It's A......................................................

I prayed for this child and the Lord has given me what I asked of him. 1 Samuel 1:27

Today has been just one of the best days ever. I can't quit smiling. Scott and I met my parents at my doctor's office this afternoon. Mom greeted us with two bags - one for either sex.
Luckily (because I had a very full bladder) - we got in quickly and the ultrasound tech was so great! I was so nervous to know if the baby was okay - and it is PERFECT! We all cried as we watched the precious baby on the screen and saw the heart and the spine and the brain and the feet and hands.
This is a picture of me and my WONDERFUL doctor - I ADORE her! I look terrible because at this point I had cried all of my make-up off.

This is our beautiful, beautiful baby! Although in the top picture - we think it looks like a one eyed pirate. ha!

After our appointment - we went to eat at P.F. Changs with my parents to celebrate.

Oh - are you wondering what this precious baby is????

It's a .....................




GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I screamed and bawled when she told us. I have wanted a girl so badly. I would have been THRILLED with a boy but my heart just longed for a daughter. And deep down - I have known it was a girl all along.

Harper Brown will join our family in 5 short months and I could not be more excited about anything in the entire world!

Praise the Lord - Great things HE has done!!!!!

19 weeks and a BIG day!

19 weeks - the baby is the size of a mango

What a difference a week makes - I am REALLY showing now.

Tomorrow is our BIG day. I don't know if I'll sleep tonight I'm so excited. The biggest thing I'm looking forward to is finding out our baby is okay and healthy. I have a HUGE peace that everything is okay. I know we have had a lot of prayers for us and I thank you.

It's also a big day - because it is going to tell us just what direction our family is about to take.
Will we have a future cheerleader and have our house filled with barbies and big bows and dresses and baby dolls and will her daddy hate all the boys who try to date her and how will we survive when she cries all the time and starts the hormonal teenage angst years and how will we pay for her wedding? Will she be my best friend as she grows into an adult? Will she have a lot of sweet friends who will walk through life with her? Will we give her the self esteem she needs to not worry about how she looks or her weight and to wait for the right boy to marry? Will she go to OBU and follow my legacy as a tri chi? Will we teach her to not be a "mean girl" but to love the unloved and to put others before herself? Will we teach her to count her blessings every day and to see how fortunate she is compared to most of the world? Will we help her to love Jesus more than anything else in the world?

Or will we have a future football player? And will our house be filled with cars and trucks and balls and loud noises and rowdy friends and wrestling and video games? And how will I keep up with all of his dirty clothes? And how on earth will I afford to feed both him and Scott when he becomes a teenager? ha! Will we teach him how to treat girls with respect? Will we teach him to choose his friends wisely? Will we show him how to be a spiritual leader? Can we show him that you can be macho and kind at the same time? Will he be the first Razorback to win the Heisman trophy? (ha!) Will we show him how to be tenderhearted and nice to the kids who don't have friends or come from less fortunate homes? Will he be able to stand up for what's right and not give in to peer pressure? Will he choose ministry over money because his first love has been God all of his life?

We honestly will be THRILLED either way. I think Amanda put it best when she said that even if she COULD choose - she would want God to choose for her. God has supremely planned out our family for us and I can't wait until tomorrow to see what the beginning of that is.

Our appointment is in the afternoon and then we are going to eat with my family to celebrate whatever it is! So when I get home tomorrow night - I'll post right away and let you know.

How can a weekend when we didn't do anything have such a long post?

Friday - I got to leave work early so I hit the mall. I'm 34 and pregnant and I bought things at two stores - Forever 21 and Motherhood Maternity. Does anyone think that's weird? ha! I got a good pair of black maternity pants that should help me get through the next few months but I have to say I'm just not crazy about maternity tops so I went to forever 21 and got a long shirt that will fit me and still look somewhat trendy.

Saturday was one of those great days where I didn't even shower until that night. I slept late, worked in the yard and cleaned the house. I finally feel good and I got caught up on things I've been neglecting. Mean while - Scott and Steve hit the gym and then went to eat at a new Fried Chicken place in town. They took Emily with them and Scott sent me these pictures from his i-phone.

Good thing they hit the gym first, huh?

For the last 3 years- I have taught 4 year old early Sunday School. This year the 3 year old teachers moved at the first of the year - so I ended up with both classes. It's been crazy to say the least. Today - we had SEVENTEEN 3 and 4 year olds - with just Scott and I to manage them. There were several times over the year when we looked at each other and said "Are we SURE we want to have children?" ha! Today was my last day. I won't be able to teach this year with the baby coming so I'm taking some time off. I may go back some time or maybe I'll teach youth girls one day. I'll miss the kids - they have been fun but I'm a little excited for a break!
I had the MOST fun afternoon today. For the last few years - I have heard stories about our pastor's niece, Catherine. She has one of those amazing stories of someone who suffered with infertility so they decided finally to adopt and before that adopted daughter was born - she found out she was pregnant! So now they have a BEAUTIFUL daughter who is 15 months old and a precious son that is 10 months old. They have a double blessing. She has been such a HUGE encouragement to me in the last year - she has e-mailed me so many times and has just lifted my spirits. And today we got to meet in person because she was in town visiting her family. This is her son with her cousin Hannah.

And this is beautiful Anna with her cousin (and my good friend) Elizabeth

I told Scott when I left to go over there that I was only going to stay for an hour - maybe less and I ended up staying for 4 hours. I just had the best time. Catherine's mom and our pastor's wife (they are sisters) and Elizabeth and Hannah just kept me entertained with their stories. We sat on their beautiful deck and just talked and talked. I felt like I had know Catherine forever - she is just as friendly and sweet in person as she is in her e-mails. This is the two of us and her kids in this picture.

I hope ya'll had a good weekend too!!!!

P.S. I'd like to welcome my DAD to the world of blogging!!!! Now if we can get Scott and my brother and his new wife blogging - the whole family will be in on the action! You'll have to check my dad out! :-)

Here comes the Bride

Tonight after work - I headed over to Laurie's so we could drive to Fayetteville and try on our bridesmaid dresses for alterations.

Emily was sitting in the back in her pink sunglasses chewing gum and she reminded me of Elle Woods in "Legally Blond" - I could not quit laughing at her. I made the mistake of giving her a piece of gum out of my purse a few weeks ago and now I am her dealer. Every time she sees me she wants gum and if I don't get it out fast enough she dives for my purse.
We told Emily we were going to a "princess store" and she had the time of her life. We dressed her up like a bride. I told Laurie I would send her this picture and she could use it in Emily's wedding slideshow and I thought Laurie was going to have a breakdown right there in front of me - her eyes started welling up. If she is anything like her momma or her Aunt Kelly - Laurie doesn't have to worry about the wedding for about 27 more years. ha!

Laurie and the bride. I had a good time looking at wedding dresses. There are just so many beautiful ones out there. I wish I could buy a new one every few years to wear.

Shannon was a good babysitter while Laurie and I talked to the owner. She was so nice and she thought I looked like her daughter-in-law so she was telling me all about her and then she told me she went to OBU too and she went over to the computer to pull up her blog to show me what she looked like. I wanted to tell her I blog - but I refrained.

When we left there - Laurie and I and the girls went to Chili's for dinner. We ate a thousand meals at this particular Chili's when we were single and living in F'ville. When we were leaving Emily was acting bad so Laurie had to whip her and we were both in the parking lot trying not to laugh (well - I was standing behind the car dying laughing and Laurie was trying to be serious). I told Laurie it was just funny to think about how much our lives have changed since the days when we used to eat there and talk about how we wished we could find our husbands and now we were wrestling two little girls and trying to eat and talk about feeding schedules and pregnancy issues. Life goes by too fast! Next thing I know - Laurie and I will be eating at Chili's when we have empty nests and wondering what we are going to do with all of our time. :-)

Always A Bridesmaid..........................................

My friend Hillary e-mailed me today to let me know our bridesmaid dresses are in and we are meeting her on Thursday night to look at them and work on getting the dresses taken in or let out. I'm praying my dress fits. I ordered it several months ago before I knew I was pregnant but I had ordered it several sizes big "just in case". It's a really pretty dress so I'm excited to wear it.

I was thinking about the different weddings I've been in over the years and the different dresses I've worn.

Here I was a bridesmaid in my cousin's wedding in 1992

Here are Leigh Ann and I in our friend Kandi's wedding in 1994

Me, Hillary and Laurie in our friend Megan's wedding - 2005

This was Laurie's wedding - October 2004

And these were my pretty bridesmaids in November 2003

I love weddings and it's always fun to be in the wedding party. I think I've been in 8 weddings? And I was a flower girl twice.

How many weddings have you been in? And what was your favorite bridesmaid dress?

18 weeks

18 weeks
Baby H is the size of a sweet potato!! Yikes!

My stomach has definitely grown in the last week - I finally feel like I'm showing.

One of the people I've had on my prayer list for a while, Julia, announced on her blog today that she is pregnant. It's such an encouragement to witness answered prayers. Her blog is private so you won't be able to read her story - but it was very similar to mine - she tried for a long while and had unexplained infertility but then her doctor discovered she needed to be on a certain medicine and boom - she was pregnant. But right before she found out - she had been reading Job 38 and begun to realize she was focusing more on her plans than God's plans and began to give it over to Him. I share this because so many of you are still waiting and I want you to not give up and to keep hoping. Know that I pray for you daily - most of you by name - and I am praying BELIEVING that the God who made this earth can certainly create life within you in His time! Or can bring you the perfect baby to adopt.

Because I am a nerd - today I started working on an excel spreadsheet of all the baby things we need by January. I got most of them off www.thebump.com. I plan on comparing several web sites that list out necessities. But what I'm wondering from all of you moms - are there things you bought that you thought were "must haves" that you soon realized you didn't need at all? And are there things you couldn't have lived without? I want a list from a group of REAL moms!
Help me!!!

Where had the time gone?

Saturday night - Scott and I ordered a pizza and watched "Drillbit Taylor". The movie is pretty much about some high school bullys and I was telling Scott I would not want to go back to high school for anything. College, yes - in a minute, but high school no.


I had a great high school experience. I grew up in a tiny town and graduated with 50 people (and that was one of the biggest classes). I got to be apart of anything I wanted to do - cheerleading, FBLA, national honor society. The kids in our town go to a high school that is bigger than my college was. It's HUGE. I can't imagine going to a school that big.


Lately - I've had a lot of fun by scanning in old, old pictures and posting them on facebook so I can tag all my old friends. It's fun to laugh at how much we've changed. I can't believe I've been out of high school for SEVENTEEN years. (Geez I'm old!)

This is part of my class at a graduation brunch at my house. We were the class with all the fun - we were the class of 91. ha!

This is my sophomore year of cheering. If we spent half as much time on our cheers as we did on fluffing our bangs and spraying them stiff - we could have been a championship squad. This was the best part of high school to me - cheering. I loved it so much!
This is a bunch of us at our 10 year reunion. Since our class was so small - we had a joint reunion with the class in front of us and behind us. It was so much fun. I put it together and I will never do that again. But I do hope someone organizes a 20 year for us because it's fun to see how people have changed or not changed and what their families look like. I truly liked all the people I graduated with and I love running into them. At our 2o year reunion - there will be a lot of my classmates who have 19 or 20 year old children and could even be grandparents and then there will be a few like me who have 2 year olds and everything in between. I don't know if anyone's life turned out exactly like they thought it would on graduation day.

The day I graduated - I planned to go to OBU, meet my husband, become a doctor (ha ha ha ha! yes I was pre-med for 2 years), have children as soon as I got out of med school - by 26 or so and live happily ever after. God knows the plans He has for us. My life didn't turn out anything like I thought but I would dare say it's much better. I certainly never dreamed I would be having my first child at 35. But I'm thankful and blessed for the road God has taken me on. I can't wait to see what lies ahead.

What about you? Did you life turn out like you thought it would be on graduation day?

Slumber Party

Last night was "Kelly and Emily's night of fun"

Thank you for all of your wonderful suggestions and ideas!

We started off with the staple of all good slumber parties - pizza. Emily likes a little pizza and a LOT of ranch dressing.

Then we moved on to doing chalk drawings on our back patio. This was probably Emily's favorite activity. I finally got her to go to sleep last night by promising her we would draw outside in the morning if she would sleep good.

Scott and I got in on the action ourselves. We may just do this when we are alone! :-)

Then we watched a Barbie Princess movie while we held our princess blanket. It's great to be a girl.

We colored with Color Magic Markers. Those are a blessing - no mess!!!!

Of course - we played dress up.

And we did a lot more coloring while we watched cartoons

And we made cookies.

Emily was VERY good while she was with us. She didn't cry - she was very happy. She doesn't sleep much but she went to sleep around 10 and didn't wake up until 7. She and I slept together in the guest room. I had to keep checking her to see if she was still breathing because she was so still. We had such a fun time with her. Dawson even did pretty good with her. He was pretty sweet and patient. He's pretty worn out right now.
It's raining and is supposed to the rest of the weekend so I plan to get lots of rest. All of you moms of toddlers - it is a hard job. I told Laurie that having two had to be really hard. I can't imagine more than that. It's the best job in the world but it's one of the hardest too. Scott and I got a little glimpse of how much our lives are about to change.
We can't wait! :-)

8-8-08

08/08/08

If you have watched TV at all this summer - you know the day is here. The start of the summer olympics. Will you be watching?

I'm not going to lie - I have about 0% interest in the Olympics. I MIGHT watch a little gymnastics if I can just not find a good Lifetime movie or if I've seen all the reality shows on TV.

Back in 1984 I remember watching Mary Lou Retton at my grandmother's house. That was probably the only time in my life I have ever watched with interest. I even did a report on her in 9th grade when we had to do American Dream projects. (I'm kind of thinking the oral report involved me dressing up in gym clothes and leading the class in exercises - oh dear).

IF you watch - what is your favorite part of the Olympics?

On another note - one of my co-workers is in the hospital today having her baby. What a cool birthday, huh? We have a pool going in our office because I think this is going to be a HUGE baby. I can't wait to see how big he is. I picked the day right so if I can just get the weight right -I win! (I guessed 9 lbs 12 oz but I think he's going to be over 10 lbs).

More to this Life

Good Morning America interviewed Stephen Curtis Chapman yesterday about the death of his daughter. If you didn't see it - you should watch this. It was just as good as I knew it would be. I had to DVR it so I could go to work but yesterday at lunch Scott and I watched it. I don't know if it was just pregnancy hormones - but I was crying so hard I could hardly see the TV. I talked to Laurie at lunch today and I was trying to tell her about it and I had to stop because I was starting to cry all over again.

My favorite part is when talked about going back to adopt Maria after seeing a picture of him with her on one his visits to China and knowing that was a picture of a daugher and a father. Precious!

I'm thankful for their faith. Such an amazing family.

Edit: I'm watching the Chapmans on Larry King Live right now. There is such a difference between this interview and GMA - Robin Roberts is a Christian and you could tell how she understood what they were sharing and how she led the questions and you can tell Larry doesn't get it at all. He has no idea what they are talking about. (He keeps calling her "Mary" even though they've told him 10 times her name was "Maria").