Missouri

This past weekend, Adam and I headed to Columbia, MO to watch Alabama. This is Mizzou's first year in the SEC and we didn't know when we'd play there again, so we decided to make the trip. We spent an afternoon in St. Louis touring the Anheuser Busch brewery and going to the top of the Arch. We had a lot of fun on what was probably our last trip alone for a little while!

These were the nicest stables I've ever seen!

And the nicest brewery! Not that I've seen many, or any!

Bottling plant

Drinking my Pepsi after the tour! 

Such pretty trees we got to see all weekend during our 20+ hours in the car!

View from the top of the arch

Cardinals stadium

Outside at the bottom of the arch. We got a picture at the top, but it wasn't very good.

Pre-game and pre-rain

We weren't at the top, but we were about 5 rows from it! 

The Hill, standing room only

We were SOAKED by the end of the game! 

 The game was the second worst game, weather-wise, that I've ever sat through, but we stuck it out until the end. Or, almost the end, there were about 2 minutes left in the game. We got a great win though, so it made it a little better. Roll Tide!!

Football Season Begins

Adam and I started off the football season headed to Dallas for our big game with Michigan in the Cowboys Stadium. Danielle, a friend of ours that taught with us in China lives in Tyler, TX so she made the drive to come see us in Dallas. We just spent time walking around the mall, eating lunch and catching up. I'm so glad she was willing to drive to come see us. I miss her! 

Dandur (her nickname in China) and me

Roll Tide

We attended an Alumni pre-game tailgate party!

Cowboys Stadium

View from the top, literally!

Andi's Here!

My newest niece arrived on August 30, 2012! She weighed a whopping 9 lbs and 3 oz!! My sister is a rock star for delivering her! 

Shortly after delivery

The whole fam with their newest addition!

Love her so much already! 

Taylor is smitten! 

Already a HUGE Alabama fan!

I just had to post this picture...Josh did a great job taking pictures of his new daughter, but the sleep deprived Daddy spelled her name wrong in some of the pictures! 

Anniversary Beach Trip

We decided to take a quick trip to the beach for our anniversary. To do it on the cheap, we took my parents' camper and stayed at Camp Gulf in Destin.

It's a really great, family friendly camp site. There are two pools, a playground, bath house, activity center, etc. The only drawback was that it rained the first day and a half we were there! I think rain is an understatement, I keep calling it a monsoon. The second night the wind knocked down the pop-out you can see in the picture above. During the middle of the night, Adam had to go out in the pouring rain to put it up so it wouldn't get the camper all wet. It was pretty scary, I was afraid the whole thing was just going to topple over on its side!

Other than that, it was a great trip! We only had about a 10 yard walk to the beach, AMAZING!! Taylor stayed with Nannie and Papa the first two nights (Thank goodness, or she would have been in that bed when the top came down!). Then, Nannie brought her to hang out with us at the beach for the next two days.

I have to stay, Taylor is one extroverted little girl! She found some "friends" to play with everywhere we went! She even walked all the way down the beach one morning until she found another little girl to play with, then walked right out in the water and swam to her!!

Dinner at Dewey Destin's for our anniversary!

These are two of the 4+ friends she made. Notice the little girl with the broken arm...she broke it on the jungle gym that you see Taylor climbing on in an earlier picture!

One night, we went to The Track in Destin. Taylor had so much fun riding the go-cart with Daddy. She wanted to do it again!! 

This one scared me a little bit!

Love my sweet girl!!

Once the rain passed, we had a great trip! I look forward to all our future beach trips, it's so much fun watching Taylor play in the sand and be such a fish in the water!

Hilary's showers

Hilary and Josh's friends threw them a couple's shower and played some really cute games! The first game was for the guys. They had to drink, um, apple juice out of baby bottles and see who could drink it the fastest. Unfortunately, someone had purchased slow flow nipples for the bottles and it took FOREVER!! 

Then, the women competed to see who could name the most baby items contained in brown paper bags. I missed two out of ten, but one was because I don't have a baby boy!! I couldn't have known what one was (a pee pee, tee pee??)! 

Finally, the couples competed together to feed one another blindfolded. I think Josh needs to work on his feeding skills before Andi starts eating!! 

5 minutes of sucking down apple juice!

Passing around the bags of baby items

Feeding each other pudding!

I think Josh needs some practice before feeding Andi food!

I love this picture of Hil and me! We're both preggers, you just can't tell with me yet.

  

Then, my aunts, family friends and I threw Hilary another shower for family and church members. I'm still waiting to get pictures from that and will update soon.

I would say I can't wait to meet baby Andi, but since I'm posting this so late, she's already here and just as precious as she can be!!

1st Trimester

I didn't have a blog when I was pregnant with Taylor (or for the first two years of her life), so I'll probably do a lot of comparing of things and trying to remember. I hate these pictures, but it's fun to look back them and watch baby (belly) grow.

8 weeks with Taylor

9 weeks with Baby #2

12 weeks with Taylor

12-13 weeks with Baby #2

When I was pregnant with Taylor, I was so nauseous, I lost about 7 pounds over the first 17 weeks or so. That did not happen this time! I gained about 6 pounds immediately!! Thankfully, I have remained at that same weight since then. I only gained about 20-25 pounds with Taylor and got worried I was going to end up gaining 40+ with this one. Thankfully, it doesn't seem like that's going to happen. 

I felt like I had to move into bigger clothes almost immediately thanks to that 6 pounds of water weight.Once it started coming off and the weight moved to real baby weight, I was able to get back into some of my regular clothes and no longer felt like I looked pregnant like I did early on. (Two women at work guessed almost immediately that I was pregnant.) The 9 week picture ended up being after some of the water weight had come off my stomach, so it doesn't look as bad as it actually was during those first few weeks. And, obviously, you can tell in the 12 week picture that my belly is popping out faster than it did the first time around. I've heard that's pretty normal though.

I have been nauseous this time but not nearly as bad as with Taylor. I couldn't eat hardly anything with Taylor, but I've been able to eat just about anything except BBQ with Baby #2. I finally stopped feeling nauseous about a month ago, about two months earlier than with Taylor. PTL!! 

With Taylor, I remember coming home from work and napping, but I don't remember being as tired as I was this first trimester. Having a two year old probably didn't help much, given that I couldn't take a nap after work this time around. Although, Adam would probably say otherwise since I still basically came home and just sat on the couch and colored with Taylor (or gave her the iPad...bad idea). We now have to restrict Taylor to playing it only for 30 minutes a night, but it is all educational games at least. 

We did first trimester birth defect testing (no concerns, I just want to be prepared) and found out that we have a healthy baby! Praise God! Also, they're pretty sure (90%) that we're having another little girl!! I thought I didn't want to find out this time around but when the time came that I could know, I decided I had to know. I don't know how women make it 9 months without finding out! 

I think that about covers the first trimester...I'm just waiting on that second trimester energy to kick in. I'm sure Adam is too! 

Dora, Dora everywhere!!

The first weekend in July, Alabama Adventure had Kidzpalooza with Dora and Diego. Taylor LOVES Dora, so we took her to meet Dora and Diego.

Then, the next weekend, we went to the McWane Center, which has a Dora and Diego exhibit through the summer. The McWane center is awesome! We didn't get many pictures though. A couple of these are stolen off my friend's blog.

I don't think I can describe how much Taylor enjoys Dora. It's one of the few things we let her watch and she actually interacts with the show. It's so funny to listen to.

I just love this super sweet girl with a personality and a half!