morning I woke up to bacon frying and a breakfast of eggs, grits and toast. Then we went to church with her and enjoyed lunch with my Uncle, Aunt and cousins. It was a wonderful weekend and we enjoyed visiting.

My cousin, Traci, me and Peyton waiting on the parade

Grammie riding in style

Grammie and her pretty red hat
Grammie and Peyton (holding the blue ribbon my Uncle won for most original float)
Sunday afternoon we came back so I would have time to make something to take to our Sunday school party that night. However, we weren't counting on getting stuck in a Christmas parade for 40 minutes! So.. Publix once again came to the rescue and we made it home just in time to have a great night of fellowship with our Sunday school class. It was such a busy weekend but we got to spend it with our family and friends so all the rushing around was worth it! Now we are counting down the days until Christmas break!YIPPEE!