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But can you blame me?? :) I have been spending the last 2 weeks loving on and getting to know the "new man" in my life! Put him together with my amazing husband, and I am the happiest woman in the world! Praise God from whom ALL blessing flow!
7.12.2009
Who knew that 28 years later...
Little baby boys are still wearing the same thing!!! This weekend Lee's family in Montgomery threw me a baby shower, and it was a BLAST! Lee's mom, Mrs. Julie (Lolli), is the absolute master of creativity and "sentimentalism"- if that is such a word. In Knox's closet now hangs ALL of Lee's bubbles and Jon Jons and diaper shirts that he wore when he was a baby. I could NOT believe how cute they are...STILL (and how many she kept)! I had to take a pic to show you how not much has changed since then! The two outfits on the outside are Lee's when he was a baby and the one in the middle is the very first outfit that Lee and I bought baby Knox together. Almost identical! I love it. The funny thing is that when we found out that we were having a boy I think that some people were scared that I wouldn't like this kind of stuff, but I actually love it! I know that its not for everyone (my brother thinks I am CRAZY to put these clothes on my baby boy), but I have really come to love them (O.K...still trying to adjust to the day gown thing, but I definitly love bubbles and jon jons), so I am very thankful that Lolli saved these for me to have (and I am thankful that she has her own sewing room and computer system at her house and is pretty much a genius in the sewing department). She also made the day gowns for Knox to come home from the hospital in! She's amazing:
Not to mention that she completed and gave me Lee's baby book that is VERY detailed. I definitely teared up when I opened these sweet gifts and saw all the precious pictures of Lee growing up. I am really hoping Knox favors his daddy! :) Thanks Lolli! We hope you know how much we love and appreciate ALL that you do for us!
I am waaaay too tired to post the pics from the shower, but I will do so as soon as life gets back in order a little bit. Funny thing is that I thought I was ready for Knox to come (possibly 1 and a half to 2 weeks away), but after family visiting and bringing a house full of baby stuff, along with the baby shower, my perfectly clean, organized, and orderly nursery is CRAZY! I am so thankful my sister was here to take the lead and start the "organization intervention". She is the queen of cleanliness and organization. She has 3 little girls and at any time you could stop by her house and literally eat a meal off of her kitchen floor...it's THAT clean. She is on top of it to say the least, and I aspire to be like her one day. Who knew that there was so much to be "pre-washed" for a baby?? I definitely didn't, but sister did. We busted a move and got a TON of stuff done Saturday night, which made me feel a tad bit better. Robyn is a rock star. I love you, sister! Thank you so much for being the best big sister in the world!
I am waaaay too tired to post the pics from the shower, but I will do so as soon as life gets back in order a little bit. Funny thing is that I thought I was ready for Knox to come (possibly 1 and a half to 2 weeks away), but after family visiting and bringing a house full of baby stuff, along with the baby shower, my perfectly clean, organized, and orderly nursery is CRAZY! I am so thankful my sister was here to take the lead and start the "organization intervention". She is the queen of cleanliness and organization. She has 3 little girls and at any time you could stop by her house and literally eat a meal off of her kitchen floor...it's THAT clean. She is on top of it to say the least, and I aspire to be like her one day. Who knew that there was so much to be "pre-washed" for a baby?? I definitely didn't, but sister did. We busted a move and got a TON of stuff done Saturday night, which made me feel a tad bit better. Robyn is a rock star. I love you, sister! Thank you so much for being the best big sister in the world!
My sweet mother (Ri-Ri) pretty much cleared out the rest of the registry and got us a ton of basic baby things...which is exactly what we needed since this is our first child. Thanks, Missy! It is very overwhelming to look into Knox's room right now with all this baby stuff everywhere. I have become a little weird about keeping things neat, clean, and orderly myself so sitting in here updating this blog is probably the LAST thing that I should be doing (but I had to take a break :) ).
Lastly, I wanted to give a shout out to Aunt B and Jennifer for hosting the shower. All the decorations and preparation = AMAZING! I can't thank you enough for taking the time to plan this for me. I am so thankful to call you family. The Lord has really blessed me by placing you in my life...it has helped the transition to Montgomery tremendously!
On a serious note, before I get back to the craziness, I wanted to ask you for your prayers. I am very excited about having this baby and starting a family with Lee, but I am really struggling with being sad over the fact that my one on one time with my husband is about to be GONE! It has really started to hit me over the past few weeks that life will never be the same...for at least a good 20 something years! I love my time with Lee, and I am a little sad that there won't be much of it in the very near future. I am also very nervous about the transition at home when Knox comes a.k.a. breastfeeding, sleeping, not having any prior knowledge on how to raise a baby, being away from my family, etc. I think that my head knows that our awesome Father will provide for all of our needs for our family, but my heart is struggling with it a little bit. Does this make sense?? Please just pray for me that I would not be anxious or overwhelmed too badly, and that I would just lay my heart at the foot of the cross...and leave it there.
6.30.2009
Bay house, Moving, and the Nursery!!!
What a crazy week it has been! I got to go down to Point Clear to my parent's bay house and visit with family for a few days before coming back and moving. This was my last visit down south for a while since Baby Knox is about to be here! It was so fun to spend time with my family... I love them so much. They are so laid back and relaxing. I definitely have mixed emotions about having my first baby without my mom and sister being close by, but I haven't given up hope on one day possibly being reunited!! I would follow Lee to the ends of the Earth, so as long as I am with him I know that everything will be just fine no matter where we are :).
Praise God that we are finally in a house! Most of you know the drama we have been through with trying to find a house with the space and time frame we needed. It has been very hard living out of boxes for the last month in an apartment where we could barely move (if you will...please resort back to the rat story with the first house. We definitely stayed packed up in boxes between then and now). BUT... it was totally worth it. The Lord really provided for us after the first house fell through. We have so much more space, a backyard, and most importantly (for me, at least :))...a NURSERY! Waiting 35 weeks to start putting the nursery together is NO FUN! But, like I said earlier, it was well worth the wait! I am so happy with the way everything turned out. Especially the colors with the artwork matching the walls and the bedding.
We started moving small stuff over on Friday, and the movers moved all the big stuff on Saturday. Can I please tell you how AWESOME Lee's Aunt B and Uncle Tom are (I guess they are my aunt and uncle, too)? They helped us Friday, brought us dinner for 2 nights...including a delicious casserole, breakfast for the weekend, and TONS of drinks. PLUS...they came over on Saturday - EARLY - and Uncle T helped Lee while Aunt B practically painted Knox's ENTIRE room! I am still practically speechless about it. I was able to get in there a little bit and help out, but she definitely did most of the work. She has so many little projects that she wants to start at her own house, and she took the time to come over and paint for us! What a blessing! Thank you thank you! SO...because of all the quick, hard work we now have a nursery ready. Well, almost ready. It's missing a few final touches, but for the most part it is done. Thanks to my sweet husband for putting all the furniture together. I literally fell asleep on the floor at 11:00 p.m. the other night while attempting to "help" him with it. He just let me sleep, and when it was finished he gently woke me up and said, "Hey babe. It's done. Lets get you in bed now." Oh how I love him...
I am terrible at posting pics on this thing. I simply cannot figure out how to do slide-shows like some of my fancy friends. Maybe someone can give me a lesson soon??? I only have a few, but i will put up what I have. More to come!!!
P.S...I am not exactly a whiz with the camera. Lighting is horrible in some of these. Sorry!
view from the bay house porch:
view from the wharf:
Sunset:
Sunset:
empty kitchen...still waiting on table!
Sweet Aunt B!:
living room...terrible lighting:
view from Knox's window. It lights up at night!:
Pavilions across the street from the house:
playground directly across the street:
Daddy assembling the crib:
seeing the bedding on the crib for the FIRST time (even thought I have had it for months)!
finished product:
crib with artwork:
part 2- before we fixed the crooked letters:
white shadow boxes to go on the wall soon:
book shelf:
Praise God that we are finally in a house! Most of you know the drama we have been through with trying to find a house with the space and time frame we needed. It has been very hard living out of boxes for the last month in an apartment where we could barely move (if you will...please resort back to the rat story with the first house. We definitely stayed packed up in boxes between then and now). BUT... it was totally worth it. The Lord really provided for us after the first house fell through. We have so much more space, a backyard, and most importantly (for me, at least :))...a NURSERY! Waiting 35 weeks to start putting the nursery together is NO FUN! But, like I said earlier, it was well worth the wait! I am so happy with the way everything turned out. Especially the colors with the artwork matching the walls and the bedding.
We started moving small stuff over on Friday, and the movers moved all the big stuff on Saturday. Can I please tell you how AWESOME Lee's Aunt B and Uncle Tom are (I guess they are my aunt and uncle, too)? They helped us Friday, brought us dinner for 2 nights...including a delicious casserole, breakfast for the weekend, and TONS of drinks. PLUS...they came over on Saturday - EARLY - and Uncle T helped Lee while Aunt B practically painted Knox's ENTIRE room! I am still practically speechless about it. I was able to get in there a little bit and help out, but she definitely did most of the work. She has so many little projects that she wants to start at her own house, and she took the time to come over and paint for us! What a blessing! Thank you thank you! SO...because of all the quick, hard work we now have a nursery ready. Well, almost ready. It's missing a few final touches, but for the most part it is done. Thanks to my sweet husband for putting all the furniture together. I literally fell asleep on the floor at 11:00 p.m. the other night while attempting to "help" him with it. He just let me sleep, and when it was finished he gently woke me up and said, "Hey babe. It's done. Lets get you in bed now." Oh how I love him...
I am terrible at posting pics on this thing. I simply cannot figure out how to do slide-shows like some of my fancy friends. Maybe someone can give me a lesson soon??? I only have a few, but i will put up what I have. More to come!!!
P.S...I am not exactly a whiz with the camera. Lighting is horrible in some of these. Sorry!
view from the bay house porch:
view from the wharf:
Sunset:
Sunset:
empty kitchen...still waiting on table!
Sweet Aunt B!:
living room...terrible lighting:
view from Knox's window. It lights up at night!:
Pavilions across the street from the house:
playground directly across the street:
Daddy assembling the crib:
seeing the bedding on the crib for the FIRST time (even thought I have had it for months)!
finished product:
crib with artwork:
part 2- before we fixed the crooked letters:
white shadow boxes to go on the wall soon:
book shelf:
6.13.2009
Birmingham Shower!!!
I had sooo much fun laughing with all of these girls at the shower today! I am beat! Some of these girls are OLD friends from college, and some of them are "newer" friends that the Lord has blessed me with post college. I love them all so much, and I am so thankful for my sweet friends who hosted the shower. What a blessing sweet friendship is!
I am so sorry, but I will have to post these individually. I have no clue how to make a slide show! Whoops! But I promise not to post all of them!
I am so sorry, but I will have to post these individually. I have no clue how to make a slide show! Whoops! But I promise not to post all of them!
6.10.2009
2 yr. stats!
Maddox had his annual check-up yesterday, and we got some great news...everything checked out perfectly healthy! Poor baby had to have a few routine shots and vaccinations, but he's a tough guy so he came through just fine! :) He wanted me to let everyone know that he weighs 21 pounds, is heartworm and rabies free, and is now MORE than ready to meet and play with his little brother!!! Only a few short weeks to go!!!
5.18.2009
Only the Lawsons...
O.K., so Lee and I are currently on our "Babymoon" in Santa Rosa Beach (amazing, by the way!), but I had to take a second to blog about what happened to us right before we came down last week!
As most of you know, Lee and I were scheduled to move into a rental house in Old Cloverdale, which is somewhat like the "historical" part of Montgomery. We were super excited at first, and were very thankful that the Lord provided us a rental house that we could move into before the baby came. There are not many rental houses available...at least one the size that we needed! We still have renters in our house in Fairhope that say they are interested in buying, but who really knows what they will end up doing, and we really don't want to own 2 houses at the same time, so renting was our best (and only!) option.
So, over the past week I have been boxing up stuff at the apartment and we have been taking small loads here and there after Lee got off work. The movers were scheduled to come Saturday and move the big stuff. Let me say this...the houses in this area are OLD, hence the historical part of the description. They remind me of the mid-town Mobile houses. Might sound weird, but we love those types of houses with all of the uniqueness and character and hardwood floors in every room, etc. Anyways, we were pumped.
About 2 days before we were suppose to move in, I was cooking dinner in the kitchen and heard on the news that 2 people were shot a few miles down the street from the house. Wowsers. Didn't love hearing that, but just sort of played it off as not too big of a deal since that was a rare event and we had an alarm system. I also think that I let the thought of all the extra square footage down play it as well. That was red flag #1. Red flag #2 was equivalent to about 10 red flags: as Lee and I are taking one last load the night before our trip, we did one more run through before we left. As we are walking out, we looked back and noticed 2 small holes in the wall with some dark colored stuff on the floor beside it. We were like "What in the world is that??" and we as we got closer we noticed it. I hope you are sitting down for this: The holes were RAT HOLES IN THE WALL WHERE RATS HAD CHEWED THEIR WAY IN and the brown things were RAT DROPPINGS!!! Disgusting! I immediately went into panic mode and started to breath deep and fast...dying to run back home and take a shower because I felt so nasty. Lee just stared at it, then at me, then back at it, then back at me. Speechless. We had pretty much moved more than half of our apartment into the house and were leaving early in the morning...only to come back to movers at our doorstep to move the rest of us in. Lee tries to assure me that everything will be o.k., and that we will NOT be moving into the house. I remind him that we just signed the lease a week earlier and I doubt that they will let us out of it. We get into the car and I start full out crying as I am having visions of rats crawling into Knox's crib at night. We go home and I call my mom to cry to her for about an hour, and Lee gets online to look for other rental houses in Montgomery. It was too late at night to call the owners of the house and beg them to let us out of the lease, so all we could do was pray, pray, and pray that they would have open hearts to our situation and call them first thing in the morning. When we woke up we were suppose to be excited about the babymoon, but instead my eyes were swollen shut from all the crying and we were both still so shocked. Lee called the guy at 8 a.m. and had a conversation with him. Bottom line was that he said that he would be o.k. with letting us out of the lease as long as another tenant could be found within a few days. At that point we weren't sure how to feel. I mean, the likelihood of that happening was slim. So, we finish getting ready and head out the door for the trip. With Maddox in tow, we head to the beach trying not to think about the disaster. Well, about 15 minutes into the trip, Lee's phone rang and it was the owner's secretary calling to tell us that they had found another tenant for the house and they would let us out without any financial obligations!!!!!!! Yay God!!!!! However, the people needed to move in THAT DAY, so we had to get our stuff out ASAP. Lee hangs up the phone, we do a praise God/victory dance, and then head straight to a Penske truck rental place. We got a truck, went to the house, loaded up everything, and drove it back over to the apartment. Lee pretty much threw everything in as fast as he could so that we could get back on the road and start the vacation. Even though there was a lot of stuff to move, we were smiling the entire time because we were so thankful that we were about to get out of the lease.
SO, we are now enjoying ourselves on vacation, but will be headed back to an apartment filled with boxes (that I do NOT want to unpack just to pack up again) at the end of the week, and nowhere to live! ha ha. Only us. We did make some appointments to see some other rental houses when we get back, so hopefully something will pan out there! I am confident that the Lord will provide, and this time...we will do a MUCH closer run through before we sign any leases!
As most of you know, Lee and I were scheduled to move into a rental house in Old Cloverdale, which is somewhat like the "historical" part of Montgomery. We were super excited at first, and were very thankful that the Lord provided us a rental house that we could move into before the baby came. There are not many rental houses available...at least one the size that we needed! We still have renters in our house in Fairhope that say they are interested in buying, but who really knows what they will end up doing, and we really don't want to own 2 houses at the same time, so renting was our best (and only!) option.
So, over the past week I have been boxing up stuff at the apartment and we have been taking small loads here and there after Lee got off work. The movers were scheduled to come Saturday and move the big stuff. Let me say this...the houses in this area are OLD, hence the historical part of the description. They remind me of the mid-town Mobile houses. Might sound weird, but we love those types of houses with all of the uniqueness and character and hardwood floors in every room, etc. Anyways, we were pumped.
About 2 days before we were suppose to move in, I was cooking dinner in the kitchen and heard on the news that 2 people were shot a few miles down the street from the house. Wowsers. Didn't love hearing that, but just sort of played it off as not too big of a deal since that was a rare event and we had an alarm system. I also think that I let the thought of all the extra square footage down play it as well. That was red flag #1. Red flag #2 was equivalent to about 10 red flags: as Lee and I are taking one last load the night before our trip, we did one more run through before we left. As we are walking out, we looked back and noticed 2 small holes in the wall with some dark colored stuff on the floor beside it. We were like "What in the world is that??" and we as we got closer we noticed it. I hope you are sitting down for this: The holes were RAT HOLES IN THE WALL WHERE RATS HAD CHEWED THEIR WAY IN and the brown things were RAT DROPPINGS!!! Disgusting! I immediately went into panic mode and started to breath deep and fast...dying to run back home and take a shower because I felt so nasty. Lee just stared at it, then at me, then back at it, then back at me. Speechless. We had pretty much moved more than half of our apartment into the house and were leaving early in the morning...only to come back to movers at our doorstep to move the rest of us in. Lee tries to assure me that everything will be o.k., and that we will NOT be moving into the house. I remind him that we just signed the lease a week earlier and I doubt that they will let us out of it. We get into the car and I start full out crying as I am having visions of rats crawling into Knox's crib at night. We go home and I call my mom to cry to her for about an hour, and Lee gets online to look for other rental houses in Montgomery. It was too late at night to call the owners of the house and beg them to let us out of the lease, so all we could do was pray, pray, and pray that they would have open hearts to our situation and call them first thing in the morning. When we woke up we were suppose to be excited about the babymoon, but instead my eyes were swollen shut from all the crying and we were both still so shocked. Lee called the guy at 8 a.m. and had a conversation with him. Bottom line was that he said that he would be o.k. with letting us out of the lease as long as another tenant could be found within a few days. At that point we weren't sure how to feel. I mean, the likelihood of that happening was slim. So, we finish getting ready and head out the door for the trip. With Maddox in tow, we head to the beach trying not to think about the disaster. Well, about 15 minutes into the trip, Lee's phone rang and it was the owner's secretary calling to tell us that they had found another tenant for the house and they would let us out without any financial obligations!!!!!!! Yay God!!!!! However, the people needed to move in THAT DAY, so we had to get our stuff out ASAP. Lee hangs up the phone, we do a praise God/victory dance, and then head straight to a Penske truck rental place. We got a truck, went to the house, loaded up everything, and drove it back over to the apartment. Lee pretty much threw everything in as fast as he could so that we could get back on the road and start the vacation. Even though there was a lot of stuff to move, we were smiling the entire time because we were so thankful that we were about to get out of the lease.
SO, we are now enjoying ourselves on vacation, but will be headed back to an apartment filled with boxes (that I do NOT want to unpack just to pack up again) at the end of the week, and nowhere to live! ha ha. Only us. We did make some appointments to see some other rental houses when we get back, so hopefully something will pan out there! I am confident that the Lord will provide, and this time...we will do a MUCH closer run through before we sign any leases!
5.04.2009
Happy Birthday, Carley!!
Ok, so to make a long story short, my sister painted my niece's room a little while back and has had trouble finding artwork to go along with. She asked if I would paint something for Carley for her 3rd birthday. I thought, "Why not?? I am just sitting here waiting for Knox to come, and it will be a good way to entertain myself while Lee is at work." Holy pajamas...it was the most stressful thing I have ever done, and it might be the very last! Haha. Ask my friend Cathie, she will vouch for me. I vented to her on a daily/nightly basis. I have never done something this big, and I am really not an "artist", so it was sort of an issue. Everything also needed 4 to 5 coats as well! Ahhhh! It definitely took me All day EVERYday to finish this sucker! Anyways, the bottom line is this: It is complete and I am alive. Thank you , Jesus! Oh, and tell me this isn't one of the cutest little girls that you have ever seen!
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