maternity photo session!!!

we had pictures taken this weekend by rachael boyer. http://www.rachaelhboyer.smugmug.com/  here are a couple she posted on facebook.

 

isn't she talented!! i love them!



Claire's room! almost finished!

so it's not quite finished...but getting close!

the crib and Bible verse behind it

up close of crib and bedding

up close of verse on wall. the blue in this pic is not right. the other two are closer to the real color of the wall

only 8 more weeks!!!





watch my belly (and claire!) grow

5 weeks - day we took pregnancy test - happiest day of our lives!

12 weeks - starting to show!

18 weeks - strangers start to notice i'm pregnant

23 weeks!

28 weeks - had to upgrade to a maternity tank top - i'm huge!

i've taken a picture almost every week, but i didn't think anyone would want to look at 20+ pics - and we're getting professional pictures done next weekend, i'll be sure to share those as well!

Lead Me: The Call to All Men

pause the playlist below before you start the video.

i have to say, my husband takes very seriously his role as the "leader" of our family and strives to be the best husband and father he can be. i am very blessed and i thank God for him every single day!

morgan is having a baby.....

SISTER!!!!!
we are so excited to have two little girls!!! bo and morgan went with me to the ultrasound. of course, we had to wait forever in the waiting room. morgan just couldn't understand why we had to wait!
but anyway, bo brought the video camera, and he taped what we could see on the screen. it didn't take long for the ultrasound tech to tell us we are having a little girl. and she also checked all of the organs and measured the baby. she said everything looks like it's supposed to look, and that the baby is in the 90th percentile for size! neither of us is very tall so we figure most likely the due date is a little behind, because we just don't see how our baby could be big!

we have already gotten our crib and changing table in and have put them together. bo also installed a new fan in both the baby's room and morgan's room. next step is the bedding and painting the room. i have been obsessing over bedding, so hopefully i can make a decision soon!

on being pregnant....

strangest things i've heard so far....

- co-worker (who has no children) "why did you want to do that?" me- because we wanted another baby  "i know, but why? why would anyone want to"  all i could think to say was "you'll understand one day"

- lady - "so, it was a surprise?" me- no, it was planned "oh, I didn't know you guys were even trying" (do people usually announce to the world when they are trying to have a baby? this person is not a relative, or even a friend - just an acquaintance) i thought it was very bizarre

- "i could tell you were pregnant" (i was 6 weeks at the time and had just announced it)


fathers are expecting too....

bo has been so cute. he's been wanting ice cream all the time and eating cookies at work. he says he's having "sympathy cravings". also, i'm very happy that he is so interested in the whole process. he gets the same weekly emails i do about our baby's growth and development. he'll say stuff like "you know the baby is the size of a kidney bean"..."and the lungs are developing".

he's also been enjoying reading "what to expect when you are expecting" - which is great because now he understands why i am moody and tired. he has been very helpful with morgan and with doing laundry, etc. he also is very overprotective, which is cute. he doesn't want me bending over, picking up anything even remotely heavy - the funniest thing is when we first found out, he said "don't be letting anybody bump into your belly. i know you'll be careful, but just be really careful"

as far as symptoms go, i did have morning sickness for about a week. i have been fine for the past 5 or 6 days, so hopefully it is over. i have also been really tired. i never take naps, but i took two this weekend! and i didn't have any trouble falling asleep each night so i guess i really needed the extra sleep. also, i've had at least one weird baby-related dream. i dreamt i took the baby to daycare and he was only 2 weeks old. at the end of the day the lady informed me that she didn't take infants until they were at least 20 weeks old. then i left the baby in a closet - he was in a bassinet and it was a walk-in closet, so he was ok. but i do remember that i had forgotten he was in there, so i felt bad. i'm sure i will have many more dreams like this, becuase i remember having them with morgan. hopefully none will be too scary.

i guess that's all for now. we've been taking "belly pics" each week so once my bump becomes noticeable i will post several of them .

the rock

oh the trouble this little rock caused us!

yesterday, like every wednesday, i picked morgan up from school and rushed home to get her bathed, hair washed, and redressed for church. but yesterday, as i'm getting her bath ready, she says "my ear hurts, i put a rock in it." not really believing there is a rock in her ear, i tell her i will get the flashlight and look in her ear once she gets in the tub. she claims she put the rock in her ear at nap time. she never saw it come out and now her ear hurts. i look in her ear and don't see anything, so i text bo and let him know what's going on so he can look when he gets home.

once out of the tub, i make morgan lay down on her right side so maybe the "rock" will fall out. when bo looks in her ear he thinks he sees a rock, but then looks at the other ear and it looks the same. at this point he doesn't really believe there is a rock in there. we look online, and it says to put water in the ear to help get the object out. we try it and nothing happens.

we ask morgan what the rock looked like and she says "long, and the color of my skin".

we still don't believe there is a rock but morgan still says her ear hurts, so we head out to the clinic (about a 15 minute drive). on the drive we tell morgan the story of "the boy who cried wolf" and the importance of always telling the truth. about 5 minutes from the clinc, she suddenly decides her ear feels better so we turn around and head back to cleveland. once back in cleveland, her ear starts hurting again. still not believing there is a rock in there, i tell her that once we get to church she has to lay in my lap so the "rock" can come out. no playing, talking, eating candy - just lay there. so we get to church and less than 1 minute after laying in my lap, she reaches under her head, and pulls out the rock. i was so shocked!!! it looked exactly as she described it, and i felt so bad for not really believing her!

so we told her how sorry we were for not believing her and how important it is not to put anything in your ears or nose (just to prevent another similar incident).

i was actually relieved to see the rock and to know that my baby was not lying! i would have felt terrible had it fallen out and we never saw it.

morgan wants you to know that she is gonna be a....

and we couldn't be more excited!



baby williams is due december 26th. morgan is hoping for a little sister, but has finally come around and decided that she would be ok with a brother too. bo has a "feeling" our little peanut is a boy, but of course would be happy with either a boy or girl.



so my half marathon dream will have to wait. i am tentatively planning to run the marathon makeover half marathon in october of 2011. you may wonder why i would have even started preparing for a marathon if we were trying to have a baby. the thing is, we had begun trying to conceive in january of 2009. and at some point we decided we could not put our lives on hold waiting for something that may never happen. something that we could not control. i can say that it was very humbling to want something so much and to not be able to achieve it. God is defnitely in control, and we are just so blessed that He has decided to answer our prayers in this way. looking back over the past 15 months, we can now see how God was using this to teach us many lesson that we otherwise may not have learned. we will never take our ability to become pregnant for granted again.

the 15 months of testing, dissapointments, researching, dr's vists where "nothing" was wrong, anxiety, praying and worrying seem like a distant memory now. it's like a weight has been lifted off of our shoulders and we are so thankful! we can not wait to meet our son or daughter in december!

2 years....

(that is a picture of a picture. i couldn't get my scanner to work)

two years ago today, we became a family of three. i can speak for bo and say that this has been the most wonderful 2 years of our lives. every day we get to spend together is a joy. bo is more than i ever could have asked for in a husband. and he thinks i'm a pretty good wife too :-)

i hope and pray that everyone who is married is as happy and fulfilled in their marriage as we are. and i am so blessed that morgan will grow up in a home where the father is the leader of the household, and that she will have high expectations when it comes to choosing a husband (although no one will be good enough for her in my opinion)

thank you bo for making me the happiest woman in the world! and for giving my daughter something i was worried i couldn't - a strong, responisible, loving, involved (bonus) father who loves her as if she were his own flesh and blood. i love watching you videotape her school plays, play barbies and babies, teaching her how to count and read letters - and i love how you try to act all tough in front of me when she acts up, but then you don't have the heart to spank her.

i am blessed!

SPRING BREAK!

since morgan was out of school for spring break, i took the whole week off of work. bo was lucky enough to be able to take off thursday thru saturday. on tuesday, morgan and i went with some friends to clarksdale to see baby abby (morgan's friend's new little sister). Morgan just loved abby and is now naming all of her baby dolls abby.

isn't she adorable!

when bo got off of work on wednesday, we left home to go to clinton to stay with my parents and enjoy all of the benefits of being in a "big" city that we don't have in cleveland. thursday morning, morgan and i went to the mall to a store called zoe's world to "get fancy". we got pedicures and manicures and also got our hair and makeup done.

afterwards we met up with bo and ate lunch at mazzios and went to chuck e cheese's.

on friday bo and i both got massages and then ate lunch at ichiban, where he set his personal record for eating sushi - 42 pieces!!

then on saturday, i participated in my first "real" 5k. i did a 5k back in october in rosedale, but it was only about 25 or 30 runners (i finished last with a time of 34 min 21 sec). this 5k had over 1,000 participants with about 800 of them being runners. my sister april ran it with me. it was actually pretty difficult, and i blame it on the fact that i had eaten everything in sight while we were in jackson. the night before the race i ate chicken on a stick, hushpuppies and fries from penn's. while i felt awful during the race, it didn't affect my performance. i finished in 31:54 which works out to just over a 10 minute mile. i usually average over 11 minutes a mile in training. so i learned from that mistake and will not eat like that before a race again!

here is a picture of me and morgan before the race:

i want her to grow up seeing me be active and hopefully continuing to run. i hope that when she is older, we can run together .

the start of the race:

and me during the race - i was coming to get a kiss from bo and morgan - that's why i'm running on the grass

as some of you know, i am training for a half marathon in june. i am enjoying my training, especially my long runs. so far i am up to 9 miles at one time! hoping for 10 this week. i still have over 2 months until the race, so i think i should be ready in time.

New blog link

I have added a new blog link to the right side of the screen. If you are a fan of LOST, you must check out this blog. It is written by a guy who has never seen lost, and is watching the final season and summarizing each episode. As someone who has watched every episode (some of them twice), and is still somewhat "lost" about what's going on, it is so funny to see a newbie's interpretation.

http://neverseenlost.wordpress.com/

Enjoy!

Morgan is 4!!!!!

morgan turned 4 in january. in some ways it's hard to believe it's been 4 years since i was in the hospital having a c-section, but in other ways it feels like a lifetime ago.

there were many festivities to celebrate morgan's 4th birthday, which started with a "family only" birthday party...

as you can see, the "theme" was lady bugs - morgan LOVES lady bugs. back in the fall, when they were everywhere, i would pick her up from school and she's have 10 or more in her hand. i always tell people she loves lady bugs to death!!

cake was made by delta cream in cleveland....it was so cute and delicious!

the next day we went to lunch after church at la cabana. morgan had her first embarrassing birthday singing - complete with a mexican hat!

the ladybug theme continued with the cupcakes i made for her to take to school.

and of course we had our traditional birthday balloons - 4, because she is 4.

and unfortunately i did not take any pictures, but we did go to lost dog with 2 of her buddies from school and their parents.

i'm so proud of my baby girl! she is so beautiful and sweet and such a joy!

4 year old stats:

she weighs about 30 lbs and is about 38 inches tall - she's a little bit!

she loves to eat pasta - mac and cheese, spaghetti, etc.

but, her favorite thing to eat is candy and anything sweet!

she loves to play hide and seek and memory

she pretty much knows all of the books of the new testament

she loves school and learns something new every day

she hates to go to sleep and thinks of any reason to call us in her room at night

she doesn't take naps and hasn't in about 2 years

she always wants to help us do everything, from cooking to cleaning to fixing things

she loves going to dance school and dancing in general

she loves taylor swift!

she's pretty much the cutest and smartest little girl ever!

for my baby on her 4th birthday (tomorrow)

"In My Arms" by Plumb

Your baby blues
So full of wonder
Your curley cues
Your contagious smile
And as i watch
You start to grow up
All I can do is hold you tight

Knowing clouds will raise up
Storms will race in
But you will be safe in my arms
Rains will pour down
Waves will crash all around
But you will be safe in my arms

Story books full of fairy tales
Kings and queens and the bluest skies
My heart is torn just in knowing
You'll someday see the truth from lies

Knowing clouds will raise up
Storms will race in
But you will be safe in my arms
Rains will pour down
Waves will crash all around
But you will be safe in my arms

Castles they might crumble
Dreams may not come true
But you are never all alone
Because I will always
Always love you

Clouds will raise up
Storms will race in
But you will be safe in my arms
Rains will pour down
Waves will crash all around
But you will be safe in my arms

merry christmas and happy new year! (a little late!)

we had a wonderful christmas at the williams' house! unlike a lot of people, i wasn't glad when christmas was over! i loved every minute of it! morgan got a TON of stuff - and she knew it too...after seeing all that santa got her and opening all of her presents from us, she said "yall got me too much!" which is crazy coming from the girl who wants everything she sees a commerical for - even boy toys. she'll say "i want one of those, but a girl one"
do you think she got too much? the gifts on the right are from santa, and the wrapped presents are from us. not pictured is her v-smile from santa, which was hooked up to the tv.

here are a few pics of morgan trying out her first "big girl" bike

after all of the excitement of christmas morning, morgan left us for about a week to spend time with her dad. so we had plenty of time to clean, organize and "de-christmas" the house. for new year's eve, with bo having to work new year's day, we didn't make it until midnight. we did watch the ball drop in new york at 11 (bo barely made it!) and at midnight i was rudely awakened by fireworks.

as far as new year's resolutions, the only one i could come up with was to be a better housekeeper. actually, my first thought was to hire a maid, but bo quickly shot those dreams down! this is probably the first year ever that i don't have a goal of losing a certain number of pounds, or trying to eat healthier, or trying to exercise more. i feel like i'm the healthiest i've ever been. i am at a healthy weight, i drink mostly water (no caffiene at all) and eat fairly healthy.

also, i have taken up running, and i love it!!! i always thought i wasn't able to run. i had sort of tried before and it hurt my ankles and legs. i just thought i couldn't do it. but i started doing a couch potato to 5k program late in the summer and have just increased from there. i did my first 5k on oct 31st and i believe my time was 34 minutes and 21 seconds or so. i was the last runner to finish, but i beat all of the walkers!!! which brings me to my 2010 goal: run a half marathon!!! actually, my goal is to run a half marathon before i turn 30 (which is in july of this year). there is a half marathon in new orleans at the end of february. i think it would be tough to be ready for 13.1 by then (the farthest i've run so far is 6 miles) and we'd have to get a hotel. so it looks like i'm shooting for the marathon makeover half marathon in ridgeland on june 12th 2010!!!
i am so excited at the prospect of completing a half marathon. i always admired runners and always wished that i could run. being able to run 6 miles is something i never imagined in my wildest dreams, much less 13.1! and i can't wait to go to fleet feet after the race and by my 13.1 decal for my car. and who knows, maybe i'll shoot for the full 26.2 next time!

i'll keep updating my running progress. if there's anyone who is reading this who wants to try running, i highly recommend it! even if you say you "can't run" - i say you can! good luck!