winter wedding

My cousin Jennifer New became Jennifer Boyce yesterday afternoon! She was a gorgeous bride just as I expected. We couldn't be any happier for her and Jeff and their families to be joined together as one. Jeff is an answered prayer in Jennifer's life and Jen to Jeff.
Here's a shot of my whole family at the reception.. my brothers were all ushers. Don't they look handsome? :)

Me and Jennifer and Zoe, too! Jennifer has always been beautiful but she was absolutely gorgeous and glowing and smiling ear to ear on her big day! Love it!

Me and Daddy to be!

Cousin's picture! This is about half of us cousin's with our significant others. I wish everyone could have been there, but I don't know how we would have fit them in the picture..;)

Sweet Katy! Jennifer's little girl was their flower girl. She is precious. She named her build-a-bear "Joey" after Zoe. (She has a hard time with her Z's. HA! :)) She told my Aunt Mary that she was going to "love the baby and feed the baby and play with the baby when she got here." Too sweet!

Us girls hanging out by the coffee, waiting on the bride and groom!

Hot chocolate packets "Perfect Mix - Jeff and Jennifer"

Jennifer is "GREEN"! Loved this, so Jennifer!

The centerpieces, very unique and I must say I always love the disposable cameras. We got some great pictures from our wedding reception with them and found out people were there that we never got to see! Always a good idea.

THE CAKE! Delicious and beautiful. Me, Lara and Jessie had a good time serving it.. somehow we didn't slaughter it or tump it over! :) Definitely a joint effort!


Congrats to Jennifer and Jeff! They are off to Jamaica mon'

32 weeks & 4 days

Not the best picture of me so far.. but look at that belly!!!

32 weeks and dreaming of our home

Pregnancy Highlights

How far along? 32 weeks 1 day

Baby's size? According to What to Expect When You're Expecting, she is about 19 in, 4.5 lbs, the size of a honeydew

Weight Gain? where it should be, but I go back to the doctor Monday to find out how this past month has been. Thinking I may have gone over the recommended pound a week =/

Maternity clothes? ohhh yeah.. no doubt! Still in leggings or yoga pants as much as possible!

Stretch marks? not yet but I still see a couple trying to form. The doctor made a comment last time I went in about how much lotion I had on my belly, HA! I try to stay lathered up pretty well.

Belly Button in or out? In but definitely more shallow

Sleeping? Pretty good for the most part. Wake myself sometimes right when I'm falling asleep trying to catch my breath/get my breathing regulated. This baby is crowding my lungs!

Foods I'm loving? nothing in particular

Foods I'm hating? getting kinda grossed out again by some meats... mainly sausage and steak.

Movement? most definitely and strong movements!

Best moment this week? finding a daycare in Bossier that can get me in!!!

Symptoms? nausea a couple of times in the past week when I get hungry.. like it was in the beginning. But nothing unbearable.

What I miss? my husband :)

What I'm looking forward to? our anniversary on the 19th and my cousin Jennifer's wedding on the 15th!

Weekly Wisdom: Drink lots of water!

Milestones: Zoe could be here within the next 6-8 weeks!

Emotions: pretty normal.. considering the stress of our whole living situation, I think I'm holding up pretty good.

Speaking of our living situation...
We spent new years eve moving the last of our stuff out of our old house and cleaning. On the 1st the renters moved in and on the 2nd we took the rest of our stuff to storage in Shreveport. My parents went with us and helped and we took them by the house that we were thinking very seriously about. I was on the phone with Scott when he went to the house for the first time and he was walking around it looking in the windows and told me "I want this house. This is the house." Two days later, I took off work to go down there and have a realtor show us the house and we both loved it.

What we love: the neighborhood, the sidewalks, the location, the school district, the size of the home, the CLOSET SPACE, the living area, the potential, the fact that we could be there forever and not outgrow it.

What we would/will change: paint! (there is wallpaper in the bathrooms and kitchen) new carpet ASAP and eventually new appliances. I can live with the appliances it has now, but the carpet has GOT to go. The carpet and paint are something we'd like to do before even moving in, which means we've got to get on the ball!.. And we have! The owners have accepted our offer, now we are waiting on a couple of things from the seller's bank before we can move forward with our bank, get the house inspected and get this show on the road!

We are trying to not get our hearts set on it because there is always a possibility when buying a house that something could fall through. We just keep reminding ourselves it's all in God's hands. He knows where we will be, what we can afford and where He wants us to use us! Now that's not to say that we won't be disappointed if it doesn't work out.. but we will move on. There are still a couple of houses we would consider if this one fell through and even the possibility of just renting an apartment.

P.S. the house is on "short sale" which is before it goes into foreclosure. We've been told can be a little tricky when buying a home.

Here's our "dream home". It was rainy the day I took this picture, so the roof looks kinda funny.



Say a little prayer for us! :)

Christmas fun with the families

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Ours was great but busy as always. We've already decided we will be staying at home next year with our Zoe girl and let whoever wants to, come to us. I LOVE getting to see everyone, but I just can't imagine trying to do it all with a 9 month old! We may feel this way too because this year we didn't have our "home" to enjoy over the holidays. I will say that just yesterday I was thinking about how glad I was to not have to worry with putting up Christmas decor!

Scott and I got a lot of gift cards to restaurants and the movies which is really what we'd asked for so we could have some date nights considering we are homeless right now. (Not really! We are so very blessed to have our families right now, just not much alone time these days) This baby girl got good and spoiled and we've only just begun! I will try to post pictures of her fun stuff later. She got hats, bows and blankets and a few other little fun things! I had more fun opening stuff for her than myself by far!

Here's a few random pictures I snapped. I wish I had more of my whole family together but this is all I got. Still some keepers for sure :)

Scott helping mom in the kitchen!

Yummy munchies before dinner mom prepared.

Me, Scott and Zoe! Last Christmas as a family of 2. :)
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My brother, Paul and his girlfriend Natalie. So glad she got to spend Christmas with us!

Uncle Paul got caught by the camera lovin' on Zoe :)

Doc's elf hat that he wears proudly every year for the past 3 years.



On to Christmas with Scott's family.. At his mom's Ashtyn was the center of attention! She racked up, too! She got her own little recliner and this horse trailer was her favorite I believe. She absolutely LOVES horses.

Uncle Scotty with his little sweet pea.

Ashtyn was so excited to watch "Spirit" on her new princess TV

Then on to Scott's grandmother's house.. with his Step mom and two half sisters.

Scotty with Anglique and Sophia. These girls are SO excited about being Aunts!

Scott with his great Granny who turns 89 next month! Might I add.. I love this picture of my hubby. He looks (and is) so sweet.


Happy New Year, too!!!
P.S. Don't expect any big post or pictures from my new years. I hope to be in bed before the turn of the new year :)

southbound

We are officially moving/moved out! Scott took a week off to come home and get everything packed up and ready to haul off to storage in Shreveport. We had no luck house hunting last Thursday so off to storage we go! We love our realtor and we know there's a home there for us, just didn't find it that one day.

With the help of our family (as always!) we got most of our stuff moved. I took off Thursday to help pack and seriously over worked myself. I tried not to, but there was just SO much that had to be done! It was physically and emotionally draining. I woke up at 6:30 and couldn't lay there any longer thinking about what all needed to be done. About 5:00 that night Luke came over to help Scott load up boxes on the u-haul, I ordered us pizza and crashed out on the couch about 7:00 and didn't move til I had to get in bed. EXHAUSTED. Friday, Scott, Dad and Scott's brother loaded up the big stuff and hauled it all down to Shreveport to storage and headed straight back. Poor Scott worked so hard his whole "vacation" week and was worn smack out. When I got home from work Friday I came home to this:


I didn't think we'd still have our TV but they couldn't fit everything on the uhaul so we will be making one more moving trip. This is where we spent all Friday night and ALL Sunday. We seriously ate breakfast and lunch in front of the TV, took a nap then finally about 4 decided we should get showers and do something. Like I said.. we were just WIPED OUT.

Here's a few pics of our messy house and the boys loading up!




Saturday we had a very eventful day. We went to visit my sister-in-law and her baby girl, Ashtyn that morning. Never a dull moment! Then, went by Scott's grandmother and great grandmother's to visit for a bit. Then on to Marshall, Texas to my grandmother's book signing and shopping/walking around. My cousin and her fiance and my aunt and my other cousin and all of my family was all in Marshall, too so we got to all hang out for awhile before going to our big family Christmas down on Caddo Lake.



Scott and I in Marshall at the court house. Broadmoor Baptist choir was singing on the front steps. They have an ice skaing rink and lights decorating all downtown. We had our second date and first kiss there. :)





My Dad's cousin's step daughter's baby (eazy enough, right?) She is 8 weeks old and she was so precious! I held her probably more than anyone there. :)


I look "oober pregnant" (as my co-worker Daniel would say) in this picture.


Annnnd the official 29 weeks prego pic! (please excuse the lack of makeup, this was moving day and we got half way put together to go grab some lunch!)

home sweet home

We are going to meet with a real estate agent tomorrow and she's going to show us 8-10 houses we're interested in or she thinks we may like. We are very excited to get the ball rolling on the house hunting!
I've driven by this one a few times and I love it. It's in the Broadmoor area which we are most familiar with and would really like to be.

This one is in Bossier and I haven't seen it in "real life" but it looks cute from the pictures I've seen.

We have been looking in mainly Bossier and the Broadmoor area in Shreveport. The one thing I love the most about the houses in Shreveport is SIDEWALKS! Perfect for jogging along with baby Zoe in the stroller.
No matter how many houses we look at, it still makes me sad to leave our home..


Headed to Shreveport now!
Wish us luck!!!

zoe's first

Scott got me and Zoe matching turquoise bracelets when he was out in Scottsdale Arizona a couple of weeks ago. I absolutely LOVE them. He told me he'd gotten me one big gift and one small gift. He did good. He's gonna be the sweetest daddy.


Zoe's first bow! I bought not long after I found out the sex of the baby. Surprisingly I haven't gone bow crazy. My day will come.


And Zoe's first real "outfit" I bought her. I've bought her little things here and there but this is her first outfit. I got it at Carter's outlet store on the Boardwalk in Bossier. I could've bought the store out. I found shoes that matched it perfectly but they didn't have the right size. Love this little cardigan! And the pants have little bows on the back.

And here's mommy at 25 weeks!