Telling Chris

I was about 3 days late, and I've never been more than a day or two late. I also was having no signs that Aunt Flow was on her way. So I knew it was time to take the test that Sunday morning.

Not surprisingly, the first thing I said was, "Holy sh*t! OH.MY.GOSH!" Then I walked back into our bedroom and got back in bed, totally amazed.

Except ... Chris is rushing out the door for a game of golf with his friend Lance. I thought, "Hey, you're going to be a Daddy!" would be a pretty abrupt way to send him off to golf. So I smiled and told him to have a good day.

That was the.longest.day.ever. He even stopped to have drinks on the way home!! Normally, this would not be a problem, but I was exploding with excitement!

I had bought these golf balls to tell him when the time was right:

So that day, I wrapped them up in a small gift bag. This wasn't anything to make him curious. I do all the shopping and like to find surprises for him. He's pretty used to coming home and having random little gifts from me.

When he finally got home about 5pm, I let him settle in for a minute. Then I told him he had a gift on the table in the kitchen. When he opened it, he saw "DAD" right away. Without even taking the golf balls out, or asking any questions, he ...

Burst Into Tears

I can count on one hand the number of times (before this day) I'd seen Chris cry. He just doesn't cry. Until now.

He cried, he hugged me, he cried some more. We talked about the future, he cried some more, we talked about what our baby would be like, he cried some more. He hugged Kimber, he cried some more. He hugged Bandit, he cried some more.

It was perfect :-)

Baby Lamb!

I think word has spread now that Chris and I are having a baby!

When we first got married in January of 2008, our "plan" was to start trying to have a baby that August. Well, I'm sure you all know how plans go! August came and went and neither of us felt any rush to have a baby. I know it's a cliche, but we were having fun being married. After 5 years of being together, we didn't expect marriage to change our relationship so much!

2009 was a rough year for us. Stress from the economy, stress from Chris travelling so much, and loosing Chris's grandmother really didn't leave us in a good place. We made a decision that it wasn't the time.

After years of problems with hormonal birth control, I did go off that in December 2008. I spent about 6 months charting my cycle and "trying to avoid" (as its called) getting pregnant. What I found was that I had a very, very regular cycle. So being birth control-free really worked well for us for a year and half (and had wonderful side affects: Hello my old friend, Sex Drive!).

When 2010 came around, we were both frustrated. The economy had been in the dumps for a long time. Granted, we have been very blessed through this down time in America, and certainly haven't suffered as much as many families. There was still that uncertainty of what's to come in the future.

However, I think we both got to a point where we were tired of money being the deciding factor. We had a trip planned to Playa Del Carmen in May, and the new "plan" (remember what I said about plans) was to try for a baby and just see what happened when we got back from Mexico.

6 weeks before Mexico, Chris was in town for a long weekend. The first night, I told him that he had to keep his baby making parts away from me. We had an all-you-can-drink vacation planned! The next night, well ... I do love my wine. I had had a glass or two (or three). In the heat of the moment, I'm pretty sure I said, "Fine with me! No one gets pregnant on the first try anyways!"

2 weeks later:

Yah, I peed on that :-P

One sober trip to Mexico and 4 weeks from the home pregnancy test, the doctor confirmed that Baby Lamb was alive and doing well!

A couple weeks later, the nausea was gone. Again, I was very lucky in that I wasn't actually throwing up (very often) - just tired and feeling like I needed to throw up. However, extreme dizziness and blacking out led me to my doctor's office. Just when I was thinking I'd gone all the way over there to be told I was dehydrated, she showed me Baby Lamb again! And looking like a BABY!

10 weeks:

(Y'all ... there's a human being inside me!!)

We have been very, very blessed and I don't want anyone to think we are taking it for granted. I have stories to share about the joy we've experienced the last few weeks, the happy tears we're all crying, and the thankful prayers I say everyday.

More to come!

Friends, Family, and Pets #11

"Take Chris on a weekend getaway to somewhere we've never been." Well we went for a week instead, and had a great time in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico!

The bathroom alone was enough of a vacation! Jetted tub!

This is a Coati. They were all over the resort and absolutely adorable!

Chris and I after dinner at the steakhouse. Yum!

Chris went fishing :-) I did not.

Everything, everywhere you went, was so lush and green.

All the architecture and decorations was so beautiful, huge, and over the top!

I spent a wonderful afternoon in this hammock on our balcony watching the coaties play in the trees.

Wild iguanas everywhere!

One morning I had a kitty visitor in my room :-)

Aaaah. Relaxing on the beautiful beach.

A Momma peacock laying on her egg!

Sailing

This was huge 6 or 7 story tall snake over one of the bars. Amazing!

We snorkeled!

Beautiful!

Slightly Distracted

I know I haven't been blogging lately. I've been slightly destracted getting ready for:








THIS: (!!!!!):

We are going to Playa Del Carmen one week from today! I'm getting like totally super stoked, man!

Ten Things Tuesday

1. I finally found Chris a 100 pound punching bag on Craigslist! I've been looking forever.

2. I'm addicted to the game Spit on my iPhone.

3. If you have a compatible phone, YOU need to get on Gowalla! I love it also :-)

4. I've been dentisting like crazy these last few weeks. I can't tell you how wonderful it is to drink cold water and have it not hurt!

5. Sadly, I'm now also able to eat ice cream pain free as well. I had Mango ice cream today, and it was delicious!

6. I'm getting ready to redecorate our office ... again ... I think I have a great idea this time!

7. That's all. I took a xanax before I went to the dentist and I'm having a hard time concentrating right now.

Done and Done!

Family & Friends #9 (Help Chris get his passport) and Just for Me # 13 (Get my passport).

I had heard nightmares about what a pain in the arse getting your passport is, so I really put this one off. Then some friends tell us they are getting married in Playa Del Carmen (yay!) in 5 weeks (oh my!).

Well two days later happened to be the "passport fair." At 1pm we call our friends and they say we need to order them that day. Oh, and the fair is over in an hour. They've been there for hours upon hours. And it's on the other side of town.

We hopped in the car and drove to north Austin. We had our pictures done at the Walgreens located in the same parking lot. We walked in and signed a couple forms.

The whole process started at 1:04 on a Saturday. By 2:15 we were done and sitting in Trudy's north having a Mexican Martini.

Easy peasy!

Wordless Wednesday

vs.

Master Bathroom Remodel!

Most of what we did was cosmetic. It's a small bathroom, but we didn't expand the size. It's our starter house, and an inexpensive one at that. I didn't want to out price it, or spend more than we could get back. We spend less than $1000 and I'm sure we'll see most of (if not all of) that when we sell the house. It feels great in there, and I'm just so happy to have it updated!

What we did:
New floors
New baseboards
Painted the cabinets
Replaced the laminate counter with granite
Added an under mount sink
New faucet
Painted the walls
Replaced the toilet
Added a new toilet paper dispenser
Added a curved shower rod
Added a shower head extender (so tall people like myself can shower in there)

Before:

After:

Ten on Tuesday

1. My life is pretty exciting right now ... you'd think I'd have more to blog about, but when it comes time to blog, I go blank.

2. Exciting thing in my life: We went to a fashion show on a high rise pool deck. It was pretty fun. I even met a "celebrity" ... a girl that was on American Idol. I don't remember her name, just that she was blond and had a super thick country accent. Then her boyfriend (?) started singing. I tried to take video, but I mostly just got the floor and me laughing hysterically. There was alcohol involved. Oh yah, fashion show:



3. Exciting thing in my life: We bought a 24" computer monitor! YEAH baby! This picture does not give you the whole idea of how freakin' huge this thing is. You feel it's presence at all time when in the office. Oh! You can't see the whole task bar at once. You actually have to scan your head. I am in love.



4. Exciting thing in my life: My car is FIXED!!! I can't tell you how good it feels to have my car back after 7 weeks.

5. We are going to Playa Del Carmen in May! It's for a friend's wedding, although I don't think they are technically getting married there. So I guess we are going on their honeymoon? They invited us, we didn't argue. All inclusive, 5 star resort - here I come!

6. Speaking of Mexico, I lost 6 pounds last week! Nothing like a little beach time to inspire some weight loss.

7. I wore Capri workout pants last week. When I crossed my leg, I found not one or two, but like TEN super long hairs around my ankle. I can see missing a hair or two every now and then, but I shave every day and clearly this little patch of hair had been missed for quite some time. Damn sexy!



8. Somehow, my closet took on a life all it's own. I'm working on it, I swear ;-) After pictures to follow ... sometime when I'm done.



9. I just thought this picture was cool. I was trying to get a picture of what riding in Chris's car with Chris does to my hair (rat's nest).

(Yes, I'm scrambling for 10 things to talk about)

10. Kimber and Bandit say Hi :-) They've been sending Chris "good night" pictures and texts this week while he's out of town. The opposable thumbs on these guys are amazing!

Kimbet

Have you met Kimbet (as in Kimber + Bandit)?

Last fall, Bandit had to have his tail ... removed? Amputated? Cut off? What's the appropriate word here?

He has a case of "happy tail" that got infected :-( I was so sad, because I just loved his tail. He expressed so much with it!

A very sweet friend of mine sent me this greyhound and put a little bandage on his tail so it would look like Bandit!

The icing on the cake was ... when she shipped him, he had two full ears. (Not so) unfortunately, one of the ears broke in shipping. Well it just happens to be the same ear where Kimber is missing the tip of hers!! So what a perfect combination of the things that some people might see and not like on my dogs, but I love them even more for.

And Kimbet was born :-)